The trickle of life

Mom and Dad managed to make Rachel's high school graduation; a truly supreme effort on their part and for which we are truly grateful. It meant a great deal to all of us. Poor Mom is really struggling. Dad talks quite a bit about how much weaker she has become and how life has lost its allure (well, I'm paraphrasing here). The slightest effort tires her out. The one thing that she still does is paint, though not as often as I would like. It gives her focus and meaning. It requires little physical effort. It takes her mind off her infirmities. When she's not painting, she is often in bed. It's not at all unusual for me to arrive on Tuesday's lunch with her there, either asleep or too weak to get up. I live in perpetual unease about another pratfall by either of them. That alone could end it. They have both had close calls. Dad is getting better about using his cane, but he remains cavalier about it.

Life trickles out of the elderly in spite of all the patches we use to stop the leaks. Death by old age is inexorable and utterly predictable. It is devoid of the red-hot anguish that turns the death of younger people into occasions of such abject grief. Instead, we just sit with our aging parents, hold their hand, and wait for the Bus. Meanwhile, I question how I will grieve when they're gone. I'm doing that now in the occasional melancholy I feel when I visit them inside their slowing orbit. But I know only the red-hot version of grief, so it's hard for me to tell what the cooler one feels like. Is this it?

Brain dead

I think the last six years have revealed two things. First, that the American definition of "conservative" has little, if anything, to do with classical political theory (probably because Americans don't accept classical conservative theory; look at the Libertarian party). Second, that in defining their philosophy as "conservative," the Republicans have ensured that "conservative" principles as understood by Americans have lost their sheen for at least a generation of voters.

We have all watched the Republican party implode, Over the years, I have learned just how far they have strayed from ALL notions of conservative principles. Moreover, a true conservative can be wary of government without actively undermining its basic functions. But not this "conservative" administration, helped along with the active and public cooperation of the entire party apparatus.

So, Peggy Noonan's attempt to separate Bush from Republicans doesn't wash with me. I need not list all the forks in the road the Noonan Republicans could have taken where they could have claimed that Bush had left them and not the other way around. He and Cheney ARE the Republican party, however much their enablers want to claim otherwise. When Rudy McRomney gets some of their loudest cheers pledging to "double Gitmo" and leave wide latitude for "enhanced interrogation techniques," you know how far down the totalitarian abyss the Republican base has plunged.

Frankly, I think the Republican movement is brain dead. In fact, it's deeply ironic that Terri Schiavo became their cause ignomie. The party's Manichean view of foreign policy and military strategy is positively juvenile. How anyone could think we should entrust them with the reins of power again is beyond me.

Unlikely Couples

Quote of the day (from a review in Slate) about the movie "Crazy Love:"

Seven months later, with some help from creepily enabling friends, the couple were married in a Queens courtroom, and 33 years later, they're still together and as happy as any other squabbling, chain-smoking pair of certifiable lunatics.

Life speed

I have tried to instill in my daughters an understanding of just how fast life goes by. As my perspective has morphed from fatalism into Buddhism, what I meant about that hasn't really changed. It only deepened from a simple "enjoy the moment" to "live the moment in all of its miraculous intensity and beauty." I'm not sure if that deeper awareness came solely from age/wisdom or the happy coincidence of my brother introducing me to Buddhist teachings. It is important to know. If the former, Corey and Rachel will just have to wait until they "get it." If the latter, then they can learn it right now and live a fuller life. Judging from what they have told me, I think they have begun to feel it. That makes a father happy.

India on the march?

That's the meme these days. Meanwhile stories like this get lost in the scramble to proclaim India and China the new giants of commerce and technology. I just returned from Gurgaon where my new in-law Dr. Buxi and his family live. I know firsthand that the NYT article is quite true. Dr. Buxi and all of his neighbors simply couldn't function without their generators. They lose power every day. Similarly, the new malls and gleaming office buildings endure multiple daily power outages. In fact, only half the population of India is connected to the power grid, and within that half the grid can supply only 80 percent of demand. Meanwhile, diesel smoke blackens the sky as generators try to make up the shortfall. I'm not sure that planners ever heard of the cart-before-the-horse syndrome.

Memorial Day 07

A beautiful weekend in the mountains close to West Virginia.

Fascism in America

I know. It's a tired phrase. It brings back memories of overblown rhetoric from the '60s. But I don't think it's just rhetoric now. America is in danger, and the Republican party is a threat to the ideals of our nation. This is from Andrew Sullivan, a reader response to one of his comments about the second Republican debate leading up to the '08 presidential election.

You wrote:

"What matters is faith in a leader and unremitting violence in accomplishing goals. Whatever else this is, it isn't conservatism as I have come to understand it."

What American 'conservatism' has become fits closely within the definition of fascism: an intensely nationalist movement intent on defining membership in the 'nation' on linguistic, religious, and (increasingly) ethnic/racial criteria, accompanied by an unquestioning loyalty to (male) authority, enshrined in family leaders, business leaders, religious leaders, and especially, the leader of the nation, who is seen as embodying the Nation. Loyalty to the Party or Movement and its ideology is of great importance. Violence is the preferred means of accomplishing goals. Diplomacy, compromise, negotiation, are all identified with (feminine) weakness. The rule of law is also despised, because it lacks the immediacy of (violent) action, and its emphasis on balance and its concern with proper procedure is also seen as a sign of (feminine) weakness.

This is the outcome of the bargain the GOP made with the Devil back when it decided to go for the Wallace voters after the '68 and '72 elections.  Kevin Phillips has repented a hundred times over for counseling the Southern Strategy, but too late. The GOP has discovered that when you sell your soul to the Devil, the only question is when does the Devil come to collect? Well, he's come.

And he's brought the waterboard.

Obama Rising

Now, for some relief from the disgust and despair so many of us have for the administration's policies. read Obama's speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The contrast with the present administration is startling in its level of cogency, power, and understanding of what and how America can recover from the deep hole in which we find ourselves. The man is real, he's developing even better chops, and he could very well be the face and substance this country needs to recover the ground we have lost. Our conservative friends may think otherwise, but I don't view Obama so much as a liberal as I do a pragmatic internationalist with a far better understanding of the world than BushCheney (and, yes, I know that's a rather low threshold, but Obama nevertheless soars above it).

Retribution, Buddha style

Retribution is a concept not only completely alien to Buddhists, but a prime example of the "delusions" that cause human suffering. In a nutshell, they see "reality" as nothing more than a series of causes and effects called "dependant origination." Nothing exists in and of itself. Take any object, say, a baseball. The baseball is really a core of rubber surrounded by string and all held together by strips of stitched leather. But the string is individual strands, the leather is the skin of a cow, and the rubber is some combination of chemicals that bind together molecularly. Taken down further, we get to atoms and sub-atomic particles that, in quantum theory, don't really exist until an observer measures them. And even then, the nature of their existence depends on who or what is the observer, the purpose of the observation, and other variables. It is this sub-atomic world, confirmed empirically by scientific research, that Buddhist precepts take on such great coherence.

You can see why Buddhists have such trouble with the notion of "blame." If our concepts of "self" are essentially illusory, or simply an evolutionary shortcut for an organism to survive in the macro-world, then there is no one person extant to "blame." Again, according to Buddhist theory, the "Thunderstick" who began this note has already changed into something else, and wouldn't you know it, science actually confirms that. But in the macro-world, I pretend that "I" am writing this note and Barry Bonds will determine that a "baseball" is about to bean him so he better duck out of the way. As Wolf Singer, the director of the Max Planck Institute and one of the presenters at Mind-Life meeting said, the "human brain doesn't need to know ultimate reality, but it does need to know that it must run from a lion." That statement led to a long discussion about the nature of "mind" and where "consciousness" resides, but that's another topic.

Buddhism and "blame"

I just returned as an observer of the Mind-Life XIV conference held over five days at the residence of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. Essentially, these conferences assemble the top philosophers and scientists in such fields as quantum physics, astrophysics, biology, evolution, psychology, and neuroscience to discuss with His Holiness and other Tibetan scholars (geshes) their empirical research in "contemplative neuroscience."

To get right to the point, on the last day Mathieu Ricard led a discussion about the Buddhist view of "blame" and "responsibility" and how it diverges dramatically from the views of western civil and criminal traditions. Specifically, Buddhism's theory of causality and the illusory nature of "self" rules out any logical understanding of "blame" or "responsibility." To Buddhists, assigning blame, and resulting criminal punishment, is nothing short of vengeance and, as such, counterproductive in that it continues the "cycle of hate."

As I listened, I felt something missing: the deterrence potential of criminal punishment (aside from capital punishment, which most agree has nothing to do with that). Buddhists are nothing if not logical. Their ultimate goal is the cessation of suffering of all sentient beings. If one could show them that assigning blame and exacting the requisite punishment serves to ultimately reduce the rate of crime -- and the suffering it creates for both perpetrator (karmic cause and effects) and victim -- then that part of our western tradition might inform theirs in interesting ways. Do we know empirically if the fear of criminal punishment deters any categories of criminal behavior? If so, are there studies that one can cite as evidence of that?

Mind-Life XIV Conference in Dharamsala

First, the Dalai Lama is the most wonderful person on the planet. His humility, boundless good humor, and charismatic presence is simply beyond compare. We were all assembled (I'm in the second row, just behind Richard Gere who sits in front of me on my right. we're no more than 15 feet from HH) in the big room, thangkas draped on the wall and up to the cavernous ceiling, monks sitting in obeisant attendance at his approach, when he enters with a HUGE smile on his face, bowed with hands clasped and gesturing a welcome to crowd. He kneels down and touches his head on a prayer mat several times while we all remain standing bowing in response, and he takes his sit motioning us all to sit down. From that point, as each scientist presents his research, his facial expressions dance like a diva, from utter penetration on the speaker to uproarious laughter in a deep bass, his eyes tearing up with mirth. At times, the whole room is laughing, and he engages with the monks as though he weren't their leader, and they inch forward as a group to get nearer to him. Their love and respect for him is as strong as his selflessness.

The actual science presented is astounding. We heard about quantum computers, now in development, that will produce solutions about past, present, and future not only with the speed it takes me to write "wow!" but solutions that our present computers could never produce if they had infinity to try. They use Qubits, not bits, and briefly described, that means that instead of using just "0s" and "1s" as do standard computers, they will used "0s" and "1s" that will allow infinite possiblities within each Qubit. Put a few million of those in an entangled grid, create a measuring program that yields a chain reaction of response to reduce infinite probability to a mathematical certainty, and voila, we change the world as we know it and the very definition of interconnectedness and universality.

Next day, we went large. The Big Bang, the meaning of reality, and a lively discussion among the monks, the DL, and the scientists about the various understandings of reality, causation, dependant origination, and the purposes each groups pursue in trying to find the answers; the scientists (pure knowledge) and Buddhism (the cessation of suffering). There was so much more, and I won't bore you with the details, but this particular conference, and the effects it will produce, will likely go down as one of the seminal moments in both human development and the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Scholars will look back at this week a hundred years from now as the moment when human development made a, err, quantum leap. In fact, HH said that some day his tradition will look back at the "blond science masters" as a group who turned Buddhism in a new direction.

I also hand-delivered to HH a letter beautifully written to him by Rachel as they were taking me to the airport. She sat in the back seat and hand wrote it in the time it took us to get to the airport. I wouldn't have changed a word. In about four paragraphs she recalled her trip to NY when we saw him in Central Park and at the concert. She told him briefly about her background in a small county in Virginia where fundamentalist Christianity has shaped her friends in some strange ways and how her visit opened her eyes to the beauty of his vision and that it changed her life. When I handed him the letter, he clasped my hands warmly and then took it. I don't know if he will ever read it, if it gets lost between where he was sitting and his private quarter, or what, but the experience of transmitting her message, if only verbally, is all that matters.

Overall, Dharamsala seems so different than the rest of India, certainly Bihar where we were two years ago. Sure, it has its beggars and some of the other problems of the country, but the Tibetans here are as sweet and charming as anyone on Earth. When you pass them, they look you in the eye and wish you "good luck" in their language, and shake your hand. Too bad the rest of the world doesn't learn from their model.

After the meeting, we took a taxi up to the Tibetan Children Village, a 40-acre site draped at the top of another ridge where Tibetan children, some orphans and others who escape surreptiously from Tibet and leave their parents for 10-15 years, receive a first-class education. They live together as "families" of 30-40 children in each house and led by a house mother who cares for them. They take class all day, then join in extra-curricular activities after class. Sports, art and crafts, music lessons, etc. The ages range from infant up to about 20, and a happier, more grounded group of kids you will never see. Certainly not in America. These kids have nothing except their books, their meals, a roof over their head, a dedicated group of teachers, and their adopted "family." Their radiant smiles, friendly greetings, and exuberance put everything in perspective. Nothing matters in life except attitude. Surround a human with love and possibility, and the rest takes care of itself. They will find success and happiness in whatever they do, whatever it may be.

The conference has also talked about brain chemistry, the meta-representational ability of our brains to understand images and concepts, and the evolutionary principle of randomness that multiplies the power of our DNA to produce all the billion of antibodies that keep us alive (and much more). We also went to the Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts and watched a traditional Tibetan opera; an ensemble of charming and beautiful men and women dressed in traditional garb and dancing and singing their hearts out. It is to describe the poignancy of the Tibetan effort to cling tenaciously to these traditions and keep alive their national identity. They sing their songs, they dance their folk dances, they smile, and they maintain a grace that no amount of persecution can destroy. The world can and must learn from them. If simple morality and ethics isn't enough reason to help Tibet, the example they set for humanity should.

Also, the board of Mind/Life met with His Holiness privately for about 45 minutes and I was there as my bro's representative. We talked about the future of Mind/Life and one thing became abundantly clear: HH looks at this organization and its efforts to promote the benefits of a contemplative approach to every day life as one of his most important secular initiatives. And further, he insists that it not appear as a Buddhist effort but one that transcends, indeed ignores, religious traditions to avoid the trouble and confusion that can (and likely would) cause. His sole interest is to alleviate suffering and he feels that however Buddhist techniques can help modern science do that, he is willing and eager to make the effort. In fact, he expects that within the next 2-3 years, the Tibetan monastic tradition will adopt the study of western science into its curriculum so that they can do an even better job helping the secular world achieve that objective. He is very engaged with this, more so than perhaps any other secular endeavor, and Mind/Life is worthy of his backing.

We closed today. It has been an incredibly deep and learning experience. I can't stress enough the pure joy I experience watching this man. It's hard to explain, but I can't help but get a lump in my throat as I watch him sit on his haunches, shoulders bobbing up and down with mirth, laughing silently and scanning the room with tears in his eyes to make sure that everyone sees and feels the same humor he is experiencing. Can you imagine the paradise this world would be if we had more world leaders like him? Anyway, we had pictures with him, he held my hand and looked deeply into my eyes as he does every person he meets, and then we finished the conference. I'm now at Kashmir Cottage where I have been the last week, filled with emotion and and a sense of timelessness I have never felt before. Leaving tomorrow at 7am for Delhi and Dr. Buxi. Please send my best to everyone who asks and take care. I'll have pix and movies (crazy taxi drives in this community perilously perched on the side of mountains at the foot of the snowy Himalayas).

Hummingbird

Aggressive little critters, they are. I'm out on the deck, enjoying the sunlight filtering through the corner maple tree, and a hummer buzzes me. He is after the dried up remains of the feeder that hangs on a branch just above my left shoulder. Nothing in it, hasn't had anything in it in quite some time (we've neglected our duties as hummer parents this season; not sure why). Still, he hangs in the air within reach, his wings buzzing powerfully and a baleful eye cast down on his deadbeat provider. Sorry, Mr. Hummer, but sometimes life ain't easy. Sometimes the easy meals don't exist and you have to hunt them down in a different place and in a different way. Just stay true to who you are while you are doing it. Food tastes much better when eaten with a contented mind.

College Football Begins

First day of UVA football at home. Beautiful day, sunny in the low 80s. The pageantry begins. Bob and Betty next to us, Betty sitting primly next to the concrete abutment, her bottle of water next to her, and Bob stolidly observing with earpiece tuned in to the local radio station. We start with Wyoming, an out of conference game that is usually meant as a cream puff to warm up the Cavs. We'll see. They were crushed at Pittsburgh last week. Could be a long season. Nevertheless, it's about the colors and the roars and the good old song (if we ever get to sing it). Go Hoos!

Why Buddhism?

Because it has everything that appeals to me. First, I don't have to call myself a "Buddhist." As Stephen Batchelor said to us during a talk while he was traveling with us in India, Buddhism isn't "who you are, it's what you do." And that speaks to my American iconoclastic mind.

Second, it relies on the meditation techniques exploring the "mind"  accumulated by Hindu scholars over a period of 1500 years BEFORE the Buddha found the "middle way." Their studies and his conclusions presaged quantum physics in their exploration of the interior workings of physical space and mental processes. They peel back the layers of reality as though it were a metaphysical onion, revealing the "self,"in my case "Thunderstick," as nothing more than the accumulated experience rendered by my five senses that I mistake as an entity in and of itself. Once we understand that, particularly that there is no "there" there, we are free to roam within that "nothingness" unencumbered by all those delusions and pains and temporal pleasures that only distract us from the essential truth, or the "nothingness." Not a void or a vacuum, barren and cold, but instead a vast space free of obstacles that could divert you from the true path, or nirvana as it is commonly understood.

Finally, Buddhism fully accepts, in fact demands, that reason and logic have a seat at the table. As the Dalai Lama has said repeatedly (he's devoted to science and its rigorous analytical approach), if there is anything in Buddhism that doesn't make sense, that strains credibility as you know it, then discard it. Accept and apply only those theories and practices that make sense to your rational mind. Trying to do otherwise only adds internal conflict where none need be. Once you have applied all the reason necessary and are comfortable with where you are intellectually, let the rest reside on faith, by definition outside the area where logic prevails. In Buddhism, faith and reason make a happy marriage.

By happy coincidence to this little missive, I'll be traveling to Dharamsala next April to attend a private conference of the Mind Life Institute with about 20 western scientists, 20 Tibetan Buddhist scholars, and the Dalai Lama at his residence. He will be there for five days with us, each day a presentation of some scientific evidence commented upon by the Dalai Lama in an active give and take discussion. Don't ask how lowly me ended up with this opportunity....

Corrosive Effect of Perceived Wisdom

I'm reading Victor Navasky's memoir about his life as journalist and, most importantly, the steward/editor of The Nation. Years ago, I was a longtime reader of that historically irreverant and antidote-to-perceived-wisdom journal until Alexander Cockburn, the Stalinophile whose glib estimates of his mentor's documented atrocities as only about "six million" instead of Western estimates of "20 million" constituted a defense of the monster, turned me away in disgust. That was about 20 years ago. During that time, its long history as a single-minded, clear aribiter of the "nation's" conscience (1865) subconsciously resonated with my history genes, so it's been in the back of my mind. I have missed it. Anyway, reading Navasky's account, I now know why. He talks about the homogenization of American journalism and its penchant for yielding to power (and that was a comment about the state of affairs THIRTY years ago). And today? Well, if journalism then was a stand of trees facing the bulldozer, it's now a pit mine that hit ground water and flooded to its rim.

We need life jackets. We need The Nation.

The Buddha Takes No Prisoners

Tibet appears to most of the world as a docile, isolated country that succumbed meekly to the historical imperative of Chinese domination. It stands to reason. Tibet is the most Buddhist of nations, one whose spiritual traditions go back thousands of years and whose leader, the Dalai Lama, espouses non-violence with mirthful humility. But appearances do deceive, and in fact the Tibetan people, making peace with their own karma, fought the hated Chinese with a level of rage, tenacity, and savage violence one can hardly associate with Gautama's "middle way."

In a gripping account that covers the period post-WWII to the present day, Buddha's Warriors by author Mikel Dunham describes Tibet's slow descent into war, first baited into infighting by China's divide and conquer strategy and then, realizing China's true intentions, discarding their ancient tribal loyalties to join together as a nation and resist. They mounted warhorses, stockpiled arms and money in Tibet's once vast network of monasteries, and countered a Chinese slaughtering machine with their own.

Dunham spent seven years researching his book, basing his story on first-hand accounts by the Tibetan warriors who fought the Chinese and the impassioned CIA operatives who believed so much in their cause. This is not a tale for the squeamish; Dunham describes in detail unbridled, widespread, and programmatic Chinese sadism that takes ones breath away, and a Tibetan response to the barbarism that shatters the Shangri-la myth. They took no prisoners. What becomes abundantly clear in this story, and is truly troubling, is that even in the heart of Buddhism violence finds a home.

Four key players drive this drama: Mao Tse-Tung, India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Tibetan General Gompo Tashi Andrustsang, and the CIA. Mao echoed the ancient Han dynasty's obsession with the Motherland and simply couldn't countenance an independent Tibet. He skillfully manipulated Nehru whose dream about leading a new Pan-Asian bloc made him blind to Mao's machinations. Gompo Tashi led the Tibetan army (Chushi-Gangdruk) for years, using his charisma and wile to inspire his warriors and inflict frequent defeats on the Peoples Liberation Army. And the group of dedicated CIA case officers coordinated U.S. air drops and covert support for the Chushi-Gangdruk and, over time, became committed to the Tibetan nation and the heroic Tibetans they trained as covert agents.

Note that the Dalai Lama, who wrote the foreword to Buddha's Warriors, is not on the list. Revered by his people then and now, the Dalai Lama's obvious dilemma offers an interesting undercurrent that runs throughout the book. Dunham, perhaps because it is a delicate subject, touches upon it only obliquely: committed to non-violence in a place where only malevolence, revenge, and relentless brutality were the language, the Dalai Lama could only be a pawn in the much larger power game played between Mao, Nehru, the United States, and his own people. In one of the most poignant passages of the book, one can hear the despair in His Holiness's voice, not only for what was happening to his country, but for his inability to do anything about it. "By then, I could not in honesty advise them to avoid violence. In order to fight, they had sacrificed their home and all the comforts and benefits of a peaceful life. Now they could see no alternative but to go on fighting, and I had none to offer."

Dunham describes in vivid detail and offers dramatic testimony how the Tibetan's incandescent love for the Dalai Lama unleashed a passion for his safety that gripped every Tibetan man, woman, and child. The fighting raged, causing horrific carnage. Dunham tells of the many monks, inspired by the revered warrior-King Gesar who had waged war in the eleventh century to protect the dharma in Tibet, who "give back their robes," or renounce their vows, to join the fight. Dunham writes of the reasoning behind the monks' decision that "violence was never a good thing, but an inevitable phenomenon along the savage journey to Enlightenment – war against the enemies of the dharma was a personal choice and not to be judged." Ironically, the monks made excellent warriors with their austere lifestyle and dietary discipline, and the 6,000-plus monastery network provided a "pony express" of sorts, allowing information and arms to flow surreptitiously throughout the country and support surprise victories against the unwary Chinese.

But Tibet was doomed, no matter how hard it fought. Two things worked against it: the high-level corruption, incompetence, and outright treason by some key officials in the Tibetan government; and the multitudes of PLA of which Mao had a seemingly unlimited supply. The Tibetans simply could not fend off the the swarms of Chinese soldiers that filled their valleys.

In the end, the shifting alliances and national interests of China, India, and the U.S., which were at times both poison and antidote to Tibet's desire to be left alone, almost certainly ensured that it will never be its own country again. Buddha's Warriors tells us why that happened, and how this tragedy forced Tibetan Buddhism out of its isolation to engage the world with its deepest truths.

A Spring Morning

The morning was silk, soft on the skin, and just before dawn. The early spring air carried the season's first hints of warm moisture. A light breeze brushed my closed eyes, and a quiet but lilting birdsong began to tease awake the silence. In that brief moment between sleep and full lucidity, I felt a boundless peace that I hadn't felt for some time.

In the year leading up to this Easter Sunday in 1984, my wife Jackie and I had been fighting her leukemia. We had gone to Seattle for a bone marrow transplant. For someone her age and health and with a perfect donor match in her brother, Jackie's prognosis was good. We were going to beat this.

We were wrong. Jackie's transplant failed. We tried again. Failed. After 6 months of pain and radiation and dialysis and tubes and corpses hauled out on gurneys every day in this "research" center, a doctor shook his head somberly and told us there was nothing more they could do. Jackie sat propped up in her bed, her skin cracked and green, a urine bag hanging limply on a hook nearby. She gazed calmly at the doctor and, as was her style, analyzed the situation clearly and resolutely. She then said quietly, "Well, I certainly don't want to die here. I want to die in my home."

And that's what she did. We traveled back across the country to live out her life in our house in New Jersey. I was her nurse. Medical paraphernalia crowded every corner of our bedroom. We knew that she was going to die, but we didn't know when. So we spent the last three months of her life together in a surreal netherworld, somewhere between a life we had lost and death we could not know. Friends and family helped and watched.

Ordinary sounds and colors of life took on a menacing tone. Their simple beauty – which I was only now beginning to comprehend – stood in stark contrast to the horror we were enduring, enlarging and intensifying it. And I only knew the one Noble Truth: the suffering that had crept up incrementally, and that would soon come rushing headlong with terrible, overpowering force. If you're not ready for it – and I wasn't – it will gouge out a hole so deep inside that its vacuum sucks the breath out of your lungs and all reason out of your brain.

Two days before Easter, Jackie felt well enough to have dinner with friends. But her body finally said "no more." She lost bowel control at the dinner table, and I got her home before pain sent her into convulsions. Mercifully, she drifted into semi-consciousness. As the hours passed, I sat powerless, exhausted, numb. She held me with a look that was an odd blend of anticipation and uncertainty, but very nuanced, composed, unruffled. She no longer spoke, nor seemed to understand anything I said to her. She looked beyond me, and then she closed her eyes and began her death rattle. I feel asleep to that raspy sound.

Then, that Easter morning. Jackie lay beside me, quiet. At once, the sweet silence that had momentarily soothed me turned cold and real in its meaning: she was dead. In a panic, I reached for her arm. It was cold up to her elbow. She was gone, freed. The morgue truck took her body away.

In the ensuing years, I teetered on the brink of a bottomless maw in my soul, but dragged myself back to life by establishing certain truths as handholds. First: my young daughter Corey needed me. I had to survive for her. Second: the irony of suffering. We never seek it. We tremble at its approach. But every horror and degradation and shame that it visits upon you will yield in its wake – if you survive it – a strength grown out of a profound joy and understanding of the rhythms of life.

I didn't realize in those early days that as I finally drew free from the black hole inside me I was beginning to practice and understand the dharma. I would mouth cheery comments like, "hey, we're going to be dead before we know it!," not really understanding why others didn't find that humorous. Then, about a year ago, I found that the name of such existential insouciance was "dharma" and it is giving shape and direction to my own personal truths. Its simple tools – like seeing every single moment for the unadorned truth that it is – help daily living but, more importantly, are building a framework in which I'm learning how to coexist peacefully – even graciously – with that 800-pound gorilla named Samsara.

Muttering "Mutton" in Mongolia

Twenty hours in the air and a half-planet away from home, Mongolia's Ulaanbaatar finally reveals itself in a treeless valley surrounded by the four sacred peaks of Bogd Khan, Bayanzurkh, Chingeltei, and Songino Khairkhan. It's 10 p.m. when we land, yet only sunset in this northern latitude. Burnt orange light streaks the ground between long shadows. The darkening sky and the treeless plain squeeze between them the last minutes of day. On the horizon, an iridescent thunderstorm pours torrential rain down its mushroom stalk. Soviet-era helicopters sit in the weeds and rust under sagging rotors.

My brother Grant and I have come to this historically Buddhist land to see the state of the dharma ten years after the end of Soviet rule. For centuries, the country has had strong ties to Tibetan Buddhism—indeed, before the Soviet "repression time" beginning in 1921 some estimates counted more than 98% of the population as Buddhist though recent studies suggest that has dropped significantly.

At baggage claim, we see why: a battalion of well-groomed Mormon missionaries wearing black suits and gold name tags. They are cheery, polite, relentless. We soon learn that they are the dharma's main competition for the hearts and minds of Mongolians. More troops to the front lines.

Before heading into the country, we spend two days here. Almost half the country's population of Mongolia crowds into this capital city of one million. Deep potholes and broken streetlights reveal the surface state of a crumbling infrastructure. Broad avenues teem with a human succotash of ancient style and urban culture. Young girls queue up for water at public pumps. One-horse wagons dodge buses and cars that careen wildly in no-rules driving. Young toughs in L.A. Dodgers caps play pool on tables sitting out in the open air. Exhaust fumes, dust, and cook smoke hang in the air. Animal bones litter the ground, some still clinging to remnants of flesh and fur. Dirt streets meander throughout, bordered by ramshackle fences that shield from random theft the family gers, the traditional round tent of the Mongols.

During their rule, the Russians imposed a command economy on a nomadic people. When they left, the economy sputtered to a halt. The Russians had also destroyed 700 monasteries, forced thousands into slave labor, and slaughtered 17,000 monks and 10,000 citizens. Many lie buried in mass graves with bullet holes in the backs of their heads. The Russians forced the surviving monks to abandon Buddhism, marry, and enter secular life. Even so, many continued to practice in secret while hiding sacred objects for a time when the dharma could reemerge.

That time came in 1991, when a peaceful revolution led to a democratic government. The Mongolian dharma emerged from seven decades of subjugation severely weakened. Christian missionaries—particularly Mormons—have swarmed into the spiritual vacuum seeking converts while the consumerist din of Mongolia's emerging Western-style market economy threatens to drown out the quieter clarity of the dharma.

But the dharma is adapting. Prime Minister Enkhbayar is a practicing Buddhist (and, yes, a Communist in a democratic republic) who is keenly interested in preserving Mongolia's Buddhist heritage. Many provincial governors and members of parliament share his passion. We visited Gandan monastery in Ulaanbaatar, Erdene Zuu and Shankh Khiid monasteries in the ancient capital Kharkhorin, a temple in Dalanzadgad, and talked to abbots, lamas, and monks. Speaking to us in their rhythmic, whispering language with soft, glottal inflections, they showed us their reconstruction efforts and where they restored to their spiritual place the relics and statuary their predecessors hid during the Soviet era.

Out in the country, the endless blue sky and undulating hills exude a primeval magic almost unbearably moving. In a jeep, it's unbearably moving, too, as in teeth-chattering, organ-jarring, head-banging bumpy. Mongolian "roads," well, aren't.

In Kharkhorin we drink airag, fermented mare's milk that tastes like salty cream and quinine water. Nice buzz. From Dalanzadgad, we drive through the minimalist majesty of the Gobi, dodging sand devils and camel carcasses while skimming over the trackless plain like speed boats. A white vulture soars above us in a Yol Valley canyon. I slip on an ice flow in the summer heat of the desert. The Flaming Cliffs lick the horizon at sunset. And later that night under glimmering starlight at Three Camels Lodge, traditional singers Nara and Eata sing a Praise to Altai Mountain. And all the while we eat dried mutton, and mutton patties, and boiled mutton, and mutton meat sauce, and mutton soup, and never wonder why we don't see any sheep. We've eaten them all.

The Mongolian dharma, frail as it may appear now, seems poised to transcend this moment in history. I see it comfort an old woman turning a prayer wheel and sustain the monks rebuilding their cherished sites. I feel it riding the Gobi wind and steeped in the very rock strata of these old mountains. Certainly, the men in black and the clangorous western marketers will paint their colors here and there, but their brushes cannot take them deep to where the dharma lives.

A little torture down at The Corner

I try to read The Corner. I really do. I want their perspective on some of the big issues of the day because I think it important to hear all sides of an argument, distill them in my own mind, and then make a rational judgment about where I stand. But I have to say that their vacuous approach to the torture debate, not to mention their glib tone, is infuriating. The many straw men in their arguments could field a few of the new brigades we need in Iraq, and their false dichotomies define reductio ad absurdum. Here's James Robbins:

So why is it that My Lai has become a byword for brutality while Hue is a footnote? Why will Menchaca and Tucker be forgotten while incidents like those under investigation — or the grotesque theater of Abu Ghraib — will persist, fester, be written about, analyzed, become vehicles for critiques of U.S. policy, the military, or the whole of American culture?

Why? WHY!? Because My Lai was a rarity that repulsed the nation, that's why. And if Haditha proves true, then we again feel our principles under assault, as well we should. As Americans, we expect better, and when some of our soldiers fall below our standards, it becomes a major story. The massacre in Hue by Viet Cong of their own citizens? Ho hum, like we should expect something else from them? Or barbarity from the thugs in Iraq? The essential question here completely eludes Robbins and seemingly the other Cornerites. We're not equating our soldiers with their thugs or our actions with theirs; we're outraged that there was any incident at all for us to be ashamed of. And if, but hopefully not when, these stories of alleged U.S. atrocities become commonplace and the press treats them "fairly" according to the standards sought by the Cornerites, then we have turned our righteous outrage into the banal rationalizations that are the root of all evil. We will have become them, so there won't be any story at all.

Birthers

The traditional definition of "family," used by every culture during every age of humanity, includes only the various permutations of father, mother, child, and sibling. Every familial relationship derives from those four categories, whether it be the sibling of the father, or the mother of the mother, or the child of the sibling, or any other combination (I purposely put aside adoptive, same-sex, and in-law relationships, not because they aren't equally valid but because they, too, rely on the same categories, albeit created legally...or not) But aren't we missing another one, the one that links each of us to a unique cohort of people all over the world beyond race, religion, sex or any of the other EEOC categories? I'm talking about the one category that no family can replicate, even twins: our age. Our birthday, even better, our birthsecond frames our existential awareness on a daily basis. We share that with no one, other than the millions of our -- coining a new word here -- "birthers" around the world.

All of my birthers (6/21/51/12:01am) all over the world look at the day after tomorrow as their 55th birthday, the tail end of their sixth decade on the planet. My birthers and I work and play through the day and sleep through the nights. Some will die on the morrow, some have... just died. May you rest in peace...and you, too. Our group continues to shrink as time moves on, through, and over it. My cohort mulches the existential landscape with some wonderful successes, some incandescent failures, and its gravestones and funerary urns. The younger cohorts struggle with adolescence or colic or the charismatic allure of the next Charles Taylor. My father's cohort is loosing its teeth, walking with canes, wincing and reminiscing. Each cohort passes through its own existential filter every second of its life. Some of my birthers get caught up in it and don't make it through to the next moment, others do. What appears immutable is the growing density of that filter as the cohort ages. Eventually it becomes impervious and the last birther in my cohort will die...at the exact same moment as the first death of the newest cohort. That is as certain as the sun rising tomorrow morning. And if it doesn't, even more so.