By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
Perhaps you heard that the Dalai Lama retired. That was a WTF moment for me. How do you retire from being God-incarnate? How does that work? Turns out, the Dalai Lama is just backing out of politics, no longer assuming his position as (exiled) titular head of Tibet and stepping down from national leadership. I suppose that’s rational enough in the 21st century, but somehow it doesn’t feel right. I mean seriously, the Pope doesn’t get to retire, does he? Some gigs you just don’t get to put behind you until you give up the ghost.
That was just one little blip on my rationality radar. It’s been beeping like crazy for quite a while. I’m sure you’ve noticed that rational thinking is under siege in this nation. Most days I pour my morning cup of coffee, sit down to scan the headlines and then run around with my hair on fire, screaming, “Wake the fuck up, people! The battlements are being breached!” That initial response, courtesy of my many fire signs, lasts a moment or two before I settle into a fact-finding mission to see just how absurd the news has become.
Not counting the truly terrifying, of which we’ve had more than our share lately, illogic has gotten thick out there, closing in on Dorothy’s Oz or Alice’s Wonderland. To say the joke’s on us is a kind of twisted meme since nobody’s laughing, but seriously, folks — the joke’s on us. For instance, in a rational world no one other than myself would be interested in what I do with my uterus. From Texas, where they make an art form of irrationality, Mrs. Helen Philpott — 80-something year-old blogger and national treasure — wrote of her governor’s insistence that women considering abortion be forced to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus:
I find it odd because I know that Rick Perry, the Governor of my state, is really upset about how big government has gotten. Evidently it’s not big enough, however, because ‘ole Ricky seems to think it’s small enough to crawl up my vagina with a sonogram machine and a recorder so that Ricky can tell me how to think based on what God whispers in his ear when no one else is around. To be truthful, it could just be something he picked up in church. I’m not sure. It might have happened at his office. It’s really hard to tell the difference between his office and his church these days.
Helen and I would no doubt be dear friends. In a truly rational world, my having terminated a problematic pregnancy twenty or more years ago would remain a personal sorrow but not a contribution to the holocaust of the unborn that is putting Social Security in danger due to lost workforce. The IRS would not dig into my personal life to see if any public funds went toward my procedure. In a sane world, the doctor who provided that service for me would not be targeted as a murderer, nor would legislation be considered to allow his own murder to be called an act of “justifiable homicide.”
Furthermore, in a world that gave a good-gawd-damn, billions in tax cuts given to the rich and the corporations would have been weighed carefully against the necessity of squeezing kids out of Head Start, eliminating them from food stamp rolls and dropping them from health care services. In a world with its wits about it, the welfare of living children would take precedence over those not yet born, and a woman’s body would rightly be her own. See? Over the cuckoo’s nest.
In a world that takes its politics seriously, we should have minority presidential candidates announcing by this time. Campaigning has been inching its way out to start earlier and earlier, and last season we had a full two-year display of pre-election flags and flappery. We hear about who is traveling to Iowa early but it’s much ado about nothing. This year, the Republicans can’t find challengers with saintly-enough track records to please their über-religious base.
Consider, then, the absurdity of Donald Trump’s stepping into the ring. He brags that he screwed rent from Gadaffi when the Colonel visited New York. He insists that there may be something written on Obama’s birth certificate we don’t know about (like … religion: Muslim.) His track record of marriages, bankruptcies and reality shows defines him as an eccentric, not to mention his overt belligerence and anachronistic comb-over. Well, hell. What did we think would happen after taking Sarah Palin seriously as a candidate? It wasn’t like she raised the bar on brainpower, achievement or ethics. And standing on his pile of money, Trump seems intent on running for POTUS. The giveaway? He’s secured a slot on FOX News.
You can tell the world’s gone wonky when people are unable to tell the difference between the smell of snake oil and Chanel N°5, but rationality requires some honest thought and reflection, not just reaction. We can’t make up our own facts to suit us, like the Christocrats do. Clearly, cave men did NOT ride dinosaurs, and science has more gravitas than any work of fiction, even if it comes leather-bound with gold markings and charts the genuine feelings of ancestors long dead. Sobriety, my son once told me, is the harshest reality, but it’s looking better every day. I think it’s time we took the pledge on bullshit.
The double-speak that politicians use is really just the natural language of unenlightenment, in all its glory. It projects its own ill-intent onto others, laying traps to try to snare competitors, standing on others’ necks to seem taller, repeating lies until they are believed by the witless and easily led. Politicians’ words come to us not just in the guise of persuaders, but beguilers, playing to our egos and looking for converts. You and I are outliers, obviously, because the sound of them strikes false. Count your lucky stars.
There’s too much absurdity at play in politics and too much uncharted territory in the wars, revolutions and natural disasters let loose on the world to rest easily, these days. Luckily, in some past iteration of myself, I heard a bit of wisdom that stuck with me: life is much too important to be taken seriously. I bookmarked it in memory because it was the right thing to break me out of some death-grip emotion I was feeling at the time.
The gods laughed when they gifted me with Venus in Scorpio within seconds of my mid-heaven. In my experience, if you go through life feeling everything deeply enough you’ll get to know yourself pretty quickly. It was evidently my assignment to master intensity this time around, drown myself in pools of passion and sorrow — not up and down the emotional barometer as in manic, but more like swimming in the deep end, leaving no emotion unexperienced, no empathy unexplored or commonality unnoted. That was not always an easy passage. The miracle of my life is that I’ve lived long enough to make some sense of it all. And wouldn’t you know: just when I’ve got a handle on reality, the rational is no longer in vogue.
Still, I refuse to take all this fear-speak too seriously, dearhearts. I’m pretty sure Helen Philpott feels the same way. I’m pulling a Nancy Reagan with those around me who live in unreality: just say NO. No to heartlessness, no to ‘tough love’ that leaves people without resources or recourse. No to racism and classism, and no to nationalized religion. No to stringency and punishment, no to the money-god and the unreality bubbles it produces. No to cronyism and the plunder of the earth and her people that selfishness demands. No more Bandaids to cover holes in a system we could drive a truck through. Just … no.
With so many lemons all around us, we need to get crackin’ on the lemonade stand. Tight on money? Maybe this is where we learn what’s really valuable. Don’t know whom to trust? Perhaps this is where we eliminate the dross to define what is trustworthy, gather together to celebrate what is rational and loving, what is workable and creative. The more absurd this season becomes, the clearer the need to step back and look for realism. The more battered our friends and neighbors, the more willing and determined we must be to fix what’s broken. If we put our heart into it, we can’t go wrong.
Meanwhile, the joke’s on us. The irrational folks think they’re the only ones here, and the rational ones keep waiting for somebody to step up and slap them back into sobriety. The joke is, that would be us. Every day that we wait to see what happens next is a day we lose to powerlessness and fear. Truth is, the Dalai Lama can’t retire and neither can we. None of this happened TO us, it happened THROUGH us — and that’s exactly the way we will fix it: one rational, realistic and loving decision at a time.
Patty, there’s no reason to find the retreat vocation upsetting. Like most people who work the deeper tantric veins, Tenzin Gyatso is arriving to the point where he will need to abide in a state of direct perception. In order to stabilize that state (Pratyaksha) he will either practice intensively for a good while (months, at least), and/or take a consort. This isn’t something you can do while being a political figure, or even a ritual master. I’m pleased to see that he’s still out conducting the Kalachakra, but I hope he passes the bell to someone else soon. (The vajra he can keep… *8o} )
However many times we take birth, we still have to seal off *that* particular incarnation, tidy it up, kiss it goodbye. He’s got good bones. It won’t take long.
No fear. All love (the *other* rain… dear).
Excellent article Judith. Thanks so much for putting it all into perspective, as crazy as it is. Shit. I’m just trying to enjoy ths Spring as it arrives and shakes up the tree. Hot today, snow tomorrow. (really)(it’s like that here in Denver) Thanks again.
well, whaddya THINK – it’s the next obvious devolution of Celebrity Worship !!
The CIRCUS is coming to Town, folks!!!!
and personally, I can’t wait as he picks his cabinet Apprentice-style!
OH YEAH, I’ll throw my hat in the ring,
I’m going for Lion Tamer…..
face to face with those snarling, roaring beasts!
I won’t flinch!! (thigh-high boots-are you kidding me?)
no whip though, that’s barbaric, I’m all about snapping my fingers & mind control…
So, who’s with me? we need Contortionists, Fire Breathers, and Clown Control at a minimum…
comeon, take the Pledge!
thank you, judith. i was just wondering what exactly it is i’m trying to stay sane for. a world gone dry, i’m used to the discomfort of. a world gone more crazy than the crazy it was…?
thanks for the reminder. one day at a time, one moment at a time, one choice at a time, and all will be well.
In regards to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, I recently watched him teaching from Dharamsala where we explained in some detail his “retirement” from politics. Ironically, it was one of the most political talks I’ve heard him give. He explicitly told exiled Tibetans to get involved and vote in their upcoming elections. And he called for a nonviolent democracy movement in China.
HHDL has spent years and years meeting with political leaders. He’s quite astute when it comes to politicians. My sense from hearing him speak is that at this point HHDL thinks there are better ways for him to spend his time than meeting with heads of state and diplomatic corps. Given how stuck politicians are right now, I think it makes sense for HHDL to spend more time giving teachings and empowerments to people who truly are ready to change and make a different world.
One more time, I’d like to spill my dream.. (I’m building cohesion within myself..)
..I want to help start a Global realization of community. I want to start by creating ‘farms’ (whatever the region can harvest, be it solar, wind, hydro, plantae, soul..) that can sustain masses of people. We’ll all live and participate within these farms. But, there will be ‘different’ ‘farms’ all over the globe, so you can trip out and explore the different communities. And we will have a circuit that encompasses the globe allowing access to everywhere. The spaces will be built up around amphitheaters where creative folks can come to share, and there will always be something going on somewhere, as well as some peace in the quiet places.
..This is all just a throwback evolution of my Dead days..
..But, I’m damned serious..
Jude, keep on rockin’ in the free world!!
Love ya,
Jere
“You can tell the world’s gone wonky when people are unable to tell the difference between the smell of snake oil and Chanel N°5,..”
Brilliant! I am SO stealing that.
Nice article, but also frightening to learn he felt such a need to retreat. My son said there is ambient radiation in Indiana now. He has equipment for measuring such things.
For those of you who are interested – HHDL is retiring from being the Political Head / Govt of the Tibetan Poeple
He is still the Spiritual Leader and will be doing the KALACHAKRA teachings fro WORLD PEACE in Washington DC, July 6-16
Here is the link and info.
http://www.kalachakra2011.com/
For the first time, His Holiness the Dalai Lama will confer the ancient and profoundly meaningful ritual Kalachakra for World Peace in the capital of the United States, Washington, DC. The Kalachakra, open to all who wish to participate, has the power to benefit all beings on this planet. The Capital Area Tibetan Association welcomes you to join in this historic event, offered with the heartfelt motivation to inspire harmonious relationships and abiding peace in our hearts and in our world.
In commenting on the value of the Kalachakra, His Holiness stressed its immense potential to be of benefit:
“The initiation to the Kalachakra is one of the most important…because it takes everything into account: the body and the human mind, and the whole external aspect — cosmic and astrological. We firmly believe in its power to reduce conflict and we believe it is capable of creating…peace of spirit and therefore peace in the world.”
LOL….I loved this…must be my triple fire (hair on fire…wake the fuck up people hehehe)….however my venus is in pisces in my ninth house and I remain a tad more unconditionally accepting and philosophical of all that must evolve to create the effect of progression 🙂
xoxoxoxoxox
“The double-speak that politicians use is really just the natural language of unenlightenment, in all its glory. It projects its own ill-intent onto others, laying traps to try to snare competitors, standing on others’ necks to seem taller, repeating lies until they are believed by the witless and easily led.”
SHEER GENIUS!
standing on others’ necks to seem taller,
YES! I’m looking in the mirror.
Jude, have you been channeling Fe? Or is it the the other way round? 😉
Wonderful words to start a new day.
Jude:
Yes to everything you’ve said — and quite well!!
Creative license, Mystes — when I read that he was ‘retiring,’ it amused me. I visualized Jesus and Buddha turning over the keys to the kingdom, joining AARP. My point, of course, was that we don’t ever retire from what we are. It was just a moment. Thanks for the specifics, that fleshes out the picture.
Great article, Judith… I just have one addition: Monks don’t retire. That language is for Westerners; what every DL has done at around 70 is go into retreat. HHDL is about 6 years late for this move; he has delayed it in deference to the will of the Tibetan people.
Recall, please, that he announced just hours before the tsunami/earthquake/meltdown. From about 9 a.m. that day, anyone capable of direct perception was in oh-holy-shit mode – *before* the ensuing events. He got the bulletin a few days before the rest of us.
His move toward retreat was and is one of the most significant of his lifetime. This isn’t Sunday school, nor one of those pleasant little business retreats, nor the vacation-type ritualettes enjoyed by most Western converts to Buddhism. He isn’t ‘retiring’ – he’s fulfilling his mission.
I am taking the pledge – NO to bullshit. YES to love and truth (my own). Fire can be so very, very refreshing at times. I have found the only absudity that need concern me is believing my thoughts – the thoughts (like leeches) born and bred in the “world of agreements” as opposed to what I KNOW. I love what Eric has been writing about, too – the bullshit of pretending that I don’t know who I am as a way of avoiding responsibility. Keep up the great writing, Judith. You are a sister, indeed.
Simply awesome. You set my hair on fire Judith with the pure authenticity of your passion. Thank You!
Thank you Judith.