Movie Review: The Trials of Ted Haggard, 2009; Alexandra Pelosi, dir

Having watched Alexandra Pelosi's other two films over the past week, we finished Wednesday night with her profile of exiled evangelical leader Ted Haggard, a name by now synonymous with deceit and hypocrisy, a textbook definition of someone hoist on his own petar. Mutsumi and I were, I suppose, looking forward to a few laughs at Mr Haggard's expense. When the film ended 50-minutes later, Mutsumi said, “Ted-san gambatte hoshii.” Don't give up, Ted.

This morning I've been doing a bit of reading of opinion about the film and it seems many think it was part of a cynical plan by Haggard to rehabilitate and relaunch a public career. Some have suggested that if he were sincere in his repentance, he would forever lead a quiet life of service.

Motivation is worth considering. Many of us would simply be too ashamed to have our personal failings broadcast across the world, which is perhaps why its difficult to see Haggard's decision as anything but manipulative. But for someone who for so much of his life worked in front of large numbers of people, whose identity was in part or in whole built on the affirmation offered by others, it must be an immense struggle (in addition to the others) to have yourself affirmed only by yourself, to live with the acclaim only of your immediate family. Perhaps he did the film because he needs to be forgiven by a larger community. Perhaps he believes that by sharing his struggles, he can encourage others facing similar difficulties, that from his disgrace something good may come.

In the course of his career, Haggard has caused hurt and harm to others, none of which I am ignoring or attempting to minimize. Some might feel that sympathy for him is misplaced, that he deserves every thing that has happened to him. I think Haggard would agree. And from the film it appears he is genuinely struggling, as he knows how, to understand what happened, to understand himself. He doesn't seem smug. On the contrary, he appears confused, unsure, like someone who for once doesn't have all the answers.

It seems a significant change for Haggard to accept the healing potential of secular psychology, to accept that Christianity and homosexuality may not be incompatible, to admit that the community he built did not practice the virtues of acceptance and forgiveness he spent his career teaching. How many of us could as easily accept our own shortcomings – and then lay them out for all to see?

By the end of the film I was thinking Haggard's a brave guy to allow Pelosi to expose him. Like Mutsumi, I was wishing I could wish him the best.

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Of Tibet and Maple

This afternoon we made the short trip to Dazaifu to take in the exhibit of Tibetan Treasures now at the Kyushu National Museum. Perhaps because I've just returned from a world where these kind of artifacts are part of daily life it wasn't as impressive as it might be to those encountering them for the first time or after some period of absence. But as many of the items in the exhibit are show pieces, some of the best of the best, what was most stirking for someone like myself was the difference in workmanship between these pieces and the everyday items I saw in homes and businesses and temples in Kathmandu. The stuff in Dazaifu is gorgeous. Regrettably, photography was prohibited.

The exhibit is quite small and won't take you more than an 40 minutes to walk through, perhaps even less. For the 1000 yen ticket price, that's not such a great bargain, especially when you include transportation costs.

On the way back to the train station we stopped at Komyozenji, Fukuoka's most beautiful temple garden, today awash in the vibrant green of spring maple.

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The Butsuzo Girl

As we share an interest in Buddhist art, I've sent an email to Ikumi Hirose. I first learned about the 29-year old graduate of Tokyo's Sophia University last week in the English edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun. As a young woman working in a field commonly tended by balding, bespectacled scholars, she's something of a curiosity, and by coining a name for herself she helped the media sell her to the public. As a result she has become something of a minor celebrity, the Butsuzo Girl. The Buddhist Statue Girl.

Hirose's written a book about some of her favorite statues and while on her travels to learn more about Japan's art legacy gives talks or lectures discussing some of her interests. The media dutifully turn up to these events not so much because everyone is suddenly interested in Buddhist statuary as they are in catching a glimpse of the Butsuzo Girl.

I'd care not so much for a glimpse as for a chance to talk and maybe visit some temples or a museum together. I hope my message wasn't filtered into her spam folder.

For those that might be interested, you can check out Ms Hirose's website here. The Yomiuri article is linked above.

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The war proved one thing

In his 1932 essay, "In Praise of Idleness," Bertrand Russell argues that the Great War, WWI, provided valuable evidence about meeting the material needs of society.

Modern technique has made it possible to diminish enormously the amount of labor required to secure the necessaries of life for everyone. This was made obvious during the war. At that time all the men in the armed forces, and all the men and women engaged in the production of munitions, all the men and women engaged in spying, war propaganda, or Government offices connected with the war, were withdrawn from productive occupations. In spite of this, the general level of well-being among unskilled wage-earners on the side of the Allies was higher than before or since. The significance of this fact was concealed by finance: borrowing made it appear as if the future was nourishing the present. But that, of course, would have been impossible; a man cannot eat a loaf of bread that does not yet exist. The war showed conclusively that, by the scientific organization of production, it is possible to keep modern populations in fair comfort on a small part of the working capacity of the modern world. If, at the end of the war, the scientific organization, which had been created in order to liberate men for fighting and munition work, had been preserved, and the hours of the week had been cut down to four, all would have been well. Instead of that the old chaos was restored, those whose work was demanded were made to work long hours, and the rest were left to starve as unemployed. Why? Because work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry.

Imagine, then, this excess potential utilized not for the profit of one company or country, but given instead to meet the material needs of the world.

Thanks to M for pointing me to this essay.

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The Gospel of Consumption

A few weeks ago I was writing about some of the changes that had taken place in my life over the last few years, including learning to live with less, to step off the merry-go-round of consumerism.

The management and workers at Kellogg, the American cereal maker known most commonly for Corn Flakes, decided to do the same themselves many years ago, adopting less pay for shorter working hours.

It was an attractive vision, and it worked. Not only did Kellogg prosper, but journalists from magazines such as Forbes and BusinessWeek reported that the great majority of company employees embraced the shorter workday. One reporter described “a lot of gardening and community beautification, athletics and hobbies . . . libraries well patronized and the mental background of these fortunate workers . . . becoming richer.”

A U.S. Department of Labor survey taken at the time, as well as interviews [writer Benjamin] Hunnicutt conducted with former workers, confirm this picture. The government interviewers noted that “little dissatisfaction with lower earnings resulting from the decrease in hours was expressed, although in the majority of cases very real decreases had resulted.” One man spoke of “more time at home with the family.” Another remembered: “I could go home and have time to work in my garden.” A woman noted that the six-hour shift allowed her husband to “be with 4 boys at ages it was important.”

Kellogg's system hasn't survived into the present day, but Jeffrey Kaplan argues in his essay, The Gospel of Consumption and the better future we left behind
that the model, or at least its imperative, may be worth reconsideration. If only we were willing to live with less.

By 1991 the amount of goods and services produced for each hour of labor [in the US] was double what it had been in 1948. By 2006 that figure had risen another 30 percent. In other words, if as a society we made a collective decision to get by on the amount we produced and consumed seventeen years ago, we could cut back from the standard forty-hour week to 5.3 hours per day—or 2.7 hours if we were willing to return to the 1948 level. We were already the richest country on the planet in 1948 and most of the world has not yet caught up to where we were then.

How badly do you need an iPhone?

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The Buddha's Birthday at Full Henro

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08 April 2008 I set out from Koya-san to walk around the island of Shikoku. That day also happened to be Ohana Matsuri, the Buddha's birthday.

Yesterday, on the one year anniversary of that event, I did a one-day bicycle pilgrimage to the town of Sasaguri. I've written about it at Full Henro, which I've spruced up just a bit with a new header.

Lots of pictures to see. Go there by clicking here.

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When Less is More

While checking the news yesterday morning I came across a USA Today article marveling over Japan's underpaid CEOs, in particular Japan Airline President Haruka Nishimatsu, who after taking over the company following a series of accidents and scandals, cut his own salary to US$98,000, rode the bus to work, and ate in the company cafeteria.

The $98k figure probably represents Nishimatsu's base pay, which is substantially padded by numerous perks. Still, "according to the consultancy Towers Perrin, CEOs of big Japanese companies earned an average $809,000 in 2003 — chump change compared with the $11.4 million raked in by their average U.S. counterpart," notes USA Today.

The smirking tone of the article suggests that the Japanese are out of step, that society here undervalues corporate leadership. It seems though, Japan has a far healthier attitude toward compensation and social cohesion than the USA, where the underlying operating principle in business seems to be to get as much as you can as quick as you can by whatever means necessary and damn those around you who aren't strong enough or shrewd enough to compete.

Except for young executives with a foot already on the career ladder, or those making a living off investing, I can't see that the average American could take issue with executives making less and sharing more with those further down the chain of command. But somewhere along the way citizens have been trained to believe the economy and the entire world free enterprise structure would collapse if CEOs were offered less.

Perhaps they imagine these guys (and its still mostly guys) indignant at offers of 10million instead of 100million, leaving in an insulted huff to go fishing rather than squandering their talent for so little reward. But really, what else would they do? If the salary bar were lowered, most would go on doing the same and be happy because they would still be making more than anyone else, which is what the outrageous compensation packages seem to be all about.

Quite unintentionally, I found in the same day's news an essay first written in 1966 (recycled through a blog via Google News) positing a more rational approach to economics, specifically in our underlying assumptions of value.

[The modern economist] is used to measuring the "standard of living" by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is "better off" than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.

The optimal pattern of consumption, producing a high degree of human satisfaction by means of a relatively low rate of consumption, allows people to live without great pressure and strain and to fulfill the primary injunction of Buddhist teaching: “Cease to do evil; try to do good.” As physical resources are everywhere limited, people satisfying their needs by means of a modest use of resources are obviously less likely to be at each other’s throats than people depending upon a high rate of use.

Buddhist Economics
By E. F. Schumacher

What if those CEOs did leave and go fishing? We might miss out on a few innovations, but we'd survive just fine and perhaps in the process create a saner, healthier, happier living environment. And after a generation or two, no one would imagine that things could or should be any different.

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Movie Review: Earthlings (2005); Shaun Monson, dir

Earthlings shows things no sane human wants to watch, things that make you wince, that make your heart shrivel, that leave you feeling drained and stupefied at the horrors perpetrated on a daily basis for nothing more than satisfying the interests and tastes of individual homo sapiens. Many may describe this as a film about animal rights, but the subject is not so much animals as it is humans, not so much about rights as it is the struggle to live compassionately.

Earthlings opens by laying out its assumptions, beginning with the premise of specieism, a variation on the human habit of assigning heightened moral value to isolated features of our own species, such as race, nationality, or sex. In asserting special rights, humans justify the treatment of animals – as they have done with women or certain ethnic groups – as creatures of less value, less worthy of respect, as in fact not creatures at all but property.

The filmmakers proceed to look at five ways in which animals serve humans: as pets, food, clothing, entertainment, and research subjects. There is a narrative of sorts, but the of images of cruelty and horror tell the real story, a story of suffering on a scale so unimaginable it is overwhelming. Even more disheartening is that much of this suffering is caused not because people are starving, or naked, or without other means of enriching their lives, but because we like the taste of flesh, we like the feel of leather, we like the thrill of the hunt. This is suffering caused for nothing more than fulfillment of sensual desire.

I have been a vegetarian for nearly two years, dating back to my first six-month visit to Nepal, a country with low sanitation and health standards. I stopped eating meat for health reasons. I was not and have not been an animal rights activist, though I do have a great fondness for and interest in animals. I came to this film with an open mind and heart; I now feel traumatized. I don't blame the filmmakers for this. They have simply shown me what is and made me aware of things I ignored. As the filmmakers point out, it's not so much that these truths are hidden. Most of us prefer not to see them.

Consider this. Earthlings officially premiered in 2005, which means it has been in circulation for at least three years. But if you if google a search string of [earthlings review] you will find most returns are from sites about vegetarianism or animal protection. No reviews from major media or major critics, despite the fact that the producers (without the help of a distributor) put the film in a number of theaters in order for it to be considered for an Academy Award nomination. At the internet's two largest movie databases, IMBD and Rotten Tomatoes, the latter has no listing at all, the former no links to external reviews.

If you are prepared for an emotional and intellectual challenge and can withstand the pain of seeing animals, while still alive, having their throats slits, being burnt, beaten, electrocuted, shot, or gassed, then you might like to view or purchase a copy of the film here. A streaming version good for one week is available for US$2.99.

Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.
Ecclesiastes 3:19-21

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Waking up to paradox

On 09 March 09 I wrote in a post called Fukuoka ghost:

It feels strange to be back here in Fukuoka. It's like visiting my old self, the self that used to have a life here but which seems to have vanished somewhere along the way in Nepal and India. I don't want to find that person. I'm happy to let him go.

A couple of readers picked up on this and asked to know more. I was curious myself. Over a couple of weeks I produced notes to fill up five pages of A4 paper in single-spaced, 12 point text, about 2500 words, perhaps 2000 more than anyone would ever want to read.

So I set myself the task of boiling it down, finding some way to describe the fundamental difference out of which all the other changes emanate. And I think I found it.

Here it is. Let me know if you need more. I have a lot left over. ;-)

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When you sit quietly and watch, something paradoxical results. The world begins expanding, while at the same time contracting.

Right in your own body you observe the changes happening at the physical level, as itching comes and goes, pain comes and goes, numbness comes and goes, tingling comes and goes. You observe changes at the mental level, as emotions rise and fade, as ideas emerge and subside. You begin to see that not only is the physical world out there always in motion, always changing. It's not just the movement of cars and planes and buses and cars. It's not just that an old building was torn down and a new one put in its place. Its not just that yesterday's clothes are now out of fashion, or that certain foods are now in style, or a sports team is now on top while another is down. You are changing, too. Never the same from moment to moment, nothing but a stream of processes - of sensations, emotions, and thoughts - each leading to the next, a stream in which today, tomorrow, and yesterday, a stream in which inside and outside, you and me, physical and mental are arbitrary demarcations, where everything runs together as part of the process of life, the infinite expanse of being. Within the context of this infinitude our lives are exceedingly brief, even briefer than we might imagine since most of us go about our day without ever stopping to consider that today may be it. If you knew there were no more tomorrows, no more next weeks, no more next months, its unlikely you would get up in the morning and shuffle off to work as you normally would. You'd be raving mad to fill yourself up with the universe.

That's me now. The old interests and engagements seem like things intended for nothing but filling up time, occupying the mind and keeping it from the terror of standing on the edge of being, where today, now, this moment, is all that is.

It's not about having a new lifestyle. It's about having life.

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Good morning

Coffee grounds in the tea,
knife cut on my thumb,
melon on the floor.
Even after she said “no, thank you,”
granola in her bowl.
Practicing mindfulness in the kitchen.

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