A Royal Romp with Queen Lolo
January 29, 2009
I’m not a big TV viewer. But years ago, my kids twisted my arm, pinned me to the bed, and made me watch an episode of LOST.
During the opening sequence, I was distracted and resistant. Five minutes into the episode, I was totally confused. By the first commercial break, I was hopelessly lost. And by the end, I was hooked.
From then on, every Wednesday night was “LOST” night at my house. 9:00 p.m. meant two bowls of popcorn, my two daughters and my two dogs, piled onto my king-sized bed with me and a heaping serving of shared pillows.
No guests were allowed on LOST night. Computers off. No instant messaging. No texting either. It was a closed and sacred circle of three. (Heaven help the unwitting soul who dared to phone when LOST was on. Not that we'd answer... but whichever one of us listened to the voicemail message later would surely announce the name of said caller with an expression usually reserved for names of environmental polluters or serial killers.)
And now, here we are once again, into a new season of the wild, mysterious, cosmic, and confusing adventures of the survivors of the crash of Oceanic flight 815. If you’re a fan, you know how much fun we’re already having, two episodes in and more confused than ever before.
If you haven't ever watched the show, it's probably too late for you to get onboard.
But maybe not.
You see, a few years ago, Tricycle Magazine ran an article called "Let's Get Lost; Television to Meditate On." In it, Buddhist teacher, Dean Sluyter wrote, "LOST'S deepest dharmic resonance is probably the experience of lostness itself. Ironically, as the characters struggle to get UN-lost, viewers tune in to GET lost - not only to hang out vicariously on a lush uncharted island.... but to get good and disoriented by the ever-twisting, ever-widening plot."
Indeed, this sense of “lostness” seems to be part the attraction to LOST. Just when you think you know what's going on... You don't. In fact, there are only two statements ever made at my house while the show is on: The first, always uttered by my teenager (and usually TO me), is "Stop asking questions, you're SUPPOSED to be confused!" The second is, "Shhhhhh!"
If you've missed the previous seasons, you can catch up a bit by watching the re-cap shows online and then asking a lot of questions if you can even think of what to ask..Or just relax and give yourself over to the sensation of complete disorientation on Wednesday nights from 9 – 10 p.m.
If nothing else, you might get so lost, you'll tip over into enlightenment.
In fact, that's what Tricycle writer Dean Sluyter cleverly suggests the show is about.
"To be lost is to be stripped of the cozy but confining assurance that you're on course, on a tidy, logical trajectory from Point A to Point B.," he says. "If you're really going somewhere new (toward enlightenment, let's say), any concept you have of the destination or the path when you set forth from your point of departure (ignorance) is necessarily an ignorant concept. So, with any practice that's going to really help you get there (meditating, chanting, studying sutras, relating to a teacher, and so forth) somewhere in the middle of the process you must get lost to your concepts, disoriented, discombobulated."
It's nice to be reminded that my often distractible, diffused way of thinking (which frequently feels like a liability) may actually be a desired state of mind.... at least for an hour on Wed. nights.
Sluyter wrote, "In fact, to do ANYTHING right, to do it so that it becomes a means of awakening, whether it's writing your novel or playing your saxophone, or falling in love (why do you think they call it "falling?"), you must become so hopelessly lost that wherever you come out is somewhere you could not have conceived of when you went in."
Suddenly it seems cool to be an American again. It even seems cool to enjoy the pomp and ceremony of the inaugural festivities. I don't always love a parade, but as I watched the one today, courtesy of CSPAN, my heart was filled with pride in our country and our newly elected President Barack Obama and First Lady Michele Obama. We are a nation of diversity, but we are united by our decency, our love of freedom and our history. Our history that goes back as far as 400 years ago and as close as today. For today we have, as the saying goes, witnessed history with the election of our first African-American President. We have entered in to what will become known as the Obama Era.
So although President Obama is the era's commander-and-chief, we as a nation will collectively become part of the Obama Era. This lead me to think about Esho Funi, the Buddhist concept of The Oneness of Life and Its Environment, in a way I don't normally do. I wasn't just watching the Inaugural Parade, I was watching President Obama watching parade groups as diverse as the Air Force Marching Band, The United Union of Workers and The Lawn Rangers, a group of guys pushing lawn mowers who dress like The Loan Ranger. And thinking I hope The United States will grow to reflect the life force of our new President. If so, I believe not only will we be disciplined and hardworking, we will also be vibrant, curious and we'll have a playful side. Playful as evidented by the way President Obama after respectfully saluting the military marching bands, also playfully saluted the "George Washington" riding atop the float from the George Washington University.
Now some people may not value playfulness in a leader, but I think it's an important quality. There is something reassuring about a President who seems aware of the magnitude of his position and responsibility, but is confident enought to give a mock salute to a humorous representation of one of his most important predecessors.
I think it's a good sign for the future of our country that our 44th President appears serious about taking care of business in these most uncertain times of war and ecomomic hardship, but also appears joyful enough to be the lead in a Broadway Musical. I love his spirit and I think it is the real American spirit that makes our country great.
"We all like to think that the line between good and evil is impermeable"
Philip Zimbardo
http://www.everydayheroism.org/pubs/banality_of_heroism.pdf
I was surfing the news today, and stumbled across an article about Stanley Milgram's experiment on obedience:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/12/19/milgram.experiment.obedience/index.html
It caught my eye for a number of reasons. First, I remember studying his experiment in Psych 101 many years ago, and next, I have a personal need to understand how perfectly ordinary people can do horrifically evil things, particularly in groups. Analogously, I am deeply interested in the flip side of the coin - what cause perfectly ordinary people to do heroic things in the face of immense adversity.
For those of you not familiar with it, Milgram ran an experiment in the 60's, in which he used a fake shock machine, a "teacher," "student" and an "experimenter". The teacher was told by the experimentor (an authority figure) that he or she had to teach the student to memorize a pair of words, and the punishment for a wrong answer was a shock from the machine.
(The machine was fake, but the "teacher" was unaware of this). The "teacher" was told by the expermenter or she had to teach the student to memorize a pair of words. When the student erred, the "teacher" administered what he/she thought was an electric shock. As the "student" continued to fail, the shocks got "higher. The machine didn't really generate shocks, but as the teacher administered higher shocks, a soundtrack would play screams, and eventually, as the bogus shock got higher, the "student" went silent. If the teacher asked not to continue, the experimenter stated, "The experiment requires that you go on," 65% of the teachers continued to the maximal "voltage" even after the "student" went silent.
It was one of the first scientific tests of how easy it is for an average nice person to inflict pain when responding to an authority figure.
Philip Zimbardo a professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University set up and participated in a subsequent experiment, the Stanford Experiment, examining the nature of "evil" in humans. He basically set up a "prison" comprised of students being both the inmates and the guards. His "experiment" degenerated rapidly, and was cut short as participants began brutalizing each other.
He's got an interesting site at: http://www.lucifereffect.com/
At any rate, there are REALLY interesting pages at his site: Instructions on "how to dehumanize a group of peoples", and several on how to avoid bad influences that seem to provoke the worst in humans. I particularly like his "Ten Step" program for not falling prey to the factors that spawn evil behaviour, particularly in groups.
http://www.lucifereffect.com/guide_tenstep.htm
What is curious to me was the parallels one can make with a healthy buddhist practice: Here are my takes on a few of his Ten Steps, which I've paraphrased:
Step 1: Learn to admit mistakes to yourself and others. - In my book, this is learning to not cling to the illusion of being right, and not clinging to the notion that any one person or group can be one hundred percent right all the time.
Step 2: - Be mindful - anyone whose read any of the most basic of Buddhist philosophy will recognize this fundamental Buddhist advice.
Step 3: Understand that "I am responsible". To me, while it it is important to not cling to the ego, it is important to recognize that blindly following authority or the mainstream does not absolve us of our acts. The Kalama sutra details that pretty succinctly, I believe.
Step 5: Value being accepted by a group, but value your independence to act morally more. The need to fit in is amazingly powerful - and primal. But it is vitally important to not sacrifice personal morality and integrity just to "fit in".
The story of the first rift in the sangha, comes to mind.
"If you can find no trustworthy companion
With whom to walk, both virtuous and steadfast,
Then, as a king who leaves a vanquished kingdom,
Walk like a tusker in the woods alone.
Better it is to walk alone:
There is no fellowship with fools. "
The Life of the Buddha by Bhikkhu Nanamoli, p.113
I particularly liked Step 8 - Don't sacrifice civil or personal liberties for a promise of security. I agree strongly with it, but am puzzling out any correlatives in the Buddhist tradition.
Anyway, anyone concerned about preventing evil in the world by fortifying themselves with an understanding of some of its causes would be well served checking out his site. He also is doing research on what factors spawn heroes, and he discusses how to build this in oneself and in one's community.
May we all be find courage to of act with kindness and justice towards all,
Kris