20 July 2009
Here is an excellent interview with exiled Uighur political and spiritual leader Rebiya Kadeer by my friend and Harvard Divinity School classmate Tiffany Stanley. It displays a lot of familiarity with the situations in East Turkestan and Tibet.
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15 July 2009
Toward the end of last month Harvard University’s President Drew Faust announced the layoff of 275 Harvard staff and a significant cut in hours for 40 more. She described these measures as “modest…, but nonetheless painful,” and she called the decision “among the hardest that an institution like ours can make.”
So why is President Faust still so rich?
When my mother spanked me as a child she would start by saying that it hurt her more than it hurt me. I was always skeptical. President Faust’s platitudes about Harvard’s “modest…but painful” layoffs have the same empty ring. If she really means them, she and her top administrators should take voluntary pay cuts.
On 18 May 2009, The Harvard Crimson reported that Faust made $775,043 in total compensation during her first year as Harvard’s president. Harvard’s top administrators made more than $4 million overall. When I look at those numbers a lot of adjectives come to mind. Modest isn’t one of them.
To be fair, President Faust’s compensation is low when compared with the presidents of other top universities. Vanderbilt’s President E. Gordon Gee earned $1.17 million between 2004 and 2005 alone. Still, two wrongs never did make a right. If anything, President Faust has an opportunity to exercise real leadership among her peers by personally shouldering some of Harvard’s budget deficit.
Questioned about why Harvard’s top administrators haven’t taken voluntary pay cuts, University Provost Steven Hyman said he “worries about faculty salary cuts, because what we want to do is retain our very best faculty.”
Sound familiar? It’s the exact same excuse used by AIG last March when its top executives received $218 million in “retention bonuses” at the same time they were accepting bailout after bailout of taxpayer money.
Perhaps realizing how well that explanation worked for AIG, the dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Michael Smith, took a different approach. “Just cutting a few administrator salaries,” he explained, won’t fix Harvard’s budget woes.
He has a point. Even if they decided to go without pay altogether—they won’t—Harvard’s administration still couldn’t make up the budget gap closed by layoffs. But they might be able to save five, or twenty, or even a hundred jobs. To a parent wondering how they’ll make rent next month that’s a lot more than just a few administrator salaries.
More importantly, voluntary pay cuts would show the sort of empathy, leadership, and yes, modesty that have been so lacking in the Harvard administration’s response to the economic crises. They would show that all of Harvard’s high-minded rhetoric and liberal ideals are more than just hollow words. In short, they would show that we really are different from AIG.
Other universities have already set a precedence. Standford’s President John Hennessy and his top administrators announced last December that they’ll be taking a 10 percent pay cut. In March, President Thomas Fallo of El Camino College declined a $36 thousand raise, and last November President James Drake of Brevard Community College used his $100 thousand raise to start a text books scholarship fund for students. Surely Harvard is not to be outdone.
By taking voluntary pay cuts Harvard’s administration could show their leadership and magnanimity, raise employee morale in the wake of a panic-inducing layoff process, and save at least some low-income staff positions. Surely they can make due with just a couple of million dollars among them.
Growing up, I saw my mom take a second job to make ends meet and my retired grandmother take the bus to work at Walmart so I could have school clothes. Then, when I was in high school, my mom almost got laid off from clerical job at the University of Georgia. Months went by before she knew if she’d have a job the next year. Thankfully she was spared; if she hadn’t been, I wouldn’t be at Harvard today.
My family constantly went without so that I wouldn’t have to. Whenever I thank my mom today she just shrugs and says, “That’s my job.” If they really mean what they say about Harvard being a community then Drew Faust and her top administrators need to cut their own compensation. It isn’t just the modest thing to do, or the empathetic thing to do, or even the realpolitik thing to do. It’s their job.
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4 July 2009
In the interest of free information, a message from Harvard Divinity School’s Dean William A. Graham on layoffs at Harvard Divinity School:
June 24, 2009
Dear HDS colleagues,
As you all know, over the course of yesterday and today, a number of HDS staff members were notified that their positions are being eliminated, and I write now to share with you more about these difficult changes.
From the start, I had fervently hoped that we would not have to face staff reductions, and it is exceedingly hard for us all now to have to do so. I will not take the time here to repeat all the measures we have taken at HDS to address our anticipated budget shortfalls in ways that would avoid staff layoffs; I have written and talked to you collectively, and to some of you individually, about these earlier actions a number of times during the last several months. Always foremost, as we have reviewed all possibilities, have been our commitments to sustaining financial support for our students, preserving the richness and rigor of our academic programs, and maintaining a sound and well-functioning physical campus environment in support of our common endeavor.
First, I would like you all to know that decisions regarding layoffs were made only after much thoughtful deliberation and discussions involving staff, managers, department heads, and human resources about essential work that must continue and the services we need to provide to our students and faculty. The deliberation included determining whether some work could cease if priorities were adjusted and whether some work could be performed more efficiently through development of new systems or sharing of resources across departments at HDS or across the University. We also reviewed opportunities to reassign work if some existing positions were not fully utilized. Throughout this planning process, we have given careful attention to ensuring that reassignment of work does not overburden remaining employees and that new configurations of responsibilities are logical and practical for all concerned.
Second, it has also been a priority to ensure that all directly affected employees are well supported as they leave our organization. Those who have been laid off will be provided with every possible consideration during their transition. Each affected employee has been offered an enhanced severance package that includes a paid notice period of 60 days (during which it is expected that most time will be dedicated to a job search), enhanced severance payment in consideration of the tight job market, continuation of subsidized health and dental insurance, and internal and external job-search support. These benefits are aimed at helping those who have lost their jobs not only to have as much financial support as possible, but also to find new work in the shortest possible time. Layoff benefit details are outlined at the following location on HARVie: http://harvie.harvard.edu/Life_Changes/Layoff/.
Following is further information regarding the changes that have been made at HDS. Although some of you may have already been informed by the affected individuals themselves, I would like to allow some time for local departments to discuss and finalize the details of these changes—particularly regarding modifications to the job descriptions of those who remain—prior to communicating the details to the rest of our community.
Nine HDS employees have been notified that their positions are being eliminated; additionally, one employee recently chose a voluntary layoff. The departments directly affected by these layoffs are the Offices of Development and External Relations, Academic Administration, Ministry Studies, Human Resources, and Information Technology and Media Services. As a result of reorganization, three-and-a-half new positions have been created. Two of the nine affected staff members will have the option of accepting either a layoff or one of the newly created, similar positions within the same departments. If these individuals accept the new positions, and taking into consideration that one layoff was voluntary, the number of involuntary layoffs at this time will likely be seven. We anticipate needing to post the remaining two new positions, one full-time and one half-time. Across the University, new positions will be opening as a result of the voluntary early retirement incentive program and reorganizations. It is our hope that many of our staff who have been laid off will find employment at HDS or elsewhere at the University, if they choose to do so, and we will do our best to support them in this effort.
I know that the prospect, and now the implementation, of these changes have generated much concern and anxiety. I fully acknowledge and regret the discomfort of this process and I am grateful to all of you for your patience and the goodwill you have demonstrated throughout. It is hard to imagine a smaller HDS, particularly considering how hard we’ve worked to get where we are, and it is unfortunate to be losing some of our valued colleagues. However, difficult decisions such as these are critical to ensuring that HDS can continue to fulfill its mission in future years. I would like sincerely and publicly to acknowledge those of you who will soon be leaving HDS. I value all that you have contributed to our organization and our community over the years, and I know that you will continue to make positive contributions in our larger society, whether here at Harvard or elsewhere.
Within the next week, after directly affected departments have had an opportunity to discuss fully the details of changes they will be implementing, I will be in touch with all of you again to provide more information about the reconfigurations that are taking place. As part of this, the organizational charts that we maintain on the HDS intranet will be updated and posted.
If any of you have questions or concerns at any time, Kim Van Savage, director of human resources, is here to talk with you or to direct you to other sources of information or support. The staff at the Employee Assistance Program, at 877.EAP.HARV, are also available for confidential consultations. And, of course, I am ready to address any concerns. (For those staff members who are less comfortable either approaching me personally or asking questions in a public forum such as a staff meeting, the Office of Human Resources has provided a question/suggestion box on the bookshelf in the Rockefeller Hall lounge and has made it possible for questions and comments to be submitted anonymously online, via the Zoomerang survey found at Questions,Concerns&Ideas.)
The agenda of our next scheduled all-staff meeting will be modified to focus on this latest news and what it means for our community. This will be a time for us to gather, to acknowledge the pending departures of our colleagues and friends, and for you to ask about any issues you wish to have addressed. The meeting will take place at 9 am on Thursday, June 25, in the Sperry Room.
Thank you again for your dedication, your patience, and your resilience. It is important, even as we make our way through difficult times, to look ahead to the accomplishments we can achieve in the future as we work collectively to preserve HDS as an institution that provides a transformative and exceptional education and makes possible the highest quality scholarship.
Sincerely,
Bill Graham
And, a question and answer session on HDS’ layoffs with Dean Graham from the 25 June 2009 HDS staff meeting:
How were decisions about layoffs made at HDS, who was involved in making decisions, and why did the process take as long as it did?
Why were some of the largest departments not directly affected?
Instead of layoffs, has any thought been given to salary reductions?
What was the impact of the VERIP [Voluntary Early Retirement Incentive Program] on HDS layoffs?
Is this it, or will there be another round of layoffs in FY10, since the continual commentary has been that things will be worse next year? Can HDS just say “No” to more layoffs?
What is the target amount that needs to be cut from the HDS budget? From each department?
Who has a voice in planning for the future? What about ideas staff members may have?
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1 July 2009
“Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted and carried out, lead to welfare and to happiness’—then you should enter and remain in them.”
—Buddha, Kalama Sutta
In the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha is approached by a group of villagers called the Kalams, who ask him a very simple question: “All of these preachers pass through here praising their own doctrines and criticizing the doctrines of others. How can we sort out the truth?” It is much the same question implied by Harvard’s moto, veritas, and in the Divinity School’s self-description as “an academic community characterized by…investigation of truth.” Indeed, it is much the same question that western intellectuals have been dealing with in one way or another ever since the Enlightenment shook our belief in received knowledge to the core: “How can we sort out the truth?”
This is why the Kalam Sutta has become so popular among westerners familiar with Buddhism. They see its skepticism of tradition as an endorsement of rationalism and the scientific method; and they see the Buddha as a sort of fifth century B.C., Indian Bertrand Russel. Buddhism itself describes the Buddha not as a great rationalist, but as the Great Physician. St. Gregory the Great similarly described ministers as “physicians of the soul.” And while the pressures of medical school often encourage physicians-in-training to neglect their physical health, the pressures of divinity school—let’s be honest—often encourage us ministers-in-training to neglect our spiritual health. Looking at our bookshelves and our volunteer work, it’s obvious that we’re studying to be ministers; but looking at our prayer lives, or our meditation practices, or our contemplations of scripture, you’d hardly know it.
St. Maximos the Confessor said, “Theology without practice is the theology of demons.” It seems that even within the walls of the academy we’ve fallen prey to the the demonic notion—brought about by consumer capitalism—that a person’s worth is measured not by their compassion or their wisdom, but instead by how much they can produce and consume. Wendell Berry points out that all of this has spoiled our education. He writes, “To in-form is to form from within. Information, in this sense, refers to teaching and learning, to the formation of a person’s mind or character.” We are all, no doubt, in formation; but, how certain are we of what we are actually being formed into?
Reading the Kalama Sutta, I can’t help seeing the Buddha seated before us, addressing us just as he addressed the Kalamas over 2,500 years ago. “Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture.” We all nod our agreement, heirs as we are to the reformation and the enlightenment; but, that part wasn’t meant for us. The Buddha goes on, “Don’t go by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability,” or even—sorry professors—by the words of a teacher. What, then, are we left with?
In Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon a priest, a woodcutter, and a commoner take shelter from a storm in a ruined gatehouse. As the priest and woodcutter tell the commoner about a court case, the movie flashes back through four mutually exclusive, eye-witness accounts of the rape and apparent murder. Everyone seems to by lying—even the dead man himself, through a court medium. Suddenly, the stories are interrupted by the sound of a crying baby whose family has abandoned it. The priest’s faith in humanity is almost entirely shaken by the deception and selfishness he’s witnessed; but, resolution doesn’t come in hearing what really happened. Instead, it comes in a selfless display of compassion. The woodcutter picks up the crying baby and takes it home to raise as his own.
Brothers and sisters, we are trying to give others what we ourselves do not have. We cannot gain it no matter how many books we read; no matter how many sermons we preach; no matter even how many wars we stop or children we feed. If we are to become “physicians of the soul,” as St. Gregory entreats us, then we also have to take medicine. If we are to “acquaint men at first hand with Deity,” as Emerson entreated us from this very pulpit, then we ourselves cannot be unacquainted with the ineffable; and, if we actually believe that we are more than just embodied intellects, then this acquaintance and this medicine cannot just be intellectual.
“How can we sort out the truth?” Look at our great moral exemplars. It isn’t as if they eschewed education, or spent their lives praying in a cave far away from the world; but, their education and activism are not what made them who they were. When Christ hung on the cross and said, “Forgive them, father, for they know not what they do,” that didn’t come from a book. When the first word on Gandhi’s lips after he was fatally shot was the name of God, that didn’t come from a book. When Buddhist monastics in Tibet are tortured with electric cattle prods and then say that the only time they were ever in danger is when they almost lost their compassion for the Chinese, that does not come from a book.
Don’t get me wrong. Academics has its place, but Rashomon shows that our rational minds alone cannot take us down the spiritual path. The Buddha didn’t say that we should “enter and remain in” skillful actions or ideas, but skillful qualities. Virtues. Wisdom. Veritas. The crying of a child in an abandoned gatehouse.
Note: A version of this sermon was preached by Joshua Eaton during the 2009 Billings Preaching Prize competition and Billing Preaching Prize finals, both at Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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1 July 2009
A petition asking Harvard Divinity School to stop or reverse staff layoffs, and to take other measures to cut expenses:
No Layoffs at HDS: A Call for Collective Sacrifice
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24 June 2009
In the interest of free information, below is an email recently sent by Harvard University’s President Drew Faust to Harvard faculty, staff, and administrators on upcoming layoffs across the University. I would remind you before reading further that Harvard University has the world’s second largest endowment, behind the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:
Dear Colleagues,
As all of you know, this past year has created a set of extraordinary financial challenges for our university as it has for others. I am grateful for the continuing efforts made by people across Harvard to confront these new realities with thoughtfulness and care, and with an emphasis on sustaining the strength of our core academic programs.
With compensation accounting for so high a proportion of our budget, we will enter the 2009-10 academic year with salaries held flat for faculty and exempt staff; we have also offered a voluntary early retirement program in which more than 500 staff members across Harvard have chosen to participate.
While these actions have helped us reduce expenses, we nevertheless have more we must do. In the coming days, Harvard’s Schools and units, as well as its central administration, will be carrying out a reduction in the size of our workforce — modest in comparison to the overall size of our University-wide staff, but nonetheless painful for those people directly affected, as well as for our community as a whole. Most of the Schools will carry out the process this week; the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Medical School, the central administration, and several of the allied institutions will follow, beginning on June 29.
Such decisions, in their human dimensions, are among the hardest that an institution like ours can make. But difficult circumstances have called for difficult decisions across the University.
As we proceed through this complicated transition, I want again to express my appreciation to all of you for your dedicated efforts on Harvard’s behalf. A letter from Marilyn Hausammann, our vice president for human resources, explaining more about the planned reductions, appears below.
Sincerely,
Drew Faust
Here is Vice President Marilyn Hausammann’s letter, referenced by President Faust above:
Dear Colleagues,
I am writing to let you know that most of the Schools, allied institutions, and units in the central administration at Harvard will be carrying out a reduction in our workforce over the next seven business days.
The size and scope of the reductions will vary across the Schools and units, but when taken together these changes will result in the elimination of approximately 275 staff positions. About 40 more staff members will be offered positions with reduced work hours or an academic year schedule. Deans at the affected Schools and department leaders will be communicating directly with their staff members about the changes taking place in their local communities over the coming days.
We regret the impact this will have on the lives of our valued colleagues. This decision was driven by the financial challenges facing the University after a projected 30 percent drop in our endowment, as well as pressure on other revenue sources, and it should not be allowed to diminish the many contributions made by these staff members during their time with the University.
Over the past six months, managers across the University have scrubbed their budgets for non-personnel savings, canceled or curtailed travel, and limited other discretionary spending. We have slowed development in Allston, strictly limited hiring, and reduced our reliance on outside contractors. We have held salaries flat for the coming year for our faculty and exempt staff, a move affecting more than 9,000 individuals. And the Voluntary Early Retirement Program that was offered to about 1,600 employees attracted more than 500 participants.
These steps have helped to keep the number of involuntary reductions as small as possible. Unfortunately, further cuts are needed in order for Harvard to adjust to the institution’s new economic reality.
About half of the positions eliminated are administrative or professional positions, and almost all of the remaining ones are clerical or technical jobs. Service and trade workers will be largely unaffected.
The University is taking a number of steps to support staff members facing layoffs. These include:
Employees will have access to information about their benefits in individually prepared materials, on HARVie, and at a special walk-in Employee Support Center.
Administrative/professional and non-union employees wishing to begin a new job search are eligible for outplacement services and employment coaching. Harvard case management will be provided for HUCTW members. And, effective immediately, Harvard will institute a 30-day external hiring freeze for staff jobs to focus our efforts on matching qualified internal candidates with current job openings. I know that this is difficult news both for our colleagues whose positions are being eliminated and for those of you who will miss working alongside them. I think it is important to note that all of the steps that we have taken to reduce spending over the past six months have been taken with the aim of sustaining the academic and organizational capabilities Harvard will need for the future, while minimizing the impact on our workforce.
To those of you who are directly affected by this reduction in force, please know that we will do everything we can to make your transition as smooth as possible.
And to the entire University community, please know that we appreciate your dedication in this challenging time. With your help, Harvard will continue to be a vital and engaging place to work.
Sincerely,
Marilyn Hausammann
Vice President for Human Resources
I wonder if anyone in Harvard’s administration has volunteered to take a cut in their compensation…
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19 June 2009
To avoid all evil, to cultivate good,
and to cleanse one’s mind—
this is the teaching of the Buddhas.
—Buddha, Dhammapada 14: 183
Last March, The New York Times Magazine published an article about Harvard’s abstinence group—True Love Revolution—showing two extremes of sexuality at Harvard. On one end was Janie Fredell, former president of True Love Revolution and a vocal advocate for abstinence. On the other was Lena Chen, author of the infamous Sex and the Ivy blog and an equally vocal advocate for—well, certainly not abstinence. The two faced off on October 25, 2007, in a debate The Harvard Crimson Magazine called, in a rather sexist and immature article, “chock-full of mutual respect” and “BORING!”
“To say that I have to care about every person I have sex with is an unreasonable expectation,” Chen explained to the Times Magazine, “It feels good!” While opposite in content, Fredell was strikingly similar in tone: “Why bond yourself so intensely when you’re not sure you’re going to spend the rest of your life with this person?” She went on to explain that there is nothing “unbalanced or irrational” about her relationships.
Before I go any further, I should say that I do not mean to critique Chen or Fredell, their lifestyles, or even their ideas; but rather, the radical poles that they have come to represent—fairly or not. And what is most striking about those poles is not their extremity or immodesty—as the Times Magazine suggested—but rather their self-absorption.
Chen is taken aback at the notion that it might be good to care about the people we sleep with—as if there is anyone, anywhere it would be bad for us to care about. What she really seems to be saying is, “It feels good…for me.” She ignores the simple fact that pursuing instant gratification alone often makes us—let alone other people—miserable. As for Fredell, she totally ignores the destructive consequences of her abstinence ethic for those of us who either wish not to or simply cannot marry. Hers is an ethic designed exclusively for straight, white, upper-class Christians. What’s more, there is something cold in her arguments. “Why bond yourself so intensely,” she asks, as if another person might not be worth the risk, as if a balanced and rational love were possible—or even desirable. For Chen, emotional intimacy is unreasonable; and for Fridell, physical intimacy is. What both women fail to really consider is the other person.
These extreme views of sexuality aren’t just a problem at Harvard, either. I went to college at the University of West Georgia—a relatively small, rural, public university. Like at Harvard, there were certainly people who fell into the middle; but, the campus culture was strongly divided between socially conservative, evangelical Christians and promiscuous, alcohol-driven fraternities and sororities. Things were stuck between physical distance and emotional distance. I always felt like a complete misfit. On one hand, I was vice-president of the campus LGBTQ group, wasn’t Christian, wasn’t saving myself for marriage, and certainly had no objections to orgasming. On the other, I was a virgin, a teetotaler, and an utterly hopeless romantic. Neither extreme fit; and frankly, they both bored me to tears.
Of course, there aren’t many other options available to people my age and younger. The culture wars have polarized America—either Girls Gone Wild and Brittney Spears, or abstinence only education and True Love Waits. Chen and Fredell represent extreme views of sexuality not just within the Harvard community, but within broader American culture. Wherever one looks there is hardly any middle ground to stand on. Instead there is just this thicket of extremes. How do we see our way out of it?
Two summers ago I knelt on the floor of my Buddhist teachers’ house at their retreat center in upstate New York with two other students, trying to mumble after them as they chanted phrases in Tibetan. Though we did not understand the words, their meaning was clear. We were taking the Five Lay Precepts, the basic ethical guidelines for non-ordained Buddhists: to refrain from taking life, to refrain from taking what is not freely given, to refrain from sexual misconduct, to refrain from incorrect or harmful speech, and to refrain from intoxicants.
After we repeated the vows three times, my teachers chanted some prayers and snapped their fingers to indicate the precise instant at which we received the precepts. We responded with the Tibetan phrase lexo—how wonderful! I was now an upasaka, or “householder,” a lay follower of the Buddha. My teachers then gave us a brief teaching on each precept, one by one, until they got to the third: “Sexual misconduct means…sexual misconduct.” Then, quickly on to the fourth. Wait…what?
I don’t know what I expected from two Tibetan Buddhist teachers in their seventies who have both been monks since before puberty. I was curious to know what exactly that meant, “sexual misconduct.” Still, I was too afraid to ask. These are, after all, my spiritual mentors. I’m not certain I could even say the word sex to them without blushing a little—call it latent Catholic guilt or southern gentility. It didn’t really matter, anyway. At the time I was both a virgin and in a committed relationship; but, now that neither of those is an issue, I’ve found myself revisiting the question of sexual misconduct.
First, I did what any healthy young man would do when faced with a question about sexuality—I reviewed the literature. The closest I could find to a definition of sexual misconduct from the Buddha himself is in the Cunda Kammaraputta Sutta, where he warns against pursuing “those who are protected by their mothers, their fathers, their brothers, their sisters, their relatives, or their Dhamma [religion]; those with husbands, those who entail punishments, or even those crowned with flowers by another [engaged].” The general idea seems to be not to take advantage of the vulnerable, the under aged, or those with prior commitments—all of which seems perfectly reasonable. Still, even Buddhism isn’t immune from Chen and Fredell’s extreme views on sexuality.
Later Indian commentators expanded the Buddha’s original definition of sexual misconduct to include activities like masturbation, anal and oral sex, sex during menstruation, same-sex activity, and even sex on the day of the full moon. These lists make Fredell look like Dr. Ruth. Even His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama—who’s locked in a mortal struggle to save traditional Tibetan culture and religion in the face of China’s incessant cultural genocide—has signaled his willingness to re-examine them as outdated.
The savviest contemporary Buddhist teachers seem to agree that abandoning sexual misconduct simply means not harming oneself or others—physically or emotionally—through sexuality. What is most important, they say, is the attitude and motivation that we bring to our actions. Still, when it comes to sex it’s easy to delude ourselves. Something that’s obviously harmful might not seem like such a bad idea to me when a beautiful woman is unzipping my pants. Thankfully, beautiful women don’t try to unzip my pants often; but, the question remains. How do we avoid slipping from “do no harm” into “it feels good (to me, for now),” especially in the heat of passion?
In Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon, three travelers—a priest and a woodcutter who’ve just come from testifying in a court case, and a commoner—take shelter from a storm in a ruined gatehouse. As they talk about the case, the movie flashes back through four mutually exclusive, eye-witness accounts of the rape and apparent murder—including that of the dead victim himself, given through a court medium. Suddenly, the priest and woodcutter’s stories are interrupted by the sound of a crying baby who’s been abandoned at the gatehouse.
By this point the priest’s faith in humanity has been almost entirely shaken by the deception and selfishness he’s witnessed. Resolution comes not in hearing what “really happened,” however, but in a selfless act of compassion. The woodcutter picks up the crying baby and takes it home to raise as his own.
Before attaining enlightenment the Buddha was a prince. He lived in a palace surrounded by wonderful food, expensive objects, and beautiful courtesans, until suddenly he had a deep existential crises and decided to renounce his wealth to go looking for an end to suffering. For six years he practiced extreme self-denial. Finally, he realized that neither hedonism nor asceticism would bring him to contentment. Ever since his teachings have been known as the Middle Way; but, this isn’t an Aristotelean mean. It is much more like the conclusion of Rashomon. What the Buddha discovered is not equal measures of hedonism and asceticism, but a third way transcending both—something sharp and quick, like a lightning bolt that pierces were ideology alone cannot.
So, how do we live our lives? Contemplating it, I often feel like the priest at the end of Rashomon. Chen and Fridell, sloppy liberalism and uptight conservatism—in the end, it’s enough to make someone want to throw up their hands in frustration. This is why I think the Buddha was so compassionate about the precept against sexual misconduct. He’d already been to both extremes, so he knew what a thicket both idealism and nihilism were. He gave us the precept—don’t commit sexual misconduct; but, instead of a list of do’s and do not’s he gave us practices to cultivate our courage, compassion, joy, and humility.
These are the very qualities that brought clarity to Rashomon’s despairing priest; and, they are the very ones lacking in Chen and Fredell’s opposite, but equally self-absorbed, ideologies. As Lama Bruce Newman, a contemporary Buddhist teacher, says, “Anything done with a loving heart is virtuous. If you love your partner and give pleasure to him or her as an expression of your care, that is a virtuous act.” May there be virtue.
Note: This article was originally published as Upasaka Joshua Eaton, “Revolutionary Love: On Hooking Up, Waiting, and the Buddha’s Middle Way,” HBomb Magazine 4 (2009).
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19 June 2009
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
—Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter From a Birmingham Jail“
In February of 1967, Noam Chomsky published “The Responsibility of Intellectuals” in The New York Review of Books. It was a rallying cry for intellectuals to take a good, hard look at themselves and their unquestioned assumptions with respect to pressing social problems—especially the war in Vietnam. Twenty-five years later, in October of 1992, Eugene Rivers published “On the Responsibility of Intellectuals in the Age of Crack” in Boston Review. Like Chomsky before him, Rivers was calling on intellectuals to squarely face the great moral crisis of their day—black poverty and nihilism. “As intellectuals, as humanists, are we not morally obligated to provide more than lecture circuit radicalism,” he asked.
Here at Harvard, there seems to be a certain unspoken courtesy we all provide to one another—especially within the humanities—not to bring skepticism to bear on the morality of our academic pursuits in the midst of largely preventable human suffering. Still, such ghostly silence only serves to underscore the urgency of the question, and the existential despair with which it so often fills us—a plural pronoun in which I very much include myself. The question hangs constantly, the elephant in the room: are we not morally obligated to provide more than lecture circuit radicalism?
Estimates vary—from 22 percent, to 30 percent, to as high as 50 percent—but, the current economic crises has taken a toll on Harvard’s endowment. The term layoff has not yet been uttered—another little courtesy we provide to one another—but, it has certainly been alluded to. In her letter to the Harvard community on the economic crises dated 18 February 2009, Harvard University’s President Drew Faust pointed out that “compensation” accounts for nearly half of the university’s operating budget. The times call, she said, for “discipline and sacrifice.” Harvard Divinity School’s Dean William Graham was more forthright in his 28 January 2009 financial update: “As we reexamine priorities, …it has become clear that this will inevitably involve a review of staffing configurations.” Later he acknowledged that “the shifting of priorities” might “lead to staff reductions.” Note the passive voice. Meanwhile, Graham assured us, “events, travel, and catering budgets…will be cut in ways we can all live with.”
Let’s be clear: Harvard University is still obscenely wealthy and obscenely powerful. Still, times are, relatively, hard. The university has already resorted to layoffs to meet its tightening budget—most recently among subcontracted custodians at the medical school, as detailed in the 7 April 2009 Harvard Crimson, and while the economy appears to be showing tentative signs of recovery unemployment always lags behind other economic indicators. There is the possibility that the worst is still before us. Layoffs could touch the divinity school yet.
So, are we morally obligated to provide more than lecture circuit radicalism? In Buddhacharita 4:60, the Buddha says
But when a man happens to see
someone who is old, sick, or dead,
And remains at ease, unperturbed,
He’s the same as a dead man.
Elsewhere, in the Sigalovada Sutta, the Buddha says that masters should share delicacies with their servants and care for them when they’re sick. Of course, old age, sickness, and death are more than just bodily realities. Job insecurity is old age, sickness, and death. Unemployment is old age, sickness, and death. Poverty is old age, sickness, and death. What Chomsky wrote 42 years ago and what Rivers wrote 17 years ago still matters for us today. It may, in fact, be more pertinent now than then. If we “remain at ease, unperturbed” in the midst of this, then we are truly the same as dead.
The Buddha did not content himself with simply cursing the darkness. Once he saw the old age, sickness, and death swirling around him he gave up his kingdom, with all it privileges, in order to find a solution. I am writing this on Easter Sunday, and like Christ, the Buddha understood that the success of the Bodhi Tree required the sacrifice of the Great Renunciation. Today we feast; Friday we fasted.
In the face of possible staff layoffs, how few events, and how little travel and catering, can we all live with? Us divinity school students go on endlessly about equality and rights and justice. We have a responsibility—not just to others, but to ourselves—to put our money where our collective mouth is. If worse comes to worse, we ought to say to the administration, as students, that we would rather lose all of our community teas and catered lectures, all of our organizational budgets and finals week green rooms, all of our Billings Prize money and orientation luncheons, than lose a single employee. President Faust called for “discipline and sacrifice.” It is up to us to ensure that such sacrifice never comes at the expense of people’s livelihoods—even if it means voluntarily taking it on ourselves. That is our responsibility as intellectuals, and it is no lecture circuit radicalism.
Note: A version of this article first appeared as Joshua Eaton, “The Responsibility of Intellectuals in an Economic Crises: An Open Letter to the Harvard Divinity School Community,” The Wick (spring 2009): 66-68.
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19 June 2009
Since moving to Boston I’ve been asked when the south is going to “get over” the Civil War; told how wonderful it is that I’m going to Harvard after growing up somewhere with such a poor education system; ask to defend my love of where I grew up; and called upon to answer for racist southerners interviewed about then-candidate Obama in a Walmart parking lot by The New York Times.
To begin with, a white liberal Cambridgite would never dream of asking a Britain when England will get over the War of 1812; or of congratulating an Indian student on making it to Harvard out of the subcontinent’s obviously inferior school system; or of asking an Iraqi why she loves her homeland despite its ills; or, especially, of making a black person answer for the views of people interviewed in front of a liquor store in Oakland, California. Things are different when it comes to the south only because, as John Waters has pointed out, white trash is the last acceptable racist term—or, in this case, sentiment. No one ought to have to defend loving where they are from, and no group of people deserves to be judged by it’s most ignorant.
“That’s true,” someone might argue, “but why does the south have so many more ignorant people to be judged by than other parts of the country?” And if they did, that would merely prove that they have never been to upstate New York or rural Arizona—two of the most insular and desolate place that I have ever lived.
Note: This post was first posted as “White On White Racism” at Angelheaded Hipster on 3.10.2009.
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