Iwo Jima

Iwo JimaShortly before 2am on Feb. 19, 1945, the Navy's big guns opened up on Iwo Jima again, signaling the beginning of D-Day. After an hour of punishment, the fire was lifted, leaving Iwo smoking as if the entire island were on fire.

Both Americans aboard their transports and the Japanese in their caves looked to the skies now. One-hundred-ten bombers screamed out of the sky to drop more bombs. After the planes left, the big guns of the Navy opened up again.

La imagen de seis marines de la 5ª División alzando la bandera de los Estados Unidos en la colina Suribachi se convirtió en icono de la guerra e inmortalizó al fotógrafo que la capturó, Joe Rosenthal.

Hoy, 60 años después, veteranos estadounidenses y del entonces Imperio del Sol Naciente han conmemorado una acción bélica en la que perdieron la vida 5.000 aliados y 20.000 japoneses.

La de Iwo Jima fue una de las batallas más sangrientas de la campaña del Pacífico durante la II Guerra Mundial, que tuvo lugar en febrero y marzo de 1945 en la isla de Iwo Jima.

La conquista de la isla proporcionó a las unidades de aviación estadounidenses la primera base dentro del sistema de defensa interior japonés, desde donde atacar el corazón de la industria del Japón mediante bombarderos escoltados por cazas.

Antes de que se produjera la verdadera invasión, el 19 de febrero, la isla estuvo sometida (durante tres meses) a bombardeos por aire y mar. A pesar del ataque previo a la invasión, aún había algunos japoneses firmemente atrincherados en fortificaciones subterráneas, excavadas en el blando suelo volcánico.

Los marines se hicieron con la isla después de un mes de lucha encarnizada. El monte Suribachi, el punto más alto de la isla y un importante puesto de defensa, fue tomado el 23 de febrero. El 16 de marzo se declaró, de forma oficial, el final de la campaña.

La misteriosa liebre de Durero

Obras maestras de la Albertina analiza la trayectoria artística de Alberto Durero (Nuremberg 1471-1528) a través de un recorrido cronológico y temático que incide en sus intereses y en la versatilidad de su genio creador. Observador infatigable de la realidad, fue al mismo tiempo un artista reflexivo. En su obra supo aunar el mundo germánico, de mirada escudriñadora y casi científica, con el mundo italiano, donde el ser humano era medida de todas las cosas.

Los 58 dibujos y las 29 estampas que conforman la muestra proceden de la Albertina de Viena, colección fundada en 1776 por el duque Albert von Sachsen-Teschen, y que alberga en la actualidad una de las colecciones de obra gráfica más importantes del mundo. Junto a ellas se exponen las cuatro tablas de Durero que conserva el Museo del Prado: Autorretrato, Adan y Eva, y Retrato de un hombre desconocido.

Mentira

Es el amor.Tendré que ocultarme o huir.
Crecen los muros de su cárcel, como en un sueño atroz.
La hermosa máscara ha cambiado,
pero como siempre es la única.
¿ De qué me servirán mis talismanes:
el ejercicio de las letras,
la vaga erudición
el aprendizaje de las palabras que usó el áspero Norte para cantar sus mares y sus espadas,
la serena amistad,
las galería de las bibliotecas
las cosas comunes,
los hábitos
el jóven amor de mi madre,
la sombra militar de mis muertos,
la noche intemporal,
el sabor del sueño?
Estar contigo o no estar contigo,
es la medida de mi tiempo.
Ya el cántaro se quiebra sobre la fuente,
ya el hombre se levanta a la voz del ave,
ya se han ocurecido los que miran por la ventana,
pero la sombra no ha traido la paz.
Es ya lo se, el amor:
la ansiedad y el alivio de oír tu voz,
la espera y la memoria
el horror de vivir en lo sucesivo.
Es el amor con sus mitologías,
con su pequeñas magias inútiles.
Hay una esquina por la que no me atrevo a pasar.
Ya los ejércitos que cercan,las hordas.
(Esta habitación es irreal; ella no la ha visto)
El nombre de una ujer me delata.
Me duele una mujer en todo el cuerpo.

Félix de Azúa, gracias señor

El azar ha querido que vuelva a leer un librito que hace 30 años dio mucho que hablar y que todavía figura en innumerables bibliografías universitarias. En 1973, cuando escribió El placer del texto, Roland Barthes iba a cumplir 60 años y le quedaban siete de vida. Estaba en el cenit de su prestigio como pensador. Aunque escaso de páginas, el ensayo causó cierto alboroto porque Barthes abandonaba el lenguaje formal estructuralista y semiótico para adoptar un punto de vista más próximo a Derrida, con el que osaba defender el placer (plaisir) y el goce (jouissance) del texto. Leído ahora mismo, uno se mesa la barba al constatar las trivialidades que entonces fueron tomadas con total seriedad. El ensayo entero no es sino una analogía alargada hasta la náusea del texto literario como cuerpo físico al que se puede azotar, morder, chupar o mortificar. Yo llegué a cometer un prólogo para una selección de escritos de Barthes en 1974 y ahora no alcanzo a entender el porqué.

No estoy negando el interés, sea de curiosidad o de documentación, que pueda llevar a la lectura de Barthes, ni la desaconsejo, Dios me libre; sólo me asombro de la ligereza, la liviandad de un mundo intelectual, el de la Francia posterior a mayo del 68, tan evidentemente irresponsable, y me maravilla que Barthes, o Bataille, o Blanchot mantengan su presencia en la Universidad. Como lectura privada, casi diría "poética", y aunque el estilo almibarado, refitolero y pedantesco de estos manieristas pueda atacar los nervios, se comprende. Como pensamiento serio es imposible.

Algunas frases de Barthes pierden todo su sabor cuando se traducen, pero no su vaporoso sinsentido: "Placer edípico (desnudar, saber, conocer el principio y el fin), si es cierto que toda narración (todo desvelamiento de la verdad) es una puesta en escena del Padre...". ¿Toda narración es una puesta en escena del Padre? ¿Un desvelamiento de la verdad? ¿Y en cambio no lo es un informe de la fiscalía, o la Constitución de los EE UU? En fin, no es sólo la banalidad del pensamiento lo que espanta, es también su afectación, su coquetería (herencia del peor Valery) y ese temor tan característico del mandarín a ser tomado por inelegante, por plebeyo. "Esos pelmazos que decretan la forclusión del texto y de su placer, sea por conformismo cultural, sea por racionalismo intransigente, sea por moralismo político, sea por crítica del significante, sea por pragmatismo imbécil...". Y así sigue hasta quedarse solo, como un Narciso de cartón con su espada de madera, rodeado de cadáveres imaginarios.

En los detalles, en las frases sueltas, muestra ese aplomo de una generación a la que nadie ha criticado en serio, a la que nadie ha plantado cara y que se ha permitido todos los excesos verbales, políticos y morales. Son frases lapidarias, como sentencias en una lengua muerta, y a veces parece un Lucano sin inteligencia: "El escritor es alguien que juega con el cuerpo de su madre". O bien: "Entre adultos, la novedad constituye siempre la condición del gozo". O por ejemplo: "Lo popular no conoce el Deseo -sólo los placeres-". No hay que exagerar, fue la sociedad francesa entera, o su segmento más culto, quien aceptó estas banalidades como si fueran el fruto de un trabajo real, de una investigación rigurosa, de una tarea severa. En realidad, sólo eran ocurrencias de flanneur.

Algunos mecanismos sociales se inventaron para corregir desvíos, chapuzas, errores, estupideces que pueden traer consecuencias muy graves a la población. El más eficaz es la competencia de los mandos y su inmediata sustitución cuando causan un daño. En Gran Bretaña (y sólo en 2004) hemos visto caer un par de poderosos periodistas por errores informativos. En los EE UU nadie admitiría que un técnico del Gobierno siguiera en el empleo tras provocar un derrumbe como el de Barcelona. Ni siquiera en Alemania se permitiría la permanencia de un político por cuya irresponsabilidad o inepcia se hubiera producido una severa pérdida de fondos públicos. La historia del AVE sería imposible en un país civilizado.

Cualquiera que tenga el hábito de leer prensa culta anglosajona o alemana sabe a qué durísimo examen se somete cualquier ensayo filosófico, humanístico o científico en aquellos países. De Francia, sin embargo, mi generación aprendió la irresponsabilidad elegante, la inmoralidad chic, una premonición de la "vida cultural" como espectáculo de masas. Quizás esa debilidad, en un país como Francia, de soberbia tradición intelectual, viniera causada por la imposibilidad de juzgar públicamente la colaboración de las clases cultas con el invasor alemán. Al desprestigio de los intelectuales durante la ocupación siguió una política de sacralización indiscriminada.

Lo que me importa subrayar es el alcance de esa irresponsabilidad. Barthes, como muchos de sus amigos o discípulos de la época, Althusser, Deleuze, Kristeva, Sollers, Pleynet, Sarduy, ¡tantos otros ya desaparecidos!, influyeron decisivamente sobre mi generación y acentuaron la tendencia a la irresponsabilidad secular en nuestro país. Hoy, desde el poder (y no me refiero a Zapatero y su equipo, como es lógico, pues son más jóvenes), la vieja generación se encuentra inerme frente a la crítica. No han sido nunca criticados en serio, y si alguien lo intentó, fue lapidado. He aquí su mayor debilidad, justo antes del retiro. Y ésa es también la razón por la que a cualquier reserva o desacuerdo sobre su trabajo responden con esa estupidez en forma de insulto: "¡Facha!". ¿Facha?

En su imprescindible Koba the Dread (en español lo ha publicado Anagrama), Martín Amis se pregunta cómo es posible que todavía hoy, con toda la información que obra en nuestro poder, si alguien declara su simpatía por los nazis es razonablemente eliminado de la vida pública, pero si declara su simpatía por los comunistas bolcheviques puede incluso recibir aplausos. En su ensayo, Amis recoge sólo algunas de las más espantosas carnicerías del comunismo soviético. A ellas habría que añadir las de Mao, Fidel, los khmer rojos y las apenas conocidas del continente africano. Amis se pregunta por qué llamaban "facha" a su padre tras abandonar el partido comunista al conocer los asesinatos estalinistas, y quiénes eran, en realidad, los fascistas. Así pues, ¿quién es el fascista?

Hace poco, en este mismo diario, un colaborador de todas las dictaduras menos una, Santiago Carrillo, se ufanaba de ser el único comunista que no se había equivocado jamás, ante la sonrisa complaciente del entrevistador. Como si fuera una figura del deporte, este hombre ni siquiera se tomaba en serio a los muertos. También puede suceder que no se hubiera enterado de nada, pero eso sería aún peor. ¿Los comunistas españoles estuvieron 40 años en manos de un incompetente?

Mientras esta irresponsabilidad, esta moral acomodaticia no se remedie, no habrá una argumentación real contra el terrorismo, el cual recibe en España, por parte de la izquierda, un tratamiento casi delicado. Ni siquiera una ideología infame, como el etnicismo de Ibarreche y sus colegas sabinianos (ninguno de ellos ha renunciado al racismo de los escritos de Arana explícitamente), recibe el tratamiento que se merece, sino una comprensiva palmadita en la espalda cuando no el aplauso de la Cámara catalana entera y en pie o el decisivo apoyo de Izquierda Unida.

Puede parecer exagerado pasar de Barthes a Ibarreche..., y lo es, porque Barthes era una excelente persona. Pero tengo para mí que la irresponsabilidad intelectual de los años setenta y la ausencia de una crítica que permitiera hacer balance y pasar página, es decir, determinar el presente mediante una definición recta del pasado franquista, ha conducido a la total irresponsabilidad administrativa y política de nuestra desorientada actualidad.

EL PAÍS - Opinión - 10-02-2005

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka, hijo de Hermann Kafka, dueño de tienda, y su esposa Julie, nació en el seno de una familia judía de clase media de Praga. A la muerte de dos hermanos en la infancia, pasó a ser el hermano mayor, papel del cual guardó siempre conciencia. Ottla, la más joven de sus tres hermanas, fue la más allegada a él de toda la familia. Kafka se identificaba firmemente con sus antepasados maternos por su espiritualidad, distinción intelectual, conocimiento rabínico, excentricidad, disposición melancólica y delicada constitución física y mental. Sin embargo, no sentía especial afinidad con su madre, mujer sencilla consagrada a sus hijos. Ella, subordinada a su avasallador e iracundo marido y a su exigente comercio, compartía con éste la falta de comprensión de la improductiva y quizá insana dedicación de su hijo a las “anotaciones literarias de [su] ... nebulosa vida interior.”

La figura del padre de Kafka se imponía sobre su labor y sobre su existencia; la figura es, de hecho, una de sus creaciones más notables. En su imaginación, este tendero y patriarca burdo y práctico de carácter dominante que no adoraba más que el éxito material y el ascenso en la escala social, pertenecía a una raza de gigantes y era un tirano admirable pero repulsivo. En el intento autobiográfico más importante de Kafka, “Brief an den Vater” (Carta al Padre, 1919), misiva que nunca llegó a manos del destinatario, Kafka atribuye su imposibilidad de vivir – cercenar las ataduras con sus padres y establecerse mediante el matrimonio y la paternidad –, así como su escape a la literatura, a la prohibitiva figura paterna, la cual le infundió un sentimiento de impotencia. Sentía que el padre había quebrado su voluntad. El conflicto con el padre está directamente reflejado en el relato Das Urteil (El Juicio, 1916). El mismo espíritu se proyecta en mayor escala en las novelas de Kafka, que refieren, con una prosa lúcida y engañosamente sencilla, la desesperada lucha con una potencia arrolladora la cual puede perseguir a su víctima (como en El Proceso) o la cual se puede buscar para pedirle en vano su aprobación (como en El Castillo). No obstante, las raíces de la ansiedad y desesperación de Kafka van más hondo que su relación con el padre y la familia, con quienes eligió vivir en condiciones de apretada proximidad la mayor parte de su vida de adulto. La fuente de su desesperanza radica en un sentimiento de definitivo aislamiento de la comunión con todos los seres humanos – los amigos que estimó, las mujeres que amó, el trabajo que detestaba, la sociedad en que vivía – y con Dios o, en sus palabras, con el Ser realmente indestructible.

El hijo de un judío aspirante a la asimilación que sólo en forma superficial se ajustaba a las prácticas religiosas y las formalidades sociales de la comunidad judía, Kafka era alemán en su idioma y en su cultura. Fue un niño tímido, lleno de culpabilidad y obediente y un estudiante aplicado en la escuela elemental y en el Altstädter Staastsgymnasium, un exigente colegio de secundaria para la élite académica. Allí fue respetado y estimado por sus maestros. Pero, en su interior, se rebelaba contra la institución autoritaria y su pénsum de humanismo deshumanizado, en que predominaba la memorización y el aprendizaje de las lenguas clásicas. La oposición de Kafka a la sociedad instituida se hizo aparente cuando, de adolescente, se declaró socialista y ateo. A lo largo de su vida expresó simpatías razonadas por los socialistas; asistía a reuniones de los anarquistas checos (antes de la 1ª Guerra Mundial) y, en años posteriores, demostró marcado interés y simpatía por un sionismo socializado. Aún entonces era en esencia un individuo pasivo y políticamente no comprometido. Por su condición de judío, Kafka estaba aislado de la colonia alemana de Praga a la vez que, como intelectual moderno, se encontraba igualmente desconectado de su propia herencia judía. Veía con buenos ojos las aspiraciones políticas y culturales de los checos pero su cultura alemana atenuó incluso estas simpatías. Fue así como el aislamiento social y el desarraigo contribuyeron a su infelicidad personal a lo largo de toda su vida. Pero Kafka llegó a trabar amistad con varios intelectuales y literatos judíos alemanes de Praga y, en 1902, conoció a Max Brod. Este artista literario menor fue el más íntimo y solícito de los amigos de Kafka y, con el tiempo, resultó ser el promotor, salvador y exégeta de los escritos de Kafka así como también su biógrafo más influyente.

Los dos hombres se conocieron cuando Kafka, sin mayor interés, cursaba derecho en la Universidad de Praga. Recibió su doctorado en 1906 y el año siguiente encontró empleo permanente con una empresa de seguros. Pero las largas horas y las exigentes demandas de la Assicurazioni Generali no le permitían dedicarse a escribir. En 1908 Kafka halló un cargo en Praga en el seminacionalizado Instituto de Seguros de Accidentes de los Trabajadores del Reino de Bohemia. Allí permaneció hasta 1917, cuando la tuberculosis lo obligó a pedir intermitentes permisos por enfermedad y, por último, a retirarse (con una pensión) en 1922. En su trabajo se le consideraba incansable y ambicioso; en poco tiempo pasó a ser la mano derecha de su superior y era estimado y querido de cuantos trabajaban junto a él.

De hecho, en lo general, Kafka era una persona agradable, inteligente y llena de humor pero encontraba su labor en la oficina rutinaria y la agotadora doble vida a la que ésta lo obligaba (con frecuencia, la escritura consumía sus noches) como una extrema tortura, y la neurosis perturbó sus relaciones personales más profundas. Las incompatibles inclinaciones de su personalidad, compleja y ambivalente, hallaron expresión en sus relaciones sexuales. La inhibición afectó penosamente sus relaciones con Felice Bauer, con quien estuvo comprometido en matrimonio dos veces antes de su ruptura definitiva en 1917. Más tarde, su amor por Milena Jesenská Pollak también se vio frustrado. Su salud era precaria y el trabajo en la oficina lo agotaba. En 1917 se le diagnosticó tuberculosis e inició entonces sus largas temporadas en sanatorios.

En 1923 Kafka se desplazó a Berlín para escapar a la familia paterna y dedicarse a escribir. Allí encontró nueva esperanza en la compañía de una joven judía nacionalista, Dora Dymant, pero su estadía en Berlín debió ser interrumpida por el declarado deterioro de su salud el invierno de 1924. Tras un breve período final en Praga, donde acudió Dora Dymant para acompañarlo, murió en una clínica cerca de Viena.


© Mauro Nervi

Documento sobre Prisa que circula por correo electrónico

La Cadena SER, es la emisora de radio con más implantación y audiencia de España, según registran todos los estudios realizados por el EGM durante los últimos años.

La SER, Sociedad Española de Radiodifusión, se constituyó en 1940, al año siguiente de la finalización de la guerra civil española, bajo el control de las familias Fontán y Garrigues, propietaria de Radio Madrid, que a su vez provenía de la antigua Unión Radio, fundada en 1924 por la familia Urgoiti.

Pasó en 1986 a estar controlada por Jesús Polanco.

Jesús Polanco Gutiérrez (Madrid 1929) comenzó su carrera empresarial en 1958, con tan solo 29 años - en pleno auge franquista y cuando solo podían hacer negocios los adeptos al régimen -, al fundar la Editorial Santillana.

Su negocio no pasaba de ser el de una editorial mas entre las muchas que se dedicaban al mundo de los libros de texto pero, gracias a sus inmejorables relaciones con Ricardo Díez Hochleitner (Bilbao 1928), alto cargo entonces del Ministerio de Educación y miembro de la organización católica Opus Dei (es presidente honorario del Club de Roma y dirige desde 1981 la Fundación Santillana, de la que es vicepresidente y cuyo patronato preside por supuesto Jesús Polanco), consolidó su presencia en el sector del libro de texto escolar al implantarse en la España del tardofranquismo la EGB, Educación General Básica, lo que le permitió dar un enorme pelotazo al ser la única editorial que contaba con los libros de texto adecuados a la nueva enseñanza.

En 1972, tres años antes de fallecer Franco, y al amparo, entre otros, de Fraga Iribarne, se comenzó la gestación del diario El País y Polanco constituyó Promotora de Informaciones SA (PRISA) como sociedad que había de editarlo.

Comienza, desde ese entonces su acercamiento a la transición a la socialdemocracia representada por el PSOE de Felipe González; Polanco se hace llamar ahora «Jesús de Polanco» (al estilo nobiliario) y sigue controlando el Grupo Prisa, que no para de crecer en tamaño y poder durante todo el periodo democrático hasta que llega a cotizar en bolsa desde el 2000 y operar en 22 países de Europa y América.

Actualmente publica en España diarios como:

- El País (el de mas tirada nacional de información general),
- As, (el 2º de mas tirada en información deportiva),
- Cinco Días (el 2º de mas tirada de información económica),
- El Correo de Andalucía (de implantación regional),
- Diario de Jaén (información provincial),
- Odiel Información, o
- El Correo de Málaga,

Revistas como:

- Cinemanía, (del mundo del cine)
- Dominical,
- Rolling Stone (música) o
- Gentleman (estilismo)

Controla en España 423 emisoras de radio

- 140 propiedad de la Cadena SER,
- 81 de Antena 3 Radio
- 202 independientes pero ligadas por convenio:
- - 40 Principales,
- - Cadena Dial,
- - M80 Radio,
- - Máxima FM,
- - Radiolé

Controla también los medios televisivos siguientes:

- Casi cien cadenas de televisiones locales españolas bajo la marca Localia,
- La televisión de pago en España a través de Sogecable:
- - Digital+,
- - Canal+,
- - CNN+,
- - Documanía, etc.

Controla el grupo editorial Santillana, entre los que destaca:

- Aguilar,
- Alfaguara,
- Altea,
- El País-Aguilar,
- Santillana Educación,
- Taurus... etc.

Interviene en el mundo del Cine a través de

- Sogepack
- Canal+

A eso hay que añadir sus numerosas inversiones en el extranjero, con amplia implantación en la América de habla hispana.

En el momento presente, el consejero delegado del Grupo Prisa, y al mismo tiempo su principal ideólogo, es Juan Luis Cebrián (Madrid 1944), hijo de Vicente Cebrián – destacado cargo de ’Prensa del Movimiento’, la prensa "oficial" del franquismo .

Con tan sólo 19 años, en 1963, ya fue miembro fundador de la revista Cuadernos para el Diálogo, organizada por el demócrata cristiano Joaquín Ruiz Giménez. Trabajó con Emilio Romero en ’Pueblo’, periódico "semi-oficial" de los «sindicatos verticales» del régimen franquista. Hasta 1975 trabajó como redactor jefe y subdirector de Informaciones de Madrid. También dirigió los Servicios Informativos de Televisión Española.

Pocos meses después de la muerte de Franco, fue designado director de El País, el periódico que, surgido de las entrañas del franquismo más «avanzado», había de señalar los pasos de una «transición democrática» ordenada y prudente, cargo que ocupó desde su aparición en 1976 hasta 1988, en que pasó a desempeñar puestos de mayor responsabilidad en el imperio mediático e ideológico capitaneado por la familia Polanco.

The Kosmos According to Ken Wilber

A Dialogue with Robin Kornman

How does one classify Ken Wilbur? Philosopher, psychologist, contemplative, author, avid consumer of popular culture, Wilber is one of our era's grand synthecists, integrating many levels of knowledge from the most concrete to the most etheral into a great unified view of the living universe. The reclusive thinker granted the Shambhala Sun a rare opportunity to discuss his ideas, and entered into the following dialogue via fax machine with Robin Kornman, Buddhist scholar and the Bradley assistant professor of world literature at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee.
Robin Kornman: I read your ideas about the evolution of consciousness in a pair of your most recent books that seem to go together. Sex, Ecology, Spirituality is the big one, 800 pages. A Brief History of Everything seems to be a summary written for the common man and woman.

Ken Wilber: Yes, Brief History is much shorter and more accessible. At least I hope it is. The common man and woman? Well, anybody reading this magazine is already very uncommon, wouldn't you say? I wrote the book for the same not-so-common people, I guess, nut cases like you and me who are interested in waking up and other silly notions like that. This book is not going to knock Deepak Chopra off the charts. I suppose it's more for anybody who is looking for something like an overall world philosophy, an approach to consciousness and history that takes the best of the East and the West into account, and attempts to honor them both.

And what effect do you hope to have? What can knowing your philosophy do for the advancement of consciousness?

Not very much, frankly. Each of us still has to find a genuine contemplative practice-maybe yoga, maybe Zen, maybe Shambhala Training, maybe contemplative prayer, or any number or authentic transformative practices. That is what advances consciousness, not my linguistic chitchat and book junk.
But if you want to know how your particular practices fit with the other approachs to truth that are out there, then these books will help you get started. They offer one map of how things fit together, that's all. But none of this will substitute for practice.

As you note in Brief History, there are already plenty of progressive theories of history and theories of spiritual evolution. Sometimes your theory sounds like Hegel's dialectic, sometimes like Darwin, sometimes like various Asian views of world mind theory. What makes it different from these other systems?

Well, that's sort of the point. It sounds like all of those theories because it takes all of them into account and attempts to synthesize the best of each of them. That's also what makes it different, in that none of those theories takes the others into account. I'm trying to pull these approachs together, which is something they are not interested in.

You don't divide up your world into atoms, or elements, or psychological states, but rather into units you call "holons." These sound a lot like the "dharmas" of Buddhist abhidharma, or psychology. How influential was Buddhist abhidharma in your theory?

Well, I'm a longtime practicing Buddhist, and many of the key ideas in my approach are Buddhist or Buddhist inspired. First and foremost, Nagarjuna and Madhyamika philosophy: pure Emptiness and primordial purity is the "central philosophy" of my approach as well. Also Yogachara, Hwa Yen, a great deal of dzogchen and mahamudra, and yes, the fundamentals of abhidharma. The analysis of experience into dharmas is also quite similar to Whitehead's "actual occasions." My presentation of holons was influenced by all of those. Again, I'm trying to take the best from each of these traditions and bring them together in what I hope is a fruitful fashion.

Since we're talking about influences, your system could also be regarded, if I were feeling unsympathetic, as a simple reconstruction of 19th century Romanticism. The notion that we are all evolving toward a realization of pure spirit is a Romantic notion of history. There are lots of reasons that these bright, sentimental, and spiritual approaches were abandoned, but here are three:
1. Science made talk about spirit seem childish.
2. The World Wars took away people's faith in the bright absolutisms of Romanticism.
3. Romanticism spawned the fascists and, via the Hegelian dialectic, the Communists.
So how can you go back to this entirely exploded world view and make it the basis of a brave new millenium?

Actually, I attack the Romantics on numerous occasions-I mention all the points you did-and I do so with such polemical force that all the present day Romantics are totally furious with me.

To the reasons you mention that Romanticism is "exploded," I add several more, the most grievous of which is that as a system it has absolutely no yoga, no actual contemplative methodology, no way to stabilize any sort of genuine spiritual awareness. This actually left the Romantics open to severe regression, which is why I usually refer to them as "retro-Romantics." I point out several present day trends in retro-Romanticism, none of which are pretty, and I say so in blunt terms, and this has not endeared me to these folks.

Nor, in fact, do I believe we are evolving to some sort of spiritual Omega. In both books I maintain that the whole point is to directly recognize Emptiness: "Rest in Emptiness, embrace all Form," is how I put it in those books, which is pretty basic Buddhism. I actually ridicule the Omega theorists a little bit, which has gotten them pretty mad at me as well.

Your own world view is complicated enough. Meditators might just say, "Why do I need to have a global-historical view at all? Leave me alone to just meditate." What would you say to them?

Just meditate.

You have some interesting criticisms of conventional modernism and postmodernism. You seem to accept their positions and yet at the same time to transcend them, to put them in their place. Can you explain that?

Yes, the idea is that all the various approaches and theories and practices have something important to tell us, but none of them probably has the whole truth in all its details. So each approach is true but partial, and the trick is then to figure out how all of these true but partial truths fit together. Not "Who's right and who's wrong?" but "How can they all be right?" How can they all fit together into one rainbow coalition? So that's why I both accept these positions but also attempt to transcend them, or "put them in their place," as you say. Whether or not I have succeeded remains to be seen.

You use the word "Kosmos" instead of cosmos. Why?

"Kosmos" is an old Pythagorean term, which means the entire universe in all its many dimensions-physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. "Cosmos" today usually means just the physical universe or physical dimension. So we might say the Kosmos includes the physiosphere, or cosmos; the biosphere, or life; the noosphere, or mind, all of which are radiant manifestations of pure Emptiness, and are not other to that Emptiness.

One of the catastrophes of modernity is that the Kosmos is no longer a fundamental reality to us; only the cosmos is. In other words, what is "real" is just the world of scientific materialism, the world of "flatland," the flat and faded view of the modern and postmodern world, where the cosmos alone is real. And one of the things these two books try to do is rehabilitate the Kosmos as a believable concept.

You write of the Kosmos as "the pattern that connects" all domains of existence. This reminds me of Gregory Bateson's Mind and Nature, A Necessary Unity. How did these modern, sort of New Age movements in the social sciences influence your thought?

Not very much, I must say. I don't find Bateson a very useful theorist, although I know many bright people who do. But the book you mention is what I would call a very "flatland" book-monological, it-language, one-dimensional, not very good, frankly. But that's just my opinion.

Do you think Foucault, Derrida, and company were getting at points that Asian absolutists had already articulated in some way? Or have their poststructuralist approaches been completely fresh?

The poststructuralist approaches are both more novel or fresh, and much less profound. The great Eastern traditions are, in essence, profound techniques of transformation, of liberation, of release in radical Emptiness. The poststructuralists have none of that; they simply offer new ways of translation, not transformation. They are interesting twists on relative truth, not a yoga of absolute truth.
But within the relative truth, the poststructuralists have a few similarities with the relative aspects of some of the Eastern traditions, such as "nonfoundationalism," the contextuality of truth, the sliding nature of signification, the relativity of meaning, and so on.

These are interesting and important similarities, and I try to take them into account, but they are all quite secondary to the real issue, which is moksha, kensho, satori, rigpa, yeshe, shikan-taza: None of that will you find in Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard and company.

What if I am, say, a hardcore, born-again Buddhist, who doesn't use other systems of self-development or self-transformation. I get the idea from Brief History that I must be leaving something out of my self-culture. When I gain enlightenment, won't it be incomplete according to you?

If by "enlightenment" you mean the direct and radical recognition of Emptiness, no, that won't leave anything out at all. Emptiness doesn't have any parts, so you can't leave some of it behind. But there is absolute bodhicitta [awakened mind] and there is relative bodhicitta, and although you might have direct recognition of the absolute, that does not mean you have mastered all the details of the relative. You can be fairly enlightened and still not be able to explain, say, the mathematics of the Schroedinger wave equation. My books deal more with all these relative details, some of which are not covered by Buddhism, or any of the world's wisdom traditions for that matter. But for the direct recognition of radical Emptiness and spontaneous luminosity, Buddhism is right on the money, yes?

Then why do I need your history of consciousness when I've got all the Buddhist teachings to play with?

You don't. Unless you happen to find it interesting, or fun, or engaging. Then you'll do it just to do it. The Buddhist teachings don't specifically cover Mexican cooking either, but you still might like to take that up.

We could also put it this way: What do you know that the Buddha doesn't?

How to drive a Jeep.

You want to integrate Freud with the Buddha, or, as you call them, "depth psychology" with "height psychology." Do you think that without this integration both systems are incomplete?

Well, I think everything is incomplete, because the Kosmos keeps moving on. New truths emerge, new revelations unfold, new Buddhas keep popping up, it is endless, no? Freud and Buddha are just two examples of some very important truths that can benefit from a mutual dialogue. Emptiness does not depend on either of them; but the manifest world is a big place, plenty of room for both of these pioneers. And yes, I think they can each help the other's path proceed more rapidly.

Do you think, indeed, that the ancient systems of spiritual transformation are inadequate in modern times, since they leave out so much of the material you include in your synthesis?

Inadequate? Not in absolute truth, no; in relative manifestation, sure, simply because Emptiness keeps manifesting in different forms, doesn't it? You can't find instructions for operating a computer in any of the sutras or tantras. You can't find out about DNA or medical anesthesia or kidney transplants in those texts, either. Likewise, the West has contributed a thing or two in psychological and psychotherapeutic understanding, and these contributions are altogether beneficial and helpful, and they don't have many parallels in any of the ancient teachings.
But it's not really a matter of inadequacy; it's a matter of making use of whatever is available. If your practice is working for you, excellent. If it seems to be stuck, maybe a little therapy might help. I myself don't think either side has to be threatened by this. It's a really big universe, very spacious, plenty of room for Freud and Buddha.

While we're on this topic, what do you think of the inner tantras, such as kundalini yoga and what we Buddhists do with prana, nadi and bindu? The reality upon which they rely is not admitted by science and yet it occupies two higher levels in your system, the subtle and the causal. This is confusing, because a lot of spiritual practitioners never admit the existence of those levels and never do those practices. Yet you make them seem to be a necessity of higher development.

I don't think they are a necessity. It's rather that, at those two higher stages you mentioned, the subtle and the causal, these types of processes may occur. Or they may not. It depends on the type of practice, among other things. It's just that, at a certain point in your own meditative practice, various gross processes tend to be replaced by subtle and then very subtle phenomena, and these sometimes include energy currents, prana, bindu, and so on. But in other cases it might simply be an increase in clarity and panoramic awareness. I was simply cataloging all the different types of meditative phenomena that can occur as meditation itself unfolds from gross to subtle to very subtle consciousness. Much of what I include here is pretty standard stuff in the traditions, especially the Tibetan.

Why do some spiritual practitioners seem to make advances in some ways and still be primitive assholes in other ways?

Well, one of the things I try to do with the developmental model of consciousness is outline two different things, which we can call streams and waves. The streams are the different developmental lines, such as cognitive development, emotional development, interpersonal development, spiritual development, and so on. Each of these streams goes through various stages or waves of its own development.
What research indicates is that, one, these different streams can develop fairly independently of each other: you can be advanced in one stream, such as the spiritual, and retarded in others, such as emotional or interpersonal. And two, even though these streams develop independently, they all share the same basic stages or waves of development. For example, they all go from preconventional to conventional to postconventional forms.

So we have numerous different streams of development, yet each traverses the same general waves or stages of consciousness unfolding. And people can definitely be advanced in one stream and a "primitive asshole" in others. I summarize this research in an upcoming book called The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad.

But about your point, yes, development can be rather uneven. Most of the great wisdom traditions train people for higher or postconventional awareness and cognition, and for higher or postconventional affect, such as love and compassion. But they tend to neglect interpersonal and emotional development, especially in the conventional domains. We all know advanced meditators who are, well, unpleasant people. This, of course, is where Western psychotherapy excels-although it goes to the other extreme and almost completely neglects and leaves out the higher or transpersonal waves, another reason we need to get Freud and Buddha together.

Every old-timer in the contemplative game knows this is true-that growth is usually uneven. But some say the neurotic bits are actual regressions: a person made a real advance in meditation but then, seduced by samsara, abandoned it and got caught up in neurosis. Others say that meditation actually scoops up hidden, compacted neuroses in the advanced practitioner, making him or her suddenly and mysteriously become a jerk. Do you think there is any truth is such views?

I think of each of those points you mentioned is sometimes true. People often do make real progress in meditation, only to abandon it because the demands are too great. And when they return to their "old" ways, their neurosis is even worse, because they have the same old problem but now their sensitivity is increased, so it simply hurts even more.

Your second scenario is also common. Particularly at advanced stages of meditation, the really deeply buried complexes start to become exposed to awareness. Advanced practitioners can become very exaggerated people, because they have already worked through all the smooth and easy problems, and all that is left are the karmas from when you murdered twenty nuns in your last lifetime. I'm sort of kidding, but you get the idea: some really deep-seated problems can rush to the surface in advanced practice, and this can confuse people, because this does not look like "progress." But it's sort of like frostbite: at first you don't feel anything, because you're frozen. You don't even think you have a problem. But then you start to warm up the frozen part, and it hurts like hell. The cure, the warming up, is horrible. Advanced meditation is especially a fast warming up, a waking up, and it usually hurts like hell.

But you have some other scenarios as to why things can "go bad" in meditation.

Yes, the idea is that, as we were saying, development consists of several different streams that develop through the basic stages or waves of consciousness unfolding. The great wisdom traditions tend to emphasize two or three of these streams, such as the cognitive (awareness), the spiritual (and moral), the higher affect (love and compassion). But they tend to neglect other streams, such as emotional, interpersonal, relationships, and conventional interactions.

Thus, as you tend to make progress in some of these streams-perhaps the meditative/cognitive-you can become a little "unbalanced" in your overall development. Other developmental lines become neglected, withered, atrophied. Your psyche is saddled with one giant and a dozen pygmies. And the more your meditation practice advances, the worse the imbalance becomes. You start to get very weird, and you are told to increase your meditative effort, and pretty soon you come apart at the seams like a cheap suit. Yes?

So one of the things that we might want to look at are ways to bring a more integral practice to bear on our lives, an integral practice that includes the best of ancient wisdom and modern knowledge, and blends the contemplative with the conventional. I don't have the answers here, but these books are, I hope, a way to begin this dialogue in good faith and good will.

When you earlier said that meditators could "just meditate," was that being just a little glib? Because it doesn't seem that you really think that meditation alone is enough.

Well, you didn't ask if I thought meditation alone is enough. You asked what I would tell somebody who said, "Leave me alone to just meditate." I'd say, "Just meditate." I have no desire to interfere with anybody's practice. But if you asked instead, "What other practices do you think meditators could use to facilitate their growth?" then I would answer more or less as I just did.

In other words, a judicious blend of Eastern contemplative approaches with Western psychodynamic approaches is an interesting and I think healthy way to proceed. And if you want a more comprehensive world view, including both absolute and relative truths, then certainly there are numerous items that the West will bring to the feast. Any of those approaches taken by themselves is demonstrably partial by comparison.

Incidentally, if you're put off by all this you don't have to come. But everybody has an invitation to this dance, I think. It's a real Shambhala Ball. Seriously. Chogyam Trungpa's Shambhala vision, as I understand it, was a secular and integral weaving of the dharma into the vast cultural currents in which it finds itself. A Brief History of Everything outlines many of those currents and suggests one way that the dharma can enrich-and be enriched by-those currents. This is very simple, I think.

Fair enough. What I would like to do now is to ask a few very technical questions. One of the most confusing things about being a practitioner of Asian mystical traditions is the fact that before the Enlightenment the West had a thousand year tradition of civilization based on a highly mystical religion, Christianity. And yet in Sex, Ecology, Spirituality you characterize this thousand year period as one that promised but did not deliver genuine transcendence. Why do you say that? How could a whole civilization miss the point for so long when it had expressions of the idea in Plato, the Corpus Hermeticum, Neoplatonism, mystical Christianity, and so on?

Imagine if, the very day Buddha attained his enlightenment, he was taken out and hanged precisely because of his realization. and if any of his followers claimed to have the same realization, they were also hanged. Speaking for myself, I would find this something of a disincentive to practice.

But that's exactly what happened with Jesus of Nazareth. "Why do you stone me?" he asks at one point. "Is it for good deeds?" And the crowd responds, "No, it is because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God." The individual Atman is not allowed to realize that it is one with Brahman. "I and my Father are One"-among other complicated factors that realization got this gentleman crucified.
The reasons for this are involved, but the fact remains: as soon as any spiritual practitioner began to get too close to the realization that Atman and Brahman are one-that one's own mind is intrinsically one with primordial Spirit-then frighteningly severe repercussions usually followed.

Of course there were wonderful currents of Neoplatonic and other very high teachings operating in the background (and underground) in the West, but wherever the Church had political influence-and it dominated the Western scene for a thousand years-if you stepped over that line between Atman and Brahman, you were in very dangerous waters. St. John of the Cross and his friend St. Teresa of Avila stepped over the line, but couched their journeys in such careful and pious language they pulled it off, barely. Meister Eckhart stepped over the line, a little too boldly, and had his teachings officially condemned, which meant he wouldn't fry in hell but his words apparently would. Giordano Bruno stepped way over the line, and was burned at the stake. This is a typical pattern.

You say the reasons are complicated, and I'm sure they are, but could you briefly mention a few?

Well, I'll give you one, which is perhaps the most interesting. The early history of the Church was dominated by traveling "pneumatics," those in whom "spirit was alive." Their spirituality was based largely on direct experience, a type of Christ consciousness, we might suppose ("Let this consciousness be in you which was in Christ Jesus"). We might charitably say that the nirmanakaya physical body] of each pneumatic realized the dharmakaya [absolute body] of Christ via the sambhogakaya [body of bliss] of the transformative fire of the Holy Ghost-not to put too fine a point on it. But they were clearly alive to some very real, very direct experiences.

But over a several hundred year span, with the codification of the Canon and the Apostle's Creed, a series of necessary beliefs replaced actual experience. The Church slowly switched from the pneumatics to the ekklesia, the ecclesastic assembly of Christ, and the governor of the ekklesia was the local bishop, who possessed "right dogma," and not the pneumatic or prophet, who might possess spirit but couldn't be "controlled." The Church was no longer defined as the assembly of realizers but as the assembly of bishops.

With Tertullian the relationship becomes almost legal, and with Cyprian spirituality actually is bound to the legal office of the Church. You could become a priest merely by ordination, not by awakening. A priest was no longer holy (sanctus) if he was personally awakened or enlightened or sanctified, but if he held the office. Likewise, you could become "saved" not by waking up yourself, but merely by taking the legal sacraments. As Cyprian put it, "He who does not have the Church as Mother cannot have God as Father."

Well, that puts a damper on it, what? Salvation now belonged to the lawyers. And the lawyers said, basically, we will allow that one megadude became fully one with God, but that's it! No more of that pure Oneness crap.

But why?

This part of it was simple, raw, political power. Because, you know, the unsettling thing about direct mystical experience is that it has a nasty habit of going straight from Spirit to you, thus bypassing the middleman, namely, the bishop, not to mention the middleman's collection plate. This is the same reason the oil companies do not like solar power, if you get my drift.

And so, anybody who had a direct pipeline to God was thus pronounced guilty not only of religious heresy, or the violation of the legal codes of the Church, for which you could have your heavenly soul eternally damned, but also of political treason, for which you could have your earthly body separated into several sections.

For all these reasons, the summum bonum of spiritual awareness-the supreme identity of Atman and Brahman, or ordinary mind and intrinsic spirit-was officially taboo in the West for a thousand years, more or less. All the wonderful currents that you mention, from Neoplatonism to Hermeticism, were definitely present but severely marginalized, to put it mildly. And thus the West produced an extraordinary number of subtle-level (or sambhogakaya) mystics, who only claimed that the soul and God can share a union; but very few causal (dharmakaya) and very few nondual (svabhavikakaya) mystics, who went further and claimed not just a union but a supreme identity of soul and God in pure Godhead, just that claim got you toasted.

As for some of these more profound currents that became marginalized, what is the relationship between Plato's concept of "remembering" and enlightenment? Ever since I read the Meno I've thought there was one. But I couldn't quite figure out what it was.

Yes, I think there is a very direct relationship. If we make the assumption, pretty safe with this crowd, that every sentient being has buddhamind, and if we agree that with enlightenment we are not attaining this mind but simply acknowledging or recognizing it, then it amounts to the same thing if we say that enlightenment is the remembering of buddhamind, or the direct recognition or re-cognition of pure Emptiness.

In other words, we can't attain buddhanature any more than we can attain our feet. We can simply look down and notice that we have feet; we can remember that we have them. It sometimes helps, if we think that we do not have feet, to have somebody come along and point to them. A Zen Master will be glad to help. When you earnestly say, "I don't have any feet," the Master, wearing these big Dr. Martens boots, will bring them stomping down on your feet and see who yells out loud, "No feet, eh?"

These "pointing out instructions" do not point to something that we do not have and need to acquire; they point to something that is fully, totally, completely present right now, but we have perhaps forgotten. Enlightenment in the most basic sense is this simple remembering, re-cognizing, or simply noticing our feet-that is, noticing that this simple, clear, everpresent awareness is primordial purity just as it is. In that sense, it is definitely a simple remembering.

And you think Plato was actually involved in that type of recognition?

Oh, I think so. It becomes extremely obvious in the succeeding Neoplatonic teachers; in these areas, the apples rarely fall far from the tree. Plato himself says that we were once whole, but a "failure to remember"-amnesis-allows us to fall from that wholeness. And we will "recover" from our fragmentation when we remember who and what we really are. Plato is very specific. I'll read this: "It is not something that can be put into words like other branches of learning: only after long partnership in a [contemplative community] devoted to this very thing does truth flash upon the soul, like a flame kindled by a leaping spark." Sudden illumination. He then adds, and this is very important: "No treatise by me concerning it exists or ever will exist."

Purely wordless.

Yes, I think so. Very like, "A special transmission outside the scriptures; Not dependent upon words or letters; Direct pointing to the mind; Seeing into one's Nature and recognizing buddhahood." We have to be a little careful with quick and easy comparisons, but again, if all sentient beings possess buddhamind, and if you are not yet going to be crucified for remembering it, then it is likely enough that souls of such caliber as Parmenides and Plato and Plotinus would remember who and what they are in suchness. And yes, it very much is a simply remembering, like looking in the mirror and going "Oh!" As Philosophia said to Boethius in his distress, "You have forgotten who you are."

I'd like to ask you a specific question about the connection about the ultimate and relative truth. You said that the Buddha's teachings are completely adequate for the realization of ultimate truth, but that relative manifestation keeps on changing because "Emptiness takes on different forms." But really in Buddhist teachings there is just one intelligence. The ati tantras call it rigpa, wisdom. It's basically supposed to be the same as vipashyana or prajna. I'm wondering if you agree about this one intelligence. Is this the same intelligence that understands calculus or discovers quantum physics? Is it the same intelligence that microbiologists use to map the human genome?

And you ask because?

They are supposed to be the same "one intelligence" but they don't look the same. These scientific and philosophical teachings of the West seem to be examples of relative truth that were not discovered in Asia. You obviously believe that the Asians were the world's experts on finding or identifying the mind that cognizes Emptiness. But how can we reconcile this if there is only one intelligence? Put succinctly, why didn't rigpa discover calculus or quantum physics or human DNA?

Because there is not simply one intelligence, not the way you mean it. Remember, even in the Madhyamika, where we have the Two Truths doctrine, there is a corresponding Two Modes of Knowing-samvritti, which is responsible for the relative truths of science and philosophy, and paramartha, or the recognition of pure Emptiness.

It's true that the nondual tantras radically identified relative and absolute, but the point is, that identity is radical. Emptiness does not affect the phenomenal stream at all because it is the emptiness of everything in that stream. There is no part of Emptiness separate from the manifest world to push or pull it. Emptiness is not a phenomenon over there, which we grasp or understand, and which understanding changes other phenomenon.

Emptiness changes nothing whatsoever, for the simple reason that it is not one item among other items but the nature of all items, with no exceptions. Emptiness leaves everything exactly as it finds it, because it is already the suchness of everything exactly as it is.

So Emptiness will do no work at all. You cannot use it to agree with one position and disagree with another, because it is the suchness of all positions. It has no preferences. It is not one thing among others; it is simply the opening or clearing in which all things arise, equally. If calculus arises, it arises in Emptiness. If calculus doesn't arise, still Emptiness. Emptiness doesn't pick one or the other, and it has no hand in one or the other, because it is not here versus there.

Likewise, rigpa is a flashing (or seeing or recognizing) this primordial purity; if physics arises in that purity, then it arises; if it doesn't, it doesn't. Whatever relative manifestation there is, it is illumined or lit by rigpa, as the one intelligence in the entire universe, which is true enough. But within that absolute space of Emptiness/rigpa, there arise all sorts of relative truths and relative objects and relative knowledge, and Emptiness/rigpa lights them all equally. It does not choose sides, it doesn't "push" anything. It doesn't push against anything because nothing is outside it.

So there is one intelligence or not?

One intelligence that flashes in many different forms. As the Christian mystics put it, we have the eye of flesh, the eye of mind, and the eye of contemplation-all of which are ultimately lit by rigpa, or one intelligence, or Big Mind, but each of which nonetheless has its own domain, its own truths, its own knowing. And, most important, mastering one eye does not necessarily mean you master the others. As we were saying, these are relatively independent streams.

So the eye of contemplation is capable of disclosing absolute truth or Emptiness, whereas the eye of mind and the eye of flesh can disclose only relative truth and conventional realities.

Yes, I think that is a fair summary of what are after all some very complex issues.
The traditional analogy is the ocean and its waves, which is a really boring analogy, but bear with me. The wetness of the water is suchness. All waves are equally wet. One wave isn't wetter than another. And thus, if I discover the wetness of any wave, I have discovered the wetness of all. When I directly recognize Suchness or Emptiness, or the wetness of my own being, right here, right now, then I have discovered the ultimate truth of all other waves as well. Emptiness is not a Really Big Wave set apart from little waves, but is the wetness equally present in all waves, high or low, big or small, sacred or profane-which is why Emptiness cannot be used to prefer one wave over another.

Enlightenment is thus not catching a really big wave, but noticing the already present wetness of whatever wave I'm on. Moreover, I am then radically liberated from the narrow identification with this little wave called me, because I am fundamentally one with all other waves-no wetness is outside of me. I am literally one taste with the entire ocean and all its waves. And that taste is wetness, suchness, Emptiness, the utter transparency of the Great Perfection.

At the same time, I do not know all the details of all the other waves-their height, their weight, the number of them, and so on. These relative truths I will have to discover wave by wave, endlessly. No Sutra of Wetness will tell about that, nor could it. And no Tantra of the Soggy will clue me in on this.

That's why I earlier said that Buddhist contemplation is sufficient for ultimate truth: it will directly show you the wetness of all waves, the radical suchness of all phenomena, the Emptiness in the heart of the Kosmos itself, the primordial purity that is your own intrinsic awareness in this moment, and this moment, and this. But meditation will not, and really cannot, tell you about all the details of all the various waves that nevertheless arise as the ceaseless play of Emptiness and spontaneous luminosity. As you say, it will not automatically give you calculus, or the human genome, or quantum physics. And historically, it definitely did not, which should tell us something right there.

I have a question about the Great Chain of Being, and it dawned on me that the Great Chain might be related to what you are saying about manifestation and relative truth.

Yes, they are very similar notions. In other words, the Great Chain theorists-from Yogachara and Vedanta in the East to Neoplatonism and Kabbalah in the West-maintain that Emptiness (or the "One," meaning the nondual) manifests as a series of dimensions, or levels, or koshas, or vijnanas-or "waves"-a spectrum of being and consciousness. The spectrum of levels is the relative or manifest truth, and the vast expanse in which the spectrum appears is Emptiness, or absolute truth. Ultimately the absolute and the relative are "not two" or nondual, because Emptiness is not a thing apart from other things but the suchness of all things, the wetness of all waves. And rigpa is the flash, the recognition, of that nondual isness, the simplicity of your present, clear, ordinary awareness-the opening or clearing in which the entire universe arises, just so.

But of course that is not merely an abstract concept. "One taste" is a simple, direct, clear recognition in which it becomes perfectly obvious that you do not see the sky, you are the sky. You do not touch the earth, you are the earth. The wind does not blow on you, it blows within you. In this simple one taste, you can drink the Pacific Ocean in a single gulp, and swallow the universe whole. Supernovas are born and die all within your heart, and galaxies swirling endlessly where you thought your head was, and it is all as simple as the sound of a robin singing on a crystal clear dawn.

The different forms of Emptiness, the different waves of the Great Perfection.

Yes, in the relative world, new truths are constantly emerging; they emerge within Emptiness, within this brilliantly clear opening that is your own awareness in this moment. And whether what arises in the vast expanse of your own primordial awareness is calculus, physics, pottery or how to make yak butter, will depend on a thousand relative truths and relative forces, none of which individually can be equated with Emptiness, and yet all of which arise as gestures of great perfection or Emptiness itself-that is, all of which arise in this simple, clear, everpresent awareness, the transparency of your very own being.

So within "one intelligence" or "Big Mind," all sort of small minds and stepped-down intelligences arise-that's the Great Chain-and those relative truths, like the clouds in the sky and the waves in the ocean, have an appointment with their own relative karmas and a date with their own destinies.

The West has its relative truths, the East has its relative truths. And mostly in the East we further get a clear understanding of absolute truth, because the toaster was not your fate for dabbling therein. And definitely, my theme is that a judicious blend of relative truths, East and West, set in the primordial context of radical Emptiness, is a very sane approach to the human situation.


Copyright © 2004 Shambhala Sun Magazine

EL REINCIDENTE, Ferlosio

El lobo, viejo, desdentado, cano, despeluchado, desmedrado, enfermo, cansado un día de vivir y de hambrear, sintió llegada para él la hora de reclinar finalmente la cabeza en el regazo del Creador. Noche y día caminó por cada vez más extraviados andurriales, cada vez más arriscadas serranías, más empinadas y vertiginosas cuestas, hasta donde el pavoroso rugir del huracán en las talladas cresterías de hielo se trocaba de pronto, como voz sofocada entre algodones, al entrar en la espesa cúpula de niebla, en el blanco silencio de la Cumbre Eterna. Allí, no bien alzó los ojos -nublada la visión, ya por su propia vejez, ya por el recién sufrido rigor de la ventisca, ya en fin por lágrimas mezcladas de autoconmiseración y gratitud- y entrevió las doradas puertas de la Bienaventuranza, oyó la cristalina y penetrante voz del oficial de guardia, que así lo interpelaba:

«¿Cómo te atreves siquiera a aproximarte a estas puertas sacrosantas, con las fauces aún ensangrentadas por tus últimas cruentas refecciones, asesino?»

Anonadado ante tal recibimiento y abrumado de insoportable pesadumbre, volvió el lobo la grupa y, desandando el camino que con tan largo esfuerzo había traído, se reintegró a la tierra y a sus querencias y frecuentaderos salvo que en adelante se guardó muy bien, no ya de degollar ovejas ni corderos, que eso la pérdida de los colmillos hacía ya tiempo se lo tenía impedido, sino incluso de repasar carroñas o mondar osamentas que otros más jóvenes y con mejores fauces hubiesen dado por suficientemente aprovechadas. Ahora, resuelto a abstenerse de tocar cosa alguna que de lejos tuviese algo que ver con carnes, hubo de hacerse merodeador de aldeas y caseríos, descuidero de hatos y meriendas. Las muelas, que, aunque remeciéndosele ya las más en los alvéolos, con todo, conservaba, le permitían roer el pan; pan de panes recientes cuando la suerte daba en sonreír, pan duro de mendrugos casi siempre. Viviendo y hambreando bajo esta nueva ley permaneció, pues, en la tierra y en la vasta espesura de su monte natal por otro turno entero de inviernos y veranos, hasta que, doblemente extenuado y deseoso de descanso tras esta a modo de segunda vuelta de una antes ya larga existencia, de nuevo le pareció llegado el día de merecer reclinar finalmente la cabeza en el regazo del Creador. Si la ascensión hasta la Cumbre Eterna había sido ya acerba la primera vez, cuánto más no se le habría vuelto ahora, de no ser por el hecho de que la disminución de vigor físico causada por aquel recargo de vejez sobreañadido sería sin duda compensada en mayor o menor parte por el correspondiente aumento del ansia de descanso y bienaventuranza. El caso es que de nuevo llegó a alcanzar la Cumbre Eterna, aunque tan insegura se le había vuelto la mirada que casi no había llegado siquiera a vislumbrar las puertas de la Bienaventuranza cuando sonó la esperada voz del querubín de guardia:

«¿Así es que aquí estás tú otra vez, tratando de ofender, con tu sola presencia ante estas puertas, la dignidad de quienes por sus merecimientos se han hecho acreedores a franquearlas y gozar de la Eterna Bienaventuranza, pretendiéndote igualmente merecedor de postularla? ¿A tanto vuelves a atreverte tú? ¡Tú, ladrón de tahonas, merodeador de despensas, salteador de alacenas! ¡Vete! ¡Escúrrete ya de aquí, tal como siempre, por lo demás, has demostrado que sabes escurrirte, sin que te arredren cepos ni barreras ni perros ni escopetas!»

¡Quién podrá encarecer la desolación, la amargura, el abandono, la miseria, el hambre, la flaqueza, la enfermedad, la roña, que por otros más largos y más desventurados años se siguieron! Aun así, apenas osaba ya despuntar con las encías sin dientes el rizado festón de las lechugas, o limpiar con la punta de la lengua la almibarada gota que pendía del culo de los higos en la rama, o relamer, en fin, una por una, las manchas circulares dejadas por los quesos en las tablas de los anaqueles del almacén vacío. Pisaba sin pisar, como pisa una sombra, pues tan liviano lo había vuelto la flaqueza, que ya nada podía morir bajo su planta por la sola presión de la pisada. Y al cabo volvió a cumplirse un nuevo y prolongado turno de años y, como era tal vez inevitable, amaneció por tercera vez el día en que el lobo consideró llegada para él la hora de reclinar finalmente la cabeza en el regazo del Creador.

Partió invisible e ingrávido como una sombra, y era, en efecto, de color de sombra, salvo en las pocas partes en las que la roña no le había hecho caer el pelo; donde lo conservaba, le relucía enteramente cano, como si todo el resto de su cuerpo se hubiese ido convirtiendo en roña, en sombra, en nada, para dejar campear más vivamente, en aquel pelo cano, tan sólo la llamada de las nieves, el inextinto anhelo de la Cumbre Eterna. Pero, si ya en los dos primeros viajes tal ascensión había sido excesiva para un lobo anciano, bien se echará de ver cuán denodado no sería el empeño que por tercera vez lo puso en el camino, teniendo en cuenta cómo, sobre aquella primera y, por así decirlo, natural vejez del primer viaje, había echado encima una segunda y aun una tercera ancianidad, y cuán sobrehumano no sería el esfuerzo con que esta vez también logró llegar. Pisando mansa, dulce, humildemente, ya sólo a tientas reconoció las puertas de la Bienaventuranza; apoyó el esternón en el umbral, dobló y bajó las ancas, adelantó las manos, dejándolas iguales y paralelas ante el pecho, y reposó finalmente sobre ellas la cabeza. Al punto, tal como sospechaba, oyó la metálica voz del querubín de guardia y las palabras exactas que había temido oír:

«Bien, tú has querido, con tu propia obstinación, que hayamos acabado por llegar a una situación que bien podría y debería haberse evitado y que es para ambos igualmente indeseable. Bien lo sabías o lo adivinabas la primera vez; mejor lo supiste y hasta corroboraste la segunda; ¡y a despecho de todo te has empeñado en volver una tercera! ¡Sea, pues! ¡Tú lo has querido! Ahora te irás como las otras veces, pero esta vez no volverás jamás. Ya no es por asesino. Tampoco es por ladrón. Ahora es por lobo».