Since Brexit and the election of President D., fascists the world over are finding their comfort zone like they haven’t since the 1930’s. No longer needing to hide in alleys like California smokers, fascists are finding they can be public with their sentiments and even their actions, which many are finding a good thing.

It’s no longer embarrassing to support internment. We can all take comfort in the fact that internment has a “precedent” in our country, just like slavery and genocide. We don’t want to have to turn to those methods, but if it becomes “necessary for national security,” we will do what we have to. As history shows, it was ever thus.

Since fascism is the flavor of the day, let’s understand it. Let’s discover the benefits and why so many of our brothers and sisters are celebrating their new found freedom of self expression.

The Benefits of Fascism

Enhanced security. Because fascism protects the rights of the state over the rights of individual citizens, intrinsic to the system is a strong military. If you like military spending and a thriving military industrial complex, you’ll love fascism.

Increased efficiency. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini famously stated that under his rule “the trains would run on time.” Although Benito’s promise was not fulfilled, Hitler’s Germany was very efficient. The trains taking people to the camps and soldiers to war fronts were numerous and on-time thanks to Hitler’s leadership and IBM’s punch card technology.

Patriotism. Flag wavers, unite. Fascism, with its emphasis on a strong state, gives everyone a chance to unleash his, her, or their inner patriot.

Limited media. What with the “post factual” media era, limiting media might a good thing. Without information, it’s hard to fight, so fascism in this way promotes peace. And don’t all of us spend a little too much time indoors binge watching Orange is the New Black when we could be spending time in the great outdoors marching in formation?

Economic growth. As the government seizes the means of production and controls how commerce is conducted, fascism fuels economic growth. In many ways, economic growth is fascism’s biggest promise. All in all, when certain portions of the population are living in internment camps or being deported, there are fewer mouths to feed. The question is, will yours be a mouth fed, or a mouth left in doubt and dread?

Fascism can be wonderfully salubrious for those on the right side of it. Chances are, you will benefit from the accumulated and left-behind wealth of those who are evacuated; you will know exactly what to think and what to do; and you will enjoy the peace and order that comes from leadership that is not “ruled by committee.” Trains will run on time, and the government will have a free hand to improve the economy. And, with centralized power at their disposal, your favorite fascists may decide to fix the climate while they are taking care of over population.

Think it over: With benefits like these, what more could you want from your government?

The Buddha was big on lists and I’m big on the Buddha, and lists are certainly part of why I like practicing meditation as much as I do. The Buddha’s lists spark a lot of confidence. Lists like the Eightfold Path make enlightenment seem doable. You just list it out, attack one thing at a time, and then cross it off. Boom! You’re enlightened.

There was a time when that was exactly my approach. You can guess that it wasn’t quite as easy as I hoped it would be. I’m not going to blame the Buddha for my aggressive attitude towards practice. And I can’t even blame him for the negative way he phrases his message.

To cease suffering is basically a double negative, “do not” sort of message that says the result will be that you will stop suffering. Eight whole steps and all you get is to stop suffering? With fewer than 600 million participants (which is about 7% of the world’s population), Buddhism, lists aside, actually hasn’t captured much market share with the stop suffering message.

I think the Buddha would have had even more takers if he had phrased things a little more positively, not been afraid of a little spin. . .It sounds so modern, too: Get Quiet and Feel Great in Eight Simple Steps. Too bad I wasn’t around to help. Le sigh.

Actually, I get why he did it. Like I said, in my experience practice isn’t easy. If you commit to practicing meditation, it’s nice to understand that practice requires something of you.

Before we go further, here’s a refresher, adapted from Buddhism for Dummies, that sums up the requirements of the Eightfold Path:

The Eightfold Path

The Eightfold Path of Buddhism, also called the Middle Way, is a way to stay focused, balanced, calm, and energized (that’s one of the reasons I like it). Please read these brief descriptions of each part of the path:

• Right understanding. Understanding that the Four Noble Truths are sacred and true.
• Right thought. Committing in thought, word, and deed to practice meditation.
• Right speech. Avoiding slander, gossip, lying, and all forms of untrue and abusive speech.
• Right conduct. Refraining from violence (ahimsa) along with any form of stealing or sexual impropriety.
• Right work. Refraining from employing yourself with work that forces you to violate yourself or others.
• Right mental attitude or effort: Cultivating positive rather than negative thoughts, emotional balance, as well as minimizing emotions such as anger and jealousy.
• Right mindfulness. Having a clear sense of one’s mental state, bodily health, and feelings.
• Right concentration. Using meditation to reach the highest level of enlightenment.

I rephrased the components of the eightfold path to sound positive when I could, as an experiment. The truth is, though, that life is hard — and I think that the Buddha wanted to make sure he made that point without apologies. So why would you want to make things harder for yourself by limiting your behavior?

Why Does Right Conduct Matter?

The reason is that — like practicing anything you want to get good at — in order to live your best life you have to refrain from certain things and actively pursue others. When it’s an instrument, you spend time practicing, and the time you spend practicing limits your time to do other activities.

It’s relatively easy to be objective about how well an instrument is being played. Most of us can hear a violin squeak or sense that something is “off” when the instruments involved are not in time or tune with each other.

Right conduct matters because it boosts confidence, reduces anxiety, and increases your capacity for joy. I look at it as a kind of symphony of effects through body, mind, and soul. In fact, think of your soul as a tuning fork, and your actions as the notes you are playing. Right conduct enhances harmony and reduces conflicts of all kinds.

Although “well-behaved” is kind of a prissy word, I think it communicates a little of the resistance most of feel when we think of having to follow rules. Nevertheless, good behavior makes me feel better about myself and more generous towards others. It’s relaxing and serenity-inducing to know that I’ve done what I was obligated to do along with acts of love and creativity, haven’t done anything I regret, treated people fairly and honestly, and remained in integrity with my values.

In yoga, there is a term called tapas, sometimes translated as “burning zeal for practice.” Tapas are commitments, like maintaining silence, fasting, or repeating mantras. These acts are meant to increase the heat of your practice — in other words, to create passion. They are also a — hopefully gentle — crucible for burning away old mistakes and misdeeds.

When I was younger, good behavior felt like more of a sacrifice, and it was harder to maintain. I resisted good behavior because it made me feel unfree. After 20 years of practice, tapas is starting to make sense to me because I can feel myself reaping some of the rewards (maybe not of enlightenment, per se, but certainly less stress and more joy) of all the time I have put into it.

The beauty of practice is that if you are consistent over long periods of time, even if you aren’t perfectly consistent, it is a cumulative investment in yourself. Over time, just like practicing an instrument or anything else, it becomes easier and more joyful to do. And then it doesn’t feel like you made a sacrifice because you got the gift of playing beautiful music.

I was worried, now that I’m single, about meeting new people and having to explain myself.

I thought it would be hard to explain my divorce, my children, my relationships, my sexual orientation, and my philosophy of life. Then I realized that, even if my own life seems complicated, we all require explanation no matter who or what we are. Otherwise, how will anyone we care about really get to know us and understand us and vice versa?

So the quick answer is, yes, I do have to explain myself — and so do you if you want to be known and understood.

Remember how Shakespeare said, “Know thyself and to thine own self be true?” The old bard was onto something. . .

Assuming I’m right, and we do have to explain ourselves, how will we do it if we don’t know ourselves? Knowing ourselves, naturally, is somewhat easier said than done.

I had an experience about 16 years ago, not long after my daughter died, that ended up changing my world view. I was sitting in my home office, looking out the window, crying. I was in a lot of pain, thinking about how I’d lost such a pure, radiant, innocent, and beautiful child. It came to me suddenly that I, too, had once been a pure, radiant, innocent, and beautiful child — and so has everyone else. In fact, I realized, we never stop having within us that purity, radiance, innocence, and beauty. It is our true self.

This I find difficult to remember and easy to forget. It was, at the time, a revelation to me, but now that transcendent understanding has been reduced to knowledge and memory. I wish I could tell you that, right now, I can feel the ecstasy of our true nature, but I can’t. I’m typing away, feeling kind of tired and anxious about how my work day will go, and I definitely do not feel pure, radiant, innocent, and beautiful. Still, having had that glimpse of what I consider a higher truth of who I am and who we are is fortifying.

As just hinted, the truth of who we are is is not usually how we live. Whenever I talk about human beings as expressions of beauty, radiance, innocence, and purity, the occasional person agrees with me but mostly I get strong reactions ranging from skepticism to hints that I am kind of dumb, to even a kind of offended anger.

Yes, we do grow up, and life hands us many difficulties and injustices, and most of us make poor and hurtful choices along with good, sweet, and neutral ones, but above all and always we remain at heart and soul beautiful, radiant, pure, and innocent — a kind of light. Knowledge of ourselves and everyone as pure, radiant, innocent, and beautiful is an antidote to the fear, doubt, and insecurity that we often feel as we negotiate our way through life.

At another level, we are individual expressions of that fundamental light and as a result some of us prefer to wear flannel shirts and biker boots while some of prefer little black dresses or shorts and a tee shirt. I mention these preferences as the merest hint of the infinite ways humans are expressed biologically, culturally, linguistically, and individually.

What happens, and it even starts to happen before birth, is that we are objectified and placed into categories. We quickly become male and female, white or brown, and then we become quick or slow, smart or dumb, pretty or not, and, of course, countless other things.

The world not only tells us what to be, but it assigns a value to each of those categories and qualities. Few us remember that we are not all of those better and worse things, but that we are pure, radiant, innocent, and beautiful. We believe what we are told about ourselves so much so that we also tell others what they are.

And yet. Some of us suspect otherwise and some of us actively rebel and some of us find, for whatever reason, that the categories and values laid out for us don’t fit so we don’t have a choice but to find another way. Some of us sense within ourselves something precious that wants to be expressed, but we sense it in rather the same way a seed sprouts. Who knows, exactly, what forces and conditions cause a seed to sprout — or not — at any precise moment?

We are gifted with consciousness. We are able to remember the beautiful purity that characterizes who we are, but we do need some sort of inspiration — such as the epiphany I had so many years ago while thinking of my daughter — and then we have to apply ourselves to remembering. Like I said, this kind of truth is easy to forget and hard to remember, especially if you are weighed down with skepticism or, worse, cynicism.

Individual expression and preferences are why we have to explain ourselves — and first know ourselves. Taking the example of the flannel shirt versus the little black dress, it’s important to know what you like, the nature of what you are expressing, and why you are expressing it. It’s important to be real about where you stand in society, and even who might hate you and why, along with the best places to seek love and comfort.

By knowing yourself thoroughly, openly, and lovingly, you can share information about yourself with others, and that becomes the basis for the best kinds of relationships. Your real ground will come from knowing that even things like race and sexual orientation, and especially things like what you like to wear or how much money you make, are superficial expressions of who you are.

-AC

P.S. As a #crazybeautiful bonus, this week I am able to share some gorgeous music from an old friend from high school, Ian Rashkin. I think these tunes, composed by Ian, capture the wonder and melancholy of trying to be who we are. Enjoy a cup of tea and a listen:

Two Works for Solo Violin by Ian Rashkin

Sea Poem. Performed by J.J. Jang.

Melodrama No. 1. Performed by J.J. Jang.