Bibliophilia

There is a fun site called Lookshelves that has people present a photo of some part of their bookshelf and then answer five simple questions about their collection. Instead of a picture, here is a link to my Shelfari, a site that allows you to put books on a virtual shelf to keep track. My shelf on Shelfary contains about 1/3 of our current collection.

1) Who are you and where are you?
My name is Eagan and I am in Washington, D.C. (well technically Silver Spring, MD -- which is just outside the DC border, but most people have no idea where that is)

2) What do you do for work?
I am a health care analyst for an arm of Congress which provides oversight of the federal government and publicly spent funds.

3) What do you do for fun?
Spending time with Heather. This often includes hanging out at bookstores, seeing new exhibits at D.C.'s many museums and galleries, trying new restaurants, watching movies, and discussing politics.

4) Tell me something about your bookshelves.
Our bookshelves are currently the largest and cheapest that Ikea had to offer. We have four of them and they each fit around 200 books. However, they are all completely full and we have had to resort to stacking books on top of the books on the shelf. We also have one bookshelf from my Mom's old toy store.

5) Tell me something about ONE of the books on your shelf.
The most bookmarked book I own is Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen. In grad school it was my bible but I haven't gone back to it much since then. I am sure I will read it again soon and the ideas in it still influence my work greatly. It comforts me to know it is always there.

Only in Theory

A recent editorial in the WSJ lays out the overly simplistic rhetoric that some economists use to criticize those with a more complex world-view.

The piece claims to highlight that "liberals" and "progressives" are woefully ignorant of basic economic principles. The article highlights the eight measures used in the survey:

The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree). 8) Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable (unenlightened answer: disagree)

What the author clearly fails to understand is how overly simplistic these examples are. His use of the term "unenlightened" further shows the author's inability to comprehend that someone may not simply agree with these supposed truisms from Economics 101. However, the true story behind many of these statements is more come complex when you look at them empirically (as opposed to pretending that theoretical understanding plays out perfectly in the real world). Those familiar with the actual empirical literature on minimum wages know that the simple assertion of #7 is simply unfounded. Unemployment is a complex issue and to pretend that it is so largely affected by one factor just highlights how out of touch many in the field of economics are with reality.

Also, anyone familiar with survey methodology can identify poor question design and vague wording in many of the suppositions posed to the interviewees. The question don't ask whether these assertions are "correct according to economic theory." Were that the case, it is likely that many would answer differently (I know I would); and then you could only say that progressives and liberals didn't understand economic theory (something very different from economic reality). The survey questions also make widely unfounded suppositions -- for example, that there is something called "free trade" that exists outside of the minds of economists.

Finally, the questions fail to highlight that the benefits of many of these measures outweigh the theoretical negatives highlighted in the statements. Were it always true that mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services, then such an increase is a minor problem in comparison to having various unlicensed pseudo-professionals posing as actual professionals in a given field. To claim that simply disagreeing with such a simplistic statement in any way impugns the intervieweree is absurd to say the least.

Never Enough Time (Buddhism: A Series, Part 5)

As I got more and more comfortable in my job, time began to fly by. Weeks felt like they were passing in days, and months would end before I had time to flip my calendar. There is a lot to do in DC and it has kept us pleasantly busy. But I felt a nagging feeling: Where was the time going?

Each Moment is the Universe by Dainin Katagiri highlights the teachings of impermanence and inter-being and how our ignorance of them causes us to suffer. This was the first book I read that delved deeply into Zen practice and ideas. The book focuses on being aware and mindful in each moment.

As human beings, we always base our thoughts on this misunderstanding [that we are separate from everything else in the universe]. We always feel that something is missing from our lives. We think that to live a peaceful life we must get something that is outside ourselves. Then we try to get it. But actions based on thirsty desire just become the cause of more suffering. That is why Buddha's teaching that suffering arises from desire based on ignorance is the second Noble Truth.

This teaching, for me, highlighted the importance of being aware each day. I began to focus more on taking time to just be aware of what I was doing at that moment. This would often meant little more than taking time throughout the day to keep level and focused. I found the practice rewarding and came to take pleasure in these instants of awareness.

One aspect of the book I found intriguing was the emphasis on the congruence of time and space. Here the book explores an idea similar to some from physics.

Time seems to be separate from beings, but actually there is no separation. From moment to moment, all sentient beings exist together as a completely independent moment of time. When the moment begins, all sentient beings temporarily appear as particular beings in the stream of time and seem to have their own separate existences. When the moment ceases, all sentient beings disappear, but they do not go away: they are interconnected smoothly and quietly in timelessness.

In physics, there is the notion that time and space are not separate. That they are tied together. This notion, for me, highlights that while we can say we are in the same place, are lives continue moving. Even at times when we feel stuck or lazy, that which we depend on and which depends on us continues to change.

The next book I read was Becoming Enlightened by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I was interesting in understanding more about this fabled figure in Buddhism.

Walking the Path (Buddhism: A Series, Part 4)

I have never been one to shy away from self-reflection, and Buddhism's emphasis on doing so appealed to me. I began reading Heart of the Buddha's Teachings by Thich Nhat Hanh to get a better idea of some of the more specific tenets of Buddhist beliefs. I had a vague sense of the overall structure and some of the core values, but I had yet to dive in too deeply. This book highlighted many of the fundamental ideas attributed to the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. Some of these ideas included lists of attributes that are incorporated in anyone attempting to achieve bodhichitta, or an awakened mind.

While concretizing these ideas seemed on some level more prescriptive than necessary, I could understand the need for many to have a guide in their lives and in their practice of Buddhism. It was around this time that I made the conscious effort to begin experimenting with many of these ideas. I began reflecting more often on my own actions and views. I tried to identify what purpose they were serving. The biggest change was thinking about how my words and behaviors could be serving to create suffering, even unintentionally. I tried to think before speaking, particularly when I was angry or prideful (not terribly often for the former, more often than I would like to admit for the latter). Thay (a nickname given to Thich Nhat Hanh, meaning teacher) emphasized that by speaking to someone in a way that causes them to suffer, we are making things worse for them and others they interact with.

These changes made me think back to being in high school and early college. In those days I often found myself in heated political, religious, and social arguments in classes. I often would deliver biting critiques of other students' arguments. While these arguments took place in the context of a classroom, the tense feelings could last far beyond. I relished the sense of fear I put into some students as they came to realize they had little chance of coming out on top in any argument. Looking back now, I shake my head at my behavior then. My pride and arrogance likely impeded their learning and my own as well. I failed to see how it was likely their upbringing that led them to believe the way they did. My lashing out could never serve to rearrange their thinking and lived experiences in the course of a classroom discussion.

Now, to be clear, speaking up against injustice is something that everyone is responsible for. Silence is often confused with consent and letting injustices go unchallenged hurts us all. However, I know I could have been a more compassionate and, therefore, more convincing interlocutor if I had tried to understand why they believed what they did, instead of just cutting off the head of their argument.

This practice began to reap dividends as I found myself less stressed, slower to anger, and I was content in that I had made progress. When I found myself in interactions that would have previously caused anxiety, I was able to navigate them with a cooler head which often led to a more positive outcome than I would have expected. You would be surprised how appreciated a kind word or a smile can be, even to someone you don't know who is experiencing pain or anger.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed grappling with the minutia of specific Buddhist ideas and was interested in diving deeper into more complex books. The next book I read was Each Moment is the Universe by Dainin Katagiri, which focused on Buddhist perspectives on time. As weeks flew by, I was beginning to see the value of my time more than ever before. I next plan to discuss the insights from that book and also some areas where I was beginning to see my prior ideas were matching up well with Buddhist beliefs.

A Modern Day Jim Crow

The recent noxious immigration law in Arizona highlights many of the problems of the immigration debate. The measure, as has been the case for measures like it, will not serve to reduce crime or improve living conditions in Arizona. It will simply serve to further marginalize undocumented workers, making it even easier for coyotes and unethical companies to exploit them.

Further, by requiring ALL immigrants to carry around their papers, it strikes an eerily similar tone to precursors to violence in other countries which have marked certain populations as dangerous and attempted to create a parallel system for their treatment. Police are emboldened to stop anyone perceived as being an undocumented immigrant and demanding to see their paperwork. As you can imagine, there are clear racial and ethical undertones in such a law.

A more sane and just approach to immigration is needed, and the Obama administration must be pushed into taking the lead. It is a positive development that the Justice Department has promised to be vigilant as this law begins to be enforced over the next few months.

Anyone interested in the causes of this controversy and workable solutions would be advised to check out one or all of the following:

"They Take Our Jobs!" and 20 Other Myths About Immigration by Aviva Chomsky

Ex-Mex: From Migrants to Immigrants by Jorge Casteñeda

The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border by David Bacon

The Personal Is Spiritual (Buddhism: A Series, Part 3)

To this day, I don't call myself a Buddhist. My lack of acceptance of such labels was reinforced by Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening by Stephen Batchelor. A former Buddhist monk and now lay Buddhist teacher, Batchelor explores issues of Buddhism from, what he terms, a Western perspective.

Through the book I came to identify Buddhism as a religion, but Dharmic practice (living the teachings of the Middle Way -- a name the Buddha gave his teachings) as an existential approach to life. This approach appealed to me for a variety of reasons. Batchelor's emphasis on a non-denominational Buddhist practice was something I found engaging. At this time I was also beginning to get a better understanding of the sociology, geography, and history of early Buddhism and its denominations. I was also learning more about early Islam and its interactions with Buddhism (a great book on the history of Islam is Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamin Ansary).

The different denominations of Buddhism were not terribly familiar to me. I had a vague understanding of regional differences in practice from the hilarious and surprisingly informative The Savvy Convert's Guide to Choosing a Religion (with such selling points on the cover as "Most Approved by God!" and "Get the Best Faith for Your Buck").

Batchelor's iconoclasm (which I would later understand the controversy of) really appealed to me. By putting some of the more arcane and obscure aspects of Buddhism in a historical context, and then treating them with a sort of reverent agnosticism, Batchelor found a way to embrace Buddhism without feeling tied to pieces he found questionable.

However, at this point I was beginning to feel like I was coming to have a more individual understanding of some of the concepts discussed. Some of the same ideas that hung up Batchelor were also hanging me up, particularly things like Karma and Rebirth. However, having a very cursory understanding of Buddhism, I approached much of Buddhism more as an intellectual exercise and sociological project than something overly personal.

This would begin to change as I allowed myself to be more open and honest about my skepticism and where it came from. That topic and The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh will be the focus of my next entry.

An Oddly Familiar Perspective (Buddhism: A Series, Part 2)

After moving to Washington D.C., my interest in Buddhism was put on the shelf. Upon arrival we had about 6 weeks to find jobs and a place to live. As can be expected, engaging with Buddhism wasn't top on my list of concerns. It was a stressful but happy six weeks. Sending off resumes, attending interviews, and looking for apartments took up most of our time. My father was in D.C. for six weeks for work and so we were able to stay with them. This made for some tight quarters at their 1 bedroom extended-stay hotel.

Things finally began to come together in mid-October. I got a job and we found an apartment that we really liked. One of the many perks of the building we chose is that it is next door to a library branch. After settling in we began to make more regular use of this wonderful service. Glancing through the Buddhism books one afternoon, many seemed more doctrinal and archaic than I was interested in.

I picked up one book, pretty much by random, called No Death, No Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh. Glancing through the introduction, the book seemed more like a discussion of existential philosophy as a coping mechanism. I was interested by the way he reduces complex Buddhist principles into ways of approaching grief. The approach he took seemed novel, the book was written to be appropriate for someone currently going through grief, but was even more appropriate for someone who wasn't (in that the lessons in the book are best to know before you are struck with grief). I think this dual purpose made the book much more approachable than it would have been otherwise. The book spoke broadly about loss, the fear of loss, and how these things cause us to suffer. I would greatly come to appreciate these ideas in a year or so, with the passing of my grandmother.

As an introduction to some of the more fundamental aspects of Buddhism, I found it really engaging. The two main points emphasized interconnectedness and impermanence. His approach never belied the complex doctrinal debates that underscore and support both of these fundamental ideas. I would later come to appreciate just how deeply these ideas run in Buddhist thought.

Most important from No Death, No Fear was that it sparked my interest in reading more books on Buddhism and beginning to unpack some of the more complex aspects. Many of the ideas expressed in the book aligned well with ideas that I had come across on existentialism and even secular humanism. The thing that was outstanding to me was that the book discussed these ideas not as a religious or necessarily spiritual practice, but more as a way to approach life. While Nhat Hanh discussed the benefits of quiet contemplation, it never seemed to be the only way to approach our fears of mortality, sickness, and change.

Around this same time, Kayla sent me a book on Buddhism that she thought would fit my style. It was called Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening by Stephen Batchelor. This engaging book will be the focus of my next post.