Alan’s got a lovely piece up at Clear View Blog (digging his jaunty-angled question: what would MLK, Malcolm X, and Paul Robeson think about being put on U.S. postage stamps?) that points to the connections between big-L Love and the effort to, in King’s words, “defeat evil systems.”
Compassion and militancy. Neither can substitute for the other. If you’ve got militancy but don’t practice compassion, your friends and comrades — the people upon whom you most rely, politically and personally — prob’ly won’t enjoy being around you. Not in the long term, anyway. And if you’ve got compassion but no critical analysis of “evil systems,” or meaningful program to defeat them, you are, as Ryan points out, utopian.
Combine the two, compassion and militancy, and you’ll get something powerful. But you’ll also get problems.
Frederick Douglas famously asked, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” We might do well to extend the same skepticism to today’s hallowed, lovey-dovey vacation day.
Beneath the hype, MLK day can serve as a reminder that people who advance the fight for radical liberation, using their own compassion and militancy, are undoubtedly risking their lives.
So if you’re among them, thank you for your courage. May the earth continue to bless you with beauty every day. May you sometimes have a sweet picnic by the lake.
One of the Buddhist precepts that I don’t hear discussed much in ‘official’ settings is the advice to “avoid using sexuality in harmful ways.” There’s a ton to unpack there, obviously, but one connection I’m making has to do with a meeting tonight of Bay Area radicals rallying around a friend of mine who got fired from her job.
She’s been an educator in an Oakland after-school program for a while, and a few weeks ago her boss fired her. Didn’t tell her why. (Still hasn’t.) Didn’t even bother to notify her: she came in and worked a whole day before being told that her contract had been terminated.
So what’s this got to do with sexuality? Well, even though no one has told her why she was fired, my friend has a pretty good idea: she turned down her boss’s sexual advances. For months he had been flirting with her, but as soon as she put a stop to it, the game changed. You can read her entire account on her blog.
Sexual harassment at the workplace? Clearly not okay. So tonight a bunch of us will get together and see what we can do to support. My friend already took the lead herself, by refusing to play along with her boss in the first place. (Reminds me of Robin D. G. Kelley’s Race Rebels, where he examines everyday worker resistance, and specifically names the form of struggle wherein women respond with calculated coldness to sexually aggressive male superiors.) But individual assertions of dignity are not enough. Not even when it comes to sila (Buddhist morality, including the precepts.) It takes sangha, community, to breathe life into explorations of harm and benefit.
And importantly, the precepts aren’t some kind of spiritual checklist. Don’t lie — gotcha; Don’t steal — okey dokey. If that were true, then as long as my shit is under control, I wouldn’t need to care about anybody else’s struggles with harm.
To me, rather than instruments for performance evaluation, precepts can act as guideposts for looking deeply and holistically into processes of harm and benefit.
We’ll see what we can come up with at tonight’s meeting.
It’s cold here in Oakland. I am a hot-weather person. But it’s all good: I’m snuggled up under some blankets, and feeling especially cozy and glad because I get to share two lovely new blogspaces with you!
The first one a lot of folks are already excited about. It’s a blog for the Clear View Project, an engaged Buddhism org led by the totally rad Hozan Alan Senauke, vice-abbot at the Berkeley Zen Center. (Which, incidentally, is just a ways down from my new apartment. hey, neighbor.)
Just barely out the gate, Alan’s blog is already shining. Current events (national and international); incredible music (DAMN!); and personal/political reporting on the ongoing hearing of author, Buddhist, and death row prisoner Jarvis Masters — with whom Alan has cultivated a friendship for nearly 14 years. At Alan’s invitation on the blog, I joined supporters for part of the first day of Jarvis’ hearings in Marin. As someone who particularly appreciates blogs that bridge the online/offline divide, I’m so grateful that the CVP’s very first post was an offering for prison-support action. Dope, dope, dope. And the icing on the cake: Alan’s a superb writer. Clear View Blog: check it out, if you haven’t already.
And the second new blog, like most of the sites on my blogroll, is by a longtime friend and fellow young status-quo-questioner (who chooses to remain anonymous). The first few postings on handful of earth are personal and insightful, with the kind of sweet storytelling that, when you’re finished reading, makes you want to go on with your day a little differently; a little better. I especially love this dharma-infused reflection on a daily commute ritual with a stranger, commenting on the connection between generosity and joy.
There it is — two brand-new cybergems. Here’s to sharing freely online, while we still have the chance.
When I graduated high school, I got a fairy-tale-like scholarship that would fully fund my higher education, wherever I wanted to go, for however many degrees I wanted to complete.
My mama and me, sometime around a December 24th, judging by the object of my interest
No, I’m not referring to Baby Jesus. It’s my mama’s birthday today! All the holiday furor tends to obscure it, of course — horrifically, I’ve even forgotten about it myself, a year or two. And whether it’s because her birthday has always been overshadowed, or she simply doesn’t put too much stock in it (chicken or egg?), December 24th tends to be a low-key affair for her.
Today, we spent a long, sweet afternoon painting pottery with Ryan at one of those places where you…paint pottery. Can’t wait to show you those photos. Ryan’s mug depicts a maritime scene with sea creatures conspiring against a battleship.
For now, here are a few assorted of my time in Sacramento: the birthday present I made my mom (a real old-fashioned analog photo album of my time in college. Super cheesy, but she loves that stuff); a dinner party with high school friends (starting with Richard’s gorgeous fried chicken, from a recipe in ad hoc at home); etc.
However you interact with it, I hope this weekend finds you well, healthy, safe, and happy.
Hey friends! Thank you for the rich discussion in the last post, on communicating with our elders. I’m always so humbled and grateful for the open, honest reflections that people share in this space. And that’s part of why this weekly practice of blogging continues.
Speaking of practices, I’m on a mission to cultivate more traditions and rituals in my life. Little anchors and measuring sticks for relating to change, and the passage of time, in a slightly different way. (Note: I love the weekly butcher-shop ritual described in this gorgeous essay by a dynamic/post-/questioning vegan; link via Napaquetzalli and Ernesto.)
One ritual that I’ve been recalling lately dates back to 2008/early 2009, when I lived in Central Square, back in Cambridge. My friend Jen turned me on to this weekly program on an independent radio station. “The Secret Spot.” Old-school and R&B jams: from Erykah Badu to Teddy Pendergrass, D’Angelo, Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Lauryn Hill, Al Green. I LOVED The Secret Spot. And on Saturday nights, I would light some candles in the living room, turn down the lights, cozy up with a blanket in my favorite armchair, and listen. Sing along, too, if the apartment was empty (which it often was — this being Saturday night, when my fellow twentysomething housemates were typically engaged in more age-appropriate activities).
Hola cariñ@s! Last night we of the Faithful Fools (my work/home community center in SF) returned from the annual 2-week trip to our sister group in Nicaragua. Thus ends the Kloncke 2-year anniversary retrospective series, which I hope wasn’t too boring and redundant!
From the moment we hit the landing runway at 5pm, seems like I haven’t stopped to rest. (Evidenced in part by the fact that I’m still wearing the same clothes I was wearing last night). Doesn’t feel too hectic or neurotic, just a fast-moving stream of strange, luminous moments.
Seeing a show at a bar last night, the lead singer of which was my partner’s ex-girlfriend from high school (I think that among the attendees of this little concert, we had something like a hexagon of exes going on…).
Practicing Thich Nhat Hanh’s guides for loving conflict resolution via 2am text message.
Due to a BART subway delay, running late to a Fools zen sitting for which it was especially important to be punctual (and reflecting on cultural and mental meanings around lateness).
Assembling an outfit from my closet for a friend who lives on the streets and got kicked out of a showering facility literally mid-stream. At that very moment she happened to run into another friend of the Fools, who called me and brought over the naked girl, wrapped in a sheet, her wet hair still warm as she sat down in our living room.
I could go on. But it’s getting late, and I’m beyond exhausted. So in a bit of a non sequitur, I’ll leave you with a shard of a poem that blew me away recently, and has stayed with me over the past two weeks. It was the second line, in particular, that made something inside me sit bolt upright. Wonder what you think.
Those with dualistic perception regard suffering as happiness,
Like they who lick the honey from a razor’s edge.
Photos from this morning's walk. In the last month or so, these koi have appeared on sidewalks all around my neighborhood. Thank you, whoever is responsible!
The official anniversary isn’t until the 9th, but tomorrow I’m leaving for 2 weeks in Nicaragua with the Faithful Fools (an annual trip they make to maintain relationship and community ties). Won’t be blogging from there, but thanks to the magic of technology, I’ll be able to ghost-post!
And what to publish?
What I had for breakfast: farm:table daily toast. Brandied cranberry compote with apples and a drizzle of condensed milk, on German rye.
Well, for a long time I’ve been wanting to add a “Best Of” section, so that folks visiting for the first time will have a sense of what this place is all about. Kloncke presents a very eclectic mix (much like the mind, heart, and life of a human), and someone accustomed to niche writing might feel overwhelmed or turned off at first, especially if they don’t know me personally and don’t give a hoot about what I ate for breakfast. (See right.) So an entry point might be helpful. Hence, a retrospective: beginning today, ending on the 16th, each post a candidate for inclusion in the new feature.
farm:table
Looking back over the last two years offers some refreshing perspective for me, a reminder of the origins and evolution of this project. For instance: my photos at the beginning were blurry as hell! Hehe.
Seriously, though, in spite of the fact that it’s the traditional, political essays and longer pieces that have driven most of the traffic here, the foundations of the blog were explicitly a step away from my overly narrow fixation on politics as The Only Important Thing.
Honestly, the most gratifying, uplifting feedback I’ve received hasn’t been about solid analysis (although that’s lovely and appreciated, too). It’s been the friends who’ve told me that a video I made inspired them to call their grandparents.
Or that some photos I took changed the way they appreciated farmers’ markets, and the small picture-worthy subjects.
Or that a story I told, or an essay I quoted, helped them to reflect on their anger or approach unemployment with a “beginner’s mind.”
Political writings (inflected with dhamma) might be the biggest draw here, but the true basis of the project is much broader, less serious, and more honest.
A gown made out of condom wrappers, for a health benefit party
Even more important, I love thumbing through old posts to read the comment threads. Readers and commenters are what makes blogging so special to me as a form of writing. Less speech, more conversation. And given how terribly seldom I participate in comments on other folks’ blogs (a practice I hope to improve in the coming year! For an insightful essay on this lopsidedness phenomenon, check this post), I truly, truly appreciate every single comment that comes through Kloncke. Hearing from all of you is an unbelievable pleasure. So thanks!
Happy reading, friends. To kick us off, here’s the very first post, from 09 December 2008. What I find most interesting about it is my focus on embodiment. I was seriously psyched to be out of my headspace, and into my hands, hips, and feet! Thanks, old me. Excellent idea.
Friends, I’m sorry for the extended blog silence! I’ve been in a bit of a weird place lately. Evident in the state of my bedroom (look like a hurricane blew through), my online habits (browsing Texts From Last Night), and chronic mental tangents that destroy my book-reading abilities (more on that later).
Also, awareness is heightening around the matters that cannot be shared or discussed on this blog. Including: much of my work (for confidentiality reasons); specifics of my love life (for family diplomacy reasons); and my dad’s recent bouts with illness (for his-privacy reasons). As you well know by now, there’s not much about my day-to-day existence that I feel is too “private” or “sacred” or even mundane to share. It’s all life. But not all of life belongs in this blogspace. Gotta dance around some of it. These days, my figurative thighs are getting a workout.
In any case, here are a couple family photos from yesterday, at my pop’s 70th birthday party — actually more of a celebration of life, resilience, recovery, and the amazing network of friends, kin, and pets who have all contributed to his recovery from a near-fatal health crisis. They say a lot, and very little.
Kloncke 