How do you write a recap of 2001 without answering the question, "Where were you on 9/11?" It's become the next generation's "Where were you when you heard about the Kennedy assassination?" In his case, he was boarding a school bus after a day in the Third Grade (the latter question) and on the fourth day of a week-long Zen meditation retreat (the former question). What he was doing at a week-long Zen meditation retreat needs a little explaining.
While he was dead in 1999 and 2000, he had thrown himself into his work and by the end of that second year he had not used a single day of his annual vacation time (dead men don't take vacations). Management denied his request to let the time roll over into the next year and basically ordered him to go home and take most of the month of December off and to not ever let that much time accrue again, and he suddenly found himself home alone with nothing to do and nowhere to go for an almost month-long holiday "stay-cation."
On one of the very first days of this poorly planned time off, his computer broke down and he could not access the internet. He couldn't imagine facing a month home alone without an internet connection (how would he download music?), so he went off to a Barnes & Noble to find a how-to book on computer troubleshooting.
While he was there, among the "For Dummies" series of books (Automobile Maintenance for Dummies, German Language for Dummies, Computer Troubleshooting for Dummies, etc.), he noticed a book titled Zen Buddhism for Dummies. He had always been interested in the topic, and had taken an elective course in Eastern Religions while in college and had read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and some Alan Watts back in the 70s. He bought the book along with some other light reading for his time off, and eventually restored his internet connection and spent the rest of the holiday month at home reading and downloading music.
He didn't find the Zen Buddhism for Dummies book to be particularly informative, but it did spark his curiosity enough for him to search the web, now that he was back on line, for local Zen resources in Atlanta and by the beginning of 2001, he found himself formally pursuing a study of Zen as a student under the guidance of a recognized Zen teacher. Like many neophytes, he initially pursued the study with a newcomer's zeal and diligence, and by September 2001 he had already participated in one previous week-long retreat and several weekend retreats. Management was glad to see him using up rather than hoarding his vacation time.
On the morning of the fourth day of the second retreat, an announcement was made of the September 11 attacks, and many of the retreat participants chose to leave to be home with their families. He chose to stay, and for the next several days was blissfully unaware of the angry rhetoric apparently spewed over the radio and television. He hadn't watched the video clip of that plane flying into the building over and over and over again, and by the end of the week, his heart wasn't filled with hatred and rage against the "enemy."
Leaving the retreat was a surreal experience. Even though the retreat was held locally, the America he came back home to was much angrier and more intolerant and more militant than the America he had left. His friends and co-workers had seemingly transformed over the course of the week he was away into rip-snorting, mouth-breathing, Islamophobic neocons, but in his own heart, he felt not hatred but compassion and sorrow for the delusion and ignorance of the hijackers, and could find few others with any sympathy or tolerance for his point of view. America was getting itself ready to go bomb themselves some Muslims, and he couldn't have been more opposed to that action.
One way that he inoculated himself from the hatred and anger around him was by immersing himself in Arabic art and music. Listen to another man's music and you'll understand something of his heart and soul, he reasoned, and William S. Burroughs once wrote that Arabic music seemed to work on "hashish time," evolving without discernable beginnings as it weaves and drifts endlessly through the air. With the seemingly limitless resources of the internet at his fingertips, he started downloading and listening to Near and Middle Eastern musicians such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, DJ Cheb i Sabbah, and Natacha Atlas.
Probably one of the most interesting and provocative of the lot was the prolific Bryn Jones, who recorded under the name Muslimgauze. His first reaction to hearing this music was wanting to check that the recording wasn't damaged - was it really supposed to sound like that? Maybe a speaker wire was loose? The sound was fuzzy and static-laden, a lo-fi soundscape with sudden drops and rebounds in volume. Album and song titles (e.g., Hebron Massacre, The Rape of Palestine, and Vote Hezbollah) were intentionally provocative and confrontational. "The political facts of Palestine, Afghanistan and Iran influence the music of Muslimgauze," he declared on the back cover of one album. Jones passed away in 1999 and never lived to see the events of 9/11 or their aftermath.
While he was dead in 1999 and 2000, he had thrown himself into his work and by the end of that second year he had not used a single day of his annual vacation time (dead men don't take vacations). Management denied his request to let the time roll over into the next year and basically ordered him to go home and take most of the month of December off and to not ever let that much time accrue again, and he suddenly found himself home alone with nothing to do and nowhere to go for an almost month-long holiday "stay-cation."
On one of the very first days of this poorly planned time off, his computer broke down and he could not access the internet. He couldn't imagine facing a month home alone without an internet connection (how would he download music?), so he went off to a Barnes & Noble to find a how-to book on computer troubleshooting.
While he was there, among the "For Dummies" series of books (Automobile Maintenance for Dummies, German Language for Dummies, Computer Troubleshooting for Dummies, etc.), he noticed a book titled Zen Buddhism for Dummies. He had always been interested in the topic, and had taken an elective course in Eastern Religions while in college and had read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and some Alan Watts back in the 70s. He bought the book along with some other light reading for his time off, and eventually restored his internet connection and spent the rest of the holiday month at home reading and downloading music.
He didn't find the Zen Buddhism for Dummies book to be particularly informative, but it did spark his curiosity enough for him to search the web, now that he was back on line, for local Zen resources in Atlanta and by the beginning of 2001, he found himself formally pursuing a study of Zen as a student under the guidance of a recognized Zen teacher. Like many neophytes, he initially pursued the study with a newcomer's zeal and diligence, and by September 2001 he had already participated in one previous week-long retreat and several weekend retreats. Management was glad to see him using up rather than hoarding his vacation time.
On the morning of the fourth day of the second retreat, an announcement was made of the September 11 attacks, and many of the retreat participants chose to leave to be home with their families. He chose to stay, and for the next several days was blissfully unaware of the angry rhetoric apparently spewed over the radio and television. He hadn't watched the video clip of that plane flying into the building over and over and over again, and by the end of the week, his heart wasn't filled with hatred and rage against the "enemy."
Leaving the retreat was a surreal experience. Even though the retreat was held locally, the America he came back home to was much angrier and more intolerant and more militant than the America he had left. His friends and co-workers had seemingly transformed over the course of the week he was away into rip-snorting, mouth-breathing, Islamophobic neocons, but in his own heart, he felt not hatred but compassion and sorrow for the delusion and ignorance of the hijackers, and could find few others with any sympathy or tolerance for his point of view. America was getting itself ready to go bomb themselves some Muslims, and he couldn't have been more opposed to that action.
One way that he inoculated himself from the hatred and anger around him was by immersing himself in Arabic art and music. Listen to another man's music and you'll understand something of his heart and soul, he reasoned, and William S. Burroughs once wrote that Arabic music seemed to work on "hashish time," evolving without discernable beginnings as it weaves and drifts endlessly through the air. With the seemingly limitless resources of the internet at his fingertips, he started downloading and listening to Near and Middle Eastern musicians such as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, DJ Cheb i Sabbah, and Natacha Atlas.
So that's what he was quite deliberately listening to back in 2001. It wasn't popular then (or now) but it kept the hatred at bay. He still feels that his positions then were correct and that history is proving that the wars were enormous errors of historical proportions. But at the very least, he was no longer dead - he had reincarnated into a pro-tolerance, anti-war, pacifistic Zen Buddhist.
No comments:
Post a Comment