A friend recently checked into a substance abuse rehab center for a drinking problem.  He’s not happy about getting involved in a twelve-step program.   He considers AA a cult and most of its members losers.  However, he now suffers from advancing cirrhosis. Continued drinking means death, his doctor warned.

My friend is an avid golfer, and his best friends are golfers. Alcohol is part of their culture and he considers their drinking adventures entertaining and “cool.” Life without alcohol seems grim and lackluster to him.  Only death would be worse.  And that, of course, is the choice he’s faced with.

Drinking has long been woven into the mystique of golf.  Many famous golfers became alcoholics during their careers.  PGA golfer John Daly is one.  He has been disciplined repeatedly for drunken behavior. Over the years, the PGA Tour ordered him into alcohol rehab at least seven times.   In an interview (while he was on the wagon), Daly said, “Everywhere you turn on tour, there’s alcohol. It’s the country-club scene with drinking before, during and after rounds.”

Harry Vardon, Early Golf Superstar

The tradition of drinking is often stoutly defended by golf devotees. In 1915, Harry Vardon—one of golf’s first international superstars—was asked by a British temperance worker to join the movement against alcohol. His reply was, “Moderation is essential in all things, madam,” he said, “but never in my life have I failed to beat a teetotaler.”

Famous golfers who were alcoholics include George Travers, Tommy Armour, Fred Herreshoff, Noah Begay, and Walter Hagen.  Hagen was so admired by Bill Wilson, a founder of AA, that his name can be found on the pages of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous..

Alcoholism is common among other celebrity athletes. Jim Thorpe, the legendary track star (who also played football and baseball), was an alcoholic. So were baseball pitchers Rube Waddell, Bugs Raymond, and Grover Cleveland Alexander, plus catcher Rollie Hemsley.

Famous people whose lives were impaired by alcoholism until they gave up drinking include:

King Edward VIII of England
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., movie actor
Stephen Crane, novelist
Eugene V. Debs, labor leader
Isadora Duncan, dancer
Edna St. Vincent Millay, poet
Sherwood Anderson, novelist
Theodore Dreiser, novelist
Muhammad Ali, boxer
Duke of York, British royal family
Isaac Asimov, scientist/author
David Bowie, rock star
Warren Buffett, billionaire investor
Jim Carrey, actor
Eric Clapton, musician
John Coltrane, musician
Tom Cruise, actor
Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th U.S. President
Stonewall Jackson, Confederate General
Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple Computers
Elton John, musician/songwriter
Stephen King, author
Bruce Lee, martial arts performer Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President David Lloyd George, British Prime Minister
James Russell Lowell, poet/diplomat
Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France
Prince, celebrity musician
John D. Rockefeller, industrialist/philanthropist
Fred Rogers, star of children’s TV show

Mitt Romney, former Massachuetts Governor
George Bernard Shaw,  playwright
Ringo Starr, Beatles drummer
Strom Thurmond, U.S. SenatorPierre Trudeau, former Prime Minister of Canada
Mae West, film star
Malcolm X, Black activist

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The Book: Talking About Acupuncture in New York

Professor J.R. Worsley is widely acknowledged as the person who first brought Chinese medicine to the West. Worsley taught classical acupuncture based on ancient five-element theory throughout Europe and the United States until his death in 2003.  In 1980, he presented a day-long seminar in New York City, which was transcribed and published as Talking About Acupuncture in New York (Worsley, Inc., Churchill Farm, England 2004, 109 pp.)

J.R. & Judy Worsley

In 1999, Professor Worsley and his second wife, Judy, a former acupuncture student, founded the Worsley Institute of Five-Element Acupuncture.  Judith Becker Worsley now manages the Institute.

Law of Husband and Wife

Near the middle of the seminar [book], Professor Worsley described the Law of Husband and Wife. “In traditional Chinese medicine, when we make a correct diagnosis, in many cases we will find within a patient a husband/wife imbalance…We have the wife part trying to violate the law of Nature by taking the male role, and there is destruction.”

Putting the Law of Husband and Wife in the context of ancient times, he said, “In those days thousands of years ago, of course, the man went out to do the hunting, the shooting, and the fishing to provide for the family. The wife stayed at home to play her natural role—to bring up the child and give strength to the husband, to give him support and love. Without him  she would collapse; he would collapse.”

Cultural Anthropological Perspective

Cultural anthropologists describe primitive heterosexual partnerships quite differently. The notion that a wife’s natural role is to give strength, love and support to a husband reflects a romantic Western view of marriage (and not even a current one), not the reality of life in primitive societies.  A failed or lost husband-wife partnership did not have the same personal consequences thousands of years ago, when mortality was high at all ages. The woman deprived of a partner continued to depend on her female network and the community. She was not prey to the social isolation experienced by many contemporary Western women suffering from failed or lost relationships. In fact, women in primitive societies who had passed the menarche were often called “crones,” implying a state of increased independence and power. Men, too, were probably not susceptible to “collapse” after relationship losses  A man still in his vigorous years could find another woman.

Professor Worsley on “Women’s Lib”

Professor Worsley

Professor Worsley’s comments on male-female energy included: “Why the hell they have to have a woman’s lib I do not know! Everybody knows that the man is the head of the family, and that’s that! The woman is the neck, and she turns the head whichever direction she wants to…Everybody knows that the women are very cunning. They allow the men to put up the fronts and the masculinity and the strength, but it’s really they who’ve got it! …So why women’s lib I don’t know. We need a men’s lib!”

Unbalanced Male and Female Energy

How the dynamic of husband/wife imbalance translates to the clinical acupuncture setting according to the model used by Professor Worsley is unclear.  In the real world, suppressed female energy and unchecked male energy in a society appear to result in excessive aggression and violence. Anthropologically, psychologically, and perhaps biologically, women have a low propensity for physical aggression, preferring indirect strategies for managing conflict. In highly patriarchal societies, their mitigating influence is weakened.

Does Professor Worsley believe that a female emasculates a male when she doesn’t relinquish control to him? Is she in violation of natural law when she is straightforward instead of manipulative (turning the husband’s head “whichever direction she wants to”). According to Worsley,”…with the grace of God, we are able to correct that imbalance and give back the superior energy to the husband, put the wife back in her role, and that patient will then live for their normal life expectancy.”

Physical and Clinical Aspects

Worsley is not specific about what aspect of the husband’s energy is “superior” as he alluded only to men’s physical strength–specifically, the male’s ability to run faster and jump higher. Does that still matter in a society where physical strength is seldom required?  Worsley’s reference to putting the wife “back in her role” is unclear, although the words seem to imply that she has overstepped her bounds.  Lacking sufficient knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine, readers like me are unenlightened about the clinical consequences of a patient having too much “husband” energy or too much “wife” energy.

Translation Problems

Perhaps many practitioners of Chinese medicine think of “husband/wife” imbalance more in terms of male/female imbalance—a state in which male energy lacks adequate female counterbalancing or vice versa.  This would be easier to understand, as the roles of ‘husband” and “wife” are sociocultural arrangements, not anthropological or biological.  Or perhaps the concepts of yin and yang would better explain the Law of Husband and Wife to those newly acquainted with acupuncture theory. Maybe the translation of Chinese terms and concepts into English is part of the problem.  Some Chinese teachers of five-element acupuncture warn that accurate translation from Chinese to other languages is impossible.

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Noted Lama Visits Gainesville

Bardor Tulku Rinpoche

On Friday, October 21, 2011, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche appeared at the Historic Church of Gainesville on NE First Street in Gainesville, Florida, to speak on “Buddhism and Family Life.” After his formal talk, he entertained a variety of other topics in a question-and-answer period. Bardor Rinpoche is recognized as an incarnate lama by His Holiness the 16^th Gyalwa Karmapa.

Shortly after 7 pm, the lama was assisted to the podium by two monks, as he has been experiencing some difficulty walking since a stroke in early 2010.  He was greeted by an audience of several hundred people who bowed with respect, some by prostrating themselves.  Several members of the audience brought white silk scarves to be blessed by the lama.

Once the lama was seated, his gestures were fluid and his face animated. Although he spoke exclusively in Tibetan, the audience sat in almost complete silence attending his words.  Several minutes of speaking were followed by several minutes of translation.  The gathering ended at 9 pm.  Copies of his book, Living in Compassion, were sold at the exit by his wife and several assistants.

Highlights of the Talk

• A brief history of Buddhist sanghas since the sixth century.

• The importance of honesty in family communications balanced with tact and loving-kindness.

• The necessity of selective autonomy in a marriage or domestic partnership (as opposed to the total autonomy of single life).

• The spiritual benefits of supporting a partner fully and desiring the best for him or her.

• The importance of avoiding competition in a partnership.

• The dangers of subtly sabotaging a partner in order to be “top dog.”

Highlights of the Q&A Period

• The difference between the Western concepts of guilt and regret from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective. Translation of the question posed by an audience member took a few moments because there is only one Tibetan word to cover both concepts. However, as the translator pointed out, Tibetan Buddhists recognize shades of regret/guilt.  Bardor Rinpoche pointed out that we call “regret” is considered positive as it gives one the opportunity to expunge a behavior or thought pattern. “Guilt” is a negative emotion because it allows one to stay mired in identification with the behavior.

• The long-term consequences of blaming our parents for our present problems because of what they “did to us.”  Problems our parents caused us are usually due to “karmic knots” of their own—which are an inescapable part of any human’s life. Parents rarely intend to do their children harm.

• Dealing with the trauma of having had severely abusive parents. Survivors of extreme parental abuse are more likely to heal from childhood wounds when they realize that their abusive parents had karmic knots so severe and overwhelming that they resulted in out-of-control behavior.

• The absence of God in the Buddhist belief system. Buddhists generally do not believe that the world was created by a supernatural being nor that any divinity controls the course of our lives.  Our spiritual welfare begins and ends with us.

• Belief (or non-belief) in evolution.  Most Buddhists believe that while evolution of the human species occurred in the past, we are probably now in an era of “devolution.”  This view applies to humanity in general, not to individual humans, who are still capable of upward evolution through their lives.

• The personal meaning of Buddhist practice and the concept of enlightenment. While words and concepts are important, they are only tools that lead us to the wordless experience of enlightenment and self-knowledge.

• The challenges of raising children in Western culture today. Parents are more likely to help their children survive today’s culture if they themselves seek tranquility through meditation.

• The reasons that children fall into destructive lifestyles. Bardor Rinpoche believes that out-of-control behaviors in maturing children are often the result of earlier parental overindulgence and failure to set healthy boundaries.

Bardor Rinpoche’s Background

Bardor Tulku Rinpoche was born in 1949 in Tibet. During childhood, he lived a nomadic life with his family, who were yak herders. When he was ten years old, he and his family escaped to India because of increased Communist oppression. A failed Tibetan uprising in 1959 caused the escalation of political persecution, causing many lamas to flee the country. Bardor Rinpoche’s parents died in Assam, India, shortly after their relocation due to health problems associated with the drastic climate change. Later he moved to Rumtek, Sikkim, and began his formal Buddhist training.

In 2003, Bardor Tulku Rinpoche founded  Kunzang Palchen Ling, a Tibetan Buddhist Center in Red Hook, New York. He resides on the other side of the Hudson River from the Center.    He also teaches at other Buddhist centers throughout North America. The mission of the Center in Red Hook is to offer Western students the teachings of all major schools of Tibetan Buddhism—but most particularly the teachings and practices of the lineage of Terchen Barway Dorje. More about Bardor Rinpoche and the Center can be found at http://www.kunzang.org/btr-bio.html

“Living in Compassion”

Living in Compassion was published by Bardor Rinpoche in 2004 (Rinchen Publications, Kingston NY, 171 pp). The book is divided into three sections: 1) understanding karma in our personal and family relationships; 2) a commentary on The 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, a noted Tibetan text on the path of compassion and wisdom; and 3)  discussion of the six perfections–generosity, morality, patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom. The paperback can be purchased for less than $17.00 from one of Amazon’s subsidiary booksellers at http://www.amazon.com.

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Do you ever argue about religion thinking you’ll convince the other person that you’re right?  How often do you change their beliefs? Buddhists call this “unskilled speech.” It doesn’t work.  Heated discussions rarely change anyone’s mind. They just arouse angry emotions.

John Cobb, a Christian advocate of interfaith dialogue advises us to avoid religious topics unless our minds are open to new ideas and we want to understand the views of others. Discussions of spirituality are fine when they don’t get us worked up—when we can listen to others with a receptive, curious mind. They cause ill feelings when our intention is to convert others to our way of thinking.

This principle extends to other cherished beliefs, too. My triggers for debate are the sport of hunting, the “right to life” movement, and violence in the media.  The Buddhists refer to the triggers that hook us as “shenpa.”  Shenpa turns us from thoughtful, reasonable people into emotional, angry ones.  Since calmness is usually out of my reach when shenpa strikes, my best move is to divert the conversation politely before I get caught up in the desire to win.

According to Buddhist principles—clinging to people, material possessions, and even long-held beliefs causes us to suffer in the long run.  It’s easy to build an identity around these things.  The thought of losing them frightens us, so we defend them at all costs, sometimes leading us to violence.

We can make an ego out of religious identity as easily as anything else.

*   *   *

Kari Bagnall began her whirlwind career as a primary sanctuary director when she opened Jungle Friends on 12 acres of land north of Gainesville, Florida, in 1999. Until her early forties, she was a successful interior designer in Las Vegas.

Kari’s love of monkeys began when her live-in boyfriend brought home a baby capuchin in 1993. Kari took little Samantha everywhere with her.  Unfortunately, her enthusiasm wasn’t shared by the managers of the grocery stores, movie theatres, and shops she visited. Before long, she was no longer welcome at their places of business.  With Samantha riding on her shoulder, Kari was also escorted out of the design showrooms where she made a living.

Putting one misguided foot in front of the other, Kari tried to solve the problem by getting a baby sister for Samantha. Charlotte only doubled Kari’s problems.

Kari turned her home upside down for the girls.  She installed monkey-friendly landscaping, including misting devices and an elephant fountain.  Indoors she built runways near the ceilings that extended into the yard. The monkeys’ room had a TV, rainforest wallpaper, matching curtains, and a four-poster bed draped with mosquito netting.

First, Samantha threw the TV across the room.  Then Charlotte tore down the wallpaper.  Together they ripped up the curtains, dismantled the bed, and nearly hung themselves on the mosquito netting. Outdoors they stuffed pebbles in the elephant’s trunk, blocking the fountain.  They also attacked Kari’s guests, requiring trips to the emergency room for monkey bites.

The result was that Kari gave up her lucrative career as a designer and bought land in Florida where the climate was better for monkeys. On rural acreage, she built spacious, escape-proof habitats, installed water and electric lines, and repaired an old house that came with the land.  That’s where she lived. By the time Kari opened the gates of Jungle Friends Primate Sanctuary, she was almost broke.

Samantha, Charlotte and eleven other monkeys were the first residents at the sanctuary. As the word spread, more monkeys came and more construction was needed.  Within 10 years, Jungle Friends housed 120 capuchins, spider monkeys, marmosets, tamarinds, and squirrel monkeys. They came from unhappy lives in research laboratories, pet stores, and the entertainment industry. Many were brought to Kari by disenchanted owners who learned from painful experience that monkeys were born to be wild.

Now in her fifties, Kari works 16-hour days tending her huge complex and raising money to stay afloat.  Each morning, she and her volunteer staff chop fresh fruits and vegetables into bite-sized pieces and fill each of 120 personal bowls for the monkeys.  Food processors won’t do because they turn the food to mush, and monkeys like to inspect each morsel they eat.  Kari maintains a sanctuary clinic where she cares for sick monkeys. Sometimes she drives them to the University of Florida vet school. After sundown, she works on the Jungle Friends website, plans fund-raising projects, and corresponds with monkey sponsors.

For Kari Bagnall, nothing is impossible.  Once affluent, she now lives on a poverty-level income.  She is buoyant, beautiful, charismatic, and has a heart of gold.

Hats off to you, Kari.

To learn more about Jungle Friends, go to http://www.junglefriends.org

This dog has been a regular on New Yorker pages for over forty years. Looking aggrieved, the dog often sits in a room with wrinkled carpets, rickety furniture, and a crochety old couple.  A naked light bulb dangles from the ceiling.

The dog belongs to George Booth, a cartoonist in his eighties who still sits at his drawing board daily and laughs out loud at his own work. His favorite themes are cats and dogs, yard sales, goofy rural couples, and incompetent car mechanics working in dog-infested garages.

Booth grew up in rural Missouri with his schoolteacher parents. His mother was also an accomplished artist and musician. After high school, Booth attended several art schools but never stayed long enough to graduate.  Drafted by the Marines during the Korean war, George was oblivious to military discipline and often in trouble. A bunkmate recalled an inspection in which recruits’ clothes were to be folded neatly and stacked on their beds.  Booth dumped his in a pile and waited.  When the inspecting officer asked, “Where’s your clothing layout?” George replied, “That’s it, sir.’  The office struggled to keep from laughing and simply said to his aide, “Put him on report.”

Before selling his first cartoons, Booth worked for a shopping catalog as an illustrator of men’s clothing, drawing long underwear. Booth recalled, “I got bored and started drawing the latest long underpants for dogs.” It almost got him fired.

Since 2008, Booth has collaborated with several children’s authors to publish books for elementary school kids.  Starlight Goes to Town is about a chicken with dreams. On the cover is a chicken trying to drive a convertible, and the first drawing shows her standing on a fencepost in red high heels.

School! Adventures at the Harvey N. Trouble Elementary School describes a week in the life of Ron Faster, a boy who catches a schoolbus each morning driven by Mr. Ivan Stuckinaditch. In his silly school, the music teacher is Mrs. Doremi Fasollatido, and the custodians are Janitor Iquit and Janitor Quitoo.

Booth once told a reporter, “To be a cartoonist, you have to be a little bit crazy.”

Happy Birthday, Maggie!

August is Maggie Kuhn month.  Maggie founded  the Gray Panthers in 1970 and fought for the rights of elders all her life, even before she became an elder herself. She was affronted by the lack of respect with which the young treated the old.  She once said, “The ultimate indignity is to be given a bedpan by a stranger who calls you by your first name.”

Old age is a time of liberation, Maggie believed.  She said, “It’s the time for the mind and spirit to flourish.  The body may be tired, but you can always reach out to new ideas and new ways of thinking.”

On her 80th birthday, she announced that she intended to make at least one outrageous statement a week.  In her late 80’s, she changed it to one a day.  “You get people’s attention that way, she said.  “You get energized, you can make an impact, and it’s just fun.”

Although she never married, Maggie always enjoyed the company of men.  She believed in an active, guilt-free sex life.  At the age of 75, she was still having romantic affairs, generally with younger men.

Maggie stood up for herself, other elders, and disenfranchised people in general without seeming to flinch.  She once admitted that it wasn’t always easy, though.  She counseled others to “Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind—even if your voice shakes.”

Maggie Kuhn died peacefully at her home in Philadelphia at age 89.

Only this year, after my 78th birthday, did I discover Tom Waits.  Now I’m in love and it’s too late.  Tom is probably happily married and too old for this, anyway.  I’m not married, but I’m sure too old.

I’m spellbound by Tom’s gravelly, singing voice  In YouTube videos, I watch him dance on the stage like a kid, leaping into the air with the mike.

You know that Tom Waits loves women. Not in a macho way. In a soft, soulful way.  Listen to “Ole 55” or “Martha” or “Rosie.”  Any woman can hear it.  The melody and chords join the words tenderly.

Tom is outrageous, funny.  You see the rascally kid in him.  But he’s an old soul, too.  His genius makes him the sexiest man I know.

Tom Waits, I love you.