(no subject)

[mamculuna]

A bad thing: you're back in the car, drive about a block, and notice that NPR is doing a retrospective on somebody wonderful. By the second light it dawns on you: he's dead.

So long, Arthur Miller. You called it like no one else has.

Sometimes I think you have to be a teacher of freshman lit to really know what makes a great play, story, etc. When you teach something to the bored and dull year after year, and still each time it thrills you and wakes them up, you know genius. Hamlet, Oedipus--and Death of a Salesman. You might not put the last one in the same category as the others--and maybe it doesn't have the deathless poetry--but for hitting you in the head and making you see your miserable self, it works.

What a genius we have lost.

Comments

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

When you teach something to the bored and dull year after year, and still each time it thrills you and wakes them up, you know genius. Hamlet, Oedipus--and Death of a Salesman

Oh, I agree. Woke me up at 14 but good -- he really got It, in that play, the ineffable shining It we all want to reach.

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

And that is bad ... how?
/blink/

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Well, not so much saying it's bad as saying he was good. Or intended to be saying that.

I guess if I were truly Buddhist I wouldn't regret anyone's death, but Miller reminded us of some things that were good to keep in mind, at least I thought so.

In fact, I could see a Buddhist reading of Death of a Salesman. Object lesson in perils of attachment and anger.

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

" I could see a Buddhist reading of Death of a Salesman."
Ohhhh that's very clever ... yes, that'd be tasty.

One line from a recent review of his work, that play, stuck in my mind ... something to the effect that it was Loman's belief in the American dream that fated him. I get a funny deep resonance from that, but can't explicate it. Maybe I should reread it.

That play was one of the first that really touched me ... I turned away from a career in theatre when I was young ... roads not travelled and all that.

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think Willy was really an allegory of all of us, chasing the dream, caught up in its false values and unable to tell truth from fantasy. I love the line where he says sometimes he notices where he is and has no idea how he got there.

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

"... he notices where he is and has no idea how he got there."
Thanks for this ... and I really must re-read it.

But here's something I can't share most any other place: I've lived a very intentional life, first by turning away from theatre and art to the world of realpolitik by enlisting in the military. (Canadian ... peace-keeping and all that.) The horrific burnout I suffered when Chile got toppled (I say it's PTSD) left me dangerously militant and deeply politicized. Years later, after a year in Zen training (Soto) I came to see how abhidharma was a potent antidote to consummerist socialization. So I've lived trying to be a bodhisattva in training. (Khenpo Thrangu Rinpoche gave me a fabulous talk after my b.vows ... really empowering.)
Soooooo, bottom line, though it's pretty difficult for me to be pleased with where I am, I have the great benefit of seeing just how I got here ... that's something like a benefit, yes?

:-)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

If the dharma is true, and it's the only truth I feel any real trust in, then knowing how you got there must mean a lot more than being pleased with where you are.

Dukka happens, doesn't it.

It was partly the horror of the world that brought me to try to follow this path, and partly seeing the inevitable suffering of any human life when I saw death up close.

I admire anyone with the courage to take bodhisattva vows. I still have too much Willy Loman in me--not the American dream, but the other attachments that still entangle me.

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

"If the dharma is true, and it's the only truth I feel any real trust in, then knowing how you got there must mean a lot more than being pleased with where you are."
:-)

_{*}_

Well said, sister.

And, FWIW: I know from experience that dharma is true.

"Dukka happens, doesn't it."
To be born is to die, yes? "As night follows day ..."

"It was partly the horror of the world that brought me to try to follow this path, and partly seeing the inevitable suffering of any human life when I saw death up close."
Pema talks about finding the path only when her life really really really fell apart. In "Depth Psychology and a New Ethic" (a book I recommend highly, especially if you're interested in the social pathology of scape-goating as a way of projecting evil) Erich Neumann talks about the process being so unsettling that it's unlikely anybody happy would undertake it.

"I admire anyone with the courage to take bodhisattva vows. I still have too much Willy Loman in me--not the American dream, but the other attachments that still entangle me."
Ohhhhhh no no no! You're trying to have it stand on its head! It's /precisely/ those entaglements that provide us with the stuff of solidarity! (Are you anywhere near a center? Try to connect with someone, if you're inclined to talk your stuff through.)
:-)

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation on the Pema Chodron book. I've been meaning to start reading her.

And yes, I have a center and a teacher, and do talk to him about these things.

Thanks for the concern.

[hfx-ben.livejournal.com]

"Thanks for the concern."
huh ... reverse that, give it a twist, and it becomes intelligent self-interest.

Primordial wisdome, nae?
:-)