Dashboard Buddha: Conan O'Brien Edition

"Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say,
'Jesus! This cup is expensive!'" --Conan O'Brien

Fig.1 Tao of Coco

We begin with a koan:

One day, a monk went to the Zen Master as he was sitting in his room one morning. The monk, who had spent several years at the monastery studying under the Zen Master, was finally allowed to speak to him alone. The Master was sitting alone, staring at the floor. The monk assumed he was in a meditative state and bowed, backing away to leave his Master alone.

"Come, sit down," the Zen Master said softly, his eyes never blinking. "What is it you wish to ask?"

The monk, thrilled to have this chance to ask a question of the Master, stepped back into the room and asked, "What can we expect from life?"

The Zen Master still stared at the floor in front of him. The monk walked over, hoping to get the Master's attention by taking a seat on the floor in front of him. The moment he sat down, he felt he had sat upon something. It squished under his bottom. He blushed, surprised.

The Zen Master said, "There is a burrito on the carpet."


Okay, it's not a real Zen koan. But if you've ever read a number of real koans, it's almost indistinguishable in its impenetrable, seemingly useless lesson in Zen technique. And I got the idea from Conan O'Brien.

Fig.2 Keep lookin' up

Conan, of course, has been on many peoples' minds lately. He's been in my heart for close to a decade. I taped him on VHS every night while at college. I named my parakeet after him. I lapse into snorting laughter whenever I watch him. My friend Elissa and I got to visit Studio 6A for a taping of Late Night and got to sit in the front row. So, my deeply emotional reaction (wallowing in grief) to his latest career issues (UNFAIR!) is to be expected. For a good chunk of my life, I hadn't gone more than a few weeks without seeing my Conesie Bone on a regular basis. I had taken it for granted that I'd get my fix for another ten years or so without interruption. I was looking into an abyss bereft of the random, Harvard-trained childishness I'd come to love.

Naturally, I focused my regular meditations on my specific suffering. It's not often that one of my beloved TV gods of choice encounters a crisis, so I was in uncharted waters of concern and helplessness.

After a week of diligent focus during my meditation sessions everyday, a lightbulb popped in my brain. I remembered the Buddha's words:

"All conditioned things are subject to change."

Fig.3 Everything changes... except Conan's crazy hair

One of the most important teachings in all of Buddhism is the truth of impermanence, and that it only sucks if you expect anything different.

"Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get," Conan said in his farewell speech.

Buddhist monk and teacher Thich Nhat Hanh once said,"We should not complain about impermanence, because without impermanence, nothing is possible."

If a flower bud remains a bud, it won't show the beauty of the bloom. If the Ancient Egyptian pharaohs were still around, I doubt the pyramids would be half as wonderfully mysterious. If Conan remained at Late Night, we wouldn't know the epic gags and elaborate comedy bits of his reign on The Tonight Show.

Conan's own eccentric comedy style constantly gives us what is least expected, and it's fun, not tragic: a Fed-Ex Pope, a Gun-totin' NASCAR-driving Jesus, a Rocket Raccoon, absurd, cartoonish predictions for the Year 2000, If They Mated pairings of beautiful people that turn out the most hilariously hideous children, State Quarters that commemorate embarrassing events and people. And after all that, the Masturbating Bear jumps out.

Fig.4 Driving the desk straight into my heart

Once upon a time, I clearly remember Conan pointing out a certain foodstuff on his floor. "OH MY GOD! There's a burrito on the carpet!" he exclaimed. I don't recall the context, but I apparently thought it sufficiently hysterical enough to quote it in my LiveJournal several years ago.

That burrito, in its deliciously arbitrary location, is something special. It's strange, but useful and nutritious. But if we are not mindful of it, if we lose our focus and overlook it, either because it's so common or because it's simply unexpected, we'll sit on it.

A monk accidentally sitting on a burrito is funny because we realize the monk's mistake in not paying attention. We laugh because we see ourselves in the monk: distracted, unmindful of surroundings, sitting in an uncomfortable position atop a burrito. Who can say they haven't done something just as silly in their life?

As the last week of Tonight Show episodes aired one by one before my eyes, each conveyed a greater sense of scarcity than the last, until the nacre of rarity coated the last moments in a pearlescent lustre of awesome. Would the January 22nd episode of the Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien have been as precious without its limited edition status?

Impermanence teaches us beauty. If we would just look at every episode in that way, all would be precious. If we could look at everything in life that way, all would be precious.

Conan--who is arguably the one person who most realizes this whole NBC debacle is NOT the end of the world--has taught me to be humble, especially in the face of the unexpected. His self-deprecating manner and clownish antics have endeared him to me in a way no arrogant comic ever could.

The Buddha said:

"To the extent that a fool knows his foolishness, He may be deemed wise."

And the Universe knows how many bajillions of times Conan has said, "I'm an ass."

"Isn't that right, Cactus Chef playing Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' on a flute?"

Sure is, Conan. Sure is.

Fig.5 Celebrate the unexpected

Islamophile: Part 2

"All you young political pundit lovers out there, set your hearts to throb!"
--Jon Stewart


Fig.1 My favorite Iranian

Soon after the start of my religious awakening, Jon Stewart opened his show with that line. It is the most astute assessment of my cardiac activity whenever the mop-topped bespectacled religious scholar Reza Aslan appears on TV.

In religious scholar/Middle East expert commentator circles, Reza is “something of a Beatle” as Jon said, also joking that when people think religious scholar, “they think younger” than thirty-something Reza. I haven’t seen any other religious scholar hip enough as to appear on all the kids’ favorite news commentary shows and Facebook and MySpace and The Daily Beast and Bloggingheads and Twitter. Beatle comparison earned.

Once I was watching a documentary on the history of the Qur’an and the moment Reza unexpectedly popped up to offer his insight on the socio-political context in which the Medinians battled the Quraysh, I had tachycardia. I have since collected some of his greatest lecture hall hits on my iPod. You know, for those cold, dark, lonely nights studying the Qur’an. Reza can give me theological exegesis any day.

Fig.2 A revelation unto pop culture

Anyway, Reza sat across from Jon that day and I fell for him the moment he displayed a sense of humor about his religion. The book he was promoting, No god but God, is the first I ever read about Islam. No god but God has since been translated into a dozen languages and is frequently hailed as a great introduction to the faith. It came just in time, too.

Through Reza’s stories of fleeing Iran when he was just a boy and his vivid descriptions of what the Prophet Muhammad experienced during the infancy of Islamic history, the most misunderstood religion in my society was revealed to me with actual truth and deep understanding. What little fear I might have had regarding Muslims was forgotten. Finally, for my part, the Prophet had a face not colored by Arabian stereotypes or tainted by propaganda. It was a face not so different from Moses: the reluctant prophet wizened by God’s words, which eventually told him to lead a faithful people out of oppression and idol worship. Reza painted a vivid portrait of Mecca and Medina at the time of the Prophet and illuminated a history and a geography I had previously encountered only by watching Sir Alec Guinness pretend to be an Arab.


Fig.3 Reza doing what he does best: teaching while handsome

What blew my mind the most after reading Reza’s book was that too many people don’t even realize or accept that Islam is an Abrahamic religion, one that traces its ancestry to the Biblical Ishmael—Abraham’s first son born of his wife’s handmaid Hagar. Moses and Jesus are in the Qur’an, and are blessed just as much as Muhammad by Muslims. The story of Adam and Eve, Noah and Joseph are in there as well, along with many more stars and celebrities of both the Old and New Testaments.

After reading that, it occurred to me that Allah is the same God that gave Moses a reverse makeover on Mount Sanai and gave Jesus the powers of a water bug (among other powers, obviously). God has 99 beautiful names in the Islamic tradition, and Allah is only one of them. The Hebrew/Jewish names for God are Yahweh, Jehovah, He, Him, Almighty, Hashem, etc. and people generally don’t think it’s a different God from the one who sent us Jesus. But the Arabic word still tends to confuse people even though Christians utter that particular name of God all the time. “Hallelujah” this and “Hallelujah” that. How do we pronounce that? "Allah-LU-yah." Praise be to God. Pretty obvious if you ask me. They’d fit right in at a masjid.


Fig.4 The beauty of God is often expressed through exquisite calligraphy

My Rezannaisance set up the modus operandi for the rest of my Islamic explorations. Reza guided my internet research with his attitude of reverent humor and respect for religious history that cut through the hurtful propaganda and revealed the heart of Islamic world culture.

Can I get an Alhamdulillah! for Mr. Aslan?

Islamophile

Yassir: You know, it's brave of you to be doing a show like this, given our political climate.
David: Right! Also, uh, we have ethnic quotas and our Jewish dude quit.
--“Little Mosque On The Prairie”

Fig.1 Allah bless & keep Morgan Freeman!

My first memory of Islam is Morgan Freeman.

I was eight or nine years old, sitting on the floor of the darkened living room as my family watched Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves on VHS. As I marveled at the epic story and the characters, I remember asking myself if I were a Christian, just like Robin Hood. When I assumed I was, I was very proud to share something with this charismatic do-gooder. I have since fallen in love with both Errol Flynn’s and Douglas Fairbanks’ portrayals of the legendary swashbuckler and Prince of Thieves makes me yearn for Renn Faire season every year.

For a very long time, the only real concept I had of a Muslim was Morgan Freeman’s character, Azeem: “the Painted Man” who accompanies Robin of Locksley back to England and has trouble finding quibla in the infamously overcast new climate. He is wise, mysterious, and sticks out like a Moorish thumb. His understanding of the world is as obviously different from the rest of the characters as his skin color, but people soon realize he’s not a “savage” and accept him because of his kindness and mental skill.

Fig.2 Morgan is God, after all

The deepest impression I got was from the scene in which a little girl timidly walks up to Azeem and asks him “Did God paint you?” He says yes, and she wonders why. Azeem smiles and replies, “Allah loves great diversity.”

Fast forward half a lifetime later, and my eyes grace Surah 49 “Al Hujurat,” verse 13 in the Qur’an:

O mankind! We created
You from a single
Of man and a female
And made you into
Nations and tribes, that
Ye may know each other

I immediately thought of Azeem when I read that. He really knows his stuff.

My second memory of Islam is 9/11. Unfortunately, for many people, 9/11 is their only memory of Islam. The smiling, freckled face of Morgan Freeman would never come to their minds.

I remember many college students getting agitated and jumping into a car late at night to steal an American flag off someone’s house to hang it high from the outside stairway railings of our dorm and yelling about “ragheads” and “camel jockeys.” The irony of stealing personal property to showboat their patriotism is totally lost on freshmen boys.

There were half a dozen of us dorm-dwellers cloistering ourselves in my room that Tuesday morning, eyes glued to the same tiny 13-inch TV I use to watch The X-Files and The Daily Show, all of us watching in confusion and sadness as neighbors called their relatives in New York City to make sure everyone was okay. Classes were canceled, of course, but the otherwise beautiful sunny day outside didn’t prevent us from envisioning the surreal image of another hijacked plane crashing into the Turlington Plaza or Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, with tens of thousands of students being burned alive.

I could only imagine how terrified the Muslim students must have been. They probably prayed that the hijackers weren’t Muslims. Many law-abiding American Muslims began to fear for their safety whenever they walked out the door.

They felt the same as every other American.

For many years, I had no idea that I had no idea. My Islamic education came slowly but lovingly.

Fig.3 Holmes & Watson of the desert

My last semester at UF, I developed a huge crush on Omar Sharif. It was Thanksgiving and I was home for the vacation. I spent that Sunday night in heaven: a long evening in the warm and Christmas tree-lit living room, watching our seasonal favorite Doctor Zhivago with the parents, glass of warm Baileys in hand. I nearly nodded off several times near hour three, and having heard Lara's Theme clinging to every tiny soundless niche of the film's soundtrack, it stuck in my head for the entirety of my dreams.

When I went back to school, TCM was re-running Doctor Zhivago, so I left that on in the background while I did homework and noticed that Lawrence of Arabia aired right after it. I thought, why not? I’ve always meant to see that one, might as well check out David Lean’s epic Panavision masterpiece on my trusty 13-inch TV-VCR combo. I cringe to think I committed such film screening blasphemy, but it was a good thing I watched anyway, because it launched my love of all things remotely Arabian.

I tracked down a copy of "Seven Pillars Of Wisdom" on Amazon and diligently read it while immersed in a motley mix of Persian/Egyptian bellydance tunes on my iPod. Nothing could beat the romance of T.E. Lawrence’s adventures in desert politics. His curiosity regarding Arabian religion and culture was enviably strong and I found myself just as intrigued by the customs of the “Moslems” as he was. I also learned an inordinate number of facts regarding dromedary gastral fuctions.

After the honeymoon period for that chapter of my intellectual stimulation, the camel love held on the longest. I still watch Omar Sharif movies every Thanksgiving, but it took another curly-haired chocolate-eyed infatuation to really fuel my interest in Islam.

To be continued...

Fig.4 I... LOVE... camels

When the gods go slumming

"I suppose that's one of the ironies of life-
doing the wrong thing at the right moment."

--Charlie Chaplin


Fig.1 Robert and Charlie, two of the Universe's best hits

In high school English class, we were once given a special assignment: read up on a VIP in history and write epistles as if we were acquainted with that person. This glorified book report affected my life right then, and the aftershocks still rumble today. At that stage of my impressionable teen years, I was watering the seed of my current passion for classic cinema, so the person I chose was that king of the silent screen, Charlie Chaplin.

Sir Charles is unquestionably a complex and fascinating person, and by many accounts, the most famous person to have ever lived. There was a time when no creed, culture, geography or language was a barrier to his celebrity. Everyone who had ever seen a motion picture knew who he was, and still do. Watching his films and studying his life, one comes to realize that his creative genius was a force of nature, as inherent and apparent in his being as the curl in his hair. I have since read four biographies on the man, viewed every surviving film he ever made (80+), collected photo essays and other books related to his life, and even visited his now historically preserved old studio in the heart of Hollywood, which was nothing less than a religious experience for me.

The day came when I couldn't put off watching Richard Attenborough's biographical film, Chaplin, with Robert Downey Jr. in the titular role. I was never a fan of Ally McBeal, and at the time, the only perception I had in my mind of Robert was of his being in that show which I despised. He was persona non grata by association. I had no faith in the guy, even before he went on his now infamous shame spiral.

Fig.2 Good riddance?

But when I finally saw Chaplin, I was completely baffled by what I saw. Robert had resurrected Charlie, a luminous star who had been crucified by his exile from America in 1953, reborn and re-appreciated in all his glory and flaws through this young, idiosyncratic upstart actor. Robert was essentially Dead To Me, but after seeing him as Chaplin, I moved him to the On Notice board in my mind. There was potential there, and I couldn't ignore that. I was ripe to change my mind entirely... eventually.

Time passed, I read more and watched more, occasionally stumbling upon news of this crazy Robert Downey character's debauched antics. Pooped out on the other side of self-imposed exile, he did a few roles in low-key movies, the best of which, in my opinion, was Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. I soon found that I was pleasantly surprised to see him involved in David Fincher's Zodiac, and then came along Iron Man, which finally shoved this middle-aged Phoenix out the ashes. Now he's working on a big-budget sequel and doing a wonderful job as Sherlock Holmes, one of my favorite literary characters of all time. He's definitely off the boards and written into the "Gotta love this guy" column now.


Fig.3 It's a good thing that people (and minds) can change

The couple of interviews he gave in Esquire magazine in the past few years contributed to his appeal in my heart. He had a mature and candid attitude toward questions of his stupor-addled years, often describing his thoughts in curiously metaphysical terms. He has an uncanny ability to express his spiritual concepts in metaphors so deceptively simple they float in space, dense as a neutron star in their mystical concision:

"It's something that I struggle with--the embarrassment at being on the side of the coin that no one else had a problem with when you were tails-down."

"I'm in this rarefied air... and it has a shelf life--and then it goes stale."

"There is a bumping up of infrastructure so when the plan makes itself known, it doesn't fall through the cracks--I honestly don't know what the next marching orders are gonna be from the good-guy Cosmos."

"I can't hit my ass with both hands tryin' to figure this mystery. I just know that it winds up coming back to all that old-time religion stuff, except you add science and physics and all of a sudden, faith."


Fig.3 Are you a cog or a mechanic to your own machine?

When you come up with gems like those, you've definitely traded the coke for something... else.

One interviewer noted that Robert has a little Buddha on a spring glued to his car's dash. Reading his words, I see that now, Robert is the spring-loaded Buddha on his own dashboard, speaking life's wisdom so jostled by starts and stops. He's especially suited to spouting such circumspection because of his past, and could never have come to those conclusions had he not hit bottom and then crawled back. He probably wouldn't be as good as he is now if he didn't get chewed up a little.

We all love an underdog, but why is it some people who seem to have all the brains or the talent or the charisma seem prone toward personal catastrophe?

Charlie once said, "The human race I prefer to think of as an underworld of gods. When the gods go slumming they visit the earth. You see, my respect for the human race is not one hundred percent."

In Buddhism, there are dozens of levels of existence: heavens, hells, animal realms, human, god, bacterial, hungry ghosts, etc. Karma determines where a soul is incarnated, and oftentimes, one makes it to the highest god realm. This realm is just short of nirvana, so even the gods are still subject to karma. When all the good karma that got them into the god realm burns off, they sometimes get dumped back into a human realm. The gods go slumming, and they are so acclimated to the creature comforts of the higher realms that they freak out a little when they come back to the suffering of Earth. They're higher-functioning humans than most, but they get frustrated in this lifetime.

Charlie, with all his ego, recognized his own fall from the god realm into this one. He was at once respected for his art and maligned for his controversial personal problems.

It's no mystery why Robert portrayed Charlie so perfectly in the biopic--they're from the same stock. Both great artists in their own manner, so equally inspired and troubled by superhuman foibles, and redemption is a significant part of their stories. The same might be said for Michael Jackson or Tiger Woods--supreme talents with issues, redemption on the horizon.

When the gods go slumming, the horizon is theirs for the taking. They long to go back to it somehow; their home is that place where Heaven meets Earth. How they walk off into it is up to them.


Fig.4 Even a poor Tramp is entitled to some happiness