“This spiritual work means honestly and courageously looking at ourselves to find out why we so often act against our own best wishes and highest natures. Both for our own individual good and for society’s…In this way, we may finally learn how to govern ourselves wisely, both individually and collectively. We may learn how to act from our innate wisdom and not from our greed; from our kindness and not from our fear.”
The above quotation comes directly from the attached article by Doug McGill, a friend who lives in the USA. I set up this website because I want to be engaged in helping the world become a more caring and cooperative place. I believe we need to evolve beyond the “dog eat dog” mantra where what’s in it for me is the starting point for each decision we make. Where comfort and financial success are the ultimate – and often only – purpose.
My perspective has long been that we live in a culture of fear; a culture that has been honed centuries. It may be the worst it has ever been in our “modern world.” Today, we have a constant barrage of information coming at us from all directions…via the mass media and social media. Far too much of that information is about fearing the “other”, telling people they aren’t good enough, or selling us stuff we do not need because that is what they tell us happiness is…new and better toys all the time!
Too many people are gripped by what they don’t have or what they think they need and believe someone, or something “out there” is going to get it for them. And that is how a Donald Trump can become President of the United States. Mr. Trump may be the most prominent act in this charade of grievances, but he certainly isn’t a solo act!
I hope that this article by Doug McGill provides you with a perspective that is helpful to your goals in business. Either that or it augments your current approach to business & life.
Note to Readers:
I first published this piece in January, 2017, a few days after Donald J. Trump’s first inauguration as the 45th President of the United States. Today, eight years and two weeks later, Trump has become the nation’s 47th U.S. President, unleashing by 10X or 100X the hurricane of policies and executive actions he’s long attempted to make real, and to make stick. This essay’s theme, and the spiritual lessons it urges us to absorb, to learn from, and to act upon, seem more urgent than ever for the sake of our integrity as individuals, and as a nation. So, I humbly offer the piece once again:
LIKE a deranged god out of a Greek myth, who takes human form to instruct humanity by means of crazy wisdom — lest humanity destroys itself — the orange-headed, puffy-eyed, thin-skinned Donald Trump has crash-landed in our midst.
On the one hand, we obviously can’t take such a figure seriously. He’s a Batman villain, all jowls and arched eyebrows under a surreal bouffant. His superpower is to terrorize Gotham with lies, insults, slander and beffudling half-truths thrown down from his golden skyscraper and now, from the White House.
This isn’t the comics any more. The White House is reality.
We must take Trump Man seriously now.
Or rather — a critical distinction here — we must take very seriously the electoral process by which American citizens could choose so deeply unserious and so truly dangerous a person as their President.
Before we accidentally, you know, blow up the world.
It might be Trump’s own tweeting fingers that push the nuclear button, but it would be we, the citizens of the United States, who became so enthralled with the crazed Trump Man that we elected him as our real president.
Which raises the point of this piece — the spiritual clarity of Donald Trump.
We need spiritual clarity above all right now. Because for lack of it we have landed in our present peril, and only spiritual clarity will get us out.
When we mistake an illusion for reality, and then act based on our belief in that illusion, that’s a spiritual mistake. That’s what we did in electing a Marvel comic character as president, and that’s the bad news. The good news is that the solution is equally straightforward: to see clearly the nature of the illusion. This illusion is the spell Trump casts by keeping the populace enmeshed in a national neurotic paralysis that mirrors exactly the one that keeps most of us enslaved to our own individual fears and compulsions.
In other words, we can take Trump’s presidency as a spiritual opportunity. In ways I’ll document in hopefully vivid detail, Trump got where he is by deliberately and openly exploiting our own individual lack of spiritual clarity and courage. He was actually clear where we weren’t, and he was bold, and he used this clarity and boldness to his advantage. But we can use the growing urgency of his Presidency to embolden us to see our spiritual mistake, and with this same clarity correct it with wise, courageous and healing action.
Trump can be our greatest liberator because incredibly enough, among all of his lies and bluster, there are times when he speaks the truth with crystalline clarity. At these times he discloses with a startling candor the source of his strange, comic book-like superpower. And he explains precisely how it is possible that a cartoon character can get elected President of the United States, and how he unscrupulously and shamelessly accomplished just that.
Whenever he speaks in this truthful way, it is always with a sneer of condescension as if to say, “I can actually tell you clearly and exactly what I am doing, and you will never catch on because you are so stupid. Sad!”
The key to deciphering Donald Trump and his superpower is therefore straightforward. For once, despite our strong instincts to do otherwise, we must in a disciplined way notice the times when he breaks with custom and speaks the certain truth. Then, at these times, we must take him literally at his word and adjust our own behaviors accordingly.
When Trump speaks the truth in this way he displays a level of self-understanding — even self-honesty you could say — that is breathtaking.
At these moments he not only admits, but also openly celebrates and embraces, the very worst parts of his character in full awareness that this is exactly what he is doing.
Most of us don’t do that, of course. Most of us hide and are ashamed of our worst traits, such as the ways we sometimes shade the truth for our own benefit, or how we get lazy and cut corners, or are stingy and greedy, or think ill of another person when we know we shouldn’t.
But not Trump. He celebrates his moral failings and weaknesses. This shamelessness is the source of Trump’s power.
When he open and shamelessly plays these moral faults and failings back to us in his speech and actions, they come charged with the cringing fear, shame and confusion that we feel in our own lives, towards our own faults.
This fearful emotional charge around his words then activates our unconscious habits of denial and distraction from facing painful and ugly truths about ourselves. That is, the very same ugly truths of human nature, and our own inner nature, that Trump is so comfortable with in himself. This comfort with his own vices, which are the common human vices of greed, hatred and delusion, is once again the root of his power.
We could and sometimes do pass off this style of analysis as just so much armchair psychologizing, so much Tony Soprano visiting his shrink. All in all, we call it an entertaining sidelight that is disconnected from the realities of power that ultimately define how things happen in the world — and that therefore highlight the “real” things we need to fix and improve.
But to think in this way is a huge mistake. It would be just another of the infinite ways that our minds so cleverly divert our attention away from the root problem of our individual nature, which is the root problem of human suffering and, potentially, human extinction. This is how we constantly create our own suffering, despite our sincere intentions to live from our highest selves and not our worst.
When this fault in our individual selves translates through the electoral process into decisions bearing on our collective survival, it becomes obvious why we need, very quickly, to take up the work that’s being described here.
This spiritual work means honestly and courageously looking at ourselves to find out why we so often act against our own best wishes and highest natures. Both for our own individual good and for society’s.
In this way, we may finally learn how to govern ourselves wisely, both individually and collectively. We may learn how to act from our innate wisdom and not from our greed; from our kindness and not from our fear.
My own spiritual tradition is Buddhism. So let me show how in Buddhist terms, Donald Trump is an ideal spiritual teacher for this necessary change.
The Buddhist tradition counsels us to approach Trump in two ways.
First, with compassion. Second, to take him at his literal word when he explains the psychological motivations behind the political actions he took as a candidate, and promises he will now attempt to fulfill as President.
Approaching Trump with compassion, we put aside our understandable outrage that is the Trump presidency. Instead, we simply view him for now as just another human being. We bring vividly to mind everything we know of Trump, especially the words and images that come to mind of him, that he himself has carefully designed for our consumption.
Doing this, we soon realize that a person who has so avidly pursued wealth and acquisition without limit, quite obviously has a huge hole in his soul. An emotional hole that is unfillable even with gold-leafed living rooms, towering skyscrapers, a global business empire, and his face on magazine covers constantly. This might cause us to reflect for a moment: do we have such a hole in our own lives? What do we try to fill it with? What does it feel like, this black hole in our lives?
We take this step in order, just for once, this one time, to see Trump not through our fears but through our empathy for a man who so obviously is suffering, internally, terribly. It’s important that we do so not so as to feel superior to him but, rather, that we see the similarities between his own humanity and our own. This is the only ground from which we can move forward with a clear and calm mind, that is, a clear and calm enough mind to make rational decisions on how to cope with Trump.
Go just a little further now in cultivating compassion for Trump, which is, as described above, also compassion for ourselves. For example, you might bring to mind Trump’s steady stream of vindictive attacks on his imagined enemies, which preoccupies his mind even in the wee hours of the morning.
How does it feel? Now, really feel it, and feel the compassion that comes every time we fearlessly, clearly, fully and internally feel our fears.
From within the internal space of compassion, we see Trump inveigh ceaselessly against immigrants, “foreigners,” “shithole countries,” disabled people, “morons” and “low-IQ” people, former business partners and political foes. Surely this speaks of a sensitivity to slights felt so deeply as to have deranged his whole being.
Such a person clearly must have suffered terrible blows in his past, an extreme withholding of love, and deeply scarring emotional abuse. In purely human terms, with an open heart, we can recognize and feel the reality of these wounds that have continued to cause Trump great suffering throughout his lifetime. We grieve that it happened; we wish it were not so; we wish for his suffering to stop; that he could be happy. That he could enjoy life free from demons, and could know innate joy.
Let’s pause for a moment now and reflect that surely, if Trump became happy in this way, by release from his own suffering, that this would equal the end of our own suffering, and our fear of him too. This is the practical aim of compassion.
Reflecting in this way, we soon notice that our consciousness has changed.
Our anger, our fear and anxieties have abated for now. They have been enveloped and dissolved within a vast space of compassion. This simple spiritual practice opens a new space in our minds and hearts, within which we can start to make practical decisions for action that aren’t grounded in fear or selfishness—as they are for Trump, and as he readily admits (see the examples below). Now, we can begin to draw on our higher innate capacities for grounded wisdom, fairness, justice, and common sense.
Now we move to the second practice: listening seriously and respectfully to what Trump says, now targeting its spiritual content.
For this, Buddhism offers a helpful framework. The Buddha taught that the basic human dilemma is that humans without training are incapable of seeing reality’s essential nature. This flaw is called “delusion.”
In delusion, humans experience reality as a collection of solid objects. As a result of this flawed understanding of reality, humans mistakenly believe that by grasping to objects that bring us pleasure (food, drink, sex, singing, dancing, even “good” meditations) we’ll be happy, and that by avoiding or destroying objects that are unpleasant (put the word “bad” in front of the earlier objects), we’ll keep ourselves safe, secure, invulnerable and strong.
The first of these two unskillful behaviors, believing that grasping to pleasant objects brings happiness, is called “greed.” The second unskillful behavior, which is the belief that violence and vengeance will keep us safe and happy, is “hatred.”
These three qualities of the human mind — greed, craving and delusion — are in Buddhism called the “three unwholesome roots.” They are the fundamental reason why human beings create suffering for themselves instead of resting in the natural flow of experience that is full of nature’s creativity, power, intelligence, and love.
What makes Donald Trump an excellent spiritual teacher is how openly, clearly and specifically he identifies greed, hatred and delusion as the primary ethical guidelines of his life. Moreover, he repeatedly argues they are the best way to survive and thrive in the world, not only personally but collectively through corporate and government policies and laws.
Take the case of greed. Trump is a forceful and articulate advocate of greed. At a campaign rally in Warren, Michigan, he told a cheering crowd:
“My whole life has been about taking money, right? Taking money. I take, take, take, take. I’m a businessman, that’s what I’m supposed to do. My job is to take money. My job is, in a sense, I hate to say it, to be greedy. And I’m greedy, I go like this [his arms motion a gathering in] — more, more, I want more, more, more. Now I’m going to be greedy for the United States. I’m going to be really greedy for the United States.”
We owe Trump gratitude for such clear teaching. After receiving this clear wisdom, if we fail to see how a person’s vice (greed in this case) can virulently transform into collective suffering in society, that’s on us and not on him.
Trump is equally transparent about his fealty to the vices of hatred and delusion as guiding principles in his life, his business, and in government. At a Fort Dodge, Iowa rally last year, in a tone of voice that was ingratiating and imploring, he told the audience: “I’m good at war. I’ve had a lot of wars of my own, and I’m really good at war. I love war, in a certain way.”
His surrogates later tried to spin that positively, emphasizing the phrase “in a certain way.” But there is no spinning such diamond clarity: “I love war.”
Trump elaborated on his philosophy of hate to the TV anchor, Greta Van Susteren:
“If somebody hits me, I have to hit them back. I have to. I’m not going to sit there and say, ‘I’m wonderful, I’m a president.’ I want to win. What happens is they hit me and I hit them back harder. They hit me and I hit them back harder and they disappear. That’s what we want to lead the country.”
The vice of delusion is Trump’s strongest suit. He’s a past master at using delusion to capture media attention day after day. Not because he is clarifying reality for citizens but because, just like on the TV “reality” show, The Apprentice, where he honed his delusion skills, he knows just what to say and do to keep us all on our seats in uncertainty, doubt, worry and concern.
In Buddhist terms, delusion is this very simple confusion, uncertainty, ambiguity and doubt, seeded deep in the soul. It’s so deep that one continually is asking oneself what is real, what is certain, what is true? It’s the raw anxiety of life. If we see life as it really is, we are at peace with its inexorable flow, and we don’t have this anxiety. But without such clear seeing, we more or less constantly are fearful of change and disruption, of something bad that’s soon to happen. Thus we always crave just a little more certainty, a little more love, or money, or other form of security—such as electing an authoritarian strong man as president.
The distress and the suffering of this ceaseless uncertainty, which boils down to fear, is extremely powerful. It is therefore ripe for weaponization by a genius of delusion like Trump who knows, above all, how to sow this uncertainty, and how to reap its gains in the form of TV ratings, advertising eyeballs, book royalties and now an electoral victory that has captured the Presidency of the United States.
In interviews, Trump frequently praises delusion as a business and international trade negotiation tactic, and as a foreign policy tool.
“We’re totally predictable. And predictable is bad,” Trump told a Washington Post reporter who had asked what foreign policy stance he planned. Another time he added, “We, as a nation, need to be more unpredictable.” Once, when the Fox anchor Bill O’Reilly asked Trump whether he might bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump answered: “Bill, I’m gonna do what’s right. I want to be unpredictable.”
That’s the voice of delusion speaking, as clear as day.
Are we listening? Are we feeling how we’re feeling, hearing these words? Do we see what’s going on right now, not in Trump’s mind, but in our own?
To a Time magazine reporter who witnessed Trump watching TV for hours on his private jet, flipping from channel to channel to watch himself on show after show, Trump casually explained: “You see what this is, right? It’s ratings. I go on one of these shows and the ratings double. They triple. And that gives you power. It’s not the polls. It’s the ratings.”
On the innumerable occasions Trump explains himself in these ways, it’s almost as if he is begging us all to finally understand him.
Time after time he uses extremely vivid imagery to catch our attention, to try to make us understand.
“I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” Trump told an Iowa rally a year ago. He is like a thief leaving clue after clue behind him, wishing unconsciously to be caught.
We should grant him that blessed wish.
All that it takes to catch Trump is to pay him the respect to listen to him carefully and take him at his word. He says he loves and lives by greed, hatred and delusion. We should believe him and act accordingly.
That will require using his hurtful provocations as a call for each one of us to take the inward journey I have described here. First, to change our consciousness with compassion. And then, out of the spacious, gracious and wise mind of compassion, to indelibly learn, and to decisively act.
DOUG MCGILL
https://dougmcgill.substack.com/p/the-spiritual-genius-of-donald-trump