A Conversation with Peter Mulvey (continued)

PM: It was very entertaining and illuminating to hear your song about the 10,000 things. [There's a clip from it on the Listen page.]

PeterM: Oh, thank you. I've taken to saying that it's a jazz Buddhist tune, which is a gross oversimplification. And then I say, actually, more properly it's a jazz Taoist tune with stoic overtones.

PM: [laughs]

PeterM: But I can't really sell that.

PM: Yeah, right.

[laughter]

PeterM: Not that I can sell jazz Buddhism.

PM: Maybe while we're talking on that you'd say something about the spiritual side of your life.

PeterM: Lord--well, you know...

PM: How appropriate.

PeterM: Yeah, that's a big one. I think, like a lot of ex-Catholics, I wound up sort of with that hole--that God-shaped hole, that's the classic line--where you've got to have something, you've got to have some vehicle for yourself. And a lot of friends of mine have given me books on Buddhism. And it rings a big bell with me.

PM: Yeah.

PeterM: What I like about it more than the other big religions that are out there is its empirical nature. I really like reason, and I like seeing a religion like Buddhism that says, "Just look at this stuff for yourself. We don't want you to necessarily believe in reincarnation, we want you to observe what the hell is happening to you." Having said that, obviously Tibetan Buddhism was a real draw for me, and then it turns out to be the Catholicism of Buddhism.

PM: [laughs] Oh, that's funny. I've never heard that said.

PeterM: But it just makes sense to me. I wouldn't necessarily even say that I'm a Buddhist. I wouldn't necessarily go out on a limb and say that I'm a Buddhist, but I would say that that way of looking at things certainly makes a lot of sense to me.

PM: So you're more, say, on the mindfulness part of the equation.

PeterM: Yeah, yeah. Well, God knows mindfulness has never done me wrong.

PM: They never fought any wars over that.

PeterM: Not as near as I can tell. Actually, I just read a pretty riveting book by a dude named Sam Harris called The End of Faith. And he makes the Buddhist argument in a nutshell. He would say that some religions are more prone to being warped into violence than others. It's a pretty scandalous thing to say, but it kind of holds up. I mean, the perfect example he'll give is, "Yes, the Palestinians are under a ton of socioeconomic pressure, but if that's why they were suicide bombing, then where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? Where are the South American Catholic suicide bombers? It's not happening."

PM: Wow.

PeterM: He makes a relatively scandalous argument, but I think it's pretty sound that he says, "Just go to the text and read the damn text." Right in the text it tells you that you can do these things. Right in there in the Christian Bible it tells you that this is the inerrant Word of God, and follow that to its logical conclusion. Whereas Buddhism, right in the text, says, "None of this might be true." And you hear the Dali Lama say that, "I'm the fourteenth reincarnation of the Buddha of compassion, and I will reincarnate as the fifteenth, but obviously that might not be true. I can't prove that to you, and I wouldn't want to." That's a marvelous thing to say.

And can you imagine Pope Benedict saying, "We believe in the salvation through Jesus, and obviously that might just be in our heads." But here's the thing: we can say it may never have happened, but we still believe that this is a wonderful way to live your life. I don't think people would necessarily lose their minds--I don't Catholics would--I don't think their heads would explode if one of their leaders said, "We don't know that all of this is necessarily factually true, but that's not the point. We think this is a good way to live your life." I think people are grownups. I think people would say, "Yeah, that makes sense to me."

PM: Right.

PeterM: We'll find out--or actually, I'm fairly convinced that we won't find out.

[laughter]

PeterM: I doubt the Pope is going to say that anytime soon.

PM: Yeah, we'll put that on the list of things that will never happen.

PeterM: Right.      continue

print (pdf)     listen to clips      puremusic home