In the past few years, the Nike corporation has offered a microcosm of the issues surrounding consumerism and the global free market economy. Nike, like many other corporations from the economized world, has been criticized for exploiting laborers in manufacturing plants relocated to less economized societies. This exploitation has appeared grosser in that they are producing luxury products for over consumptive economized societies and disproportionally reward their star endorsers with lucrative contracts.1 The mounting criticism and campaigns against Nike, however, have not had much impact on a key part of their market, urban African-America. Poor African Americans understandably have some difficulty extending concern for abuses of workers overseas when the injustices they face in their own country are similarly acute. In this last section, I would like to apply paticca samuppada to the consumer experience surrounding sports apparel like Nike and Reebok. In doing so, I hope to expose some further concerns about the conduct of corporations like Nike who base themselves on the over consumption of luxury goods. Further, I believe paticca samuppada will help reveal the debilitating mentalities engendered by such consumption which more deeply imprison those in economized societies in a system of economic injustice. Let us now look at what paticca samuppada within this consumerism perspective can reveal about a typical young man from an American ghetto raised on "Hoop Dreams".2

1. IGNORANCE (avijja)
American ghettos represent the bottom of the pyramid of success in the American consumer dream. Due to poor education facilities and little access to the levers of power which could raise oneself up, the consumer lifestyle represents a banquet feast of which only scraps can be eaten. Like rural areas in the more vernacular South, these are forgotten deserts of the consumer dream where people are fed images of the world of success, power and wealth through the television and other forms of media.

A young man, often from a family with no father, will have very few direct role models who embody such power, success and wealth. These models are found in the images of the "outside world", outside of his part of town where no one goes if they don't have to. Such separation from the real complexities of power, success and wealth may create the image of a stable (nicca) and satisfying (sukha) way of life. As someone can get intoxicated with promises of heaven, so can one get intoxicated with the images of ease and well being in wealth. Such a situation also further imbeds the sensibility of "self" (atta) in that power is outside oneself, not of this neighborhood or this way of life and very far away. To achieve such power, access to the "outside world" must be gained.

MENTAL STEWING
2. CONCOCTING (sankhara)
3. CONSCIOUSNESS (vinnana)
4. MIND-BODY (namarupa)
5. SENSE EXPERIENCE (salayatana)

Such an environment where so many are powerless helps to further harden the view of power being "out there". In this young man, a stewing begins in which the mind becomes attuned to displays of power. This stewing will deepen, become more complex and ultimately feed back into itself to concoct further. As the concocted mind grows, the young man will have a few different kinds of power to discern from. In his own neighborhood, there will be the power of the drug dealers and the gangsters. With money and weapons, they offer the quickest but most dangerous way to material power. Other local forms of power may be found in a dedicated local teacher or a single mother taking care of a family herself. With selflessness, dedication and hard work, they offer the truer forms of internal power, but receive little or no reward in terms of wealth. The other forms of power are most likely to come from the "outside world" through its window, the television.

Competitive sports is one of the most compelling forms of consumption. It embodies all the ideals of the consumer world: physical form, competition, and wealth. To a young boy from the ghetto, it embodies one of the few passage ways to the outside world of power, wealth and fame. So as a young, still idealistic boy, the path of professional sports can become that focus for gaining power, success and wealth. The young man knows drug dealing is considered bad and is also dangerous, and he also knows that the power of those working to survive in the ghetto has no glamour and very few rewards. With the most common form of advancement in education cut off in poor schooling or skewed out of perspective through the distractions of image and style, such a focus on athletic power seems like a good course. Such begins the narrowing of the mind into a limiting framework for encountering the world. For the young middle or upper class boy, this is an unfortunate consequence which can stunt his growth. For the young ghetto boy, it is survival, the way he must begin to frame his reality if he is to try to make it out of his debilitating environment.

From such a process, the young boy's mind begins the bifurcation process developing dualistic sensibilities between mind and body and "self" and "other" in terms of athletic power. There is now a distinct athletic being arising in the young boy. With such mental attuning, the senses become primed to make contact with aspects of athletic power and success. Sight Experience will probably become the more prominent Sense Experience to concoct Full Contact. The Mental Experience concocted from the senses is also especially important here since it links more directly to the more existential power aspect of athletics.

6. FULL CONTACT (phassa)
Still living in the consumer desert of the ghetto, the young man's most frequent and common form of contact is with media, television and advertising in particular. This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of his environment. The ghetto is very limited in its possibilities for young men to see the full spectrum of experience offered in the "outside world". Advertising and television offer carefully molded images which feature snapshots and sound bites of the real world of competitive athletics. In this way, our young man comes into daily contact with the ultimate sports success image, Michael Jordan: winner, handsome, well-spoken, endorsements, a good family, fantastic physical gifts. This man is too good to be true, and advertising and his own image machine (agent) make sure that this cannot be doubted. As an athlete, he is a remarkable specimen. As a symbol of power, success and wealth for the young man living in the ghetto, he is the ultimate model of an African American who has "made it" in the "outside world".3

As such there are myriad forms of contact that the young man can experience: posters, TV commercials, food products, T-shirts, jerseys and, of course, the thing that got it all going - Air Jordans - his personalized line of basketball shoes. Even for one who is not a basketball fan, these shoes seem to have an incredible aura and ability to create Full Contact through Sight Experience. One Saturday while visiting a downtown mall, the young boy stumbles upon Foot Locker, the national (now international) sports apparel chain, and catches sight of the latest Air Jordans in the store front display. With Mental Stewing concocted, there arise the core perceptions (sanna) at this Full Contact. Beauty (supa) and pleasure (sukha) arise with the fine craftsmanship and unique characteristics of the shoes. Most certainly, perception of "self" (atta) arises as the shoes carry the essence and aura of Michael Jordan himself. With this "self" perceived, there will be a stronger perception of the young boy's own "self" which forms a contrast to heighten this Full Contact (like hot heightens cold).

7. FEELING (vedana)
Feeling arises mostly certainly in a positive way with the Air Jordans and other associated apparel and products. In contrast, the whole other world of negativity gets lumped into the shoes with no name, no image and no attractive athlete endorsing them. Thirdly, the ladies tennis shoes on sale are barely noticed in neither-pleasant-nor-painful Feeling.

These Feelings for athletic power give rise to more detailed perceptions (sanna) about the right kind of athletic power. It's not badminton. It's not the selfless team player sacrificing his own glory for the win. It's the basketball player, the baseball player. The big sports star who makes the big money. It's the dunker, the home run hitter, the good looking guy with the big contract. As important as it is to win, it is also as important to have the right image which includes the shoe contract, the endorsement packages, the famous actress girlfriend, the celebrity golf tournament appearances, etc. The mind here starts to divide in a myriad of ways towards Craving and Clinging where the fine tuning of what it is the "self" wants will take place.

8. CRAVING (tanha)
The comparing of the positive feelings concocted through the Air Jordans and the negative ones concocted through his own shoes condition the young boy to Crave the Air Jordans (Sense Craving). On a deeper level, the young boy begins to Crave the state of being of Jordan and other professional athletes (Craving for Being). Craving for Non-Being will also arise in reflection upon his own situation which is so far from this world of pleasure that he is getting just a taste of now at the sports store. Here these comparisons and identifications are taking place as the mind becomes more dualistic. The boy sees himself (Craving for Non-Being) and what he wants to have in the shoes (Sense Craving) and be in Jordan (Craving for Being). The seemingly impossible gap of space and time between his state and Jordan's creates an almost paralyzing feel of lack and alienation. The shoes, however, as a concrete manifestation of this Craving for Being represent an attainable intermediate step in the dream (or do they?). Pinned to the storefront glass gazing at the shoes, the neither-pleasurable-nor-painful book store next door is barely noticed, and one door towards a real step to the dream remains closed.

9. CLINGING (upadana )
From the three levels of Craving, Clinging is concocted.
1) From the Craving of the Air Jordans (Sense Craving), the boy now cannot take his eyes off them. He becomes totally preoccupied with them, unwilling to even look at shoes of equal quality but at a more affordable price. (Sense Clinging).
2) On a deeper level, his Craving for Being with Jordan and professional athletes begins to concoct into a deeper belief that, "Yes, this is the life! Being an NBA star is the ultimate! This will be my dream!" (Attitude Clinging).
3) With the arising of these beliefs, he not only begins to Cling ever more strongly to the shoes as one of the means to this way of life, but he also begins to Cling to all the ideas he has for realizing this belief, "I'll have to skip study period to work on my jumper this afternoon" (Behavioral Clinging).
4) With all these hardened images of "self" on top of his initial identifications, a shoes-wanting, sports loving, power craving guy is truly emerging (Self Clinging). This hardening of "self" image further blocks out questions and perspectives that could be raised like,"Why not buy the cheaper shoes and use the extra on that Cornell West book."; "I read another story about a star who got addicted to cocaine and beat his wife. Maybe this life isn't so easy after all?"; and "If I don't get a real degree, what will I do after I retire? Run a liquor store?"

MATURATION OF THE "SELF"
10. EXISTENCE (bhava)
11. BIRTH (jati)

With initial identifications made in Craving and the emergence of his athletic "I" in Clinging, the boy's "self" is maturing. He obsesses about the shoes, "I'm going to get them!"; he dwells more deeply on his dream, "Nobody's gonna stop me"; and he plans more thoroughly his path, "First, I got the shoes, then make the team, then the scholarship to Carolina - no, Michigan, yeah, two years, then lottery pick and long term 3 figure contract after two!"4 From such a process arises solidified identifications of the boy as great athlete "self" with environments and situations to which he will belong and which will realize the dream: initially, Foot Locker, the store of dreams, then the high school team, the four year university of which he already has a short list, and, of course, the NBA franchise he will play for, "Chicago? naw too hard to follow Michael"; "Miami, no Riley'll kill me"; "L.A., yeah, L.A., running with Shaq and Kobe!" and of course the non-identifications "What if I'm drafted by Utah? Salt Lake City!!??", "If I don't go Division I-A, I'm dead!"5 These identifications are forming an ideal future "self" based on the objectified and deluded desires of Craving and Clinging. As such, a vision of "self" is being born which will only further frustrate the reality of the present "self" thus only deepening the sense of lack which the boy is trying to build over.

The young boy at age 12 has made the trip to the mall that will change his life. He leaves with no Air Jordans but with a new born babe, a "self" brewed from the depravities of his environment (Dukkha) and the understandable Ignorance with how to get out of it. The concocted mind is matured and in place to concoct myriad new forms of attachment. Nurtured by the Craving and Clinging to sports "images" and poised to activate through identifications, this "self" is taking on its own energy for growth and survival.

12. AGING & DYING (jaramarana)
The boy's immediate experience with Aging & Dying is in depression in his inability to buy the shoes that day. As soon as he leaves the store, the magic is gone. Jordan and his shoes stay in the store, and he is left with the same "self" that came in the store. The excitement that gets left in the store will probably turn into boredom with the activities of school and life which are not connected in some way to this sports excitement. He may also experience fear when he thinks about how difficult and treacherous the road is to his dream as a professional athlete.

If causes and conditions are kind to him, he may indeed see the mature development of a sports athlete "self". What probably will happen is that this "self" will get mixed with his other concocted selves and eventually derail the project. The most perverse, yet not uncommon, scenario is the "self" becomes stuck in the images of Clinging while losing what it really takes to achieve. For someone in his situation, being hooked to material forms and styles with no skills or substance to back them up are good qualifications for becoming a drug dealer.

THE DEEPER INJUSTICES OF STRUCTURAL CONSUMER PATICCA SAMUPPADA
The full ramifications of this birth are not readily apparent from the personal model. "So a kid goes to the mall, falls in love with Michael Jordan and wants to become a sports hero - what's wrong with that?", we might ask. Surely, it would seem nothing. The same thing probably happened to Michael Jordan many years ago when he went into a store, saw a picture of Dr. J and bought his first pair of Converse. The key point of this case study is the way that this initial mental paticca samuppada is recreated in young boys all over the country. On a mass level it feeds the building and maintenance of structures all of which are infused with the Ignorance and Craving for money and the consumer culture that marks the highest levels of sport. The ramifications of these structures built on greed can be shrugged off by those with the financial means to get off in tact through paying for school if a scholarship is not offered or getting a different, respectable job since their schooling was adequate. As we have seen, however, these kinds of consumer fed dreams are the bulwarks of a system of economic injustice which bites most deeply at the bottom of the pyramid.

CRAVING (tanha)
The boy's mental Craving will lead him to concoct further Full Contact : to see Jordan play, to see one of his advertisements, to go by Foot Locker again and again to look and touch those shoes (Sense Craving). This increased physical contact along with the initial mental identifications further lead the young boy to wish to own the shoes himself in order to have that power in constant possession. Further, he may begin to play more and work harder on his game to get that much closer to experiencing that power (Craving for Being). This latter form of Craving for Being can actually lead to wholesome development where the boy seeks to bring the power out in himself as opposed to just buying the shoes or grasping at empty images. Practice and diligence to develop his own power can turn into a wholesome long term goal (chanda-wise want) if nurtured correctly with the right amounts of Not-self added in.

Yet amongst some of these positive cravings, the young man also experiences a lot of Craving for Non-Being. Building in his increasingly competitive mind is a hierarchy of positives and negatives. That which is below the status of what he aspires to gets lumped into a world to be avoided and shunned. Inferior shoes, teams, basketball camps and people and places which are an anathema to his dream status may not only be looked down upon but harassed. As the boy's star rises so may his arrogance and contempt for teachers, students and even relatives who share different values and do not regard him as a celebrity. After an initial hardening of identity around clung to forms, the boy's identity is becoming more fluid as the contents of his imagination and of consumer basketball culture become blurred with daily reality. The distance and enormity of his dream creates such an intense lack that the "self" begins to destroy this gap between real and ideal. Before he is there, the boy has already arrived and carries himself as the "second coming" of Michael Jordan.

If these emotional dislocations are not enough, the grooming system for producing NBA bodies will only add to this separation from others. From junior high school, the recruiting, the summer camps and leagues, the tryouts and the myriad levels of play condition a constant personal evaluation, comparing and competing among all kids his age. The incredible alienations that are created in this system produce the insular, modern NBA star who is often extremely private, duly paranoid, and incredibly close with either family or an old group of friends.

CLINGING (upadana)
This type of Clinging that is conditioned by the Craving will then lead on to actions.
1) On the level of Sense Clinging, the young boy becomes infatuated with all material forms and images associated with Jordan, his team the Bulls, and the NBA in general. Such an infatuation might seem harmless on a certain level, yet when you reflect on the amount of merchandise marketed and sold by Official NBA licensing (not to mention the unofficial market), the Sense Clinging surrounding basketball stars is big business.6
2) The next level of Clinging in the young boy's attitudes may manifest itself in seemingly harmless posturing about Jordan and the Bulls being the best or even Nike making the best products. Yet attitudes of greater concern might become the belief that acquiring the shoes and such related apparel will actually make him a more powerful person. He says he feels more confident playing, and he'll look more attractive to the girls. The speed with which new types of apparel are developed and the power of their imagery, which is reinforced by the depravity of his environment, may begin to distract the young boy from the real issue at hand: in order to make it to the NBA, he must somehow overcome his poor schooling through diligent work and also improve the actual content of his abilities while staying clear of the pitfalls of being a young growing boy in a ghetto environment (teenage pregnancy, drugs, and violence):

Which makes this process of playing for a scholarship not the black version of the American dream, as I had thought eight months earlier, but a cruel parody of it. In the classic parable, you begin with nothing and slowly accrue your riches through hard work in a system designed to help those who help themselves. Here, at seventeen years of age, you begin with nothing but one narrow, treacherous path and then run the gauntlet of obstacles that merely reminds you of how little you have: recruiters pass themselves off as father figures, standardized tests humiliate you and reveal the wretchedness of your education, the promise of lucrative NBA contracts reminds you of what it feels like to have nothing in this world.7

Getting lost in the allure of material goods and the "image" associated with the NBA can only complicate an already treacherous path.
3) This Clinging to attitudes will further concoct itself in Behavioral Clinging. With so much Craving and Clinging built up and so few ways to realize them, the boy is beginning to enter treacherous waters. There is Clinging to the dream which, as we noted, in many ways can be a positive thing. A long term goal that requires self-discipline and personal development can lead to more positive kinds of desires and goals (chanda) and a way out of, if not Clinging, at least the depravity of his environment. Yet the consumer dream is doing a good job of muddling the larger picture. The young boy is very susceptible to the sensual aspects of this dream. The images and symbols of the consumer world perpetuate this. How will he get the shoes and apparel needed to create the proper image? Perhaps a part time job, but in his environment, jobs are scarce. Some boys get their money from drug dealers who were former players as an investment in the dream.8 Such associations can be dangerous pitfalls when a boy's grades or play begins to drop him out of the ever narrowing circle of players who can at least make it out of the neighborhood on a basketball scholarship to a university in the "outside world". If and/or when the dream fades, the behavior of selling drugs leaves him cash to at least keep a hold of the empty images of power in the material goods.

More disturbingly, though, is the way that the behavior of the whole system is loaded against those with sincere desire and self-discipline. This comes to fore in the need for the young boy to balance his athletic development and his educational development. These are both methods for realizing his dream. Although the basketball system puts up a vain image of scholastic advancement as equal to athletic advancement, the following numbers show what's in store for him: less than 1% of 500,000 high school players in the United States get Division I scholarships per year9, of this 1% only 44% end up graduating with degrees10, which means approximately .044% or 220 boys nationwide follow the hoops dream to a university degree; meanwhile approximately .010% or 50 boys nationwide make an NBA team and even less as a career that spans more than two or three years. Finally, as a microcosm of our global economy, the gap between the mega rich and the merely well to do is increasing. As contracts skyrocket towards $20 million dollars per year for the hand full of mega stars (about 50 in a league of 324 players), the rest of the players are tendered with minimum wage NBA salaries ($272,500) making the chances of making big money even smaller.

This is where the real tragedy of the "Hoop Dream" takes place. Through the consumptive allure of the images of professional athletes and the structures which feed on them as cash cows, millions of student athletes Cling to the athlete part of their development. Yet the percentage of high school basketball players who go on to get a scholarship and a university degree much less make it to the NBA and the big money is infinitesimally small. The failure of public schools amidst great wealth in the United States and the interest of universities to make money off of big time sports rather than nurture those who have gotten the short end of the stick in their educational development indicate how misplaced priorities are in consumer societies. This form of Behavioral Clinging is a true loss of value. For the individual, it is the loss in value of an education for the illusory images of becoming a well paid professional athlete. For society, it is the loss in value of developing its own citizens for the pleasures of dispersion, fame and entertainment. The competitive system may rightly challenge us to be the best we can, but it also leaves those with no other means all the way in the gutter. Meanwhile, the corporations (NBA, apparel companies), universities, agents, coaches and all sorts of other people make money off the casino gamble of a boy's life, and Michael Jordan does advertisements for Nike saying "Stay in School" yet himself bypassed his final year of college.11

4) The final form of Clinging to "self" is a build up of the previous three forms of Clinging. The destructiveness of this clinging is that the young man who gains a modicum of success will lose perspective on real priorities and pitfalls due to his built up sense of "self". Successful at a certain level and told of his unlimited potential (the "next Jordan"), the boy can get lost in his own image and forget the discipline and focus which made him the success he has been. This clinging to "self" creates manifest problems when it runs into Aging & Dying which every ballplayer, even Jordan, must face, the end of his career. The image of himself as a great player is supported very much by the free apparel he receives, the special camps he can go to, and the newspaper flashes of his dunks. Yet if he becomes increasingly dependent on this image and identity, he may soon lose his way from what really made him great.

MATURATION OF THE "SELF"
EXISTENCE (bhava)
BIRTH (jati)

From these various forms of Clinging, the project of the powerful, successful (but not yet) wealthy athlete "self" is manifesting. Action built of Craving and Clinging concocts more deeply into patterns of behavior in Bhava. His clinging to the consumer forms of products surrounding Michael Jordan and the NBA takes form in action. He develops obsessions with his appearance: one pair of Nike's for playground games, one pair for hanging out, and his best pair for games; the black Nike warm-up with one leg stylishly pulled up for going out with the guys, a nice Reebok one for dates; a new cool "walk" for his new game, and of course a portfolio of stylish slam dunks for attracting the girls, the recruiters and the media. The opportunities to receive free apparel and goods from prestigious camps, coaches and underground agents reinforce the young boy's "self" enslaved to sense forms.

However, as the pyramid competitive system of consumerism always expresses itself, the free receiving of goods is only for the elite few who make it to the best teams and summer camps. For those on the middle and bottom layers still trying to develop themselves or waiting for that growth spurt, inferior (non-Nike or Reebok) or no goods are available. These boys are more liable to come into contact with the drug dealers who may offer them cash for their Cravings. The connection may develop into nothing, but it also may be the first foot in the coffin for a marginal player unlikely to succeed and tempted by the financial possibilities of drug dealing. Again, there is the vanishing safety net for those at the bottom of the American economy. Like players on a losing team, they are merely the bottom for which the elite can measure themselves. Without them there is no context for claiming success.

The consumer images which the boy clings to and the consumer profits which all those who surround him cling to push the boy into developing his athletic prowess at the cost of academic and emotional development. As we saw on the level of behavior, alienation from true meaning is brought into action, just as Buddhadasa warned. Athletics begins as a vehicle for realizing personal development, self-discipline, self-sacrifice and a knowledge of the value of hard work to attain any goal. However, at this point, athletics is becoming an end in itself. It is no longer helping the boy to mature but is rather becoming his prison. Athletics is taking precedence over all other factors in his life. His after school time for homework is spent at games, sleeping after exhausting practices, studying film or watching another game, etc. His vacations are spent in practice and at out of state tournaments. He is living, breathing and sleeping athletics to the detriment of his own personal development. This pattern in competitive sports is perhaps seen most acutely in the development of young tennis players and gymnasts.

An ego is being nurtured and conceived which is susceptible to the consumer forms, images and styles of competitive sports, and more importantly, has difficulty dealing in situations apart from this world, such as academics, certain social situations, etc. In the athletic world, the boy's "self" is at home, comfortable with the sensual forms, the views and attitudes, the methods and institutions, and his own image of success and power. Yet thrown into the classroom or into a non-competitive social situation, the boy may suddenly be in crisis. Intimidated by the new setting (which can be equally as competitive in academics) and his small sense of "self" in the classroom, the boy my suffer more from lack of "self" confidence than lack of ability.
The above scenario for the competitive athlete cannot be seen as a blanket one. There are the well-fanfared scholar athletes who excel both in the classroom and on the court. Yet as we have noticed in the pyramid system of competition, those who begin at the higher level generally have more means to develop without disaster. A boy from a middle upper class family may have pressure to excel, yet if he fails, his schooling and environment will have been adequate enough to make the transition to other forms of endeavor. Certainly, boys and girls who have been successful competitive athletes make great competitive business people. Yet for those at the lower tiers, the professional dream is perhaps their only hope. If they fail, their schooling will ensure them they tumble back to where they came from. Having been milked for all the capital they are worth, they will be thrown on the garbage pile of American ghetto manhood.

These are the environments and life situations concocted in the Maturation of the "Self". The shoe and apparel stores, the advertising, and the media entice the boy's Sensual Craving. His teammates, coaches, family, and agents convince him of his ideas to go all the way to the NBA. The teams, the summer camps, the universities, the boosters and agents, and the product marketeers (like Nike which financially support all of these institutions) create the structures in which he will be groomed, developed, commodified, and sold. When we entered this action level of Craving and Clinging, we began to see the emergence of structural defilement (kilesa) around the boy. Here at his birth as a successful and powerful (but not yet rich, only those in the NBA get the real money) competitive athlete, we are also beginning to view the whole gigantic social "self" born of the delusion of competitive and consumerist society.
IMAGE: Nike Air Jordans $175, first pair bought at 14, freshman in high school, half from money saved up from a summer job, half as a present from mom. The age of innocence is over. The boy now has a fully matured athlete "self" living in an extremely complex structural "self" of competitive sports. He not only has to contend with this grasping and self-serving internal "self" but also has to deal with the structural predators which seek to take advantage of this "self". As the boy comes in contact with Aging & Dying, he will begin to experience the real frustrations, complications and limitations of this concocted "self".

AGING & DYING (jaramarana)
Athletics has a positive point in that it is clear that there will have to be somewhere a natural death of the "self", when even after a great NBA career, a player has to step out of the limelight and accept the end. Some players don't go easily into the night but all must have to. For the young boy, the farther he gets into the dream the more the reality of it bites at the Ignorance of that first day when Michael Jordan's whole life seemed like one parade. The farther he goes, the higher the price he has to pay in emotional suffering. It's our hope that someone will appear to guide him to what is truly essential and steer him clear of the material illusions of which the course is chocked full.

One way he will encounter Aging & Dying, though not likely understand it, is in the transience of sensual forms (Impermanence). Within a week, his new Air Jordans have a smudge on them. Further, the corporations only exacerbate his frustration by developing new lines of Air Jordans and new products all the time. The experience of death in the out-dating of goods by updating styles is a way that consumer culture concocts boredom. For the unmindful absorbed in fashion, this merely spins them on again in the pursuit of the new. In competitive sports, this has recently gotten out of control as teams are changing their logos and team colors every few years. This immediately makes the old ones out of date and makes their fans go out and buy all the goods and apparel they have again with the new design. Teams like the New York Yankees, Boston Celtics and Indianapolis Colts who have not changed their original team designs are rare exceptions.

Another level of breakdown occurs when the boy begins to lose control over his attaining and maintaining of states of Clinging. The dream has always been fragile, but at least by taking care of business on the court, the rest of the things he wanted and needed would be taken care of (his shoes and apparel, his image as a star, his poor grades forgotten, etc.). An injury or an inability to meet his potential or to produce at the next level of competition means that all these things will begin to disappear including the many so called friends who had supported his image of "self". The dream is still far away and the odds with his environment are discouraging. This spills into fear that he will never have the means to get the shoes, improve and gain that power that is so awesome yet so far away. There is the constant fear that he will never make it out of his neighborhood and end up "dead or in jail like everybody else"12.Without the strength of his own will or the help of a caring person close by, the young boy will begin to panic in the water. He will more maniacally cling to these things which make up the "self" but which are not the real reasons for his success. The goods and apparel, the "friends and fans", and the four year universities will drift away, and this will create strong feelings of depression. Unless the boy can make a major attitude adjustment, the downward spiral back to the ghetto is imminent.

Still another aspect of Aging & Dying is Ignorance of the way things are which often conditions fear and superstitious grasping. He may begin to abuse the privileges he was awarded before in a vain attempt to declare his old status. His grades may drop even further, and he may begin to lash out at his environment in anger or at himself through drug abuse. His denial of the death of his dream and the image of his "self" is an Ignorance of the way things are.
From the development of a "self" nurtured on Clinging to consumer athletic sensual forms and to competitive sports as an overarching value system and way of dealing with the world, the boy stays in the ghetto with few skills and heavy defilements. In losing the value of education and other social skills to the higher good of sports, he is even more destitute in terms of ability to get a job. Yet he has literally "bought" into the American dream by cultivating a Clinging to consumer goods. Unfortunately, the American dream does not give refunds back to the losers. Hopefully, the Clinging he developed can be re-funneled into something constructive like Craving and Clinging to a new dream of basic employment and a stable family. Yet the rip-off that he has been given is more likely to manifest in total despair in his situation, susceptibility to the drug world which is the biggest employer in the ghetto, and great anger which could lead to criminal behavior.

CONCLUSION
All sports dreams come to an end. Ideally, they should end with a trophy or two on the mantle piece, a few good wins and a few bad losses and some lessons with which to move on in life. Unfortunately, for American ghetto youth, competitive sports is often a cruel trip to Las Vegas where everyone steals your money and leaves you on the highway out to the desert. The dream is literally sold through the commodification of the games and players. For a tiny few, it is a reality. For the economic elite, it is a pleasurable diversion. For the bottom of the pyramid, the diversion aspect of sports is merely macabre theater because in their environment it serves less as a diversion than a reminder of what they truly do not have and of what they have so little chance of getting. They can dream of heaven but the sinners who get out of hell are few and far between. For the large mass of us in the middle, it is a consumptive diversion which keeps the economic system going while ironically sedating us from the very reasons for our daily struggle for economic livelihood. Every year is another year of financially getting by, but perhaps we wouldn't feel the pinch so much if we stopped buying all those Nike goods and NBA apparel. If we did so, however, the economy built on consumer spending and leisure industries would crumble and plunge us into deeper financial strains, so best to forget it all with another play-off triple-header.

This is the catch 22 of attempting to transform our own lives and our society as a whole. We have developed economies and societies which mirror the selves we have constructed. Pulling the plug on either leaves us staring down the abyss of Not-self and the collapse of society as we know it. We desire a more peaceful, less harried and superficial way of finding meaning in our lives, yet when we begin to disengage we my find ourselves "feeling alone" and empty without the material diversions we have built our identities upon. Similarly, by taking a step away from such a society as a whole, we feel the threat of losing the material achievements we have worked so hard for over the last few hundred years and of plunging back into the Dark Ages.

This is where we arrive at the Third Noble Truth, that there is indeed an answer to our problems and a concrete method to realize this answer. In order to take steps forward in our personal lives towards ending our sickness and then towards making intelligent and practical steps towards changing our societies, we must begin with the work of our spirits. The Buddhist path toward a world beyond consumerism and exploitative economy is one that guides from the inside out. By creating a wholesome base for our beings, we can then know the proper steps to take towards changing our societies and planet. Buddhism will not give us structural plans for this society that our scientistic spirits cry for, but it will offer a guiding foundation of personal and interpersonal relationship which will fill our efforts towards new structural plans with the proper amount of science and humanity.

NOTES:
1 The $20 million that basketball star Michael Jordan reportedly received in 1992 for promoting Nike shoes exceeds the entire annual payroll for the Indonesian factories that made them from female workers making as little as 15 cents/hour. Korten, David C., When Corporations Rule the World (West Hartford, Connecticut & San Francisco: Kumarin Press, Inc. & Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1995), 111 AND Richard J. Barnett and John Cavanaugh, Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994) 325-29.
2 In the widely acclaimed documentary film "Hoop Dreams", the issues of consumerism and the role it plays in forging the "Hoop Dream" (or Hoop Delusion) are not directly addressed but most certainly visible to the discerning eye. For a view which goes more into the economic and exploitative side of this issue see Frey, Darcy The Last Shot : City Streets, Basketball Dreams (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994).
3 Jordan himself did not come from the ghetto but rather a middle-lower income family from a small seaside town (Wilmington, North Carolina).
4 Translation: "First, I'll get the shoes, then make the high school team, then gain a scholarship to a 4 year university with one of the best basketball teams like University of North Carolina or University of Michigan. Then after playing just two years, I'll enter the NBA draft and get chosen as one of the top 6 players (i.e. "a lottery pick") . After signing a preliminary 3 year rookie contract, I'll sell myself on the free agent market for a multi-year contract worth over $100 million dollars." Note: Kevin Garnett plays for the NBA Minnesota Timberwolves. After failing to attain the proper test scores to go to a 4 year university (he actually did want to go), he entered the NBA draft straight out of high school as "a lottery pick". After two years, he signed a 6 year $126 million contract at the age of 21.
5 Division I-A is the highest league of university sports competition in the United States.
6 The NBA sold $3.09 billion worth of shirts, jerseys, caps and other merchandise in 1996, and about this same amount the year before. Sean Callebs, "NBA Goods Sales Flatten : League Turns to New Products -- and Faces -- to Boost Merchandise Profits", CNN Financial News, March 24, 1997.
7 Frey, The Last Shot, 227.
8 from the movie "Hoop Dreams".
9 Frey, The Last Shot , 226.
10 For the class entering 1989 with 6 years to graduate, 44% graduated as compared to 57% for the total student body, 58% for student-athletes in general, and 54% for football players. Statistics based from Division I member institutions only (approx. 300 schools) and only those student-athletes receiving athletics aid (i.e. those getting scholarships). source National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
11 Jordan finally earned his degree from the University of North Carolina 3 years after leaving school.
12 from the movie "Hoop Dreams".

Think Sangha Coordinator