sounds familiar

“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country” [emphasis added].

Thus spake Hermann Göring (1983-1946), second-in-command of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe (German Air Fore). Brought before the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials, convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging, he cowardly committed suicide the night before the excecution.

shifting religions

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The latest edition of the worldwide Vatican’s Statistical Yearbook shows that, for the first time in history, there are more Muslims than Catholics in the world. All Christian denominations combined, however (e.g., Anglican, Protestant, and Orthodox Churches), still make up 33% of the world’s population. Since the Vatican relied on a variety of secondary sources it makes no claim as to their accuracy. 

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source: German news-magazine SPIEGEL

learning to accept that which seems unacceptable

As a physician working in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Gabor Maté knows a bit or two about people coping with addictions. His new book* deals with the lives of addicts, the neurobiology of addiction, and strategies for harm reduction and healing. The latter offers wide-ranging applications for any complicated relationships—be it with family members, friends, acquaintances, even strangers.  

Using the example of responding to a drug-addicted daughters, Maté’s advice** is to be okay with her using. “[The parents] have to be perfectly okay with this. Say, ‘This is what’s happening.” Not resist or resent it. Nor wish her to be different. Nor work to make her different than the way she is. Because what that girl did not get in the first place was un conditional loving acceptance—not because [the parents] didn’t intend it, but because they couldn’t deliver it because of their own stuff.” There’s much wisdom in this approach: Accept what is (which does not mean condone). Accept the person (put aside your moral arguments). Be kind on the person, then tough on the issues.  

See any application in your life? Be gentle in giving this approach a try. It’s radical. Expect your own resistance to trying to accept something in the other which you find repugnant. Take baby steps. After all, if this relationship matters to you, what’s the alternative to acceptance?

sources: * In the realm of hungry ghosts: close encounters with addictions. (2008). Knopf Canada. ** Interview with Charlie Smith in The Georgia Strait, Feb. 21-28, 2008, p.33. 

ode to joy

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press © Mary Oliver 

what’s with suffering?

Suffering is given a prominent place in the Buddhist approach to conscious living. It’s not a word we use easily, reserving it instead for situations of severe discomfort, pain, and loss: Jesus Christ is said to have suffered death on the cross for us, millions of children suffer from malnutrition around the world, and someone we know has suffered the loss of a loved-one.  

“Suffering” is the common translation of the Sanskrit word “dukka,” denoting forms of “unsatisfactoriness.” The historical Buddha realized the First Noble Truth as “Life is dukka,” a principle that might suggests a pessimistic world view. On closer examination, however, it clears the way for a compassionate exploration of the human condition. It aims toward awakening and liberation from the bondage of longings and aversions.  

Ezra Bayda is a Zen teacher from San Diego: “Simply put, suffering is a wide range of emotional and physical reactions that result when we resist out life at is. Holding to ideals of how our life ought to be, clinging to what we want, always leads to the same result: when our desires and expectations aren’t met, we suffer. Whether it takes the form of anxiety, anger, depression, fear, or confusion, suffering is the direct consequence of wanting out of life other than what it is” (emphasis added). 

source: At home in muddy waters: a guide to finding peace within everyday chaos. Boston: Shambala, 2003, p.137. image: ‘The Widow’ by Käthe Schmidt Kollwitz (1867-1945), German painter, print-maker, and sculptor. trivia: there’s an Egyptian spice mixture called dukka.

darn happiness

Doctor, doctor … I’ve been having these happiness attacks. Not just now, but frequently, once or twice a day, several times a week. This has been going on for a couple of months. What’s the big deal, you say? For many this may be a normal way to be, going through life with a sunny disposition, taking problems in stride, and looking ahead with optimism. That hasn’t been my experience.  

Today I can attest to the potential of living through personal catastrophe and emerging transformed to joyful clarity. Without fail I wake up in the morning and –as soon I’m conscious– light up a grin. During the day, at the oddest moments, shivers of joy run over me. The mind (ego), accustomed to a lifetime of darkness and insecurity, tries to discredit them with its customary suspicion: Why are you so happy? Have you fallen in love perhaps, won the lottery without buying a ticket, received some unexpectedly good news? Aren’t you meant to live the life of Sisyphus*?

None of the above, I reply. I just feel … well … filled with joy … nothing dramatic, nothing I could even name. Simply joy radiating from within. At such moments I feel “surprised by joy” (to borrow C.S Lewis’s book title). I want to go on my knees (and occasionally do), bowing in gratitude and kissing the ground of ‘right now’. Alive, present, unfettered by demons. How wonderful is that!? 

The Persian poet Rumi puts things into perspective, reminding us that misery and joy are necessary components of an examined life. “God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches you by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly - not one.”   

* Sisyphus is a character in Greek mythology cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again, and repeat this throughout eternity.

civilian peacekeepers — what a concept!

Excerpts from an article in the Christian Science Monitor, March 27, 2008. To access the full article, click here:

Legends relate that Buddha stopped a war between two kings who were quarreling over rights to a river by asking them, “Which is more precious, blood or water?” Could ordinary people use the same kind of wisdom – and courage – to check the impulse to fight wars today – over oil, water, or identity? Mahatma Gandhi thought so. He created teams of civilians called the Shanti Sena or “Army of Peace” and deployed them in various communities around India where they could avert communal riots and provide other peacekeeping services.

Over the past 25 years nonviolent peacekeepers have been going into zones of sometimes intense conflict with the aim of bringing a measure of peace, protection, and sanity to life there. Rather than use threat or force, unarmed peacekeepers deploy strategies of protective accompaniment, moral and/or witnessing “presence,” monitoring election campaigns, creating neutral safe spaces, and in extreme cases putting themselves physically between hostile parties, as Buddha did with the angry kings in ancient India. 

[...] Why haven’t you heard about this exciting work? Because it is terribly underfunded, for one thing. There is also a prevailing prejudice that only governments or armed forces – including those of the United Nations – have the responsibility or means to contain conflict. [...] But the biggest obstacle by far is the widespread – and rarely examined – belief that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. It is the belief that there is only one kind of power; threat power, which in the end can be relied upon to get others to change their minds or, failing that, at least their actions.That may change. The failures of war-fighting for peace, most notably now in Iraq, are getting ever more costly – of life, material, and our civil liberties.

[…] People are ready for peaceful change and they’re willing to dedicate their lives to create it. Civilian unarmed peacekeeping could be the way to recognize and help develop the vital protection role global civil society may credibly, effectively, and legitimately play in human security. For the benefit of children and women in armed conflict, for refugees, journalists, human rights defenders, peacefully protesting monks, aid workers, or election campaigners – for all of us. Because ultimately, none of us is secure until all of us are.

The authors: Rolf Carriere spent his career in UNICEF in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Burma as liaison to the World Bank. Michael Nagler is professor emeritus of the Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and president of the Metta Centre for Nonviolence Education. Both volunteer as senior advisers to Nonviolent Peaceforce.

sikhs at worship

In an effort to become familiar with various faith communities, I’m planning to visit a Sikh temple. The following is excerpted from the BBC Religion website. © British Broadcasting Corporation

A Gurdwara is the place where Sikhs come together for congregational worship. Guests of all faiths are welcome. The literal meaning of the Punjabi word Gurdwara is the residence of the Guru, or the door that leads to the Guru. Although a Gurdwara may be called the residence of the Guru (meaning the residence of God), Sikhs believe that God is present everywhere.

In a modern Gurdwara the Guru is not a person, but the book of Sikh scriptures. It is the presence of the scriptures that gives the Gurdwara its religious status, so any building containing the book is a Gurdwara. There are no idols, statues, or religious pictures in a Gurdwara, because Sikhs worship only God, and they regard God as having no physical form. Nor are there candles, incense, or bells, or any other ritualistic devices. Sikhs do not have ordained priests, and any Sikh can lead the prayers and recite the scriptures. 

Inside the Gurdwara: The focus of attention, and the only object of reverence in the main hall of a Gurdwara is the book of Sikh scripture, which is treated with the respect that would be given to a human Guru (spiritual teacher). During a service a person with a whisk or fan waves it over the scriptures. But although Sikhs show reverence to the scriptures, their reverence is not to the book itself, but to its spiritual content.

The Four Doors: There are four doors into a Gurdwara, known as the Door of Peace, the Door of Livelihood, the Door of Learning and the Door of Grace. These doors are a symbol that people from all four points of the compass are welcome, and that members of all four castes are equally welcome. There’s always a light on in a Gurdwara, to show that the Guru’s Light is always visible and is accessible to everyone at any time. 

Click here to access the full article. For further background, to any of these websites: www.sikhs.org; www.religioustolerance.org/sikhism.htm; www.allaboutsikhs.com/index.php.

new book

From the publisher’s website: David R. Loy has become one of the Buddhist worldview’s most powerful advocates, explaining like no one else its ability to transform the sociopolitical landscape of the modern world.

In this, his most accessible work to date, he offers sharp and even shockingly clear presentations of oft-misunderstood Buddhist staples-the working of karma, the nature of self, the causes of trouble on both the individual and societal levels-and the real reasons behind our collective sense of “never enough,” whether it’s time, money, sex, security… even war. Loy’s “Buddhist Revolution” is nothing less than a radical change in the ways we can approach our lives, our planet, the collective delusions that pervade our language, culture, and even our spirituality.  

Review in Buddhadharma Magazine:  This new book “…might have a flashy title, but it is a serious and substantial book that poses real challenges to the reader. The book builds on a theme that Loy has working on for several of his last books—namely, that the three poisons are so intricately built into our society (greed in the market economy, anger in the military industrial complex, and delusion in the fame-chasing omnipresent commercial media) that awakening needs to happen in the social as well as the personal realm. This places the book firmly in the realm of Engaged Buddhism. However, its overarching theme concerns how to ensure that the Buddhadharma survives and flourishes in the West. Loy argues with conviction that in order to have relevance in the West, the dharma must find the middle way between its many traditional Asian forms and the contemporary Western feel-good consumerism that characterize much of today’s spiritualism.”

To order directly from Wisdom Publications at 20% off list price, click here.

when is enough … enough?

A few days ago, a farmer friend drew my attention to the business world’s preoccupation, nay obsession, with growth. They’re not content with steady sales, production, and reasonable returns on investment, we agreed, no-one, especially shareholders and stock market analysts, seems content unless there’s that mystical profitability growth from year to year, even quarter to quarter.  

Being neither economist nor corporate schemer (but confessing to a small investment portfolio for my senior years), I began thinking about ways in which I contribute to this preoccupation with growth at all costs. Each day we read of whole factories being shipped to foreign lands because reduced labour cost will dramatically cut production costs; of yet another 3, or 6, or 10-thousand workers being given the sack to trim costs and improve the bottom line.  

“For the past 250 years,” writes historical analyst Steven Stoll*, “the industrialized world has expanded and thrived on an escalating volume of material transferred from environments into commerce, manufacturing, construction, and agriculture. The raw stuff of the planet made growth possible, and growth, in turn, reshaped the way people thought about themselves, their communities, and the human condition itself.” (Click here for the full article.)

What, if any, responsibility do I have for all this? What impact do my actions have? How do I support this relentless rise in consumption, possession, and so-called improvements … all the while lamenting the decay of the planet around me? What if were to take an honest inventory of my so-called life style? What if I were, more consciously than I do already, make decisions that are grounded in a less greedy and more prudent ethic?  

750 years ago, the Japanese Zen teacher Dogen Zenji wrote about the Eight Awakenings of Great Beings—a series of foundational practices of a conscious being. The second of these awakening (or insights, realizations), said Dogen, is “to know how much is enough.” Often obscure and impossible to penetrate (for me, at least), Zen text do sometimes express complex issues with elegant simplicity. This is one such example: What would be enough for me? How many bedrooms, bathrooms, vehicles, paintings, CDs, toys, and vacations do I need to live a reasonable life? 

You see where this is going?  What are your thoughts?

* source: ”Fear of fallowing: the specter of a no-growth world” in Harper’s Magazine, March 2008, pp.88 and 89. image: Painting by a North Carolina artist of actress Angelina Jolie as the Virgin Mary hovering over a Wal-Mart check-out line.

simple as that

“Here’s the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe, God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don’t know what you’re looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord.” 

source: Alice Walker. (1982). The color purple. New York: Washington Square, p.177. image: pittsburgh.about.com

buddhism and war

Non-violence is at the heart of Buddhist thinking and behaviour. The first of the five precepts that all Buddhists should follow is “Avoid killing, or harming any living thing.” Buddhism is essentially a peaceful tradition. Nothing in Buddhist scripture gives any support to the use of violence as a way to resolve conflict. 

Figures like the Dalai Lama (who won the Nobel Peace Prize) demonstrate in word and deed Buddhism’s commitment to peace. “Hatred will not cease by hatred, but by love alone. This is the ancient law.” Many Buddhists have refused to take up arms under any circumstances, even knowing that they would be killed as a result.

The pure Buddhist attitude is shown in this story: A Vietnam veteran was overheard rebuking the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, about his unswerving dedication to non-violence. “You’re a fool,” said the veteran - “what if someone had wiped out all the Buddhists in the world and you were the last one left. Would you not try to kill the person who was trying to kill you, and in doing so save Buddhism?!”

Thich Nhat Hanh answered patiently “It would be better to let him kill me. If there is any truth to Buddhism and the Dharma it will not disappear from the face of the earth, but will reappear when seekers of truth are ready to rediscover it. “In killing I would be … abandoning the very teachings I would be seeking to preserve. So it would be better to let him kill me and remain true to the spirit of the Dharma.” 

source: BBC Religion & Ethics 

why be humbled

“It seems that we are humbled before the great events in life. Events over which we have no power, no influence. Events that do not play fair. To be humbled like this is not meant to be punishment, but rather Death grooming us to awaken.”

source: Stephanie Erickson. (1993). Companion through the darkness: inner dialogue on grief. New York: Harper Perennial, p.69. image: members.fortunecity.com

reliable sources

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”  –Dr. Joseph Göbbels, Minister for Public Enlightenment (!) and Propaganda, German National Socialist (Nazi) regime from 1933 to 1945.

reluctant marauders

War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death  (documentary)

Excerpt from a review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat: to view a clip and read the full review at an amazing website, click here.

Begins with footage of General MacArthur at the end of World War II predicting an era of peace. But since then we have seen the United States make war, not peace, in Korea, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, the Gulf, and Iraq. 

Successive presidents and policy makers in Washington have tried to convince the public that war is always the last resort. “We will seek no wider war,” said President Johnson. “The United States does not start fights,” said President Reagan. “America does not seek conflict,” contended President George H. W. Bush. “I don’t like to use military force,” said President Bill Clinton. “Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly,” stated President George W. Bush. And each of them, like the present administration, came up with a catch phrase (”the axis of evil”) to justify military intervention. 

Directors Loretta Alper and Jeremy Earp of the Media Education Foundation have adapted Norman Solomon’s book of the same title into a documentary film, which includes archival footage of American officials and media disseminating pro-war messages. Narrated by Sean Penn.