Make America Zen Again! (and Treeleaf's Take on Things) ...

[Jundo]

Hi Jundo,

This is a very important topic for me. I understand that as long as there are humans we are bound to create problems out of solutions thanks to our self deluded minds.

However I also believe that there is a way to transcend the ugliness but at the same time we can work for the benefit of all sentient beings. It only takes a little of your time to change someone's life! An act of kindness here, another there change the world in many ways.

Maybe the ugliness will never go away, but we keep on trying because seeing others smile, happy and peaceful is a great motivation to just keep on going in this practice.

My belief is that we can work educating the young in compassion and unity. And maybe in the future we could end up with ethic minded politicians that actually care for the people. Gun control laws could spring out of that.

There is away as long as there is one crazy mutant willing to set the ego aside and work for the benefit of others.

Gassho,

Kyonin

This is so right, Kyonin.

It is one reason that we will be working at Treeleaf in the coming weeks and months to juice up and kick into high gear our "Engaged and Charitable Projects Center" of the Sangha, which is currently very quiet. With all that is going on in the world, one response will be for our Community to put good and charitable actions at the center of our Practice with Zazen. In fact, it is Zazen "off the cushion".

We can sit and find the Truth even as we work to fix what we can in this world.

Stand by in the coming weeks for news of this. It is in planning now.

Gassho, Jundo

SatToday

[Mp]

Hi Jundo,

This is a very important topic for me. I understand that as long as there are humans we are bound to create problems out of solutions thanks to our self deluded minds.

However I also believe that there is a way to transcend the ugliness but at the same time we can work for the benefit of all sentient beings. It only takes a little of your time to change someone's life! An act of kindness here, another there change the world in many ways.

Maybe the ugliness will never go away, but we keep on trying because seeing others smile, happy and peaceful is a great motivation to just keep on going in this practice.

My belief is that we can work educating the young in compassion and unity. And maybe in the future we could end up with ethic minded politicians that actually care for the people. Gun control laws could spring out of that.

There is away as long as there is one crazy mutant willing to set the ego aside and work for the benefit of others.

Gassho,

Kyonin

Nicely said Kyonin thank you! =)

Yes there is ugliness in this world, but also beauty. Let us just keep doing what we are doing in trying to make a better world for all - hopefully one day the others may see the errors of their ways and too make the change for a more loving and peaceful world.

Gassho
Shingen

s@today

[Hoseki]

Hi Jundo,

Thank you for the responses. This discussion aroused strong feelings I will probably need some time to let this settle.


Gassho

Hi Risho,

Those are good questions I was thinking something along the lines of what's in Canada, the UK or New Zealand. It could be potentially modeled after one of those systems. I don't know how they started but I'm sure they started with an idea. As for pricing, I would imagine services would have a fixed cost but which services are performs and the number of patients one sees would influence their pay. Here in Canada many physicians are small business owners that bill the government.


Gassho

Hoseki
Sattoday

[Getchi]

Thank you jundo, I have wondered more and more as I age what to actually do with any freedom I experience through Dharma practice. Coming from a tradition focused mainly on self-realisation (silent or selfish bud ha lol) it has been eye opening to study the boddhisatva ideas of this Northern (mahayanna) school.

I feel Dharma is Dharma, everything else is politics and social political activism is informed by my Practice, but is not particularly "buddhist". Division is never strength.

Its an interesting read from LR, and i hope it continues. Though personally it feels like just a list of complaints from people, rather then conversation about multiple views of buddhist thought.


Gassho
Ge off

Sat today.

[Risho]

Hi Jundo,

Thank you for the responses. This discussion aroused strong feelings I will probably need some time to let this settle.


Gassho

Hi Risho,

Those are good questions I was thinking something along the lines of what's in Canada, the UK or New Zealand. It could be potentially modeled after one of those systems. I don't know how they started but I'm sure they started with an idea. As for pricing, I would imagine services would have a fixed cost but which services are performs and the number of patients one sees would influence their pay. Here in Canada many physicians are small business owners that bill the government.


Gassho

Hoseki
Sattoday

Ha! I know there are solutions; I think we have to not give up and think in new ways and not close ourselves off to solutions that we never thought possible. Funny, after I wrote that elite practitioners should get paid more, I realized that is my biased view of the world. I hope one day, we get beyond money; I know it's a star trek ideal, but I have hope that one day we may get to that point where we drop off the monetary system. And no, I don't want to address any specifics. lol

Kyonin - I think you are right. In the end, I think we have to be the crazy mutants that we wish to see in the world :P

Gassho,

Risho
-sattoday

[Amelia]

I always think: which countries have successful programs for healthcare or education, etc.? Let's try their method!

Gassho, sat today

[JimH]

Try as I might, I can't keep from watching the news (and feeling a little bit frustrated more often than not). However....despite the "bad" that is going on, and the apparent disarray, I think there is definitely an upside to all that is going on. People in America are becoming more involved in politics, are checking facts and finding out things they never knew before (and maybe never cared about before). People are taking an active part in the discussions, and are maybe even learning more about the world as a whole. It would be nice if we were all to do these things without such a forceful impetus, but I think it is a good thing, no matter what spurs it.

Personally, I may grumble about some of the things I hear, but I grumble knowing that the grumbling is just that -- it won't fix anything, and complaining to the TV is like complaining in a wind storm: they both have the same effect. I just have to do the things that I can to make my immediate surroundings (my family, friends, neighborhood, city) a better place as much as I can, and realize that my version of "better" may actually be someone else's "worse". As Buddhists/Zen practitioners/humans/etc., we have to do what we think is right, and trust that things will work out the way that they are supposed to. Life has a funny way of seeing that this happens, I think.

Above all else, I think if some of the recent issues and events are bothersome, treat them as you might thoughts during zazen: notice them, acknowledge them, and let them go. If you can act, then do; if you can't, then don't....but either way, don't let the issues rule you.

Sometimes much easier to say than to do....and I'm guilty as much as anyone else. At those times....back to the mat!

Gassho--

--JimH (SatToday!)

[Shugen]

Thank you for your post Jim. I feel much the same way you do.

Gassho,

Shugen

Sattoday


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RichardH]

Watching steve bannon at CPAC.

Watching Steve Bannon being affable and well spoken, listening to what he said and especially his bearing, has reframed a few things for me. First of all I think it is a mistake to say he hates the mainstream media, or has a grudge or a chip on his shoulder. He is confident in his worldview, and his skills as a political operator.

Calling the mainstream media "the opposition" and "enemy of the people" and using every opportunity to drive home that message, is a strategy, not a defensive reaction or an emotional aversion. If it suited his strategy to embrace the mainstream media he would do so.

The point of this strategy is to consolidated the "base" and (just to be sure) the extreme right, and also to tell his and President Trump's soft support, that those who oppose the new Nationalism are either dupes of, or working for, the "Globalist Elite" . The final two minute long campaign commercial from 2016 covered this field, appealing to middle ground voters with an economic message, while clearly echoing the messaging of earlier Nationalists with what Sen. Franken called "a German Shepherd whistle" .

His appearance also reframes the bizarre news conference from two weeks ago. The accepted narrative around that event was that Trump was, against the advice of those around him, acting-out and being "unhinged" as he spent over an hour systematically attacking the sweep of mainstream news organizations. Given what Bannon has revealed, I think it is reasonable to conclude that the performance was on task, if not precisely on script.

Steve Bannon is a political "magus", to use a term applied to the current Canadian Prime Minister's father and former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Trudeau was a very different kind of person in every way, but certain qualities come through with certain talented political operators. A magus is someone who understands first of all the power of symbols and symbolism. He/she knows how to use them along with charismatic energy, and messaging-as-a-tool. With messaging-as-a-tool the value of the content is measured solely by its effectiveness at achieving a result, not its truthfulness. A lie is as good as a truth. Also, a magus will sow conflict or make peace as needed to achieve a goal. Polarization and conflict are not something to avoid, but a tool..


Steve Bannon has these qualities, and does seem to have a Rasputin-like hold on the Trump administration. He is using his skills to achieve goals that he has openly talked about, and that can be looked into further through his intellectual path in "neo-reactionary" thinking, which among other questionable assertions holds that Culture has a biological basis, and that "advanced" cultures are an expression of advanced races. You can google "neo-reactionary" and find much to read. This is all very open, including the various connections between prominent thinkers and the current administration in Bannon's fold. The harshest version of this worldview has been Naziism. The mainstream version has been the "White Man's Burden" of the British Raj. It may be fringe now, but at one time every ordinary British person, with the exception of socialist radicals and some religious communities, saw the world this way. My sense is that Bannon falls into the latter version, and is like a "normal" Westerner from several generations ago.
However, for practical political reasons he also "dog whistles" the former.

Bannon apparently sees "Judeo-Christian civilization" in a deadlock with "Islamic civilization" in a struggle for supremacy. At the very least pushing that view, exaggerating the threat from terrorism, and equating all Muslims with extremists, will serve as a self-fullfilling prophecy by playing into the narrative of Islamist extremists. The extremists and the new Nationalists both seek a separation and consolidation of civilizational blocks. The alignment looks like this... Terrorism is not blind hatred or nihilistic violence but a political tool, and the stated aim of the terrorist attacks in Europe by ISIS is to create a hostile environment for European Muslims, so that they will disidentify with European civilization, and identify with the "Caliphate". The new Nationalists exaggerate the threat of terrorism to the same end, representing Muslims as a fifth column of the Caliphate who are trying to impose sharia law on America.


This is the surreal picture that presents itself, to this mind at any rate. It seems unreal because it seemed impossible just a year ago, and nothing like this has risen up in my lifetime. I do not know what the world would look like if the new Nationalism prevails. I live in a multicultural city, where a "post colonial" perpective is a normal part of public education, and diversity is a self-evident good. I believe that the "Progressive" forces in human nature are like plate tectonics.....the continents are unstoppable if slow. I do not see the current U.S. administration as evil, and imagine they have the best interests of their children's children at heart. But I think it is possible they might unleash forces that will increase suffering in the world greatly, and that.. if what appears to be unfolding is actually unfolding.....the agenda and the strategy should be opposed peacefully by all means.

This is just one view. There was a need inside to take a snapshot of this strange moment and say something, so it is said, I would rather be painting.

Gassho
Daizan

Sat today.