Familiar Thich Nhat Hanh quote:
"No Mud, No Lotus"
But also TNH:
~No Lotus, No Mud~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=schlgVvKoDk&t=228s
3 minutes 48 seconds into this 9-minute TNH video on non-duality 2020.xx
GS: Google AI generated image of lotus rotting back into the lotus pond Mud.
Everything shimmers with the deathlessness of Impermanence, Inter-Being, and Emptiness.
-- grs 2022.06.12, 2022.12.05, 2023.09.29
We are the evolutionary, statistical sum of all vectors.
How could it be otherwise?
We are not separate --
nor merely tenuously interconnected,
interrelated, interdependent.
Separateness is a painful delusion,
like tiny islands forgetting
they are gigantic mountains whose peaks
just happen to barely peek above the water.
Mountains, whose tectonic roots
extend into the mantle,
that floats on Earth's molten core.
Just as Earth floats in an evolutionary, statistical sum of all vectors,
We inter-are.
How could it be otherwise?
-- GS 2022.06.22
Apologies to Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawkins, Thich Nhat Hanh, Gil Fronsdal, Charles Darwin.
Fronsdal translation of the opening verse of The Dhammapada
"All experience is preceded by mind,
led by mind, made by mind ..."
Multiple-Model-Dependent Realism
Stephen Hawking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_mechanics
This afternoon i saw this little hungry and thirsty kitten, who had been hiding from the hot sun under the entrance sign at Crystal Plaza for who knows how long.
 | The Dhammapada: A New Translation of the Buddhist Classic With Annotations Translated & Annotated by Gil Fronsdal, with forward by Jack Kornfield |
Continued below...
So, apparently, what that note really meant was -- It is not the U.S. Constitution and the peaceful rule of law, but rather wars (any wars?) that are what preserve our freedom of speech -- which we then apparently dare not exercise without risking aggressively angry verbal assaults, or worse, from those who may disagree with us on one point or another.
Let it not go without mention ...
If they are not an obvious fraud, I choose to err on the side of compassion by giving them a food gift certificate from a nearby restaurant -- McDonald's or whatever. I know certificates are converted easily into cash or traded for addictive substances, but that is an autonomous choice made by the recipient.
On a related subject, when I closely questioned the Prince George's Homeless Hotline (301-864-7140), they said that the rules they have been given to work under do not permit them to provide any services (and they have no other government or private social service referrals they can make) to "homeless" people who can not prove they have a PG County "home address." Let that sink in.
Then they told me that the D.C. Homeless Shelter (800-535-7252) will take anyone without any residence requirement (which I confirmed).
Of course, that is literally cold comfort this winter for those who find themselves "homeless" without a home address in Prince George's County.
Garold Stone
Laurel
Laurel Leader, Letters, January 26, 2007
Currently reading :
The logic is syllogistic in its simplicity and conclusiveness:
Parties grow by others joining.
Your "Enemies' don't join you.
Therefore, stop treating opponents as "Enemies".
... Duh !
This is not Pollyanna thinking -- It is Strategic!
Please consider my reasoning.
People bemoan the current "extreme polemics" of American politics -- Reds versus Blues -- each side looking for a slimmest possible majority, so it can slam-dunk legislation to impose its own uncompromising world views.
IMHO, neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party will ever again grow large enough to win enough elections to for very long occupy the White House, the Congress, install compatible Justices on the Supreme Court and throughout the judical system -- And cetainly Not IF we each continue to treat our opponents as "Enemies".
It is WE (our party, which ever that may be) who put THEM at that opposing pole, by not engaging them frankly and respectfully while defending and promoting our core personal values, even when they are acting in ways that do not "deserve" our respect. The concepts of "deserve" (good or ill), "should", "must" and even "compliment" and "reward" are fundamentally coercive, and thus ineffectual methods of persuasion.
Much worse, is when we make "enemies" of those who are not really very far from us along the political spectrum.
All that "enemy" making just triggers their individual and collective immune response. No one responds well to being told that they are "evil".
In the words of Korean Great Zen Master (Dae Soen Sa) Seung Sahn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seung_Sahn
"You make, You have." short for "You make problem, You have problem."
In this case: You make enemy, You have enemy.
Not until you think of them as your enemy are they really your enemy.
They are just people with differnet ideas -- maybe different ethics -- but not your own personal "enemy" unless you want to ban them and everyone like them Forever from your circle -- Enemies don't join. Where else will new joiners come from? Duh!
I am not arguing for the moral equivalence of all political views. I am arguing for the kind of human-to-human respect necessary to convince others to genuinely and voluntarily agree with us or find a livable compromise until we do find where we can agree.
And along the way, our opponents, treated not as our enemies, will let us get close enough to find more common ground on the really big issues where slam dunk majority legislation of uncompromising world views just makes matters worse for every one, immediately and in the long run.
A good book on this subject is Non-Violent Communication (2005) by Marshall Rosenberg.
Send a Christmas Card in your own words to Tony Blair, encouraging him
Thanks for the excellently researched Dec. 2 article, "Voting machine opponents report notes election troubles."
In that article, a local election judge was quoted saying, "Voting is a privilege, not a right."
Voting is most certainly not a mere "privilege" -- it is the most fundamental right of each citizen in a democracy.
In the Maryland State Constitution, the Declaration of Rights, Article 7 states: "That the right of the people to participate in the legislature is the best security of liberty and the foundation of all free government; for this purpose, elections ought to be free and frequent; and every citizen having the qualifications prescribed by the constitution, ought to have the right of suffrage."
Those "prescriptions" are given in Maryland State Constitution Article 1 Elective Franchise, which states: "Every citizen of the United States, of the age of 18 years or upwards, who is a resident of the state as of the time for the closing of registration next preceding the election, shall be entitled to vote in the ward or election district in which he resides at all elections to be held in this state."
The constitution goes on to enumerate procedures for orderly registration to enable "the right of every person, thus registered, to vote."
The word "privilege" does not appear anywhere in the Maryland State Constitution relating to the voting franchise.
Any statement or action, intentional or inadvertent, which might downgrade our precious right to vote to a mere privilege must be resisted with every fiber of our being.
In such an alternate universe where voting would not be every citizen's right, who would decide who is privileged enough to vote?
The purpose of voter registration is to ensure free and fair elections in which all citizens exercise their fundamental right to vote.
When procedures for registration and voting are misconstrued by those in power as privilege-granting exercises, they serve only to prevent all citizens from voting.
Garold Stone, Laurel
This gas station in Burtonsville, MD on Route 198 just west of Rt.29 is one of the first gas stations in the Laurel, MD area to recently install electronically changeable gas price signs -- at ground level -- other than the very tall signs usually seen along the interstate where changing the signs mechanically would require dangerous climbing.
About 30 very enthusiastic AIDS activists marched briskly south on Route 1 today, right past me as i sat in the Silver Diner, on their way to overnight in College Park. Tomorrow, they will walk the final leg of their journey on foot from the Lincoln Tunnel in NYC to the Lincoln Memorial in D.C.. There they will begin four days of action to END AIDS.
I just got back from a day at a rally of over 800 people at the White House, which was part of a nation-wide "A Day for Darfur" to bring more attention to the still unrelenting Genocide in Darfur. Pictures from the rally. Background on Darfur. Darfur updates and
Gary & Linda Stone, Jesse Stone & Rachel McLaren, Grace & Brian McLaren
i
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