Changing Places

Use a mirror in difficult times:
You will see both cause and resolution.

When faced with adversary, you must ask whether you have done anything to bring misfortune upon yourself. If the present difficulties are the unforeseen outcome of events that you yourself set in motion, then it is necessary both to learn from your mistakes and to search for any possible way to correct them. If the difficulties are due to character flaws, then the situation should be resolved, and the basic fault must afterwards be eradicated.

The wonderful part of all this is that the resources for resolving our problems are also within us. When we watch athletes in competition and they outperform even their own high standards, we often say that they reached down deep and were able to give something extraordinary. When we are in the midst of our own confrontations, we must be the same way. We need to reach deep within and use the utmost of our abilities to overcome our obstacles. This is one manifestation of our continuing efforts at self-development.

When confronted with problems, we have all the more power to respond. When we triumph, we have even more confidence and facility to handle future problems. Therefore, meet life head on. Maintain your self-cultivation, move forth to confront difficulties, and accumulate the momentum that success with give you.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

My biggest problem today is that I’m extremely tired. What I did to bring this misfortune on myself was stay up late last night playing with my mew Powerbook… but it was fun!

Ah, so much new stuff to learn - makes me happy! So far, I am able to play music I’ve downloaded and imported… well, I’ll learn to do more stuff, really…

I love the way it is ready to go out of the box, the wireless worked flawlessly, nothing has crashed, yeah!

I think we are all faced with adversity right now, or will be soon. A lot of it is of our own doing, not working hard enough to make other people see what seems so obvious to us about what has been going wrong in this country. But a lot of us have been speaking out, have been doing our bit, and we wonder if our efforts will ever pay off.

Well, looking back to my own personal history, I spent many, many years being selfish and not recognizing what other people needed in their lives. I spent a lot of time beating myself up for my mistakes, and mostly for not being able to rescue people from what I saw as their mistakes. My own meltdown and recovery pretty much taught me that you can’t rescue others, you can only work on yourself. And perhaps to some, I still seem selfish for doing that. But the difference is, I’m no longer trying to run anyone else’s life, just my own. If people want to hang out with me while I do that, great, and if not, that’s ok too. I don’t insist anymore that I “need” other people in my life. I am self-sustaining. Not that I totally support myself, but that I accept total responsibility for myself and what happens in my life. And expect others to do the same. I’m no longer dependent, codependent, or independent. I’ve become inter-dependent.

I’ve tapped into my own resources, in other words. And, to solve problems you’ve brought on yourself, that is what you need to do. It is a lesson this country is going to have to learn, soon enough. We’ll start to figure out that the Saudis can’t always provide us energy, the Chinese won’t always want to float us loans, and the rest of the world is getting tired of producing stuff for us to consume. We can’t be the kids consuming all the resources much longer. It’s time for the U.S. to grow up.

We more than pulled our own weight in the past, that’s for sure. But this generation, my generation, is a bunch of spoiled brats. The rich ones keep demanding more and more, the poor ones are resentful that their dumb luck has kept them down. The adult ones, the lucky few of us who have managed to grow up in the midst of an environment that either spoils or deprives, depending on wealth or the lack of it, are now looking for some way to restore sanity to this country.

And the answer is to use our own resources. We have plenty of them at our disposal, we’ve created many of them. The Internet is the best tool we’ve ever created, the prime accomplishment of my generation, in my opinion. We’ve made this tool to bring people together, and that is what we need to do right now. And if all bring the best of our own resources to the table, we can sort this out, undo the destructive threads that run through this country and start to reweave a new fabric for our culture, one that is more progressive, tolerant, and looks to the future instead of clining to the old, wasteful, selfish ways of the past.

I know this is possible. I’ve done it in my own life. It’s up to us, the engineers, the techies, the people who read blogs, to work with the smart kids we’ve raised and create the new solutions we need. Many of my blog links are to the people trying to build these solutions. ALL of my blog links are to people with great ideas, great writing, and wonderful, positive messages. Well, a few are snarky just to keep me entertained. But none of them are the mean-spirited, destructive negativity of the right-wing. And they used to accuse the liberals of being negative. Hell, they’re in power, and they’re STILL yelling about everything.

It takes more than words, of course. That’s why I’ve started my MoveOn group and am getting more involved politically. I certainly don’t have much experience at this, but I’m learning., And I see other friends doing the same. So we learn, and grow, and learn more, and do more. And that is what it takes. Use the mirror, see how strong you are instead of what was wrong, and go forward.

So sorry, Mr. Gates - my new computer is a Powerbook…

You can be tolerant and support progressive legislation and have my business, or you can pay Ralph Reed and fund the right’s intolerance, and say goodbye to my money. You chose, and so did I, sir, so did I….

Worship with your conscience,
Receive grace with humility.
Guide with awareness,
Lead with modesty.

The altar is a tool. If we kneel before it and say we have done wrong, we are really telling that to ourselves. If we give thanks for our good fortune, we are expressing our modest appreciation for good luck. There is no outside force listening to us. There is no divine retribution for our wickedness. The altar is merely symbolic. Those who follow Tao use it to focus their self-awareness.

When we step away from the altar, we should not lose self-awareness. We should not take the fact that worship is symbolic to behave in immoral ways. Instead, we still have to act with a conscience and lead others without manipulating them or taking advantage of them.

It takes maturity to grasp that there are no gods and yet still behave as if there were. It takes insight to know that you must be your own disciplinarian. Only the wisest can lay down their own “divine laws” and find guidance as if they were truly heaven’s word.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

In some primitive cultures, a rite of passage to being an adult was the special performance of the ceremony of the gods, when the adults doing the ceremony took their masks off at the end of the performance and passed them to the adolescents. The next year, those adolescents learned to perform as the gods.

One of the greatest difficulties in our society, and particularly with our religion, is that there are no rites of passage. We have a society of fully-grown adults, still believing that their god is the only way to make people behave themselves, and so they believe they must impose their god on everyone or society will become chaotic.

This is somewhat infuriating to those of us in the society who are actually adults, and know that we are responsible for our own behavior, thank you very much. The religious believe their god should dominate our courts, as if that will somehow improve society. They want their god to dominate our schools and how we teach science.

Well, guess what, people. YOU are the ones who need to grow up and recognize that YOU are responsible for your behavior, not your god. And the rest of us are very tired of you telling us that we are somehow immoral when in fact, our morality is just fine. We KNOW we are responsible for ourselves, and don’t need a god to tell us that. Your god told you to worship in private, and that is something you need to start doing again. Really.

I grew up in the Presbyterian church. As a teenager, we had an excellent Bible study class and learned what was expected of us as adults in the church, and began to take on some of the responsibilities of the church. My parents were both elders in the church at some point. My mother was very involved in Church Women United. I recognized that my parents ran the church, the church didn’t run them. The people of the church chose the ministers, who served at the will of the members. That is how religion works. It doesn’t work when there’s someone spewing crap on national television about how corrupt our society is because all the judges aren’t Christians We Approve Of. It doesn’t work when the religious try to take over the political functions of the country. Gee, shall we take away your tax-exempt status now? It doesn’t work when the religious are telling our major corporations how to act or treat their employees, for the maginificent sum of 20,000 pieces of silver per month. It doesn’t work when the religious demand that that they be allowed into our bedrooms and tell us who we can sleep with, who we can marry, who is allowed to raise children, who is allowed to control our wombs. IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY, REALLY!!!!

So. To those religious folks - go back to your room, close your door, and pray in quiet to your god. As Jesus taught you. Because that’s what I learned in church:

Matthew 6

1 Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2 Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4 so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5 And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

That’s what worked for me and guided me growing up. And you know what? I grew up. I became an adult. And I raised my kids without the church, because I knew how to turn them into adults without the mask - just being myself.

Market Observations

We’ve often suggested that psychologically and emotionally, residential real estate values are extremely important to households. As you’ll see in the paragraph and graph below, home values appear more important to household net worth than are equities by a factor of nearly two to one. But based on the picture above, just how do you think the banks feel about real estate values? At the moment, their real estate exposure is approaching three times their loan exposure to commercial and industrial loans. The exposure of banks to consumer loans is less than one quarter of their exposure to real estate. In summation, to suggest that the market value of real estate is important to the US economy as a whole is a wild understatement. It’s just a good thing that the new age structured finance markets are leading the charge in terms of helping to inflate real estate values from sea to shining sea. We’re absolutely dead sure that if any mishaps in the structured finance market were to appear, holders of MBS and ABS securities would sit tight as long term investors, right? No jumping off the side of the ship if the opposite side of the leverage sword begins to cut. After all, somebody has to support those real estate values collateralizing the bulk of bank lending and portfolio investment in this country, no?
….

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Tulips, anyone?

Ulp.

Peacock iridescence in vertical shadows.
Violet blooms spread to noonday sun.
The world’s beauty in a swirl of color,
But in the flower’s center is bright stillness.

This world is movement. Its nature is constant change, infinite variation. Without infinite variation, there would be stasis, for we would reach limits. But all limits are actually arbitrary. Life is one endless equation of darkness, brilliance, color, sound, fragrance, and sensation.

The peacock attracts his mate through his plumage; the flower attracts the bee with its color and fragrance. Beauty is moved to madness, is urged toward more beauty, is lost in the dance of seduction. We hover around the petals of the flower, drunk in the thrill of color. Enthralled with the fragrance of some haunting perfume, we are moved to act, to touch, to fill our shallow vessels with the fullness of promised joy.

Yet in the center of the flower, all is stillness. When the dance of beauty is finished, culmination is at hand. In life, attractions are endless. We should do no more than we need to satisfy ourselves. To plunge further is foolhardy. We must remember to withdraw and look within. Lingering on the outside of our souls, there is shimmering beauty and fantastic movement. It is only when we go to the center of our souls that we are in the eye of the storm, the still-point of existence. Then all is brightness, energy condensed, unbearably strong and powerful, yet absorbed in supreme quietude.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

I’m attracted to things and people that are very natural, that aren’t overly extravagant. Most of the flowers I love are quite simple, and those that have been played with to make them have more petals or whatever usually don’t attract me at all. The roses I love most are those that are flatter with fewer petals, the old roses. I adore my California poppies with their four-petaled simplicity.

I’ve become less extravagant as well. I rarely wear makeup these days. I dress pretty simply, love my t-shirts and jeans most of all, and a good pair of tennis shoes or sandals. Always flats, I can’t wear heels at all. The men I’ve always found most striking were those that let their beards and hair grow, but kept it neatly trimmed. Perhaps it’s all just part of being a 70’s kid, but we were a pretty free-flowing bunch back then. I see signs now that many of us are returning to those roots, with the voluntary simplicity movement and the trends towards wabi-sabi and simplicity in decorating, the wonderful, wonderful abundance of organic foods making their way into our supermarkets even.

But I suppose that is just us California nature lovers. Perhaps its a trend that will spread, though, as many things California tend to do. I hope so, anyway. In nature, the beautiful plumage and the bright flowers are really nature’s way of showing health. In our culture, it becomes a way to hide the reality of who we are and what we really look like. Have a face lift or tummy tuck to change your appearance, but it doesn’t hide what is really inside. If the bee doesn’t find pollen, she doesn’t care how damn pretty the flowers are or how good they smell, she moves on. The peahen might enjoy the show, but if it were just a show, she wouldn’t be impressed. The reality has to be there as well. As much as we might like our Oreos, they aren’t that nutritious or good for us, really. Time to get back to what we really need, in our food, our lives, and ourselves.

“President Bush was following an Arab custom that denotes close friendship when he walked hand in hand with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah after they exchanged greetings in Crawford, Tex., yesterday,” the Washington Post reports.

Said a Saudi spokesman: “It’s a sign of respect and affection — nothing
sexual whatsoever.”

“Today, we renewed our personal friendship” Bush said. “In our meeting, we agreed that tremendous changes in the world call on us to strengthen our partnership,” the statement said.

“I hope that these relations will get stronger,” the crown prince said after the meeting.

Gustav Klimt, Fulfillment

Accomplish your visions.
Persevere in your ambitions.
Only then can you negate
Visions and ambitions.

Some say that one should not have ambitions; they equate these with greed and lust. However, some ambitions are the result of curiosity and inner desire. They are individual interests, like wanting to know about a certain subject or wanting to achieve goals. As long as they do no harm to others, they should be exercised rather than suppressed.

Many young people are held back by their peers and their elders. Sometimes there are valid reasons, but usually the motivations of the others are colored by fear, ignorance, jealousy, or inadequacy. No one should hold you back from achieving your life’s goals.

Whatever you want to do, do it to the fullest. There are just a few provisions. First, you must realize that nothing is forever. You may achieve your goals only to find out that they are no longer important to you. This is all right. That means you have come to the end of your interest and are now free to go on to something else. Secondly, your ambitions should not determine your life. You are a human being first, and your goals are merely adjuncts to your basic quest as a person. Finally, you should realize that the fulfillment of your goals should include the eradication of all fears. Once you have accomplished these things, you will truly have nothing standing between you and spiritual realization.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

– Sir John Lubbock

I’m someone who always enjoys learning new things, and acquiring new knowledge. My ambitions are usually focused on learning some new skill or learning about something. One of the difficult parts of the Tao for me is realizing that I need to get out of my mind sometimes to be with the Tao. So I tend to give in a lot to my ambition for knowledge.

My visions are often centered on creating a new piece of art. I’ve been wanting for some time now to get myself focused again on my art, but it’s been a pretty disruptive time lately and the art gets put off again and again. I want to learn more Chinese brush painting and return to working with watercolor. So I feel some frustration over not getting to do this right now.

Ambitions and visions are important clues for us to understanding ourselves. I don’t know that we ever really get beyond them. Even the idea of not having them is sort of an ambition of its own. But can we feel fulfilled without accomplishing all our ambitions? Of course. I still feel fulfilled much of the time, even though I haven’t accomplished all the things I’ve set out to do in the day. It’s important to learn to get satisfaction from life itself, and not from any achievement. The journey matters more than the destination, and all that.

SSPP: The new politics of consumption: promoting sustainability in the American marketplace
Anti-Consumerism

Among some youthful and vocal adherents, the disparagement of mass consumerism as a set of social practices, as well as attacks against some of its most emblematic symbols, has become a visible form of protest politics in the United States during the past decade. Activists have yet to construct many of the institutional features of a social movement, and instead rely on boisterous pranks designed to malign dominant expressions of contemporary consumer culture. Proponents are often disillusioned not only with material icons, but also evince a more general disenchantment with contemporary society (Zavestoski, 2002). While this disaffection derives from numerous sources, for analytic purposes it is instructive to group them into three broad categories—social, economic, and environmental.

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I call my kids the anti-consumers. There’s nothing they want, except perhaps more video games and faster graphics cards. Oh, and cool knives for the older one. Clothes, toiletries, the usual teen fetishes? Feh. They couldn’t care less. it helps that they are boys, but still. These kids are so turned off by advertising, they adore the Tivo. And all they watch on the TV is anime, Family Guy, Futurama, The Daily Show and That 70s show (my fave).

I guess I’ve turned into something of an anticonsumer as well. I’m back to my 70s T-shirts and jeans, although lately I’ll buy pretty much anything organic.

For us, it’s not activism, it’s just that we’re tired of the marketplace. The same old, same old, sell everybody the same crap everywhere is what is really going to kill consumerism. We don’t all want the same thing, really, no matter how much the marketeers tell us we do. And once people finally realize that all that stuff ain’t gonna make ‘em happy, they turn off to the noise machine.

Voluntary simplicity is not a lifestyle of deprivation, and this is often a critical point of misinterpretation by individuals who are unfamiliar with its aims. It is about discovering what is sufficient in life—based upon thoughtful analysis of one’s values. Apropos for Elgin is Simone de Beauvoir’s contention, “If all life does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying.” If people look to non-material satisfactions, thus simplifying their lives, then they can establish a more meaningful existence and truly experience life. Voluntary simplicity is, then, about forging modest material needs to allow opportunities for people to surpass themselves and to find more satisfying, meaningful existences.

Or, as it was put to me at a critical point in my life when I was debating over staying home with the kids and being broke, “The work will be there again, but childhood won’t”. When are you going to enjoy your life, after all? how much stuff do you really need to be happy? Oh, guess what? That stuff ISN”T GOING TO MAKE YOU HAPPY! REALLY!!!

We also did a lot of putting off and waiting until we could afford better stuff. It was hard to do without all the latest gadgets sometimes, and there were things I really thought I needed. But, you know, taking that time to chop your own veggies instead of having a food processor is really cool. You can really get into it if you try. Even more fun? Growing them - if your dog doesn’t eat all your tomatoes, like mine does.

I just love that the young twenty and thirty somethings are getting into knitting now - some of them even spinning their own yarn. How cool is that?

Despite this groundbreaking legislation, the past thirty years have seen a massive accumulation of consumer debt in the United States. By 1999, per capita consumer debt had exceeded $30,000, nearly fifty percent more than it had been ten years earlier. Overall, American consumers are now in debt to the tune of $2 trillion dollars, with approximately one-third of this amount payable on high-interest credit cards. The typical American household carried forward each month $7,500 in unpaid credit card debt, a two-fold increase in just ten years. Thirteen percent of families in the United States have outstanding balances that exceed 40 percent of their household income, a situation that means 90 percent of each monthly payment is solely dedicated to paying interest. The inevitable outcome of this situation is an ever-mounting number of personal bankruptcies—more than 1.3 million in 1999 alone.

And this is the real death knell of the consumer economy. We are so deeply in debt at a personal, government, and corporate level that it is now unsustainable. The culture of debt is what will ultimately bring us down as a consumer culture

All of this suggests that efforts to reconfigure consumption practices in the affluent countries will proceed along different trajectories, and will be conditioned in specific places by political culture and institutional constraints. It is difficult to imagine an American political administration, regardless of party affiliation, embracing a meaningful program to move the country toward alternative modes of consumption. The economic risks are simply too high and the political payoffs too elusive.

Indeed. Until it all comes crashing down, we will continue in our madness. And when it does, somehow the Republicans will find a way to blame Clinton.

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Metro — San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy resigns
San Diego mayor announces departure mere months into second term
By Jeff Dillon
SIGNONSANDIEGO

12:45 p.m. April 25, 2005

SAN DIEGO – First the quarrelsome city attorney demanded that San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy quit. And last week Time magazine named Murphy one of the three worst big-city mayors in the country. Then came rumblings of a recall movement.

Less than five months after starting his second four-year term, Murphy announced this morning he will resign effective July 15.

“I now believe to be effective the city will need a mayor who was elected by a majority of the people and who has a clear mandate to take this city forward,” Murphy said. “A good leader needs to know when it is time to move on and I believe it is time for me to move on and time to bring a fresh start to our city.”

….

One down, so many to go….

Sun shines in the center of the sky.
All things turn their faces toward the light.

All things in this life depend on direction. In our world, all is oriented toward the sun : The planets revolve around it, the seasons depend upon it, and our very concept of night and day is tied to the sun’s rising and setting. The sun is the dominant element in our lives.

In all other areas of our actions, we cannot avoid making arrangements that have a center or orientation. Our lives require composition, just as the solar system has a relationship and structure. Yet all structure and orientation is essentially arbitrary. We take the sun as the center of our world because of our vantage point. To someone standing in another galaxy, our sun is nothing more than another point in limitless space. There is no absolute standard by which to truly call something the center. Therefore, all arrangements and all compositions, all determinations of a dominant element are relative, subjective, and provisional.

There is no center except for that in our own consciousness. When we look at the sun and the arrangement of the planets, we must also include ourselves as observers. How else is there the determination of what is being seen? Consciousness is part of the phenomenon. We are the center, and there is no absolute measure.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

I wish I could do a bit more sun worship here lately. The May gray seems to have set in early, leaving us with cloudy gray days until almost evening, then glorious late afternoon sun for all of fifteen minutes. My tomato plants are NOT happy.

Ah well, I’m sure come late July and August I’ll be missing these days. But it makes it hard for me to get going in my day. I find I don’t have a lot of energy until midday or so when the sun is not bright in the morning.

It’s funny how many people seem to call you selfish for recognizing that your own conciousness IS the center of your personal universe. But how could it be otherwise. It doesn’t mean you aren’t aware of other people and the fact that their conciousness is the center of their personal universe, though. It means you understand that how you think about things is important. Some people want thier god to be the center of everything, and are quite convinced this is the case. Some people don’t want to recognize that our little planet is at the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, and our little sun is but one of billions of stars in that galaxy, and that galaxy is but one of billions of others itself.

Well, we are all a bit trapped by being in our own little heads, unfortunately. Recognizing that isn’t selfish. Believing your view of things is better than anyone else’s view is, though. Been there, done that, gave it up. So now I am truly selfish, and let everyone have their own opinions and screw up there own lives. So there. ;^)

Put forth your effort
With no thought of gain.

One should not pray or meditate with any thought of gain. Hold no expectations. Then the rewards will come. If one strives for power and gifts, no true results will come, and one will become lost in lust. Praying for results brings no results — the true spirit appears only when there are no expectations to hamper it.

Books and teachings talk of the results of meditation because they prepare the aspirant for the experiences that will occur. It is important not to look on these writings as advertisements. They are merely descriptions of what you will encounter.

Sit down with no thought of results and you will go naturally and spontaneously with Tao. It is admittedly a paradox. We are to know what to expect, and yet we should allow them to appear as they will. It seems irrational and inefficient. Yet if you would know Tao, there is no faster way to enter the midstream.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

“The things you see by the flares of sudden fame are shattering and terrifying: the glittering eye of Greed, the distorted faces of her sisters Envy and Malice. These witches always come to the feast. They chill your heart and leave you alone in the world. But you can’t sit and stare at them always. And you can’t go around forever mumbling, ‘Forgive me, forgive me.’ So you begin the gradual process of unraveling it.” — Mary Coyle Chase

“My mother used to say to me ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant.’ For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant” — Elwood P. Dowd, Harvey

We all look forward to events in our lives with a sense of anticipation. How many times do you look forward without anticipating anything? It seems like a strange thing to do. In our religious training, we are taught to pray to our god and wonder when god doesn’t answer our prayers. Are we doing something wrong?

I don’t really expect much when I meditate. Mostly it’s a way to calm down, to reconnect. People sometimes comment on how calm I am, but I think it is because I don’t run around expecting something of everyone I meet and to get something out of everything I do.
I don’t expect things out of others, so whatever they give me is a gift and a joy. And I smile and am pleasant with other people, which is often the greatest gift you can give to someone else. They see so many unpleasant people all day that a pleasant person is a joy in itself.Think of the old Jimmy Stewart movie “Harvey”. It wasn’t important whether or not Harvey existed, it was the attitude that came with believing in him that was important. That is how religion is supposed to be - the point is to connect you to the place in yourself where you can be respectful and pleasant to others, not because you recognize that they are like you, but because you know that they are you — whether you like them or not. If you had been raised in their circumstances and with their beliefs and thoughts, you would be them. And you don’t know what those circumstances were, so judging others is foolish. Better to respect them and treat them well and not expect much in return for your kindness. If they are kind back, so much the better. If not, what have you really lost?

Of course, we can’t always remember that. So, we come back and center ourselves again. We meditate to bring ourselves back to that calm place when life inevitably gets to us and people annoy us again.

If you aren’t constantly struggling in life for some future reward, you can learn to enjoy where you are right now in life and what you have right now. And if you can get there, everything becomes easy. You don’t fight with life anymore — you can just enjoy where you are, who you are, right now.

Ah. Isn’t that better?

Zhang Hongtu
Shi Tao - Van Gogh, 1998
Oil on canvas

Tradition was once function.
But today there is no tradition.
Where is there a true path?

In the past, people didn’t question the teachings of Tao. There was a living tradition, and if one followed it, one could reasonably expect to walk a good path. But today the traditional teachings of Tao have been dimmed by civil wars, political persecution, and the death of masters. Wealth and technology hold the attention of most people, and few have time for Tao. Adopting arcane methods will not lead to success.

We must discover Tao for ourselves. Seeking it in the here and now means fulfilling the spirit of tradition instead of merely copying it. How can we ape the past? The old ways are gone.

Tao means different things to different people in different times. Indeed, we might say that the Tao of today leads in unprecedented directions. We have to adapt, but being contemporary should not be an excuse for adulteration and shortcuts. Once we find the true path of today, we must walk it with the same determination of the ancients.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

All religion, as theologians - and their opponents - understand the word, is something other than what it is assumed to be. Religion is a vehicle. Its expressions, rituals, moral and other teachings are designed to cause certain elevating effects, at a certain time, upon certain communities. Because of the difficulty of maintaining the science of man, religion was instituted as a means of approaching truth. The means always became, for the shallow, the end, and the vehicle became the idol. Only the man of wisdom, not the man of faith or intellect, can cause the vehicle to move again. — Alauddin Attar (Shah 261)

Mankind passes through three stages.
First he worships anything: man, woman, money, children, earth and stones.
Then, when he has progressed a little further, he worships God.
Finally he does not say: ‘I worship God’; nor: ‘I do not worship God.’
He has passed from the first two stages into the last– Rumi

What I have learned as a Sufi is something that man cannot credit because of what he has already been taught. The easiest thing to grasp in Sufism is one of the most difficult for the ordinary thinker. It is this: All religious presentations are varieties of one truth, more or less distorted. This truth manifests itself in various peoples, who become jealous of it, not realizing that its manifestation accords with their needs. It cannot be passed on in the form because of the difference in the minds of different communities. It cannot be reinterpreted, because it must grow afresh. It is presented afresh only by those who can actually experience it in every form, religious and otherwise, of man. This experience is quite different from what people take it to be. The person who simply thinks that this must be true as a matter of logic is not the same as the person who experiences that it is true. - Khwaja Salahudin of Bokhara (Shah 287)

My religious traditions growing up were in the Presbyterian church in Arizona. I got married in the church of my childhood, planning a wedding long distance from San Diego. My parents’ funerals were there. As a kid, I didn’t really appreciate much of the church services, they seemed pretty boring. As a teenager, I loved the music and was in the choir. I loved to sing, and still do, even though I don’t do it often these days. The beauty of choral music amazes me. I’ve even sung at a full Latin Catholic mass, which was amazing. I certainly appreciate the traditions of religions, and understand why they exist and the effects they can have on people at their best.

But I think many people lose sight of what those effects are intended to do. They create a oneness, a feeling of completeness with the spiritual. You feel a part of the community around you, a part of everything. And you are supposed to take that feeling outside the church and share it with everyone else you meet. At the beginning of the next week, you do it again, to renew the connection. You don’t go twice a year to church and pretend you are Christian. You don’t go and spout hateful things at other people in the meantime between services. You don’t go and chastise other people for not believing what you do, for not thinking exactly the same way about religion as you do. You don’t go into the public forum and demand that all the country’s judges have to believe what you believe, or they must be against your religion. You go out and you help people, and make their lives better, and share God’s love with the people you meet who need help, not just the ones you happen to like.

Have the religious lost sight of the very reason their faith exists? Then no wonder that so many have lost their faith in the religion.

My mother’s church community said ther goodbyes to her and forgot their responsibilities. Other than a few very good people, no one came to help us clear out my mother’s home. No one helped my nephew to readjust to life without her. Other than one person, no one helped my sister out in her readjustment. My mother helped so many people in her life, did so much for others, and in the end they all said, “Oh, we didn’t know she was so sick. We didn’t know her house needed cleaning. We didn’t know…” How could they not know? I was angry with my mom for not asking for more help, angry with myself for not being able to be there for her, but also angry with the church for not knowing what she needed. It was, “oh , our membership is all so old…” Well, why hadn’t they reached out to the younger community, found out their needs, helped them out? If they had, the young would have stayed involved. That is what the evangelical churches have done. It wasn’t at all the church I remembered from my youth, that had been so involved in every part of our lives. It was just a place that had services once a week and funerals now and then. It was a dying church, not a living one.

Religion can’t just focus on tradition and not change. It can’t alienate itself from the real world - it must change with the world. Tao means change - Tao is change. That’s the whole point. Certainly there are traditions of Tao, of all religions - but to focus on tradition in any area of life, without considering change, is a fool’s focus.

So, now I look at change itself - in my work, in my own life, and to study it in the world around me. I’ve never feared change, like a lot of people do, but I don’t go chasing after it just to make changes happen either. I let things change as they need to, naturally. I try to teach other people to allow change into their lives, not to be afraid of it, but also not to force change just for the sake of change. I guess I”m not too worried about whether or not I’m on a true path - I do what needs to be done, and let the rest take care of itself. That’s as true a path as anything else I’ve found, anyway.

Thanks to John Pierce for another great cartoon today….

Invocation becomes declaration.
Worship becomes recognition.
When blessings mature,
One glimpses the source.

When one is young in Tao, all practices begin as external procedures. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand their significance — we don’t know what to expect. This is proper: Not daring to interfere with growth and discovery, those who follow Tao hesitate to go beyond technical instruction.

Take worship, for example. At first, an invocation is something external. You repeat it, but really, it means very little. You kneel down at the altar because you need something on which to focus. Once you realize that the true Tao is to be found within yourself, you shift your attention. Then worship becomes recognition. Your own spirit arises, and you learn to tap into it on your own. If someone had told you what to look for, you might never be sure of your experiences. What comes from outer suggestion is not the true Tao.

Glimpsing the source leaves no doubts.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

I guess what bothers me most about religion is that it fails in its main purpose so much of the time. Religion to me was always about invoking a higher spirit, and retaining that spirit within yourself so that you could get beyond your own petty needs and wants, and really tune in to the world and to other people. It calls out, invokes, the best in us so that we can share it with others.

But this gets distorted and perverted into worshipping some other, giving that other power and then excusing yourself from having to make decisions about life, saying what happens to other people is just “God’s will” or assuming bad things happen to people because they aren’t holy enough. I look at the man just elected Pope, and see someone who is so caught up in the doctrine of the Church that he has forgotten why the Church is even there. He lives to force doctrine on others instead of making their lives better.

So in Tao, what is it we want to invoke, to call upon?

Something I learned in business school and process management was the concept of alignment. What creates friction and frustration in business processes is when the purpose of the business is not aligned with its processes. People become confused over whether to follow the principles they know are correct, or the processes they know are wrong, but are told to follow. I think that is what we want to invoke when we call upon the Tao - to bring ourselves into alignment with the Tao, with the natural forces of the world and the way things work, and in doing so, eliminate friction and frustration from our lives.

Stop working at cross purposes to what your inner spirit tells you is right. Invoke the Tao, recognize it within yourself, tap into the source within yourself. Have a cup of tea and a cookie, go out to the garden and smell the roses and the clean, clear air. Ah. Isn’t that better?

Now, go share that feeling with someone else, and spread it along…

Bloomberg.com: U.S.

“We’re wising up to the fact that we’re very important nine months before an election and we’re not very important nine days after that election,” said Don Wildmon, 67, an ordained minister who is chairman of the American Family Association in Tupelo, Mississippi.
__

Good grief. It’s taken you people HOW MANY YEARS TO FIGURE OUT YOU’VE BEEN USED????

Wake the fuck up, America. Wake the fuck up.

After completion
Come new beginnings.
To gain strength,
Renew the root.

In music, the fundamental tone is the lowest, or root, tone of a chord. Without its presence, no true character is established. Our actions in life are as similarly varied and complex as music. Without a thorough grounding, there is no harmony.

Followers of Tao emphasize cycles. This must include a sound understanding of what to do whenever a cycle comes to an end. New ones will begin : Some of them will be engendered by the old one, others may simply be in the background and will now come forward. If we are to properly shape these new movements and if we are to prevent unwanted cycles from beginning, we must take stock and renew our basis in the fundamentals.

Everyone wants to be daring, creative, and original. Everyone wants to do things in new ways. But unless we return over and over again to the basics, we will have no chance to truly soar. Do not forget the root. Without it, we can never issue forth true power.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

What are the first things you remember learning? I don’t even remember learning to read, my brother and sister taught me how so early in my life. I think I was probably in third or fourth grade before I actually learned anything I didn’t feel like I already knew. I was in college before I felt like I even had to study anything.

I guess that is how I feel as I study the Tao. It is as if all of these things I already know, and perhaps that is why they feel true to me. When things feel forced or too complicated, I often feel as if someone is trying to influence me to think about things incorrectly. If it feels natural and right, I know I’m learning something true.

I struggled with gardening until I learned to build the soil instead of worrying about the plants. I started my career as an engineer, but found the solutions I was creating weren’t always for the right problems, even, so worked on the processes instead. Somehow working on process feels right to me.

I know I look at life differently from most people. Most people see their own lives and perhaps how a few things relate to them. I see a whole picture and figure out how I relate to it. These days I am learning not to even separate myself from the whole, just to see myself as a part of it instead.

So what is it that is fundamental? The word comes from fundus, which means bottom. Fundamentals are the things that build a foundation for the rest of the stuff you want to learn. But there is more, beyond that. You have to be sure what you are building on is sound to begin with. if you build in sand, what you build will sink and crack.

So that’s what is cool about the Tao. It is below everything, and if you build on it, you have a solid foundation. Or not, considering it is mostly emptiness. But then, isn’t everything, really?

BTW, for those who call themselves fundamentalist, every time I hear that word, I just think of your fundament and giggle.

How Rich is Too Rich For Democracy?

A must read article….

….

At what point does great wealth held in a few hands actually harm democracy, threatening to turn a democratic republic into an oligarchy?

It’s a debate we haven’t had freely and openly in this nation for nearly a century, and last week, by voting to end the Estate Tax, House Republicans tried to ensure that it wouldn’t be had again in this generation.

But it’s a debate that’s vital to the survival of democracy in America.

In a letter to Joseph Milligan on April 6, 1816, Thomas Jefferson explicitly suggested that if individuals became so rich that their wealth could influence or challenge government, then their wealth should be decreased upon their death. He wrote, “If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree…”

In this, he was making the same argument that the Framers of Pennsylvania tried to make when writing their constitution in 1776. As Kevin Phillips notes in his masterpiece book “Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich,” a Sixteenth Article to the Pennsylvania Bill of Rights (that was only “narrowly defeated”) declared: “an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness of mankind, and, therefore, every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property.”

Unfortunately, many Americans believe our nation was founded exclusively of, by, and for “rich white men,” and that the Constitution had, as its primary purpose, the protection of the super-rich. They would have us believe that the Constitution’s signers didn’t really mean all that flowery talk about liberal democracy in a republican form of government.

But the signers didn’t send other people’s kids to war, as have two generations of the oligarchic Bush family. Many of the Founders themselves gave up everything, even risking (and losing) their lives, their life’s savings, or losing their own homes and families to birth this nation. …

So what did motivate the Framers of the Constitution?

Along with the answer to this question, we may also find the answer to another question historians have asked for two centuries: Why was the Constitutional Convention held in secret behind locked doors, and why did James Madison not publish his own notes of the Convention until 1840, just after the last of the other participants had died?

The reason, simply put, was that most of the wealthy men among the delegates were betraying the interests of their own economic class. They were voting for democracy instead of oligarchy.

As with any political body, a few of the delegates, “a dozen at the outside” according to McDonald, “clearly acted according to the dictates of their personal economic interests.”

But there were larger issues at stake. The people who hammered out the Constitution had such a strong feeling of history and destiny that it at times overwhelmed them.

They realized that in the seven-thousand-year history of what they called civilization, only once before, in Athens - and then only for the brief flicker of a few centuries - had anything like a democracy ever been brought into existence and survived more than a generation.

Their writings show that they truly believed they were doing sacred work, something greater than themselves, their personal interests, or even the narrow interests of their wealthy constituents back in their home states.

They believed they were altering the course of world history, and that if they got it right we could truly create a better world.

Thus the secrecy, the locked doors, the intensity of the Constitutional Convention. And thus the willingness to set aside economic interest to produce a document - admittedly imperfect - that would establish an enduring beacon of liberty for the world.

One gives birth to two, two gives birth to three,
Three gives birth to the ten thousand.
One hundred and eight counts make one cycle,
Constant turning creates all things.

Today is the one hundred and eighth day. Why are numbers so important to those who follow Tao? Even today, when numbers are more commonly yoked to the service of finance and engineering, there are those who revere numbers with the cheap version of mysticism — superstition. Numbers form a closed world with mysteries to explore and exploit if our understanding is deep enough.

Followers of Tao emphasize certain numbers: One is the unity of Tao. Two is duality. Three is the unevenness that will generate movement. Four is the seasons. Five elements generate the world. Six parts of the body are the arms, legs, head, and trunk. Seven is the day of the waxing moon by the lunar calendar. Eight is the number of divination. Nine is the number of life. Ten in heaven’s cycles.

There are twenty-four periods in a year, each with its own characteristic. Thirty-six is six squared. One hundred and eight is three cycles of thirty-six and represent a greater cycle, although there are even more esoteric connotations attached to it.

Numbers are only symbols, a way for human beings to project order upon the universe. They are a language more precise than words. But does Tao talk? Numbers are important to master, but take care to look beyond language an numbers to the true reality that they foreshadow.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

There are 108 movements in Tai Chi (I haven’t yet studied Tai Chi, but hope to soon).

Verse 108 of the Tao Te Ching: …and when one does nothing at all there is nothing that is undone.

Only a few atoms of element 108, hassium, have ever been made. The first atoms were made through a nuclear reaction involving fusion of an isotope of lead, 208Pb, with one of iron, 58Fe.

208Bi + 58Fe 265Hs + 1n

Isolation of an observable quantity of hassium has never been achieved, and may well never be. This is because hassium decays very rapidly through the emission of a-particles.

Here is a brief description of hassium.

* Standard state: presumably a solid at 298 K
* Colour: unknown, but probably metallic and silvery white or grey in appearance
* Classification: Metallic

Hassium, is a synthetic element that is not present in the environment at all.

108 people have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of them violently.

I can certainly see 108 blooms on my Cecile Bruner rose right now!

Myrtle Jones turned 108 yesterday.

108 workers are still missing in a building collapse in Bangladesh.

Britain’s oldest surviving First World War veteran is 108.

Americans watch an average of 108 minutes of television per day.

Got any more?

Just canceled my LA Times subscription because of today’s Mallard Fillmore cartoon. I hope plenty of other people will do the same. Bruce Tinsley is free to have his opinion, but not to shove it in my face. He has his male character saying “I feel like we’re a little closer to being a civilized society, now that we’ve abolished the death penalty for everyone under 18! And a pregnant woman, with her stomach with a thought balloon of “well… not exactly everybody!”. The woman, of course, gets to have no opinion or express any thought, as apparently all Republicans believe women are not entitled to them. She merely stands with a vacuous stare on her face, her eyes covered with glasses so we can’t even see what her inner thoughts might be at all.

And this is what gets me. I could take the right’s opinions, if they would leave me with the opportunity to express my own. I could take their intolerance, if they would not insist on me being tolerant of their actions to make women totally voiceless in society again. They have every right to think whatever backwards, misogynistic thoughts they please - but they sure don’t have the right to silence my thought and my opinions.

Whatever one feels about abortion, and I think we can all agree it’s a difficult and unpleasant choice to have to make, it’s the woman’s choice that counts. To silence her opinion, her thoughts, her feelings about what happens in her life and any potential child’s life, is inane.

Two ducks nestled in lake-side grass.
Both marked by the same brilliant purple at the wing.
Water provides food, bath, and play,
What need do they have for scholarship?

Animals need no schooling. They are perfect, without any need for long instruction. They know what to do by instinct and example. Tao is always there for them. It sustains them and nurtures them. There is no need for them to be specially aware of Tao or to study it : They have no rational consciousness to separate them from Tao.

It is only humanity that constantly divorces itself from Tao. We therefore need methods of reintegration. If we could go beyond the interfering sense of the self, then we would know Tao in as constant and carefree a manner as ducks.

“Forget learning,” say those who follow Tao, but what they don’t append is that you must first have learning before you can forget it. If you would be unencumbered by the weight of knowledge, then you must return to a state of deep intuitiveness. This is not the same as mere selfish behavior — just doing what you feel like doing — because your actions are likely to be dictated more by lusts, obsessions, compulsions, and habits than anything natural. Only through the clarification of spiritual training will you reach the ground of deep intuition and the freedom that it affords.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

I learn a lot about life and the Tao from my golden retriever Chance. He is the happiest, most carefree creature I know. He loves everyone, always expects the best from everyone and everything he meets, and enjoys life to the fullest. His atttitude towards life is, “the sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day, let’s go roll in the grass in the sun!” His attitude towards all food is “That was good! What was it? Is there more?”

He’s always there to cheer me up if I’m not feeling well. We take walks together to get exercise. He will lay by my feet for hours at a time, just content to be near me. He never has a negative word to say. What a great companion for life! What a great teacher for life.