Chariots of the Gods

The Consequences of Unfettered Greed

There is currently much anxiety regarding the apparent instability of the financial markets. It is of interest that the obvious and understandable fear regarding the future of the global economy is not accompanied by an analysis of the underlying cause of this phenomenon. No one seems to be questioning the systemic flaw in the financial system that we have come to rely upon.

The apparent health or malaise of the financial markets has come to depend upon speculation. The wild activity that is reflected in the crazed up and down swings of the stock market is based on a simple and highly destructive paradigm – the goal of the individual speculator is to make lots of money solely through the manipulation of the flow of capital. Success in this regard is based on the idea of accumulating wealth not through productive endeavor but rather through the skillful playing of the markets.

Within this model, there is no concern for the financial well being of the community. Quite to the contrary, as we have seen, “ordinary” citizens have suffered greatly as a direct result of this cold and unforgiving logic based on the primacy of the individual. There is no morality in evidence within this bankrupt system; there is no self respect involved, and there is certainty no interest in the very future of this world of humans.

The end result of this kind of failed logic is a sad testimonial to the state of human progress. Greed, by its very nature, has produced this kind of volatility and an extraordinary amount of human suffering. It is exceedingly disturbing that the uncontrolled accumulation of inordinate wealth continues to be held up as the preferred way to do our nation’s business.

Saturn Devouring His Son

"Saturno devorando a su hijo."

Saturn Devouring His Son is the name given to a painting by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. It depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus (in the title Romanised to Saturn), who, fearing that he would be overthrown by his children, ate each one upon their birth. The work is one of the 14 so called Black Paintings that Goya painted directly onto the walls of his house sometime between 1819 and 1823. It was transferred to canvas after Goya's death and has since been held in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. (read more)

Buddhist Peace Action | Socially Engaged Buddhism

---

Buddhist Peace Fellowship

Socially engaged Buddhism is a dharma practice that flows from the understanding of the complete yet complicated interdependence of all life. It is the practice of the bodhisattva vow to save all beings. It is to know that the liberation of ourselves and the liberation of others are inseparable. It is to transform ourselves as we transform all our relationships and our larger society. It is work at times from the inside out and at times from the outside in, depending on the needs and conditions. It is is to see the world through the eye of the Dharma and to respond emphatically and actively with compassion.

- Donald Rothberg and Hozan Alan Senauke, Turning Wheel Magazine/Summer-Fall - 2008

Wholehearted Connection

Buddhist Peace Fellowship is a community of primarily dharma practitioners established to support socially engaged efforts of visionaries of compassionate social justice and dharma-based organizations for social change.

Mutual Liberation

Buddhist Peace Fellowship is a leader in socially engaged Buddhism, cultivating peace through sharing with others decades of experience, providing donors who value peacemaking to other organizations, and educating the public with dharma-centered views of social justice. We are here to assist in implementing projects that work toward ending suffering in the world.

A Voice for Change

Buddhist Peace Fellowship makes an effort to speak without anger and opposition for those who have been silenced by war, poverty, environmental disaster, genocide, and youth whose lives have been impacted by violence.

CYMD 2008 was organized by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship of Tampa Bay. Each year we bring together the various traditions of Buddhists from around Tampa Bay to share their insights, teachings, and practices with the general public.

---

Thich Nhat Hanh: What Is Engaged Buddhism?

see also - whats more: Ram Dass interviews Thicht Nhat Hanh (1995)

One of the best known and most respected Zen masters in the world today, poet, and peace and human rights activist, Thich Nhat Hanh has led an extraordinary life. Born in central Vietnam in 1926 he joined the monkshood at the age of sixteen. The Vietnam War confronted the monasteries with the question of whether to adhere to the contemplative life and remain meditating in the monasteries, or to help the villagers suffering under bombings and other devastation of the war. Nhat Hanh was one of those who chose to do both, helping to found the 'engaged Buddhism' movement. His life has since been dedicated to the work of inner transformation for the benefit of individuals and society.

• Buddhist Peace Fellowship

---

The Zen Peacemakers

A Force for Socially Engaged Buddhism

Inspiring | Teaching | Doing

"When you realize the wholeness and interdependence of life, you have to take care of everyone, and to do that, you have to work with every ingredient of life."

Zen Master Bernie Glassman, Founder

In 1967, Bernie began his Zen studies with Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi Roshi, Founder of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. He became a Zen teacher--Sensei Glassman--in 1976. In 1980 he founded his own Zen Community of New York in the Bronx, New York. He started the Greyston Bakery, at first staffed by Zen students, as a livelihood for the Community, and then made it a vehicle for social enterprise in Yonkers, 3 miles north (see below). In 1995 Bernie Glassman received inka, or the final seal of approval, from his teacher and became known as Roshi Bernie. During that year and in 1996 he served as Spiritual Head of the White Plum Lineage, comprising hundreds of Zen groups and centers in the US, Latin America and Europe, as well as the first President of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association of America. His Dharma Family includes dharma teachers, zen priests, zen preceptors, zen entrepreneurs, Christian clergy, Rabbis, Sufi Sheiks and multi-faith peacemakers.

The mission of the Zen Peacemakers is to alleviate suffering by:

• developing holistic social service projects that help individuals, families
and communities;
• promoting and supporting Socially Engaged Buddhism throughout the West; and
• inspiring and training a new generation in this way of service as Zen practice.

---

About Zen Peacemakers blog

Discussions on articles from Bearing Witness, the free monthly online newsletter of Western Socially Engaged Buddhism
Commentary on Socially Engaged Buddhism
Writings of Zen Peacemakers founder Bernie Glassman, including previously unreleased material
Up-to-date news from the Zen Peacemakers Mother House in Montague, MA including:

Montague Farm Zen House
Zen House Residence Program
Montague Farm Zendo and Shared Stewardship Circle
First major Symposium for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism

---

• The Zen Peacemakers

---

Paul Dirac

Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac, OM, FRS (8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984) was an English theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of both quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. He held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and spent the last fourteen years of his life at Florida State University.

Among other discoveries, he formulated the Dirac equation, which describes the behaviour of fermions, and predicted the existence of antimatter.

Dirac shared the Nobel Prize in physics for 1933 with Erwin Schrödinger, "for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory."

Dirac is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest physicists. He was one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics.

His early contributions include the modern operator calculus for quantum mechanics, which he called transformation theory, and an early version of the path integral. He formulated a many-body formalism for quantum mechanics which allowed each particle to have its own proper time.

His relativistic wave equation for the electron was the first successful attack on the problem of relativistic quantum mechanics. Dirac founded quantum field theory with his reinterpretation of the Dirac equation as a many-body equation, which predicted the existence of antimatter and matter–antimatter annihilation. He was the first to formulate quantum electrodynamics, although he could not calculate arbitrary quantities because the short distance limit requires renormalization. (read more)

the illusion of reality

A World Without Armies

"Advocating Practical Steps Towards a Lasting Peace"

A World Without Armies

From a series of workshops and a traveling exhibition featuring artwork from school children in Nepal, Poland, Germany, Italy, Costa Rica, the United States, and other countries.

What we must learn is how to deal with that conflict without resorting to violence. At this beginning of the twenty-first century, we are being called upon to face the needs of humanity, in all its tragic urgency. And we must, at the same time, face up to the requirements of the species: this century shall be peaceful or shall not be at all.

— Rodrigo Carazo, President of Costa Rica, 1978-1982

---

A World Without Armies - Imagine a world without war

"We will bring forth clear and positive messages on demilitarization based on rigorous studies, political experiences, and individual witness and testimony."

A Letter to Participants of the Global Alliance Conference

August 2009
Dear Colleagues of Peace,

Greetings from the U.S. chapter of A World Without Armies! We deeply appreciate your work for peace in the world and peace with the earth. Together with three other organizations, we co-sponsored the First Conference of Women for the Abolition of Armies in Central America by 2020, which was held at the Costa Rican Ministry of Culture and the Universidad de Cooperacion Internacional in San José in 2007. In order to achieve our common goal, our next step is to develop academic studies on the demilitarization potential of every nation. We need to understand the positive elements, challenges, and obstacles for reducing and abolishing military forces in each nation. We need to develop strategies and build concrete processes. It would be effective if people and organizations that are committed to do the work were all connected and collaborating domestically and internationally. We want to see a surge of a movement for demilitarization worldwide.

Your ideas, suggestions, and action reports on demilitarization would be valuable to all those who are concerned. We would like to learn from you, collaborate with you, and share our experience with you. Also, we would like to post some of the communications and photographs from you on our website, www.aworldwithoutarmies.org. Please write to us and we will write to you.

With best wishes,
Kazuaki Tanahashi, Director (see below)
Edie Hartshorne, Co-director
Catherine Margerin, Representative to the Global Alliance Conference

---

METHODS

• We organize and sponsor peace and reconciliation programs around the world.

• We fund scholars in political science, peace studies, and related fields who are undertaking research on the demilitarization potential of nations.

• We promote Courageous Conversations--friendly and non-polarized discussions that explore the need and steps for creating a world without war.

• We host the Costa Rica Initiative--a women’s initiative for A Central America Without Armies.

• PROJECTS IN PROGRESS SINCE 2002

---

Gallery: Imagining Peace: International Children's Art Project

A series of workshops and a traveling exhibition featuring artwork from school children in Nepal, Poland, Germany, Italy, Costa Rica, the United States, and other countries.

---

Kazuaki Tanahashi

Kazuaki Tanahashi, Director of A World Without Armies, born and trained in Japan and active in the United States since 1977, has had solo exhibitions of his calligraphic paintings internationally. He has taught East Asian calligraphy at eight international conferences of calligraphy and lettering arts. Also a peace and environmental worker for decades, he is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science.

---

put the needle on the record

the fox is guarding the hen house

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains....Theodore Roosevelt, speech, August 31, 1910

There’s a side to regulation that most people don’t think about, and it has far-reaching effects if representatives of corporations are writing the rules. Once a regulation is passed saying, “you can emit no more than 10 ppm [parts per million] of mercury,” you can legally emit up to 10 ppm.

Before that rule was passed, any amount you emitted might subject you to potential lawsuits from nearby humans made ill by your emissions, by other states, or even by the federal government.

The regulatory rule essentially legalizes what a corporation is doing. In the best of worlds, this wouldn’t be a problem. But in practice it means that business interests are often directly involved in writing the regulations that they themselves will have to obey.

Regulations Can Legalize Activity That Causes Public Harm

During the Reagan administration, Robert Monks and Nell Minow worked with the Presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief. Monks says, “We found that business representatives continually sought more rather than less regulation, particularly when [the new regulations] would limit their liability or protect them from competition.”

Monks and Minow became disenchanted with the process. In their 1991 book Power and Accountability, they say, “The ultimate commercial accomplishment is to achieve regulation under law that is purported to be comprehensive and preempting and is administered by an agency that is in fact captive to the industry.” In this way corporations find an actual government shield for their actions. For example:

• Tobacco companies point to the government-mandated warnings on their labels, saying that the labels relieve them of responsibility for tobacco-related deaths because they’re obeying government rules.

• Producers of toxic wastes can’t be sued or attacked if they are releasing their toxins within guidelines defined by a government agency.

• Telemarketing companies push for laws and regulations that define their practice, thus legalizing it.

• Manufacturers of genetically modified products can bring them to market without labeling, so long as the products are made within the guide- lines of the regulations. (read more)

deadly rain

Zond 3

Zond 3 was a member of the Soviet Zond program sharing designation Zond. Zond 3 completed a successful Lunar flyby, taking a number of good quality photographs for its time. The spacecraft was equipped with an f/106 mm camera and TV system that provided automatic inflight film processing. On July 20, 1965 lunar flyby occurred approximately 33 hours after launch at a closest approach of 9200 km. 23 photographs and 3 ultraviolet spectra of very good quality were taken of the lunar farside from distances of 11,570 to 9960 km over a period of 68 minutes. The photos covered 19,000,000 km² of the lunar surface. (read more)

life in a day

Genjo Koan

first verse -

"As all things are buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, and birth and death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings.

As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death.

The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many and the one; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas.

Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread."

• whats more: Genjo Koan

"The depth of the drop is the height of the moon"

---

Genjo Koan is perhaps the best known section of Eihei Dogen’s masterwork, Shobogenzo (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye).

道元禅師
• Dōgen Zenji (also Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄, or Eihei Dōgen 永平道元, or Koso Joyo Daishi) (19 January 1200 – 22 September 1253) was a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there. Dōgen is known for his extensive writing including the Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma or Shōbōgenzō, a collection of ninety-five fascicles concerning Buddhist practice and enlightenment.

---

links / see also

• whats more: Genjo Koan

• whats more: The Ino's Blog: Study Hall - Shobogenzo

"(lit. 'Treasury of the True Dharma Eye') The term Shōbōgenzō has three main usages in Buddhism: (1) It can refer to the essence of the Buddha's realization and teaching, that is, to the Buddha Dharma itself, as viewed from the perspective of Mahayana Buddhism, (2) it is the title of a koan collection with commentaries by Dahui Zonggao, and (3) it is used in the title of two works by Dogen Kigen..."

• Dogen Zengi at Sotoshu
• Shōbōgenzō (@Wikipedia)
• Shobogenzo links (@"Hey Bro! Can You Spare Some Change?") (top of right column)
• whats more: buddha art
• whats more: diamond sutra art
• whats more: dharma wheel art
• whats more: ...about Zen & Buddhism
• whats more: The Ino's Blog: Counting To Nine | Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

---

the dark side

Gonzo

Hunter S. Thompson

by Ralph Steadman

Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who wrote Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1971) and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1973).

He is credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism, a style of reporting where reporters involve themselves in the action to such a degree that they become central figures of their stories. He is known also for his unrepentant lifelong use of alcohol, LSD, mescaline, and cocaine (among other substances); his love of firearms; his inveterate hatred of Richard Nixon; and his iconoclastic contempt for authoritarianism. While suffering a bout of health problems, he committed suicide in 2005, at the age of 67. (read more)

Hunter S. Thompson

Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Democracy Now!
August 9, 2011
"As radiation readings in Japan reach their highest levels since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdowns, we look at the beginning of the atomic age. Today is the 66th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which killed some 75,000 people and left another 75,000 seriously wounded. It came just three days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing around 80,000 people and injuring some 70,000. By official Japanese estimates, nearly 300,000 people died from the bombings, including those who lost their lives in the ensuing months and years from related injuries and illnesses. Other researchers estimate a much higher death toll. We play an account of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the pilots who flew the B-29 bomber that dropped that bomb, and feature an interview with the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Weller, who was the first reporter to enter Nagasaki. He later summarized his experience with military censors who ordered his story killed, saying, 'They won.' Our guest is Greg Mitchell, co-author of 'Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial,' with Robert Jay Lifton. His latest book is 'Atomic Cover-Up: Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki and The Greatest Movie Never Made.' [includes rush transcript]"

Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945

• more at whats up: Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

today's meditation

I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.
I have only love in my heart.

Love never fails.

bomba

money, money, money

http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

close encounters

military spending

The United States

spends more money on the military

than the rest of the world combined.

Why is it that military "entitlements"

always seem to escape the chopping block

in these times of extreme debt crisis?

Notes on Human Freedom

Regarding the great recession of 2007, it’s 2011 and this economic downturn shows no sign of abating. The politicians are getting crazier and crazier. They’re being pushed and pulled by divergent forces. Their first impulse is to protect wealth and the wealthy – they are compelled to do so, for that is their bread and butter. That puts them at opposite poles in regards to the majority of their constituents, who elect them; for it is the overwhelming majority that is dining off the diminishing crumbs inadvertently dropped from the table of the ever-feasting ruling class. Members of the Congress, therefore, have to make preposterous statements and ludicrous rationalizations as they ever so indelicately whittle away at the middle class.

All the pandering, all the gesticulating, all the discordant voices, all the feeble pronouncements of pretend optimism has gotten me thinking about freedom. That is the commodity we as Americans are supposed to be so proud of having. We may eventually be living in the detritus of our own making, but we are repeatedly told that we have our freedom to be thankful for. This is what I call one of the big lies we are constantly fed. The claim is that we are guaranteed our freedom as an essential feature of our political system. I believe this to be patent nonsense. Our brains are being filled with the empty contents of the modern age. We are given marvelous electronic devices to entertain us and essentially distract us. The communal discourse is filtered, contrived and controlled. The vast majority of the population is comprised of individuals who are essentially wage slaves constantly afraid of losing their ever-diminishing access to bread, shelter, meaningful education and good health. We are now told that they we expect to never retire from our jobs, if there are jobs, for retirement may mean instant destitution.

The kind of freedom that is available is of little value especially when one’s preoccupation is with survival. True freedom, in fact, cannot be granted or for that matter taken away. True freedom lies within the life of the mind. I have the capacity anytime I choose to rise above the fray and free myself from the ludicrous. Nothing can take this away – not abject poverty, not disease, not government fiat, not personal adversity. Let the voices from all corners of the political spectrum drone on with their tiresome and repetitive messages trying to tell me whom to hate and what to fear. The entire substance of our culture may very well collapse from the ineluctable force of gravity as it devours its structure from within. I have no control over such an historic destiny. Humans have the remarkable capacity to undo themselves and be totally surprised as to how it happened. Societies, cultures, civilizations come and go like individuals. All choices have consequences. Even the most well structured and benevolent decision can lead to disaster. Making choices in which the outcomes are known to be ruinous is a particularly well-developed trait as far as humanity is concerned.

In essence, true human freedom comes when we take the responsibility to free our minds of the constraints placed upon us from without. Only then will we be able to undo the yolk of greed and relentless acquisition that has been imposed on the collective imagination.

Kymatica

exterminate all rational thought

Naked Lunch is considered Burroughs' seminal work, and one of the landmark publications in the history of American literature. Extremely controversial in both its subject matter and its use of obscene language (something Burroughs recognized and intended), the book was banned in Boston and Los Angeles in the United States, and several European publishers were harassed. It was one of the most recent American books over which an obscenity trial was held. The book was banned in Boston in 1962 due to obscenity (notably child murder and acts of pedophilia), but that decision was reversed in 1966 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The Appeals Court found the book did not violate obscenity statutes, as it was found to have some social value. The hearing included testimony in support of the work by Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer.

William S. Burroughs

video clip

Heartless Moneymaking Organization

watch "Sicko"

illusions

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah is a novel by writer and pilot Richard Bach. First published in 1977, the story questions the reader's view of reality, proposing that what we call reality is merely an illusion we create for learning and enjoyment. Illusions was the author's followup to 1970's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

with our love we can save the world

conflict resolution

Conflict resolution is a wide range of methods of addressing sources of conflict - whether at the inter-personal level or between states - and of finding means of resolving a given conflict or of continuing it in less destructive forms than, say, armed conflict. Processes of conflict resolution generally include negotiation, mediation, diplomacy and creative peacebuilding. The term "conflict resolution" is sometimes used interchangeably with the terms dispute resolution or alternative dispute resolution. The processes of arbitration, litigation, and formal complaint processes through an ombudsman, are part of dispute resolution, and therefore they are also part of "conflict resolution." The concept of conflict resolution can also encompass the use of non-violent methods such as civil resistance (also often called nonviolent resistance) by a party to a conflict as a means of pursuing its goals, on the grounds that such means are more likely than armed struggle to lead to effective resolution of the conflict.

Five basic ways of addressing conflict were identified by Thomas and Kilmann in 1976:

Accommodation – surrender one's own needs and wishes to accommodate the other party.

Avoidance – avoid or postpone conflict by ignoring it, changing the subject, etc. Avoidance can be useful as a temporary measure to buy time or as an expedient means of dealing with very minor, non-recurring conflicts. In more severe cases, conflict avoidance can involve severing a relationship or leaving a group.

Collaboration – work together to find a mutually beneficial solution. While the Thomas-Kilmann grid views collaboration as the only win-win solution to conflict, collaboration can also be time-intensive and inappropriate when there is not enough trust, respect or communication among participants for collaboration to occur.

Compromise – bring the problem into the open and have the third person present. The aim of conflict resolution is to reach agreement and most often this will mean compromise.

Competition – assert one's viewpoint at the potential expense of another. It can be useful when achieving one's objectives outweighs one's concern for the relationship.

The Thomas Kilmann Instrument can be used to assess one's dominant style for addressing conflict. (read more)

esoteric agenda

Kymatica

The Waste of Human Potential

Every day, within the human world, there is the regrettable and apparently inexorable waste of human potential. Every day, countless numbers of individuals die from the starvation not because there is a scarcity of food, but because they do not have access to the abundance that does exist. Everyday large numbers of humans die from diseases and conditions that are preventable, treatable and, in some cases, curable, only because they lack the resources to gain access to the wondrous medical advances that exist in the larger world. Every day, tens of millions of children are denied access to meaningful educational resources; the net effect of this reality is that these children will never realize the wondrous gifts that they possess. Instead, they will be relegated to a future in which their primary behavior will be directed towards survival in a world that apparently rejects their possible contributions to the larger society. Every day, millions upon millions of human beings are without a place of shelter to which they can retreat from the relentless onslaught of their daily lives. Every day, the natural environment worsens as human societies continue to pursue reckless and short-sided policies that suggest a grim future for the species.
Contemporary humans are living a tragedy that is wholly preventable. There is no legitimate reason why any individual cannot have access to all the necessities required to sustain them. There is no reasonable explanation for the barbaric conditions in which so many live. There is no rational discourse that can abide the miserable fate of so many of the human kind other than the belief that only a few of us are deserving and the rest are the castoffs in the pursuit of wealth and power.
The pathetic aspect of the human condition is that we can be the architects of a very different world – a world that can not only sustain human life, but also enrich the lives of all of us, everywhere.