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The question seemed to come out of nowhere. Texas Buddha had been pulling weeds with his friend the Reverend Clovis Jones when, suddenly, the good reverend blurted out, “So, what do you believe?”

Realizing Reverend Jones had been stewing on the question for some time, TB Stopped his work. He rested on his hand and knees for a moment. He watched a drop of sweat fall to the ground. Finally, he answered, “I do not seek belief but awareness.”

“But what is your creed?”

“I do not know.”

Clovis returned to his work. Half kidding, he muttered, “I’ve heard that a person who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”

TB also returned to pulling weeds. “And I’ve heard you cannot see through another’s eyes.”

Clovis said in all earnestness, “When I recite a creed I feel I am stating the truth of my religion.”

“Just be careful my friend.” TB returned, “Even something true becomes a lie if repeated too often.”

A Kurdish man in Iran was recently sentenced to wearing a woman’s dress as a way of humiliating him publically. Women in the area objected to the insult to their gender and to their traditions. They were met by security forces. Soon Kurdish men began dressing in traditional Kurdish dresses as a show of solidarity. They call themselves “Kurd Men for Equality”

They have started a Facebook page, featuring Kurd men in dresses expressing a message of solidarity:

“This is what we look like, this is our culture and they cannot insult our culture, our mothers and sisters. We cannot accept that.”

“Kurd Men for Equality.”

“This is what we look like, this is our culture and they cannot insult our culture, our mothers and sisters. We cannot accept that.”

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2013/05/08

I was reading Seneca last night and ran across the following thought:

“For what prevents us from saying that the happy life is to have a mind that is free, lofty, fearless and steadfast – a mind that is placed beyond the reach of fear, beyond the reach of desire, that counts virtue the only good, baseness the only evil, and all else but a worthless mass of things, which come and go without increasing or diminishing the highest good, and neither subtract any part from the happy life nor add any part to it?
Human beings thus grounded must, whether they will or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since they find delight in their own resources, and desires no joys greater than their inner joys.”  -Seneca

Seneca seems to be saying something very similar to Buddha’s great statement in the Dhammapada. See what you think:

“We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unshakable.

“Look how he abused me and beat me,
How he threw me down and robbed me.”
Live with such thoughts and you live in hate.

“Look how he abused me and beat me,
How he threw me down and robbed me.”
Abandon such thoughts and live in love.

In this world
Hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate.
This is the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.”

–Buddha

 

Finally, consider MLK’s comment:

“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate,

Adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

–Martin Luther King, Jr.

Texas Buddha and the Reverend Clovis Jones were making nachos on a cold and rainy night. Suddenly there was a knock on the door. When TB opened, a shivering man said, “I have come from Australia because I heard you are a wise man. I have come seeking truth. I am staying at the hotel nearby. I want to be your student.”

“You have come a long way to learn to hear the sound of the rain,” TB answered and closed the door. The man stood at the door for a while, and then knocked again. The seeker was invited in for nachos, but whenever he asked a spiritual question, TB would simply raise his palm. Clovis was stunned by such rudeness. After the man left, he objected, “That man came from the other side of the world. Why wouldn’t you teach him?”

Returning to the nachos, TB said, “I did teach him. The learning that man needs begins with disillusionment. I will go to his hotel in the morning to explain, but perhaps tonight he will realize that he has been seeking an illusory idea of wisdom. Life is the only teacher. If I took him as a student, I could only mislead him.”

Clovis shook his head, “That seems cruel to me.”

“I believe the real cruelty is letting someone flounder in their false pursuit of wisdom. Most people are willing to seek for truth so long as it is defined as a philosophy or religion. Very few are willing to seek for truth if it means facing their illusions, or making peace with their ordinary lives.”

Note: This tale actually comes from a dream I had in seminary. My first day at seminary did not go well and I dreamt that night I had left the States and gone to Japan to learn Zen. I dreamt I knocked at the door of a monastary on a rainy night. A little panel opened on the door. I could see a chin but nothing else. “I have come to study Zen,” I said. The monk responded, “You have come a long way to hear the sound of the rain.” I awoke in a sweat.

Amy Jones was struggling with the religion her father had taught her. She asked Texas Buddha if he believed in God. To her, the whole idea seemed like a myth. He answered, “I do not believe in any image of God, but I do believe there is a tie that binds all of life together. I believe the entire universe has mathematical patterns pulsing throughout to which I wish to stay in tune. I sometimes use the symbol God to refer to those deep connections.”

“But why not just say it like that?” The teen was clearly frustrated.  “Why do we even need the idea of God? Belief just gets in the way.”

TB understood her frustration completely. He softened his voice. “There is a difference between a symbol and a belief. In my religious understanding, symbols do not describe actual beings. They are poems that put us in touch with the deeper processes of life as we experience them subjectively.”

Seeing that Amy did not understand, TB went further. “Imagine a very large fisherman in a flimsy boat. Whichever side of the boat he tries to fish from, the boat capsizes.” Amy smiled at the image.

“So the man places a bag of sand on the other side of the boat as ballast. It does not matter what is actually in the bag, the point is to reach a certain balance. The ego is like the large fisherman in the flimsy vessel. Most of us believe that we are separate and objective selves. We have forgotten that we are waves of one ocean, so we need something to bring us back to balance. For some people that is the symbol “God.”

“The symbol God can be like the bag of sand that brings the boat to balance. Such poetry can reminds me emotionally that I do not stand at the center of the universe. I can imagine a being who loves people I do not love and who understands what I do not. Again, the point of the symbol is to not describe an actual person. The point is to bring me back to balance with the whole of things by serving as ballast to the false views of my ego. The smaller  our ego the less we need the symbol.

Amy, “But in this case the bag of sand is a myth! How can an imaginary object give me balance?

“The bag of sand is our second myth. Our primary myth is that of the fisherman. It is a sad plight to realize the symbol God is a myth, but to believe our frightened little egos are real.”

John McCain and others in Washington are calling for military intervention in Syria. The President has said he is reluctant to get involved unless Syria uses chemical weapons which would be for him “a red line.”

The US press is quick to point out that Syria is one only eight nations that has not signed the treaty against chemical weapons. So it seems reasonable for our leaders to assume Syria is a rogue state that has some intention of using such weapons. It also seems reasonable then for the United States to demand that Syria open itself to inspectors to make sure it has no chemical weapons. But here is what the US press, for the most part, isn’t saying:

What is often being left out of the story, is the fact that neither Israel nor Egypt have signed the treaty either. Neither of them is being asked to comply, which means Syria alone is being asked to disarm in the face of a much more powerful neighbor which it believes has both chemical and nuclear weapons.

Another little detail being left out of the story is that Syria has already agreed to rid itself of WMD’s if all the nations in the area (including Israel) follow suit. The resolution was introduced at the UN but was tabled when the US threatened to veto it.

It is well known in the Middle East that the US has refused to be inspected for chemical weapons, and has supplied chemical weapons to Iraq to use against Iran. The US constantly says it seeks peace in the Middle East, but we also want to sell weapons there as well. It is well known that the US wants to set standards for other nations, but we are unwilling to follow them ourselves.

Instead of bombing or even pressuring Syria to disarm its chemical weapons, our first step should be to rejoin the international community by ending American exceptional-ism. We should follow the international laws we wish to promote. We should rid ourselves and our allies of the weapons we call immoral when in the hands of others.

For as long as we see ourselves the lone exception to international standards, we are the biggest rogue state of them all.

The demand for equal rights in every vocation of life is just and fair; but, after all, the most vital right is the right to love and be loved.

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.

If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.

The motto should not be: Forgive one another; rather understand one another.

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.

Emma Goldman was a unique character in history. In her day she was praised and denounced as an anarchist, a feminist, a free thinker and a radical.

When presidents sign fair trade deals with poor countries, make no mistake: they are setting up slave labor camps in those nations so the American consumer does not have to see first hand who pays the real cost for cheap prices at home. The factory collapse in Bangladesh was no accident. It was a calculated price saving maneuver. The US businesses that sub-contracted out labor to regions without safety standards so they could make more profit, did not wish for the death of those workers. Neither did they care enough to prevent them.

“These Bangladesh factories are a part of the landscape of globalization that is mimicked in the factories along the US-Mexico border, in Haiti, in Sri Lanka, and in other places that opened their doors to the garment industry’s savvy use of the new manufacturing and trade order of the 1990s. Subdued countries that had neither the patriotic will to fight for their citizens nor any concern for the long-term debilitation of their social order rushed to welcome garment production. The big garment producers no longer wanted to invest in factories – they turned to sub-contractors, offering them very narrow margins for profit and thereby forcing them to run their factories like prison-houses of labour. The sub-contracting regime allowed these firms to deny any culpability for what was done by the actual owners of these small factories, allowing them to enjoy the benefits of the cheap products without having their consciences stained with the sweat and blood of the workers. It also allowed the consumers in the Atlantic world to buy vast amount of commodities, often with debt-financed consumption, without concern for the methods of production. An occasionally outburst of liberal sentiment turned against this or that company, but there was no overall appreciation of the way the Wal-Mart type of commodity chain made normal the sorts of business practices that occasioned this or that campaign.” -Vijay Prashad

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/26/the-terror-of-capitalism/

Hey boys and girls! It’s time for “Fun Facts about Capitalism!” Here is where we praise the economic system which has made us the richest nation ever. And by “us” of course, I don’t mean the masses of poor laborers, I mean rich people like your mommy and daddy.

Let’s get started! Did you know that the average person receiving assistance for food got $1,500 for the entire year? Well, at least ten rich ten Americans each made that much in under ten seconds just off their investments in 2012! Wow, aren’t you glad your mommy and daddy aren’t actual workers?

Did you know almost half the hungry people in America are children. Let’s all scream, “get a job, junior!”

Did you know twenty people like your mommy and daddy make more off their investments in one year than the entire national budget for food assistance?

Did you know that when dirty poor people graduate from college they owe so much that 360,000 holding advanced degrees were on food stamps or some other form of assistance in 2011? The number of college graduates working for minimum wage has doubled in five years, but don’t worry. That won’t happen to you because you are rich.

Did you know that poor people aren’t really American? UNICEF estimates that the US is now 22^nd our of 24 OECD nations in children’s health and well-being and 27^th out of 30 for child poverty. That sounds like a third world country doesn’t it? Well it is, but not for us.

Did you know that, since the recession, Fortune 500 corporations have cut their tax payments in half? Some say that loopholes and tax exemptions have cost the public a trillion dollars a year and underreported income costs just under another half trillion. It’s estimated that people like your mommy and daddy are hiding 21 to 32 trillion in off shore accounts so it can’t be taxed. Now can you see why we need to cut social security?

So that is today’s episode of “Fun facts about capitalism!” We leave you with one more fun fact that will help you sleep peacefully to ight. “Of the 435 House elections in 2004, 95% of them were won by the candidates who outspent their opponents.” I have three words for people who think they can change with electoral politics alone: game, set and match! As long as people don’t organize at the grass roots level we are safe. See you next time on “Fun Facts about Capitalism!”

Based on Paul Buchheit’s article in Counterpunch:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/5-ways-raw-unregulated-capitalism-acting-cancer-american-society?paging=off

Rev. Clovis Jones was having another argument with his daughter Amy. She had stopped coming to his Wednesday night bible lessons and had started working at a soup kitchen instead. Needing to calm down he went to see his friend Texas Buddha, who met him at the door with a Lone Star Beer. After a time of chatting, Rev. Jones got to the point, “I am happy that Amy wants to help people, but she used to be so good at memorizing bible verses. I’m afraid she is thinking she can be saved by good works.”

TB sipped his beer and then said, “Amy is a good person. She is doing exactly what you taught her. You can be proud of her.”

“But what if she leaves her Bible study altogether?” the Reverend said looking at his feet.

TB let some time go by before he answered. Then he said very tenderly, “When you feed your cattle, you do not want them to prove they have eaten by throwing up the grass. You want them to turn the grass into milk and into their own growth. Amy hasn’t left your teachings, she has fulfilled them. An acorn looks nothing like the oak. The teaching can look very different than the practice. You have taught her bible verses, which were the acorn. She has given you a life of love, which is the mature oak.”