The Dalai Lama doesn’t have a blog, but luckily we have the daily mailings from Beliefnet. The one that came today reads simply: The threshold between right and wrong is pain. -His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Imagine All the People We create suffering for ourselves in the space we create when we take on the world and lose. When I am working with groups I usually make some comment at some point about the use of the word “should.” Any time we use that word we are arguing with reality and when we do that, as Byron Katie says, “we …
I’ve just discovered Miroslav Holub! Here is a quote from his essay “Slavery and worse“: Not many victories grow out of moral indignation. The only thing that all ecology, including the remarkably clear and evident ecology of human despair, can rely upon is slow, tedious and lasting economic and civic improvement, an improvement known even to Diocletian and Marcus Aurelius, that great stoic example to civic and ecologic radicals who think they can fight slaveries by becoming slaves to their own neuroses. More Holub resources: Holub at The Complete Review On writing and repressive political systems
It never ceases to amaze me how we imprison ourselves. One of the most insidious forms of colonization is the deference to external authority for self-esteem, confidence and knowledge. We are not aware of our own inner resources when we have been colonized. Our volition is stolen from us and we wander around aimlessly until someone comes to save us. Piers Young posted this poem: “The young lieutenant of a small Hungarian detachment in the Alps sent a reconnaissance unit out onto the icy wasteland. It began to snow immediately, snowed for two days and the unit did not return. …
From an essay by Jose Saramago called Reinventing democracy: True democracy should begin with what is immediately to hand – the country of our birth, the society we work in, the street we live on. Without that, all the underlying reasoning, the theoretical foundation and practical operation of the system will be vitiated. It is no use purifying the water in the taps if the reservoir is contaminated. Good essay…have a read of the rest. Thanks to wood s lot for the find.
There is a long discussion going on at Peter Rukavina’s Reinvented about Canada’s Olympic team. It started as a post about the CBC and streaming media, but morphed into a series of comments about why Canadians celebrate “mediocraty.” I weighed in with these comments: All of our athletes at this year’s games were chosen because they were ranked top 12 in their sport. I think anything better than 12 then is an improvement and when you see a guy like Rick Say swim the race of his life against the field of the century and finish sixth, you HAVE to …