Damien Rice - Older Chests Acoustic

Simple elegance.

Buddhist Consumption

This week I encountered in two separate articles the same individual. These articles were published about 30 years apart.

The articles, and this individual, go to the heart of one of the globe's biggest problems: wasteful consumption.

E.F. Schumacher argued in the 1950s that economic production was too wasteful of the environment and non-renewable resources. But even more than that, he saw decades ago that ever-increasing production and consumption -- the foundation of the modern economy -- is unsustainable. He criticized policy makers who measure success by the growth of GNP, irrespective of how the growth comes about or who it benefits.

Mr. Schumacher's economic gospel has two planks: First, he believes in the simple life. He also regards economics as a discipline which should subordinate to the needs of a life guided by moral intelligence.

The least possible consumption consistent with decency and health is his idea of the way human beings need to live.

Economic progress is good only to the point of sufficiency; beyond that, it is evil, destructive, and uneconomic. Schumacher promoted the idea of "enoughness." Instead of ever-increasing consumption, the emphasis should be on meeting human needs with no more consumption than is necessary.

From a Buddhist perspective, it is unwholesome to have an economic system that sustains itself by stoking desire and reinforcing the notion that acquiring things will make us happier.

We end up with a heaping pile of entertaining consumer products that are rapidly discarded into landfills. Wasteful consumption.

Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate

For more than a decade the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing industries with profits tied to fossil fuels, led an aggressive lobbying and public relations campaign against the idea that emissions of heat-trapping gases could lead to global warming.

The coalition was financed by fees from large corporations and trade groups representing the oil, coal and auto industries, among others. Throughout the 1990s, when the coalition conducted a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign challenging the merits of an international agreement, policy makers and pundits were fiercely debating whether humans could dangerously warm the planet.

Environmentalists have long maintained that industry knew early on that the scientific evidence supported a human influence on rising temperatures, but that the evidence was ignored for the sake of companies’ fight against curbs on greenhouse gas emissions. Some environmentalists have compared the tactic to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say, groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government action.

By promoting doubt, industry had taken advantage of news media norms requiring neutral coverage of issues, just as the tobacco industry once had. They didn't have to win the argument to succeed, but only to cause as much confusion as possible.

In other words, the very industry which caused the problem had in its possession the facts of the damage being caused, and they chose to suppress it.

Daniel Lanois - Shine

This Daniel Lanois album is one of my favorites. However, he is also well known as a producer. Here are some standouts: The Joshua Tree - U2; Oh Mercy - Bob Dylan; Wrecking Ball - Emmylou Harris; and Teatro - Willie Nelson.

Hiding Your Light

In Matthew 5:15, Jesus entreats us to not hide our light, but to put it on its stand, and give light to everyone in the house.

A recent I Ching casting had a different recommendation.

Hexagram 36 says that there are times when we should hide our light in order to protect ourselves.

I have found that this hiding must occur with co-workers, friends and family. It must occur, in other words, with the people who are closest to you.

When you speak out to an entrenched people, you will run into criticism and ostracism.

I have found that many do not want dialog; they want to hold to their beliefs, prove you wrong, and resent or demean you for believing differently.

They do not want your light.

So place your light under that bushel; let it glow and shine within; develop the truth within yourself.

Spend your time educating and enlightening yourself, rather than wasting it arguing and disagreeing.

A Little Tea and Irony

Irony is lost on some of our more conservative citizens.

You undoubtedly saw the pictures of the demonstrations full of people wearing teabags or tricorner hats who kept comparing themselves to the founding fathers at the Boston Tea Party. Did anyone every tell them that they have the right to vote for their representation every two, four and six years?

Also, these states where anti-tax sentiment is strongest are frequently the same states that get way more back from the federal government than they send in. Alaska gets $1.84 for every tax dollar it sends to Washington.

And of course they have totally overlooked the fact that they were protesting in public areas paid for by taxes; that they rode to the demonstrations on roads paid for by taxes; that they were protected by police and fire personnel paid for by taxes.

In another example, our very own governor of Texas was cheering with the crowd of demonstrators as they waved the U.S. flag while yelling, "Secede!" Yet they called candidate Obama unpatriotic for not wearing a flag lapel pin.

Or they complain about the moral depravity of our citizens for allowing gay marriage. Yet they've allowed 120,000 murders with handguns since September, 2001. Worse still, some conservative pundits have incited their followers into killing police officers and church goers.

Finally, as my very own U.S. Representative has said, regarding the efforts to curb green house gases, "They want to save the planet by wrecking the economy!" It sounds like he thinks we can wreck the planet and have an economy. What is he thinking?

What do any of these folks think?

Celtic Woman - Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring

Happy Easter.

And Men Do Not See It

Jesus reconciles mankind to God. Upon the cross is where God and man meet. The cross is where man gives up his animal nature, and becomes Divine.

However, Christians tend to see themselves as one thing and Jesus as another. But in the Thomas gospel, which has all of the flavor of the other four Gospels, a slightly different view is given.

For example, Thomas verse 113: His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?" Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather, the Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it."

In other words, the Kingdom of God is here, now.

Or consider verse 108: Jesus said, "He who will drink from my mouth will become like Me. I myself shall become he."

Jesus is talking from the point of view of the Being of beings, which we call the Christ. Anyone who lives in relation to that is as Christ.

In other words, you are the radiant vehicle of the Christ spirit. And if you are, then you recognize that same radiance in your fellow man, and indeed in all living beings.

That is basic Buddhism.

Taxes Made Equitable

It is tax time. Do I hear the appropriate groans and mumbles?

Well, as I've said in several posts, I support fair and equitable taxes. Taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civilized society. They pay for our police officers; for our public education; for our roads, bridges and highways. They pay for all of the things that people ignore when they're complaining about taxes.

Here are a few things to consider to make our taxes fair and equitable taxes.

1. Close the "tax gap" which is defined as the difference between taxes owed and taxes actually paid. Earnings: $290 billion annually.

2. Eliminate the huge tax shelters and off-shore tax havens harboring trillions of dollars from U.S. corporations and very wealthy Americans who do not wish to share on-shore tax responsibilities. Earnings: $300 billion annually.

3. Implement a 1/10th of 1% Wall Street sales tax on speculative derivatives (not stocks or bonds). Earnings: $500 billion annually.

4. Restore the tax rates on corporate profits that were paid in the relatively prosperous nineteen sixties. Earnings: $300 billion annually.

5. Taxes on "unearned income" — that is dividends and capital gains on investments — should never be lower than the tax on "earned income" by human labor. Why should a teacher pay a higher tax rate than a multi-millionaire does on capital gains?

6. A carbon tax would be another important source of revenue, with the added incentives to shift faster to energy efficiency and renewable energy such as various kinds of solar and geothermal.

So as you complain (or hear complaints) about tax season, know there are solutions and alternatives.

But those people in government, who are supposed to represent We the People, will bring none of them to pass.

White Bird - It's a beautiful day

Who remembers this?

The Ladder

Our practice requires a lot of letting go.

We prefer to think that it involves letting go of things that we don't like, while allowing us to hold onto the things we do like. But it requires more letting go than that.

The Buddha's strategy in teaching us to let go is to give us better and better things to hold onto. He teaches us to get attached to more and more refined states of well-being, and to become disenchanted with everything else.

It's like climbing a ladder. To climb up the rungs of the ladder, you already have to be holding onto a higher rung before you can let go of a lower one. Finally when you get to the top of the ladder, when there's nothing higher to hold onto, nowhere else to go: That's when you get off onto the roof or where ever you're headed. That's when you can totally let go.

The same principle holds true in the practice: You let go of lower attachments only when you've got something higher to hold onto.

All things in life are impermanent, and attaching yourself to impermanence will lead to suffering.

Therefore, move up the ladder from impermanence to that which is unchanging, and then step off into Nirvana.

The Unseen Flower

He was a large black man sitting on the train. He was dressed in work clothes that looked like he was ready to change tires on cars all day long.

At first, I glanced at him like I do most fellow passengers. Nothing special; just commuters like me.

But he was a pendulum in motion. He had an artist's sketchbook in his workman's hand. Next to him, was a satchel bulging at every thread of every seam.

He would reach into the satchel, pull out a bundle of felt tipped markers wrapped in a rubber band. From this bundle, by intuition only, he would extract a marker, take the cap off and place it on the marker's opposite end. Then he would touch the sketchbook page a time or two, swap the cap to the other end, place the marker back into the bundle, and stuff the bundle back into the satchel.

And again without hesitation, out would come another bundle of markers, and the process repeated again and again.

What could he be working on? Certainly only scribbles, I thought.

Then I saw. Amazing art. Art of an idealized young white woman, whose long blond hair provided a border for her perfectly youthful body. Art that a gifted fourteen year old girl would render. Art that was art; not gaudy; not sexual; not lustful. Art of innocence.

As the train pulled into his station, he closed the sketchbook, zipped the satchel and left.

Why did he draw and paint with those markers? Who will see his work?

Perhaps he is like a flower that grows unseen in the forest.

But I saw.