Final Post

For the handful of friends who were regular followers, I offer my sincerest thanks. Your feedback has inspired me to a higher level with each new blog post. We have been drawn closer (even when we didn't agree), through this blog. I hope that I haven't let you down.

My heart and gratitude go to Jennie, for making my posts clear and accessible, and for her loving comments.

Here are some of the bests:

Best Post : Better Aspirations

Best Music : Stand by Me

Best Quote : Joseph Campbell

I hope that you have learned from some and enjoyed a few.

Finally: If you want to be happy, practice Compassion. If you want others to be happy, practice Compassion.

Blessings for health and happiness to all beings,
Nalton

Taj Mahal - Take a Giant Step

What is Education ?

As we prepare to go back to school as a nation, let's consider this.

The purely personal side of a good education, an education available to every one of us, is not emphasized enough. Not enough so that we can understand the fact that it is so much more agreeable and interesting to be an educated person.

And what ultimately is the goal of an education?

The goal should be to help us learn to think. And if that's truly the goal, when do we ever reach the destination?

What Do You Know ?

Here's a humbling question: If you were magically transported back in time -- say 1,000 years -- what could you teach the people of that time?

This makes me realize how little I really know.

If you could manage to keep from being burned as a sorcerer, wise men of the time would make pilgrimages to see you and ask thousands of questions.

You would be 400 years before Gutenberg and his movable type printing press; 600 years ahead of Galileo; 500 years ahead of Columbus. But of all of your knowledge of our modern world and its thousands of wonders, what could you show them how to do?

The aspirin tablet, the first real wonder drug and painkiller, would have been an unbelievable boon to them in their suffering. Could you show them how to make it?

How about the steam engine? Could you show them how to make one? Or a simple electrical generator? Or how to make wire? Could you make a clock?

We know so much about so many thousands of things, but with the exception of our specialty, we'd be really hard pressed to show them how to make much of anything.

Thinking on this also helps me realize how interdependent we are. We could do very little without the help of thousands (or millions) of other people. Everything we have comes from other people.

So what do we know enough about to teach to others if we should suddenly find ourselves without the help of our modern society? Without modern medicine and dentistry, communication and transportation, educational facilities or modern utilities?

Now Is Never Gone

Here is a HQ video on YouTube, if you'd like (larger & better pictures).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv16_2PeCc8

Here is a live recording of Jim Chappell performing the track, Gone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGlR9p7lBZM

Now Is Never Gone - words

There is no refuge from this life
All that's dear
is slowly swept away.

My younger life's dreams
they are gone.

Scattered through the days;
never more to come.

My joyful hopes and plans
are withered and are dried
by the mounting years.

But that is how it is.

So what is it we are supposed to do
when our hopes and dreams
can never be fulfilled?

Need we live a life looking at a past
that is larger than what's left?

Why should that be all
that we have or all we'll ever be?


But this is what I've learned -
This moment is what you have.

It's all you ever had.

That is when your joy is found
For now is where you are.

If no joy exists right now
what hope is there in a time not come?

Albatross -Ottmar Liebert

Also look for the Fleetwood Mac (Peter Green) version in my blog.

Corinthians and the Buddha

Christians are familiar with 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, which describes love's qualities:

4) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5) It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6) Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7) It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

What about the Buddha? Did he teach of these highest types of love?

The Buddha said, "He who abuses the abuser is the worse of the two. To refrain from retailiation is to win a battle hard to win.

"If a person knows that another is angry, yet refrains from anger himself, he does what is best for himself and the other person. He is the healer of both.

"One should do no unkind thing that wise men might condemn. One should not harm another or despise anyone for any reason. Do not wish pain on another out of either anger or jealousy.

"Just as a mother would protect her only child even at the risk of her own life, even so, one should develop unbounded love towards all beings."

The Buddha taught, practiced, and encouraged others on these qualities every day of his awakened life.

The Caterwaulers

Much press this week has gone to coverage of the angry mobs (ostensibly Republicans) at the town halls.

These uncivil crowds want democracy in American, so long as they get their way. They believe in free speech, so long as they're the only ones speaking.

So this caused me to take a look at some statistics regarding party affiliation.

I'll try to make this as interesting and short as possible.

With all of the caterwauling that goes on, you would think that the Republicans have a majority voice in America.

This is not true.

In Gallup polls running from January, 2004 to now, the only time a majority of voters identified themselves as Republican was February 2005. Read that again: There was only once in the past five years where a majority of voters identified themselves as Republican.

For that same time frame, a majority of voters identified themselves as Democratic around 48 times.

Out of the nearly 180 polls conducted during this time, only seven times did voters identifying themselves as Republican have higher a percentage than Democrats. Only seven times. The remainder of the polls went Democratic (with around a dozen ties).

So why do these people think that they have the right to cut off debate on health care reform? Why do they think they can control whether a sick or injured person can afford medical care?

Their numbers certainly don't provide that power. But their intimidating methods seem to be able compensate for their minority status.

We must do everything we can to keep these people out of power!

See this site for the source of these facts: http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx

Robert Linton - Into the Grove

Be present.

10 Words

In business emails, make your point in 10 words.

If you don't your reader's attention will get interrupted by the BlackBerry, arrivals of new emails, a ringing phone (your desk phone or a neighbor's abandoned cell phone's funky music), drop in visitors or hallway chatter.

There is a habit of inattention that all of these distractions create and reinforce.

If you've read to this point, you have read more words and longer sentences than my average business emails.

Yet my attempt at brevity rarely focuses the reader's attention. It seems that people are so driven by the urgent that they seldom have time for what's in front of them.

They miss meaningful information and insights. They have no lingering presence in the present. They are full of kinetic energy, like a tornado, that brings no rewards.

I've heard it said that every moment should be treated with the slow and full attention that you give to bathing your baby. Nothing in the world is more precious than this moment.

Socialized Electricity !

Let's go back in time, roughly 80 years.

Why is anything older than 5 minutes ago important, you may ask.

Because it deals with electricity, the St. Lawrence river and the debate today on health care reform.

In the late 1920s, Franklin Roosevelt was New York's governor. The New York legislature was largely Republican.

Governor Roosevelt had a vision to use the fast flowing waters of the St. Lawrence to provide cheap electrical power to the citizens and businesses of New York. It would expand electrical generation and save money.

The Republican legislature, who were the paid lackeys of the existing power companies in the area, would not bring the bill to a vote.

Roosevelt argued that the Canadians had relied on inexpensive public electricity for many years. Americans should have this same public option, and not be monopolized by private electrical companies.

No vote.

Roosevelt proposed that the state develop the power plants, and that the private companies would contract with the state to transmit the power over their existing power lines.

No vote.

Roosevelt went directly to the people of New York in speeches and radio addresses, appealing for them to persuade their representatives to vote on the proposed legislation. Eventually, the bill was passed with major obstruction by the Republicans. However, the project was not completed for nearly 25 years.

See any parallels with what is happening today on health care reform?