We had an extraordinary meeting yesterday between two of the Buddhist groups here in Dallas. Larry And Beth Keenan are active with Karma Thegsun Choling (KTC) Tibetan Meditation Center; Ruben Habito, Julie Schaar, and Jim Brewer are members of the Maria Kannon Zen Center. The purpose of the meeting was to explore ways that we, as individuals, could gather together to act on behalf of others in our local community and around the world.

The epiphany for us was not in finding what common causes that we shared in ecology, social engagement, or direct service projects like the Dallas Food Bank, but rather finding a framework on how we might act together and to explore the most important element, who acts in concert with their own beliefs and practice.

Within our formal organizations, we have certain limits and constraints. Our governing boards and lineage organizations rightfully have concerns about lending their formal name and sponsorship to causes without significant review and oversight. Our non-profit statuses could be at risk. And, just the picking of needy causes consistent with the mission statements and interests of the formal leadership can spark a lively debate.
The needs of each of our individual members is paramount. Compassion is personal. No one wants our members or friends to feel pressured into they “should” work on this cause or on that cause. Each may be a a different point in their practice. Some of our hearts are called by the needs of the planet, others by helping those in physical or emotional need, and others by lending their voice to social justice here or abroad.
The framework we explored was a coalition of communication and individual actions. Within our own groups, we each knew of committed individuals that were looking for others of like interest and commitment. We were moved to find a way to foster these practices of compassion. And, we saw great potential to marshal people and resources quickly when situations occur like natural or man-made disasters.

The framework can be very simple; an email list or website where individuals can exchange information about their compassion practices. Others are free to respond consistent with their own practice, beliefs, and commitments. Funding these efforts, when needed, would be on an individual basis by giving directly to those organizations. We could participate in events to demonstrate support for causes; again as individuals.

The next steps are to reach out to other Buddhist organizations in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area to see if they to would be willing to inform their members of this communication coalition and to continue to build upon the ideas and needs we discussed.

Jim Brewer
972.467.4463 Mobile

jim@jamesabrewer.com

When H1N1 came to public awareness, I read even in the popular press that virologists had expected pandemic for some time. The causes and conditions are present. Richly.

Teachers in the lineage of Tibetan Buddhism I study say that the years to come are likely to be a time of natural and ecological disasters. Pandemics are one category of these.

H1N1 is mild enough now (though if you were one of the people killed by it you might take exception to that), but is showing an unfortunate ability to live on through the summer; it is still infecting people all over the world, and changing. Viruses usually die down  in summer; theory is that the particles bind easily with water molecules and sink, whereas in dry winter air they can blow airborne for weeks. (That is theory only; guesswork. I love how upfront the virology blogs are, and amazing how many things scientists don’t know about viruses.)

The latest new country to see infection by H1N1 is the island of Fiji.

But – here is my bottom line. Life-threatening, potentially deadly strains of a virus could definitely be appearing and moving through the world in the coming years. The whole world.

So my question is, how do you protect yourself against something that can’t be escaped? And then, be aware of the potential but still live a balanced, happy life? (Oh, that’s Buddhism.)

1. Often the worst part of pandemic is what fear of infection does to people; it makes them act really crazy. It would be easy to avoid thinking about the threat until somebody you know gets it, then wig out.  For this reason, if this happens in the culture at large,  you want to be able to retreat to your home and limit moving around to a minimum. Could you seclude yourself if you had to?

2. Good information can be hard to come by, and general media outlets cannot always be trusted. There will be scary rumors. This happened already with H1N1 – I got a piece of spam saying the media was suppressing the fact that that emergency rooms in south Texas were jammed with dying people. A tall tale that sounded plausible. Find the blogs that have real information and follow them.

Also,  regarding H1N1, a friend told me with perfect conviction that it was an engineered virus, a terrorist weapon. When I said that the virology blogs we scanned said that this was impossible – nobody knew enough about viruses to develop anything like that, way too complex – she didn’t believe it.

Sometimes truth sounds fake, falsehood sounds more true – what to believe?

If there comes a time when you have to stake your life on what you read or hear, it better be coming from a good source – so seek that out NOW.  I don’t necessarily trust the government or CDC – if they are dealing with a panic-inducing situation.

3. Take care of your body and your spirit. Bless your food.

4. Get into the habit of washing your hands and wiping off places that are frequently touched in the business of living; steering wheel, gas cap, door knob. I’m trying to do that now, but it’s far from second nature to me.

Sky Burial is the Tibetan way of dealing with the deceased – the body is dragged up the mountain on a yoke, and there is a small concrete platform with two tools – a knife and something like a hatchet. Tsampa, which is ground barley, is mixed with the cut-up pieces of meat and fed to the birds. These vultures are very beautiful and huge; a close up of the photo would show that the grass is covered with a fine layer of vulture down. This is one of the best places I have ever been in my life, and I love recalling it.

You know, it all looked like the most beautiful park – I didn’t emotionally connect with it till I saw a big thatch of human hair with scalp attached, and then it was, like, yes – we all die. We really do.

Excerpts from an Op-Ed Piece by Nicholas D. Kristof, published 5/27/09, NY Times

“… liberals and conservatives often form judgments through flash intuitions that aren’t a result of a deliberative process. The crucial part of the brain for these judgments is the medial prefrontal cortex, which has more to do with moralizing than with rationality. If you damage your prefrontal cortex, your I.Q. may be unaffected, but you’ll have trouble harrumphing.”

I remember Robert Lawson, at the time running the brainwave lab at North Texas, telling me about this quality of openess and kindness in people with prefrontal cortex damage.

Kristof goes on to say that
“One of the main divides between left and right is the dependence on different moral values. For liberals, morality derives mostly from fairness and prevention of harm. For conservatives, morality also involves upholding authority and loyalty — and revulsion at disgust.

Psychologists have developed a “disgust scale” based on how queasy people would be in 27 situations, such as stepping barefoot on an earthworm or smelling urine in a tunnel. Conservatives systematically register more disgust than liberals. (To see how you weigh factors in moral decisions, take the tests at www.yourmorals.org.)”

“Minds are very hard things to open, and the best way to open the mind is through the heart,” Professor Haidt says. “Our minds were not designed by evolution to discover the truth; they were designed to play social games.”

That’s a definition of what a Lama does. “Open the mind through the heart.” The Dalai Lama comes to mind. Simply watching him talk or interact with others makes people happy. Lama Dudjom Dorjee is a master -

Kristof closes by saying “Thus persuasion may be most effective when built on human interactions. Gay rights were probably advanced largely by the public’s growing awareness of friends and family members who were gay.

A corollary is that the most potent way to win over opponents is to accept that they have legitimate concerns, for that triggers an instinct to reciprocate. As it happens, we have a brilliant exemplar of this style of rhetoric in politics right now — Barack Obama.”

The whole article is here.

Additional note: Robert sent this interesting link to an American Conservative Magazine article on who votes how when particular labels are applied: In a nutshell, Robert says,

There is a finite amount of time left in this life. The creative mission: how to take care of my time and not waste it, find balance between the serious and the great fun, making money and paying off karmic debt.

Consider Tai Situ’s guide to the ten aspects of knowledge, “Relative World, Ultimate Mind”, which also has the advantage of a wonderfully well-designed cover:

From the book:

Knowledge falls naturally into two divisions: the ordinary and the extraordinary.

~
~

The five ordinary aspects of knowledge are:

• Grammar – how you structure language is how you communicate
• Names – the thesaurus; the richness available for your use in verbal expression
• Poetry – reaching higher ideas through the first two entries
• Performance – say no more! Let’s put on a play!
• Astrology – the plat of a personality out of emptiness

The five extraordinary aspects of knowledge are:

• Creativity
• Healing
• Sound
• The science of truth
• Inner Truth

“It is important in the beginning to understand the reasons for investigating these disciplines. Everything has a depth that can be explored through experience. Experience develops knowledge, and knowledge gradually manifests as wisdom.”      – from the introduction

What ‘got’ me about these items, as I read and thought about them, is that it can also be a prescription for a Very Good Time. And if the Good Time is meaningful and leads to deeper understanding… sounds like a winner to me!

Also, maybe it’s a way to categorize a blog. I’ll try labeling the posts with the one of the ten aspects of knowledge, and see how well that works.

Well, OK.

One of the things I learned working for my oriental medicine doctor was that sugar is good for us, quite necessary.

Then I looked at the label. There are TWO sugars listed: cane sugar and crystalline fructose.

I looked up crystalline fructose on the internet and you know what it is?

It’s high fructose corn syrup!  Healthy, my ass! It’s awful for you!

Today I thought I’d just see how aware people were of this, and there’s quite a lot written in the bogosphere about Vitamin Water and their little hidden trade secret.

Then I found a Press Release from Coca-Cola, makers of VitaminWater, dated January 15th. Here’s an excerpt, with my own bolding here and there:

“This is a ridiculous and ludicrous lawsuit. glacéau vitaminwater is a great tasting, hydrating beverage with essential vitamins and water, with labels showing calorie content.    …   We don’t need a “healthful” alternative to sodas. All our beverages, including sparkling and diets, can be part of healthful diet.

Consumers can readily see the nutrition facts panels on every bottle of glacéau vitaminwater, which show what’s in our product and what’s not. The success of glacéau vitaminwater is due in large part to consumers looking for a product like this to help support their healthy, active and on-the-go lifestyle. …”

How funny! Somebody decided to sue VitaminWater, calling attention to their blatant and very successful attempt to put lipstick on a pig, presenting themselves as healthy when they are not.

Buyers beware! So good that the internet helps uncover and debunk misleading business practices.

“In all of creation there is a repetition of the same pattern in all structures, from the tiniest atom to the greatest unit of the cosmos.”  Alan Oken, as above, so below

Patterns out of emptiness; as above, so below. Systems large, systems small, mirroring each other. Recently there have been new findings towards the notion of a holographic universe, the implications of which may make the Star Trek style transporter a reality in our time. It also fits neatly into the astrological mandala.

These days you can generate a detailed horoscope for yourself online for no charge, and get lots of interesting information, often conflicting and contradictory. What a talented astrologer does is to add synthesis, weighting the elements, building a human being from the specs as given.

BUILD-A-SCOPE

Go to Astrodienst http://www.astro.com/

Click on ‘My Astro’ – the farthest right tab

You will need to enter the following information:

• Name (first name only is fine)
• Date of Birth
• Time of Birth – this is extremely important. Do not guess – getting it off a birth certificate is best.
• Place of Birth

Then there are a multitude of options – ways to compare your data with others and find correlation, general forecasts based on your chart, etc.

My husband is an amateur astrologer, gifted at synthesis. He doesn’t express his gift often, but when he does it’s a treat.

You may also enjoy checking out  Michael Erlewine’s site AstrologySoftware.com; Michael is a longtime student of Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche.

Here are a few of his guises:

The strangest one was more subtle; he darkened his grey and put on full makeup (to erase the signs of age, as women do, heaviest pancake division) and an unaccustomed tailored suit suit to attend a production at Theatre Three. It was eerie – in the low light the make-up was undetectable, and he was a strange, perfectly groomed Dorian Grey. At least twenty years younger than his actual age. In his last theatrical production, in Samuel Beckett’s “Krapp’s Last Tape”, he was thirty years older.

On Halloween I felt like I had been given a couture garment when he did skeleton make up on my face. The way the teeth were drawn allowed me to speak and move my mouth without destroying the illusion. I was thrown off socially because people weren’t reacting to me the way they normally did – I had become something else. People who knew me well were freaked out and avoided me; others sought me out and were attracted. My favorite part was when a friend took out his banjo and the dancing started. Dancing as death is liberating and very powerful-feeling.