Some Things Never Change

Most people probably don’t know (or don’t remember) that America’s beginning was not so glorious. The first colony was employees of the Virginia Company, an English corporation formed by politicians and politically connected investors that was made up of prisoners and slum dwellers from England’s jails. They were sent here to plunder and steal from the Indians. They fought amongst themselves and the company was a miserable failure at first. It took almost twelve years and the establishment of a lottery in England to finance the colony. It wasn’t until they began growing tobacco that they were sustainable and profitable.

So it was an undemocratic corporation of thieves who used gambling profits to finance the growing of the addictive drug tobacco which they introduced to Europe that marked the beginning of this nation.

Corporate thieves, gambling, drugs, looting, profiteering and corruption; some things never change.

Gary

Now and Zen - 08/27

The reason I chose Now and Zen to title these remarks is that in Zen philosophy there is no “then” – there is only “now”. If you are waiting for things to get better or waiting to reach some milepost before you act, or for a miracle to happen that will make your life bearable, you’re going to miss out on life.

Life is now! Right at this very moment, and that is the only point in your existence that you can experience. Right this second. Now!

Wayne Dyer points out that the word nowhere is made up of two words, now here. Reverse nowhere and you have here now. With practice and discipline you can go from no where to now here.

The illusion of the future is always melting into or “becoming” the moment of existence - a fleet sensation - the “now” of your life. What once was the immediate future envisioned in your mind a moment ago has just become this very nanosecond you are now experiencing. This “present moment” then quickly becomes the unalterable past. It may be a disappointment, a missed opportunity, but only if you let it.

The “wish I had done it” doesn’t matter anymore if you didn’t do it. The promise “I’ll do it next time - or next week” is not something you can guarantee or predict. Do what you feel is the right thing to do “now”, drop the past and drop the future.

The future is unknown and along with what you might reasonably anticipate, it also brings the unexpected. The only control you have is over this very moment - where the rubber meets the road to use a popular analogy – and how you process it. This moment is the point of action, the only point of reference to life you have. Even if you use your memory or the thoughts and ideas of recorded history to mold it – this moment is your experience of the life you live - moment to moment. This is your moment of being. It’s your writing on the page of life, your footprint in the sand. It’s your creation, the energy of your existence interacting with the energy of the universe. And it’s your experience, the shaping of your soul. This is your only chance to experience the sensory sensations you are blessed with. Right now at this moment.

Life has the illusion of flowing like a river but does it really? Is it just a series of moments like the individual still frames of a movie film that creates the illusion of continuity, linearity and time? Or like the alternating currents of AC electrical power does it ebb and flow as a sine wave? Is the wave peak the life experience and the trough the non-living opposite, the push pull which together gives life to all living things and to all existence?

Or does it even matter that we understand except for the fact that the here and now is the only life worth living?

If you live in the past you are avoiding the present, obsessing over what could or should have been (we’re all guilty), and if you live in an imaginary future you are putting life off and avoiding the present. Experiencing each of life’s moments to the maximum is an acquired ability that few ever achieve – the so called “enlightened beings” among us. There are degrees of ability of course, but anyone can become enlightened in a general sense.

How do you live in the moment? By just “being” completely in the moment and not somewhere else is one explanation but the ability of “just being” has many facets and challenges. Drop the self they say. Get rid of the ego. Quit filtering nature through an intellectual sieve (like what I’m doing at this moment).

Here’s an exercise or two to allow you to experience what it means to be fully in the moment.

Find a quiet place where you won’t be distracted or interrupted, a place to meditate so to speak. Now, take either hand and concentrate on it. Look at your hand carefully as you slowly move your fingers as if to grip something in the claw made by your fingers. Look carefully at how the hand operates, the beauty of it, and the intricacy. Focus on only your hand.

Think of how much like a bird of prey’s claw your hand is, how much like other animals your hand functions. Exclude all thought other than your hand and the miracle that causes it to move the way it does almost instinctively without your command. Think about how you, using your mind, can make your fingers work individually, and the wrist to turn just so and how robotic and machine-like it seems. Think about the chemicals and neuron transmitters that cause the various ligaments and muscles to interact and perform whatever it is you would like the hand to do. As you focus, become your hand, but detach yourself from it at the same time. Consider your hand a robotic extension of your mind.

If you concentrate long enough you will begin to marvel at this creation that is so critical to your existence. The hand almost looks as if it has life and powers of its own. Then drop all intellectual analysis. Allow your mind to view your hand as a separate living entity but at the same time realize your oneness with it. If you allow yourself to be completely absorbed with your hand and its miraculous abilities you will experience to some degree what it means to meditate, to be an observer and to be completely in the moment - being totally aware.

You can do this with any activity at any time.

Living in the moment means having full sensory awareness at the deepest level of what you are experiencing at that very moment.

If you are washing your face, devote your attention to it. Become an observer by becoming fully aware of washing your face, the feel of the water temperature, the feel of the soap’s lather and its fragrance, the movement of your hands. Act with intent – not robotically. Make graceful movements, smooth, not rough and vigorous. Take responsibility but let go at the same time. Totally absorb the experience. See and feel the difference of focusing your attention to an act from acting with indifference.

When you walk, be mindful of (observe) how you walk. Walk with intention but also walk with mindfulness of balance and grace. When you move your arms and hands to accomplish a task be mindful of and observe their movement, move with balance and grace like a dancer, whether you’re peeling potatoes, turning a wrench or lifting a box. Whether you’re writing a letter or driving a car. Be mindful of the experience, be totally alert and into the moment. It takes practice but if you pay attention you can do it – and then it will eventually become second nature.

Concentrate on smooth, graceful actions, as those who practice Tai Chi, not herky-jerky, overly quick, coarse and reckless movements subject to mistake and accident. But you should be able to do this without losing yourself to what is going on around you. You can walk, or drive, or operate machinery with increased awareness, with grace and with mindfulness and attention yet with detachment, and you can still remain aware of all the dangers and hazards of life. You can be the observer and still be in control.

Many of those who excel in sports have incorporated being here and now into their game. Watch Scott Rolen, third baseman for the St Louis Cardinals. Rolen is ever mindful and graceful. Even when acting quickly with snap judgment he’s graceful in his motions. In baseball parlance they say he has “smooth” hands. Watch him and you’ll see he stays completely in the game, ever attentive and “in the moment”. Being “in the zone” is another description sports people use. Unfortunately for the Cardinals their pitching staff has lost the ability to stay “in the moment”. It’s also true of most of the other players when it comes their turn to bat.

For most of us “being in the moment” has to become intentional before it can become natural. You have to be mindful to become unmindful and natural. In Zen they refer to the enlightened person as an observer, someone who observes their own behavior and actions, detached from but mindful of every action and emotional response.

Sometimes living in the here and now happens without intent – as it should and as it happened when you were an infant. All babies and little children live in the here and now. They experience life in the moment without the encumbrance and baggage of knowledge, training and conditioning that eventually kills our ability to experience life fully and at its best. Few adults have retained the ability to observe and stay focused like a small child in its first years of life. I believe this is what Jesus was referring to when he said, “Be as little children”.

When you view a beautiful sunset or majestic view and you become captured by the moment, that’s being totally in the moment. As you become slack-jawed, entranced and absorbed by the experience, that’s experiencing life as it was intended by God. By keeping your attention on being in the moment - completely, here and now - you will become more awakened to the richness of life and will enter the territory of what it means to be “one” with existence.

Who can have more? Who can be richer than that?

Be here now,

Gary

Lying – The Biggest Sin

Someone complimented me today on being honest. It’s nice to be recognized but being honest is not something that people should be rewarded for, even by just praise. I believe being honest with one another should be the first rule of conduct for all mankind and is essential to our survival as a species – it’s that important!

Without a doubt, honesty is the most important virtue that any person can aspire to and encompasses all the rest, because every virtue I can think of must have honesty and fairness as the first and foremost part. Honesty is truth; telling the truth to ourselves and to others.

When I was seventeen and in the Air Force I often visited the base library. One of the books I stumbled across was “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne”. Although unfamiliar to most people, Montaigne should be included as one of the most significant writers in all of history. It has been suggested that all the great writers and great thinkers since Montaigne, including Sir Francis Bacon who many believe was the mysterious William Shakespeare, were directly influenced and inspired by Montaigne.

Montaigne wrote about himself; his observations and his experience during his life. His collection of essays included those on friendship, on dying, on cruelty, on repentance on smells, on wearing clothes, education of children, sexual attraction and a host of other interesting and entertaining observations.

In particular, Montaigne wrote something that struck a chord in me, something that reverberated in my mind and left a lasting impression. In his essay “On Lying”, Montaigne wrote, “Verily, lying is an ill and detestable vice. Nothing makes us men, and no other means keeps us bound one to another, but our word; knew we but the horror and weight of it, we would with fire and sword pursue and hate the same, and more justly than any other crime.”

Think about that. He attributes horror to lying and suggests lying should be dealt with more justly than any other crime. Who can say otherwise?

I believe being honest is the most significant quality any human can cultivate. Honesty encompasses all of the other virtues including telling truth as we know it, etc. When you think about it one can see that all dishonest and evil acts begin with a lie. Greed motivated dishonesty is man's biggest sin and one we should all try to avoid at any cost.

Wars and the atrocities that accompany them all begin with lies. Murder and vile acts all begin with lies. All corruption in business and government is based upon lies. Environmental destruction and global warming is a result of lies. Our prisons are full of people who resorted to lies and dishonesty early on in their lives.

Lies and liars create most of life’s suffering and tragedies, yet in our culture we embrace and teach dishonesty, we teach our children to lie. We lie to them about too many things as they are growing up. We lie to them about how children are conceived, about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but at the same time we teach them to always tell the truth and punish them for lying to us. We tell them they should always be honest then turn around and cheat and lie in our dealings with others, which even a child can easily detect. Our companies lie to consumers about their products and our elected representatives lie to the citizens about their true intent and whose interests they serve. Stockbrokers lie to investors and mortgage lenders and realtors lie to home buyers, vehicle dealers lie to buyers, and on and on.

We worship corporations, commerce and production over human rights. Consumer fraud and corporate crime is not only protected, it’s celebrated. We even have a caveat, “caveat emptor”, let the buyer beware, which puts the responsibility of a fair transaction on to the buyer instead of establishing and enforcing laws to protect the consumer. Corporations that are guilty of bilking customers and stealing from the taxpayers are infrequently prosecuted and when they are found guilty, they pay some inconsequential fine and rarely go to jail.

To pretend to be honest when we are not is a lie. We lie to our family and our neighbors. We lie to get ahead, to acquire wealth and power, and we delude ourselves by rationalizing our dishonesty and by lying to ourselves that our lies and dishonesties are somehow justified.

Montaigne wrote: “God preserve me from being an honest man according to the criterion that I daily see every man apply to himself – to his own advantage! “ Then he quotes Seneca, “What were once vices have now become customs”.

We would do well to reflect on Montaigne’s words and consider lying as the most horrific crime of all – one that forms the bedrock of all of the world’s ills.

“It is no slight pleasure to feel oneself preserved from the contagion of so corrupt an age, and to say to oneself, ‘A man might look into my very soul, and yet he would not find me guilty of anyone’s affliction or ruin, or of revenge or envy, or of offending against the public laws, or of innovation or disturbance, or of failing to keep my word. And whatever the licence of the age may permit or suggest to any man, I have never laid my hands on any (other persons) goods or put my fingers into his purse. I have lived only on what is my own, in war as in peace, and have never used another man’s labour without paying him.’ These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail.” ~ Montaigne

Go and do thou likewise.

Gary

Joe Liberman's Lying Eyes

I saw something today in a picture of Joe Lieberman that tells me a lot about Joe. If you’ll notice, Joe is not looking at the people in the photograph with him. He isn’t connecting with them and he’s aloof. He’s out of touch. Joe probably feels it’s below him to have to associate with these lowly peasants but it’s the price he has to pay to stay in power and to keep the door open for financial gain.

It’s not the first time I’ve seen this behavior from Lieberman. Someone took my picture shaking hands with Lieberman at the 2000 Democratic Convention. In the picture Joe is not looking at me either and he didn’t look at me during our brief conversation but looked past me. Looked around and over my shoulder but no eye contact.

This behavior is common to most politicians and celebrities who could give a rat’s ass for the average person’s opinions or concerns. They lie when say they have only your interests at heart. They are only interested in people with money and influence. That’s when their eyes brighten and when they give their full attention, when they see an opportunity to gain more money and power.

Joe Lieberman keeps exposing the reasons why thinking Democrats want to remove him and others of his ilk from office. Joe is out of touch, arrogant, and acts more often in the best interests of his corporate sponsors and the DC power grid rather than in the interests of those everyday Americans he claims to represent. Also, far be it from me to mention Joe in the same sentence with Israel’s interests for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic.

The quickest way to be labeled unpatriotic by Joe and others is to “criticize the president during a time of war”. The quickest way to be labeled un-Christian and a liberal heathen is to criticize evangelical right-wing Christians. The quickest way to be labeled anti-Semitic is to criticize Israel or any Jewish person and their motives.

Fear is the tool of choice for those who live to control and manipulate others to their advantage. Most average Americans have become conditioned and are afraid of expressing their true opinions – the same as people who live under the rule of ruthless dictators. They fear the powerful will destroy them if they speak out.

In a last ditch effort to save his gravy train Joe is trying to scare voters with the idea that choosing Ned Lamont over him will play right into Republican’s hands. He lamented that he had not “clarified” his criticism of the war and the White House earlier, but he also argued that Republicans were “salivating” over the possibility that Democrats would pick an antiwar liberal instead of Mr. Lieberman.

“They are anxious to say the left wing is taking over, the anti-security wing,” Mr. Lieberman said of Republicans.”

Bullshit!

First of all, Lieberman understands the “they” all too well. He identifies himself as one of them by using the “L” word as derogatory. Republicans use “liberal” and “left-wing” as labels, as dirty words to describe the majority of Americans who want change. When the Lieberman website crashed yesterday he blamed “liberal bloggers”.

We’ve seen this reverse Brer Rabbit ploy used before by the political powerbrokers. Karl Rove, the Republicans, and even establishment Democrats used it to scare voters away from Howard Dean in 2004, saying that Rove’s biggest wet dream was to have Howard Dean as the candidate to challenge Bush. Instead Rove actually feared Dean and was salivating for John Kerry – and it worked - they got him. It’s tactics taken straight from Sun Tzu’s Art of War. If you want to avoid what you fear most just lie and convince your opponent that it’s what you want more than anything. Geez, how stupid can people get?

And all of a sudden Joe is saying that he felt a “heavy personal responsibility” for the war, wanted to bring troops home “as fast as anyone,” and valued Americans’ “right to disagree” with the president and himself over Iraq. All of a sudden Joe is one of us.

Joe is even so desperate he’s invoking images of Clinton calling himself the “Connecticut’s comeback kid”

And don’t forget, when Al Gore chose Lieberman for his running mate in 2000, Joe showed his appreciation and confidence in Al by retaining his senate seat as a fallback.

As David Sirota points out, even if Lamont doesn’t win, the progressives have significantly changed the political environment. If Lamont just comes close it will send shivers down the spineless backs of the establishment politicians in both parties and will put fear in the corporate pirates that have seized the reins of our country.

What Would Al Gore Do?

How do you think Al Gore would advise Lopez Obrador, the populist presidential candidate in Mexico that “lost” the recent presidential election by a very narrow half percentage point margin to Felipe Calderón, the corporate candidate and the choice of outgoing president Vincente Fox and the Bush administration to run Mexico’s government?

Would Gore tell Lopez to stand down and to concede defeat in the interest of keeping peace, that an aggressive challenge to the election results might result in civil unrest, violence and a weakened democracy?

Would he tell Obrador that he should concede in a gentlemanly fashion? Would he advise him that, until the next election his country can withstand four more years of rule by free trading corporate handmaidens? Those same lapdogs to the ministers of wealth and power who view invasions of other countries and toppling democratically elected leaders as a proper action to insure economic progress and to make sure access to natural resources, avoidance of environmental protection laws and cheap labor is not thwarted by those who favor sharing the wealth and the needs of the poor and the working class?

In an eerily similar scenario to the 2000 election which Gore “lost” the electoral vote to Bush by an even much smaller margin, Obrador’s lawyers failed to get a ruling allowing for a full recount of the votes approved by the courts because of a technical error when they filed their challenge. The courts seized this error to prevent a full recount. As a result there will only be a partial recount. Only 9% of the ballots will be recounted.

You would think, in the interests of democracy and producing a fair and just election, the courts would want nothing less than an accurate count so there is no question of which candidate is the rightful winner. You would think. But then you would be wrong if the courts rendering the decision were made up of those judges appointed by the previous corporatist president and “free trader”, Vincente Fox.

In the United States, Mexico, and other countries in this hemisphere and around the world, corporate profiteers armed with huge fortunes have gained control of the governments, the courts, and the voting process. Democracy has been undermined and the process subverted to assure that only those who support the corporate regimes can win.

Automated electronic voting machines, that are produced, managed and manipulated by the same corporate powers that own the elected officials, make it easier to make elections look close regardless of the actual vote. Courts of corporate-picked judges can protect against an accurate vote count and make any election final as we saw here in 2000 and again in 2004.

Okay, maybe Obrador’s wrong and Calderon won the election fairly, but if that’s the case, shouldn’t Calderon want it to be clear he has a mandate regardless of how thin?

There is only one thing for Obrador to do and that is to press the courts for a total recount and demand it be done under fair and unbiased supervision. "If they refuse to open all the polling stations and count all the votes, it is complete proof that we won the presidential election," he said. Because the margin was so small, Obrador and his supporters should settle for nothing less than a full recount. If they are refused then I say they should take a lesson from what happened here in the United States. To avoid complete corporate takeover he should force the country into civil unrest and anarchy if that is what is necessary to restore this fledgling democracy.

Gore’s fateful decision to stand down and not challenge Bush is a clear example of what Mexico can expect. If Obrador bows to the enemies of freedom and democracy in the interest of maintaining peace the evil empire will only gain more power and lead his country further back down the path to becoming an authoritarian police state as it once was not too many years ago.

If denied a fair and just full recount he should tell his supporters what Al Gore should have told his supporters but failed to. He should tell them unless we get a full and fair recount “the revolution starts now!”

Now and Zen

Have you ever considered that life is a paradox? Existence is bi-polar in that it has opposites that allow for each to exist. Life itself is the opposite of? – death of course. Without death there could be no life. Darkness – Light. Extreme darkness, extreme light and degrees between. Sweet – sour, love –hate, they all exist in tandem – together. You can’t have one without the other. It is the completeness we call existence.

Osho points out that language is linear, that rules of language put things in a line, one following the other. And it makes thought linear, therefore logic becomes linear, but existence is not linear, existence is simultaneous. Love and hate, light and dark, exist together. They are two sides of the same coin, not much separates one from the other. But in language you can’t say the room was full of light and the room was dark as well.

If you go into a dark room at night and turn the light on where does the dark go? It’s still there. The only thing that’s changed is your ability to see. If you close your eyes during the daytime, where does the light go? It’s still there. Light and absence of light, day and night exist simultaneously.

Zen is paradoxical. Zen thought allows things to exist simultaneously and allows opposites to trade places. Do by not doing is a Zen concept.

Example: Some say Al Gore is running for president. Al Gore says he is not. He’s not purposefully doing any of the things required to become a candidate. But as a result of Al Gore’s quest to inform the world of global warming and stimulate a response from the public, Gore is becoming more electable, All the elements that must be there for a candidate to be successful are falling in to place. Is Al Gore running by not running?

To Be or Not To Be?

Osho goes on to discuss having versus being. That man is constantly trying to enrich his life by accumulating more, by getting more property, more wealth, more power, more knowledge. The mind, the head thinks by having more it will become more, but having can never be transformed into being. Being is accomplished by dropping all desire, just being in the moment, the here and now. In that moment of isness, of just being, says Osho, all is available, all benediction, all blessings, all wonder, all beauty, all bliss.

The recent tribulation of Mel Gibson is an example of attempting to have more as a means to contentment and bliss. Mel’s life is anything but as a result of his quest for more wealth, more power, more things. I’m sure Mel is living hell at the moment, a paradox of love and hate in his mind. What has wealth and power wrought? A poisoned mind? It’s not his drinking, it’s not the alcohol that’s to blame, it’s what his mind has done to his life. One can drink alcohol and be blissful. If the 0.12 blood alcohol content was accurate, Mel was too drunk to legally drive but not excessively drunk, not on alcohol. But maybe drunk with power or stressed out from his obsession to have more in an effort to “be” more.

Mel can be faulted for riding the wave of Christian evangelical fanaticism that’s sweeping our nation by introducing the movie “Passion of the Christ” as a crass opportunity to accumulate more wealth, but the result is not harmonious with Jesus’ message of love and just being in the here and now.

Jesus lived in the here and now and the here and now is the kingdom Jesus spoke of. Consider the lilies of the field, and the birds, and the flowers, God provides and has not forsaken them he reminds us. Why be anxious about tomorrow? Live in the present. Be here now.

The majority of the Christian leadership has twisted and contorted Jesus’ message to mean the prosperity of having more things, of getting more wealth and power as a reward and blessing for following Jesus. That God wants you to have much more than he provides for the birds (impossible, birds are complete) and build up treasures while you are here. That’s not what Jesus taught. We know what he thought about the chances of a wealthy person to find paradise and we know what he thought of the powerful.

Jesus taught about “being” not “having”. When will Christians wake up and “see” what Jesus meant when he warned of those who come in his name?

One last note: Did you see the video clips of Israeli school children writing messages of hate on the warheads and bombs to be dropped on the Lebanese people? And then did you see the video of the dead Lebanese children? Do the Israelis also show those children the videos of those dead children and do the children cheer and clap? That’s how sick western civilization has become. When adult leaders of a nation teach their children to hate and make war how can they call themselves civilized? How can they call themselves God’s people or God’s chosen?

At least Harry Truman was sad and remorseful when he ordered the atomic bombs to be dropped on Japan. At least Dwight Eisenhower was sickened by war. How can our current president laugh and joke, act smug and make arrogant remarks as he orders invasions and as any of this takes place? What has happened to Christianity and to our nation? Talk about paradox. This is insanity.


Gary