Blinded in Gaza, in the World is
Blinded in Ego, in the ego world!
Beyond ego is blissful limitless life.
Eyeless in Gaza
January 18, 2009 by limitlesslifeOne Billion Hungry
January 7, 2009 by limitlesslife
Year of the hungry: 1,000,000,000 afflicted
http://www.independ ent.co.uk/ news/world/ politics/ year-of-the- hungry-10000000
00-afflicted- 1213843.html
By Geoffrey Lean
Sunday, 28 December 2008
Despite the West’s pledge to halve world hunger, the number of people who
are short of food will soon reach a shocking landmark
One billion people will go hungry around the globe next year for the first
time in human history, as the international financial crisis deepens, the
United Nations has told The Independent on Sunday.
The shocking landmark will be passed despite a second record worldwide
harvest in a row because people are becoming too destitute to buy the
food that is produced.
Decades of progress in reducing hunger are being abruptly reversed, dealing
a devastating blow to a pledge by world leaders eight years ago to cut it
in half by 2015.
Rich countries have failed to provide promised money to boost agriculture
in the Third World; the financial crisis is starving developing countries
of credit and driving their people into greater poverty, and food aid to
the starving is expected to begin drying up next month.
Development charities recently called on US president-elect Barack Obama to
put the escalating food crisis “front and centre” of his priorities.
Some 963 million people are now undernourished worldwide, according to the
most recent survey of the crisis by the Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO), and the UN body expects the situation to worsen with the recession.
“The number will rise steadily next year,” an FAO spokesman told the IoS
last week. “We are looking at a billion people. That is clear.” The FAO
fears the tally will go on increasing for years to come.
This directly contradicts an undertaking by the world’s leaders at a
special summit in September 2000 to “reduce by half the proportion of
people who suffer from hunger” from 1990 levels by 2015, as part of an
ambitious set of Millennium Development Goals.
At the time, and for several years afterwards, the goal looked achievable,
if challenging. Between 1990 and 2005 the number of undernourished people
stayed more or less the same at between 800 and 850 million, even though
world population grew by 1.2 billion, meaning that the proportion of a
rapidly increasing humanity that went hungry was steadily falling.
Several countries including Ghana, Peru, Mexico, Chile, Jamaica and
Costa Rica actually exceeded the target years ahead of time, while
others such as Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Mozambique were on track to achieve
it. Twenty-five developing nations looked as if they would be able to halve
the absolute number of their hungry not just the proportion of them in
their rising populations by the target date.
But over the past three years that progress has been thrown abruptly into
reverse, with the first steep and sustained rise in hunger in decades
leaving another 115 million people short of food. The increase began when
prosperity was still increasing and has continued despite bumper harvests;
a new FAO report shows that this year’s grain crop is set to grow by 5.4
per cent to 2,241 million tons, following a 6 per cent rise last year
ahead of population growth.
So the growth in hunger is not occurring, as in the past, because of
shortage of food but because people cannot afford to buy it even when
it is plentiful. The main reason has been that high food prices have priced
the poor out of the market.
Over the 12 months until last summer, wheat and maize prices more than
doubled and rice prices more than tripled. This was due partly to the
growth in biofuels which, the FAO reports, has taken over 100 million tons
of cereals out of food supplies over the past year to fuel cars instead.
One fill of a 4×4’s tank uses enough grain to feed one poor person for a
year.
The organisation also blames speculation, population growth, the shrinking
of food stocks to record lows and the increasing consumption of meat in
developing countries such as China and India, which mops up grain supplies
because they are used to feed livestock.
International prices have fallen sharply since the summer, as this year’s
good harvest has further swelled supplies and the growing financial crisis
has cut demand. But the FAO reports that the lower prices have failed to
ease the crisis, while the increasing financial turmoil has made it worse.
Developing countries have not benefited from the falling worldwide cost of
food, it says, because their currencies have depreciated against the dollar
in which international prices are set and their domestic supplies remain
scarce, keeping prices in local markets at record levels.
Virtually none of the increased production of the past two years has taken
place in the Third World, partly because its farmers have been unable to
afford expensive fertilisers and seeds while the profits of giant
agrochemical and biotech companies have soared. Now as rich countries’
economies slump, they are importing fewer commodities and goods from
developing ones, driving national incomes down and increasing unemployment
and poverty. As employment falls in the West, Third World immigrants are
losing their jobs and are no longer able to send back the money they save
from their wages in remittances to their families, a financial boost that
is often crucial in keeping them out of dire poverty.
Just as serious, the FAO adds, the credit that Third World farmers need to
buy seeds, energy and agricultural chemicals and to improve production
is drying up.
Aid, too, is falling precipitously. Earlier this month, the World Food
Programme the UN agency that provides food to the hungry announced
that it was running out of supplies. Unless it receives more soon it
expects to have to start rationing aid next month, and to run out of food
altogether for needy countries such as Haiti, Sudan and Bangladesh by
March.
At a special summit in June last year, rich governments pledged $12.3bn
(￡8.4bn) to tackle the food crisis, but have so far handed over only $1bn
of it, as they have scrambled to provide trillions to bail out failing
banks.
“Overcoming the financial crisis is critical,” concludes the FAO in a
recent report, “but continuing the fight against hunger by realising those
pledged billions is no less important.” Jacques Diouf, the FAO’s director
general, warns: “Unless the political will and donor pledges are turned
into urgent and real actions, millions more will fall into deep poverty.”
Josette Sheeran, the executive director of the World Food Programme, added:
“While we worry about Wall Street and the high street, we are also paying
attention to the needs of those who live in places with no street.” She has
called on governments to devote just 1 per cent of their bailout and
stimulus packages to fighting hunger.
The worst is yet to come, taking the number of hungry beyond the one
billion mark. As food prices fall, the FAO is reporting signs that farmers
in Europe and North America are reducing their plantings for next year’s
harvest and the same thing is likely to happen in the Third World as
the lack of credit stops its farmers from being able to buy the food and
agricultural chemicals they need. So next year’s harvest, it is feared,
will be smaller, even if the weather remains good.
The run of good seasons is unlikely to continue for long, even in the short
run. And in the medium to long term, climate change is expected to make
harvests dramatically worse. Mr Diouf predicts that, if the world fails to
take urgent action to keep global warming beneath 2C, the emerging
international target, “the global food production potential can be expected
to contract severely” with harvests dropping by up to 40 per cent in
Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Global targets: a progress report
Goal one Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger between 1990 and 2015.
Progress 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty, down from 42 per cent
of the world population in 1990 to 26 per cent in 2005. Up to 75 per cent
of the population is employed except in parts of Africa and Asia.
Undernourished under-fives dropped from 33 per cent in 1990 to 26 per cent
in 2006.
Success or failure? Still possible by 2015 but lack of progress in
sub-Saharan Africa, where workers earn less than $1 a day.
Goal two Universal primary education by 2015.
Progress 570 million children worldwide enrolled in school. Those not
enrolled fell from 103 million in 1999 to 73 million in 2006. Primary
school enrolment reached 88 per cent in 2006, up 5 per cent per cent from
2000.
Success or failure? 38 million children in sub-Saharan Africa are not
enrolled, while in southern Asia 18 million do not go to school. This goal
may not be achieved by 2015, and there are barriers on girls going to
school.
Goal three Promote gender equality in education by 2015 and empower women.
Progress 55 per cent of children not in school are girls. Women occupy
about 30 per cent of parliamentary seats in 20 countries. Women occupy 40
per cent of all paid jobs, up 5 per cent on 1990.
Success or failure? 113 countries failed to achieve equality of enrolment;
only 18 will meet the target. Since 2000, the proportion of women in
parliaments rose from 13.5 to 17.9 per cent.
Goal four Reduce child mortality of under-fives by two-thirds between 1990
and 2015.
Progress Deaths of under-fives declined from 93 to 72 deaths per 1,000 live
births between 1990 and 2006, and child deaths dropped below 10 million a
year in 2006.
Success or failure? Children born in developing countries still 13 times
more likely to die under five. Between 1990 and 2006, 26 countries made no
progress in reducing childhood deaths, while in 27 others the mortality
rate is flat or getting worse.
Goal five Improve maternal health and reduce mortality by two-thirds
between 1990 and 2015.
Progress Maternal mortality decreased by less than 1 per cent per year
between 1990 and 2005; 60 per cent of births were attended by health
professionals in 2006, up 10 per cent since 1990.
Success or failure? 500,000 women a year in developing countries die during
pregnancy. Worst progress of all goals.
Goal six Universal access to treatment for Aids/HIV by 2010 and reverse
spread of HIV/Aids and malaria by 2015.
Progress New HIV cases declined from three million a year in 2001 to 2.7
million in 2007. Funding increased tenfold within a decade. Mosquito net
production rose from 30 million in 2004 to 95 million in 2007.
Success or failure? 7,500 people a day infected with HIV; 5,500 die of
Aids-related illness; 500 million new cases of malaria a year.
Goal seven Reduce loss of biodiversity by 2010 and halve number of people
without access to safe water or sanitation by 2015.
Progress Deforestation declined to 7.3 million hectares a year; 1.6 billion
people have access to drinking water since 1990.
Success or failure? 40 per cent of the world lives with water scarcity, and
fish stocks are overexploited. One billion people still have no access to
safe drinking water and 2.5 billion have no access to basic sanitation, yet
target may still be achieved.
Goal eight Develop a global partnership for development.
Progress The UK is among the few nations to meet targets of giving 0.15 per
cent of gross national Income in aid. The burden of debt in developing
countries fell from 13 per cent of exports in 2000 to 7 per cent in 2006.
Success or failure? Aid dropped from ￡67bn in 2005 to ￡64bn in 2007 but
needs to increase by ￡18bn a year. A third of essential medicines are
available in 30 developing countries.
__._,_.___
Climate Change: Chasm Widens Between Science and Policy
December 19, 2008 by limitlesslife
Monday 15 December 2008
by: Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service
Despite dire warnings from scientists and environmentalists, many regions remain unwilling to adopt necessary changes and standards to encourage a healthier climate. (Photo: greenpeace.org)
Quebec City, Canada – The roof of our house is on fire while the leaders of our family sit comfortably in the living room below preoccupied with “political realities” – that was essentially the message from 1,000 scientists from around the world along with northern indigenous leaders gathered in Quebec City for the International Arctic Change conference that concluded last weekend.
”Climate change and its impacts are accelerating at unexpected rates with global consequences,” delegates warned in a statement.
Presenting data from hundreds of studies and research projects detailing the Arctic region’s rapid meltdown and cascading ecological impacts, participants urged governments to take “immediate measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions”.
By happy coincidence, 190 governments were meeting at the same time in Poznan, Poland to do just that: reach an agreement on how much to reduce emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. Except that they decided to do nothing. They couldn’t even agree to help poorer nations survive the ever-worsening climate crisis by providing funds to strengthen infrastructure, build flood defences and improve agriculture.
In chance hallway encounters in Quebec City, scientists – strictly off the record for fear of losing funding – said climate change is happening far faster and is having much larger impacts than they ever imagined.
”Climate change will be an overwhelming global tragedy without major reductions now,” said one Canadian expert.
In Poznan, politicians declared the meeting a success and pledged to agree to cut emissions at next year’s meeting in Copenhagen.
Meanwhile, the physics of carbon and climate will not wait for economic recovery or a more felicitous political climate.
In 1992, the global community came together in Rio de Janeiro, agreed climate change was a real danger and promised to reduce their emissions of CO2 and other global warming gases. It took five years to create the first climate change treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, which committed rich countries to emissions reductions of five percent below their 1990 levels.
Many countries will meet their very modest reduction targets – with notable exceptions like Canada and Japan, which are grossly over-target by 30 percent. But as far as the atmosphere is concerned, all that counts is global CO2 emissions, and they’ve skyrocketed.
Emissions of CO2 have been growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the previous decade, despite efforts to curb emissions in a number of Kyoto Protocol signatory countries, reports the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of climate scientists.
”This new update of the carbon budget shows the acceleration of both CO2 emissions and atmospheric accumulation is unprecedented and most astonishing during a decade of intense international developments to address climate change,” said Pep Canadell, executive director of the Global Carbon Project, in a statement last September.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere today is well ahead of worst-case projections, hence the accelerating meltdown in the Arctic.
Rather than panicking, governments of Arctic countries seem preoccupied with what they view as an opportunity to exploit the region for its potential energy resources, said Michael Byers, an international law expert at the University of British Columbia in Canada. “National governments don’t get it. We need to keep oil and gas where it is, in the ground,” Byers told IPS in Quebec City.
Canada’s federal government led by Stephen Harper certainly doesn’t get it. In an assessment of performance on climate change released in Poznan by an international coalition of environmental groups, Canada ranked last amongst developed countries and was second only to Saudi Arabia of the 57 largest greenhouse-gas emitters regarding their performance in fighting climate change.
During the Poznan climate talks, Canada was frequently cited for delaying and obstructing agreement during the negotiations. Copying the George W. Bush administration’s contempt for science, the Harper government refused to allow Canada’s leading government scientist on climate, Don MacIver, to go Poznan, even though he was scheduled to speak and his travel costs were paid for.
Fearing continuing “house arrest” under the current government, MacIver has resigned his position as chair of conference organising at the World Meteorological Organisation.
While governments fail to get it, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 stand at 383 parts per million (ppm) and are climbing at two to three ppm per year. Pre-industrial CO2 levels averaged 270 ppm and some climate experts are calling for the need to return to below 350 ppm to truly stabilise the planet.
Three million years ago, when CO2 was estimated to be 400 ppm, new fossil evidence shows forests dominated the Arctic instead the ice, snow and permafrost. Sea levels were 24 meteres higher than today, according to the new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
In a contest between the relentless physics of climate change and continuing political paralysis, our home is doomed to burn to the ground. Many climate activists say that only a grassroots revolution, a global rebellion that overturns the fossil-fuel economic hegemony, will save us now.
Coral Reef Loss Suggests Global Extinction Event
December 13, 2008 by limitlesslife
Published December 12, 2008 07:12 AM
The world is on the brink of a massive extinction event, according to the United Nations.
Rapid releases of greenhouse gas emissions are changing habitats at a rate faster than many of the world’s species can tolerate.
“Indeed the world is currently facing a sixth wave of extinctions, mainly as a result of human impacts,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme in a statement.
A study earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science said the current extinction period, known as the Holocene extinction event, may be the greatest event in the Earth’s history and the first due to human actions. Unlike previous events, however, extinctions are happening over the course of decades rather than centuries. Recent studies suggest that a quarter of the world’s species may go extinct by 2050.
The UN warning accompanies an increasingly frequent round of sobering news about ecosystem failures.
The latest global coral reef assessment estimates that 19 percent of the world’s coral reefs are dead. Their major threats include warming sea-surface temperatures and expanding seawater acidification.
Zooxanthellae, the tiny organisms that give coral reefs their vibrant colors, are emigrating from their hosts in massive numbers as oceans heat up, killing themselves and the coral they leave behind – a process known as coral bleaching.
The report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network Wednesday at the international climate change negotiations in Poznań, Poland, predicts that many of the remaining reefs may disappear within the next 40 years if current emission trends continue.
“If nothing is done to substantially cut emissions, we could effectively lose coral reefs as we know them, with major coral extinctions,” said Clive Wilkinson, the network’s coordinator, in a press release.
Overfishing, pollution, and invasive species continue to be risks as well, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The IUCN declared in October that 38 percent of the 44,838 species it studied across the world are threatened with extinction. Its Red List of Threatened Species considers 22 percent of the world’s mammals, 31 percent of amphibians, and 14 percent of birds threatened or extinct.
Steiner’s warnings of mass extinction came last week as the U.N. Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals added 21 migratory species to its protection list. Migratory species are among the most at-risk to climate change, according to a UNEP report released last year [PDF].
To its list of protected animals, which include the cheetah and Egyptian vulture, the convention added six dolphin species. Nearly one-quarter of the world’s dolphin species are threatened with extinction, mostly due to habitat loss and live capture, according to IUCN.
The demise of coral reefs, however, affects the entire ocean ecosystem – a quarter of all marine fish species reside in the reefs, according to The Nature Conservancy. In addition, IUCN estimates that 500 million people depend on coral reefs for their livelihoods.
The coral reef assessment found that 45 percent of the world’s reefs are healthy – providing hope that some species may be able to endure the changes expected from global warming. Marine biologists are now attempting to understand how certain coral reef species can survive warmer, more acidic ocean waters when others are less fortunate.
Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He canｓｄ be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.
For permission to reprint this article, please contact Julia Tier at jtier@worldwatch.org.
2007. Copyright Environmental News Network
Paradigm Shift
November 28, 2008 by limitlesslifePARADIGM SHIFT
-From limited life to limitless life-
Introduction
With the news of Barak Obama winning the presidential election, not only American people but also people all over the globe rejoiced and even cried. Those moved by this event included African Americans in the United States, who suffer from discrimination, Kenyans who represent part of Obama’s roots, but also most Americans, young and old, and people from around the world who felt like they themselves won. Obama’s campaign message was beyond discrimination (race, religion, gender, generation) for unified communities (society, state, economy, ecology). His victory speech sent out his mission message: “Let’s change the world…Yes, we can!” This lit the torch of sea change, paradigm shift, from the old world to the new one. Confucius said, “If I can hear the Way in the morning, I may die in the evening.” Gandhi said, “If one man can do it, millions can.” If one can find the true Way to live, one will be totally moved to dedicate everything for it. It all depends on how much we are moved and motivated. Motivation is the moving power even of mountains and mundum.
At the end of the last millennium, we found many books and articles with such titles as “The End of the World,” “The End of Ecology,” “The End of Science,” “The End of System,” and at last “The End of All.” At the beginning of the new millennium, we hoped for a fresh millennium with an ending to a ‘century of nationalism and wars,’ and looked forward to a world in peace. Our hopes were shattered by the 911 attack on the hearts of political and economic powers and the ensuing wars on terror and imperialistic advances. Then we found mass extinction and ecological doom setting in within this century. Now we witness economic meltdown and tsunami all around the globe. We are all bound by them. We are now beyond the limit of growth in population, food, etc. Our planet is exhausting resources, energy, species, ecology, etc. Is there any way out of this catastrophic situation? If there is, the answers must come from a completely different approach to the problems and lead to radical new solutions. This new approach can be found by avoiding the usual human pitfalls of fiction (human artifice) and instead taking a close look at truth (natural system). We must learn the lesson from the following story, that whole (total) perspective and wholesome (peaceful) practice are the solution:
The King Mirror (Adassa) summoned blind men to feel
a certain animal and report to him what they found. One
reported that it was a snake. Another said it was a hose. Still
Another said it was like a pillar. And another thought it was
a wall. Then they started fighting among themselves, claiming
their own findings true and others’ wrong.
1. Problems
a. Personal problems
1. Personal problems caused by the desire for self-survival
We are suffering, because we cannot escape from the suffering of our birth, sickness, aging and death, parting with loved ones, meeting with hated ones, always wishing for survival and satisfaction. Consciously or unconsciously we have fear, sorrow, anxiety and uncertainty in life and death. We suffer, because things change against our desires. We suffer from systems’ breakdown at different levels: individual, social and global. In short, our suffering is dissatisfaction, discrepancy between our desire and reality, or we might say, reality going against desire (duk-kha, wrong-going). Where there is desire, there is suffering. Usually members of the same species do not cheat and kill each other. Humans, however, have been doing this at extraordinary ways and degrees, individually, socially and globally (lies, killings, wars, genocides, WMD, species extinction). We lack trust among us, which, as Confucius taught, is more important in sustaining communities than food and military forces. It is obvious that we are the most selfish among species, as is evidenced by our practice of mass scale sacrifice and slaughter of animals for devouring. This is what we do to our fellow human beings also. This is exactly what the blind people in the previous story did. The same theme will be illustrated again below, page 5, through the story of the parents lost in the desert. We are so selfish and sunken in our habits (karma) that we are unable to notice and admit it. How can we have safety, security and satisfaction without trust among people, in societies and the life system? How can we have a truthful, peaceful, free and friendly world with selfish, trustless, fighting people.
2. Personal problems at present
Even in normal situations, our psycho-physical systems deteriorate, decay and die according to the systemic and organic laws (laws of thermodynamics and genome arrangement). In addition to the natural process, we humans have our special cravings; thus we have more problems in abnormal scale. With the present ecological, economic deterioration, our systems have obviously reached a critical point:
Individual system: Our psycho-somatic systems are deviled, deteriorated (especially reproductive, immune and nerve-systems), crippled, diseased (newer, harder) and disabled (by chemical, radioactive, industrial, governmental mismanagement and pollution).
b. Social problems
1. Social problems created out of self-strife
We are now facing catastrophic problems in the world’s economic and ecological systems, collapsing human civilization and the global life system. With jobless, homeless, starvation rates at an all time high many people are suffering and struggling for survival. We compete and wage wars against other humans, as if we were natural enemies. We have been living in a world largely dictated by Social Darwinism theory – survival of the strongest. Because of this many systems have become “treachery and robbery systems.” Thus, honesty becomes not the best policy. We cannot employ such systems partially, but only totally, because the fundamental principle prevails – all are interrelated and relative. Everyone is doubtful, fearful and trustless. If we continue this way, everyone is set to lose, though no one wants to lose (survival of the shrewdest). We face social problems of all kinds: crimes, shooting sprees, hatred, envy, bullying, stealing and lying. We have political, ideological, racial and religious massacre, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terrorism. This Darwinian winner-take-all mentality has us pointing nuclear warheads at each other on hair-trigger alert for total annihilation.
2. Social problems of civilization
Civilization (=urbanization, from Latin civitas, city states with walls for wars) is a pyramidal system to discriminate, exploit, exterminate others (farmers, foreigners, forests, forest-dwellers, etc.). Those at the top of the pyramid try to make higher pyramids, polarizing people, plants and the planet with more matter and power (economical, social, political, military). Because we are bound by matter and power, and money buying them (Chinese/Japanese character 金 ‘money or gold’ has a pyramidal shape, so a ‘pyramid’ is called ‘money-character-tower,’ ‘kin-ji-tou,’), we are on the verge of economic and ecological breakdown by the bubbling and breaking up of the natural system. Unless our desires are limited, a limited global system cannot meet them. As civilization is the system of craving, it must either suffer or stop. This is the civilization’s concomitant nature and fate. Human civilization is at a critical and terminal stage:
Civilization system: The production-social-spiritual system involves discrimination (racially, religiously, economically, socially, culturally), deprivation (malnutrition, starvation, homeless, jobless, refugee situation, etc.), damage (stresses, diseases, withdrawal, etc.), deformities (crimes, terrorism, money-games, political/military/industrial complex, bribery, etc.) and doom (wars, Atomic-Biological-Chemical weapons, wastes, accidents, disasters).
c. Global problems
1. Global problems created by the modern human drive for self-satisfaction
We have been facing the global problematique i.e. globally interconnected problems such as global warming, abnormal climate, species extinction, resource depletion, deforestation, desertification and ecological deterioration. We are set in the sixth mass extinction. This time it is being caused by the human species unlike the previous ones, which came about due to natural causes. We are facing a tragedy similar to the one that inhabitants of Easter Island once faced, where people cut down the last tree and eventually their neighbors’ throats to eat their flesh, unable to build boats, etc. We are also eating our beloved children as depicted in the Son’s Flesh Scripture, Our Stolen Future, Rodin’s sculpture Ugolinu, also in the Human Comedy.
2. Global problematique, civilization cancer
The Son’s Flesh Scripture tells us of the parents, lost in a desert, who at last ate their beloved son’s flesh out of thirst and hunger. This story tells us that we are feeding on the Four Foods, material and mental (perceptions, feeling, volition) as if eating our beloved one’s flesh. We are devouring our dearest ones (irreplaceable life of others and our own) to feed and fatten our thirst and hunger. We care only about ourselves, sacrificing others. For matter and power, we even sacrifice our own mind and life. All sorrows and suffering come from self-centeredness bent for self-satisfaction. Our ‘selves’ are short-sighted and short-circuited, while the global life system is not equipped to handle this. Thus, the whole world is now ablaze, as the Burning Scripture tells us:
The world is ablaze. The eyes are ablaze. The ears are ablaze. The nose is ablaze. The tongue is ablaze. The body is ablaze. The mind is ablaze.
The blazing world is now in danger of doom and destruction, in which we are accomplices:
Life system: Plant and animal habitat systems such as forests and reefs are deteriorating; lives and life systems are being decimated, deranged and devastated. Air, water and earth systems are globally warming-up which has lead to farmlands and rivers drying-up as well as desertification of lands and lakes. Resources, energy and the ozone layer are polluted, depleted and deteriorating.
2. Cause
a. Personal cause.
1. Craving, the cause of suffering
We are craving. Craving is the direct cause of our suffering (duk-kha, going against grain or desire). All suffering or problems (universal ones such as aging, death, and particular ones such as wars, eco-collapse) originate from our craving. We would not suffer, if we had no craving and just accepted reality. We want to survive and therefore we crave food, shelter, etc. The word ‘want’ expresses the nature of our craving, both sides of the coin are inseparable: ‘wish’ and ‘lack.’ The root cause of our craving, however, lies in our nescience, nescience (no wisdom: witness) of the nature of our ‘self’ and ‘situation’. As moving animals, we sense our bodies as if separated and independent from the world. As our cravings grow greater, our dissatisfactions or suffering become bigger. Our wanting knows no limit, going against the reality of lacking, loss, decay and death. Our wanting is limitless, but the reality is not.
2. What is reality?
Reality is the phenomenal world. Phenomena means changes in the relations of states through the interplay of causes and conditions in space and time. We can interpret them as dynamic systems with elements, relations and dynamo (moving power). ‘System,’ ‘elements,’ etc. are not entities, but temporary designations (names, labels) having super and sub systems (universe, galaxies, stars, plants, organs, cells, atoms, molecules, etc.) which are interrelated and interchangeable (matter and energy). For now it suffices to say that reality is a collection of systems in causal relationships. Reality is the system of systems whose phenomena are infinitely related and relative.
3. Reality is the dynamic system
We name a form and think ‘name’ (reference) has its ‘substance’ (referent). This habit makes two mistakes, fiction (dragon, ghost, turtle’s hair, hare’s horn, etc.) and fictitious entity (Self, Soul, State, etc.). In reality, there is no absolute, independent, eternal entity in our phenomenal world, because all are related and relative, dependent and changing. ‘Self’ for instance is interrelated, interchangeable and impermanent with other (people, plant, light, language, water, wind, etc.). It is a dynamic system with constant flow and interaction between matter and energy, with limitless causes and conditions throughout space and time.
4. Law of causality and Dependent Origination
If we avoid conceptualization and attest to reality, we witness no such thing as the self-same, sovereign ‘self,’ but instead find an impermanent, interrelated ‘system,’ provisionally named ‘self,’ constantly changing within itself and in relation to others. If we truly understand this, all forms and functions are related and relative, neither separated nor absolute. This was depicted by the Buddha (Awakened One) millennia ago (as the ‘norm of all forms,’ ‘Dharma of all dharmas’ i.e. Dependent Origination: ‘All phenomena are dependently originated on causes and conditions.’) and by natural scientists recently (as Causal Law). It is clear that there is no self-same, sovereign ‘self’ entity (no ‘Self’) in the Awakened Way or in natural sciences. This has always been the truth everywhere and throughout all time.
The popularly known Dependent Origination is the 12-membered one. It was formulated to teach us about how we live in suffering. It informs us the origination of 1) perception/consciousness (dependently originated on sense organs and objects), 2) suffering (on craving), 3) birth/aging/death (on nescience) in three steps of delusion, action and suffering as follows (the top, the center and the bottom correspond to 1 to 3.):
5. Reality and fiction
For convenience’s sake, we admit ‘self’ in conventional dealings (communication, commerce, court, etc.). This is called ‘conventional truth’ (sammuti satya: being in agreement: common sense) in contradistinction to ‘ultimate truth’ (parama-artha satya: being in ultimate sense) in the Awakened Way. We may compare such ‘self’ with a bubble in the ocean (ocean symbolizing a dynamic integral life system, with water, wind, etc.). Because we are brought up and trained in the conventional human world, we become very self-conscious and self-centered, unlike the girls discarded by their parents and fostered by wolves (with wolf-habit, without human one) and much less like trees (living in harmony with the whole world, without willfully selfish senses).
6. Four Idola, five idols
Francis Bacon described human idola, idolatry habits or traits. They are idolon of cave (individual), of agora (public space, societal), of theater (authority) and of species (human). We may think of these four characteristics as self, society, status, species and add symbolism as the fifth idolatry characteristic of humans. The last is the most important characteristic of human ability and action, a double-edged sword with the ability to cook or kill.
7. Symbolism, human characteristic
Ernst Cassirer considered humans to be ‘animals of symbolism’ (homo symbolicum), skillful in handling symbolism. Human characteristics lie in constructing symbolic world of languages, mythologies, religions, histories, arts and sciences. Language enabled humans to figure out reality in perspective with science and history, but it also enabled us to fabricate an artificial world. We are idea-latry, idea-worshippers and idea-warriors (ideas, isms, ideologies). Thus, we believe in ideas such as Self, State and Civilization as real or entity (static substance), rather than illusory (dynamic system, changing and relative).
8. Self symbol, root cause
Humans developed a strong sense of ‘self’ as a symbol handler. Through movements, we identify our bodies as our ‘selves’ and through thoughts, we identify our minds as our ‘selves.’ When we possess things (material or mental), we become possessed by them. Possession is possessedness. We become bound and boxed in, according to our possession (convention, conviction, creed, etc.). We are boxed up in different sizes, matter, power, mind and life. We live in such boxes as cars, cages and cell-phones, coffins and so forth. For human beings, the conviction of my ‘self’ as independent from other ‘selves’ is the most common one. Because of motion and conception, we become attached to the ‘self’ so much that our thoughts and actions revolve around self-survival, self-satisfaction and self-centeredness. This is the root cause, the first mismatch of the button and button hole, leading to the ensuing mismatches (the five calamities). In reality, we do not and cannot possess material things, because they are part and parcel of the total universal system, flowing, fluctuating and fluxing constantly and continuously. We must understand and be content with the functioning or state of being (activation or appreciation) rather than gain or loss (greed or grief).
9. Five calamities
The mismatch (delusion of ‘self’) is followed by bondage, discrimination, exploitation and extermination (five calamities). Our competition and conflict with others arises out of our belief in ‘self’ as center of the universe, we are constantly seeking to protect our ‘self’ against the ‘other. As our ‘self-shell’ gets harder, our world gets more antagonistic, ‘others’ becoming foreigners and foes. We witness this now in extremely expanded ways in our daily living, in concrete forms such as deception, fraud, discrimination in race, religion, gender, generation, exploitation of humans, animals, resources and extermination of races, species.
b. Social cause
1. Humans, social animal
We are trained in our society to behave as ‘selves,’ to compare and compete with others, for more matter and power. We constantly identify and intensify our ‘selves’ with possessions and positions, calling ‘I’ (ego), ‘my,’ etc. Because of this ego-calling, we become ego-centric and even imagine an ego-entity. Thus, we fight for tangible material possessions and social positions (fortune and fame: “Only two,” a monk replied, to an emperor asking how many boats were busily plying up and down on the great river.) for survival and strength. This is the primal motivating power for abundance and convenience (of civilization).
2. Civilization, fight for matter and power
This civilization that has been cradled in the globe is now infesting and making a cemetery of it, as cancer invades its host. City states (polis, pura, burg, bourg, etc.) were citadels, with walls and moats set in place, outsiders becoming discriminated against, exploited and exterminated. Civilizations constructed pyramids (ziggurats, tower of Babel) and created ‘pyramidal society’ inside out (starting wars, colonies, slaves, classe). Because matter (material wealth) and power (social status) are limited, we must fight for and fence them. Pyramidal systems are not natural, cyclical, systemic, sustainable, safe (resource, energy, power, position). Because they lack systemic truth and social trust, they have never been wholesome and peaceful. The idea that pyramidal systems can continue to grow and prosper through the use of the Earth’s limited material resources is in contradiction with the way natural systems actually function and thrive. Because the pyramidal system is working against the natural systems wrought by the whole universe and its history, our pyramidal system must collapse due to its system flaw. It is set to fail ecologically, economically, socially and culturally.
c. Global cause
1. Civilization, cancer of life system
The global problematique is caused by civilization, the cancer of the global life system. Mass production, consumption and disposal of matter for hedonism and hegemony (mass military complex) are burdening our ecology and economy, and damaging the Earth’s life system and quality. Having spread all over the globe, creating the global problematique, the cancerous civilization has initiated its own death and possibly the death also of the global life system.
2. Humans, cause of global crises
Our short, small and shallow sights and satisfactions in ordinary living requiring material abundance and powerful convenience are the real cause of our global crises. We think we can buy them with money, but we actually become slaves to them. Money can buy neither abundant life nor powerful mind, neither truth nor peace. Rather, we are buried by money, matter and power, and at the same time, we bury truth, beauty, goodness, holiness and peace. The whole human endeavor has produced great global calamities, but has led to neither gratification nor gratitude.
3. Solution
a. Personal solution
1. Returning to wholesome whole
We have a solution. Because we started suffering, we can stop it. We can stop it by stilling our craving. Craving comes from our nescience of our ‘selves’ that we are separate ‘selves.’ Religion, the vanguard of the Spiritual Revolution, aimed at solving this problem. Religion means re-union (from Latin re-ligare). Otto Schrader defined religion as the holy. Sin means separation (cf. asunder, sundry, etc.). Separation is solitude and suicide in the system (society, ecology). Religion is to re-unite the separated self (self and other, body and mind, etc.) with the holy (wholly, wholesome). We have been raised and educated in civilization, the pyramidal system, and, therefore, became separated, selfish and sinful.
2. Law of ability
Habit is said to be our second nature. Shin’ichi Suzuki taught us five principles of ‘ability education’ (‘mother tongue method’), illustrating how human girls grew like wolves, running on all fours, seeing in the darkness, smelling meat at one hundred meters away, lapping up water rather than drinking, neither speaking nor thinking with human language. The five principles of ability are better environment, better method, better instructor, earlier start and more practice. The Awakened One said that friends make the whole of our life and that religion is cultivation. We can become either wolves or awakened ones. Knowing how life adjusts to environment through the evolutionary process, we understand that karma (cognate of ‘ceremony:’ formed action: habit, ‘creation:’ action: function) makes our first nature, cultivating our body and mind (long and short products of practice). Practice makes perfect. Our body and mind and our heredity and ability are dependently originated – developed by practices and environment that have limitless causes and conditions. We are part and parcel of the universe in time and space throughout this process.
3. Paradigm shift, from Self to Life (ego to eco)
As we have more knowledge and deeper insight, we can understand how this kind of variegated world is dependently originated on limitless causes and conditions. If we know how phenomena originate, we can adjust conditions to change results (ex. adjusting water, nutrition, light for seeds to grow or die). We must open our hearts and minds first, to observe suffering (problems), source (of suffering: causes/conditions), cessation (of suffering: solutions) and way (to cessation of suffering: methods) - Four Noble Truths. This approach is a systemic ‘system approach.’ The law of Dependent Origination was the first “system theory,” discovering the relatedness and relativity of all phenomena. The conventional truth (common sense) is an impediment to the ultimate truth and the culprit of civilization (ex. discrimination of race and religion, slavery, sexism). So, we must attain and apply the ultimate truth in our life to be freed from the conventional truth.
The most common but complex convention is the inhabited idea of the ‘independent’ (‘eternal,’ ‘absolute’) ‘Self.’ Our senses identify “the body” as “my body,” as if the senses (perception/consciousness) possess the body and as if the senses (‘I’ idea) are separated and independent of the world. Actually our body, sense and mind are an inseparable system, each part dependent on the other and on the world in order to function properly. Other individuals are separated and independent by name only. Language symbols cut out only one aspect of the world, integral whole, as if separated and then reifies it as independent (substance, entity). We usually think that a word (reference, signifier, symbol) has its object (referent, signified, symbolized). Thus, we think that there is something called ‘I’ (body, mind, substance, soul, etc.). But in reality ‘I’ is only a symbol referring to impermanent, inseparable phenomena (with bodies, organs, cells, genes, matter, energy, air, water, food, forest, stars, etc.) in constant dynamic flow and flux, assimilation and association (thus, no exact referent, entity, separable, independent, constant). Our individual life systems are inseparable and integral parts and parcel of the global life system. Individual systems cannot exist without the global system, even though the latter can exist without the former. It is, therefore, a gross mistake for a man (self) to conquer (control selfishly) mankind (society) or for the mankind to conquer a global life system (species or space).
Individual systems (humans, animals, plants, etc.) are systemically (organically, socially, culturally) integrated with (mit) other individual systems, sharing and supporting each other. This is truth. “Only truth wins” (Indian national emblem), because truth is the universal system reality in limitless relations throughout space and time. We must return to this truth. This is what religions intended (from sin to holy). Separation damages and destroys systems. This causes imbalance in integral whole and results in suffering. We must shift our paradigm of ‘ego’ to ‘eco’ and focus on the health of the entire system as opposed to a small part of this system. This is the “Life Revolution.” This is the only solution.
Social solution
1. Returning to togetherness, friendship
When we understand the truth (Dependent Origination) through our knowledge and when we witness this reality (related and relative system) through meditation (stopping karma, returning to the original state: becoming tree-like: true), we can comply with the truthful world of interdependence and interconnectedness. In our knowledge of truth we are together with all. The domain of friendship (Greek philia, Sanskrit priya) is the true free-dom, beloved-domain (priya-dhaman Sanskrit). Only when we become friends with others can we become free. Only where we become true, we can become free. All living beings, plants or animals, are all in essence sisters and brothers. We are the family of forty billion years old sharing the same life system. Environment is essential part and parcel of this system, though this word was produced by misconception and is producing misconduct, giving the impression of it as ‘outside of life’ (sur-rounding, um-welt).
2. Truth of interdependence
An independent ‘self’ is a delusion due to the symbolic nature of human language. Such a delusion never happens with other animals much less plants. ‘Tree’ and ‘true’ share the same root which means enduring millennia or eternally (deru: to endure, or dhrί: to hold: root of dharma: form, norm, law, truth), while humans and ideas belie and become superstitious as we grow older and time passes.
3. Paradigm shift, from civilization to culture (from pyramid to circle)
The same system truth of individuals applies to social systems. No society can be independent of other societies and global systems. The constant flow of matter, energy and information is vital to the survival of each society. If the flow subsides or stops, systems must dwindle and die. The five calamities of any pyramidal system cut the natural, circulating flow of matter and artificially sidetrack them to the top, depleting the base.
This truth applies also to ‘human civilization,’ the sum of ‘human societies.’ Civilization has the flaw of limitedness in perspective and practice. It aims at matter and power (or money buying them) rather than mind and life, and in doing so, sacrifices the latter. This is the mini-max (small-great in scale) fallacy. This is taking a part as the whole and the fundamental fallacy pattern (special, valued) including pre-posterous (temporal), mundane-supramundane (dimentional). We are so possessed and enslaved by money, we do not even doubt such irrational and illogical question as “money or life?” Such a pyramid (money over life, etc.) is unstable in logic and value. The question of ‘money’ only makes sense if one has ‘life’. We are so selfish that we are blind to others (minority, victim, prey, etc.). If we do not change ourselves, we must live with wars, terrorisms, fights, frauds, fear and despair forever. Some, however, have seen the dangers in such problems, and started more NGOs, NPOs, mini-media, internet, interfaith actions, life-long education, etc., which liberate such fictitious bodies as nations, corporations and our selves. For this to be carried out and completed, we must shift our paradigm from civilization (fighting for matter and power) to culture (sharing of mind and life), cultivation of truth, goodness, beauty and holiness (sciences, ethics, arts and religions).
b. Global solution
1. Return to peace, Spiritual Revolution
The Spiritual Revolution (aiming at mind, from 2.5 thousand years ago) by philosophy/religion (Buddha, Confucius, Lao-tzu, Socrates, Yājñavalkya, et al) was the revolution (called the Axial Age) in revolt to the previous Production Revolution (aiming at matter, 10 thousand years ago) and Social Revolution (aiming at power, 5 thousand years ago). The Social Revolution was the drastic shifting point when human society separated from the natural world. The first stage was building city states (second: nation states) with walls. This delusion of separation and bondage by it caused discrimination, exploitation, and extermination (five calamities). This was the origin of the Pyramidal System which sucks material and energy resources and depletes the natural world.
2. Reality of civilization, pyramidal society
Civilization is essentially this Pyramidal System which fights for limited matter and power and stacks them up unilaterally (inside and upward) severing the natural cyclical flow and full function. It is the artificial system flaw hindering the natural system flow. This Pyramidal System inevitably entails the five calamities (delusion, discrimination, etc.). The Spiritual Revolution aimed at reverting and converting this unnatural, untruthful and unethical system and practice by realizing the sharing limitless mind and life and aiming at the five blisses of awakening in truth, freedom, equality, love and peace. (See attached diagram of Civilization and Culture with Problematique)
3. Paradigm shift, from competition to co-living (from sin to holy)
How can we wake up from the nightmare of ecological and economic doom and demise? We must liberate ourselves from the dream of possessing matter and power (money to acquire them). The devastation and destruction is the other side of the coin (possessed by them, losing all else). Our nescience that my self is separated from other makes us compete and conquer others, making us stiffer and smaller in limited life. This is the starting point to all ensuing problems and suffering. Our awakening that our life is part and parcel of the total dynamic life system lets us share and save all and let all be totally liberated and limitless in truth, beauty, goodness and holiness. Then only can we enjoy the five blisses with anyone anywhere any time.
4. Method
a. Personal method
1. Solid sitting, stopping karma (habit energy)
We have the method for solving our problems. It is to eliminate the cause of the problem by stilling craving. Wherefrom craving comes? It comes from our nescience, ignorance of the true nature of so-called self. Craving and nescience come from our karma. Our habits (common senses, conventional ways) are very difficult to break, especially the self-survival instinct. There is, however, a very reasonable, concrete, effective way to stop it. It is to stop karma (habit, action and action result, psycho-physical). It is solid, still sitting (shikan-taza, devoted, just sitting). When we sit still and solid, we stop physical and mental habits and fabrications (‘dropping off of body and mind,’ freedom from them and freedom of them). This is the essential process to neutralize our position and to become selfless and objective (returning to origin, freeing from bondage). From this vantage point, we can have true perspective and practice, profound insight and powerful action, positive appreciation and penetrating performance. The Bodhisattva (Awakening-being) Never Disparaging is said to bow everyone, even when being stoned, in receding and respecting. If we sit and learn the backward steps, we can see farther and know that all humans are equal, that all living beings are equal, and that all things are in equal life system. When we practice sitting constantly and continually, we can go beyond the sense of inside and out, self and other, life and death (beyond conceptions and emotions). It is the “come and see” way, which anybody without discrimination can witness anywhere anytime.
2. Unconditioned peace and unsurpassed awakening
This practice eventually endows us with unconditioned peace (nirvana) and unsurpassed right awakening (anuttara samyak sambodhi). Any originated phenomena can be ceased by ceasing causes and conditions. So any physical or mental action can cease, especially later acquired habits subsiding, but vital functions strengthened. When we let our unnatural volitions, emotions and conceptions (anger, craving and nescience) go, our natural life functions are refreshed, free and full. Our bad habits stiffen and sever the natural system flow and dynamics. When they are relaxed and recreated, they reenergize and resume the original function. Especially the enhanced vital function of breathing brings heart rate, blood pressure, nerve function (usually uncontrollable) into their best conditions (well coordinated). It supplies sufficient oxygen to vitalize all organs and cells for complete consummation and coordination, fully awakened and activated. The total system comes back to the original, natural, full function. Our total psycho-somatic-world system starts to work as a wholesome whole in peace and harmony. Here we witness a selfless, seamless realm like “the entire world in ten directions as a clear crystal ball,” as Xuan-sha remarked. It shows that the self-conception and self-centeredness are later-acquired habits. It reveals the ultimate truth, the reality of Dependent Origination and the selfless realm beyond conceptualization. It leads to the truth that there is the supra-mundane realm beyond conventional (instinctive, idea-ridden). We can witness re-union with the holy, wholesome whole. So long as we stick to the stiff small ‘self,’ we can never solve the sorrow and suffering of the vicissitude of life, fear of death, etc. Only when we witness the delusion of the absolute ‘self,’ originated from this body, and ‘my’ (mein, mei) body, then ‘I’ (Ich, Ego), we become awakened from delusive daydreaming. Only when we wake up, can we know that we have been dreaming. Until then, we continue dreaming dreadful dreams of the self-serpent in the self-snare. Awakening is not about acquiring anything. It is rather about letting go of acquired habits. So, anyone can return. Actually everyone must return, and everyone has been from the very beginning. We just stop our daydreaming and delusion. Our house (eco) and ourselves are burning and collapsing. We must urgently extinguish the hair-catching fire. Where there is the will, there is the way. We need not spread leather over the globe, but to rather put on our shoes.
3. From three poisons to three learning
From the nescience of truth (selfless system in infinite interrelation), we act out of habit selfishly, craving for or angering against other. Nescience, craving and anger are our basic habits and are called the Three Poisons, which torment and eventually kill ourselves and others. To counter them and un-condition the conditioned habit, the Awakened Way offers the Three Learnings as follows:
1. Volitional realm: morality (sīla)
2. Emotional realm: meditation (Samādhi)
3. Intellectual realm: prognosis (prajñā)
Volition leads to action. Sīla means pillar, backbone or an established character. Our habits easily lead to instinctive, self-centered actions which damage and destroy systems and situations. The Five Precepts or the Ten Precepts are prescribed to avoid damage and destruction, the former being:
1. No killing
2. No stealing
3. No sexual misconduct
4. No lying
5. No intoxicant
The first is to stop irretrievable, irreparable offenses, and on a higher level and primal order from the other four. No one by no means can correct or compensate this offense, terminating all potentials and possibilities of the destroyed life system. The second one is to maintain the material support for the life system. The third is to guard the gender/generation relation of the life system. The fourth sustains social trust and cohesion. The fifth is to attain an awakened and wakeful life.
Samādhi means concentration or concerted state of the mind. The Four Stages are characterized as follows (x: ceased; volition and emotion ceased in these stages):
Investigation contemplation joy comfort single-pointed mind
1st stage o o o o o
2nd stage x x o o o
3rd stage x x x o o
4th stage x x x x o
Solid sitting meditation is the sole, stable method of naturally stilling and ceasing karmas (three karmas of physical, verbal and mental, past and present), eventually perfecting in unconditioned peace (nirvana). ‘Nir-vāna’ (and ni-vāta) means ‘no-wind’ representing a candle illuminating all without flickering shadows, calm and clear in the windless state. When the psycho-physical system becomes still and serene, it reflects truth, like when a bowl of water settles without turbulence and turbidity, reflecting reality.
b. Social method
1. From civilization to culture
Nescience of system dynamics leads to system malfunction and destruction. The fundamental nescience and possessiveness of the ‘self’ extend to ‘society’ and ‘civilization.’ They fight for tangible, but limited, matter and power, exploiting and exhausting others and themselves. These fictitious sub-systems go against the real super-systems (by competition, conflict, contamination). The end result is economic and ecological meltdown that we all suffer from. Our house (eco from Greek oikos) is burning and collapsing inside and out. Although self-centeredness is prevalent, it is especially powerful as individualism in the Western tradition, now prevailing globally. Individualism was easily developed in the nomadic life style and enhanced in the pyramidal social structure (patriarchal, imperial), conquering nature and creature and counteracting (rights movement). Individualism and imperialism (separation and sovereignty) are not compatible with the social and natural super-system (free flow and full function). In this way, Gandhi is correct to say, “Ganges of rights comes from Himalaya of responsibilities.” Like him we must live in truth (satya-āgraha: holding truth) and peace (a-himsā: un-hurting). The grand-system of life has been in truth and harmony. Sub-systems (individuals and societies) must find peaceful, harmonious and limitless ways in harmony with this grand-system. There is no way other than waking up from our dreadful dream and changing our perspective and practice. We must shift our perspective and practice from our partial, stiff, separate, sub-system (self-centered) to the total, dynamic, integral super-system (life-centered). We must also shift from limited values and ways: from fighting for ‘limited matter and power’ to sharing ‘limitless mind and life.’ If we are not bound or boxed, we find abundant truth, goodness, beauty and holiness as well as the limitless resources to create them infinitely. We are already endowed with limitless life, light, liberation and love, if only we are awakened to them. “If we share joy, it doubles,” it is said, “If we share sorrow, it halves.” In reality, if we share joy, it becomes limitless, if we share sorrow, it becomes nil. Culture is cultivating our potential into full flowering and fruiting.
2. From five calamities to five blisses
Civilization entails the five calamities and is endemic in destruction, because it starts with delusion and strives for stiff (bondage) separation (discrimination) with exploitation of system stock and service ending in extermination of its flow and function. Culture, on the other hand, cultivates fields and faculties in awakening in truth and creates goodness, beauty and holiness with equality, love and peace (five blisses). Cultivation in knowledge and action leads from Conventional Truth/way to Ultimate Truth/way, life in truth and ethic. Culture promises truth and peace in the total system and promote them in universal cooperation and compassion. More and more people are striving for truth and peace. Scientific researchers and religious practitioners are especially concerned about the global system truth and the global ethic. The Declaration toward the Global Ethic requests that we all observe the universal principles of conduct as irrevocable directives commonly held by all religions as follows (deriving from the Five Precepts above-mentioned, etc.):
Commitment to the culture of
1. non-violence and respect for life
2. solidarity and a just economic order
3. tolerance and a life of truthfulness
4. equal rights and partnership between men and women
The InterAction Council (OB Summit composed of scholars and ex-presidents, ex-premiers, et al) drafted the “Declaration of Human Responsibilities” based and formulated on the “Declaration toward the Global Ethic” and presented it to the United Nations requesting it to be issued at the 50th anniversary of the “Declaration of Human Rights” as its counterpart. It, however, was delayed reportedly by “rights” pushers as not timely. From the essential and entire global life system, responsibilities should come before individual rights. The InterAction Council meeting in 2007 admitted that there will be no rights without life and further advances this movement.
The Awakened One said that religion is cultivation, wakefully to go beyond our state of ‘habit-machine’ (kamma-yanta, karma-yantra). In general, religions have proclaimed “one world in truth” (Dao, Dharma, Deva, Dyau, Zeus, Jovis, Yahwe, etc.) and promoted “a friend” (or a companion) as a future savior or an ideal figure (Mitra, Mithra, Mettheya, Maitreya, Miroku, Mazda, Messiah, etc.). Instead of just waiting for someone to save us, it is the high time to begin cultivating ourselves to be one. Otherwise, religion becomes idle talk rather than actual walk, never reaching the goal of re-uniting with the holy, never realizing the wholesome whole. If yeast is inert and ineffective, the bread of love and life will fail to rise ready for communion and community.
The paradise or pure land will never be realized without our awakening and activation. Unless awakened and actualized, we remain in delusion and devastation, wherever whenever. Only in a shift form Conventional Truth to Ultimate Truth, mundane to supra-mundane, can we realize nirvana in samsara (flow, vicissitude), heaven on earth, blessing in poverty, Utopia. This does not depend on possession or position, money or monarchy. It is the mental realm, u-topos (no-place) for the matter-possessed. The power-possessed are life-blind. Yajñavalkya, a great Upanishadic philosopher promulgating the ‘Ultimate-self-identity’ (‘Brahman-atman-unity’: Brahma-ātma- aikyam through prāņa ‘breath’ or ‘life’ cf. pneuma) told that even the world filled with gold would not impart anyone immortality. Upa-ni-shad (sitting-low-beside) must be not beside teacher but truth. Anyone can “come and see” by sitting with (mit) truth as friend (mitra). The Buddha said, “Better than conquering thousand upon thousand in the battlefield is conquering one self. This is the true conqueror.” (No one can conquer such a conqueror. Such conquerors can make all conquerors, no defeated ones. Especially in cooperation, they can change the world. Conquering others creates more foes, only producing more pyramids.) He also said that one cannot reach the end of the world by walking. The world is a sense world, dependent on sense organs and objects, a mind-world, inseparable. Confucius said that if a man can for a day master himself and return to propriety, all under heaven will return to humanity (jen: affinity between men). He also said that doing jen depends on oneself, not on others and that one who does jen in full power a day is never deficient in his ability, but only deficient in seeing it. He also said that being rich and famous in injustice is like a floating cloud and that seeing righteousness and not doing it is due to lacking the courage. Doing nothing is allowing oneself to be an accomplice with the present systems.
3. From fictitious bodies to real systems
Fictitious bodies cannot sustain themselves, much less in antagonistic relations with other systems in and out. This is why pyramidal systems (civilizations, empires, etc.) do not last (misuse of resources, energy). The pyramidal systems claim efficiency and efficacy of their own and never mind to using propaganda, lies, superstition, wars, pollutions, but cannot take real responsibilities due to their fictitious nature. Nations, corporations, religions, media and educational institutions are five major players in the modern civilization. They, especially under nationalism and capitalism, play havoc with the global life system, eminently its ecology and economy. Artificial pyramidal civilization must shift to natural circulating culture. These self-centered fictitious bodies must shift to life-centered real systems:
a. Nation states
States are essentially political (cf. polis) systems to control matter and power. Nation means natives (born) to the land. State is the status over the estates. A nation state is comprised of land, nationals and sovereignty. Sovereignty is a borrowed idea from ‘sovereign king,’ a fictitious idea but a forced fact. This ‘sovereignty’ fiction forces power (police, military) over the ruled, against other nations and other systems (oppression, war, exploitation). Wars are power struggles between states (city states to nation states) culminating in the last century as “the century of nationalism and wars,” claiming more than a hundred million human casualties with more crippled. Wars are the worst and most wretched actions nation states wage, misusing and destroying everything (resources, right, pollution, poisoning). The reform nations must enact is to abolish wars and militarism. War is neither by instinct nor fate, but man-made, latest and short-lived (0.1% of the human history). A study showed that 10% of the world’s military budget (1 trillion dollars per year) could shift war industries (including training, relocating) to peace industries and 10% could solve environmental, resource, poverty and population problems. Nationalism, imperialism, unilateralism, etc. are disturbing and destroying the global life system (eco-systems) and global life forms (animals, plants). Power concentration has been misused in the form of state’s evils and calamities (delusion: sovereignty to wage war, to kill, to invade, bondage: dictatorship, censorship, religion, education, discrimination: race, religion, gender, class, exploitation: colonialism, conscription, taxing, rights, extermination: mass murder of species, humans, by race, religion, ideology, capital punishment, wars). Nation states are not only malfunctioning but are now detrimental to the global life system. Human communities advanced from bands, tribes, regions and up to nations, and must now shift to a global community with global villagers with the five blisses. In transition, we have examples of super-states like European Union (U.S.A., Commonwealth of Independent States), and super-state organizations such as the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. Many NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are now playing important roles for ecology, peace, etc. These trends are welcome direction for the future of the global life system.
b. Corporations
Corporations are essentially economic (cf. oikos+nomos: rule, house management) systems (groups) to control matter and power (production and service). Corporations employ pyramidal systems for maximizing profit (efficiency, efficacy) in and out (buyout, joint venture, cartel, trust, multinational, etc.). In capitalist societies, capital (money) plays the main role (‘x-ism’ means stressing on x.). Towering buildings of corporations are menacing with their outside look and inside principle. The whole system is essentially meant for money, enslaving everyone and everything. That is why we see all kinds of manipulation, misinformation, deception and immorality taking places (advertisement, bribery, conspiracy, fraud, pollution, poisoning). Because corporations’ responsibilities are legally limited and really impossible, damages are often not recovered or never compensated (pollution, death). To avoid such mishaps and misfortunes, co-operatives, ‘small co-op type companies’ (“Small is beautiful” movement) and NPOs (not for profit organization) are more welcomed due to their more peaceful, ecological, equitable, sustainable, systemic world. Those corporations which ignore and destroy lives and life systems for money will not be accepted by people, policies and must disappear. Corporations must repay not only to the human societies but also to the global life systems, as they benefit from public assets and services (education, science, technology, infrastructure, labor, resource, environment). They must reconsider and revoke selfish devices and policies (monopoly, patent, pollution, externalization of ecological cost). The economic system called “corporation” has been damaging the material world worst as evidenced in the present economic and ecological breakdown. This is due to our minds enslaved and estranged by money. We must engrave in our hearts and minds: “money cannot buy life” and “matter does not satisfy hearts.” We must recall the true meaning of our life as Dogen said, “To launch a ship and to build a bridge are also the perfection of giving. Managing livelihood and engaging in industries in their origin are nothing but giving.”
c. Religions
Religion is re-union with the holy. The holy (wholly) can mean many things. Because of this, we can find tribal religions, ethnic religions, world religions, and universal religions. Thus, we can define religion as the actual ‘way of life,’ and ideal ‘way to life’ or ‘way to the holy (wholly wholesome).’ Ideally it should include the whole in wholesomeness to become truly holy. Dogen said that if it is not with all, it is not the Great Way and that unless with all, it is not the Awakened Way.” Religion started as a collective ‘way of life’ in a small community to keep it together in harmony, rather unconsciously as customs. When individuals consciously pursued their ideal way of life, they could find a more universal way of life in truth and peace, principle and practice. They could live their ideal ways of life, with others, creating their ideal communities (mundane or supra-mundane). In the beginning with the small elite, religions could remain ideal, but as they acquired more mass and became institutionalized, they tended to become stiffened and selfish (scholastic, sectarian, syncretism, secularized). As religions are ‘ways of life,’ they tend to stress their uniqueness and are susceptible to limitedness in their areas and eras of their origins and traditions. They usually stick to their legacies even against common sense views and scientific findings, (fundamentalism, dogmatism, anti-rationalism, anti-science). It is unbelievable that we find religious (holy!) wars, terrorism, persecution, prosecution, while they teach love, compassion, tolerance, peace, purity and holiness. The Ten Commandments (common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam) were given in exchange for the Covenants, and thus essential for salvation. The Ten Precepts are essential for Buddhists and the Five Precepts with minor differences in the last precept are common to Hindu religions. Therefore (with unanimous agreement in the Global Ethic), ‘religious people’ should never kill (no wars, militarism, terrorism). Religion’s uniqueness lies in practice, thus they should practice and let others practice ethics (no killing, etc.). If they actually practice together (billions of them) and let others observe the Global Ethic, there will be no wars and terrorisms, no exploitations, no exterminations and immediately peace on earth, pure land, paradise, heaven on earth will be realized. We can find original religious communities and their ways of life are our models for the future, especially with the truth of ‘mit’ and ‘mitra.’ If we become ‘true friends in need,’ there will be a genuinely holy (wholly wholesome) world in deeds without suffering, sorrow, solitude, fear, despair.
d. Media
Media is to mediate information from and to people. Because it has a vital function in the life systems, it is now regarded as the fourth power beside the three political powers (legislative, executive and judicial). In the pyramidal societies, it could be influenced or manipulated by political powers (heads of states, dictators). In the pyramidal societies, media could be influenced and (heads of states, dictators, capitalists, advertisers). We have seen and are now seeing these things happening (state policy, war propaganda, demagogy, bias dissemination, truth hiding). To counter such problems in mass media, mini-communications, verbal communications, and now global internet communications are starting to mediate and network. We can utilize individual, local, global assets, and especially the internet, to easily communicate with people around the world. We can contribute to the support and advancement of information, democratization and globalization to realize the world with center-less centers (decentralized interconnected individuals and localities) like the Indra-net. The Indra-net is spread by Indra, supreme divinity in the Indian pantheon, over the world whose crystal balls on all knots reflect each other endlessly. This illustrates how everything reflects each other endlessly in the law of Dependent Origination. This unified world in infinite reflection is ideal not only for the global communication, but also for the global community. Without communication and community, there will be no meaning and value in life.
e. Education institutions
Education means extracting potential and expanding ability. It is the key to change not only humans but the whole world for future, present and past (form and function, structure and significance). It should be shared by all (free education, lifelong education), serve for all (not for nation, corporation, human, but for all) and set by people (not by central government on texts, staff, censorship, etc., but by communities and people). Educational objective, method, organization, management, budget, etc. must shift from artificial pyramidal civilization to natural cyclical culture. Education is to advance the limitless vital spiritual values of the truth, goodness, beauty and holiness of individual, communal, regional and global life forms, life systems and living ways (information, democratization, and globalization). Individual potentials and abilities must be fostered to flower and fruit in holiness, harmony and help together, not in competition and conflict.
c. Global method
1. From global problematique to global solution
a. Know the present crises
Let’s take time off from our busy private life to see the wider world and share the suffering the global life system is facing. Our present crises and suffering are unprecedented in size, speed and seriousness. They are all intertwined at the global scale. They are directly or indirectly linked to us, you and me. The causes are nothing but our own ignorance, attachment and aversion. Our own daily life styles and living ways are causing the global crises and calamities, the sixth mass extinction. Thus, we must fundamentally change our value systems and action patterns. Humankind must shift its way of life fundamentally. That means every one of us.
b. Act for solutions
Let’s learn the solutions in concrete methods and practical ways for preventive, preserving way of the total system. Let’s act for solutions in our daily living. The following is my idea to act on the global system, the global ethic, and a concrete way to approach the material and information flow (for easy memory):
Global system: 5S Global Ethic: 5L Material flow: 5R Information flow: 5A
Systemic Law Reduce Access
Sustainable Life Reuse Assess
Saving Love Recycle Agree
Safe Liberation Rearrange Act
Simple Lielessness Restore Advise
Our wholesome global system cannot lack the 5Ss. Our saving of paper is saving trees, forests, living beings, global warming, and the global life systems to come. Simple life and life system is systemically safe and sustainable. Global Ethic is necessary for global villagers to rely and act on (Law of Dependent Origination, Causality). ‘Love’ gives and shares and is more positive and dynamic than ‘not to steal.’ ‘Liberation’ is beyond discrimination and wider than ‘equal rights between men and women and equal partnership.’ ‘Rearrangement’ is innovation of old systems and ways, new use of the unused, the new combinations of systems, etc. (ex. using heat of burning waste for energy generation).
2. From global catastrophe to global community
a. Know the present situation
Let’s learn the present global situations, new findings, future projections and so on. Let’s share them with others, contacting closer, communicating wider. Let’s take time to know and share news, data, events, actions, etc. wisely using internet and other means to participate and practice, locally, globally and wakefully.
b. Build global life community
Let’s find out ways to build more friendly and happy global life community. Just a call or a smiling face brightens the whole day or whole life. Anyone can give joy and happiness with compassionate eyes, loving speeches, harmonious faces, helping hands, sharing seats, shelters and systems even without wealth. There are the Four Embracing Matters: giving, loving speech, beneficial actions and sameness (togetherness). Dogen called them ‘four pieces of wisdom (hannya, prajñā, prognosis) and said that loving words have the power of revolutionizing the universe: “Loving speech is fundamental to make enemies yield and princes reconcile. To hear loving speech in presence gladdens the face and pleases the heart. To hear loving speech in absence engraves the liver and engraves the soul.” “Sameness means no alienation from the self and others.” “We just share our abilities without coveting rewards from others.” “The simple-minded may think that when other’s interest comes first, self-interest is omitted. It is not so. Beneficial deeds are one dharma, which universally benefits oneself and others.” Let’s go beyond boundaries (national, religious, gender, species, etc.) and act in concrete ways to build global community, creating it a more sensible, safe, stable and satisfactory. Enjoy the global community of all and global communication with all in care, comfort and contentment (s-mile-s of babies, flowers, stars and sunrise).
3. From limited life to limitless life
a. Know the suffering of limited life
Let’s get acquainted with the suffering in the world, and begin to sympathize and share them without discrimination. Let us learn how much we have been conditioned by bad habits, how wretched we act, how miserable we live and what misfortune our precious life is imbedded with. Every one must live in suffering and solitude and die in despair of a failed life in the premises of separate selves and all against all. Everyone must die, eventually or even in the next instant. How can we leave our precious moment to the wind of impermanence and suffering? We live on the sanctity and sacrifice of limitless other lives and life systems. How can we miss and misuse our greatly endowed and gravely indebted lives, unappreciated and ungrateful? We must awaken from the nightmare of the bubble-like ego and to the daybreak of the ocean-like life. The Buddha said:
Better than the one who would live one hundred years not seeing immortality
Is the one living one day seeing immortality.
b. Realize the limitless life
Let’s find time out of our daily routines and sit quietly and breathe deeply. Calm sitting and deep breathing give us joy. This simple, but great genuine joy can give us the sense of no necessity for any thing. We can see all karmic influence cease, as we return to the original state beyond worries and fears, unmoved by thoughts, emotions and volitions. Anyone can stop living limited life (loss/gain, life/death, etc.) and return to a limitless life (truth, goodness, beauty, holiness). We can refresh and restart our life. Dogen said, “If there is no limited mind, there is limitless luck.” Let us realize our own limitless life here and now. Let us share it with our family, friends, foreigners and (fancied) foes. Please enjoy it with any beings anywhere anytime.
Conclusion
Paradigm shift, complete change, is necessary to solve the global problematique. Otherwise, we will always suffer and doomed to catastrophe due to the causes and conditions of selfishness and strife. We must awaken to the impermanence and imperfection of our prognosis and practice. We may die any moment in sorrow and despair without appreciating truth and peace. The problems and suffering we have are due to delusion (common delusion, common commitment) of truth (ultimate truth). The wishful thinking and wayward action of the “self-sovereignty” (sub-system) in the “system-synergy” (super-system) is firm fallacy, failure and fall. Any simplistic separation (individualism, capitalism, nationalism, civilization) is incompatible with systemic security. So, we must be wakeful to know the wider world and to live with all as our true life system and living way. We must stop selfishness (monopoly, competition) and shift to holiness (holistic, cooperation, etc.). Selfishness is the source of all suffering and mistrust, so we must realize the wholesome whole. Inexhaustibleness life lies in no possession. If we become awakened and actualize this, we are already in truth and peace. We must communicate and construct the wholesome system, global life community, in truth and peace. Everyone wants this, but we doubt the possibility of achieving it due to our karma (habit, habit energy). We should not be deluded by the “divide and rule” trick, but awaken to the “unite and share” ability of all wisdom and action in the global life community. It is said that three men gathered together creates the wisdom of Manjushree (Bodhisattva of Wisdom). Then, more than six billion people could make better prognosis and practice. We stop before starting, but time and tide is running out. Our undeluded and awakened life is right here and now with all, so we must practice here and now with all. Then only can we live limitless life, light, liberation and love.
The following diagram is omitted here due to this site limitation.
Please comment, if you want it.
Artificial Pyramidal Civilization & Natural Cyclical Culture
(fighting for matter and power & Sharing of mind and life)
(To be published in the Dialogos, No.9, March 2009, Proceeding of Department of English Communication, Toyo University )
Live Truth Life
July 21, 2008 by limitlesslifeWe live conventional life, according to man-made artificial habits and customs. Thus, we wage wars against other nations, kill other humans, animals and plants, and damage our own life system. Essentially, it comes from the fundamental delusion that the self is the most important being to fight any other than the self. There is no absolute independent self in the limitlessly interdependent life system, much less the self to destroy all others. The notion of “self” and attachment to it is the root cause of all problems and suffering. We must awaken to the impermanence, suffering and no-self, three marks of all phenomena (dharma) and live truth life, avoiding the five calamities and attaining the five blisses.
Global Ethic Is Normal!
May 3, 2008 by limitlesslifeGlobal Ethic is based on no killing, stealing, lying and sexual misconduct. This is to hold life, matter, society and generation holy (wholesome whole). For the buddhas (awakened ones), it is quite normal and natural (systemic, sustainable, saving, safe and simple) in accordance with system (based on Dependent Origination or Causal Law).
Viktor Emil Frankl in his “…trozdem Ja zum Leben sagen, Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager” says, “There is no one who has the right to do injustice. Even those who were inflicted with injustice are not exceptions.”
Gandhi said, “The rights of Ganges sources from the responsibilities of Himalaya.” The global life system requires responsibilities first to claim rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities must come first before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (life is prerequisite of rights).
Listen to Hiroshima Voices
February 24, 2008 by limitlesslifePlease listen to the Hiroshima voices:
http://woshn.com
America’s Blinders
February 12, 2008 by limitlesslifeAmerica’s Blinders
By Howard Zinn08/02/08 “ICH” – First Published, April 2006 Issue Of The Progressive Magazine
Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled?
The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.
A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare. The New York Times was breathless with admiration. The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”
It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived.
One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior.
If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. I am not speaking of the history we learned in school, a history subservient to our political leaders, from the much-admired Founding Fathers to the Presidents of recent years. I mean a history which is honest about the past. If we don’t know that history, then any President can stand up to the battery of microphones, declare that we must go to war, and we will have no basis for challenging him. He will say that the nation is in danger, that democracy and liberty are at stake, and that we must therefore send ships and planes to destroy our new enemy, and we will have no reason to disbelieve him.
But if we know some history, if we know how many times Presidents have made similar declarations to the country, and how they turned out to be lies, we will not be fooled. Although some of us may pride ourselves that we were never fooled, we still might accept as our civic duty the responsibility to buttress our fellow citizens against the mendacity of our high officials.
We would remind whoever we can that President Polk lied to the nation about the reason for going to war with Mexico in 1846. It wasn’t that Mexico “shed American blood upon the American soil,” but that Polk, and the slave-owning aristocracy, coveted half of Mexico.
We would point out that President McKinley lied in 1898 about the reason for invading Cuba, saying we wanted to liberate the Cubans from Spanish control, but the truth is that we really wanted Spain out of Cuba so that the island could be open to United Fruit and other American corporations. He also lied about the reasons for our war in the Philippines, claiming we only wanted to “civilize” the Filipinos, while the real reason was to own a valuable piece of real estate in the far Pacific, even if we had to kill hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to accomplish that.
President Woodrow Wilson—so often characterized in our history books as an “idealist”—lied about the reasons for entering the First World War, saying it was a war to “make the world safe for democracy,” when it was really a war to make the world safe for the Western imperial powers.
Harry Truman lied when he said the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima because it was “a military target.”
Everyone lied about Vietnam—Kennedy about the extent of our involvement, Johnson about the Gulf of Tonkin, Nixon about the secret bombing of Cambodia, all of them claiming it was to keep South Vietnam free of communism, but really wanting to keep South Vietnam as an American outpost at the edge of the Asian continent.
Reagan lied about the invasion of Grenada, claiming falsely that it was a threat to the United States.
The elder Bush lied about the invasion of Panama, leading to the death of thousands of ordinary citizens in that country.
And he lied again about the reason for attacking Iraq in 1991—hardly to defend the integrity of Kuwait (can one imagine Bush heartstricken over Iraq’s taking of Kuwait?), rather to assert U.S. power in the oil-rich Middle East.
Given the overwhelming record of lies told to justify wars, how could anyone listening to the younger Bush believe him as he laid out the reasons for invading Iraq? Would we not instinctively rebel against the sacrifice of lives for oil?
A careful reading of history might give us another safeguard against being deceived. It would make clear that there has always been, and is today, a profound conflict of interest between the government and the people of the United States. This thought startles most people, because it goes against everything we have been taught.
We have been led to believe that, from the beginning, as our Founding Fathers put it in the Preamble to the Constitution, it was “we the people” who established the new government after the Revolution. When the eminent historian Charles Beard suggested, a hundred years ago, that the Constitution represented not the working people, not the slaves, but the slaveholders, the merchants, the bondholders, he became the object of an indignant editorial in The New York Times.
Our culture demands, in its very language, that we accept a commonality of interest binding all of us to one another. We mustn’t talk about classes. Only Marxists do that, although James Madison, “Father of the Constitution,” said, thirty years before Marx was born that there was an inevitable conflict in society between those who had property and those who did not.
Our present leaders are not so candid. They bombard us with phrases like “national interest,” “national security,” and “national defense” as if all of these concepts applied equally to all of us, colored or white, rich or poor, as if General Motors and Halliburton have the same interests as the rest of us, as if George Bush has the same interest as the young man or woman he sends to war.
Surely, in the history of lies told to the population, this is the biggest lie. In the history of secrets, withheld from the American people, this is the biggest secret: that there are classes with different interests in this country. To ignore that—not to know that the history of our country is a history of slaveowner against slave, landlord against tenant, corporation against worker, rich against poor—is to render us helpless before all the lesser lies told to us by people in power.
If we as citizens start out with an understanding that these people up there—the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court, all those institutions pretending to be “checks and balances”—do not have our interests at heart, we are on a course towards the truth. Not to know that is to make us helpless before determined liars.
The deeply ingrained belief—no, not from birth but from the educational system and from our culture in general—that the United States is an especially virtuous nation makes us especially vulnerable to government deception. It starts early, in the first grade, when we are compelled to “pledge allegiance” (before we even know what that means), forced to proclaim that we are a nation with “liberty and justice for all.”
And then come the countless ceremonies, whether at the ballpark or elsewhere, where we are expected to stand and bow our heads during the singing of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” announcing that we are “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” There is also the unofficial national anthem “God Bless America,” and you are looked on with suspicion if you ask why we would expect God to single out this one nation—just 5 percent of the world’s population—for his or her blessing.
If your starting point for evaluating the world around you is the firm belief that this nation is somehow endowed by Providence with unique qualities that make it morally superior to every other nation on Earth, then you are not likely to question the President when he says we are sending our troops here or there, or bombing this or that, in order to spread our values—democracy, liberty, and let’s not forget free enterprise—to some God-forsaken (literally) place in the world. It becomes necessary then, if we are going to protect ourselves and our fellow citizens against policies that will be disastrous not only for other people but for Americans too, that we face some facts that disturb the idea of a uniquely virtuous nation.
These facts are embarrassing, but must be faced if we are to be honest. We must face our long history of ethnic cleansing, in which millions of Indians were driven off their land by means of massacres and forced evacuations. And our long history, still not behind us, of slavery, segregation, and racism. We must face our record of imperial conquest, in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, our shameful wars against small countries a tenth our size: Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan, Iraq. And the lingering memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is not a history of which we can be proud.
Our leaders have taken it for granted, and planted that belief in the minds of many people, that we are entitled, because of our moral superiority, to dominate the world. At the end of World War II, Henry Luce, with an arrogance appropriate to the owner of Time, Life, and Fortune, pronounced this “the American century,” saying that victory in the war gave the United States the right “to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit.”
Both the Republican and Democratic parties have embraced this notion. George Bush, in his Inaugural Address on January 20, 2005, said that spreading liberty around the world was “the calling of our time.” Years before that, in 1993, President Bill Clinton, speaking at a West Point commencement, declared: “The values you learned here . . . will be able to spread throughout this country and throughout the world and give other people the opportunity to live as you have lived, to fulfill your God-given capacities.”
What is the idea of our moral superiority based on? Surely not on our behavior toward people in other parts of the world. Is it based on how well people in the United States live? The World Health Organization in 2000 ranked countries in terms of overall health performance, and the United States was thirty-seventh on the list, though it spends more per capita for health care than any other nation. One of five children in this, the richest country in the world, is born in poverty. There are more than forty countries that have better records on infant mortality. Cuba does better. And there is a sure sign of sickness in society when we lead the world in the number of people in prison—more than two million.
A more honest estimate of ourselves as a nation would prepare us all for the next barrage of lies that will accompany the next proposal to inflict our power on some other part of the world. It might also inspire us to create a different history for ourselves, by taking our country away from the liars and killers who govern it, and by rejecting nationalist arrogance, so that we can join the rest of the human race in the common cause of peace and justice.
Howard Zinn is the co-author, with Anthony Arnove, of “Voices of a People’s History of the United States.”
“Ego” is the ultimate blinder.
Delution, greed and anger are its outcome.
Money (buying matter and power) is the common blinder.
Rosan
Scientists Identify “Tipping Points” of Climate Change
February 6, 2008 by limitlesslife
Ignorance and inaction are true tipping time.
Scientists Identify “Tipping Points” of Climate Change
By Steve Connor
The Independent UK Tuesday 05 February 2008 Nine ways in which the Earth could be tipped into a potentially dangerous state that could last for many centuries have been identified by scientists investigating how quickly global warming could run out of control. A major international investigation by dozens of leading climate scientists has found that the “tipping points” for all nine scenarios – such as the melting of the Arctic sea ice or the disappearance of the Amazon rainforest – could occur within the next 100 years. The scientists warn that climate change is likely to result in sudden and dramatic changes to some of the major geophysical elements of the Earth if global average temperatures continue to rise as a result of the predicted increase in emissions of man-made greenhouse gases. Most and probably all of the nine scenarios are likely to be irreversible on a human timescale once they pass a certain threshold of change, and the widespread effects of the transition to the new state will be felt for generations to come, the scientists said. ”Society may be lulled into a false sense of security by smooth projections of global change. Our synthesis of present knowledge suggests that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point within this century under anthropogenic [man-made] climate change,” they report in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study came out of a 2005 meeting of 36 leading climate scientists who drew on the expertise of a further 52 specialists. It is believed to be the first time that scientists have attempted to assess the risks of what they have termed “tipping elements” in the Earth’s climate system. The nine elements range from the melting of polar ice sheets to the collapse of the Indian and West African monsoons. The effects of the changes could be equally varied, from a dramatic rise in sea levels that flood coastal regions to widespread crop failures and famine. Some of the tipping points may be close at hand, such as the point at which the disappearance of the summer sea ice in the Arctic becomes inevitable, whereas others, such as the tipping point for the destruction of northern boreal forests, may take several more decades to be reached. While scenarios such as the collapse of the Indian monsoon could occur within a few years, others, such as the melting of the Greenland ice cap or the West Antarctic ice sheet, may take several centuries to complete. “Our findings suggest that a variety of tipping elements could reach their critical point in this century under human-induced climate change,” said Professor Timothy Lenton, of the University of East Anglia, who led the study. A tipping point is defined as the point where a small increase in temperature or other change in the climate could trigger a disproportionately larger change in the future. Although there are many potential tipping points that could occur this century, it is still possible to avoid them with cuts in greenhouse gases, said Professor Lenton. He added: “But we should be prepared to adapt … and to design an early-warning system that alerts us to them in time.” Irreversible Changes
- Arctic sea ice: some scientists believe that the tipping point for the total loss of summer sea ice is imminent.
- Greenland ice sheet: total melting could take 300 years or more but the tipping point that could see irreversible change might occur within 50 years.
- West Antarctic ice sheet: scientists believe it could unexpectedly collapse if it slips into the sea at its warming edges.
- Gulf Stream: few scientists believe it could be switched off completely this century but its collapse is a possibility.
- El Niño: the southern Pacific current may be affected by warmer seas, resulting in far-reaching climate change.
- Indian monsoon: relies on temperature difference between land and sea, which could be tipped off-balance by pollutants that cause localised cooling.
- West African monsoon: in the past it has changed, causing the greening of the Sahara, but in the future it could cause droughts.
- Amazon rainforest: a warmer world and further deforestation may cause a collapse of the rain supporting this ecosystem.
- Boreal forests: cold-adapted trees of Siberia and Canada are dying as temperatures rise.
