Things that make me go huh?
From EnviroBlog - Environmental connections to public health:
UN report: Urban sustainability must be a priority
and they continue:
“…The answer lies in one of those Big Ideas: sustainable development….”
and in another entry
Growing Organics in the blogosphere
“You may have heard a thing or two about a little bill that the House is scheduled to vote on at the end of July. Of $76 billion in subsidies in the current Farm Bill, organic farmers would receive less than one percent (Who is getting all that money? Have a look at the Farm Subsidy Database)….”
While their idea of moving more subsidies to the green’s has some logic, its seems like they might want to reduce the subsidies. Which they do support through another blog effort. I’m confused.
Meanwhile, a graphic meditation:
“I Wish was inspired as I considered the balance between work and play in our lives. I wonder if we have become a nation of people who are slaves to the very technology that was meant to ease workloads rather than increase responsibilities and prolong work hours. Research carried out by the TUC highlights as a nation we are working extra hours for our employers for free. Using this information as a starting point, I set about to find out what people wishes were so they could use this time given to their employers and hopefully use this time to give something back to themselves….”
from visualcomplexity
File under thought provoking - we are always equipped to solve problems
Legendary physicist David Deutsch back-burners the work for which he’s best known — quantum physics, quantum computing, the many-worlds theory — to discuss a more basic topic: how to think about our species’ significance in the universe. Far from being simply “chemical scum,” we have the ability to gain knowledge, the importance of which he illustrates in spectacular manner. As a result, he says, we are always equipped to solve problems (including global warming). The brain contains the tools we need: knowledge, reason and creativity. It’s a thrilling, and profoundly optimistic argument.
Imagine There’s No Suffering
Doing the Buddha’s Practice
Mindfulness/awareness was the meditation the Buddha himself practiced and taught. It was his basic prescription for human suffering. Looking at life with an open and nonjudgmental attention, we see our confusion and develop insight. This is the basis of all Buddhist practice and the key to liberation.
In myths from around the world, men and women have searched for an elixir that will bring protection from suffering. Buddhism’s answer is mindfulness. How does mindfulness work? Let me illustrate with a story that became the basis for the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist. The movie tells the account of Dian Fossey, a courageous field biologist who managed to befriend a tribe of gorillas. Fossey had gone to Africa to follow in the footsteps of her mentor George Shaller, a renowned primate biologist who had returned from the wilds with more intimate and compelling information about gorilla life than any scientist before. When his colleagues asked how he was able to learn such remarkable detail about the tribal structure, family life, and habits of gorillas, he attributed it to one simple thing. He didn’t carry a gun.
Previous generations of biologists had entered the territory of these large animals with the assumption that they were dangerous. So the scientists came with an aggressive spirit, large rifles in hand. The gorillas could sense the danger around these rifle-bearing men and kept a far distance. By contrast, Shaller - and later his student Dian Fossey - entered their territory without weapons. They had to move slowly, gently, and, above all, respectfully toward these creatures. And, in time, sensing the benevolence of these humans, the gorillas allowed them to come right among them and learn their ways. Sitting still, hour after hour, with careful, patient attention, Fossey finally understood what she saw. As the African-American sage George Washington Carver explained, “Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.”
Mindfulness is attention. It is a non-judging, receptive awareness, a respectful awareness. Unfortunately, much of the time we don’t attend in this way. Instead, we react, judging whether we like, dislike, or can ignore what is happening. Or we measure our experience against our expectation. We evaluate ourselves and others with a stream of commentary and criticism….
Jack Kornfield, SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 20
Imagine There’s No Suffering
The state of compassion arises with a quality of equanimity. Can you imagine a mind state in which there is no bitter, condemning judgment of oneself or of others? This mind does not see the world in terms of good and bad, right and wrong, good and evil; it sees only “suffering and the end of suffering.” What would happen if we looked at ourselves and all of the dif-ferent things that we see and did not judge any of it? We would see that some things bring pain and others bring happiness, but there would be no denunciation, no guilt, no shame, no fear. How wondrous to see ourselves, others, and the world in that way! When we see only suffering and the end of suffering, then we feel compassion. Then we can act in energetic and forceful ways but without the corrosive effects of aversion….
Sharon Salzberg, SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2007,
With a mind is free of judgment, we see only suffering and its causes,
and wish only that all beings be free from pain.
Reality Isn’t What You Think
Unlike most religions, Buddhism says our big problem is not sin but ignorance - our fundamental misunderstanding of reality. Contemplative practice is a good way to analyze whether things are as solid, separate, and lasting as we habitually think they are….
Andy Karr, SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2007
a most excellent issue, there is much, much more in the magazine
The Correct Attitude, poem by Leonard Cohen
Book of Longing, poem by Leonard Cohen
Book of Longing, poem by Leonard Cohen
The poem online is a longer, older, more profane version than the one in the book.
