Trafficking in persons is modern-day slavery, involving victims who are forced, defrauded, or coerced into labor or sexual exploitation. The International Labor Organization (ILO), the UN agency charged with addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues, estimated in 2022 that 27.6 million people worldwide were victims of forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, sexual servitude, and involuntary servitude, according to the report from The World Fact Book.
The lack of a common definition of “missing child,” and a common response to the issue, results in few reliable statistics on the scope of the problem around the world. Even with this challenge, the conservative number of global children missing statistics from International Center for Missing and Exploited Children is shockingly sky rocking. United States for instance, based on a 2011 report, a child goes missing every 40 seconds in America – that comes to 765,000 children a year. Worldwide, almost 20% of all trafficking victims are children. However, in some parts of Africa and the Mekong region, children are the majority (up to 100% in parts of West Africa).
Fewer victims of trafficking in persons are being identified even as the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises are increasing vulnerabilities to exploitation, according to the latest Global Report on Trafficking in Persons launched today by UNODC (United Nation Office of Drug and Crime ). Based on data gathered from 155 countries, UNODC offers the first global assessment of the scope of human trafficking.
The global market for organ transplantation estimated to reach $68.5 billion by 2029, expanding at a CAGR of 9.2% over the forecast period, driven by increasing incidences of organ failures, and rising demand for transplant products such as tissue products, immunosuppressants, and organ preservation solutions. For example, One source states that the amount of kidney transplants able to be administered in a year within the US is about 20,000, far less than the 100,000 a year that would be needed in order to meet the demand. Argument were made about whether A Legal Organ Market: Should it Exist?
Buddhism does believe that if a person clings to his body, then he cannot be moved before the last breath to avoid adding to their suffering or affecting their ascension to the pure land or rebirth in a good realm of existence. If a person made a vow to donate his organs or was very compassionate, once death is properly determined, removing his organs to save another won’t cause him any harm or vexation and anger. Master Sheng Yen talked about this topic, the main issue is when the organ was removed from the person, because western medical standard in determine the time of death may not be the true death when all consciousness left the body. So removing organs before the consciousness left the body can be very cruel and caused great pain and hurt the dying person greatly. That can said to be equivalent to killing even though this person is dying. Buddhist perspective on organ donation (GDD-361) DVD
Organ availability for transplantation has become an increasingly complex and difficult question in health economics and ethical practice. Advances in technology have seen prolonged life expectancy, and the global push for organs creates an ever-expanding gap between supply and demand, and a significant cost in bridging that gap. This article will examine the ethical implications for the nursing profession in regard to the procurement of organs from an impoverished seller’s market, also known as ‘Transplant Tourism’. This ethical dilemma concerns itself with resource allocation, informed consent and the concepts of egalitarianism and libertarianism. Transplant Tourism is an unacceptable trespass against human dignity and rights from both a nursing and collective viewpoint. Currently, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Council, the Royal college of Nursing Australia, The Royal College of Nursing (UK) and the American Nurses Association do not have position statements on transplant tourism, and this diminishes us as a force for change. It diminishes our role as advocates for the most marginalised in our world to have access to care and to choice and excludes us from a very contemporary real debate about the mismatch of organ demand and supply in our own communities. As a profession, we must have a voice in health policy and human rights, and according to our Code of Ethics in Australia and around the world, act to promote and protect the fundamental human right to healthcare and dignity.
As we observe the huge social inequality, the disparages of social split in America and more and more so in China, it seems to me that any mentioning of sharing resources/wealth redistribution would triggers fear of authoritarian of socialism or communism, as the western mind hold the individual right/liberty to such lofty height of happiness and freedom, which was further over emphasized by Ann Ryan’s objectivism in the last half century, I suspect the idea of dualism had played a huge part in such mentality, causing a self-feeding of larger than life ego grandeur and selfishness.
The Eastern mind (or Eastern Traditional Philosophy) is centered on the Tao or Divinity. It is Dinvine that give that provision (生死有命，富贵在天），no matter how wealthy you are, it is Dinvine’s provision through you. If you share with others, as taught in the 《了凡四训〉，Divine will bestow you more as it use you more as a conduit, otherwise, your merit account （福报）is limited, and when it is used out, you will start to fall. So be very careful with your merit account for selfish usage, especially in those unwholesom deeds. 天命谓之性，率性谓之道，修道谓之教。 淨空法師：如何得到福報？ 佛教你三個修大福報的方法。什么都是有因果的， 福报也不例外。福報用盡，災禍必來！出現這3個徵兆，就是佛菩薩在提醒：你的福報即將耗盡【佛心福樂】 It is all about the cause(conditions) and effects in work.
Dualism is a deeply entrenched view point in the western mindset. It is closely associated with the thought of René Descartes (1641), which holds that the mind is a nonphysical—and therefore, non-spatial—substance. Descartes clearly identified the mind with consciousness and self-awareness and distinguished this from the brain as the seat of intelligence. As such Descartes is often called The Father of Dualism, due to his proposing the theory of substance dualism, or Cartesian dualism. Dualism is a theory which entails the belief that the mind and the body are two completely separate substances. René Descartes is also often credited with being the “Father of Modern Philosophy.” This title is justified due both to his break with the traditional Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy prevalent at his time and to his development and promotion of the new, mechanistic sciences.
Dualism can be traced back to Plato and Aristotle, and also to the early Sankhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy. Plato first formulated his famous Theory of Forms, distinct and immaterial substances of which the objects and other phenomena that we perceive in the world are nothing more than mere shadows.
Platonic Dualism: Splitting the Body and Soul. Plato offers the first, oldest argument that one’s physical body and soul are separate entities and that one lives on after the other has died. Dualism holds that reality or existence is divided into two parts. These two parts are often identified as the body and the soul. To dualists, the soul is a real substance that exists independent from the body. Socrates, Plato, and Augustine were all dualists who believed the soul to be immortal.
Nietzsche’s statement, “Man, in his highest, finest powers, is all nature and carries nature’s uncanny dual nature in himself” attempts to deal with the duality of humankind. His viewpoint had influence the mindset of the west for the last century: Within the natural casing of humanity lies the capability for great triumph and, in turn, great degradation.
Belief in the possibility of the soul’s existence separately from the body suffices to make one a dualist, but Aristotle rejects that belief for at least most types of soul. If Aristotle is committed to dualism, he must be committed to a weaker version of it which admits that the soul cannot exist apart from the body.
The Differences Between Plato’s And Descartes’ Views On The Concept Of God is that Descartes believes that his God is omnipotent, and Plato does not give that characteristic to any of his Deities, because he believed that Gods should not have the ability to commit bad actions as nothing that is purely good can be harmful, and ‘nothing that isn’t harmful can cause harm’.
In a more recent paper, A Defense of Dualism, John Foster hold the view that the mind and its contents are radically nonphysical, that is, that they are neither themselves physical, nor the logical product of anything physical, nor, except causally or nomologically, dependent on anything physical.
So what does Buddha teaches us about Nondualism? Read the article Nondualism in Mahayana Buddhism would give you a much clearer sense.
Buddha once said, “Develop a mind so filled with love that it resembles space, which cannot be painted, cannot be marred, cannot be ruined.” When we relax the divisions that we usually make, the mind becomes like space. This is not something that a fortunate few have the capacity to experience; it is the nature of the mind, which every one of us has the ability to know. In talking about practice, Tsoknyi Rinpoche, a Tibetan teacher, said we practice in order to learn to trust ourselves more, to get confidence in what we know, to have faith rather than doubt. Loving kindness and compassion are innate capacities that we all have. This capacity to care, to be at one with, to connect, is something that isn’t destroyed, no matter what we may go through. No matter what our life experience may have been, no matter how many scars we bear, that ability remains intact. And so we practice meditation in order to return to that spaciousness and to learn to trust our ability to love.
As the Buddha said, “All beings everywhere want to be happy.” It is only due to ignorance that we do the things that create suffering or sorrow for ourselves and for others. If we take the time to slow down and see all the different forces coming together in any action, we will see this desire for happiness even in the midst of some terrible harmful action. That is why we use our mindfulness practice to notice our feelings and to understand them. Through that we can see very clearly that if we are immersed in tremendous anger, it is great suffering, it is a state of burning, of contraction and isolation, of separation and fear. We don’t have to reject the anger or reject or condemn ourselves for it, but rather we can feel compassion for the pain of it. This quality of empathy is also the basis of modern psychological thought on the development of morality. We learn not to hurt others because we understand how it feels to be hurt.
Howard Washington Thurman (November 18, 1899 – April 10, 1981) was an American author, philosopher, theologian, mystic, educator, and civil right leader. As a prominent religious figure, he played a leading role in many social justice movements and organizations of the twentieth century. Joseph John Campbell(March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer and professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience.
.
One of the social psychology is the desire to fit in, one of the most powerful, least understood forces in society. Author Todd Rose dwell into examples psychological distortions from toilet paper shortages to kidneys that get thrown away rather than used for transplants; from racial segregation to the perceived “electability” of women in politics; from bottled water to “cancel culture,” , we routinely copy others, lie about what we believe, cling to tribes, and silence people, author bring to light some new perspective about the root cause of collective wounds in Collective Illusions: Conformity, Complicity, and the Science of Why We Make Bad Decisions Hardcover – February 1, 2022 . Draw on cutting-edge neuroscience and social psychology research, this acclaimed author demonstrates how so much of our thinking is informed by false assumptions—making us dangerously mistrustful as a society and needlessly unhappy as individuals.
Path of Parenting, Path of Education, Path of Awakening
Our country’s postindustrial culture has left us to raise our children apart from a community of neighbors and elders. There aren’t many grandparents around – they all live someplace else or they’re off, like most fathers and many mothers, at the office or the factory. There aren’t many uncles or aunts around to take care of the kids when parents become overwhelmed, or to initiate the teenagers (so that they don’t have to seek initiation on the streets), to help them discover what it is to be a man or a woman and a productive member of the community. there isn’t a community of elders from whom we can hear stories and learn practices that will keep us connected with our human heritage, with our instincts and our hearts.
Instead of village elders, American parents have turned to various “experts” and whatever fad or theory they have come up with. In the 1920s an influential school of child psychology actually taught parents that it was bad to touch their children. Several decades later, parents all across America read books that insisted we bottle-feed (not breast-feed) an infant every four hours and that we should not pick up a crying baby but just let it “cry itself out.”
Every wise culture in the world knows that when babies cry, they cry for a reason, and that you pick them up and feed them, or hold them and comfort them. You have to really fight against yourself not to pick up a sobbing infant. Among the less technologically developed cultures of Asia or Africa or Latin America, children are always being held, always in someone’s lap. Children are valued, are included in all family activities – in work, in ceremonies, in celebrations, there is always a place for them.
When children are valued in this way, the whole society benefits. In this spirit, there is a tribe in Africa that counts the birthday of a child from the day the child is a thought in its mother’s mind…. What a beautiful way for human beings to listen to and to comfort other human beings. This is the spirit of conscious parenting, to listen to the song of the child in front of you and to sing that child’s song to him or her. When a child is crying, we need to ask why this child is singing the crying song, what pain or frustration this child is feeling.
Yet the western culture seems to be telling people ignore their instincts, to distrust our intuition. The result is that many children growing up in our society are not bonded to an adult. One of the more painful statements about what we are collectively doing to our children came one year form a teacher named John Gattowho was voted New York City Teacher of the year. At the awards ceremony 1990 January 31, in front of the mayor and the school board and thousands of parents, he castigated his listeners for the “soul murder” of a million black and Latino children- Why School Don’t Education. He challenged the audience to consider the effects of American culture on our children: “Think of the things that are killing us as a nation: drugs and alcohol, brainless competition, recreational sex, the pornography of violence, gambling – and the worst pornography of all: lives devoted to buying things, accumulation as a philosophy, all addictions of dependent personalities, and that is what our brand of schooling will inevitably produce in the next generation.”
John Taylor Gatto (1935-2018): Remembering America’s Most Courageous Teacher. In a collection of essays and articles A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling Paperback – January 1, 2002 John Gatto exposes a system designed to promote economic and business interests and advocates a greater emphasis on teaching critical thinking skills. Gatto leaves behind a legacy that inspired thousands of people to challenge the premise on which our education system was built. Gatto’s writing, teaching, and approach to not just education but human flourishing in general inspired us to think critically about our own life and education. He’s one of the most important thinkers in American history—that’s becoming more obvious every day. He’ll be missed dearly.
Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Paperback – July 17, 2018 Since its first publication in 1995, Lies My Teacher Told Me has become one of the most important―and successful―history books of our time. Having sold nearly two million copies, the book also won an American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship and was heralded on the front page of the New York Times. Every teacher, every student of history, every citizen should read this book. It is both a refreshing antidote to what has passed for history in our educational system and a one-volume education in itself.
The author of Teaching with the HEART in Mind: A Complete Educator’s Guide to Social Emotional Learning , Dr. Lorea Martínez Pérez is the award-winning Founder of HEART in Mind Consulting, a company dedicated to helping schools and organizations integrate social emotional learning in their practices, products, and learning communities. An educator who has worked with children and adults internationally, Dr. Martínez is a faculty member at Columbia University Teachers College, educating aspiring principals in Emotional Intelligence. Previously, she was a special education teacher and administrator. Learn more at loreamartinez.com Dr. Perez argues that creating better outcomes for your students sometimes means you have to challenge the odds. Academics and standardized assessments aren’t the solution. You need to educate both their hearts and minds. Strengthen your students’ resilience, spark their curiosity for learning, and encourage future success in college, career, and life. Be the best teacher you can be and infuse social-emotional skills into your teaching of any subject.
The average American child watches eighteen thousand murders and violent acts and half a million advertisements. Violence and materialism. We are feeding the next generation of children the very suffering we’re trying to undo in our spiritual practice. with the highest rate of infant mortality of any industrialized nation and millions of “latch key kids,” we have given up caring for our children. An increasing number are raised by day care and TV and smart phones. We end up with a new generation of Americans more connected to TV or video games (often violent ones) than to other people. We will have more Gulf-style wars and violent crimes than successful marriages. Because these children were not held enough when they were young, were not valued enough and respect enough, were not listened to or sung to, they grow up with a hole inside, with no real sense of what it means to love, with no rel capacity for intimacy.
When the Dalai Lama spoke with a group of Western psychologists, he couldn’t understand why there was so much talk about self-hatred and unworthiness. he didn’t understand, because in Tibetan culture children are loved and held. he was so astonished that he went around the room and asked everyone, “Do you feel unworthiness and self-hatred sometimes?’ “Yes.” “Do you feel it?” “Yes.” Everyone in the room nodded yes. He couldn’t believe that this was a culture where people primarily talk about their difficulty with their parents instead of honoring them. Contrast this with the healthy childhoods of the Buddha’s time. The Buddha himself was raised by his mother’s sister (after his mother died) and given all the nurturance, natural respect, care, and attention that every child needs. later, when he left home to practice as a yogi, he had the inner strength and integrity to undertake six years of intensely ascetic practice. The Buddha had this vision of well-being from his childhood to draw upon in his practice.
Parenting is a labor of love. it is a path of service and surrender, and link the practice of a Buddha or a bodhisattva, it demands patience and understanding and tremendous sacrifice. it is also a way to reconnect with the mystery of life and to reconnect with ourselves. Along withe practice of mindfulness there are four other principles of conscious parenting; attentive listening, respect, integrity, and lovingkindness.
The principle of attentive listening means listening to the Tao of the seasons, to our human intuition and our instincts, to our children. do we hear what our children are trying to tell us? it’s like listening to the Tao. How long should we nurse our babies? how late should we allow our teenagers to stay out on dates? To answer those questions, we have to listen and pay attention to the rhythms of life. Just as we learn to be aware of breathing in and breathing out, we can learn to sense how deeply children want to grow.
A measure of respect comes in the setting of boundaries and limits appropriate to our child. As parents, we can set limits in a respectful way, with a compassionate “no” and an explanation of why something is out of bounds. Children learn by example, by who we are and what we do. They watch us what we communicate y the way we drive, the way we talk about others, and how we treat people on the street.v We teach them by our being.
Just as we learn in meditation to let go and trust, we can learn to develop a trust in our children so they can trust themselves. And we shall respect our children’s need for both dependency and independence. Most often instead of listening to them, we impatiently hurry them along. Dependency, insecurity and weakness are natural states for a child. They’re the natural states of all of us at times, but for children, especially young ones, they are predominant conditions and they are outgrown. In an article on dependency in Mothering magazine, Peggy O’Mara wrote:
We have a cultural bias against dependency, against any emotion of behavior that indicates weakness. This is nowhere more tragically evident than in the way we push our children beyond their limits an d timetables. We establish outside standards as more important than inner experience when we wean our children rather than trusting that they will wean themselves, when we insist that our children sit at the table and finish their meals rather than trusting that they will eat well if healthful food is provided on a regular basis, and when we toilet-train them at an early age rather than trusting that they will learn to use the toilet when they are ready to do so.
In the similar vein, Dorothy Law Nolte has written a poem, “Children learn What They Live”:
If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice.
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship.
He learns to find love in the world.
Service – Expressing Our Practice
Many people tend to think practicing spirituality is about going to a house of worship, a meditation hall, or a quiet spot in nature, and engaging in prayer, meditation, solitude and self-reflection. These spiritual pursuits seem to foster a simpler, more peaceful life in which we might experience greater intimacy and self-worth. But with the many responsibilities of life in the world, we often have precious little time to devote to such practice. When time does permit them, our spiritual yearning is momentarily satisfied and we feel aligned with the needs of our hearts; but generally our spiritual practice remains secondary to our more pressing daily activities.
Is it possible that we are defining our spiritual practice in too narrow a way? Perhaps we have become too attached to a particular form of spirituality – to a specific practice or set of circumstances. If we return to the intention behind our practices rather than adhering strictly to a form that supports the intention, we may discover a new approach to spirituality, one that truly feeds our hearts. Service work is a form that seems to be common to all the sacred traditions of the world. It cuts through all artificial divisions between “spirituality” and “life”.
Elisabeth Kubeler-Ross once said that she never meditated and never wanted to – she found it too dry. but when working with the dying, being intimately present with that person, listening fully and learning constantly, she was as focused as any mediator sitting on the floor and attending to the breath. She was in fact meditating, but her meditation arose naturally from her concern for the dying, not through formal sitting practice. For her, meditation was an expression of her service to the dying.
Spiritual teach Rodney Smith spent eight years in Buddhist monastic settings, both at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts and several years as a Buddhist monk in Asia. He ordained with Mahasi Sayadaw in Burma then practiced for three years with Ajahn Buddhadassa in Thailand. He disrobed as a monk in 1983 and, after returning to the West, started working in hospice care and teaching vipassana meditation throughout the U.S. Smith’s many years as a monk in Asia, hospice worker, partnered householder and longtime vipassana teacher inform what he considers pivotal: that without Wise View, our pursuit of awakening will go nowhere. He openhandedly shares his own struggle in Stepping Out of Self-Deception: The Buddha’s Liberating Teaching of No-Self.
After spending several years on retreat, including a few years in Asia as a forest monk, Rodney Smith began feeling that his practice was becoming dry. Then he discovered that service has a way of transforming our daily life into a spiritual practice. And that discovery has led to serving others as a practice of the heart. Often the shift from helping to serving is only an attitude deep. Service can actually be an expression of prayer, an ongoing engaged meditation. If service work is defined as breaking through the artificial barriers that seem to isolate us form the rest of life, then washing the dishes, dressing, cooking, eating, and showering are not separate from our prayer or meditation. When our daily activities teach us about our relationship to all things, our life becomes an unceasing prayer of the heart.We become less dependent upon specific practices because we are more aware of the interrelationship between who we are and the activity we are involved in. We may participate in prayer or meditation, but we no longer find that these are the only ways to access a spiritual dimension. Your heart becomes as available through a variety of contacts and relationships as it does through sitting meditation. We start being fed from life itself.
Rodney Smith further talked about service in light of waking up and becoming alive. Aliveness is our birthright. To come alive, we must align ourselves with our heart’s desire. We just have to rediscover how to do that. This observation solves the problem of how to practice and fully participate in our lives at the same time. It says that service is not a burden; rather, it defines service asthat which feeds our aliveness. The word aliveness implies wakefulness, awareness, and a connected passion for life. We may notice that the essence of aliveness is a pure quality distinct from the actions that spring from it, such as following our desire or avoiding our fears. No matter where we start with our understanding of aliveness, however, through investigation we penetrate to new and deeper meanings of this word. We need to keep redefining the idea, allowing it to evolve beyond what we think it means. in this way, it will always be fresh and new, as our aliveness itself.
When we help someone, subliminally we pass on a message of inequality. In doing so, we diminish that person as a human being. We hold those we help in a fixed perspective and often refuse to allow them to grow. This is because if they grew out of their role, we would lose the contact we need to help. So the difference between serving and “helping” is the difference between being alive and being depleted. Helping is based on sacrifice, not strength. It is giving something to someone for a particular reason. Its intention is self-enhancement at the expense of someone whom we regard as underprivileged. The helper is rewarded by knowing that he or she is better off than the person being helped. We become as dependent upon them as they are on us. Our minds can force another into an unequal relationship, but not our hearts. Genuine warmth cannot exist unless there is equality. Within this profound connection, there is mutual appreciation. Our hearts naturally open in service work. A long time meditation teacher, Rodney Smith teaches program on “uprooting our false identity within our encased narrative and aligned ego structures.” His approach is built on the The Buddha’s Four Foundations of Mindfulness:
First Foundation: Contemplation of the Body. …
Second Foundation: Contemplation of Feeling. …
Third Foundation: Contemplation of Mind. …
Fourth Foundation: Contemplation of Dhammas.
Sometimes at crucial moments in our lives we are presented with new paths, opportunities to grow in ways we never expected. If we have courage to take these new directions, we expand, becoming more than we ever dreamed we might become, discovering ways to live and to die with dignity, with grace. That is the story of Rodney Smith’s life journey. In an interview, Rodney spoke of how Buddhist working with the dying.
Urgency, Contentment, and the Edges of Love
Drawing from many spiritual paths including the Muslim-Sufi and Christian mystical traditions as well as Buddhism, Veteran Meditation teacher Gavein Harrison about transformation through suffering. In a detail personal account of his uphill battle with HIV virus and searching for truth: “What truly is the meaning of death?” “Is there an end to suffering?” He described his commitment to facing and standing up for truth—even when confronting abuse, AIDs and death, in Beyond the Grip of Fear.
In learning Buddhism, people have been especially drawn to the various technique meditation. But at the core are two of these practices: Vipassana (insight meditation) – the observation of the mind/body process with clear and focused awareness, leading to a deepening of wisdom and equanimity; and Metta (loving kindness) – the systematic exploration of the ability to love, leading to a deepening of concentration and connection. These practices are to ground in the foundation of Buddhism tradition which is to expand an ever-deepening awareness of the triple refuges ( or Triple Gem). The tradition is kept alive through the commitment to insight, moral integrity and compassion of all who practice it. By honestly making that commitment and sincerely practice the path of insight, we can all free our minds of habitual clinging, anger, and confusion. This is a journey of continuously mindful cultivation and practices.
The Triple Gem of Buddhism is The Buddha, The Dharma & The Sangha. If we look closely, the Triple Gems are actually one. The other two gems always exist in each gem. The Buddha is vision, the Dharma is embodying that vision, and the Sangha is sharing or expressing that vision. The Buddha is wise view, the Dharma is meditation and Sangha is wise action. The Buddha is faith or motivation, the Dharma is practice, and the Sangha is intimacy. The Buddha is enlightenment, the Dharma is actualizing of enlightenment, and the Sangha is manifesting enlightenment. The Buddha is wisdom, the Dharma is the truth, and the Sangha is harmonious action. The Buddha is the vision of awakening out of the conditioning of the mind, the Dharma is refuge in the truth of things, and the Sangha is refuge in the recognition that we have company. Each refuge is powerful and essential in and of itself; at the same time they are all connected in a full and integrated path. The Triple Gems are common to any spiritual search, and are ultimately found within our own heart when we are open to looking.
When the Buddha’s first group of disciples reached enlightenment, he said to them, “Go forth, go out, for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion for the world, for the benefit, for the welfare, for the happiness of beings.” By saying this, the Buddha made it clear that freedom should be expressed and shared in the world – through the Sangha, the third of the Triple Gem. Taking refuge in the Sangha means embracing a seamless view of practice that integrates how we are meditating with how we are in the world and then expressing our understanding through wise action and speech. It is living our meditation, and allowing our lives to express the truth. Sangha reveals the gap between ideas and actuality.
In the Buddhist community one way to take refuge in the Sangha is to remember that we come out of an ancient tradition of awakening. The fact that for over two thousand five hundred years people just like us have been walking this path, can help to give us a sense of direction, protection, and confidence in our own capacity to awaken. It can be comforting to remember that everything that we think is so unique and personal to our own experience has been very well documented in the discourses (suttas) of the Buddha. when we read what was written down so very long ago and see that it is our own experience that is being written about, we may gain a sense of strength and unity.
There are many different ways to look at what Sangha as community means, however. Communities have many shapes and forms. Some communities may even seem formless and fluid. Taking refuge in community does not necessarily mean that we are taking refuge in a specific group of practitioners. One meaning of Sangha is the ordained community of monks and nuns. One meaning is the community of those who from beginningless time, have realized the truth. One meaning is the community of all who are dedicated to lives of truth and good-heartedness, who live with the benefit of all beings in their hearts and minds.
The Buddha’s teaching, as expressed in the lives of the Sangha, is never removed from a sense of humanity. The Buddha was a human being who talked abut what it ultimately means to be a human being and to be happy. When we explore Sangha, we explore what supports us, clears our vision, and inspires us, and what protects us in a life committed to wisdom and good-heartedness. To explore the meaning of community and the exhortation to go forth “for the good of the many,” is to explore a quality of compassion that isn’t lofty or abstract or removed from the concerns of people, but is very present and available.
When the Buddha was asked about he different experiences of life – about being a parent, a renunciate, a friend, being sick, being the one who gives, being the one who receives – he said, “Any life at all may be lived well or may be lived wrongly. If it is lived well, it will bring great results, but if it is lived wrongly, it will bring very poor results.” What ever the particular circumstance of our lives, our potential is great when we honor our own sense of purpose, when we bring wakefulness into the different aspects of our day, and when we remember a heartfelt commitment to the welfare of all beings.
In the time of the Buddha, practitioners had to work with the very same difficulties, hindrances, and obstacles that we meet in our minds today. There are descriptions in the suttas of yearning and longing and anger and agitation and restlessness and doubt and sleepiness and dullness and boredom. To remember this can be a place where we can nourish ourselves when we hit dry or difficult spots. Zen master Dogen said that if there is just one log on a fire, the fire will be weak, whereas many logs make a fire strong and powerful. People can help each other by combing their strengths as they practice. This is one reason why we get together in retreat centers. In terms of a lifetime of practice, most of us can benefits from the support of one another. We are dependent on ourselves to practice; no one can do it for us. But at the same time, most of us need support.
The practice of Vipassana (insight meditation) goes against the grain of the culture, we in the West especially need the strength that practicing together brings. The values of the culture in the world at large differ greatly from the values that we uncover and strengthen in our meditation practice. One examples is that in the culture we are generally encouraged to have strong opinions. having strong views is seen as making one more stable and productive, whereas if we don’t have firmly held dogmatic views, we are seen as wishy-washy. When we look deeply, however, we see that attachment to views and opinions narrows our world and limits creative possibilities. Opinions and views are very subjective and are not something to cling to too tightly.
In spiritual practice we begin to question what is defined as success. The dominant culture encourages us to be as busy and frantic as possible, telling us that if we are doing something, we are on the way to becoming someone. The more crowded one’s life is the more successful. The culture urges us to live for the future and values greed and accumulation. But our practice invites us to be aware and present, while letting go of our attachment to fantasy and preoccupation with external things. It is a radical act to do nothing and to sit in stillness. Doing nothing in a meditative sense means keeping the heart still and being completely present with whatever activity we are engaged in: it is an extremely vibrant creative activity. The art of doing nothing, however easy it may sound, requires a great deal of practice and training.
Although wholesome qualities of heart are developed through our own effort, we can get a clear sense of what they look like and how wonderful they are by seeing them embodies in others. Being contact with wise friends points to and strengthens our own latent wisdom, generosity, and compassion. When we are in contact with those who are wise or free, it touches that which we already know within ourselves but have forgotten. Some part of the heart remembers a little bit more through this contact. Our own Buddha-nature gets revealed. When we see that others have changed and have grown into deepening levels of freedom through practice, we see that this path of liberation is also available to us. When we begin to recognize and let go of our competitive conditioning, others can inspire us when they share themselves and the fruits of their practice.
The Buddha clearly valued the presence of wise friends on the path. In the suttras he taught that when a particular quality of hear such as generosity, patience, or concentration needs to be developed, one should try to have contact with others who have already developed that same wholesome quality. The Buddha emphasized the importance of “noble friendship and suitable conversation.” It makes sense. If we want to realize truth and freedom, it’s helpful to be in the presence of those who are manifesting and expressing truth and freedom. It is more than inspiration. On some level it is transmission: we are very much influenced by one another. Although wholesome qualities of heart are developed through our own effort, we can get a clear sense of what they look like and how wonderful they are by seeing them embodied in others.
The people that we choose to be with in intimate ways and as friends have strong influence on our lives. It is important to notice what we base our relationship choices on. Are we being drawn by blind desire or by wisdom? It is a true treasure in this life of attempting to awaken to find friends who will tell us the truth when we ask. It is very easy to find people who will talk behind our backs, but to receive the truth from friends in a kind way is a wonderful gift. We can take refuge in their discernment. We can check our our assumptions and conclusions. Discerning friend can help us examine ways that we habitually cause suffering from ourselves and others. The path of freedom is a difficult one, a path that requires great effort and earnestness. To be in the company of spiritual friends who can help us recognize and transform the inevitable obstacles that we encounter along the way is invaluable. It is hard to walk on this path of awareness without friend gently pointing out our blind spots.
Though wise friendship is an essential aspect of the spiritual path, this doesn’t mean to avoid or insulate ourselves from people who we think do not have the qualities that we aspire to. There is a great deal to be learned form interacting in situations that are not so protected or consciously supportive of our inner development. When we are being challenged in ways that are not necessarily of our own choosing or within our control, life can continue to teach us. We can develop patience and compassion in situations that provoke impatience and aversion, if we are willing to be mindful of our own reactivity and learn to take responsibility for our response. If we can bring these situations into our practice, then we do not have to relate to ourselves as victims, subjugated to the whims of others.
While being part of the Buddhist tradition that began with the enlightenment of the Buddha, we are also part of a much larger Sangha that includes not only Buddhists but also the greater community of those who are seeking freedom and truth. We are part of this greater community simply through our commitment to being awake and choosing not to engage in harmful actions toward ourselves and others.
We are immediately brought into this larger Sangha with our willingness to be openhearted and with our intention to grow in discernment. Taking refuge in the Sangha is not a matter of adhering to a particular belief system or of identifying oneself as a Buddhist. The Buddha didn’t want people to follow him blindly or to identify with what he taught; his teaching is an invitation to know freedom for ourselves.
When we come in contract with others, as we do everyday, we are bound to be hurt form time to time, and at certain times quite a bit. Our first reaction is to cling to our hurt feelings, to our sense of being separate from one another. instead we can bring mindfulness into our relationships with others rather than taking refuge in withdrawal or blame. Perhaps we can take refuge in risking something different from the old familiar unworkable and unsatisfying ways that we all know so well. We can be mindful in relationship and ask: Am I acting in a habitual or mechanical way?When we are up against that which seems unworkable,what does it mean to remain openhearted? To stay open may go against every bone in the body! So taking refuge in eh Sangha also means making a commitment to bringing mindfulness to this rich area of relationship in all its diverse forms.
Taking refuge in our interconnection means that when we hurt another person, we recognize that we hurt ourselves as well. Similarly, when we hurt ourselves, we also hurt others. We may think that we can hurt ourselves and that no one else will be hared. But because we are interconnected, this is never true. Unless we learn to take care of ourselves,we won’t really know how to care for others. If we haven’t learned how to be kind with ourselves, being kind to others is often merely an ideal to strive for. Taking care of oneself also means being willing to acknowledge one’s suffering and then investigate its source. this means to silently observe our suffering without judging or reacting. This process takes a great deal of patience and courage, and we gradually discover an inner refuge through cultivating these qualities. buy training the heart to be steady and equanimous, our confidence grows as well as our capacity to help others. when we remember to bring our mindfulness practice to the complex world of relationship, the gap between spiritual ideals and actuality dissolves.
While we try to be openhearted to everyone around us, we can practice being openhearted to all the emotions, inner voices, and thoughts in our inner environment. Taking refuge in the Sangha means being openhearted with this inner Sangha as well. If we can embrace and accept negative emotions and unpleasant states of mind when they arise, without identifying with them or acting on them, we can begin to trust ourselves and live with greater ease. The practice of meditation teaches us to face whatever is occurring, and this strength of heart and mind becomes a lasting refuge. In the words of the Buddha, “By wise effort and earnestness, find for yourself an island that no flood can overwhelm.” As we find an inner refuge that no flood can overwhelm, we quite naturally become a refuge for others.
After attaining the great enlightenment, the Buddha expressed this verse in his heart (Dhammapada, verses 153-54):
"I wondered through the rounds of countless births,
Seeking but not finding the builder of this house.
Sorrowful indeed is birth again and again.
O house builder! you have now been seen.
You shall build the house no longer.
All Your rafters have been broken,
Your ridgepole shattered.
My mind has attained to unconditioned freedom.
Achieved is the end of craving."
All beings need a refuge, a place where they can find ease or peace. In our day-to-day existence, we are constantly trying to find relief form the torments of the heart – refuge from fear, loneliness, anger, boredom, etc. However, we tend to seek this refuge in outer things which ultimately prove unreliable. This yearning for relief takes many different forms. At times, we try to find refuge in accumulating possessions or through success in our career. Or we try to find refuge in memories or fantasies. Some of us try in alcohol, drugs, entertainment or in sleeping and eating. Without awareness, we blindly seek solace where it cannot be found. And over and over again, we find ourselves disappointed because we are trying to find happiness in that which is impermanent. Through the power of awareness, we begin to realize that a lasting source of ease and comfort can only be found within.
Dr. Gabor Maté, Canadian physician and author with background in family practice and a special interest in childhood development, trauma and potential lifelong impacts on physical and mental health, argues in Modern Culture Is Traumatizing and NOT Normal!, that trying to draw conclusion of human nature from how we live in this society is like to understand a wild animal inside a cage. What we consider to be normal culture that we have here, there is nothing normal in terms of human needs and human potential. In fact, it’s that gap between human needs and human potential and the conditions under which we live now that create so much illness of mind and body, not to mention so much tension, strain, hostility and division in society in general.
Historically, the Buddha’s teachings have been preserved by the monastic tradition, and the term sangha has referred to the community of monks and nuns. Sangha can, as well, be seen in a much more inclusive way to mean all like-minded spiritual seekers. The Buddha, when asked whether anyone who had not ordained as a monk had become fully awakened, replied, “there has not been just one persons. There have been many people who have awakened, who have lived a householder life.” In the original discourses of the Buddha, we see that there all kids of people who practiced and realized the deepest freedom – people with different levels of education, diverse socioeconomic classes, practitioners with big families, both men and women, and even some seven-year-olds. There is a whole group of children who were said to have been enlightened at the age of seven in the Buddha’s time!
The support and encouragement that we receive from the Sangha are invaluable, given the nature and depth of our inquiry. Cultural conditioning, with its obsession with the external, keeps us searching for happiness outside of ourselves. Thespiritual path has nothing to do with achievement or attainment or becoming someone special. Because we live in such a competitive culture, we need to be especially mindful of feelings of competition when we practice together. When we compete with one another, we reinforce the discontent that comes form feelings of separateness and in-completion.
Another more expansive way of looking at taking refuge in the Sangha is taking refuge in or interconnection with all beings – whether they are engaged in a spiritual practice or not. We can be aware of our deep sense of a common bond to one another, and can take refuge in being intimate with all beings, if we see through the apparent separation of self and other. The Indian sage Neem Karoli Baba said, “Don’t throw anyone out of your heart.” This means not only seeing our interconnection but living it. Not to throw anyone out means to continue to practice opening our hearts to all beings, even those beings that engage in harmful actions. This doesn’t mean that we approve or condone unskillful actions, or that we can’t say no and set protective boundaries. Boundaries are important if we want to be able to keep everyone in our hearts. There are times when we need to protect ourselves, Situations of oppression or abuse may require throwing someone our of your house to avoid throwing them out of your heart.
Relationship is essential on our path because it strips away our ideas about ourselves. We can be very loving while sitting alone and then become totally angry when we come into contact with someone else. We can have great ideas about being more generous, for example, but then, when we find ourselves in a position to give, we don’t. Thinking about giving can be a lot easier than the actuality, if it means that we have to extend ourselves beyond the range of what we have determined as comfortable. Practice in relationship requires us to examine ourselves with a commitment to honesty, recognizing our limitations and then gently stretching beyond them. it is important to remember that some conflict is a natural part of being in relationship with anyone. Trying to avoid conflict with others out of fear, ironically, prevents intimacy and ultimately leads to greater discontent. We need to learn how to take conflict that arises and work with it skillfully, using the conflict to be more aware of our reactivity and attachment to views and opinions. if our hearts and minds can regain balance in the midst of reactivity and conflict, faith in our practice grow is and we discover a more reliable refuge than avoidance or withdrawal.
In the Book Voices of Insight edited by Sharon Salzberg, cofounder and guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society and a cofounder of the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, introduces to us many great resources to cope with the turbulence and anxiety of our time. The Insight Meditation Society (IMS) is a non-profit organization for study of Buddhism founded in Barre, MA in 1975, by Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein and is rooted in the Theravada tradition.
In the transition of the Buddhist teachings from Asia to the West, there is an understanding that doesn’t come easily into our culture – the importance of confidence on oneself. Traditional Asian teachings emphasize Right Effort, one of the elements of the Eight-fold Path as reflected in the very last thing the Buddha said to his disciples: “Strive on with diligence.” Meant to be empowering and personally liberating, that message is somehow not understood in the same way in the West. Effort seems burdensome, or even terrifying. We might disdain or dismiss the whole idea that the path demands effort. At the heart of many of these reactions is, I believe, a feeling of helplessness. We might subtly think, “I can’t do it. I don’t have what it takes to ‘strive with diligence; or to bring about a change in my actions.” Sharon Salzbert spoke of her transformation from self-deprecation to self-confidence. Sharon wrote extensively about her teacher Dipa Ma, a Vipassana Buddhist Master Teacher, whose amazing influence to her students on the Right Effort, was always coupled with mirroring to each of her students a powerful sense of their own ability.
Meditation is nothing new. But for many years in the West only monastics, mystics, poets, and Asian Americans practiced it. Now this path of observing life simply and directly has made its way into the mainstream. Partly because of the technological advance of internet make it possible to have wise and direct words of teachers heard, an American meditation tradition has taken root. Buddhism has brought its jewel, the practice of learning by looking within, to a society in need of wisdom to navigate the turmoil of modern world with globalization as background.
In the Buddhist literature, the word kalyannamitta is usually translated as a good, honest or spiritual friend. But is means more than just that. The words “sacred friendship” come closest to describing the depth of connection and commitment, the pure and unconditional relationship, that can exist between a student and a spiritual teacher, as well as between friends. within the wide embrace of sacred friendship, acceptance and forgiveness are what make real intimacy possible. Intimacy rests in the simplicity of being fully present, responsive to what is there in the moment, with no agenda or anticipation. By fully being in the moment we are there in just the right way. We rediscover the mystery of who we are through this interchange of opening and surrender. Such friendships create heaven on earth.
Anchored in the Theravadan Buddhist Burmese lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw since 1974, Steven Smith’s Dharma Talksanswer people’s question about how they can integrate the path of self-liberation with the path of paying attention to the welfare of others. His focus is guiding practitioners to do both. The dharmic brilliance is that liberation, the core teaching, creates a deep, transformative experience of who we are, which, in turn, transforms our care for the state of all beings everywhere. Steven Smith also had album MeditationOfTheHearton Spotify to share for free.
One the great spiritual teacher of our time, Jack Kornfield, spoke of tradition of Ajahn Chah – one of Theravada school of Buddhism. The teachings of Ajahn Chan described two levels of spiritual practice. On the first level, you use Dharma to become comfortable. You become virtuous and a little kinder. you sit and quiet your mind, and you help make a harmonious community. Then the second kind of Dharma, is to discover real freedom of mind, heart, and spirit. This level of practice has nothing whatsoever to do with comfort. here you take every circumstance of life and work with it to learn to be free. Ajahn Chan’s way of teaching combines the ultimate level of Dharma with the practical level. To help us find freedom, Ajahn Chan taught about selflessness, the essential realization of the Buddha’s liberation, in simple and remarkable ways.
Mirabai Bush, Cofounder of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society in Massachusetts, discussed with contemporary thought leaders in Walking Each Other Home: Conversations on Loving and Dying Paperback – June 21, 2022, on social justice, radical self-love, devotional ecology, public and spiritual health and more — framed within the context of the work with Ram Dass. Another book coauthored by Mirabai Bush Contemplative Practices in Higher Education: Powerful Methods to Transform Teaching and Learning presents background information and ideas for the practical application of contemplative practices across the academic curriculum from the physical sciences to the humanities and arts. It is an inspiring report from the frontlines of academe by two quiet revolutionaries. A must-read for anyone who cares about the future of college teaching and who seeks a vision of what it could be. The other author Daniel p. Barbezat, is professor of economics at Amherst College and a former director of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society.
In Bryn Mawr College classroom, students meditate before studying the Holocaust, slavery, and apartheid, according to their professor, it helps them “keep the encounter with shared human horror from becoming a kind of vicarious intellectual voyeurism.” Its Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research offers program to Learn mindful self-care strategies and discerning when meditative practices can be used as prevention vs intervention. Contemplative Arts at the White Lotus Center in Bryn Mawr PA, also teaches meditation and mindfulness-based stress management to individuals and groups, and support people living with cancer or other serious illnesses to integrate a variety of mind body methods into their healing journey.
These are deep and nurturing wellspring of Dharma teachings on sacred journey, sacred friendship, right effort, suffering and the end of suffering, unconditional acceptance, the power of silence and stillness. May they inspire many to deepens their wisdom and compassion and work to relieve the suffering of all being. These resources may very well be taken into consideration in governmental, institutional and school’ reform for detoxification.
In the book, Emotional Bullshit: The Hidden Plague that Is Threatening to Destroy Your Relationships-and How to S top It Paperback – December 26, 2008, author, Dr. Carl Alasko, a practicing family therapist, takes apart the emotional poisons that destroys trust and happiness in every area of life, no matter is dating, marriage, parenting, friendship or at work, explain how the toxic trio dynamics of Denial, Delusion and Blame combined to cause stealth disease of mental disorder in individuals as well as in the nation. * deny, manipulate and distort essential facts * substitute a delusional and false reality, and then * blame someone or something when things fall apart.
Many components of this trio are innate behavioral and chemical processes that are necessary for survival. It is when we abuse the properties of the ‘Toxic Trio,’ that problems begin. Dr. Alasko gives you the knowledge and power to understand the forces that come into play when you feel compelled to refuse to accept responsibilities for the choices you make. These plagues have proven to be the prevalent cause of destructive and even irreparably damaged relationships. The problems of society start with the individual. Learn how to recognize these toxic and avoid the dark, downward spiral of self-deception and delusion. This type of dynamic is denoted in the Neptune in Virgo square Mars in Gemini in the United States national chart, and manifested as self-undoing behavior such as habitual liar/misrepresentation, compulsive gambling, uncontrollable drug usage, lawless sex addition, incessant wars/proxy war with other countries of last seventy years, are among some of the symptoms of a mind that prone to be clouded by corruption distorted value system . We observed this display darkness in the United States during the crisis of national debt accumulation, government budget ceiling, financial/bank disaster and outrageous claims of the politicians.
Professor Michael Hudson has devoted his career to the study of debt, both domestic debt (loans, mortgages, interest payments), and external debt. In his works, he consistently advocates the idea that loans and exponentially growing debts that outstrip profits from the real economy are disastrous for both the government and the people of the borrowing state as they wash money (payments to usurers and rentiers) from turnover, notleaving them funds to buy goods and services, thus leading to debt deflation. Hudson notes that the existing economic theory, the Chicago School in particular, serves rentiers and financiers and has developed a special language designed to reinforce the impression that there is no alternative to the status quo. In a false theory, the parasitic encumbrances of a real economy, instead of being deducted in accounting, add up as an addition to the gross domestic product and are presented as productive. Hudson sees consumerprotection, statesupport of infrastructure projects, and taxation of rentier sectors of the economy rather than workers, as a continuation of the line of classical economists today.
Dr. Michael HUDSON – De-Dollarization – Toward the End of U.S. Monetary Hegemony? Since the end of World War II, the United States has been the world’s hegemonic power. In economic, military, and cultural spheres, the U.S. has enjoyed nearly unrivaled supremacy. However, unlike past hegemons, which have been net creditors to the rest of the world, the United States is a net debitor; but this is a strength, not a weakness. U.S. debt is an integral feature of its economic dominance, through which the United States receives goods and services from the rest of the world in exchange for dollars it can print and keystroke into existence. Yet cracks are showing in the foundations of dollar hegemony, as countries look to find ways to escape from U.S. economic dominance. In this talk, Prof. HUDSON will discuss the prospects and challenges of global de-dollarization, and how countries like China may forge a way toward a different monetary system free of U.S. control.
How can we Make American Great Again? First of all, we have to address these compulsive spending of military complex, politicians and ruling classes in draining the world economy by rent-seeking 90 percent of the world. As United States is so deep entrenched into the debt, both Republican and Democratic party blame on China as the country that take away American’ job. One of President Donald Trump’s lesser known but profoundly damaging legacies will be the explosive rise in the national debt that occurred on his watch. How will his policy of cutting taxes for the corporation and 1% contribute to the MAGA? According to the fact checking site Snopes and U.S. Treasury data, 25% of the United States’ total national debt was accrued during the Trump administration. The surge in debt was largely due to the $3.7 trillion in pandemic relief offered to Americans, Snopes reported. And that definitely contribute to a good degree of high inflation we are suffering now.
Recently there is an upheaval in Israel, something never happened in Israel’s history since its birth on May 14 1948. Even though I had quote Anne Norton’s book in discussing Jew’s philosophy in conflict with Muslim, but I admit I do not know much about Jew’s life. I am just going to read from the Horoscope of Israel national chart to see if it give us some clue.
This is a national that is destined and strongly desired to play an important role in the international stage. The four planets clustered in the 10th house donates those determination and resolute. Pluto is the subconscious desire, Mars is the energy of dedication, Saturn is the implementation and the Moon, together with the emotional needs and subjective awareness of the Moon which is right on the MC and in conjunction to Pluto, the chart ruler. The prolific Moon in Leo is in a Quintile (72 degree) aspect to the Taurus Sun. The Sun is the depositor of all the planets in 10th house and the MC. This fuses a driven restless energy with intense creativity to organize and manifest something that’s usually tied to earthly reality.
But there is a blockage between the Sun in Taurus and Mars /Saturn in Leo. This denotes difficulties in the holistic integration of its energies/organizing efforts to manifest optimal result. There was a skipped step in the past relating to the ability of Pluto (unconscious desire for transformation) and Saturn (responsibility, regulations, authority, discipline, control, fear and denial). As they are stuck in the past (Scorpio South Node) of attraction to crisis situations, and obsessive-compulsive tendencies, the Native is over concerned with others’ business and has resistance to cooperating with what others what. A sense of setting boundary and self-reliance is in need for further development. Currently transit planet Uranus is in close conjunction to the North node, awaken the native the need for self assurance and the courage/conviction to search for its own identity (Transit Pluto square its Asc.) .
A north node in 7th house in Taurus denotes the needs to develop awareness of its value system to appropriately interaction with others – honoring expressed needs of self and others, and to forge mindset of forgiveness and gratitude. Just a few days before the founding of the country (May 9th 1948) there was a solar eclipse on 19 degree of Taurus, sensitize the 7th house, where the Sun stands as well as the North Node, putting the ruler of 7th house, Venus in focus. Venus, the planet of money and relationship is in early degree of Cancer is in 9th house ruling 7th and the 12th where Neptune in Libra stands. And Venus is deposited by the Moon in Leo at MC.
It seems the native’s value system and the emotional needs for getting social status paralyzed its spirituality. Neptune is often called whisper form the eternal. The 12th house is the house of self-undoing. The Native can easily prone to the trap of the ego and lose its good judgement in its creative projects/endeavors. Deeply merged its psyche with others, the native may not have a clear sense of its own identity/boundary, and can suffer from taking on too much risk in its endeavor for social achievements and thus constantly in a state of crisis mentality .
Remember The stars incline, but do not compel. In this case, Introspection, self-examination, prayers maybe especially important for the native to establish its own value system, find peace and the lost dreams, re-discover the blessings from its heritage (which had always been there), and for its general well-being. With a more clear vision, it can take on the works of service humanity and the betterment of the world using its ingenuity. Purification and giving back to the Mother Earth (not necessary for the so-called climate change) are among some of the transformations this country is well capable of exemplifying. In doing so, fulfill the emotional needs it so inspiriting to. After all, the Star of David national flag was envisioned from the prayer with God.
Namo Amituofo ! Merry Christmas to you all! May the holiday season brings you peace and enlightenment! Christmas reminds people of blessings and happiness, we may be confronted with economic down turn, can we still lead a happy life despite of inflation and economic depression? What is the relationship of exterior wealth and inner wealth? Let’s dwell into some details.
Merry Christmas to You All !
David Guy Myers is a professor of psychology and the author of 17 books. His book The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of Plentyexplore the social development since 1960, while material affluence and human rights have surged, national civic health was falling. David’s overarching aim is to contribute to a new environmental movement—a social environmental movement—one seeking a social ecology that respects human rights while nurturing healthier individuals, families, and communities. With this end in mind he notes the social consequences of American materialism and individualism and points the way toward more positive values, economic policies, media influences, educational priorities, and faith communities. According to the on-going research since 1972 by University of Chicago on Americans’ outlook and emotional health trends in public opinion data from the General Social Survey (GSS), an ongoing project which NORC , American happiness is at a five-decade low. Despite modern technology has increased material wealth, emotional happiness is not something technology can help.
In Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, British economist Richard Layard asks: If we really wanted to be happier, what would we do differently? First we’d have to see clearly what conditions generate happiness and then bend all our efforts toward producing them. He went on to say that psychological problems and mental illness are amongst the biggest causes of misery. At a time when political action only seems to happen when we can attach a dollar cost and potential savings, he added that human suffering imposes severe burdens on the economy. At the same time we already have good evidence that the tools for dealing with all this psychological distress already exist. In his report he went on to propose that the United Kingdom needs 10,000 new cognitive behavioral therapists to make a major dent in all this suffering. What was different was that he went on to show that this expenditure made good economic sense.
Today, human beings tend to think of happiness as a natural right. But they haven’t always felt this way. For the ancient Greeks, happiness meant virtue. For the Romans, it implied prosperity and divine favor. For Christians, happiness was synonymous with God. Throughout history, happiness has been equated regularly with the highest human calling, the most perfect human state. Yet it’s only within the past two hundred years that human beings have begun to think of happiness as not just an earthly possibility but also as an earthly entitlement, even an obligation. In his book Happiness: A History, historian Darrin M. McMahon draws on a multitude of sources, including art and architecture, poetry and scripture, music and theology, and literature and myth, and argues that our modern belief in happiness is the product of a dramatic revolution in human expectations carried out since the eighteenth century.
An important concept in Buddhism and yogic philosophy teaches us that life in essence is Dukha, a Sanskrit and Pali word that can be translated to mean “suffering.” Included in Dukkha is all manner of unsatisfactoriness, from mild disappointment to the most extreme physical and emotional distress. Dukkha is something you must overcome in a lifetime to reach a higher stage in the next lifetime. The ultimate stage is called Nibbana (Nibbana (Pali), nirvana (Sanskrit)). Nibbana /Nirvana is ultimate peace and the goal of every Buddhist.
Below in a long series of seminars Professor Zeng Shiqiang illuminated to us the spiritual dimension of Wealth and how human can integrate it into their path of cultivation – Tao.
Chinese Wealth Culture
曾仕强—财神文化（一）身心之外还有道; 一般人说到财神就认为是宗教或迷信；人禽之分，天地造人就是要人能够作用帮助天地去运行； 天的颜色跟人有关系，天气跟人有关系，天地人三合感应；天有天理（空性，无为，西方文化只相信看得见的东西， 不相信看不见的，所以他们的文明现在走不下去了），地有地理（风水），人有人理（良心， 现代的人忙到不知道有良心） 西方的理（法理，A rolling stone gathers no moss ；）是固定的，中国人的理（情理）是灵活的； 用心就是凭良心； 现代人有一点空闲都慌张，因为害怕面对自己； 现代人谁都不怕，就怕自己，所以只好埋头划手机； 现代的专家如果凭良心，后面的财团不答应； 近百年来，中华文化发生了断层，很多人盲目学习西方；
In pursuit of happiness requires we to address issues self-denial such as drug abusing, alcoholism, gambling addictions etc bad habits which block us with in touch with our authentic true self. Full of excellent practical advice, insight, and some very useful exercises, Kevin Griffin’s One Breath at a Time – Buddhism and the Twelve Steps show us a good way to heal from the addictions. Unlike many of our best and most revered Buddhist teachers, Mr. Griffin hasn’t spent years living in Asia. He’s slogged through life in Western society, and has had to find his peace and insights while simultaneously dealing with the same day-to-day problems of career, love, marriage, parenthood, etc. as the rest of us. In a wise and honest way, Griffin presented the Buddhist instructions for meditation practice spoken in the idiom of Twelve Steps Recovery Program and empower the people with the hand-on possibility of freedom from addiction.
Surrender Steps:
First, a surrender to the truth of our disease and our inability to control it; then surrendering to a Higher Power, seeing that we will have to depend on something besides our own will and knowledge to stay sober and develop spiritually. As we enter the process, we often find that surrender is the battle itself – with drugs and alcohol, with the world, with ourselves – that has cripple us in many ways. in this case, surrender becomes preferable to going on fighting. Surrender is a traditional element of every spiritual journey. Before we can begin to realize our potential, we must break out of limiting concepts of who and what we are and what we think is possible. This may mean giving up long-held beliefs and comfortable behavior patterns. Cynicism， our fantasy, fear or control, anger or grief – many of us cling to these patterns and others. When we begin to surrender, we see that we will have to let go of these destructive habits of mind before we can move toward freedom. While many people tend to think of spirituality as looking up, toward the heights of perfection or saintliness, the Steps remind us that we must first look down, into the darkness of our souls, and see and accept our shadow before we attain an honest and authentic spiritual life.
Step One: admit we were powerless, but not helpless, over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable;
Step Two: Come to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity; the self is an illusion made up of thoughts, emotions, memories that have no center, no abiding core. To rely on this illusory amalgam is to live in delusion, to mistake the movie of our minds for Truth. Have trust and confidence in the 3rd Noble Truth, reorient us toward a less self-centered life and open to new possibilities.
Step Three: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him (If we make certain choices, we get certain results). Commit to sobriety itself; then commit to the program and the Steps; commit more deeply to Buddhist practice. Take Refuge in the Buddha! Learn the middle-way to balance between faith(openheartness) and wisdom (discrimination).
How It honestly Works Steps:
These steps are linked to the meditative processes of examining the mind, of letting go of these blocks to clarity, and of healing ourselves and others. As we investigate and take responsibility for our past actions and our continuing habits of mind, the light of truth shine on the shadowed recesses of our lives, and a new freedom imbues us with confidence and joy, as shame is banished and we are no longer dogged by secrets and guilt.
Step Four: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. This is most difficult step – willingness to admit our failing and can be wrenching, awkward, agonizing. As the self-hatred that results in alcoholism can make this process difficult. Master Thick Nhat Hanh encourage us to also make an inventory of our positive qualities and actions, we must find joy in our lives here and now. Appreciate our positive strength and take pleasure in putting time and energy to adhere to 8-fold path in life.
Step Five: Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Step Six: Get ready to have God remove all defects of character, letting go of many attachments: attachment to material things and sense pleasure; attachment to views and opinions; attachment to relationships; attachment to your body, your thoughts, your sense of identity.
Step Seven: once we build a strong foundation for sobriety, asking God to take away our defects of character so that we can be more useful in the world and do “God’s will.” It is a process, get vigilant to pitfalls of Perfectionism, Procrastination and Paralysis.
Step Eight: At a deeper level of honesty to consider and made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Do not confuse living alone and limiting human contact to do solitude for meditation practice as the most spiritual behavior. The willingness to face pain – internally and externally – awakens love and compassion.
Step Nine: Make direct amends to such people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Cleaning up our lives in this way is critical to the Buddhist path. Forgiving others, being forgiven, and forgiving ourselves.
Steps cultimnating of the spiritual path:
Here we try to thoroughly integrate the work we’ve done into our lives. We learn to maintain the honesty and responsibility we developed in the earlier Steps, to deepen our spiritual connection, and to serve others. Buddhism teaches that the real value of the spiritual life isn’t found in moments of great bliss but in the daily application of mindfulness and loving kindness. it’s our ongoing effort that is most important to our spiritual development. We can’t rest on yesterday’s clam and insight, we must renew our commitment and energy each day. These Steps are the cornerstones of maintenance. They are also the bridge to a life that is “happy, joyous and free.” Our spiritual awakening brings liberation, as we enter a new life, one free from the encumbrances of addition, and one guided by the principles of wisdom and compassion.
Step Ten: Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong promptly admit it. Recognize the opportunities for spiritual development that are in our lives right now, and acknowledging as well those qualities that aren’t growing at this time.
Step Eleven: Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Buddhism is an orthopraxy: it adheres to a set of practices, through which you can come to your own understanding, not one imposed from the outside. Make conscious and explicit our highest aspirations.
Step Twelve: having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we try to carry this message to other alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Retreat is NOT the only meaningful form of practice. Don’t just do these stuff at special times, do it all the time.
Namo Amituofo! Merry Christmas! To our happiness and enlightenment !
