Debt Rattle March 24 2021
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“He opened his eyes, and he looked at me and said quite clearly, “You know, it’s not that big of a deal.”
Yes. Give a dying person room to do what they need to do. They’ll surely ask if they need anything. But maybe give them a flashlight, the ancient kind using ancient Eveready batteries.
@ Michael Reid
You’re very welcome. I’d share some other souls if I could but this is the only one I have.
So many threads, so many details, so much harder to follow them than just silly news they use to distract.
Buddhism: too large. From the west they take it like Alan Watts or yoga studio. A book like Siddharta. Maybe lost northern India. Or the luxurious SE Asia, where the transience of life allows street sex in Bankok, you know, and such. Prayers to Buddha, who never meant to be a god. That’s how men go with ideas, even good ones. More men lost to Buddhism than saved by it now? What would that mean?
And somehow they think that is unique to Christianity. Or the Pope, or hundreds of things. And at the moment not true of today’s religion of secular humanism, and their unquestioning priesthood, science. But to me it doesn’t deserve special approbation, it’s only the same boring thing: religious zealotry, dogma, and intolerance. Garden variety heresy, the usual burnings at the stake. Takeover into theocracy. Blah blah blah.
I’d be happy to pick on the religious, Christians or something, if it, or they, were relevant, but I doubt in a “Christian” country where I am told in great authority that 80M are some sort of pastiche of Appalachian movie tropes, I doubt you could find 1% that are anything like Christians. 3 million. Doesn’t that seem a lot? Wouldn’t 3 million really stand out, have an impact? Already be arrested, clogging up the prisons with their stupid love and their stupid charity? Yeah, probably not. Late season for that, a lot of people in the book of it, the building of it. But there’s no point in criticizing people who only shoplift silver left-handed cross-spangles. There just aren’t any of them. They don’t run media, government, armies, universities, banks, schools, heck they don’t even run churches. Why punch down? They’re like the smallest minority in America. Any truly religious person is.
There was quite a millennium cult, actually everywhere in America. Couldn’t swing a cat without hitting one, even years after the Shakers. What everyone found out, including the Wiki-worthy Oneida, was that a magic age is a lot of work. And that work requires a wisdom and morality in men that is rare and hard to create. It’s not very different now in a more cynical time. Worse perhaps since it’s been said that hardship creates wisdom and character, and ease and luxury the opposite.
Here we are. With more knowledge and less wisdom than ever. More power but less morality than ever. What’s going to fix that? More power and more intel?
@ Dr. D
You seem to almost delight in how so little is good enough for you. Granted, the works of humanity disappoint overall and too often horrify, but we are humans and this is the world. CLoud, sky, horizon, breeze, ground, lungs, heart, feet, mind, soul.
Nothing needs to be fixed because, as your own impressive survey of history shows, nothing can be done.
I’m sipping Flor De Caña and lime juice, it’s three a.m.
Blow a fruit fly off the rim of my glass
The radio’s playing Superchunk and the Friends of Dean Martinez
Midnight it was bike tires whacking the pot holes
Milling humans’ shivering energy glow
Fusing the space between them with bar-throb bass and laughter
If this were the last night of the world
What would I do?
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you?
I learned as a child not to trust in my body
I’ve carried that burden through my life
But there’s a day when we all have to be pried loose
If this were the last night of the world
What would I do?
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you?
I’ve seen the flame of hope among the hopeless
And that was truly the biggest heartbreak of all
That was the straw that broke me open
If this were the last night of the world
What would I do?
What would I do that was different
Unless it was champagne with you?
<end>Let’s just live. It’s all we’re doing for now anyway. Death and calamity do as they will. One can always choose death or even calamity (Gurdjieff did, twice) as a way out and hopefully toward some brighter reality, but until that time, living seems to be the sole option.
The State Dept uses CNN
The FBI/DofJ use New York Times
The CIA uses the Washington Post.The DofJ prosecutors are giving interviews about their planned prosecutions of the horrible Jan 6th Capital Hill riot.
They are certainly busy extending their narrative of “white terrorists” attacking the Capital for as long as possible.
However all this narrative talking to the media would seem to be working to undermine any chances of successfully prosecuting any rioters.
But as some have pointed out, it isn’t justice the DofJ is seeking but rather it is about subjecting it’s choosen victims to the long and crushing “political justice process” that they seek.Ask totally innocent General Fynn about being tried by a kangaroo court judge while being dragged through the mud for political ends on trumped up fake charges. I don’t think you would like the treatment one bit.
@Zerosum: Your immune system and every cell in your body need vitamin-D.
Carry-on, Brother.More about “A-theistic” Buddhism.
There is not (necessarily) a deity, though as Buddhism spread to places that already had a lot of demons and angels, gods and goddesses, it did not try to stamp them out, but just made them different incarnations, along with worms and eagles.
I have practiced Buddhism with Tibetan teachers for the most part, and Tibet had lots of spirit entities and Shamen. Bon was accepted. Buddhism was accepted. Tibetan Buddhism is ornate. Japanese Buddhism is not ornate. Shinto observed that “God” was in everything, or that nothing was outside of “God”. It’s a pretty coarse translation. I like “universal consciousness” better.
Buddhism teaches that you are universal mind, if I may take liberties with words, and that you are separated from your true nature by delusions and habits. Those delusions and habits can be gradually changed through practice and paying attention, and they might suddenly change in the prepared seeker, in events or direct wisdom transmissions from a teacher. Our most typical teachers are all the people who piss us off and trigger cognitive dissonance within us. We might consider gratitude to them as part of our learning who we are.
I grew up on USMC and Navy bases, and sunny southern California, and Brooklyn, and a cattle ranch in rural Texas, and Japan. I have lots of triggers, and see things kinda’ funny most of the time. When we moved from my grandfather’s ranch to Kamakura when I was 15, I finally gave up on trying to fit in and belong, and adopted the self-identification of “foreigner”. It really fit everything since I was 6. There are certain freedoms in being a foregner, and some core boundaries, too.
Maybe I’ll know “myself” as universal mind, and will know “all-Y’all” better, but I probably won’t be able to say much useful about it.
Maybe not.
Who knows?@Archie: I had this song about “Lonely People” in my mind on my bike commute to work today.
@ JOhn Day
“Our most typical teachers are all the people who piss us off and trigger cognitive dissonance within us. We might consider gratitude to them as part of our learning who we are.”
God bless those undeserving assholes. 😉 I agree with your statement, btw.
@ Madamski
“ “Human creativity flourishes best with limits, not when there are no limits.”
It isn’t something I was taught, but rather an observation. I am a creative type, and I’ve noticed that when I place no limits on myself that creating can meander somewhat aimlessly. When there are limits, then creativity has to find ways to express itself in spite of the limits. It is when there are obstacles to deal with that break throughs tend to come. Obstacles kickstart the creative process.
I am not advocating for “authorities” to place limits — although they often do. Life itself limits us in myriads of ways. Lack of funds often limits me, but I find a way to live my life in spite of lack of funds. Daylight limits humanity — so we tamed fire, then incandescent lights, now we are moving towards LEDs. If there was no night, would humanity have ever invented artificial light? Instead, we might have simply used windows and skylights and light tubes.
Peer pressure won …. I have an appointment for tomorrow for the vaccine.
Does that mean that my vitamines C and D,and Zinc will no longer be required?Since the vaccine doesn’t stop you from getting Covid I’d say they are still useful. I saw an Indian doctor talking about Ivermectin. He said that if it turns out that the vaccine causes ADE Ivermectin would be an important defense as well.
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