Real food for thought...

[appicchato]

Not just Gringos (Americans) but the lot...

http://www.alternet.org/news/145840/joe ... age=entire" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Ben]

Thank you Venerable
metta

Ben

[imagemarie]

Thank-you bhante.

upekkha,

Marie

[Fede]

Somehow, I don't think I'll ever look at a tortilla in the same way again.
Worth reading....

[nathan]

One good rant deserves another.

Food for thought, really? What should this article, and ten thousand like it on the net lead me to think? How is the mind nourished? The article doesn't contain much reference to any of the innumerable historical facts that demonstrate how this picture of america today is part of a longstanding historical continuum or how very clearly our collective ignorance was, is and will be at the heart of global conditions.

It's fine for what it is as a rant about much that is self evident but to continually crash this kind of a train of thought by suggesting that all bucks stop with the "elite owner class" does rather spectacularly fail to penetrate to the actual root causes for what we see. Not that one would expect more from such rants, be they in the left or the right hemisphere of the general myopia. Demonstrating the root causes for worldly conditions is understandably quite rare in the world.

Fortunately the actual root causes should be entirely obvious to well practiced buddhist meditators. It isn't difficult to see how the world could arrive at a state of affairs where everything has become commodities and this ownership game is then considered "a culture" when it has for so much longer been considered "normal" and "healthy" for human beings to think that the functioning of a body, mind and senses constitutes the "ownership of a self". The world as entirely made up of owned things is the natural result of the presumption that we are the owners of our "selves" and that there is nothing of real value other than meeting the desires of that self to own more things, to make "more of it's-self".

Where do such doctrines invariably lead? Predominantly, to hell and to whatever extent necessary to "hell on earth". As such the world cannot be saved, the world can only be the kind of sucking wound that it always is. The self cannot be saved either. The two go hand in hand. Fortunately again, the whole dilemma can be "seen through". The supposed value of the self and by extension concern about the fate of the world can be overcome. Unfortunately, this is sufficiently counter-intuitive that most people would be inclined to fight to the death to prevent a liberation of this kind even if it could demonstrably benefit their individual lives and their collective world. Ironically they would likely refer to that battle to become ever more bound to self views and it's innumerable attendant forms of suffering as "true liberation". Come to think of it they have been doing just that for quite a while already, I think it is generally referred to as "history". Oh well, forget I mentioned it, maybe think of this rant as an exotic side dish.

[PeterB]

I dont think that you have outlined the root cause either nathan. Thats just consumerism with a minus sign.

[Clueless Git]

So far as I understand this consumerism thang ...

Water and food are the first two things we consume, that we must consume?

If that is correct then will not the mentality/morality of all further personal consumerism simply be extensions of the mentality/morality of the choices we make there?

[nathan]

I dont think that you have outlined the root cause either nathan. Thats just consumerism with a minus sign.

I referred to the Buddha and buddhism as the most ready made and widely available source of the ever present and obvious truths that most people devote so much time and energy to avoiding. Would you honestly like to me go on about it at length? That seemed entirely redundant here at "Dhamma" Wheel. Thanks for the comment, it reminds me of what a consistent waste of time and effort message boards are. You may now all return to hanging everything on the shoulders of the global military industrial complex and continuing to refuse to take on any of the responsibility for what is going on or to fine tuning your deep friers and monster trucks, as you will. See you all again in a few years.

[appicchato]

Looks like that happy hilltop in BC isn't all it's cracked up to be...

Hoping some peace comes to you Nathan...

[baratgab]

On this topic I can recommend the documentary called What a Way to Go: The Life at the End of Empire. I think that all in all it gives a fair presentation of the issues; with interviews from several writers.

[nathan]

Looks like that happy hilltop in BC isn't all it's cracked up to be...

Hoping some peace comes to you Nathan...

It's composed of limestone and glacial till venerable, I doubt very much that it's either happy or sad. Other than a large faceless american owned multinational forestry corporation cutting down thousands of hectares of trees and spraying pesticides on everything else in the region there isn't anything going on here at all. Seems like a much better deal to simply have to accept the poisoning of the aquifer as opposed to a place like Iraq where amerika has recently liberated a million civilians of their lives. I'm done with online buddhist forums, same as it ever was, one argument or misunderstanding after the next, but that has nothing to do with either how I feel or what I think about anything else.

[Tex]

Interesting read, thank you bhante.

[Wind]

Looks like that happy hilltop in BC isn't all it's cracked up to be...

Hoping some peace comes to you Nathan...

I'm done with online buddhist forums, same as it ever was, one argument or misunderstanding after the next, but that has nothing to do with either how I feel or what I think about anything else.

That's the nature of any forums. As long as everyone holds on to the self and the ego, there will be arguments and misunderstandings. One cannot control how others may think or feel. I learn to let things come and go and not let it disturb my mental equilibrium. If I offer an opinion or an advice, how a person respond is not as important as my wholesome intent as misunderstanding can occur over number of reasons. We are all only responsible for our own development. I hope you won't be discourage Nathan, as you did make a good contribution on this topic.

May we all move closer to clarity.

[Clueless Git]

Rather good post by Wind there, I thought ...

The extremely impressive Baraghat (sp?) touched upon summat similar to this recently. Loosely it was about how some veg-heads become aware of the absolutely mind boggling enormity (mind not enormously boggled? It will be if you ever get there...) of the suffering that meat causes and carry the full weight of that on their shoulders.

M'personal tuppence worth is that it can't be wrong to be fully aware of the suffering around us. Yet it cant be right to allow that awareness to overwhelm us.

Nathan, if you are at least still reading .. The buddha never changed the world, nor even just everyone he shared his insight with, completely in just one lifetime. He just kinda kicked the ball (wheel, more buddhistly?) into motion, as it were.

On that basis it seems entirely reasonable to kinda be at peace with the 99.999999999999% certainty that "neither will I".

Quote from Gandhi: "Whatever you do will be insignificant but it is important that you do it anyway"

All the best to you matey and may you find peace with the things you see.