manitou

I sent a letter to both the Mayor of Baltimore and the Reverend - I sent it in letter form with the topic line circled in yellow -" THE 12 STEPS FOR HEALING A COMMUNITY?" Wish I had the computer skills to merely take the letter off my computer and post it, but I don't. So I'm retyping it here? Rev. Bryant, I heard you mention the 1st step this morning on the news. Wow! Do you think there is a way to expand the healing miracle of the 12 steps to a community? I write this as a recovering alcoholic (thru AA) for 34 years now. I am also a retired detective from the LAPD and I know how cop gang mentality works. Step 1: "I am powerless over fear of difference (or racism, if you'd rather) and my life is unmanageable". This is where racism begins. Fear of difference, that's all. It's hardwired into our DNA. As gentle and spiritual a person as I like to think I am, when I walk around a corner and see someone of a different skin color, there is just a tiny flash of surprise - not fear, just surprise. And then I transcend it. It's a process that takes only an instant. We can all learn it. And if we ACKNOWLEDGE that it's hardwired, it won't be so hard for people to admit that they have this same fear of difference, or racism, inside of us to some degree. Pres. Obama alluded to this very thing in a speech about a month ago. If I were a Baltimore leader, I would try and get together a committed group of citizens from all communities, including police, in Baltimore, to meet once a week somewhere large enough to accommodate but small enough to be intimate. To perhaps discuss that 1st Step the first week. Maybe it will take longer than one week. But a step a week could be discussed, shouted, cried - whatever it takes. The interesting part, of course, would be the 'communal personal inventory' of step 4, wherein we all figure out what debris lays on our side of the street, and realize that it's our responsibility to keep our side of the street swept clean. This would be the step in which people take responsibility for their own judgments, etc., and realize that they're there. When it comes to the Amends of Step 7, there would seem to be a lot of room for creativity here. We are dealing with our DNA - the ancestral guilt contained within, particularly on the Caucasian side. I was horrified to realize that one of my ancestors was a slave-ship builder in Massachusetts in 1700 - and today, the way I live with that is to give $200 a month to the 2nd Baptist Church in town, attend services periodically to get to know the lovely people there. I think, because of the DNA thing, the Caucasian populous must 'know' within their psyche, that there is due some payback, some karma, from the harms done in the past. Heck, required reading for us in the '50s at my high school was "The Confessions of Nat Turner". Talk about terrifying, and yet there is a whole generation of folks like me who had to read that book as a requirement. I don't think this subconscious fear of retaliation can be resolved within white people unless there is a form of restitution offered, as a purgative to white souls; and until the fear of retaliation is removed from the subconscious, the white cops will always be true to their initial DNA response, unless very well trained. And economics being what they are in cities today, I don't think the cops are very well trained at all. The type of restitution that could be offered could only possibly be a small token for the harm that has been done to an entire race of people. But perhaps Baltimore could be the first city to try something different, and to consider the restitution principle. Is it possible that this could spread throughout the country? Truly, only God can truly show us the way, if we let him guide our thoughts and actions. Best wishes to all. Thank you. Okay, so this letter will probably be trashed as soon as it gets there - but it's a possible answer to righting an awful lot of wrongs. All I'm trying to do is plant a small seed. You never know....

I just saw him on TV again - he's Rev. Jamal Wright, one of the local ministers. Re: the idea of something like the 12 steps. If I were the mayor of any city that had racial disparity and such problems, I would seriously consider trying to find a central meeting place where willing people of all persuasions were willing to participate. And then take the 12 steps, one at a time, one week at a time, or longer as needed. The steps would have to certainly be modified to suit the needs of the community problem, as opposed to a substance problem. The Steps involve uncovering the problem, 'turning the problem over' to a Greater Power (this just gives people the sense that there is something other than their own brain (which there is!) which will guide them to the solution. The steps involve going within; all communities - white, black, brown, yellow - would have to find their own part in the problem, or their own habit of propagating the problem, and admit that it's there, as Marbles said. But the real interesting part of the steps would be the 'making amends' aspects of it. Could not the discussions get deep enough to include ancestral guilt and ancestral bad actions? How in the world would the white community make ancestral amends to the black community without some sort of restitution? And the black community - is it not time for them to open their wings and fly? To leave behind their resentment over their ancestral situation (and the wonderful way they've been treated ever since the original kidnappings and bondages) - and to forgive, down deep in their souls, their initial captors? Rev. Jamal Wright didn't say anything beyond mentioning the 1st Step in his interview. I don't know whether he actually plans something along these lines, but I hope he expands on that thought and approaches the mayor about trying something like that. Does anyone have any better ideas for healing our racial problems? Shouldn't we try something novel, rather than just more force? In defense of some PD's, they do go a long way in their efforts of community policing and getting to know the citizens of their city on a very personal basis. There are ongoing discussions in many cities about citizen-assisted policing, and it works very well in some places. I don't know if Baltimore never got to doing this, or whether it broke down.

Oh. A bit disappointing, if you ask me...

josama - sorry, I haven't read the entire thread - but has anyone suggested to you that you contact Flowing Hands, if he is still active on the forum? He has a great fountain of wisdom that he channels and attributes to a spiritual entity. I'm guessing some of your questions and/or confusion about whether something is truly a channeled entity or a contorted ego - at least you'd have someone to talk to who is walking in the same shoes.

Hi Rascal - you're in great company here. Best wishes as you continue on your path - glad you're here. I'm a long day's drive from you up in Ohio.

That is interesting. How is the mercury used in ancient Chinese tombs, for what purpose? What quality does mercury have that could possibly be of physical or metaphysical value under the ground, collected and secreted there? It reacts to temperature - I wonder if there is any movement of the mercury within the tunnels with temperature change. (Although it would have to be a forced temperature change since this would be happening underground). Are you drawing any metaphysical parallels in your mind between the burial practices of the two societies? Or this....is there any possible physical way the mercury pooled on its own due to the construction, or could there even be an alchemical reason for a change to mercury?

Apologizing in advance for any turn to politics this may take. I don't intend a political argument. I only intend to voice something that I've been seeing. I keep hoping I'll run into another Bum that sees it too. I'm just hoping in this new WWW setting that we will be respectful of each other. There is a component to wei wu wei that is active at the very beginning. It's the point where someone sets their intent on a particular outcome, and takes a very small action to grow into a larger outcome. And then the 'intender' takes his hands off of it and waits for the dynamic to return to him; when it returns, the highest action is always taken until the intended outcome is finally achieved. I have a mental picture of a basin with a marble in it. The wu wei practitioner flicks a marble (signaling his intent for a particular outcome) and the marble rolls around the basin. Because of the practitioner's vision, he knows the exact moment and time to flick the marble. He is a seer, and knows that if he aligns his intent with the movement of the Logos that it will succeed, as this is the natural order of things. All we need to do is get out of the way and let the creative dynamics take over. Sooner or later the marble will go down the drain, which is the desired outcome. There is a particular man on the world stage who is a Secretary of State. He normally speaks in a very measured way, never veering off course. He is a soldier's soldier. Maybe 6 months ago he was giving a speech about Iran, when in answer to a reporter's question, he threw his hands up in the air in a very uncharacteristic way and said something like 'I don't know....maybe if Iran allowed inspectors back in and did a few other things....." and then he followed it up with "but they'd never do that". When I heard that speech, I looked at Joe and said "He just flicked a marble". (I wasn't referring to the Secretary; I was referring to his boss) It was so uncharacteristic for that Secretary to go out of character like that, it had to have been planned by someone above. And sure enough, there has been action. Iran took the bait, saw an opportunity for maybe having sanctions removed, and now there is dialogue. Because I see the workings of WWW in this, I believe this will come to a good end. Others reading this will disagree. But I believe this is confirmed also by the fact that the Dalai Lama one more time paid a visit to the Secretary of State's boss and is most likely involved in this dynamic. Call me a cockeyed optimist, and some here do. I am seeing enlightenment at the very top in several areas. Has anyone listened to the new Prime Minister of Italy? Wow! This man has some depth and some wisdom. Has anybody heard the new President of Iraq? (Is it Pres. Ghani?) What a man of depth, sweetness, and wisdom he appears to be. There just appears emerging a genre of leaders that seem to possess an enlightened quality. I really do see cause for optimism, although it appears just the opposite at the moment.

I suppose it could be

As the Reluctant Retributioner, you must have flicked a marble on TTB's, lol. Funny, I just took a break from the forum too and am just returning. Seems necessary once in a while... You used the word glimmer. What a great word for the long-distant intended outcome. It is just a glimmer, and yet the power of the implementation of that glimmer is the sorcery of the Dao.

Looking at the Feng translation on Chapter 28 of the DDJ, I've cut the following. It seems to go along with what I see - although it's very abstract to communicate: "Be the valley of the universe! Being the valley of the universe, Ever true and resourceful, Return to the state of the uncarved block. When the block is carved, it becomes useful. When the sage uses it, he becomes the ruler. Thus, "A great tailor cuts little." The current leader of the free world cuts little. He allows the dynamic to come to him before he answers the question or takes action. He is leading from behind so the dynamics which are part of human nature and Logos will show themselves; then action is taken. The minimal action. There is a huge firestorm of conversation going on right now about race, due to all the police shootings of black men. And yet wouldn't any other black president get right in there and mix it up? Not this one. He waits for the dynamics to show themselves. He waits for the question to come to him. I think we have individual egos which project themselves into collective national ego. And wow, does the U.S. have a huge national ego. If a leader is in place that has not mastered his own ego, he will be taking action depending on his ego. Granted, the system was set up for checks and balances, the balance of power. But with all the huge egos in Congress, I think it's even more important to elect a president who has mastered himself. This man has mastered himself. Ask the Dalai Lama. So okay, perhaps I'm delusional. But what's the harm in knowing in your heart that all things are working for good, that that's the plan? What does pessimism get you, other than a cynical outlook? Where's the harm in looking with long eyes to see the wonderful dynamics in play? And with a cynical outlook, what comes into your life but cynical things? The function of the Dao is Reversion. Reversion to the One. For mankind to realize that we are all One Being, all cells of the same body. And that love is truly the most magnificent force in the universe. I think that at the end of all this, perhaps there will be a redistribution of wealth, somehow. It just can't stand, within the Logos, that there is a glut of wealth in the pockets of a few, with the rest of the world getting more desperate by the moment. Something's got to give, and I believe we currently have some leaders in place that understand this dynamic. Gentleness. Love. The spirit of the valley, willingness to occupy the lowly. This is the spirit that will eventually emerge. But it cannot happen if countries like the U.S. keep the lid on the pressure cooker wherever "our interests" lie (let's call it oil, at this point in time). There is some shaking up that has to be done first, and this seems to be happening now. the pressure cooker has finally boiled over.About time. If anyone is willing to drop their previous biases about this particular man and see him with the eyes of clarity of your own spirit, I think you will be greatly surprised. I think this is a truly spectacular time indeed.

I think the way of the world today is realigning. Duh. It's real easy to be pessimistic about it. But I wonder if the Dalai Lama is pessimistic about it? Or does he see the workings of the Logos underlying all of it? My guess is that he does. I think we see the bottom of the cloud only. The dark part, where all the heavy rain collects. But the top of the cloud, the parts you see as you're flying over them, are beautiful, airy, translucent, heavenly in appearance. This too is part of the cloud, but all we can 'seemingly' see is the lower dark part that we're under. I like my (possibly overused) metaphor of the giant squid. We are all an individual tentacle of the giant squid, and we think we're all separate. We don't realize we're attached together up at the top. So the idea of the world in disarray is virtually the tentacles of the giant squid getting all tangled up, some tentacles killing the other tentacles. When in reality, all the tentacles need to do is stop and relax. The tentacles will undo on their own. This is wu-wei. We don't have to be the ones doing the untangling. It happens on its own. The current leader of the free world understands this completely, and this is why is appears that he leads from behind. What Sage wouldn't? That which is happening in the world has to happen - it has to happen from the inside to the outside - outside forces can't impose order. This has to be worked out tentacle to tentacle, and it will be. But sometimes the rest of the world needs to keep its hands off so the natural outcome will produce itself.

Daeluin - And this is how the Sage nips things in the bud. Or creates an outcome. Just like you said. Because the marble-flicker has his eyes on his own character; because he has mastered his own ego, it is possible for him to perform the sorcery of wei wu wei. To try this technique will most likely end in disaster if one has not mastered his own ego and can sidestep it at will. But for one that has true vision, this sorcery is there for all of us. All we have to do is torque our own inner lens so that our vision is straight. We too are the Sage; perhaps realized, perhaps unrealized. My opinion is that in order to see the workings of the world-wide Dao in action, we must keep our eyes very high. I would like to utilize this thread for the purpose of looking at the workings of wu wei at the highest levels in the world. Of course it is there! It is everywhere. But can we see it? Do we have the eyes? Can we see through the seemingly bad to observe the true dynamic in action? The action of Reversion.

(sigh) I thought it was such a good idea...

The funny thing that almost always happens; We find That Perfect Person. We try to make a life with TPP, knowing that us and TPP will always fulfill our needs. After all, it was so symbiotic at the beginning of the relationship. We get bored with TPP, or TPP outgrows us. Then, we have to find another TPP. Repeat. Or, option two is that you hang on to the first one you found, and realize that the reason you're together is because you're the perfect configuration to grind each other down to a pulp. In a spiritual sense, of course. It's because we learn to compromise, find the middle way, and remain true to our original word, our original I Do, whether spoken or of the heart -- We actually turn into a lapidary for each other, much as this forum does. This is the most accessible path to spiritual self-realization for all of us. To hang in there with any one individual and go through the entire course. The Course is there for us all to take. To opt for Option 1 will continue the process of evading the learning experience, the self-realization process. It will just put it off over and over, opting instead for 'that funny feeling' we get with each new romance. What a trickster.

Hey. I know we worship the concept of free speech in the West. Even the Tao Te Ching would bear this out to some degree: when rules are necessary, the Tao is lost. I get it. But is there no point at which human kindness can intermingle with free speech? Do we here in the West have to impose our worship of free speech on those who do not share the same value? Are we to expect that disrespectful cartoons of the prophet Mohammed should not utterly enrage the other sections of the world? Have we no brains at all? We've been brought up in a society of (relatively) free speech, and social media and the 24/7 news cycle is bringing many cultures into the mesh of free speech - where we absolutely WORSHIP the right to say whatever we want to say, however disrespectful it may be to other cultures. Well, what would the Christians here in the U.S. do if an Arabic newspaper did a nice big cartoon of Jesus Christ impaled on a rocket launcher? Are we to expect that the Christians would take it in stride? Heck, no! There would be absolute cries for war and retaliation, and we would find ways to do it. And how hypocritical are we, anyway? We love Free Speech when it is us speaking out or mocking others (under the guise of satire or comedy, of course); and yet, look at how many words we are "not allowed to say" here in the states. The political correctness of it all. This whole situation sickens me; our country is a mockery of free speech. But at what point does human kindness and empathy play any part in this? We would not mock another's religious point of view to their face, and yet do we not have the wisdom to know that Everybody thinks 'theirs is the right way, that they have the answer?' And in a sense, we ALL have the answer. It's right within us, whether atheist, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist. It is the seed planted within each of our hearts which reaches out to understand who we really are that is the commonality - and that is the Proof that there is something more. Even an atheist will go to great lengths to argue over and over that it's not in there. If that 'thing' weren't in there, why spend so much time arguing about it not being there? It's just a question of where in the world we were born that determines which religious structure we had the fortune to be born into. That's all they are - structures to be transcended and the mystic identity to be found. The only hope for this planet, as I see it, is for all of mankind to realize that all paths lead to the same place. Every master of any tradition I've ever read, and I've read and loved comparative religion for years, all come to the same conclusion, regardless of the contortions of the particular path he took. We cannot stop this division by shoving the concept of free speech down the throats of the rest of the world. Especially when that free speech is disrespectful to that which they hold dear; to mock their religious icons by mean spiritedness hiding behind the guise of satire. It's mean. It's just plain mean. The only answer is to realize that we are all Brothers and Sisters, that we are all apples on the same tree. The only thing left, it seems, is to find a way to let love in. I would not be offended at all if Western leaders extended themselves, put aside our collective national ego, and made a real effort to reach out to the radical elements and countries that we have offended so many times. (Okay, I know....I can hear the hollerings of 'what about 9/11?'.) In my opinion at the time of 9/11, the wise thing to do would have been to shore up our internal defenses, and then to look for the root of the problem. To nip it in the bud, as the wise Sage would have done. Not to have gone ballistic and come out of the gate shooting at anything that moved. The radical elements will not reach out to us; there has been too much damage done. Too many young men on the other side of the world have grown up under the foot of the Western soldiers, the checkpoints, the searches, the control, seeing the Allied forces controlling their every move. We've made more enemies than we ever possibly thought we could have, and now we have to rub salt into the wound with satire??? We are so myopic. We see ourselves, our wants and desires, our need for energy (which was probably the start of all this hostility in the early 1900's when we started pulling oil out of the ground in Saudi Arabia and were considered Infidels because we were standing on their beloved and sacred ground). Can't we for once look through the eyes of those on the other side of the equation? They are our Brothers, damn it! Can we not start loving them as ourselves? Does it have to be 'us against them' from here on in? Or is there any way under heaven that we can change it with Love?

Exactly.

Just can't argue with clueless.

I think this will be my last post on this particular thread, because it's evolved so strangely and I'm tired of it. I probably shouldn't have started it to begin with, it's gotten awfully mean spirited. But I do want to end with a paragraph from the Avatamsaka Sutra (Cleary), which is the very best that any of us could do, assuming any of us have the will for enlightenment. Perhaps this can show us how very far we have to go, as opposed to the attitudes we've expressed on this thread. And the cartoons we've shown to demonstrate our points: (Page 1082, Detachment from the World): "Great enlightening beings have ten kinds of head: the head of nirvana, as no one can see the top; the head of honor, respected by all humans and celestials; the head of universal higher understanding, being supreme in the universe; the head of foremost roots of goodness, honored by the sentient beings of the three worlds; the head bearing sentient beings, developing an indestructible crown; the head of not despising others, in all places always respectful; the head of transcendent wisdom, nurturing all virtuous qualities; the head of union of knowledge and skill in means, everywhere appearing in compatible forms; the head of teaching all sentient beings, taking all sentient beings as disciples; the head of preservation of the eye of reality of buddhas, able to perpetuate the seeds of the three treasures. Based on these ten, enlightening beings can attain the supreme head of knowledge and wisdom of buddhas." We have a ways to go.

LOL. Astounding.

Kind of makes you wonder what the TTC says about the best leaders, doesn't it?

Yeah, but this counterbalances your very sound history of not seeing things that really do exist. The finger stands, What I see in Obama is one who travels within the wu-wei, whose timing is impeccable, who waits for all situations to come to him before he acts, and always takes the high road in every decision he makes. Things must be done incrementally, he is not king. He can take only one day at a time, and unless we're all privy to the Presidential Daily Brief, I'm not sure any of us can stand in his shoes. There are times when he must make the lesser of two awful decisions. As for other seers on the forum, I'm not sure that one can have Eyes and a mean spirit at the same time.

Obama sees the Oneness of all, and therefore didn't want to solidify standing with the Western leaders in such a manner. Only time will tell as to his enlightenment. All I know is that I can see it.

I honestly believe that's why Obama didn't participate or send anyone to participate. Because it reinforces Us vs. Them. He knows better. I see him as an enlightened one in a very unenlightened circumstance, working one day at a time for betterment. But my eyes could always be 'off'. It's just something I've seen since his first week in office. (I know I've predictably just set the stage for the next 23 posts)

And hatred stems from fear.

Sometimes you just need a good fingering, LOL