Ken Wilber may be the most important living philosopher you’ve never heard of. He’s written dozens of books but you’d be hard-pressed to find his name in a mainstream magazine. Still, Wilber has a passionate — almost cultlike — following in certain circles…
You are the river: An interview with Ken Wilber | Salon Life
If you hadn’t heard that more than 10 percent of American households are in danger of running out of food, you’re not the only one. We don’t talk much about poverty anymore, in part because it’s a story that rarely makes headlines. “The issue is under-covered mainly because right now, the government is not actively engaged in programs trying to address the problem,” says David K. Shipler, author of The Working Poor: Invisible in America. Without War on Poverty programs to check in on, minimum-wage legislation to track, or new research findings to parse, reporters don’t have “hooks” on which to hang their stories. Consequently, there is a paucity of coverage outside of rare enterprise stories and ubiquitous holiday-themed tales about food shelves and shelters.
The result is that many people have an incomplete picture of poverty and what Shipler calls its “constellation of problems,” which magnify and reinforce one another. …
My only real issue with Religion (and ultimately, it’s a fairly small issue) is that it teaches people to be good for all the wrong reasons. Whether it’s the fear of a vengeful God and eternal life spent in the flames of Hell or the possibility of winning a ticket into Heaven accompanied by a boat load of virgins, people are still behaving well to escape punishment or to win everlasting life.
Ideally, people would be good because it’s the right thing to do.
Atheists are Snobs – Violent Acres
Religion permeates much of the Bhutanese lifestyle. Tall prayer flags flap in the wind on every hillside. Sometimes you might see a bunch of five in varying colors while other times there may be dozens of white flags standing proud. They’re all beautiful and a reminder of the importance of Buddhism to this culture.
A man was being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly, the light turned yellow, just in front of him. He did the right thing, stopping at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman was furious and honked her horn, screaming in frustration as she missed her chance to get through the intersection.
As she was in mid-rant, she heard a tap on her window and looked up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer ordered her to exit her car with her hands up. He took her to the police station where she was searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a holding cell.
After a couple of hours, a policeman approached the cell and opened the door. She was escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer was waiting with her personal effects.
He said, ‘I’m very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping off the guy in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at him. I noticed the ‘What Would Jesus do?’ bumper sticker, the ‘Choose Life’ license plate holder, the ‘Follow Me to Sunday-School’ bumper sticker, and the chrome-plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk so, naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car.’
Uganda: Buddhism – “So, Who is Your God?”
I get asked this question so often, every time I mention that I am a Buddhist…”So, who is your God, who controls all aspects of your life?” Coming from a Christian background, I do understand where the question is coming from, but having practiced Buddhism for 14 years now, I no longer find it strange to say, “I am responsible for all that happens in my life, I am God, if you will”. This is almost like blasphemy to some, but not to me.
Readers who are shocked by this need to understand that it is one person’s opinion, and should probably read the whole article before thinking they “get it.”
Waterfootprint.org: Water footprint and virtual water
People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, paper, cotton clothes, etc. The water footprint of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or nation.
This is the statue that rests next to my monitor (from Indonesia).
One of the frequently repeated claims in American politics — used often by those advocating the impossibility of effective action on climate change — is that China has “caught up” on greenhouse gas emissions, thus rendering useless any steps we might take ourselves.Even smart, well-intentioned people repeat this claim without much critical distance. But it’s worth unpacking all this
1) Generally, what’s meant is that China’s direct emissions as a nation have caught up to those of the United States. This is possibly true, though the figures used to make that claim skip a bunch of important factors, like meat production and air travel, that may well tip the scales back to the U.S. having the world’s largest national share of direct emissions.
WorldChanging: The Great Tortilla Conspiracy
Tortilla Art uses the tortilla as an experimental art medium. Rene and Rio use a variety of techniques from heat-transfer prints to collage. Their show also includes work by a number of other artists, as well as a pyramid of tortilla art created by students at Oakland’s Skyline High School. The origins of Tortilla Art date to the early 1970s when…
The issue of pain becomes increasingly relevant in public discussion and education today as we see an increased rate of stress-related illness; such as cancer, heart conditions, kidney, strokes, hyper-tension, diabetes and autoimmune diseases. Patients suffering from these conditions have to endure a prolonged year of chronic pain, both physically and emotionally.Advanced medical technology today can help reduce and alleviate severe physical pain. With the right medicine, bodily pain can be managed and patients can maintain a certain quality of life.
Yet the remedy for a suffering mind can only come from within. An uncured and untrained mind is not be able to handle pain when it strikes. It can also hamper the efficacy of pain-relieving medicines.
Karma Is Not Fixed Destiny | Tricycle
Karma is often wrongly confused with the notion of a fixed destiny. It is more like an accumulation of tendencies that can lock us into particular behavior patterns, which themselves result in further accumulations of tendencies of a similar nature….
What kind of spring is this
Where there are no flowers
And the air is filled with a miserable smell?
~ Guantanamo detainee
Poems From Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak, Mark Falkoff ed., University of Iowa Press, 2007
