Green Dharma

Georg and Brenda Feuerstein, of Traditional Yoga Studies in Eastend, SK, have written a superb book that details how environmental consciousness can and should be incorporated into continuous practice by all who follow the Dharma.
They offer it to all as a free download:

We have chosen this option for two simple reasons: First, the environmental crisis is extremely severe, and green action is of the utmost urgency. We are hoping that our book might stimulate its readers into appropriate attitudinal change and responsible action. Publishing this book through regular channels would take too long to reach the public, as well as destroy a large number of trees and add to pollution. Second, we feel more comfortable with not charging for a book on the Buddha Dharma.

The price is right, and so is the speech and understanding. Give it a look.

http://www.traditionalyogastudies.com/green_dharma.html

His Holiness the 17th Karmapa’s visit to North America


If you have trouble with the links in the table, try here.

His Holiness the Gyalwa Karmapa’s Schedule
May 17-18 New York City click here for more information
May 19-22 Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Due to limited seating
by invitation only. Read more
May 23 New Jersey KTC click here for more information
May 25 Boulder,
Colorado
click here for more information
May 31-June 1 Seattle,
Washington
click here for more information

China Offers to Meet With Dalai Lama Envoys

In Shift, China Offers to Meet With Dalai Lama Envoys – New York Times

BEIJING  China appeared to bend to international pressure on Friday as the government announced it would meet with envoys of the Dalai Lama, an unexpected shift that comes as violent Tibetan demonstrations in western China have threatened to cast a pall over the Beijing Olympics in August.

Terrible loss of face. Expect to see smiles until after the Olympics, and then His Holiness will suddenly be an obstructionist again.

Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed

Anticipating success with their feature film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Producers Mark Mathis, Logan Craft and Walt Ruloff have already leaked a teaser trailer for the film’s sequel. Their “teach the controversy” slogan seemed to work well in getting the general public to believe that Intelligent Design is a viable alternative scientific theory to Evolution, so the team has moved on to promoting other theories that they feel are being suppressed by the scientific community. Sexpelled: No Intercourse Allowed tells of how Sex Theory has thrived unchallenged in the ivory towers of academia, as the explanation for how new babies are created. Proponents of Stork Theory claim that “Big Sex” has been suppressing their claim that babies are delivered by storks. Furthermore, Stork Theory proponents warn of the serious moral dangers posed by teaching children that sex has a function. They point out that evil dictators such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao all believed in Sex Theory, and they may have even had sex themselves.

There is also a late-breaking new development in the controversy, a new theory called Avian Transportation Theory.

Unlike the original Stork Theory, the modern, sophisticated “Avian Transportation Theory” (ATT) merely points out that there are gaps in the orthodox Sex Theory, and that current sonogram imaging is unreliable. Moreover ATT does not specify that babies are necessarily brought by storks but by “large birds unspecified” (although many individual ATT theorists PRIVATELY believe it is a stork). WATCH

Greenhouse Gas Cuts Easy on American Wallets

WASHINGTON, DC, April 22, 2008 (ENS) – The overall cost of capping greenhouse gases for the average American family will amount to less than one percent of household budgets over the next two decades, finds a new analysis released Monday by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund.

The anticipated cost to the U.S. economy of reducing emissions is small, even difficult to measure against projected economic growth, but the most expensive policy by far is to do nothing at all.
Greenhouse Gas Cuts Easy on American Wallets: Analysis

The Green Issue – Climate Change

Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change, and it’s not an easy one to answer.

The Green Issue – Climate Change – Environment – Energy Efficiency – Consumption – New York Times

Talking to ourselves

“It is past time for Americans to stop attributing the polarization of our public life to the media, the demon entity “Washington” or “the elites.” As long as we continue to avoid the hard work of scrutinizing public affairs without the filter of polemical shouting heads, we have no one to blame for the governing class and its policies but ourselves.

“Like Hofstadter, I yearn to live in a society that values fair-mindedness. But it will take nothing less than a revolutionary public re-commitment to the pursuit of fairness, knowledge and memory to halt, much less reverse, the trend toward an ignorant single-mindedness that threatens the future of democracy itself.”

Talking to ourselves – Los Angeles Times

It Is What It Is

The expression “It is what it is” has become common in Western speech and writing, to the point of being trite. Even Dilbert has joined the party. It is the kind of phrase that’s easy to throw into a discussion in which we’re not especially interested or do not want to become intellectually involved, while still seeming to be engaged, rather like the “Oh, well,” said with rising inflection, that we might have tossed out back in the eighties.

That is an interesting, if mostly accidental, evolution of shallow thought, because, when we get right down to it, it is pretty much the ultimate answer (after 42, of course). Continue reading

Marie Claire Webb 1908 – 2008

My mother, Marie Claire Webb (Mommie Claire to her 55 descendants and hosts of others), died peacefully this morning.
She was 99 years, 5 months and 15 days old.

Mom, her great-great-granddaughter Madison Jones,
and youngest great-granddaughter, Selina Kile
(Christmas, 2005)

Mom was born in Coleraine, Minnesota in 1908, and moved with her family to St. Augustine, FL in 1916, when she was 5 years old. They later moved to Lake Wales, FL, where they settled in an area on the east side of town known as the French Colony. In 1926 she married my father, Capt. Theodore W. Webb, in the first wedding performed at St. Anne’s Shrine.

Shortly after their marriage, Mom and Dad moved from Palm Jungles, their homestead on Lake Pierce northeast of Lake Wales, to Lake Stearns, FL — later renamed Lake Placid. There, they opened and ran the first service station Continue reading

Dalai Lama speaks on Chinese Olympics, rights

“From the very beginning I have supported the Olympics,” said the Dalai Lama. “We must support China’s desires. Even after this sad situation in Tibet, today I support the Olympics.” Still, he said he fully understands why people would express frustration and protest.

Dalai Lama speaks on Chinese Olympics, rights | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press