Beginnings

New Year's resolutions are for those who do not practice. If you are in practice for personal betterment and evolution, every day is the beginning and end of your practice in your consciousness.

Resolutions are for those who are drunk on substances and/or the delusion of personal immortality. Resolutions are for those who abuse or neglect their bodies and minds. When suddenly wakened by reality, their remorse sends them to altars and/or health clubs.

Practice can begin at any time of the day, month or year. Those who resolve to practice in a panic, seldom continue. Practice is difficult, but its rewards are inestimable, because practice has no end product to be tallied or weighed. It simply is as you are.

Security

The word 'security' has become commercialized and politicized to the point of having little or no meaning in common parlance. Yet, the word means something very important to me.

Security, in my world view, comes only in human relationship. And, it only comes in that rare human relationship in which two (or more) parties are loved and love with complete unconditional acceptance and openness. True wealth and fortune in life is experiencing that security.

If all people practiced mindfulness, compassion and generosity daily, we would have planetary security. That, in my cosmology, would be heaven.

Sun

Celebrate the Sun. This is the time we can appreciate more than ever in the Northern Hemisphere how much our existence depends on solar heat and light.

This understanding is the source of all Winter celebrations in the Northern Hemisphere. In these days of scientific and renewed concern about the planet's health, celebrating the Sun is very meaningful and, well, enlightened.

Family

Family is a concept, built on genetic reality. If human beings concentrated more on the genetic and less on the sentimental aspects of family, the species would advance greatly.

The sentimental aspects of family are based in primal fear and dependence. Family is the modern remnant of tribe. Tribalism gave way centuries ago in civilized societies to nationalism. The family became a day-to-day functional unit within the nationalist structures. Family was a vehicle for maintaining property, industry and wealth.

Family identity will gradually be superseded by social human identity as humanism and education erode confidence in superstition (religion) and hereditary wealth (oligarchy) as sustaining institutions of democracy and social well being. The advancement of science in the face of staggering environmental degradation will lead to an understanding that family identity is less important for the species to survive than human identity.

Sentimentality is the enemy of science and the enemy of practice. The first liberation of practice is the liberation from sentimentality toward family of origin. This is often called 'growing up'. Practice entails being equally responsible and compassionate to all human beings, including the practitioner's family of origin. This is difficult. Practice often is.

Terrorism

Yes, let's wage a war against terror.

Let us wage war against those who teach their children homophobia, sexism, selfishness, materialism, violence, elitism, brutality and hatred, whether they be Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Mormon, atheist or Muslim.

Let us wage a war against those who greedily accumulate wealth from sweat, fear and trepidation of those who actually do the world's labor in the Americas, in Europe, in Asia, or in Africa.

Let us wage war against those who poison our air, our food, our water with irresponsible child-rearing, huge cars, fast food, sewage, and toxins.

In other words, let us wage war against our own human laziness and fear of change. Let each of us become a practicing warrior against materialism, jealousy, indolence, greed, stupidity, gluttony, addiction, prejudice, rudeness, hypocrisy, mindless reproduction and indifference. Let each of us practice looking toward the light of right thought and right living. This practice colors everything with new light. There is no shadow in this practice where terrorism can breed.

Reality

This is the age of the virtual everything. I believe most people are living in their minds to the movie themes of their iPods.

There are 16 rain-saturated inches of new snow outside my house. I do not own a snow blower. I shovel. Lifting scores of shovelfuls of wet snow is real. Walking to the train or the market, which are only one mile away, in the cold and the muck to avoid using my buried car is real. Being wet to the skin with rain and exertion is real.

I focus and cherish these realities and their accompanying difficulties as part of my practice. It is the practice of being human, a small, mortal animal on a large planet in a larger Universe, subject to its actual elements and their effects.

Snow

I thank the snow for its weight, its cold, its pure whiteness.

I thank the snow for slowing the mechanized inhumanity.

I thank the snow for bringing me home to my human scale.

Choice

You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. This is the choice each person makes when embarking on conscious adulthood. Some make the choice passively. Some embrace the choice and firmly commit to one path or another.

When pressed, most people will admit quickly where they stand on this choice. One might say, "I chose to work in banking because I want to be rich. That's all that matters to me." Another may say, "I joined the army because I had no other option to get away from poverty." Yet another may say, "I chose to enter teaching because I want to help build a better future."

These choices in sum determine the future of the human species and the planet. Practice is a way to maintain one's commitment to chose being part of the solution and to bring about peace and happiness in the world.

Deceit

The greatest deception is self deception. It is the root of all deceit. In a materialistic, youth-obsessed, death-phobic culture, self deception is epidemic. Television offers plastic surgery as entertainment and promotion, for example. On these shows, people in their 30's are proudly having cosmetic surgery to satisfy their narcissistic self deception. This is the height of the deceit culture. Plastic surgery does not modify genes or personality. It only redecorates them.

Is there any question as to the source of corruption and lies in our political and social structures? Self deception has become a religion in itself in modern capitalist societies among the wealthy who control society. Creating a self myth to earn celebrity is a venerated form of deception.

The natural balance to this culture of narcissistic deceit is the inevitable unrest and violence which will boil up from the increasing hordes of poor and disillusioned. This is simply the cycle of human history, since human beings have yet to master honesty and the acceptance of their true place in the Universe.

Commitment

Commitment is not complicated. Commitment to another person is being there for that person in mind, body and spirit, when being there for that person is needed and wanted by that person. It is not simply hanging around in a prespecified role and half-heartedly going through the motions. In too many cases. this is called 'marriage' or 'family'.

Commitment is a living, creative and conscious decision. It is not a name on a deed or a bank account. In these materialistic times, commitment is confused with financial contract. They are not the same. The financial contract may indeed be a mutually decided upon symbol of an ongoing commitment. However, the commitment itself is only as good as its regular renewal and verification by those partnered in it.

My practice involves serious maintenance and clarification of commitments. This is a process, alive in the present in each relationship which entails commitment. In an existential sense, every transaction in my life entails an openness on my part to commitment to honest and compassionate interaction. This applies to daily business transactions, contacts with strangers and contacts within my social network. When a society maintains this kind of practice, it is considered truly civilized.

Shadow

I watched a shadow move today. It is a tremendous meditative exercise, which helps define your place in the Universe. Sitting on a planet, rotating on its axis and orbiting a star. Find a shadow on a sunny day which you can see in relation to a background, such as a building, a rock, a tree. Focus on an edge of the shadow. Note its relation to a fixed object in its background, such a a window in a building, a leaf on the ground, etc.. Now simply relax, get comfortable and meditate on the shadow until you begin to perceive its motion. Of course, you must then experience the realization that you and the object are in motion, while the shadow is relatively fixed by its relation to the sun. Feel the earth rotating beneath you. It's a great ride.

Justice

What exactly is justice? The question comes loud and clear after a murderer, released from Massachusetts custody by a judge, settled in Washington State and allegedly killed two people over a grudge, involving $50.

The real, natural world has no justice in the human sense. Predators kill the weak or vulnerable in order to eat. Tornadoes touch down wherever they touch down. Wild fires devour trailers and mansions alike.

So, justice is a changeable and evolving concept of the human mind. It is not a natural absolute. Religion was the exclusive arbiter of justice in most societies until recent human history. The current cultural clash between religions and judiciaries around the world is a major human evolutionary stage. Secular justice, based on evidence, science, debate and education of jurors, is an improvement over torture, guessing and prejudice in resolving criminal situations.

Modern legal justice struggles with the conflict between precedent and science. Precedent, a vestigial pillar of the Law, which can lead to plainly stupid decisions like the Washington case, is slowly giving way to informed scientific considerations. Enlightened justice is fluid and extremely well informed in the moment. It does not fall back on precedent or religion rather than taking advice from the most current expertise available in each case. Stagnant, uninformed law is bad law. It becomes a pseudo-religious impediment to true justice.

As a person who can be and has been judged "less than equal" in my own life, due to biological circumstances out of my control, under the current Law in most of the United States, I have had to use my practice to deal with the anger and resentment which injustice can cause.

Practice can be a system of internal justice in your own life.

Love

Being absorbed with living without being absorbed with loving makes people act like solitary animals in the wild.

Don't feed the bears, but love them from afar.

Thanksgiving

I probably say "Thank you." at least a dozen or more times a day. I don't say it unless I mean it usually, but it is an easy habit to get into. You see, I am thinking "I appreciate what you are doing in this momentary interaction." when I say "Thank you." It is my way of connecting with a clerk or a person in the supermarket who may move her cart to let me pass down the aisle. In these times of mass alienation, I find that this simple phrase can convert a zombie into an animated human being. A true miracle. If I see that happen a dozen times a day, it cheers me up. I begin to believe that I am still living in a world of awake human beings, despite so much evidence to the contrary.

Every day is Thanksgiving Day for me on this basic level of practice. No deity required. Just a determination to be alive and interactive with other members of my species in a peaceful way.

Holidays

In the early days of human development, people lived in small tribal groups. Life was hard. Nature was a mysterious enemy or friend, depending on the season and the weather. Periodic rites (precursors of holidays) were devised to bring tribes together for common purpose to benefit the tribe's survival and possible prosperity.

We no longer live in tribal groups. We no longer live in villages or other cohesive community groups based on simple proximity. Holidays, as they are today, have been taken over by the capitalist machine to sell things. That's all they are: Sales opportunities. People in capitalist countries are brainwashed by commercial media to buy airline tickets, buy gas, buy presents, buy unusual foods in huge amounts, buy alcoholic beverages, etc.. If you doubt this, go to a store on the day before a major holiday or just turn on a television.

Every day is actually the same. Every day is an opportunity for personal growth. Wasting time, energy and money fulfilling your indoctrinated role to make some fat cat richer is rather pathetic. It is a waste of your human potential. It is hollow ritual.

Perhaps your holiday could be spent in meditation, in fasting, in serving someone else who is disabled or impoverished or simply alone in the world. Perhaps you could spend your holiday writing letters/emails to all the government officials who wrongly support war, bigotry, exploitation of the poor and preferential treatment to the wealthy. Think what would happen if even a small percentage of the population did that on every holiday.

Patience

We are finite, mortal. Our lives can be measured in seconds, minutes, hours. As the clock ticks, our lives diminish in length. This is a reality that few can face directly and consciously in every moment. The developed practice of doing this can lead to great peace and patience.

The wisdom of accepting the active death of every moment is this: Nothing is crucial or indispensable or irrevocable. In short, nothing is as precious as the present moment.

This is both a challenge and a relief. The challenge is to be, in each precious moment, a mindful, compassionate and evolving person. The relief comes with the acceptance of death as the inevitable equalizer of all things. Comprehension of these realities through practice brings great patience and peace.

Baran

Bernard Baran has lived a saintly life. He would probably deny this opinion. (Click picture to get more details.)

Baran was wrongly convicted of child molestation at the age of 19 by false evidence drummed up by a homophobic district attorney in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in response to accusations leveled by people who themselves should have been on trial as abusive and dysfunctional human beings. Bernard was and is an openly gay man, who left high school and worked as a child care worker. Bernard Baran served a 21 year sentence in high security prisons rather than admit guilt to crimes he did not commit. He was given the opportunity to leave prison after 5 years if he admitted guilt for crimes he did not commit. (Click picture for more details.)

Bernard Baran, a slight, gentle and soft-spoken man, had to be moved from prison to prison over his 21 year hell because of severe and repeated abuse by other prisoners.

Baran is free now due to the discovery of evidence in his favor which was lost/suppressed/hidden by the district attorney who prosecuted him. When Bernard's persecutor, the district attorney, died, tapes showing the manipulation of the 3 and 4 year olds whose 'testimony' cost Bernard 21 years of freedom.

The story does not end there. The government is tying up Bernard's case with endless red tape. One would think in a gay-friendly Massachusetts that allegedly gay-friendly Governor Deval Patrick would intervene to see to it that Bernard's case came to a swift resolution. And, one would think that he should receive prompt compensation for this unbelievable injustice.

Bernard Baran is living his life now as a simple man with his own apartment and a job as a landscaper. There was no compensation awarded to him for the injustice he suffered. Yet, he remains a man with calm acceptance and assertion of his truth.

Homophobia is not dead, even here in Massachusetts. Practice entails looking at reality in the moment and facing the world for what it is. Bernard Baran's practice of sacrifice of his freedom for half his life in order to preserve his truth and integrity is a great model for me. His persecutors' insistence upon continuing their persecution of him is evidence of what is evil in the world.

Technology

I heard a software developer speak yesterday on the radio. He was speculating on futuristic technology, such as the home fabrication of goods via the Internet. He was excited at the concept of being able to order a T-shirt on line and being able to physically download that T-shirt without leaving the house. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

I was astounded by the level of worldly myopia in this man. I assume he is educated. I could not understand how this man was so oblivious to the problems of overpopulation and declining natural resources, when the interviewer asked him about the role of environmental factors in these predictions.

Then I remembered. Technology today is motivated by the same factors which motivated the technology which brought us the Industrial Revolution and the carbon economy. That motivation is associated with accommodating overpopulation, rather than addressing it. It is associated with compensation for environmental deterioration, rather than avoiding it.

Technology alone will not solve the problems of overpopulation and environmental disaster. A conscious revolution in the hearts and minds of the general human population may do this. That revolution begins with each person's awareness and commitment to the human species above governments and corporations. Wellness must become superior to wealth in the human consciousness.

Individual practice of this consciousness daily is like a beneficial virus, which spreads with contact to others. Infect the world with your practice of mindfulness and compassion by example.

Perspective

I am a scrap of paper on the wind of the Universe.

Imprinted deep in my fiber is a message, a truth.

That truth can move any heart or mind, set in stone.

Pakistan

The United States government supports dictatorships around the world. This is a simple fact.

The United States government, founded as an instrument of service and protection for its constituents by its designers, has deteriorated into an instrument of control and corruption in opposition to the true interests of its constituents. This is the way of men and women in power. Yes, power corrupts.

Any feelings of superiority which a citizen may feel as an American are unfounded. In fact, since the Constitution of the United States places responsibility for change and direction on the citizens, all Americans should currently be ashamed of the state of their nation and their democracy. And this shame should ideally be shown in the results of upcoming elections.

While waving an accusing hand at Muslim extremists, capitalist extremists under the false banner of Christianity have taken control of the American government, its army, its courts and its media. This must change, if the United States is to survive as a nation of justice, freedom and prosperity for all.

Human evolution toward mindfulness, peace and compassion requires a practice of responsible world citizenship. This citizenship, as a member of the human species, far overshadows the role of a member of a political party, a government or a nation. Those who unjustly control and corrupt the common good through politics are far more despicable than common criminals.

Bears

The great bears, grizzly and brown and polar, are becoming endangered. Zoologists are predicting the extinction of all but the black bear by century's end. The African elephant is also close to extinction. Whale species are also becoming extinct. And, someday, the human species may cause its own extinction by collapsing ecology.

Read and learn, fellow human. Abandon thoughts of some universal deity who will protect you from your own bad choices, based in ignorance, denial or stupidity. Pick up a book. Surf the Web for knowledge, not sports scores, stock quotes or pornography.

Wake up. Your life passes with each minute, each day, each year. It goes and is gone. What is the measure of that life right now? What is its meaning, its impact? These are the thoughts which lead to human evolution, despite inevitable death and personal extinction.

Fools

The purpose of mindfulness in practice is focus. Without the practice of mindfulness, distractions rule the human experience. Distractions bleed concentration away. Goals are not achieved. Evolution is sabotaged.

The purpose of materialism and capitalism is the distraction of the consumer's mind at all times. Fools give themselves over to this distraction without resistance. And fools and their money are soon parted by those distractions. Without a stable income and resources, one cannot pursue personal evolution effectively. Fools become slaves of the corporations which distract them into buying their unnecessary goods and services.

At the top of the financial pyramid of capitalism, wealthy shareholders live off the distraction of those who occupy the wide base of the pyramid. The poor buy the baseball tickets, cars, clothes, vacations, toys, prepared meals which fund the lives at the top of the pyramid. Those in the high financial brackets lavish themselves with luxury to no purpose or benefit other than comfort. The rare wealthy person uses his wealth to seek personal evolution.

Being a fool or being a person of self-evolving practice is an ongoing choice in the capitalist world. This is a key choice point each moment of each day.

Saints

The Pope, an alleged former Hitler Youth member, has set the agenda for nuns and priests who were killed while supporting Fascism in Spain's Civil War to become saints. He has shunned the deaths of the priests and nuns who died fighting Francisco Franco. Aside from making poor Mother Theresa look bad in the company she will now keep, this Pope has done a wonderful thing for secular humanism. He has made the stupidity and political cynicism of Roman Catholicism in a modern world quite obvious.

Abandoning imaginary friends and the people who use them to control you is part of growing up. Growing up is necessary before you can embark on your responsible, mindful and compassionate personal evolution.

Denial

Heterosexuals freely discuss opinions about homosexuals in blunt and all-knowing terms. This occurs on the media and on the subway. Yet, frank discussion of heterosexuals is likely to get a homosexual beaten up. This is simple to explain. The heterosexual majority live in a cooperative, conforming denial of the problems inherent in heterosexual thinking.

The evidence of the problems caused by this denial is everywhere, if you are willing or able to step outside of it. What frightens heterosexuals into this defense (denial) most readily is the glaring 800-pound gorilla of overpopulation, which is at the root of all the current environmental and social problems facing the human species.

The fact that it is their sexuality which causes this problem seems incomprehensible to even the most intelligent heterosexuals. They become overwhelmed whenever the focus is placed on this basic human problem. They begin squabbling over birth control, abortion rights, adoption rights, cloning, as if they were able to deal with any of it with true, decisive action.

The simple and obvious fact is that heterosexuals are generally incapable of dealing with these issues effectively, since they are in control of world governments and raise the vast majority of the world's children. If heterosexuals were capable of dealing effectively with the products of their own sexuality, there would be no famine, no war, no environmental degradation.

My practice includes seeing and speaking the truth. Unless I see and speak the truth of my own life, I can never address the impediments to my own human evolution. Human evolution is only achieved when each human evolves, individually or in society. The current denial of overpopulation by those most responsible for that overpopulation, heterosexuals, is a threat to the human species.

Fire

The media interest in the recent wildfires in California has been focused on the rich and their losses. Multimillion-dollar homes destroyed near the beach. The obsession (attachment) of the society with money and things is reflected in these stories.

Fire, like flood, is a predictable force in the environment. It is man's dysfunction in Nature which worsens the effects of fire. Nature is not the enemy. That attitude is responsible for the deterioration of our planetary environment.

Overpopulation, greed, selfishness, materialism...these are the enemies of the planet, which will adjust to their onslaught with pure, unprejudiced physical and chemical reactions. It is not a moral, or even human, struggle. We are one species, a species which has intentionally abused the planet and many other species.

Effective practice for personal evolution demands confronting these realities daily in your own life. Practice includes taking responsibility for your own relationship to the planet. Without contact with Nature and education about it, there is no understanding of your own place in it.

Freedom

Freedom is not a product, a sales pitch, a slogan or an excuse for invasion and mass murder. Freedom comes only to the individual heart through liberation from attachment and aversion. The Middle Way, or Middle Path, is the path to true freedom. The Middle Path is found one step at a time. These steps constitute practice.

Dichotomy

The dichotomy of effective practice is this: One must be rigidly based in daily physical routine to maintain maximum wellness in order to be able to joyously embrace unpredictability and change.

Bhutto

Click here to read the biography of Benazir Bhutto on Wikipedia.

Corruption as norm. This is the worm which causes societies to collapse. It is motivated by greed and lust for power over other human beings.

It is noteworthy that Ms. Bhutto studied at both Harvard and Oxford. It is noteworthy that her corrupt business dealings included the Swiss, the French and the Poles. In other words, corruption is business s usual in the upper echelons of society. But, corruption is also a personal corrosive. It undermines honesty and trust in human relationships on all levels.

Guarding against corruption is part of my practice. It is particularly difficult in today's urban environment. The unscrupulous use corruption in the most inane transactions to mark their place in an overpopulated society, where wealth alone guarantees basic quality of life. Those who abandon a belief in universal human rights turn to corruption to insure their own rights and privileges. This process defines many governments in the world, including the current Republican government in the United States.

Work

I recently heard a weeping defendant of illegal immigration here in the US on a radio talk show. She said, "We all work so hard. Americans wouldn't want us to leave if they saw how hard we worked."

Well, I think this says a lot about the current attitudes toward work and law here in the US. Work for wages is considered moral. Respect for the law is considered dismissible. This is the Reaganite message: Money is good; how you get it is irrelevant. Ronald Reagan's own administration operated this way in international and domestic politics. The end, as long as it supported corporate power expansion, ruled the means.

The Reaganite myth is about to be toppled, like a statue of Lenin or Saddam. As the corporate promise of prosperity for all as an outfall of greed of the few becomes revealed as a big lie, as the world economies crumble from within due to the drunken greed of the rich, the uselessness of sacrificing one's life to the dollar will become quite obvious to the most gullible.

The most valuable work in life is the work of liberation. Liberation comes from detaching oneself from obsession and aversion. This is the Middle Way. Letting go of material obsession, anger obsession, family obsession, sexual obsession. Letting go of aversion to labor, aversion to difference, aversion to responsibility, aversion to risk, aversion to selflessness.

This is the work of mining the heart, the mind, the spirit. This is the work of study, social engagement, curiosity and generosity.

Practice is work. Its basis is daily commitment to doing the work of liberation.

Corn

The current documentary, "King Corn", points to a basic human trait. Human beings are prone to laziness. Corn is the easiest grain crop to grow and use for many different applications, despite its nutritional inferiority to other foods.

Western civilization, rapidly becoming world civilization, is dependent on a corn economy in the same way it is dependent on an oil economy. Both of these dependencies are toxic and potentially lethal for the human species and even the entire planet.

Individual practice of human evolution requires reducing or eliminating corn products and oil products from one's individual life. If you attempt this, you will find it very difficult. However, you will also find it may extend your life and also improve its quality in every moment.

Individualism

The Reaganite philosophy which is in full bloom in the USA right now is based on the narcissism of its idol, Ronald Reagan, and people like him. It is indeed right out of a bad movie of an Ayn Rand novel. It spells disaster for humanity.

The Hurricane Katrina disaster is exactly what is to be expected in a Reaganite world. No government services. No humanity in the response of government. No social consciousness. Just photo ops for those who will stop at nothing to achieve wealth and celebrity for themselves.

Buddhist thought is not individualistic in its relationship to society. While the Buddhist message is geared to individual responsibility and empowerment, its overall goal is the enlightenment (evolution) of all beings. This can only be achieved by the mindful and compassionate sharing of resources, ideas and goals among motivated human beings for the betterment of all.

Change

How to embrace change and spontaneity, while mindfully attending to the routine responsibilities which create a basis of health from which One can evolve and share?

This is the challenge of the Middle Path. Shun attachment. Shun aversion. Shun ritual for ritual's sake. Shun mindless impulse. Balance through moderation is the goal and the remedy.

Time

Time is structured by events, and events are structured by time.

I find that practice is very much tied to the mindful use of time. Our time is limited by planetary rotation (days), our own limited lifespans and our human needs for sleep, nutrition, shelter, and socialization. Within these external limitations, the mindful person faces the challenge of using time for personal evolution, as well as the maintenance of health and wellbeing.

The key to mindful use of time, I believe, is the maintenance of daily rituals of self discipline. Proper nutrition, proper exercise, proper intellectual stimulation, proper planning and work for one's material needs. All these elements are necessary to maintain balance, which can be a platform for personal growth and advancement. When a person is balanced and able to advance/evolve, he can then contribute a great deal to the lives of others.

The person who is disorganized, undisciplined and unbalanced has little to offer anyone. His imbalance destabilizes his environment. While a chaotic environment may yield its own form of creativity, its contribution to those involved immediately with it is limited and can be disruptive to their lives. This is not the behavior of a mindful and compassionate being.

Peace comes with the absence of fear. Humans naturally fear the unpredictable and unknown. Mastery of this fear comes with mastery of the distractions of desire and impulse. Establishing a routine of health, learning and compassionate sharing is at the core of my practice.

Autumn

Taking the time to appreciate the seasons is essential to becoming a mindful citizen of the planet. Walking in nature facilitates this. It revives the senses and stimulates thoughts and feelings, which pertain to the personal relationship between each of us and the planet.

Autumn here in New England is especially dramatic and provocative. The visual and aromatic changes are not at all subtle. The light changes drastically around the autumnal equinox. Suddenly there is shade where none existed for months. The color of everything is changed by the new light. Dawns and dusks become vivid, almost melodramatic. Gardens begin to shrink and die in stages. Fall flowers puff out their chests with desperate bravado.

I revel in autumnal change. I am in the autumnal stage of my own life cycle. My practice entails being where I am as fully and appreciatively as possible. Including time on foot in nature makes this practice easier and more enjoyable.

Vengeance

I am fascinated by the current issue of the so-called 'Jena Six' in Louisiana.

I was a teenager and young adult during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And, I believe, that movement was based on non-violence, inspired by Ghandi's passive resistance to British colonal rule in India. I was inspired by Martin Luther King for that very reason. And, in my own participation in demonstrations against war and discrimination against homosexual people, I was determined to practice non-violence. It was not easy.

Now we have a movement to exonerate young hoodlums who chose violence and vengeance to settle a racist conflict with other students in their high school. The ring leader, Mychal Bell, reportedly had a previous criminal record. I cannot see the point of the African American outrage in this incident. Is it not equally racist to demand a different enforcement of the laws on the basis of race when the perpetrator happens to have darker skin than the victim? After all, this was a gang assault by six boys on one boy, who was significantly injured. Is that not also a hate crime?

The issue here is not racism. The issue here is lawfulness and peacefulness. How can the African American community support lenience in this case when, at the same time, they are screaming for more and more 'support' from the society at large in the form of tax money and logistics to squash gang violence in their urban communities? Perhaps we now have a clearer view of the roots of gang violence in African American communities. Perhaps those roots are in the attitudes of the members of the African American communities toward gangs, lawlessness and vengeance among their own youngsters.

To have peace, one must practice peace. To have the rule of law, one must practice lawful behavior. These are principles more worthy of mass demonstrations in all racial communities.

Neoconservatives

Neoconservatives are frightened by the future. They are frightened by peace. They are frightened by the unknown.

Neoconservatism is a manifestation of middle-aged male impotence in those aggressive bullies who have pushed their way or paid their way to power in the USA. War lust is just another Viagra for these men. Their female supporters are like frustrated mates who urge them on in hopes of gaining the benefit of an overdue erection, literally or figuratively.

Neoconservatives are the enemy within, far more dangerous than the paper terrorists they promote to subjugate and exploit the ignorant with fear.

Things

I recently moved some things in my house. This set off a wave of moving more and more things. The house is small, and I have an acute sense of decorative balance. I am, after all is said and done, a gay man.

Where did I get all these things? The answer is simple. My eye is the culprit. If I see something that resonates with me and is cheap, I buy it. This is why I usually avoid all retail venues passionately. It is also why I love to give things away, when they seem to match a possible recipient. The flow of things prevents the weightiness of things to some degree.

When I was young, I accumulated people in much the same way. I suppose, in my youthful stupidity, I viewed people much the same way as I viewed things.

My practice now includes care and mindfulness in the collection of things. And, in a similar way, I practice care and mindfulness in making new friendships and contacts. Materialism is an addiction to be avoided. Superficiality in dealing with people is worse. It is a destructive force which corrupts the heart and soul.

Propaganda

The human tendency to denial under stress is natural and impressive. Kubler-Ross researched and documented this thoroughly. Since her death, the pharmacological psychiatric industry has even tried to deny her findings, which would diminish the efficacy and necessity of some of their expensive pills. However, those in power are all too aware of human psychology and how to manipulate it.

Since 2000, the Republican operatives in the US have utilized propaganda to convince the American public that the coup which occurred in the Presidential election of that year was a legitimate democratic process. It is clear now that these same aggressive totalitarians allowed the terrorists to perpetrate the massacre of civilians and government employees in September of 2001 to further their hold on absolute power.

Cynical and power addicted men are capable of their own denial of their evil. They are also prone to project their evil onto those they fear. They fear anyone who threatens their grip on absolute power.

The war in Iraq is a tragic combination of greed for oil resources and that projection of evil onto a society which has been decimated by the US, led by the fascists who began their rule with the coup of 2000. Yes, it is a pathetic, costly, bloody mess. But, it is clear that the leaders of the US are so entrenched in their lust for their illegitimate and abusive control of the American government that they are still trying to propagandize the American people into believing they are doing what is best for Iraq and for the American people. To believe this would be insane. I am happy to see that the vast majority of Americans, when asked, are not insane. They are waking up from their own denial.

To be a free individual, a person must study all he can about the human condition. Freedom is not granted by governments. Freedom is an act of human consciousness. It is a practice.

Laborers

Like my spiritual ancestor, Walt Whitman, I h0nor those who carry and build and sweep and dig and sew and reap. Hard physical labor brings the body and mind together to focus on the battle with gravity and inertia, two humbling and unrelenting universal phenomena. Hard labor brings the understanding of one's place on the planet and of the planet's environmental forces.

Combined with education and meditation, hard labor is a clear path to enlightenment. Build something. Plant a garden. Paint your house.

Elite

The elite, who by aggression, wealth and/or ancestry lead lives of luxury, are an insulated human minority. Yet, they govern. The Bin Ladens know the Bushes. They are friends. Be conscious of the absurdity of war and diplomacy in a world manipulated for the comfort and amusement of the elite. Modern democracy, which is actually representative Republicanism, in which the people chose leaders from the elite by an easily manipulated election process, is a method propogated by the elite to control the many by offering them the illusion of control of their own lives.

Until the great majority of human beings become conscious of their individual mortality from an early age, through secular and comprehensive education, this pattern of the subjugation of the many to the will of the few will continue.

As a secular humanist with that education and understanding of my mortality and my place on the planet, I attempt to awaken as many individuals as I can. This is part of my practice. Freedom is not a political slogan. Freedom is the liberation from the slavery of self-delusion and self-subjugation to the elite.

War

War is barbaric, stupid and toxic to human evolution. Wars are always rationalized into great causes by the evil men who wage them. There is no such thing as a 'freedom war'. Freedom of all classes is precisely what wars prevent in the hands of the elite who wage them.

War is murder. War is mindless destruction. War by the United States in other countries is exploitation as well.

Begin to practice Peace today. Write to the government wherever you live, if you have that privilege, and denounce war, all war.

Truthfulness

Truthfulness begins at home. It begins in your mirror each morning. It begins in your heart, not you mouth. Truth begins by looking your own image in the eye and being honest about who you are and what you think and feel. Start where truth begins each day, and you will be amazed at the results.

Boundaries

I ride the subway every week. I have found that the walls around people in that social space have become all but impenetrable. Eye contact is avoided. Facial expressions are flat and devoid of emotion. Occasionally, while reading an advertisement above the heads of passengers opposite me which solicits subjects for a depression study at a local medical center, I fight the urge to direct my fellow riders' attention to the ad above them.

Is this just post-911 ennui? I do not think so.

Boundaries are necessary in a civil society and in healthy relationships between friends or family. Yet, in this society, which is increasingly uncivil, the boundaries erected by individuals against social contacts with strangers are not symptomatic of health. Rather, these are walls built out of fear. And the fear is quite justified, when teenagers are carrying illegal firearms and all the mental institutions have been emptied onto the streets.

My practice is simple. I try to remain open in social situations, yet I also respect the boundaries obviously erected by those who are afraid. I do intervene when I see criminal behavior. I report it or directly address it. Recently I told a teenager to stop defacing the interior of a subway car with a permanent marker, for example. He was so humiliated, he sat like a turnip with his head bowed for the next several stops when I left the train. Part of practice for me entails doing the work of determining the boundaries and responsibilities of being a responsible citizen, friend or family member. Avoiding that work is irresponsible and will only make matters worse for everyone.

Episcopalians

American Episcopalian bishops were ordained in Uganda this past week. They were ordained in Uganda because the African Episcopal churches have become the new epicenter for religious-based homophobia in the Episcopal Church. Is it any wonder? The Prime Minister of Uganda spoke at the ceremony to lend his official gravitas to the proceedings.

Now, let's relax. There are hardly enough Episcopalians around to change a light bulb. So, I am not heralding an alarm. I would simply like to point out that this trend of public declaration of bigotry by Americans in other countries is exactly what the racist Southerners did forty years ago in their rage over equal rights legislation and desegregation. It is exactly what sexist politicians did thirty-five years ago during the feminist movement.

This illustrates one basic fact. Those who have aversion to change will waste their time, resources and energy resisting it. This works to the benefit of change agents who are patient and persistent.

My practice is to calmly and methodically focus on change for the evolution of my life. I trust in the force of change over the force of resistance to change. Water dissolves rock over time.

Respect

The current gangster culture uses a perverted concept of respect as a currency to justify murder and other crimes. Gangsters demand respect with brutality and violence. The music of this subculture has infiltrated into the general society. It has been sold to youth by unscrupulous capitalists for profit. Television and films have furthered the infection of society by these dehumanizing influences.

Respect is indeed a concept of evolved civilization. Not the fear and threat of retribution, which gangsters equate with respect. True respect begins with the educated and evolved human being who understands that self respect is the precursor to generalized respect for all beings.

Respect cannot be extorted or demanded. To get respect, one must first learn to behave respectfully. And, despite having self respect and giving respect, there is no guarantee of getting respect when dealing with human beings who live in a low life condition due to stupidity, addiction and/or poverty. In the face of disrespect, the wise person immediately places distance between himself and the source of that disrespect. There is no sense in bargaining with disrespectful behavior.

Respect is both an element and product of practice.

Television

When I was bedridden for weeks after being treated for cancer in 2003, I learned the power of television. I spent most of my time alone, drifting between sleep and blurred consciousness. I kept the TV on constantly. Banal sitcoms, hideous commercials, stupid talk shows, game shows, endless headline news programs. I watched it all with the desperation of an invalid. I was an invalid.

Television works best, in my experience, with the reptile brain. Passive, cold-blooded, impressionable. When we are truly immobilized by pain and weakness, we tend to revert to our animal natures, which focus on nothing other than escape from the realization of the truth of our situation.

More and more, people in industrialized nations are giving their free time over to television. Children are exposed to hours and hours of television. If television works as a drug, as it did for me in my illness, I suppose watching TV can be seen as a form of recreational drug use for those who are quite well enough to be doing more constructive things with their time. This could be expanded to see a whole civilization as becoming addicted to the recreational drug of television.

If television becomes controlled by the Rupert Murdochs of the world, then the drug (TV) will be laced with the worst poisons: Messages about selfishness, antisocial individualism and materialism. What will be the antidote for this poisoning of millions? Who will have the power to administer it? Will the suppliers of the poison not be poisoned by it themselves?

Turn off the remote. Do not poison your mind with commercials. Participate in media which allow your participation and independent thought. This too is part of practice.

Wilderness

Wilderness frightens most human beings in this time. This is a sad commentary on our species. Wealthy humans will flock to undeveloped countries where amputees have to beg for their food on the streets before they will try to hike in wilderness. What does this say about our regard for the natural ecosystems from which we emerged? What does this say about our evolution as a species?

I was led to these thoughts after hearing a radio story about the forest fires that have disturbed people living on the edge of national and state forests in the West of the U.S.. The lumber industry, which has plundered all available old growth forest they have been allowed to exploit. now feels they should be allowed to 'thin' the national and state forests down from 1,000 trees per acre to 50 treees per acre. They see this, in their greedy little minds, as a public service, which just happens to yield them great profits. Only in times of a demented relationship between humans and environment would this suggestion be considered long enough to be reported on a national media outlet.

Take a walk. Look at the sky. Find a patch of trees somewhere near you. Reacquaint yourself with your true roots, the roots you have in the soil of your Mother Planet.

Death

Practice remembering in all situations that death is final and comes in an instant.

Superstition

Religions use superstition to control their followers. A morality based on superstition is not genuine. A morality based on compassion and social responsibility is both genuine and intelligent. The lack of justice, kindness and political advancement in societies dominated by religion speaks for itself. Look, read, study and assess any religion on its merits, and I am sure you will think twice before become a devotee.

Instead, look to your heart, your conscience and your natural instincts to be open to other human beings and their experiences. Practice kindness, control of anger, and responsible behavior in social situations. Soon you will see that this way... not the way of superstition, conformity and guilt... is the way to personal evolution.

Machines

We are machines. Complex biological machines. The average number of heart beats for mammals is 1.5 billion per lifetime. No matter what size or shape of the mammal. Big mammals have lower heart rates. Small mammals have higher. This explains the difference in lifespans between species. There is also a cellular metabolic factor which is proportional to size.

The human heart beats a higher amount of beats than the average, due to the human ability to consciously intervene in our mechanical operation by modifying diet, exercise and intervening in disease with biochemicals and surgery.

Once we accept that we are indeed mortal, mechanical entities, we can exert ourselves even more diligently in extending our lifespan by taking active interest and precautions. We are not simply pawns of some deity or victims of some cruel Fate. Each of us is a machine with various strengths and weaknesses to be developed or compensated for. Our equality lies in this very common denominator.

Practice is the process of machine maintenance and improvement.

Corruption

The word, corruption, usually evokes images of a fat politician with a cigar in one hand and the other hand held out for a bribe. But corruption is much more subtle and pervasive than that image conveys. All things, on a basic physical level, are prey to corruption, due to oxidation, entropy and other phenomena. The process of evolution is a process directly opposed to corruption. Civilization is a human method of dealing with corruption on many levels. Our individual lives become corrupted physically by disease and mentally by greed, laziness and/or unhealthy dependency on people or objects. The shared lie corrupts and often leads to behaviors which hasten physical corruption as well.

Daily practices of exercise, nutrition, meditation, truthfulness, cooperation and sharing affection can aid in our attempt to ward off corruption of our lives.