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.

Lies

The Truth is, of course, an abstract concept. I mean The Truth of a situation or an action contains many aspects. There is subjective truth, which is what the participants in a certain situation or action perceive as what really occurred or motivated them. There is the objective truth of what an observer or listener perceives about the same situation or action. This is obviously at the basis of Justice. Sorting out where the subjective and objective truths converge to create The Truth, in order to determine responsibility and accountability.

To live mindfully and compassionately in society requires constant assessment of what is truthful and what is a lie. The worst lies are those we tell ourselves. The more lies we tell ourselves, the less connected we are to The Truth of life and The Truth of being an evolving person.

One of the most common lies which we tell ourselves over and over again is a denial of our mortality. This particular lie is extremely corrupting to the human consciousness. To maintain it, people go to great lengths. The plastic surgery industry and the pharmaceutical industry can bank on that.

When I made the conscious decision forty-seven years ago to come out as a gay man, I took my first feeble steps toward the light of Truth in my life. It was a hard road then, and it continues to be a hard road now at times. Yet, I feel that I can see where I am going on that road. That makes each footstep a little easier.

Embracing the lies leads to much more confusion and pain in life. Lies require so much damn maintenance. Sharing in the lies of others layers blinding insulation over one's whole life to the point that any truth seems unreachable without a major breakthrough. For some, I suppose, this is what happens when they are 'born again'.

Taking the first step to The Truth begins in this moment, and the next, and the next. This is called practice.

Refuge

There is a lot of attention being paid to the subject of immigration in the so-called developed world. Economic refugees, or migrant workers, are claiming a right to cross borders illegally to earn money to support a life based on ignorance and poverty in their home countries. Political refugees in the U.S. are just as likely to be aligned with fascist regimes as with opposition groups seeking social justice. All lines are blurred. Overpopulation makes it impossible for governments to justly consider each case with the compassion it deserves. Borders are porous due to air travel and the sheer numbers of people willing to break immigration laws.

The refuge these people seek is elusive. The lawfulness they subvert by illegally entering a more civilized society is key to maintaining the civility of that society. So, these refugees subvert the quality of the idealized society to which they flee. Rarely do these refugees return to their home countries for the purpose of effecting real social and political change. More often, they attempt to create a microcosm of their root culture within the society which grants them refuge. This too subverts the cultural integrity of the very place which they seek as refuge. After all is said and done, their root culture is what drove them to seek refuge in the first place. The propaganda of corporations which rely on these people for cheap labor would have you believe that this behavior is culturally enhancing by adding to the hyped diversity factor. In reality, alienated, undereducated and impoverished people have very little to give to their environment. They are more focused on getting than giving. They have to be to survive.

The only real refuge from poverty, cruelty and ignorance is education. If developed countries estimated and spent the expense which refugees incur on building and staffing schools in underdeveloped regions of underdeveloped countries, potential refugees could be given the tools to turn their native lands into decent places to live over time. Accepting and enabling refugees to remain ignorant for the purpose of enslaving them for financial gain is not commendable.

For those in developed countries who are in need of refuge, the solution is the same. Education, combined with hard work. I myself was born in a developed country to relatively uneducated and intolerant people. I found refuge in my schooling, though it was extremely difficult for me to overcome learning and cultural disabilities, to which I was born. Running away to become an uneducated and underpaid worker (slave) or a dependent on someone else never occurred to me. I suppose I owe it to my upbringing that I never felt that escape on that level was an option. I stayed in my community, endured violence and derision, worked like a dog, and managed to learn a great deal about life and people, as well as science and literature. But now, at an age when I often need refuge from pain, disease and social discomfort, I can and do rely on my ability to learn, to immerse myself in study and research with a goal of improving my life, despite adversity. That refuge is part of my daily practice.

Destroyers

I am not at all proud to be a human being, despite the ancient Buddhist passages which encourage believers to be thankful for being born into human existence, as some pinnacle of the Earth's biologic pyramid. Human beings have been destroying the planet like a virus since they developed the capacity to outwit prey. Long before the Nazi and Soviet thugs, human beings have followed one maniac after another who have proclaimed human superiority or human ownership of the planet. Then, of course, they go on to claim the superiority of their particular favorite kind of human. Other species have been trampled, massacred and made extinct with great abandon and a sense of majestic entitlement. In this media-dominated age, we see anthropomorphized animals in cartoons, now full length movies to indoctrinate the young. Penguins, lions, fish....they all deliver the same message. Humans are basically good and the trials of Nature are intrinsically bad. Even 'green' types are suckers for this crap.

In my world view, homo sapiens is one predatory species with no moral superiority to any other predatory species. Men kill each other. Some humans kill their young. We overpopulate when we have enough food to eat. We thrive selfishly at the expense of other species. We eat other species. The major religions contribute to this insane assertion of the superiority of humans. They go out of their way to absolve humans for being ruthless exploiters of the planet in the name of their deities, otherwise known as Imaginary Friends.

Personal human evolution entails understanding the place of the human species in planetary ecology. And, yes, that means study and intellectual discipline. If a person really studies biological and physical science to the point of comprehension, then half the road to personal enlightenment has been travelled. The philosopher or theologian who has no clue about science is simply a con man.

Baseball

Hitting a ball with a stick. This will not stop global warming. It will not deal with overpopulation. It will not lead to human evolution. Charging large sums of money for overweight fools to watch men hitting balls with sticks is a game older than the Roman Coliseum. Wake up. The time of a single life is short. There is so much to do.

Missionaries

Religious zealots are usually functionally insane. For whatever reason, the zealot's brain is overwhelmed, perhaps hypnotized, by an obsession with a particular fantasy about magical omnipotent beings and superpowers channeled to the zealot by those imaginary beings for any number of purposes. The overall effect on the zealot is that he behaves like a drug addict. Everything he does is centered on getting more and more empowered by this fantasy world. In the Middle East, this addictive drive often leads to a self-destructive explosion, which also kills innocent bystanders.

Christian missionaries are religious zealots. Their brand of addiction to this magical thinking takes the form of a drive to infect anyone they encounter with their mental illness. The drive to convert undermines the very principles taught by their idol, Jesus. Conversion implies aggression and domination. Harassing poor, desperate, vulnerable and uneducated people is the method. Offering tokens of support, such as soup kitchens, food banks, child care or thrift shops, these demented enthusiasts strive to meet goals set by the manipulative hierarchy of whatever sect has gotten them hooked into this behavior. The hierarchy is, of course, motivated by monetary and social superiority, cloaked in trappings of ministry and priesthood.

Practice is not religion. Teaching practice is not conversion. Each person's practice is an individual acceptance of responsibility for personal evolution and liberation from religious domination, political domination and cultural domination, while maintaining a socially responsible role in his environment. This practice cannot be forced on anyone. This accounts for the slow evolution of human consciousness, relevant to the immensity of human population.

Accidents

All of life is accidental. This is not a statement of equivocation. This is an alarm. Wake up.

If you are pretty, healthy, well built, a racial majority where you live, born to a wealthy family by world standards, all of this has come to you by accident. You have not earned any of it. Therefore, you are not any more special than someone who wins the lottery. Society will reward you for these favorable accidents, as long as you conform to what society wants from you. And, because these favorable accidents may have spoiled you in many ways, you may well do everything you can to remain privileged and to feel superior.

Turning the mind away from the conformist view of favorable accidents is very hard for those blessed by them. This is at the very root of a celebrity culture, pumped up by capitalist advertising. It is also at the root of social stagnation. The pretty and rich often call the shots. They are elected to public office. They determine the fashions. They portray the heroes in cinema.

Compassion requires turning away from one's reliance on one's own happy accidents of birth. This, after all, is the story of the historic Buddha. When a person truly abandons the trappings of his accidents of birth in favor of becoming a person of change and intent for the benefit of all beings, it is indeed inspirational. Part of my practice is acknowledging the accidental nature of life and death for all beings.

Aggression

Human life comes with aggression. It is simply part of being an animal. It is hormonal. It is hard-wired. Learning to first recognize aggression in one's own consciousness and behavior is a challenging practice. Road rage, cutting into lines, racing others to check out counters...these are easy examples. However, the harder examples are the subtle forms of aggression that occur when we compete unconsciously with others. This competition is increasing as the world becomes polluted and overpopulated. Resources are dwindling. Capitalism encourages aggression. In fact, anyone who is awake can see the increase in female aggression in the new economy of the US, where women are striving with men for economic equality or dominance. This alone explains to me why capitalism does not bring peace. An economic (survival) system that is based on aggression has not and cannot possibly foster world peace. Propaganda about professional (capitalist) sports as a medium for cooperation and peace is so obviously flawed, when one considers the history of violence at Olympic games and the increased occurrence of drug abuse and corruption in the whole arena of professional sports. People increasingly find surrendering their aggression in capitalist societies frightening. It is the surrendering of a significant defense against poverty and the delusion of control. Yet, no human, male or female, will evolve beyond basic animal behavior and consciousness without surrendering voluntary aggression as a first step to enlightenment, mindfulness and compassion.

How to practice the surrender of voluntary aggression in daily life? First, it is important to recognize the simple physical signs and behaviors of aggression, such as increased heart rate, blood rushing to the face, increased vocal volume, clenched jaw and/or fist, increased driving speed, rushing, and many other signs which must be observed, accepted and recognized in the moment they occur. Otherwise, how can anyone practice control of aggression?

Then what? The daily practice to control aggression by recognizing impulses to be aggressive takes many years to develop. It also requires patience with and acceptance of one's own animal instincts. That is, patient acceptance that we are indeed animals. If a person is wedded to religious notions of man as non-animal, that person will never understand his aggression. Let alone control it and evolve away from it. He will live in denial of it.

Finding and fostering affection and compassion in one's life for oneself and others equally facilitates the process of managing and evolving beyond aggression. I recommend it. It takes time, meditation, determination, and, above all, practice, practice, practice.