Happy Losar:

http://tseringschool.org/losar/index.html

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff

The awakened mind is present.
Like butter in milk
It cannot be found.
Churn the mind with meditative comtemplation.

Raw milk contains butter. However, if you look for it, you will not find it there. Once you churn the milk, the butter will settle to the bottom of the container.

Similarly, within us is an awakened and enlightened mind. However deeply you search, you will not find it. With the process of meditation, the enlightened mind solidifies and materializes.

If you want butter, churn raw milk.

If you want an enlightened mind, meditate.

As a practicitioner of Buddhism, I vow to avoid killing. This not only applies to humans but also animals, insects, and all sentient beings (that which has a thinking mind). Since the the greater discussion of the promise is the not subject of this writing, I only want to emphasize that I realize that I cannot avoid all killing. For example, just mowing my lawn surely is killing some bugs within my yard. The purpose of a “promise” to avoid an action is done with the best effort possible given the circumstances. Just let this one sit for now.

The purpose of this writing is to bring up the matter of State sponsored killings – otherwise known as the death penalty. I had just come across a mention of a man who had been sentenced to death in Arkansas and been held in prison for over 12 years. The reference mentioned that the man had subsequently become Buddhist (Zen) .

Despite letters and requests from many people including a Zen Buddhist Roshi, the governor of Arkansas, a former Baptist priest, had not only refused to stop the killing but rather moved the date up some 6 weeks.

So I thought to myself! “Wow I wonder if this is the same guy who is now running for president of the United States under the Republican ticket, Mike Huckabee.”

Yup! Its him. Here is a wonderful write up on the whole situation as it played out for Jusan Fudo Sifu Frankie Parker as documented by his spiritual advisor Rev. Ven. Kobutsu Malone. (Incidently, I spent some time with Rev. Malone some years back while attending a Buddhism In America conference. He is doing amazing work with prisoners especially at Sing Sing in New York.)

http://www.engaged-zen.org/articles/Kobutsu-Death_Row_Practice.html

The ability of a person to condemn someone to death amazes me. It especially amazes me that someone who has allegedly been trained in teachings of Jesus Christ could ever find this acceptable. Here we have someone who was ordained as a priest – the Baptist Church. What is wrong with this picture, eh?

Now he is running for President. His strongest supporters call themselves Christians. I guess I am just confused where Jesus condoned killing. Upon looking up some information on the New Testament, I could find no support for such. (If you want some references which seem to indicate Jesus’ recorded statements, try Matthew 5:21-22, Matthew 5:39-39)

Clearly there are many references to the authority to kill in the Old Testament. I personally think that Christians would do well to dispose of the Old Testament and stick with the teachings of their guide, Jesus.

In the mean time, I think that ones official ordination within a church surely does not mean that they understand a spiritual life. I am far from a priest of a Christian church and even I know that someone with the love and compassion of Jesus Christ would never support killing. (By the way, Huckabee still supports State Sponsored killing saying that it is a necessary part of our criminal justice system).

This morning I was sent an article from the Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com – China Cracks Down on NGO, December 6, 2007 ) about Chinese crack down on NGOs (nongovernment organizations)within China. This article along with a related article uncovered the manipulative approach of Chinese officials in dealing with these NGO.

The first point was that China began aggressively shutting down many NGOs within the country most notably this summer. It appears that they are concerned about them getting out of the control of the government and concerned about them providing information contrary to how China wants to world to view them. (So much for the truth, eh?) Anyway, it appears that China is preparing for the Olympics and has decided that controlling information and appearance is of greater benefit than trying to really resolve their problems. Let us pretend that the problems do not exist and then they will go away, right?

So where do we fit into this? Here is what I see. In the United States, we are receiving a great economic benefit from letting China do what they want. China continues to buy lots of national debt securities and thereby finance our country’s overspending. We continue to buy billions of dollars of goods made in China to support our never ending desire for more and more goods. A big screen tv is not good enough so we go buy a new flat screen tv. Now it needs to be HD ready.

I feel as if we, as a society, are generally willing to overlook China’s mistreatment of their citizens and abuse of their environment so long as we receive a benefit from them. We tend to overlook their grossly unjust and inhumane activities, which are being done in order to feed our spending and acquisition addictions.

From a Buddhist view, we in the United States especially received this wonderful and advantageous life as the result of good actions in past lives. Sounds great, huh? However, here is the kicker. We are spending our karma savings. We are doing little or nothing as a society to reinvest in the account. It is easy to see that we can soon deplete the good karma savings account and end up with a negative balance.

Not participating in the depletion of the karmic savings and always doing good in order to increase our positive karmic savings accounts has great benefits for this life and especially for future lives.

Next time you walk into the store to purchase, consider if your purchases are depleting your karmic savings or adding to it. If the product you buy are unneeded and produced by inhumane systems, you are in fact supporting their actions. I would contend that you are depleting your account. If your purchase supports sustainable communities and living, you are likely contributing to the overall well-being of people. As a result, your purchase would be actually adding to your karmic savings account.

And if in doubt, just say “No thanks!”

Many Dharma Blessings,

Geoff

Last Sunday, I attended a ‘debate’ between a Western philosopher and Christian minister entitled “Does God Exist? A Debate” held at the Salt Lake Downtown Library.

I was amazed at the attendance. The turnout for a Sunday afternoon event in Downtown SLC was rather impressive. There were die-hard atheist. There were christians. there were Mormons (mind you I am not trying to separate members of Church of Latter Day Saints from Christians but here in SL we do see a separation of the members so I mention them separately).

the Debate was a “debate.” I am not sure that this is my choice of dialogue to work through a matter. My problem with the set up is likely a personal one. I attended in order to listen to and understand the alternative points of View to better understand each side’s View. Unfortunately, I think that the set up of a debate is arranged for each side to compete to Win. This does not allow each side to best explain their View. It is set up to best try to win.

Despite the flaws in the arrangement (at least from my perspective). I did enjoy and learn from the presentation.

Towards the end of the debate, there was an opportunity to ask questions from the audience. Mind you, most of the members of the audience who asked questions were more interested in telling the panel their opinion. Their questions were mostly secondary to expounding their opinion.

The second to the last question was probably the best question. “ Which one of you is likely to give in to the others side in the end?”

The Christian minister “ I cannot ever stop my faith. I pray that my friend on the other side comes to know God.” There is no changing him here.

The philosopher “I know that reason is on my side. I will never believe and think that my colleague will someday realize that his belief is not true.” Again, there is not breaking here, as well.

I think that this summarized the entire debate. Either one believes or one does not believe.

So I asked the last question of the afternoon. My question had two parts.

“Let us assume that God does not exist. Is there anything wrong about a community or society constructing such a God for the purpose of providing guidance to it members.”

Part two, “Let us assume that God does exist. Is there anything wrong with someone living a moral and ethical life without believing and worshiping him?”

First the philosopher answered saying that he found nothing inherently bad about creating a God for a good cause. In fact, in his opinion, that is exactly what societies’ throughout the world have in fact done. He did not respond to the second part of the question.

The Christian minister responded saying that making up a God would be very dangerous because they would be living a lie. As far as not believing in God where God exists, it is one one of the God’s primary demands that we worship and honor him. This would be a big problem.

My View: If God exists, he or she does not need my worship. Being all powerful and all knowing, God would not ‘need’ anything from me. If God does does not exist, then creating God for the purpose of providing a tool for people to live their lives would not seem to be inherently bad. It is only when different beliefs conflict and fight as to who is right that the problems would surface.