Occupy LA-Wisdom Quarterly activities

Council of Elders, Occupy Los Angeles, Wisdom Quarterly, Against the Stream, LACHS

Saturday, 11-4-11: 3:30 pm meditation and Dharma teaching guided by Against the Stream, south steps. SEIU Health and Wellness Fair at OLA covering addiction, mental health, both the physical and spiritual. Clinicians, counselors, mediators, 12 steppers will be there.

Sunday: 2:00 pm, Interfaith Affinity Group meeting and to discuss plans for Nonviolence Day. Less about planning and more about sharing and being together in a spiritual setting. 3:30 is a Compassionate Communication class.

• COUNCIL OF ELDERS Sunday, Nov. 20th, 3:00 pm: Noted civil rights leaders Rev. James M. Lawson, Dolores Huerta, Rev. Canon Malcolm Boyd, Dr. Maher Hathout, Rabbi Leonard Beerman, and others from many of the defining American social justice movements of the 20th century. They will lead a service of solidarity and host a conversation with Occupy demonstrators and others. Similar event with other notable elders will be held in San Francisco.

Nonviolence Day is 12-3-11. Music and more. Guided meditation. Inspiring original songs incorporating devotional chanting including harmonium, bells, tambourines, guitars, drums, singing and dancing. Yoga class.

Meditation by Megan and Andrea (Against the Stream)

• Monday, Nov. 21st, 11:00 am-12:15 pm

Everyone is invited to join a Sitting Meditation and Silent Peace Walk at Occupy Los Angeles. We will send positive intentions out into the world.

Let us be the change we want to see in the world -- as we generate the combined energy of mindfulness, calm reflection, loving-kindness, and insight. The 99% and the 1% are worthy of happiness and compassion. Let's sit and walk for protestors as well as police, slum lords and slum residents, householders and homeless. Poverty, unemployment, greed, and corruption are more than a domestic issue. Help create an environment for the 100% to come together in meditation and share the intention of creating peace, harmony, and freedom for ALL beings.

Simple acts contribute to a major paradigm shift. Why? Peace in ourselves creates peace in the world.

SCHEDULE
10:50 am - Gather, get settled
11:00 am - Sitting meditation
11:20 am - Peace Walk in silence
11:50 am - Sitting mediation (20 mins)

Organized by the Los Angeles Compassionate Heart Sangha, a mindfulness meditation group practicing in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. No political affiliation.

Occupy: How to beat Police (video)

Lyssa Clayton, Eva Schonveld (Giraffe Talk); M.B. Rosenberg; Wisdom Quarterly

SYSTEM OF A DOWN shows the problem. Occupy Wall Street is the backdrop. Police State resistance is what we want to overcome. NVC is how.

How to be heard in the peaceful Occupy Movement
How can I communicate with [brutal police and occupiers who act like violent] children?

One of the biggest issues for me is how I communicate or fail to communicate.

With the best of intentions I have found myself saying things in ways which make things worse.

I sometimes find it nearly impossible not to slip down the slope of judging, blaming, criticizing [and subduing them with batons, mace, projectiles weapons, flash grenades, and automatic gunfire].

(JFBerkeley) Animated introduction to meeting everyone's need

• Free Training: OLA, Sat. (11/12), 12-4 pm, People's Univ.
  

How many of us end up saying things in a tone that has unpleasant "you’re bad" connotations?

• “You always ____”
  
• “Why can’t you just do/not do x, y, z?”

How many of us find we have forced [others] to do something we wanted but felt very unhappy about how we achieved it?

For many of us, much of how we relate to our children [and others] is [how we were related to as children and by others]. At its root it is based on coercion: the “you will get/not get something if you don’t cooperate.”

The sub-text in a lot of our everyday wrangles with [others] is, “I’m bigger and stronger than you, so you are going to have to do what I say” (because "might makes right").

[This is exactly what police and the Police State behind them believe! There is an easier way to win, just as martial arts are not based on strength and force but rather receiving, redirecting, and flowing.]

We teach our children [and police] values more deeply through how we interact with them than what we preach at them.

[Hey, fat f@#%n p!gs, F### Y*U, f@$ci$t$!!!]

Communicating like protesters instead of police
Rosenberg explains Nonviolent Communication.

So are there ways to change how we communicate at a deep level [to make it effective in actually getting what we want rather than provoking a negative reaction]?

Is there a tool, a technique? Is there help, support, a way to begin?

Faced daily with feelings of exasperation and powerlessness in my [tent], I was intrigued and excited to hear about the idea of Nonviolent or Compassionate Communication.

The word "violent" in this context refers to the way we can hurt or damage people through the use of words which do not respect another as worthy of our compassion and understanding, rather than necessarily [physically harming them].

Nonviolent Communication (NVC)
The process of NVC was developed by Dr. Rosenberg in response to growing up in Detroit in a culture colored with violence and riots. He found himself exploring two major questions.

1. What happens to disconnect us from our compassionate nature, leading us to behave in a violent and exploitative way?
2. What allows some people to remain connected to their compassionate nature under even the most trying circumstances?

How to get respect or what you want with Lisa

Agitation and Ahimsa (video)

Sanjiv Kakar (Times of India), OccupyWallStreet.org, Wisdom Quarterly, Feminist.com

Ahimsa means harmony, non-violence, non-harming. Police are not familiar with it.

Today we see tens of thousands of citizens, including many youths, taking to the streets for a better tomorrow. In a country with a sizable youth population, having youngsters at the forefront of political agitation is not surprising.

• occupywallst.org
• Satellite to fall Friday night
  

Let movements remain nonviolent. For violence always ends in failure. It is truth that wins out in the end because, like the sun hidden by clouds, it will shine before long.

The spectacle of families bringing their children to Anna Hazare's fast at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi for a dose of morality and [divine] ethics raises fundamental questions. What is it that we can do to establish ahimsa in our youth? Since protest is here to stay as a vital tool in the political arena, education in non-violence becomes a priority. More

• Take action! (feminist.com)
• V Day for safer college campuses
• Nepal supports Palestine's independence
• Tibetan monks visit Red Bank's Westside
• Nepali Congress will stay together
• Remote Indian village reached after quake
  
• Uprising Radio: Rise Up for Justice and Peace
• Buddhist pilgrimage to expand in Indian state
• Between China and India lies Burma's future
• Meditation in New York (free class Oct. 2)
• Buddhism in Northeast USA (directory)
  
• Temple to teach Thai, Buddhism classes
• LAYTON, Utah - Wat Dhammagunaram Buddhist Temple is teaching a 12-part series on basic Theravada Buddhism Saturdays, 2-4 pm. Wear white. Chase12@comcast.net, (801) 966-0639, 644 E. 1000 North.

Slaughter-Free Milk

If you must drink milk (or consume dairy products like cheese, whey, lactose sugar, ice cream, or other things that do more to leach calcium from bones -- due to their acidifying of body chemistry and the ammonia produced from the break down of protein -- than they provide in any assimilable form), use slaughter-free. It's the least we could do to give thanks for what is taken from moo cows.

PRODUCTION:

The Lotus Trust has finally found a suitable farm to produce slaughter-free milk after two years of searching. Working in partnership with OMSCo (Organic Milk Suppliers Cooperative), an organic dairy in SE England has agreed to pilot the production of Ahimsa [nonviolent, harm-free] milk with a select herd of cows.

Commonwork is an environmental charity, study center and an organic dairy near Sevenoaks in Kent [England]. It has a well established educational program that explores local and global sustainability. The thrust of its work is towards a just and sustainable world.

Due to parallels in its vision with The Lotus Trust for a fairer world, one where there is collaboration and connection with nature, it has agreed to run this first pilot.

Ahimsa milk will be produced to the following minimal standards:

• No cows, calves, or bulls will be slaughtered
• Cows can graze freely on open pasture
• Cows will be protected for life

Commonwork Organic Dairy is fully responsible for all milking cows. The Lotus Trust has set up a new not-for-profit organization -- the Ahimsa Dairy Foundation (ADF), which will be responsible for ongoing care of all non-milking cows, specifically calves, bulls, and retired milking cows.

Meat and milk as commodities -- cash cow

Cows at Commonwork are looked after to Soil Association organic standards, which means:

• they are not injected with hormones or steroids;
• they are on a diet of non-GM forage (mainly plant leaves, stems, legumes, and grass) primarily grown on the farm;
  
• they graze in open fields during spring, summer, and autumn.
  

Winter housing is spacious and they have areas where they can walk around with access to food 24 hours a day. The health and welfare of the cows is foremost, they are treated with homeopathy and alternative treatments when possible. Antibiotics are used only when no other approaches work. More

• Genetically-altered cows produce human milk
• Cow escapes slaughterhouse, new adventure
  
• Cow Dharma
• Save the Cows

Living beings treated like unfeeling factories

Protesting Torture at Ringling Brothers' Circus

Wisdom Quarterly

(OfficialPETA) People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal's 2009 investigation of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus found that workers were beating, electro-shocking, whipping, tying, and hooking elephants and striking tigers. Shocking footage shows the torment behind animal circuses that exploit animals. (The same or worse holds true for rodeos). What can compassionate people do? It's easy. Avoid circuses. There is no need to demonstrate on the streets as activists are doing today July 20, 2011 in downtown Los Angeles as Ringling Brothers attempts to begin a stint of animal-exploitation shows. There is no need to write letters or boycott a company. Simply stay home if a visit to a circus was planned.

• RinglingBeatsAnimals.com

LA Protesters Stand Up to Circus

(Repenney)

Last year nearly 300 anti-cruelty advocates and activists came together at the Staples Center to protest the Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey Circus.

This circus has frequently come under attack from activists and authorities alike for its pattern of abuse and cruelty towards captive animals forced to perform demeaning entertainments, suffer in cages, lacking sufficient exercise, nutrition, and care. The elephants are showing signs of arthritis as a result.

Ringling Bros. has been cited and fined numerous times for animal cruelty. In a moment of bitter irony the LA police attempted to arrest an LCA activist for displaying a "bullhook," a device frequently used to torment elephants by Ringling Bros.

"We don't want to shut down the circus," one activist was heard to say. "We just want them to eliminate the use of animals." Note: Cirque du Soleil, Bindlestiff Family Circus, and The Little Russian Circus are all animal-free.

Annual Protests Until Reform
In spite of being cited and fined by the USDA for animal cruelty, Ringling Bros continues to profit from its abuses. Members of groups participating in the protest included ISSAC, OCPA, IDA, LCA, PETA Los Angeles, Animal Defenders International, and ASPCA among many others. For much of the time, the protesters outnumbered the circus-goers waiting in line at the venue.

Trainers cruelly wrestle baby elephants using ropes, sharp
hooks, and electric shocks to force them to do tricks. More

• Project Nim: Tormenting animals for "science"
  

Faith in Action: UFO and spiritual headlines

"Live and Let Live" - 2011 Jainism convention in Houston

Prayers for Compassion

Urgyen Samten Ling Gonpa -- the Tibetan Buddhist Temple at 740 S. 300 West, Salt Lake City -- will continue its annual Prayers for Compassion through Sunday at 2:00 p.m., according to the Salt Lake City Tribune. Participants can engage in continuous recitation of prayers and mantras. Individuals can join in anytime during the day or night.

Feast day

Holy Apostles Orthodox Church, 280 W. Center St., Orem, will celebrate its parish feast day with a potluck after the 10 a.m. liturgy serviceSaturday. The next reader service will be Sunday at 10 a.m.

Dalai Lama’s birthday

The Utah Tibetan Association will mark the Dalai Lama’s 76th birthday on Sunday from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Indian Walk-in Center, 120 W. 1300 South, Salt Lake City.

Rumi Poetry

The Rumi Poetry Club will present "The Empty Flute," a series of talks on [Sufi] Rumi’s poetic vision and life philosophy, Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Anderson-Foothill Library, 1135 S. 2100 East, Salt Lake City.

• Faith in Action: Buddhist, Hindu prayers, Bible school, more
• Fresno, California Buddhist Festival will honor ancestors

Solution to the people in Nepal camps

KuenselOnline.com, July 2, 2011

A group of nine countries, led by the US have offered a solution to tragedy: resettlement in third countries for ethnically-Nepalese Bhutanese held in refugee camps in Nepal. The countries are the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, the UK, and Sweden. A total of 45,686 [Bhutanese] people have been resettled in the US and other countries until the end of May this year. “The Bhutanese people and the government are extremely grateful to the host countries for having offered a choice to the unfortunate inhabitants of the camps,” said Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley...

• Refugees warn of Bhutan's new tide of ethnic expulsions
• Nepal NGOs anticipate wider role after refugee involvement
• Buddhist monks to sing for Chinese Communist Party’s 90th
• L.A. locals discuss abductions by aliens at MUFON meetings
• FOX questions "Motherships over London" videos
• Huge triangle UFO seen over Kentucky (photos)
• CIA killed JFK over UFO inquiry - John Alexander
• Abusive relationships don't go away on their own
• Weirdest theories about the Loch Ness Monster
• GhostTheory.com debunks New Orleans Bigfoot
• New bird species confirmed in eastern Nepal
• The Real Mahatma Gandhi:
  Questioning the moral heroism of India’s most revered figure
  
  (Christopher Hitchens) JOSEPH LELYVELD SUBTLY tips his hand in his title. The word Mahatma is not Mohandas' first name, but an honorific Sanskrit title meaning “Great Soul.” It achieved currency in the West by association with Madame Blavatsky’s somewhat risible “Theosophy” movement, forerunner of many American and European tendencies to be found in writers, as discrepant as Annie Besant and T. S. Eliot, who nurture themselves on the supposedly holy character of the subcontinent.

Anger, Madness, and Destructive Behavior

Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Secrets of Psychotherapy (IV): Change or Acceptance?

What is the ultimate goal of psychotherapy?

Let's start with a simple word association experiment: When thinking about psychotherapy, what is the first word that comes to mind to describe what therapy is all about?

Take a few seconds. Got it? For many,my guess is that one, if not the very first, of those words was change. But what if I were to say that psychotherapy is really at least as much about acceptance?

When Sigmund Freud made the oft-cited and misunderstood statement that the purpose of psychoanalysis is to "transform neurotic misery into common unhappiness," he was speaking of change.

But how is even such seemingly modest change accomplished in therapy? So much of the changes that happen in psychotherapy parallel a gradual process of acceptance: acceptance of life as it truly is, as opposed to the way we wish it to be.

Acceptance of past childhood trauma and its pervasive unconscious influence in the present. Acceptance of ourselves for who we are, rather than who we are not.

Freud's off-the-cuff comment may seem cynical. But when seen in the light of his own personal suffering from oral cancer during the final 15 years of his life and how he stoically faced that terrible fate, it is a mature and sober commentary on the absolute necessity of acceptance.

Rather than reflecting his profound pessimism about the human condition, as many mistakenly conclude, Freud's remark recognizes deeply and personally the need for courageous acceptance of physical and emotional suffering and, moreover, the high price we pay for trying to avoid or deny life's tragic aspect. More

• Evil Deeds: A Forensic Psychologist on Anger, Madness, and Destructive Behavior

Yoga of Non-Injury will set you free

Ahimsa: The Yoga of Non-Injury will set you free

"If there is one yoga practice that leads to Self-Realization, it is non-injury or ahimsa." -Yoga Master Swami Satchidananda. Imagine, as John Lennon said, what a world it would be if there were no wars and no suffering. How cool it would be if we could set just one day aside each year when we all stop causing pain and focus on harmlessness. A day when peace is more important than all our differences.

On the Death of Osama bin Laden
Barbara O'Brien (About.com Guide May 2, 2011)

After I learned of the death of Osama bin Laden this morning I took inventory of my emotions. I was in lower Manhattan during the September 11 attacks, so I suppose I have as much reason as anyone to feel something about the death of the man thought to be most responsible.But I just felt sad, for all the deaths, all the suffering, caused by anger and ignorance. I briefly flipped on the television and saw a crowd of jubilant people chanting USA! USA! This depressed me even more; I turned the television off. In coming, nothing is gained; in going, nothing is lost. Those are words I have heard at Zen memorial services...

• France to mull faster exit from Afghanistan
• Compassion: Leading Osama to the Light
  
• Osama resisted? What does "resistance" mean?
• No release of bin Laden photos - Bin Laden's wife
• A celebrity with Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
• More military torture? Interrogation tactics debated
• Spyware claim hits rental chain - Computer security tips - Sony breach accusation - FBI's video virus warning
• Bin Laden death prompts questions about legality
• Despite economic growth, India lets its girls die

The Golden Buddha in the mountains of India
Anoop Negi (Flicker.com)

It rained half an hour ago. A slight drizzle left the flag stones wet. Huge ponderous clouds hung over the hilltown of Tawang. The yellow roofed monastery sat on top of a hillock at 3,400 meters. It can accommodate 500 monks. They are Gelugpa sect, the gentler Monpa tribe. Two monks were on duty and there were no tourists in sight. The lamasery courtyard slopes with a library on the west, a museum on the south, and the sanctum sanctotum facing north. The east side the valley drops down. Over the small yellow roofs of the monks' quarters flush with the sloping hill side, the Tawang valley is laid out.

Brokechella (LA's alternative to Coachella)

Sound meditation (theconduitcenter.gongtheplanet.com)

Where there's a will, there's always a way. Coachella was a fabulous money-drain -- cake and circuses for the masses during a time of war, mass unemployment, and soaring debt.

If only there were an alternative to the madness that still recognized our craving for hedonism at a time of stress. Meditating when needed the most is accessible the least and hardest to practice even if we find our way to the cushion.

Spirituality is often the fruit of leisure, when we have time and reason to recognize the fruitlessness of our material pursuits in search of security and happiness. When there is time and opportunity, that is the time to practice. NOW is that time.

Not paradoxically, there was far more meditating going on at Coachella than Brokechella.

The Poor Person’s Coachella
($5) If you’re bummed out that you didn’t make it to the desert this weekend for a little music festival -- don’t fret. While many of our friends [were] baking in 90+ degree heat and getting up close to the sights and, umm, smells of Coachella, the Ahimsa Collective and RentFoodBroke [threw] Brokechella... for the rest of us who’ve been left behind, are poor, or don’t like getting hot and dirty -- literally -- with our neighbors. The Airliner on North Broadway (Downtown Los Angeles) is where Thom Yorke spun a secret show last month. [For Brokechella], local comedians, visual artists, and bands perform[ed] on two stages, featuring tons of original music and covers of their favorite Coachella acts (complete lineup). The Grilled Cheese Truck [was] parked outside from 9:00-midnight... More

• Jimmy Wong's YouTube response to ex-UCLA coed Alexandra Wallace

Jainism lives on in India

Axis of Jainism

Kailash Vajpeyi (Times of India, April 11, 2011)

With the "Great-Hero Festival" (Mahavir Jayanti) around the corner, here are some salient thoughts about the man who founded Jainism, Vardhaman Mahashraman Mahavira (personal name Vardhaman, description Mahashraman "Great Wandering-Ascetic," title Mahavira "Great Hero").

Prince Vardhaman could recall each detail of his previous births. He was a blessed child. He soon left his family and dedicated his life to meditation [as a wandering ascetic and contemporary of the Buddha]. His philosophical principles are such that they can bring happiness and peace to anyone who assimilates their essence and follows them. His long years of penance [severe asceticism] were so hard that it is a miracle he survived them. And because of this, he came to be known as Maha-shraman (the Great Wandering Ascetic) Mahavira.

Evolution of a philosophy: He conquered sleep and hunger and had no need of spoken words. Twelve years later his communication flowered into spoken words. He observed for the first time that nothing was static [but was impermanent]. We are all forever on the move; we are nothing but flow and flux. Each child, however loved or cherished, will inevitably and surely perish one day. More