(Fox) The world is about to end. Again. Oct. 21 is the next in a long line of apocalypses stretching back thousands of years.
This time, the prophet of doom is Harold Camping, a radio preacher who received international media attention in May when he predicted that Judgment Day would fall on May 21, followed by months of torment on Earth and an end to everything in autumn.
Judgment Day didn't bring the promised earthquakes and Rapture, but Camping now says May 21 marked a spiritual Judgment Day and that the world will still end "quietly" on Friday. It may seem odd that Camping's faith remains strong, but apocalypse experts say that doomsday prophets have often built their entire lives around their end-of-the-world views, and that worldview is hard to shake. For an elderly preacher like Camping, who suffered a stroke in June, apocalypse beliefs may also reflect his struggle with his own mortality....
The Appeal of the End Doomsday predictions, whether secular or religious, often attract those who feel the world is unsalvageable. Sometimes the world-ending catastrophe is nuclear winter; sometimes it’s the Mayan apocalypse. But religious doomsday groups often draw on mainstream faith, said Stephen Kent, a sociologist at the University of Alberta. "Almost all apocalyptic beliefs show Christian influence," Kent told LiveScience. More
"Nothing spreads like fear" -- Number One in the American box office. "Don't talk to anyone, don't touch anyone, stay away from other people," a mom cautions her child.
As one of the mental poisons, fear (bhava) is a kind of hate (dosa) in Buddhism. Both are forms of aversion. Aversion is a negative state that leads to unwholesome karma -- in thought, word, and deed. It is contagious. The military-industrial complex has a propaganda arm, the entertainment industry, and would like us to feel aversion. Why would Hollywood help fear- and warmongers?
Money helps, as does government regulation, private inducement. But privilege locks the cooperation in. Behind-the-scenes Hollywood has always been part of the problem (think of the 1950 "let's fear the alien invaders" craze) even if liberal actors are disproportionately covered by the media.
"Swine flu" was released on purpose; the goal of the mainstream media was to keep people afraid -- in that way they not only accepted toxic, immune-weakening flu shots, they first begged and then demanded them. Those shots were no protection (as microbes evolve quickly). Vaccines build immunity, but additives (excipients) and multiple shots at once cause great harm. The heavy metal load alone causes more injury than over hyped flu strains.
Shots are particularly harmful to children and the elderly. Who is trying to injure/eradicate the most vulnerable? Big Pharma does not plan eradication campaigns; they just go along with them for profit, even if most employees are good, well motivated people who have no idea what their multinational corporation is motivated by.
There is a "shadowy government" that is neither elected nor directly dependent on Americans for funding. It appears to be multinational, elitist, and answering to another shot caller besides the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, NSC, and Homeland Security. But it has help from these agencies. The bottom line is that FEAR is a hindrance, a poison, a crippler of mind and body. And this movie does as much to promote and exploit our fear/hate as any organic contagion.
Demonizing the Chinese
Dr. Vic, Singapore Contagion is yet another film that glorifies us (the Occidental) while demonizing China and the Chinese (the "Oriental"). In the US-centric universe created by this movie, the source of the problem is China. (Everything bad comes from there.) And the only country working overtime to do anything about it is the USA and its CDC.
The movie depicts China as a helpless bystander providing no assistance. Everything Chinese is cast in a negative light. A group of Chinese is shown kidnapping a World Health Organization health official because, of course, the Han Chinese government does care about Han citizens. In contrast, a sympathetic Caucasian later tries to rescue poor, helpless Chinese kids despite her kidnapping. It is ridiculous and racist; what about history?
If the directors are making a comparison to SARS, they are twisting the facts. Many Chinese and other Asian doctors and nurses in Hong Kong, China, and Singapore died and suffered every day while saving lives. As a doctor who worked in a SARS-infected hospital, I remember the risks and tragedy of friends and colleagues who died and suffered respiratory distress in 2003 after the first case was found around Nov., 2002.
Although Chinese health officials at best initially underestimated the threat with their inadequate (developing world) healthcare or, at worst, covered it up, they managed to contain the disease by July, 2003. The Chinese developed the first SARS vaccine to control this disease (CNN). This movie is insulting to Asians. – Vic, Singapore
Transforming the Three Poisons: Passion, Aversion, and Delusion
In Buddhist teachings, greed, hatred (often expressed as fear), and delusion are called the "Three Poisons," the three unwholesome roots, and the three fires. These metaphors suggest how dangerous afflicted thoughts and emotions can be if they are not understood and transformed.
Greed refers to craving, selfishness, lust, misplaced desire, attachment, and grasping for happiness and satisfaction outside of ourselves.
Hatred refers to our aversion, anger, fear, and revulsion toward unpleasant people, germs, circumstances, and even toward our own uncomfortable feelings.
Delusion refers to our dullness, bewilderment, and confusion, our wrong views of reality.
The poisons are byproducts of ignorance and self-view -- ignorance of our true nature, the awakened heart of wisdom and compassion. Arising out of craving and ignorance, these poisonous states of mind/heart motivate unprofitable, unskillful thoughts, speech, and actions. This brings all manner of suffering and unhappiness for ourselves and others and the world. But there are antidotes to these self-made prisons. More
A Kenyan man [like yesterday's incident in California but in 2009] bit a python who wrapped him in its coils and hauled him up a tree in a struggle that lasted hours, local media said.... Farm manager Ben Nyaumbe was working at the weekend when the serpent, apparently hunting for livestock, struck in the Malindi area of Kenya's Indian Ocean coast.
(reuters.com)
"I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python," he told the Daily Nation newspaper. When the snake coiled itself round his upper body, Nyaumbe resorted to desperate measures: "I had to bite it." The python dragged him up a tree, but when it eased its grip, Nyaumbe said he was able to take a mobile phone out of his pocket and phone for help.
That makes enough sense. After all, a python is massive and was taking him up a tree to eat, reminiscent of a culturally famous story about an apple and an idyllic garden. But it hardly explains the next story of human-reptilian (naga) hybrid behavior.
SACRAMENTO, California(ktla.com) - A man is facing animal cruelty charges for biting a two-foot long python, and he says he has no memory of it. Yesterday [Sept. 2, 2011] afternoon Sacramento cops were called...
While talking to the “victim” 57-year-old David Senk, who had blood in his mouth, another witness told cops that Senk took two large bites out of a live python.... They sewed up a two-inch hole in the belly of the snake, and they found a few ribs were missing. Senk was arrested for animal cruelty.
“I did what?” asked Senk when questioned by FOX40’s Lonnie Wong and added: "If you find the owner, tell him I'm real sorry...."
The snakes owner could not be reached, and Senk says he doesn't know how he got in contact with the Python. He also admitted to not liking snakes very much. PHOTOS
Inmates who began ahunger strike at Pelican Bay State Prison on July 1 to protest [torture] their treatment inside the facility and the Security Housing Unit have ended the effort, officials with the CDCR announced today. The inmates halted the hunger strike Wednesday "after they better understood CDCR's plans, developed since January, to review and change some policies regarding SHU housing and gang management. These changes, to date, include providing cold-weather caps, wall calendars, and some educational opportunities for SHU inmates." More
Why is Wisdom Quarterly Covering This?
We do not work for the prisoners, and we do not work for the wardens. But we oftentimes do work for Kwan Yin, the Buddhist "Goddess" of Compassion.
A bodhisattva (someone intent on supreme enlightenment to benefit all beings) does not limit her compassion, so why would we limit ours? As a society we imprison more citizens than any country in the world. It has been made into a for-profit industry (the prison industrial complex) with a goal to imprison and go worldwide.
We are not being enriched or profiting in any way as a state or nation. We are less safe for it, and poorer. That profit goes to private industry and to a massive prison guard's union, which lines the pockets of politicians who sing themselves to election with the refrain "tough on crime, tough on crime."
This "toughness" we support by voting for such politicians out of fear is bankrupting us, impoverishing us ethically and spiritually, debasing our humanity, and NOT making us safer.
There may be a worldwide fascist movement (remnants of Nazis who were brought to this country to work on nuclear bombs, space travel, intercontinental missiles, social control, propaganda, public relations, etc.), active CIA covert operations, hypocrisy from Israel and other nations on a level never before seen). But that does not mean we have to cave in to the insanity or the untruths that hold it in place.
Ordinary citizens cheer for the killing and torture of our prisoners in the name of revenge -- calling it "justice" and calling themselves "good" for doing it.
Good (such as justice, progress, and humanity) is not brought about by "bad" means -- police misconduct, kangaroo court trials, routine torture, inhumane isolation, degradation, rape, bestial violence, careless misappropriation of tax dollars, state-sponsored executions.
We think it's okay so long as we imagine these injustices are being done to the "other." There is no other.
WE are a society and prisoners are part of it. As such, everyone here is entitled to fairness, protection, and compassion.
Why does Wisdom Quarterly cover this unpopular segment of society? A better question might be why others interested in peace and justice or socially-engaged Buddhism do not.
The Buddha never limited his compassion to those deemed "good." In fact, our compassion is needed most for the least among us.
(Fox) The world is about to end. Again. Oct. 21 is the next in a long line of apocalypses stretching back thousands of years.
Doomsday predictions, whether secular or religious, often attract those who feel the world is unsalvageable. Sometimes the world-ending catastrophe is nuclear winter; sometimes it’s the Mayan apocalypse. But religious doomsday groups often draw on mainstream faith, said Stephen Kent, a sociologist at the University of Alberta. "Almost all apocalyptic beliefs show Christian influence," Kent told LiveScience. More
