Occupy Colleges: Berkeley or Penn State

Occupycolleges.org, Wisdom Quarterly, Occupy Cal, Occupy Together

History in the making: Students lock arms as violent police in riot gear move in to beat them in front of Sproul Hall, UC Berkeley campus, Nov. 9 (AP/Ben Margot).

"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come."
- French writer Victor Hugo

Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests

On Wednesday night, two proud universities saw student demonstrations that spiraled into violence [one by police, the other by footballers]. On the campus of Penn... More

Stand up by sitting down: A peaceful movement for peace and justice. Violence for peace and justice has never worked. Because change comes from within, we have to "be the change we want to see in the world."

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious -- makes you so sick at heart -- that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

- Sixties student leader Mario Savio

Occupy Cal (Berkeley) tents on the famous free speech zone of Sproul Plaza surrounded by supporters. Students and faculty staged a walk-out at Occupy SFSU (San Francisco State Univ.) as well protesting budget cuts and fee hikes. Students gathered at UC Davis to protest police brutality and tuition hikes (Occupy Together).

It's not true. But since the New York Times (the most visible manifestation of State propaganda) says it is, people believe it:

Occupy Wall Street protesters shifting to college campuses
Malia Wollan and Elizabeth A. Harris (Nov. 14, 2011)
BERKELEY, California - Goodbye, city park, hello, college green[?] As city officials around the country move to disband Occupy Wall Street encampments amid growing concerns over health and public safety, protesters have begun to erect more tents on college campuses [which was happening long before any camp got disbanded]. “We are trying to... More

• The Nation begins student articles
• Pledge of Nonviolence (ahimsa)
• Become a student journalist
  

A New Student Youth Movement?
UC Berkeley students Caroline and Aaron (Wisdom Quarterly)
Is it true? Is the police state re-turning this into a student protest movement? Look what it did the last time. No, this is not a "youth" movement. This is ALL of us now -- parents, whistleblowers, teachers, labor, monastics, the 99.9%!

What happened in the Sixties when the US war machine was attacking Vietnam (and secretly bombing Cambodia, Laos, and anyone else who stood in its way) was student bulldozing.

War is a way of life at the CIA, Pentagon, and Corporate-Military Complex. This is more true at home than on foreign soil. We are the ones being monitored, controlled, and deprived of rights.

But like fish in a bowl, we are unaware of the water most of the time. Yet it becomes clear when our MIC (military-industrial complex) is annihilating others. What it does it does in the "storm trooper" style of that famous would-be world empire: The jack boots are the same, the insignia a little different, full of badges, batons, and black outfits.

• Occupy Cal makes Occupy history at Berkeley
  
• Occupy protesters move to California universities
• Occupy California (UC Santa Cruz - San Francisco)
  
• Occupy Affiliated ReFund California march on Cal State
• Occupy protesters move to California universities
• Latest developments in the Occupy protests in places...
• VIDEOS: Police, unprovoked, beat Berkeley students
  

• Bay Area Occupy Blog: Occupy Cal takes field trip to SF
  
• Live Blog: Scene calms at Cal; more details from SF raid
  
• Police shoot armed man at UC Berkeley's business school
  
• Occupy Cal protesters vote to pitch tents
  
• Occupy Oakland protester could be deported
  
• VIDEOS: Police clash with Berkeley protesters, Nov. 9th
  
• Occupy Oakland protesters to join Occupy Cal action
  
• Peaceful raid on Oakland tent city likely not the end
  
• Occupy Oakland: Police outnumber protesters at plaza
  
• 'Occupy Martinez' debuts outside Shell refinery
  
• BART reopens 12th St. station after Oakland police raid
  
• Occupy Oakland gets third eviction notice

Should I be Liberal or Conservative? (test)

Wisdom Quarterly editors Seven and Ashley Wells

• Take the test: Liberal or conservative?

I want to be rich, so that makes me liberal. I am poor, so that makes me conservative. Anyone who wants to conserve this system is, by definition, a corporate-welfare-loving "conservative." Obama, for example. Anyone who wants change, equality, fairness and justice for all regardless of categories or labels we put on them from birth is radical and rises on the side of being liberal.

I am rich, so that makes me conservative. I want to be poor, so that makes me liberal. Anybody who wants to change this system is, by definition, some kind of human-welfare-loving "liberal." Bush, for example. Anybody who wants preservation, inequality, "fair and balanced" news and justice for some depending on labels and the categories we put them in is reactionary and falls on the side of being conservative.

• But everybody wants to be richer!
• Yes, but not everyone wants to be richer by making others poorer. That's a cruel delusion many people carry around. We can have a win-win cooperative world. Instead, many push for a win-lose competitive world. What does the conservative media feed us?
• I can be rich and kind to everyone?
  
• Yes, be rich; have compassion; think of yourself AND others! It's called "enlightened self-interest." We don't have to be like Cartman...or Stan.

Click here for the figures.

Hippies don't go to no Mall, mom!SOUTH
PARK

Chi (breath energy) explained

Howstuffworks.com

In Taoism, chi is the force that animates the universe (©2007 Publications Int'l, Ltd.)

Chi [breath, spirit, spiritus, prana, qi] is a primal substance that animates the universe in Taoism, a mysterious force at the center of ancient Chinese myths and legends that also brought attention to Tai Chi and the Tao [sometimes defines simply as the way or the path of least resistance].

Chi is the force that sets the world and everything in it into motion. Chi is also the force that sustains all things once they are created. [In Buddhist Abhidharma, chi is the "air element," one of the four fundamental characteristics of matter. It is responsible for movement and does not refer to mere oxygen entering and exiting the body. It refers to a far more subtle energy that diffuses throughout the body just as wind does.]

The Idea of Chi

The Taoist concept of chi is not easily accepted by Westerners. It is not a concept that appears in our mainstream religions [except for Christian texts in Latin that speak of spiritus and the "holy spirit," where spirit means "breath"] or philosophies [except for the now defunct theory of the Four Elements]. More

• Introduction to Taoism and Chi
• Chi: The Life Force
• The Influence of Chi
• Personal Chi
• Experiencing Chi
• Chi and Breathing
• Cultivating Chi
• Eastern Spirituality articles
  

The Path to Freedom (explained)

Wisdom Quarterly based on original translation by Bhikkhu Bodhi (SN 45:8; V 8-10)

“Disciples, I will teach you the Noble Eightfold Path and analyze it for you. Listen and attend closely as I speak.” “Yes, venerable sir,” they replied. The Buddha then said:

“And what, disciples, is the Noble Eightfold Path? Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

I. “What is right view? Knowledge of disappointment, knowledge of its origin, knowledge of its cessation, knowledge of the path leading to its cessation. This is right view.

II. “What is right intention? Intentions of renunciation, non-ill will, and harmlessness [These are antidotes for two of the Three Poisons, namely, greed, hatred, and delusion. The instant antidote to delusion is mindfulness, which does not involve thinking, judging, or evaluating but unelaborated awareness]: This is called right intention.

III. “What is right speech? Abstaining from false speech* [bearing false witness, perjury, bias favoritism], abstaining from malicious speech, abstaining from harsh speech, abstaining from useless speech. This is called right speech.

IV. “What is right action? Abstaining from the depriving beings of life, abstaining from taking what is not given, abstaining from sexual-misconduct**: This is called right action.

V. “What is right livelihood? Here a noble disciple, having abandoned a wrong mode of livelihood, earns a living by some honest means. [At a minimum this involves abstaining from five kinds of business: trade in weapons, human trafficking, butchering or transporting animals for slaughter, drugs, or poisons. It also means avoiding any profit making activity that means breaking any of the Five Precepts.] This is called right livelihood.

VI. “What is right effort? Here [in this Dharma] one generates zeal for the non-arising of unarisen unwholesome states; one makes effort, rouses energy, applies mind/heart, and strives. One generates zeal for abandoning unwholesome states that have arisen....generates zeal for the arising of wholesome states that have not yet arisen.... One generates zeal for the continuation of arisen wholesome states, for their non-decline, increase, expansion, and fulfillment by development. One makes an effort, rouses energy, applies mind/heart, and strives. This is called right effort.

VII. “What is right mindfulness? Here, one dwells examining [not "thinking" about or evaluating] the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed longing and dejection with regard to the world. One dwells examining sensations in sensations [pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant], ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed longing and dejection with regard to the world. One dwells examining mind in mind: clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed longing and dejection with regard to the world. One dwells contemplating phenomena in phenomena [defined specifically in the discourse on setting up the Four Foundations of Mindfulness], ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed longing and dejection with regard to the world. This is called right mindfulness.

VIII. “What is right concentration [samadhi]? Here, secluded [withdrawn, aloof, apart] from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states of mind, a meditator enters into and dwells in the first absorption, which is accompanied by applied and sustained attention, with rapture and happiness born of seclusion [turning the mind/heart inward]. With the subsiding of applied and sustained attention, one enters and dwells in the second absorption, which has internal confidence and unification of mind, is without [the continuous effort of] applied and sustained attention, and has rapture born of concentration. With the fading away as well of rapture, one dwells equanimous and, mindful and clearly comprehending, one experiences happiness with the body; one enters and dwells in the third absorption of which the Noble Ones [those who have achieved any of the stages of enlightenment] declare: ‘One is equanimous who dwells happily.’ With the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous passing away of joy and dejection, one enters and dwells in the fourth absorption, which is neither painful nor pleasant and includes the purification of mindfulness by equanimity. This is called right concentration” (SN 45:8; V 8-10).

*FALSE SPEECH: When summoned to a court, meeting, or by relatives, a guild, rulers [administrators] and questioned as a witness in this way: "Tell what you know," then not knowing one says, "I know," or knowing one says, "I do not know," not having seen one says, "I saw," or having seen one says, "I did not see"; in full awareness one speaks falsehoods for one's own gain, for another's gain, or for some trivial material end). The same applies to encouraging others to lie (Numerical Discourses, Tens, sutra 206 or AN X.206).

**SEXUAL MISCONDUCT: "Sexual intercourse with those protected by mother, father, parents, brother, sister, relatives, spouse, the law, or with those engaged, or promised in youth. The same applies to encouraging others to engage in misconduct" (AN X.206).

• Yoga's "Eightfold Path" to union with the universe borrowing from the Buddha