Mayan Calendar: Shifting to the Aquarian Age

Nina Persson ("NSB"), The111111event.org, RT.com, Occupy Sweden

THE AQUARIAN SHIFT means... I can't get out of bed. Can't get my dreams out of my sleepy head. I open up my eyes and wonder where you are. And soon I realize that you're not real. And I am. In between a day and dream, life and death are a lazy, crazy stream. I go against the stream. But that, too, is part of the dream. Hello, goodbye, you shifting, starlit screen! I try to seal my mind and get back to where you were. You were that perfect kind. I'm floating down again. And my world is a syrup waterfall. I can't remember when. Or where. Or why. Where is my enlightenment? The world does not shift (revolve, evolve) without a revolution.

The Age of Aquarius is when peace will guide the planet and love will steer the stars.

The Revolution

(OrdinaryGomez2)

(Oct. 7, 2011) The banker backlash in the United States is spreading, with major rallies held in the capital, Los Angeles, and other cities. Thousands have joined to express their distress at economic inequalities, war spending, environmental degradation, and high unemployment.

The peace demonstrations began last month when protesters started pitching tents in front of the New York Stock Exchange under the banner "Occupy Wall Street." Heavy-handed police, given financial donations by the banks, were filmed using batons and pepper spray to violently disperse the demonstrators.

The aftermath of years of financial strife is causing people's hope and patience to run out. And they are upset at the banks (foreclosing on homeowners after cheating them with dishonest loans, a credit crisis, and constantly draining the economy with welfare bail outs) for triggering the strife in the first place. Journalists reporting on the campaign, themselves unconstitutionally subjected to arrest and harassment, say the protesters will continue demanding social and economic justice.

Why we fear "doom"

Wisdom Quarterly

Doom is the end of the world. Doom is death and destruction. Doom, we can't get enough of it. Why are we obsessed? It may be fear of death the forces us to pay attention. It may be relief -- we need another "failed" prediction to bolster our sense that no one will ever predict anything. No one has seen anything. No one knows anything. We're safe.

We are safe. But as we sleep in safety, are we ignoring the doom all around us? The Buddha's final words as he exited this samsara (the round of death followed incessantly by rebirth) were:

All conditioned phenomena are hurtling toward destruction;
work out your liberation with diligence.

Translators may tweak the tone or sentiment of these words. Yet the message is incontrovertible. Things fall apart. They are always falling apart. That is the nature of "things" (all that arises supported by causes and conditions, which is everything with the sole exception of nirvana). Release from this, freedom from this, liberation from this is knowing and seeing nirvana.

Mahayana Buddhism popularizes a confusing notion, "samsara is nirvana," a dangerous witticism on par with "If you meet a buddha on the road, kill him." These are odd ways to say simple things. This is not nirvana. It can be. Nirvana is not elsewhere. But we have not realized that liberation. The belief that we have does not bring us closer to it.

And if a paradoxical Zen instruction says reject authority because we have that in us, great. But to "kill" (utterly disregard, denounce, silence) a guide who points out the way? That is like rejecting a prison door labelled EXIT and deciding, "I'll just keep looking for myself."

Buddhas point the way.

There is precious little time for us on this plane, so fortunate to hear the path to freedom from all suffering. We go from here onto other states, only very rarely coming back. It is not likely that we will hear this message again for a long time. We ourselves are conditioned phenomena, and everything (material form, sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousness) in us that we regard as us is hurtling toward destruction.

The Buddha (teacher) is a guide. The Dharma (teaching) is a guide. The Sangha (those who have successfully followed the path) collectively is a guide. The path does not simply lead to nirvana, final emancipation. It leads to all good states along the way. If one should wish to be reborn in one of the many heavens (states superior to the human in terms of longevity, beauty, pleasure, radiance, etc.) that is available by the path of serenity and insight, concentration and mindfulness, stilling and seeing.

What did the Maya know?

Wisdom Quarterly

The Maya or Mayans knew one thing for sure. The Ages change. And this one is coming to an end. As of today, or perhaps December 21, 2012, we transition from one to another. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

There is great astronomical and astrological significance in this. But few of us now regard the significance of astronomy in our lives, and astrology has been made a pop media joke. There is significance. We are separate from space. We are in space. This is a space world. It is visited by other space worlds. It is influenced and influences other space worlds.

The Maya were told that and taught various calendars and synchronaries. The days of the week, the phases of the Moon (which is the Earth's timepiece once so valuable to everything we did that the powers that be -- other space or subterranean entities -- could not stand for it and obscured it as evil and replaced it with worship of the Sun, which also was always important), the days to undertake an endeavor.

We laugh. How naive of our forest-dwelling forbears who somehow built monoliths and observatories, pyramids and spiritual centers (all with aid from above). Never mind that all over the world similar groups did the same thing, from Egypt to Cambodia, from Sumeria to India, from Easter Island to Stonehenge, from unknown site to unknown site. These sites are everywhere.

The world will end, guaranteed.

But it will spring up again. That is certain.

If we fear change, we will always live in fear, because change is the only constant.

What can we do?

We suggest we work out our liberation (salvation, emancipation, improvement) with diligence. We'll see you in heaven, in paradise, in good states supported by the profitable karma willed, performed, and accumulated right NOW. And for a few all praise is due, who confirmed that it is possible right here, right now, in this very life: Nirvana is visible within samsara. They are not the same thing.

• Be the Change: Occupy Together
• Buddhism in ancient America
• Rick Fields' book will remain as the first attempt to document the Buddhist movement in America. There are approximately eight hundred persons and places named in the book, from Shakyamuni, who started it all, through to the Tibetans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese, Sinhalese, Chinese, and a plethora of Westerners. It's a fascinating story full of eccentric characters, good intentions, and unstinting effort....Buddhism's migration to the new lands....
  

Sex in the Digital Age: Sad and Solo

Jeremy Hsu (LiveScience.com) with Wisdom Quarterly commentary


Sexuality in the Digital Age can mean sexting on smartphones, hookups through Craigslist and Facebook, and transmitting lewd photos like Weiner.

But while humans continue to define the do's and don'ts of online lust, a new generation of computer programs may have already figured it out. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, a scandal like Anthony Weiner's doesn't even necessarily need two humans anymore.

Online chat bots already send come-hither messages to users of social media or dating websites. Video games and online programs also offer virtual girlfriend (or boyfriend) experiences on smartphones and handheld video game consoles.

The crude connections may signal a "robotic moment" for society where humans begin turning to artificial intelligence to fulfill emotional needs, said Sherry Turkle, director of MIT's Initiative on Society and Self.

"I did find people who were interested in artificial boyfriends and girlfriends, in artificial spouses," Turkle told InnovationNewsDaily. "They were not being ironic. They felt that people had failed them. And that a robot would be a safe choice."

Virtual lovers
Such "seduction by social robots" forms a key theme in Turkle's latest book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (Basic Books, 2011).

She found that some people can desire what robots offer -- either in virtual form or as crude sex bots -- even if it marks a step below emotional fulfillment with other human beings. More

• Top 7 Useful Robots You Can Buy Right Now

VIDEO: Sex Robot (Discovery Health)
All over America there are men with a bizarre unspoken fetish. Welcome to the sex robot scene where femme-bots are becoming a reality.
Inventor unveils $7,000 talking Sex Robot
(CNN) To some men, she might seem like the perfect woman: She's a willowy 5 feet 7 and 120 pounds. She'll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she'll have sex whenever you please -- as long as her battery doesn't run out.
Couple's robotic child does everything (is it legal?)

Make Love, Not Robots

Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

It seems like the end of the world. This is a terrible idea. But it makes it obvious how easy it is to sell anything: Accentuate the positive; dismiss the obvious.

What people do, whatever they do, that's fine. Why would anyone else worry about other people's business -- unless it affects us, unless they are part of the Sangha (or some other select group with inherent rules)?

Often it would happen among Buddhist monastics that, in ancient times, one would say to another, "You don't tell me what to do, and I won't tell you what to do." That comment alone is a violation. Outside of the rarefied atmosphere of a monastery, family, or coherent group, however, who can argue with this laissez faire attitude? Free trade, rough trade, who's to say?

Is it "sexual misconduct"?

Sexual misconduct (kamesu micchacara) is defined, technically, as sexual intercourse (penetration) with someone when you are not free to consent (because of living in dependence on someone else such as a parent, guardian, or spouse) or with someone not able to give consent (because that person is living in dependence on someone else).

This detailed definition (found in the Numerical Discourses, Book of Tens, Sutra 206) is not the whole story. The Five Precepts are defined at different levels: In the most basic sense, they are the bottom line. But the reality is, there is more to it. Although it is frequently mentioned, no precept says one abstains from lying. That's what people say based on not reading primary documents and instead relying on loose translations. One abstains from "false speech." And false speech goes a lot farther than mere lying.

As an unsuitable translation, "sexual misconduct" is defined as "adultery." But our modern view of this word (a married person having extramarital relations) is not mentioned at all. What's mentioned is much wider, what we would call "cheating," seducing someone in a relationship. But usually we do not hold that person as having done much by Judeo-Christian standards, even if we despise such people at a gut level. Kamesu means sensuality. Sexuality, its most exaggerated form, stands for less serious manifestations of it (such as gluttony or abuse of any of the other five senses). The worst "false speech" (musavada) is bearing false witness (perjury).

The Five Precepts were not invented by the Buddha but realized by him and revealed as crucial to keep -- if one would be happy now (through peace of mind) and in the future when one meet with the results of karma. What makes something "bad"? If it harms the doer (when the action bears its result, which is rarely right away), if it harms another (which is usually right away), or both (which seems to mean society or everyone involved not merely the two principals, e.g., sex with someone dependent on parents involves many more people that the two having sex.

Who's harmed by sex with a bot?

There is no way to have sex with a robot without engendering a habit of lust and its expression. This will not be helpful in life. The excuse, completely unfounded, that it is a "release valve" for sexual energy is flawed. Eating more does not make one less hungry. On the contrary, one grows fatter and hungrier. Be that as it may.

If one chooses to become obsessed with sex -- Internet pornography, prostitution, pandering, or prurient interest in "interactive technology" -- that individual is alone in that. But none of us are alone. The illusion of separation is deluded, but there is no convincing anyone in the grip of it that it is anything but true. All we do affects others, and to a greater or lesser extent we are responsible for that.

Sex with robot -- even robot "children" -- may be legal. But is it a good idea? This commentary cannot go any further than to say to the individual, Think twice. Lot's of things are legal that are not a good idea.

Masturbation (which is what sex with an inanimate machine is) and the realization of the fantasy envisioned in West World makes us all more isolated, unempathic, and enmeshed in unsatisfactory pursuits that science (for profit) hails as a technological breakthrough to advance the world. This is what happens when socially-ostracized nerds rule the world.

Help save the world -- offer nerds affection so they won't spend their time inventing things like automated kissing machines.