Police State? Who said Police State?

Coast to Coast, InfoWars.com, Josh Tolley, Wisdom Quarterly
Even the "right" opposes a police state. It blames the "left" (Red vs Blue), loves capitalism, supports police and war, tends to be racist and Christian. But nobody wants to live under a totalitarian regime like we do thanks to the shadow government pushing for the NWO.

Preserving freedom -- right wing style. Alternative media activist Alex Jones appeared on Coast to Coast (11-9-11). Like Jesse Ventura he is consumed with exposing the forces really controlling world events and preserving personal freedoms.

Having grown up in Texas, he witnessed corruption (by police) at an early age. He became an avid history student. And while still in high school, he started recognizing anti-gun, anti-family, globalist indoctrination. His college in Austin was pro-World Government... "a eugenics, transhumanist... total scientific dictatorship domination program."

Alex Jones was saying the same things a year ago.

After observing tragic police state oppression in Waco and Oklahoma City, he took to the airwaves on Public Access TV, radio, then the Web. He believes Timothy McVeigh was a patsy similar to Oswald.

"I never intended to try to be in the media; I wanted to work outside," said Jones. But as he learned of "total political takeover" and "New World Order brainwashing," he felt he had to warn people.

Legal to carry, but me frisking you is legal if I say it is.

He claims that what drives him is his quest for liberty, freedom, and fair play. "My goal is for us to learn from history and have a freer, libertarian, constitutional society," he explains. We are at a huge crossroads right now, and rather than the "greedy and hateful Illuminati" controlling human destiny, "I want to empower the better aspects of humanity and really see how far we can go."

Guns, capitalism, and free trade for freedom?

Regarding the TSA's invasive pat downs and [cancer and blindness causing] X-ray machines, he believes they are part of a plan "to break our will, and to train us that we have absolutely zero rights, zero liberties, and that the government any time it wants can pull you over, or come into your house without a warrant."

Jones announced that in addition to his radio show, he is now hosting Info Wars Nightly News, a live video news program covering the day's headlines, with unscripted analysis.

• CNN: Leaving the military? Expect a hero's welcome
• Join the NWO's "Army" (New York applicants)
• Better to have been an Irish or Japanese hermit
  

InfoWars.com

Confessions, Questions, Time for Change!

Culled from the beautiful archives of ShambhalaFreeRadio.org

Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist

Dan Montgomery, Buddhadharma, Comments
Stephen Batchelor wrote a particularly interesting book called Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist. In it he tells his own story of embracing, then rejecting, both Tibetan (Vajrayana) and (Zen) Buddhism.

He weaves in his interpretation of the life of the Buddha. He attempts to strip it of all the elements that Siddhartha would have received from his culture. In this way Batchelor shines a light on what may have been truly original about his realization in becoming a buddha.

I find Batchelor a bit too much of a rationalist for my taste, but his critical framework is interesting and useful as a starting point.

• Interview with Tami Simon

Batchelor examines the Pali Canon [Theravada, the oldest form of Buddhism, which survives in Southeast Asia, surrounding India] in detail to learn what we can most reliably say about the life of the Buddha, based on the earliest records that were written down.

What emerges is a very human portrait.

This Buddha rejected his own kingship. He lived in the forest. He rejected all credentials other than his own insight, and the wisdom of the Earth herself. After his enlightenment or great awakening, he dealt with the politics of the day but never assumed any kind of temporal power or wealth. The Buddha taught, gathered a community (Sangha), but purposely did not appoint a successor other than the Teaching (Dharma) itself.

When his time came to pass, his last words were very simple. There are a number of translations of the Mahaparanibbana Sutta ["Discourse on the Great Passing into Final Nirvana"] out there, but here is a well-researched favorite:

Now the Blessed One advised the monastics: Well now, practitioners, my counsel is this: Experience is disappointing, success comes through vigilance.

[Other translations usually run, "All phenomena is hurtling towards destruction; work out your liberation through diligence [constant mindfulness according to the four foundations]." Other translations place more emphasis on sosotharpa -- individual effort towards liberation -- such as translating the bit about vigilance as “work out your salvation with diligence,” emphasizing the need to, in the end, practice mindfulness and do it yourself.

Also, most other translations make the first statement more objective and philosophical, that is, “Decay is inherent in all component things.” But there’s something much more powerful in the more subjective and psychological statement…. “Experience is disappointing.”

Most of us reading this site likely feel that Buddhist view and practice has had a tremendous positive impact on our lives. At the same time, there is much concern about the relevance of some elements of the Tibetan cultural and political overlay that has developed around Buddhism over the past thousand years. Some of these elements are at best distracting, and at worst corrupting... More

Pönlop Rinpoche — Time for a Change

Commentary by Barbara Blouin (Buddhadharma, Comments)

I just read Dzogchen Pönlop Rinpoche’s new book, Rebel Buddha: On the Road to Freedom (Shambhala Publications). When I read this short passage from the final chapter, I thought it could prompt some interesting discussion here.

The pioneers of Western Buddhism had to overcome certain barriers in order to make sense of this “new” tradition and practice it. They were not only meeting a foreign culture, they were also meeting alien concepts like selflessness and emptiness that made little sense to the Western mind. But they said yes to meditation and working with ego.

Now, roughly fifty years later, it’s time for a change. We’re stuck at a certain level of our spiritual development. What at first woke us up now barely stirs us from our thoughts. What supported our inquiry into who we are now blocks our realization of that. Now we have to ask ourselves how to break through again. This time we’re challenged to break through our attachment to all that brought us to this point -- the spiritual cultures that we so respect and emulate that they’ve become another trap for us.

The Role of Questioning in a Spiritual Community
Anonymous (Radio Free Shambhala, edited by RFS staff)
Spiritual communities vary of course. But there is a history, with its corresponding literature, of how some of them have not only abused power but also undermined the confidence and goodness of their members.

Most of us enter a spiritual path with curiosity, openness, and a willingness and desire to be genuine. We may be searching for answers to deep, existential questions. It might be a transitional time in our lives or a time of crisis, or maybe we just want to make the world a better place.

The spiritual group may promise us hope for a happier life and answers to the world’s problems -- if we follow the program and spiritual advice of the leader and his close associates.

Our new spiritual family also provides an instant social network and feeling that we are part of something bigger, such as working towards world peace, saving the environment, or another good cause. More

Science Friday: What is a Flame? (video)

Wisdom Quarterly, NPR, Science Friday

Flame footage: Dale R. Tree, Tadd T. Truscott, Preston Murray, Jonathon Pendlebury.

Humans are thought to have mastered controlled fire in the middle of the Paleolithic era. Half a million years later, engineers Tadd Truscott and Dale Tree, of Brigham Young University, are trying to quantify it. Using high speed cameras and computer algorithms, they are reconstructing fire, digitally. Understanding flames better can help us use fire better, they say.

Candle Gazing Meditation
Candle gazing meditation is called trakata in Sanskrit (yogawithmarnie.com).

There is a simple but very effective form of meditation -- staring into the center of a candle flame until the countersign is developed and the light becomes visible even when not staring at the fire. It does not involve thinking. Quite to the contrary, it involves arresting and settling the mind. Consciousness continues and in fact becomes a fuller awareness; lucidity actually increases with the cessation of discursive thought, ratiocination, and contemplation. Our natural assumption is that "our" thoughts and ideas are us. What a relief that they think themselves, follow their own course, come and go. The real relief is even temporary release from neurotic revolving in mind. Steady focusing on a flame has the power to bring this about. Of course, this is only the first step. The goal is not simply to stop the mental chatter and be serene. This meditation can be developed to absorption (first jhana). And that sets the foundation for successful insight meditation or vipassana.

(BodyMindPower) Video, music, text: Anke Moehlmann (BMP Music), Mystic Journey Vol. 1 & 2, Yoga Sunset Chill I-III, bodymindpower.de.

A short Candle Meditation may inspire some to meditate with a candle. Use a non-paraffin candle free of toxic petroleum products and synthetic fragrances for best results, such as a simple oil lamp, soy candle, or this video:

It is a simple form of meditation that brings deep relaxation. And it is a fantastic way to improve concentration skills. The flame is an aid to go into a deep state of meditation. If thoughts come just let them be there watching them drifting by. Eyes may water a little, which is normal and helps clear them removing tiredness and improving eyesight.

When the eyes starts to burn, close them and visualize the flame with the third eye, the point between the eyebrows.

As a result of focusing on the flame, it feels as though that there is no distance between the eyes and flame. One might become one with the flame and enter a deep state of peace and tranquility.

Take a comfortable seat that promotes alertness, which usually means an erect but relaxed back that is not leaning on anything. Allow the eyes to relax while gazing at the flame. Breathe in and out at the center of the solar plexus. With each in and outflow of the breath, allow the entire body and mind to become more and more relaxed.

Complete the meditation by allowing a few minutes to come back to Earth. Close the eyes for a few minutes. Then slowly move head, hands, and feet before slowly standing.

• Learn more VIDEO: Mapping Flames
• How cooking made us human
• Managing forest to manage wildfires
• The physics of setting leaves aflame
  

"Wise Reflection" is the way to Freedom

Buddhist Publication Society

Wise Reflection: The Importance of Yoniso Manasikara in Meditation (BPS Wheel 463)

What is "wise reflection" (yoniso manasikara) and why encourage readers to use their own thought processes for the growth of wisdom in meditation practice?

The majority of experienced Buddhist meditators Steven Weissman met during 30 years of meditation and 18 years of teaching were unfamiliar with formal reflective meditation. I hope to correct this lack of understanding.

The Buddha stressed the importance of wise reflection. In an important sutra on the topic (MN 2), he says:

“I say that the getting rid of anxieties and troubles ^[1] is possible for one who knows and sees, not for one who does not know and see. What must one know and see in order to get rid of anxieties and troubles? Wise reflection and unwise reflection. For one who reflects unwisely, there arise anxieties and troubles that have not yet arisen. And those that have already arisen increase. But for one who reflects wisely, anxieties and troubles that have not yet arisen do not arise. And those already arisen disappear.”

What is yoniso manasikara (wise reflection)? One might call it systematic attention, careful attention, reasoned attention, having thorough method in one’s thought, proper consideration, wise consideration, critical reflection, analytical reflection, or thinking in terms of causal relations or by way of problem solving. It is a significant factor leading to the arising of insight or wisdom.

What causes our mental suffering? Simply stated, wrong thinking produces mental suffering (dukkha).^[2] Right thinking ends suffering. So it is important to use formal reflective meditation in order to develop right thinking. More

CONTENTS

Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1. Meditation and Concentration

Does concentration automatically lead to wisdom?

Is wise reflection a requisite for enlightenment?

Thinking can be meditating

Wise reflection in the Satipatthana Sutta

How can we end dukkha?

It is all right to think in meditation

Does experience automatically lead to wisdom?

Four types of thoroughbred horses

Moral shame and moral dread

Yoniso manasikara—wise reflection

Part 2. Wise Reflection Meditations

Eating and our relationship to food

Compassion and loving-kindness

D/D (defusing and diffusing)

Waking up in the morning

How fortunate we are

Generosity

Dukkha

Impermanence

Death

Actions and their results

Balancing compassion and equanimity

The five daily recollections

The Four Noble Truths

The eight worldly dhammas

The ten perfections

Conclusion

About the author

Revolution Picnic (L.A. Rage and Communism)

Wisdom Quarterly

Many concert goers at L.A. Rising -- with Rage Against the Machine (RATM), Muse, Rise Against, Lauryn Hill -- consider the American Communist Party a revolutionary force.

The FBI and CIA, between yawns, might disagree. But immigrants from native Buddhist countries (Tibet, Siberia, Vietnam, Burma, Khmer Cambodia, Laos, etc.) are almost sure to be offended by any mention of a Red Army. For anyone who has suffered under Chinese and Southeast Asian dictators has a very bad image that has tainted Communism forever. But in the US, things are kept Revolutionary Lite.

Things are lightweight because the Revolutionary Communist Party is an infiltrated organization. ANSWER LA is very proactive. But the powerful message of fairness lives on. It's what motivates young adults, many of them diehard fans of RATM, have their heart in the right place:

Seeing the hypocrisy of American-style supercapitalism, they embrace the symbols and general ideas of the only force considered large enough to challenge the corporate-ruled, consumer imperative we are seduced into living by in the USA. Before discounting "Communists" altogether, there is one remarkable voice interested in freedom, social justice, and a better society: Michael Slate.

Is Rage Against the Machine Communist?

• LA Weekly on "LA Rising," Memorial Coliseum concert

Review: LA RISING with RATM and MUSE

(LA Times) Those concerned about the misguided energies of Rave kids, of the chaos that somehow manages to collide with mass-market electronic music at every turn, should be thankful that the Rage kids -- those in the Coliseum on Saturday night [July 30, 2011] who are obsessed with the collected music and ideas of Rage Against the Machine -- haven’t yet combusted in the streets of L.A.

Revolution can be a Picnic

Dan Bluemel (L.A. Activist)

KPFK radio host Michael Slate [spoke] at the Revolutionary Communist Party’s 2010 Anti-Fourth of July picnic held in Echo Park, Los Angeles. While most Los Angeles residents celebrated the Fourth of July by throwing parties, attending fireworks displays, and expressing their national pride via red-white-and-blue accoutrement[s], another group had a different theme: revolution. The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) hosted an “Anti-Fourth of July Picnic” in Echo Park [on July 4, 2010]. It was one of many held around the country. People gathered to eat food, listen to speakers, as well as participate in games. More

1. SHOW 7/22/2011-Pelican Bay, Abortion
2. SHOW 7-15-2011-War Neocons, DSK's victim, Pelican Bay strike
3. SHOW 7/8/2011-Amanda Marcotte, Pelican Bay Hunger Strike
4. SHOW 7/1/2011-Afghanistan, Pelican Bay Hunger Strike
5. SHOW 6/24/11-PZ Myers, Filmmaker David Zeiger, Grammy protests
6. SHOW 6/17/11-California Prisons, Anti-Abortion Billboards
7. SHOW 6/10/2011-Ethan McCord and Keith Knight

Thoughts of Liberation (on the 4th of July)

Wisdom Quarterly, text Meditation: First Steps to Control of the Senses (P.M. Rao)

(lisisoft.com)

When the Bodhisat failed to attain the goal -- freedom of the heart, liberation of mind -- by means of the formless concentration attainments and the extreme austerities and penances, he said to himself:

“I recall how, when my father the Sakyan was at work, I sat in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree and, aloof from the pleasures of the senses, aloof from unwholesome states of mind, I entered upon and reached the first absorption, which has applied and sustained attention, is born of aloofness, and has rapture and happiness. Could this, I wonder, be the way to wisdom?”

And there came to him the consciousness that follows truth: “Yes, this is the way to wisdom!” (MN 36)

After developing the four absorptions one after the other [and using it as a foundation for insight-meditation, tracing the links of Dependent Origination to discover the cause and solution to suffering] the highest wisdom was attained. He saw nirvana.

(nekorpa.org)

He accomplished the noble quest by following the method of serenity-and-insight (jhana-vipassana) as the way to nirvana.

But the only descriptions we find of the absorptions in the Discourse Collection come in a set of recurring formulas similar to the one given above concerning the first absorption. To follow the path to freedom today, we have to turn to the oral tradition for the actual practice. Experienced meditation teachers are not easy to find.

The formula for the first absorption has certain interesting and intriguing expressions. Chief among them are the phrases “aloof from pleasures of the senses” and “aloof from unwholesome states of mind.”

What does “aloofness” signify? In our work-a-day world surrounded by pleasing sense objects, we can imagine aloofness to consist of turning eyes away from a beautiful object or turning a deaf ear to a catchy tune. But how does one remain aloof amid the flood of thoughts when sitting in mentally secluded in meditation?

(nekorpa.org)

Far from the distractions of the world's sense objects, there are internal attachments and constant clinging we will not lay aside even long enough to become free.

We know of various things to do when unwholesome thoughts arise. As described in the Vitakkasanthana Sutra (Wheel No. 21, The Removal of Distracting Thoughts) it is possible to suppress, ignore, or replace them with wholesome thoughts. Or we might ponder over their unpleasant consequences, or try to remove the causes that give rise to them.

But to be aloof from them? A deeper study of the discourses shows that the word “aloofness” refers to a powerful psychological method of overcoming unwholesome tendencies.

The Buddha evolved a general approach for mastering some of the problems that arise on the path to nirvana. The attainment of aloofness in the first absorption is an example of this approach. The absorptions suppress mental defilements. That temporary purity of mind/heart enables insight-meditation to succeed.

Tibet's Potala Palace, overtaken and gutted by China, Lhasa, Tibet (Matteo Pistono)

This method can be understood by studying its application to the related subject of controlling the senses. But before any method can succeed, we must purify our attitude towards the world in general and sense-control in particular. How?

We must abandon all dogmas that hinder spiritual progress. Suppose one believes that there is a "destiny" that shapes all of our ends and at the same time recognizes the need to struggle to control the senses (a common combination of views). Further, suppose one encounters a particularly attractive object of desire.

It might be the path of least resistance to surrender to desire saying, “I was destined to do it.” Again one may have a theory that the attainment of an absorbed state is a sign of spiritual perfection. In this case, one would naturally put more emphasis on the methods leading to absorption. Then control of the senses would seem natural and good for this attainment.

But one may go to the other extreme: One may think that leading a good life and control of the senses are ends in themselves. The right attitude in these matters is to consider every attainment as a step to a higher one. The goal is nothing short of nirvana. Source

On 4th of July, Earth is Farthest from Sun
Joe Rao (space.com)

The weather forecast for this year's Fourth of July holiday in the United States calls for high temperatures across much of the country's central and southern states, with some places expected to surpass 100 degrees for the American holiday. So it may come as a surprise that despite this heat, the planet is actually about as far away from the sun as it ever gets. More

• Damaging words in the Declaration of Independence
• Is pornography driving men crazy?
• PHOTOS: Buddhism's sacred places (Kenro Izu)
• PHOTOS: Yogis of India and Nepal (HuffPost)
  
• PHOTOS: In the Shadow of the Buddha (Matteo Pistono)
  
• Mahayana China posed to go Mahayana Christian
  
• SLIDESHOW: Far, far away (Earth Trek)
• How much does it cost to fly into space today?
• Stranded Gaza flotilla activists still hopeful despite Israel
  
• Taliban takes control of Logar Province (NPR 2010)
  
  
• Migrants from Caucasus, Central Asia "killing" Russia
• No more customs borders for Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus
• There were Giants in Egypt (some 6+ feet tall)
• Ark math and the Giants today
• Sarkozy French election was funded by Libya's Kaddafi
  
• VIDEO: China's rare-earth monopoly (Al Jazeera)
• Japan discovers rare-earth deposits on seafloor!
• Princess Kate Middleton mysteries
• Thailand's Yingluck announces coalition
• Libya: "We win or we die"
• Turkey recognizes Libya rebels
• Syrian tanks "pull back from Hama"
• Blast hits Egyptian gas pipeline

The Wisdom of Malcolm X

"We declare our right on this Earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this Earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary!" - Malcolm X

"The Ballot or The Bullet" was a speech by Malcolm X. It is about the struggle of all disenfranchised people from the example of 1950-1960's American black nationalism, the wish to have a nation where displaced blacks (who were enslaved by early Euro-Americans) can be treated fairly and equally). It was delivered on April 12, 1964 in Detroit, Michigan (Vincent Voice Library, Michigan State University).

• Transcript
• Unedited transcript

"Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention"

Marable’s Exhaustive Biography of the Civil Rights Leader
DemocracyNow.org

Events are being held today, May 19th, across the country to mark what would have been Malcolm X’s 86th birthday. Earlier this year a major new biography, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention was published. The book’s author, Columbia Univ. Professor Dr. Manning Marable, died at the age of 60 just days before its publication. Two decades in the making, the nearly 600-page biography is described as a re-evaluation of Malcolm X’s life, providing new insights into the circumstances of his assassination [by the American government through the FBI and the war against black America through the FBI's Cointelpro?], as well as raising questions about Malcolm X’s own autobiography. DemocracyNow! speaks with Zaheer Ali, one of the researchers who worked with Dr. Marable on the biography. "In a sense, this book is a kind of iconoclasm in that way, in that it takes Malcolm off of the pedestal to examine him as a human being struggling through these political and religious currents that he was in," says Zaheer. More

Malcolm X versus the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Life in America (animation)

Things turn at minute 7:00 in "Make Mine Freedom" (Harding College)