Lesson is Simple; Student is Complicated

Wisdom Quarterly; Dan Millman (PeacefulWarrior.com); Laura Murphy
What can just one person do?

Mark Twain once said about worrying, "I've had a lot of problems in my life, most of which never happened." We get in our own way. The Path is there. The Path is clear. Wherever we step, it appears underneath our feet -- if that is the direction we have set ourselves in. The Path is not the problem. The student is.

The student is complicated. The world spins around us. Occupy this, occupy that, Occupy Samsara. We already here, being crushed by the Wheel of Death and Rebirth. We are suffering. And it need not be that way -- except for the craving, hate/fear, and delusion that overwhelms us and gets us to buy in.

"I always wanted to be someone," Lily Tomlin observed, "maybe I should have been more specific." Today Foley Square is on fire (Occupy Wall Street's massive protest). Berkeley is burning (after being doused again).

Burma, paradoxically, is cooling. And taking a stand is Los Angeles means going to UCLA, Occupy LA, or Cal State University Dominguez Hills. I want to sit down, not by going to work, to take a stand.

"It begins on the ground. Strong roots help a tree to bear fruit; the same is true of human beings. Magical thinking is popular, always has been. But reality rules. Observe and listen to nature's whispers, and all will be well."
- Dan Millman

Wisdom Quarterly invited Amma, and a dozen meditators crowded into Magdha Rod's Meditation Temple at Occupy LA to hear Amma speak and lead meditation.

What Can One Person Do?
Laura Murphy, CC Liu
The Buddhist nun Amma (Bhikkhuni Thanasanti) has been in Los Angeles.

Wisdom Quarterly along with the Occupy LA Interfaith Council and Against the Stream, she was brought down to speak at City Hall and lead a meditation.

It has been an honor to meet and share space with her and other engaged Theravada Buddhist meditators.

Her efforts and willingness to be of service have inspired. Her presence has benefited many. She moves on to Santa Barbara as the movement expands or breaks with a 1,000+ SEIU (union) members, students, and LA occupiers.

Occupy LA may expand to an additional site. Nonviolence may provoke police to behave like soldiers on foreign soil. It has elsewhere -- in a nationwide sweep of Occupy Movement encampments and preemptively violent police tactics.

Hold the ground for a more mindful, peaceful, safer movement to benefit all (even the 1% who benefit when the 99% benefits).

What can I do? Walking meditation, water-only fasting, refrain from speaking in observance of nonviolence (ahimsa), when even words may do harm.

I am inspired to investigate true freedom and how I may achieve that in my own way, in my body, using my mind, and filling my spirit with breath.

"The First Law of Planning:
Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything."
- Arthur Bloch

• [Totalitarian] Burma generals inch towards reform
• A Hopeful Sign: Burma wins ASEAN chair
• Burmese refugees get help
  
• UC Berkeley Student Protest UPDATES
• Introduction to "healthy skepticism"
  

JoAnna Harper and Amma's meditation/dialogue at ATS, 11-16-11

What are the Buddhist precepts for?

Amma chants to close a mindful exercise of deep listening she led.

Penn State riots; we ignore child abuse (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

RussiaToday (Courtesy of Derek Himes) You will NOT fire our winning coaches even if they molest boys in the locker room. They're winning football games!

Today (Nov. 9, 2011) police in riot gear -- bored from plotting against peaceful Occupy Movement demonstrators -- confronted hundreds of Penn State jocks and football fans who took to the streets after the ouster of child-molestation-ignoring coach Joe Paterno.

Accused child rapist Coach Sundusky, founder of Second Mile

Crowds toppled a television news van. The sports lovers flooded downtown State College after Paterno and university President Graham Spanier were fired amid a growing furor linked to their handling of homosexual child molestation and rape allegations against manly former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.

Silent all these years
Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)
Is it any wonder Catholic priests, scout leaders, and coaches regularly sodomize children, get drunk, and watch porn? It seems our entire society is swept over by child molesting.

Macho football coaches molest boys in locker room showers, tough police assault detainees, hypermasculine soldiers homosexually rape fellow soldiers, officers condone gang rape and belittling victims, brutal prison inmates regularly engage in sex with men, fathers have gay sex with children. It just seems that for such a heterosexual Christian nation, we sure are hypocritical.

There is a taboo in most societies against molesting children.
Only the taboo is not against the molestation itself.
It is against talking about it, especially by victims.
We w ill not stand for it!

We say there's nothing wrong with choosing to be gay -- while the dominant religions of our culture absolutely condemn it. Yet we secretly and shamefully exploit the vulnerable and take out homosexual impulses on them, which we must have inherited from being molested ourselves. And nearly no one stops the insidious circle of abuse.

One dare not speak its name! And when priests are caught (not rogue "soldiers for the lord" but average, commonplace clerics condoned by the Church in over 200 Christian sects and non-Christian institutions as well), we go deaf, dumb, and blind -- in effect condoning it ourselves, even when it is our kids, our fathers, our soldiers, our coaches.

Then we cry and say God will take care of it, so what is there for us to do if He's handling it? No problem here. That only happens in other countries like Afghanistan and Iran or anywhere are "enemies" are.

• RAINN: Silent no more
  
• SIA: Survivors of [Molestation] Anonymous
• SNAP: Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
• VIDEO: Sex on campus, rape is a shocking reality
  

Those who do not work it out act it out.

NOTE: What does this issue have to do with Buddhism? Lots. First of all, there is the issue of sexual misconduct (kamesu micchacara), which at its most fundamental level means having intercourse with those dependent on others for protection and support. Children, unable to consent, are in a sense being raped. We, being interdependent, are all being hurt. There is also the issue of causing harm to society beyond the victims and their loved ones. There is the issue of retaliating, which is said to be worse than attacking. Say, just for the sake of argument, that Sandusky was the victim of childhood sexual abuse and that this gave him a penchant to turn around and do the same thing. By doing, he becomes worse than his perpetrators. We all do. If we regard as wrong what was done to us, we certainly do not want to do that to someone and then bring it upon ourselves in the future again (by the strange and mind boggling operation of karma). There is the issue of hypocrisy, of sports and money being more important to a school than academics and science. This issue is a lot bigger than Penn State or football.