Real Peace

Real peace will arise spontaneously
When your mind becomes free
Of attachments,
When you know that the objects of the world
Can never give you what you really want.

-Theragatha

Bush Legacy

From an article by Thomas Friedman in today's NY Times.

 

The Bush team, by contrast, in eight years has managed to put America in the unique position in the Middle East where it is "not liked, not feared and not respected," writes Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast negotiator under both Republican and Democratic administrations, in his provocative new book on the peace process, titled "The Much Too Promised Land."

 

Fits within the Pilgrim's thesis that the US position is less secure now than before the Iraq Invasion.  We face real security threats from the Middle East.  Now we are less equipped to deal with them than ever.

 

The work to be done is greater than any single president can do- of either party.  Regardless of who will be the next president, the work will continue- if it is actually undertaken- past his/her term. 

 

And it will not be undertaken if the next president holds firmly to the same foolishness as our current president.  In a speech to the Isreali parliament, Bush likened Obama's belief in talking to Iran to the appeasment of Hitler by Chamberlain in the 1930s. 

 

Our current president's policy is to talk to our friends only, and then either ignore or bomb our enemies. 

 

Americans need to learn, and elect a president who understands, that peace is only achieved through a willingness to talk to enemies.

Anger

Whenever someone feels anger, there is a potential for powerful dignity, a sense of responsibility, and the expression of some deep personal value that has a universal rightness. This value needs acknowledgement.

 

-David E. Doiron

Act in Love

 Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

- 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Moon on the Water

A person getting enlightened is like the moon reflecting in the water. The moon does not get wet, the water is not disturbed. Though it is a great expanse of light, it reflects in a little bit of water; the whole moon and the whole sky reflect even in the dew on the grass; they reflect even in a single drop of water. Enlightenment not disturbing the person is like the moon not piercing the water. A person not obstructing enlightenment is like the dewdrop not obstructing the heavens.

-Dogen

Benefits of confusion

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

     ~ Wendell Berry