Best Of
Re: Good and Bad People
Here are the actions I take to combat evil. I think the extreme partisanship of the US is undermining the possibility of consensus and the functioning of government, which are the foundation for all the other things we want. There are a bunch of reasons for this and many of the solutions are effectively out of reach (like amending the constitution), so putting energy into them is a waste of energy, dare I say a similar sort of evil to the good person who does nothing is the good person who tilts at windmills? One place that can be changed that would have a fairly big impact is in our primary elections. As they are now, the people who show up to vote are the most engaged and thus the most partisan, which pushes the candidates available in the general election to be the ones that won't reach across the aisle and won't build consensus, so nothing gets done and no problems are solved. You may like one side of this, but that one side comes with the other side in this system of high partisanship. So to fight evil and try to shore up the crumbling foundations of our liberal democratic system (a good in my view) I put some of my energy (albeit probably a small amount compared to the good™ people of the world) into understanding voting issues and at times emailing the appropriate people.
Another thing I do to combat evil is develop my inner resources to live a good and decent life. To acquire the knowledge and skills to understand and communicate ways other people can improve their lives so they can be happier and better people in the world.
person
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
From time to time, the weight of those who or whom have passed flows over.
My parents and all my aunts and uncles are gone. My older brother and a son, friends..my graduation class will be having it's 60 year reunion with more on the wall of memory than remaining.
But, from anther light, for those still around and those who have fallen, for whatever span of time we each have or had, we all enjoyed the jewel of life. To die, one must first live. So, even as we miss the ones who have gone, we celebrate having shared our lives with theirs. We celebrate sharing and having shared the priceless jewel of life.
A toast - To those we have known, those we now know and those we shall know,
THANK YOU, ALL!
Peace to all
Lionduck
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
I’m finding I’m in a more somber mood these days… feeling the weight a bit of all the people who have passed away and disappeared from my life in recent years… my uncles Kees and Henk, my aunt Elly, my stepfather and most of all my dad. It’s just me and my mother now.
I used to always be quite cheerful, a joyous person, usually with a smile on my face. But recently I have been surprising serious and anxious expressions on my face when I would return from being concentrated on something.
Jeroen
Re: Just for fun: the random, useless announcements thread!
Well I arrived back in Aotearoa Saturday evening after spending just over a month overseas visiting my children and siblings in the UK and Europe. Going over I had a 12 hour stopover in Beijing (I got to stay in a transit hotel not far from the airport). On my way home I spent three and half days in Beijing. I booked into a traditional Chinese hotel in the city centre (well one of the centres) for three nights.
I visited Tiananmen Square and walked (in part) the Great Wall of China plus rode on a bullet train....I can remove them from my bucket list...
The videos are short.
It was daylight when I left my hotel to walk to Tiananmen Square which was not far. Little did I know that there would be big queues and security checks along the way.
The Great Wall and the surrounding scenery was/is amazing, but it was very steep in parts and quite hard going in 32 C with little shade.
On the bullet train to the Great Wall.
Gondola ride up to the Great Wall
The walk begins...
How steep the Great Wall is in parts
Very sore feet, aching legs and perspiring like a water fountain ...On the home stretch (Thank Buddha for that 
)
When making my way back to the train station I stopped to watch this Shadow Carving Craftsman At The Great Wall : He Works Using Mongolian Marble.
Shoshin1
Re: Benefits of a Loving Mind
Nothing is wrong BUT
that doesn't make everything right.
In other words we do the best we know how AND learn from those that are doing wells or wishing well on all.
To put it another way... Nope will leave that for others...
lobster
Re: Good and Bad People
@Lionduck said:
I pose a question here:
Which is worse:
The commission of acts of evil (bad actions)
(or)
Seeing the bad/evil/negative actions (knowing such actions are bad)
and doing nothing.A famous person said that true evil not someone doing something evil, but (aware of the evil) good people doing nothing.
Someone also said, "The easy path is to do nothing: The hard paths is to take action."
My issue is the lack of conviction and finality with any act or outcome. Is it good, bad, or who knows? Have I identified the problem and found a good solution that will make things better or is my intention misaligned with reality. By preventing some harm or doing some good am I creating the conditions for something worse, like preventing small fires or brush clearing leading to catastrophic forest fires.
I feel like a focus on the good of personal growth and development doesn't run into the complexity of the world. Rather than worry about the external ethics, virtue ethics says worry about the quality of the people in the world. Am I right, wrong, or who knows? Does everyone have to be all things or is alright for the priest to focus on faith and the fireman to focus on fires?
Or what if your good or prevention of evil harms my good? I think a major problem in the world is the mountain of information people have to sort through, much of it not very good and misleading. If one of the tactics you use in fighting evil is hyperbole or mischaracterization (intentional or not) does that not harm the good I care about?
person
Re: What books are you reading?
I was just following The Book Club on The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and it seems such an archetypal book of childhood that I’m amazed I haven’t read it. It’s been called a foundational classic of English reading… I think I’m going to have to get a copy, preferably a nicely bound illustrated edition.
Jeroen
Re: Being a light unto yourself
Listened to this talk from Joseph Goldstein today. In it he talks about the ongoing work that needs to be done even after a degree of awakening. That a stumbling block that some advanced practitioners encounter is believing that their awakening experience means they're done and therefore the insights they may have are pure and coming from that source of awakening, when in fact there are still plenty of defilements coloring things.
person