I am not this body.

I am not this body.

This body could never contain me.

Sometimes, however, this body gets in my way.

Sometimes it distracts me with its needs and urges.

Sometimes it stops me with sickness and pain.

Sometimes it frightens me with its weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

Sometimes it deludes me into only seeing other bodies.

Sometimes it controls me with illusions that baffle me.

Sometimes it is my nemesis, tricking me with the idea that I am here to protect it, rather than it being here to carry me.

Sometimes it deceives me that size, strength, colour, gender, age, things, matter.

Sometimes my eyes don't see, and my ears don't hear, and my skin does not feel, and I miss the beauty of it all.

Sometimes its insistence in holding my attention limits my awareness and being.

I am not this body.

I am mind.

Connected to all mind.

An essential part of the wholeness of mind.

Capable of awareness. 

Capable of knowledge.

Capable of choice.

Capable of creation.

Capable of compassion, forgiveness and all other forms of love.

My mind, not my body, creates my experience and gives meaning to everything.

My focus is to be on my mind, not my body.

My attention is to be upon the activities of my mind and not those of my body.

I am not this body.

I am mind, and the only true activity of mind is the choice between love and fear.

A choice when there appears to be no choice.

 

They say the first casualty of war is truth.

We have seen for the past decade that journalism does not exist anymore. No one is informing the populace by sharing facts. They are simply seeking viewers and clicks. The best source of clicks is fear. And when the fear is optimized, we are offered distraction from our fear – everything from celebrities to sports to recipes to pornography. Media, in all its forms, has become a time-consuming, attitude enforcing, addictive intoxication.

In my past life, I valued being informed. I aspired to be very informed and a source for others to be informed. I have mistakenly convinced myself that being informed is important in a world where being informed has become impossible.

Certainly, I can claim to know more than others. That may build my feelings of superiority. It will give me the chance to sound intelligent. It may allow me to condemn the others who do not engage social dynamics and label them as the problem.

But in the end, my blame and hate and condemnation are simply the tools that profiteers use to sell everything from insurance to investments to weapons. They are the thought-tools we use to convince that war can be justified.

Can you feel the fear and hatred building in you? Have you come to the conclusion that war is necessary yet? Putin convinced his people. Are you convinced yet?

Journalism is not used to inform you. It is used to shape you and lead you to the need for war.

This is not the first war. History is filled with them. War has always resulted in significant profits for some. Have we forgotten that war is a multi trillion-dollar product and service industry?

I have decided to abstain from the war news. It brings me to fear and worry. And worse, it brings me to hate and thoughts of attack. It is fed to me to enrage and terrify me. I will not allow myself to be convinced by propaganda that any war is justified. I will not be seduced into thinking there is a way to win. I need to remember that developing strategies for attack is the sadly naïve belief there can be winners in war.

Attack thoughts are the true pandemic disease today. Attack never results in resolution. Attack is the antithesis of peace, and isn’t peace is what we all seek?

No, I will not read the war news any longer. But that does not mean I will be passive. I will not do nothing. I won’t just be distracted.

I will use the time formerly employed in the consumption of news to join in with one of the dozens and dozens of united prayer-meditation-contemplation exercises conducted all around the world as we speak.  

A simple google search will find for you, dozens of studies that have been done that show these meditations efforts have had empirically measurable and statistically significant effects in war zones.

 Here is one to consider - https://www.bmedreport.com/archives/10821

Is it propaganda? Maybe. Isn't it all propaganda anymore? 

But at least it is propaganda for peace. It does not make me hate.

I will actively use my mind to send forgiveness and peace rather than to collect propaganda that tries to convince me to be afraid and hateful.

It is impossible to be informed. It is impossible that war results in peace. It is ridiculous to discuss this in social media. None of these will accomplish anything for anyone other than the politicians and profiteers. It is a waste of my effort.

Instead, I will calm my mind and send my emotionally loving wishes and prayers for calm and reason and peace to those I would otherwise consider my enemies and attackers.

I pray you will join me.

 

 

Authority

 

Power is about choice. It is the attempt to control, influence or seduce a choice someone is about to make.

This is done through a mechanical process of needs and abilities. An actor sees a need in a subject. The Actor wants to control the choice the subject will make. So, they apply their ability to the need of the Subject and the Subject, motivated by some emotion (usually fear,) makes a choice that may be different than what they would make without the dynamic of power targeted on them.

The power does not come from the Actor but from their ability to impact the Subject’s need. In fact, if the Subject has no need, the ability of the Actor is meaningless, and no power will be felt. The source of all power comes from the needs within a Subject.

Everyone always has a need to feel safe.

We want to feel safe from the virus. We want to feel safe from the imposed solutions to the virus. We want to feel safe from violence.

If protestors are allowed to use violence, then we are afraid of them. The protestors are afraid that the government will use violence on them to stop their protest. They are also afraid of being forced to take a vaccine which they do not believe is safe. They are also afraid of a government that would control their choices. This causes them to resist the demands of government.

The fear is real for everyone. The protestors, the other citizens, the people in government – police, politicians, and bureaucrats.

The protestors have the ability to make the politicians afraid and unsure. They have the ability to make life unpleasant for the other citizens. They have the ability to refuse to comply with government mandates.

The politicians have Authority. Authority is a very different kind of ability.

Authority is the gift to the governors from the people whom they are to govern. It is given to the politicians and government officials because of our need for safe, organized and prosperous society.

That authority is particularly meaningful because it comes with the legal ability to use violence.

The protestors have tried very hard to be peaceful and avoid violence. They know that the use of violence will trigger the authorities to use violence against them. If they protest within the limits of the law – the constitution – they will not provoke the government’s legal ability to use violence on them. As long as they are not violent, they will not trigger the citizens’ willingness to permit the government to use their authority.

The thing about authority is that it comes with massive resources and those include a police force and a military which are armed and trained to be decisively violent.

The ability to use that authority, and that trained force, is only theirs because we, as people - who elected our government - have given them that ability. They know that if they use it, everyone is watching and judging.

Most opinion polls show that about 50% of the citizens of our country are sympathetic to the protestors.

The protestors, save a very few individuals, have been very peaceful. They have been respectful and kind to the police and others. The police do not feel threatened, so they have no need to resort to their authority. That is why we have not seen violence so far.

Authority is power by consent. We consent that a group of people shall have, at our discretion, the ability to activate a significant force of police and soldiers to legally use violence for our general benefit. Security, safety, stability, are all meaningful goals for a society and are purposes we would consent to our government using force to protect.

We consent to who gets to make those decisions by who we vote for. We assign those abilities through our constitution. It is the highest form of law and represents our highest values as a citizenry. Everyone of us has the ability to consent.

Right now, only half of our country – or less – consents to this use of violence. Before you consent to the use of this violence - which our Prime Minister has proposed - we should make sure we know, as best we can, what is actually happening in Ottawa.

This past weekend we have had dozens of journalists go and visit Ottawa to see for themselves. I have read five such reports in different news sources. They all report back that the protestors are peaceful, yet obnoxiously and disruptively noisy.

To be in a democracy requires a great deal of mental and emotional effort and strength on everyone’s part. We need to allow people to disagree with us. We need to allow crazy people to speak what ever they like. We need to keep ourselves informed and aware of the facts. We need to remember our collective humanity and always be on guard for those who would abuse their authority.

These are all hard to do. But freedom requires that we do it.

Freedom is not something given to us by government. Freedom is our right by birth. There are those who might take our freedom away and we should resist those people. But the good news is that in our practical day to day lives, Freedom is the gift we give each other. It is all around us. We have witnessed it over and over in our lives. It is beautiful and it is precious.

Respect and peace are our mutual gifts. We give them because we want them. We give them because we know that is how we protect them. We give them because we can see in each other the integrity and humanity we see in ourselves – regardless of our significant differences of opinion.

Authority is something we consent to. Those in authority have no power, nor permission, to use violence without our consent. Authority should be seen as a responsibility to serve all those who gave you that authority. Not as a power to be wielded by virtue of your office.

Until the Prime Minister sits down with these people as human beings, respectful of all Canadians regardless of their opinions, and uses all peaceful means to bring this protest to an end, I do not give my consent to his extraordinary use of his authority which I gave him.

Authority must be held in check, always. Otherwise, it is no longer a democracy.

 

Rules of Engagement

 

I want to offer some ideas into the cyberscape.

I seek not to change minds. I really don’t care if you agree or disagree. Agreement is not really a worthwhile goal in my opinion. It only takes a little examination of history, or even your present surroundings, to show that there has been a lot of agreement that has led us astray. Agreement has been used to justify all manner of hurtful things. For centuries we agreed that women were not equal to men. And those who spoke otherwise were crazy, seditious, and spreading misinformation. They needed to be censored or better yet, jailed. 

For the whole of the history of humanity we seem to agree that the right response to anything new is fear.

Agreement is not a goal for discourse. Agreement provides no progress. Agreement does not move us forward. In fact, agreement results in the immediate cessation of progress. Agreement closes our minds to new ideas. It brings a false sense of security. It brings us to the conclusion of a process that should never end. Agreement should never be the goal. I believe all discourse, regardless of its perceived expertise, can and will shed light through constant questioning.

Answers do not create growth. Questions do.

Disagreement engenders consideration, inquiry, discussion and exploration. All of those endeavors create awareness and knowledge – which is the only true answer to fear. That is a good goal of open free speech – the never-ending release from fear.

My point is a simple one - Neither agreement nor disagreement should ever be a reason to hate.

I am shaken that good people are advocating harm to other good people because they have come to different conclusions about a situation. I care that people are formulating opinions based on select facts and then judging others as less than human because they disagree.

Maybe it is my age or my advanced ability to say and do dumb things, but I have reached the point where I question my own ideas. I am sure that I should not be so sure. I am aware of the limits of what I know, and I am witness to the outcome of weaponizing my own ignorance.

Today I try to measure my ideas not only on evidence and logic, but on how they align with my humanity.

Do my ideas advocate for attack on others? Then no matter the facts, I am wrong. Do my ideas promote interaction, communication, compassion and life? Then even when not totally accurate or completely irrefutable, they are pointed in the right direction.

The only purpose in learning and questioning is to improve my life and the good of all. And I believe that the motivations of even the most outrageous advocate are based in decency and seek to promote the highest ideals of life as they see them.

Opinions are every where. Like belly buttons, everybody has one and most of them are funny looking.

I see opinions as logical conclusions from a limited set of facts at any given time. The puzzle of truth is always missing pieces. So, if my knowledge is never any thing but incomplete, then my opinions can be nothing but temporary. I need to be open for the next round of meaningful considerations brought to my attention.

I am not weakening or demeaning myself by being open minded and changing my opinion from time to time.

Temporary conclusions voiced as opinions are always based on an incomplete understanding. Learning never ends. If I am to ever be right, I must allow myself to adjust as the evidence accumulates. It is always accumulating. I am always learning. I don’t always like what I find out. I am upset by a discovery that makes me incorrect. But that does not matter in the quest to do the right thing.

Under these terms, it is clear to me that there is no opinion that can justify hatred.

I am comfortable listening to people I do not agree with. Even those whose ideas I consider illogical, uninformed, or irrational. I believe if I want to have the freedom to express myself, I must defend another's right to do so. Not because their words are harmless, but because to try to silence them is evil. A right is an absolute thing – or it is not a right but a privilege. We restrict privileges to those who comply with the imposed rules. There is nothing free about that.

To try to censor someone is to reduce a brother or sister to nothing more than an idea that is to be suppressed or silenced. They are so much more than that. They may be misinformed from my perspective, but I am smarter and stronger than that. I do not need to silence them.

I return to writing because I see the power dynamics and they cause me concern. I seek to create a pause in our thinking. To consider that people are more than their opinions and we must honor their humanity if we wish to have our humanity so honored.

You are not alone if the present state of discourse causes you to wonder what is right. You are not alone if this exchange of attacks causes you to fear for our future. You are not alone. The increasing volume of the discussion is evidence of the deep fear everyone is experiencing. For two years and more I have retreated into the safety of silence. My opinions on the politics of it all are constantly changing. What is not changing is my fear for our society. I am as unsure of the correct path as anyone should be. The facts as they emerge are contradictory and “experts” seek to overwhelm my reason and substitute their opinions for my own.

When I read media, both traditional and social, I am shocked by the perversion of journalism from factual information to hyperbolic postulation with no interest in informing public opinion only in enflaming public outcry.

There are many opinions about social media. The only thing everyone agrees is that it is highly profitable.

Let’s willingly identify our opinions without thinking those opinions define who we are. When possible, let’s share, in a rational and helpful way, the best evidence we can find. Let’s acknowledge the limits of our knowledge at any given time. Finally, lets embrace the idea that opinions are meant to be temporary things. We collect information as best we can. We apply that information to our version of logic, and we form a conclusion. That conclusion needs to be temporary because the information base is always growing.

Please be aware that the artificial intelligence of your news feed is giving you more of the same and less of the competing information. You may need to actively find the information that could contradict your temporary opinion. This could cause you to be less angry and recognize the fear and concern behind the shrill cries of those you disagree with. We are all afraid. When a child is fearful you do not criticize their fear and condemn them to isolation. You do not attack them, label them and dismiss them.

Be aware that all the noise you are listening to is about the control, influence, and seduction of your choice. Your choices are being shaped by forces outside yourself making you angry and fearful. Be aware of the emotions attached to your opinions.

You can get a human to do just about anything if you can make them afraid enough.

If we still need to find some agreement, let's agree that we are all afraid. We are all suffering. We are all seeking and learning. We are all equal and entitled to freedom and love.

Let's agree that hatred will not solve any problem.

 

 

Twitter

Gotta love twitter.

Nothing riles me up like twitter does.

Gotta love twitter.

It is a never-ending dark hole of hate. It is magnetic. Within minutes I have grabbed onto threads and tumbled down the rabbit hole.  My heart begins to pound. My breath deepens. My pupils dilate. Adrenaline flows. I feel the hate rising in me. All due to the trigger I felt reading 15 words written by an idiot.

Gotta love twitter.

I can lose 20 minutes of my life on a thread. But not just by reading. Sometimes I fully engage. I pound out a heated reply. I start to write my own competing thread. I start searching for that article I read two days ago that contradicts everything that has been said. And it will prove them all to be idiots.

Gotta love twitter.

Somewhere deep within the black hole of my response I can see my plan of attack. My main point rises to the top. Then I pause and adjust my syntax to formulate the most cutting, sarcastic barb. I begin to sweat, and my typing becomes louder. My rage intensifies. I count characters to choose words that maximize my effect.

Gotta love twitter.

In those moments of ferocity, I gather focus. I ask myself, what is my most effective point?

And in that moment of pause, my higher self whispers “What are you doing?”

Gotta LOVE twitter.

Because of twitter I see myself as lost in a trap. The trap of social media using my need for information and connection to create valuable engagement and morphing it into profitable discord. The trap twitter sets so well, fanning the spark of disagreement and building a raging fire of lucrative hatred.

Because of twitter I can see the trap of my ego. My hubris. My fear. My isolation. My confusion. Turning them all into the voluntary surrender of my humanity.

I love twitter.

It shows me my weaknesses, my vulnerabilities, and my false sense of inferiority.

And when I see those flaws in my thinking and touch that lonely pain in my heart, I can see the fear that drives the whole of the twitter-verse. I get the chance to recognize all this as my need. My need for things to be better. For me to be better. My need for someone to click that heart button and confirm to me that my view is the righteous one and we are superior ones. Confirm to me that I am situated on the moral high ground. And if only everyone would listen to me we could climb out of this chaos.

Yes, I love twitter.

Yes, I love twitter.

It reveals to me all this and more. I can connect to my own yearning for peace and calm and connection to others. I want more than to be on the righteous side of wordy idealistic disputes. I want to experience us as connected. And finally, I see all my harsh words and raging thought is dividing us.

Yes, I love twitter.

For in those moments just before the trap sets, I can pause and see those same needs and desires hidden in the words of those others. I see that same yearning in the heart of that idiot, that person, that being of light. I see there those same motives in their tweet. The same pain and fear.

Only then do I remember it is the peace in my heart that will lead to peace in the world. Not my silly angry words.

Thank you twitter.

Choice and Privacy

Hey

I'm back
😊

More focused on choice than ever before.

This one gets to me good, so I had to speak up.

Choice.
Do you really have any?

You live in a world that seeks your compliance.

Go to school. Learn what we tell you. Sit down and listen. Be quiet.
We will teach you what you need to learn. It will get you a good job and a happy life.
Follow the rules and be a good citizen.
Compliance.
Conformity.
Safety.

Has the illusion of safety become our highest value?
is it better to be safe than to be great?

I want to be safe too.
But I don't assume all people are bad and out to hurt me or someone else.

Don't you think that if everyone was busy living the life that they wanted, rather than striving for the unachievable top in a hierarchical world, we would be more likely to leave each other alone in peace?

Wouldn't we be safer if we stopped creating poor people in a money based world?

So many find themselves ill-prepared, or even sabotaged, by a system that not only rewards unfairly but also inhibits those who do not fit into the narrow confines of an out-of-touch and out-of-date american dream.

Every day I teach students who feel like they are preparing to be part of a failing system.
And they are right in that assessment.

Where will the next great social system come from if we demand conformity?

Who will step up and offer new ideas if they are being watched and monitored as if they were criminals?


Isn't the advancement of any field lead by those who reject the common view and consider the possibilities?

This is the importance of privacy.

I am not a criminal because I question authority and advocate for new ideas.

That is what promoting entrepreneurial thinking does.
It is what I teach.

I teach a simple idea - Be Free. Start your own Business. Everything in the market place can be better. Go for it.

I think I am an advocate for what is best in people. Creativity, initiative, vision.

Sometimes we need to challenge the status quo. Sometimes we have to support others who do the same.

But I am being watched.

Every movement I make is tracked by 20 different apps on my phone.

And those are the ones that I agreed to.

How many apps or programs on your phone are doing the same thing without your permission?
And where is that data going?

How many of my conversations are monitored?
How many of my texts and tweets get reviewed by some AI programmed to assume that everyone is a criminal and any idea outside the norm is unacceptable?

That is the reason to support privacy.

The underlying assumption behind the surveillance of everyone is that we are all criminals and we need to be afraid of each other.

The only people who think this are those who have been trained to think this. This is unnatural. It is unfair. It is counter-intuitive. It is counter-productive.

The nature of creative innovation is challenging society as we know it. Everyone who thinks things could be better is not a criminal.

This is why I advocate for privacy.
Privacy encourages new choices.

The problem...

Hey


Been a while...


Just came across this one today.


http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/republicans-block-paycheck-fairness-act-again


Not sure how I missed it a few months ago.


I have been doing a lot of thinking about how I could best help the world. I know that sounds a little grandiose. But I am not really thinking that big. I am just trying to be realistic and truly helpful. Helpful to real people rather than to some larger than life idea of "society" or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, my ego.


My thoughts have lead me to a simple idea that seems to explain all the upsetting things I see in this life.


Our active life always reflects our values. Our choices verify to ourselves and others what we claim our values to be.


As I observe how our life manifests itself, it seems to me that, as people acting in the world, we have lost two of our most important values: equality and compassion.


We have rationalized them away.


We are so talented at twisting words until they mean nothing. We are able to persuade ourselves that what deeply matters to us in the abstract might not actually matter to us in practical circumstances. Then we start the process of trying to feel better about our moral compromise through denial and distraction. Soon we simply ignore the idea of values. It is too painful to acknowledge. The internal conflict demands either change in behaviour or change in values.


So we ignore the values.


But in that process we erode the foundations of our own self.


At one point or another you have to ask and answer the question, "Are all people truly equal?"
It's a yes or no question. There is no middle ground. When you answer it from your heart it will require a response in your life.


I have come to the conclusion that although we espouse equality, we really don't believe in it.
It is a nice idea but really we have so many exceptions to the rule that it has become meaningless.


If all people are truly equal then inequality in all forms is a fundamental violation of life.


Then there is another fundamental question, "Am I my brothers' keeper?"


It too, is a yes or no question. There is no middle ground. And when you answer it from your heart it will require a response in your life.


When we answer these questions using conditions and circumstances to slide between the only two options - yes or no - we are only dodging the question. Such questions could never be contingent on circumstances. They are the questions that resolve circumstances and provide the direction we need in making life choices.


When we answer the questions directly, we are compelled to accept the obligations that flow from that response.


And I think if the unanimous answer was really "Yes" the world would look very different than it does.


So,


I am sorry to sound so pessimistic but I think we have lost those values. And let's at least be honest with ourselves that we may never really have believed in them anyway.


But we could believe in them.


We could ask and answer the questions today. We could let the change begin within ourselves.


We might even find some peace.


So I ask you, and encourage you ask as many people as you can today,


Are we all equal?
Are we our brothers' keeper?


Peace to you all.