Sages, Solidarity and Women
(Fox and Huff post links need updating, June 2020) Four Noble Truths and Eight Kinds of Work
The Four Noble Truths
Anguish is Everywhere
We desire permanent existence for ourselves and for our loved ones,and we desire to prove ourselves independent of others and superior to them. These desires conflict with the way things are: Nothing abides, and everything and everyone depends on everything and everyone else. This conflict causes our anguish, and we project this anguish on those we meet.
Release from this anguish comes with the personal acknowledgement and resolve: We are here together very briefly, so let us accept reality fully and take care of one another while we can.
This acknowledgement and resolve are realized by following the Eightfold Path: Right Views, Right Thinking, Right Speech, Right Conduct, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Recollection and Right Meditation. Here ‘Right’ means ‘correct’ or ‘accurate’ — in keeping with the reality of impermanence and interdependence . . . .
This Buddhist classic as translated by Robert Aitken Roshi a Sage to teach us wisdom and compassion.
Sage for our racist times — Right Recollection: john powell at the UC Berkeley AND The Othering and Belonging Conferences. These have both offered the most profound an illuminating opportunities for learning how to think about and engage in the right work for racial and social justice in the USA
Sage for our punitive times — Pope Francis — For his declaration that 2016 should be a year of Mercy. AND for his TED talk:
Headlines: Sad News, Maddening News, Good News — Right Speech
The maddening and sad news you will have to search out yourself. There is of course plenty to go around and in the six months since the original stories were collected much has happened.
However I am including the links to the two Fox News stories because at the time, seeing anything like these was such a surprise.
The Huffington Post story has not been updated since it was published in February 2017 but some of the websites it links to have been.
In Real Life There’s No Intermission — Right Conduct an essay about Korea. The Status of Forces Agreement: An analysis by the Federation of American Scientists, a reputable strategic think tank of the nature of these agreements. China’s claims to Korean territory and Trump’s reaction are covered here.
None of us is Alone — Right effort: an essay about Global Solidarity Rolling Requiem — the global musical memorial tribute as a global musical memorial tribute to Sept 11, one year later. Reports of events in our area of the USA. Seattle and Olympia WA. A year later, 2003, in protest against the looming war in Iraq during the Lysistrata Project, theaters, communities, universities and artists around the world presented one night or brief runs of Lysistrata, the play in which the women of Athens and Sparta withhold sex from their men in order to prevent the two cities from going to war again. China’s 2008 Olympics inspired a series of Pro Tibet protests against China’s occupation of Tibet all along the route traveled by the Olympic torch. 2017 saw the global series of Women’s Marches and gatherings mobilized to oppose the gender realities revealed in President Trump’s election.
Deeper than Elections — Right Views: A play exploring the contrasting views of the participants in the Roe v. Wade case and Lily Tomlin who is always right. Here’s a link to the current UNHCR chart website. There is a lot more to say about birds. Watch these spaces.
Women’s Work and Other Frontiers. ( Washington Post links often behind their pay wall. Sorry) I never read the paper myself because it’s simply too insular. However, it is useful at this moment as a way to measure that particular kind of political energy. _Michelle Obama is free to speak and no doubt to earn again: Melania Trump did have to move into the White House in the end.
Peaceabilities
Noble Truths — Paths seven and eight Right Recollection and Right Meditation
These seem essential but I have not yet found a way to make that more visible in the world.