January 24, 2009 by mike.

The situation for the people of Tibet over the past 50 years is really not that different from the plight of the Palestinian people.  The Chinese invasion of Tibet and the subsequent damage and destruction of the Tibetan way of life should be a concern for anyone committed to a just and peaceful planet.  Even at this late date, it might still make sense and be possible for China to release the occupied territories of Tibet and allow the Tibetan culture to once again take up residence in the roof of the world.  The disparity in technological ability to wage war or engage in self-defense make it impossible for Tibet to evict the Chinese.  Like the Palestinian people, the Tibetans wait for justice.  Could it be that cultures that are not at the leading edge of science and technology hold some powerful knowledge about what it means to be human on a small planet?  If you wonder about that, please take an hour or two and listen to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. 

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January 24, 2009 by mike.

So, today, there are many cultures and peoples who are being oppressed and killed through systematic interactions between more and less industrialized cultures.  A couple of simple examples are the people of Afghanistan and Iraq who are under attack and occupation by armed forces of the United States and any of the “coalition of the willing” who are still engaged in these conflicts. 

And then there is the plight of the Palestinian people. 

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January 24, 2009 by mike.

I believe that the prevailing and most common pattern of human behavior and interaction between groups of humans has been that a group of humans with an advantage have used that advantage to disenfranchise any disadvantaged group they interact with. 

I don’t think this has always been the case and I don’t believe it is the best choice, but I think it has been the dominant pattern.  And, I mean dominant pattern in multiple ways, the pattern of using advantage to dominate has been the most common or dominant decision of an advantaged group. 

I think the dominant pattern worked against the interests of neanderthals when they started bumping into cro-magnons a while back and I think the neanderthals largely departed this mortal coil in that process.  The record also suggests that changing global weather greatly changed the terrain where neanderthals lived.  

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August 16, 2008 by mike.

Earth is primarily an ocean planet. That may be hard for non-aquatic life-forms to wrap our fins around, but it’s true.

The oceans are the reason the planet looks blue. The planet surface is about 2/3 ocean and 1/3 land mass.

When we terra-peds make a pilgrimage to the beach we look out at a horizon of ocean, the motion of ocean, we become the slaves of waves (having a Dr. Seuss moment). There is something wonderfully soothing about standing at the edge of the two different biosphere systems - land and sea.

It may be that looking at the eternal, unchanging nature of wave and water, contemplating the zen demonstration of the oneness of the manyness of this experience stops our minds in a fundamental way. However you experience it, I hope it is as meaningful and soothing to you as it is to me and I encourage you to find time to sit at the edge of land and sea, doing nothing but breathing and being a part of the biosphere instead of the econosphere.

But, there are problems with the blueness, the oceanity of the small blue planet. These problems are not readily apparent as we gaze at the wave horizon. We may experience a sense of the unchanging nature of the planet as we contemplate wave, but in the aquatic world beneath the ocean horizon there are problems of over-fishing, of ocean acidification, and of pollution that is creating large dead zones in the oceans.

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May 4, 2007 by mike.

A lot of folks want or have a yard that looks like the one above. It’s a monoculture environment that is usually maintained with a significant amount of chemicals and a lot of internal combustion. It doesn’t have to be that way, but that is the most common American approach.

It’s important to realize that your typical 4 horsepower lawnmower is a huge polluter compared to even the automobiles most of us drive every day.

The EPA estimates that gardners and lawn workers spill 17 million gallons of gasoline each year. That’s more petro gallons than the Exxon Valdez spilled in Prince William Sound. Of course it gets splashed all around instead of concentrated in one place so maybe it’s ok. And maybe not. I have a concern that long term and ubiquitous exposure to volatile chemicals may not be good for lots of God’s creatures.

If you want a lawn that looks the one above and you want to walk lightly on the earth, then here are a couple links for information and material support on maintaining a truly “green” lawn.

• Green lawn care from the folks as New American Dream.
• People Powered Machines

But there are some much healthier options than the lawn pictured above. Healthier in every way. Lawn and yard as ecosystem to a multitude of plants, insects, animals that coexist in the way that plants, animals, and insects have developed to coexist over millenia of evolution. Or “as God intelligently created these beings to coexist” for those of us with more dogma and structure than intuition and intelligence.

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November 19, 2006 by mike.

Sure! Of course! And it can be haven as the material dimensions of a small blue planet start to squeeze us.

Herewith, courtesy and credit to Katagiri-Roshi: From Returning to Silence - Zen Practice in Daily Life.

Gassho, Sensei.

Ritual is constantly painting a portrait of our life, setting in motion the interactive commuminon between us and the universe. Without ritual we cannot do anyting. The poem “To Paint the Portrait of the Bird” by Jacques Prevert, is a good example of the interacting communion of appeal and response that is rutual or the essential nature of repentence:

First paint a cage

with an open door.

Then paint something pretty

something simple

something beautiful

something useful

for the bird.

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