A starting point for those who need to know

Last week I saw an item stating that George Soros was urging the Chinese to step up and become the leaders they are in the global money world, control the price of their currency in a way that helps all, etc.  This morning’s news had a piece on the Nobel Prize to a Chinese dissident which drew my mind back to Mr. Soros’ and I found this article that describes an interview he gave a couple of weeks ago.  There are enough links and references in this for anyone interested in the global economic outlook to pursue.  Mr. S is dubbed an eternal optimist, but we always need at least one of those at any time.

An Argument from Right Field that explains the root of confusion

I don’t know how I find these things … well, that’s not exactly true, since they are, apparently, revealed in a pretty timely manner. 

Exhibit A:    Richard Wetherill writes in 1952 The Tower of Babel (free download) a description of human behaviour independent of religion that suggests we are responsible for distortions in our view caused by rationalizing wrong choices … Alpha Publishing gives away his writings.  Irritating and enlightening, they remind me of the precepts and the 8-fold path, summarized splendidly by

Exhibit B:  U Pandita in another freely offered work, In This Very Life, The Liberation Teachings of the Buddha. (1992) He begins by stating that the rock bottom foundation of buddhism and practice is sila, morality and goes on to artfully label this, “A Basic Sense of Humanity”

Bottom line here is that lying (especially to oneself) is what confines us to an experience of confusion.  Our glimpses of the possibility of transforming various poisons often lead us to imagine that we can skip over this basic stuff and then wonder why our practice is often lost in a fog of distractions.  Oy vey!

The first reference gives a stepwise description of unwinding the distortions we have built into our view.  Mindfulness gives us a choice to operate such a process.

After sleeping on this I realize that I am making a judgment, but feel justified in doing so, a dangerous position, for sure … Exhibit A suggests there is an Absolute Right in terms of right/wrong (and that we know what it is) and we moderns/post-moderns recoil, but the buddha did describe a whole series of “rights” … the following paragraph illustrates CTR’s take on one of them:  (arrived just in time forwarded by Jan Watson)

RIGHT SPEECH:  In Sanskrit the word for speech is /vac/, which means /utterance/, /word/, or /logos/. It implies perfect communication, communication which says, "It is so," rather than, "I think it is so." "Fire is hot," rather than "I think fire is hot." Fire /is/ hot, automatically – the direct approach. Such communication is true speech, in Sanskrit /satya/, which means "being true." It is dark outside at this time. Nobody would disagree with that. Nobody would have to say, "I think it is dark outside," or "You must believe it is dark outside." You would just say, "It is dark outside." It is just the simple minimum of words we could use. It is true.

From "The Eightfold Path," in /The Myth of Freedom and the Way of
Meditation/, page 121 in the Shambhala Library edition.