Bloggers Bear Witness to Poverty & Inequality

I am about to leave for a four day dzogchen retreat, and wanted to drop a note in support of Bloggers and Site Owners all over the world bringing attention to the cause of poverty and injustice embedded in and perpetuated by our dysfuntional and fraudulant financial system. The burden of poverty heavily falls on world's women, children, minority and marginalized classes, especially in developing countries.

AT Ariyaratne, Founder of Sarvodaya movement sees the root problem of poverty coming from a sense of personal and collective powerlessness. Money itself is empty, yet not understanding its fundamental nature and function as a collective social agreement, as a medium of circulation and a measure of value through which all human exchange of labor, goods, service, ideas and creative thoughts take place, keeps us from exercising our own power to collaborate and create the sustainable reality we like to live in with basic dignity, happiness and joy assured for all.

If power and wealth is getting concentrated in few despite overall sign of prosperity, could it be that the majority do not see or understand the basis of power or where they have unconsciously given away that power?

Where wealth is concentrated, the people are dispersed. Where wealth is dispersed, the people are brought together. - Confucius

The original Buddhist concept of emptiness and the sanskrit term Sunyata carries the meaning of swollen or pregnant - and it is indeed pregnant with a liberative potential when energizing creativity. it points the way out of the oppressive prison that self-protecting unconscious ego supposes to be reality.

Based on a new understanding of our social and historical and experiential realization the time is pregnant NOW for a new world and a new humanity capable of functioning and creating new systems from the holistic, non-dual and interdependent understanding of the whole living systems. This is a deep Now moment when many things are converging in many dimensions, historically, psycho-spiritually and evolutionwise.

{Listen to Chogyam Trungpa and also see this 2 minute clip from movie zeitgeist addendum] about this NOW moment}. We must unite through our common humanity in basic goodness, courage and intelligence and not give in to panic and fear or deceptive distractions and delusions.

Search Transforming Money: From Debt to Empowerment: Susmita Barua (see comment on sidebar)

On NPR Economists Explain How To Save Capitalism, 10/20/08 . But do we need to save an unjust unsustainable system that rewards greed and speculation by the rich and sucks money away from real people and real economy? Our ignorance is the root cause of "dukkha".

A new film They Come in The Name of Helping

The Chinese word for transformation consists of two ideograms that
translate as - danger and opportunity. There is no question that we
are entering into dangerous times. But there are deep opportunities as
well. The evolutionary question is: will you, me, and we put our
wholesome attention, intention and energy towards birthing a new
dhamma world or keep holding on to the old pardigm that is simply
unsustainable and breaking apart under its own weight of living
contradictions.

Search Transforming Money: Debt to Empowerment: 
Susmita Barua

Deep Crisis Is A Deep Creative Opportunity

"Three things cannot be hidden for long. The Sun, Moon and the Truth" - Buddha

In the Buddhist Pali canon, satisfaction of basic material needs is seen as a pre-requisite for sila or moral development. In Mahayana scriptures there a broad concern for poverty as an obstacle to spiritual progress and a clear call for direct action/relief as mandatory for addressing the more subtle roots of samsara.

Some of the popular headilines appearing in major news media is worth pointing out. There is great chaos and confusion now as to why exactly capitalism needs a hand-out or bail-out from big government and the people. Why free market mechanisms and financial markets are not self-correcting in democratic systems?

Newsweek predicts the New age of Global Capitalism Begins Now.

To face this Deepest Crisis in Capitalism French President Nicolas Sarkozy, current president of the European Union, has spoken of a need "to rethink the entire financial and monetary system...to create the tools for worldwide regulation."

We need to be careful about the worldwide top-down regulation the French president suggests. Regulation do not promote understanding. Open sharing of knowledge does.

60 Minutes Interview: Shadow Market of Wall Street 10/05/2008

Some are predicting the Crisis Could Shake Nobel Economics Prize
Financial wizards like George Soros, or Corporate and Technology Icons like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Nobel Laureates do not seem to have any feasible answer for the long haul.

This is a great puzzle and a human conundrum that require many skillful engaged minds especially minds that can see things "as they are" and function in a wise, unbiased and non-dual way. What kind of mindful system change could meet both the basic needs and higher needs of people everywhere, their elected goverments, the Millenium Goals and sustainable ecology/environment?

What if we as enaged citizens and advocate for transparent debt-free currency system, who feel deeply called to respond to this crisis could make this happen together, just by simply putting our collective attention and intention to understand this issue.

We do have this opportunity NOW! Stay alert but keep the humor