Changing the System Mindfully. Are we imprisoned by our unexamined concepts???

Changing the System Mindfully. Are we imprisoned by our unexamined concepts???
Humanity is imprisoned by a heartless monetary system, co-dependently arising from dichotomy of man and nature, self and society, ecology and economy, and public and private. How is the system fabricated? How do we awaken from our collective delusion and suffering? Please share this blog for Contemplative Social Action to Cultivate a Culture of Awakening! "Do everything with a mind that lets go" - Ajahn Chah

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Dharma Economics: A Creative Approach to Mindful System Change

We are living in the Dark Ages of  Hi-Tech Low Ethics Financial Capitalism and witnessing the pain of being unethical and asleep (not recognizing the suffering, aversion and greed).  Through speculative investments we’re operating our economies and societies at a scale that’s colliding with natural systems in myriad ways. For example, Enron's $65.5 billion bankruptcy in 2001 was the largest before WorldCom surpassed it in 2002 when it was worth over $100 billion, according to Business Insider. But in 2008, the $327.9 billion Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Washington Mutual and nearly $700 billion bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers would dwarf both. 


 Journalist Chris Hedges urges students to expose the 1% Plutocrats nourished and glorified by institutions like Harvard under the OccupyHarvard movement. "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." - Chris Hedges  


Are We a Plutocracy? David Korten speaks on the structure of our democracy. 001% of the U.S. population owns 976 times more than the entire bottom 90% . Source: EcoLocalizer 



"The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds."
- Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The psychology of self-deception


Not recognizing or connecting to suffering within self, sangha and society keeps us in delusion. Since delusion (misperception of reality) is the greatest corruptor of mind in Buddhism, according to Thich Naht Hahn: "He who makes an effort to give up wrong (unwholesome) view and takes upon himself Right View (also called Right understanding) has Right Diligence. He who by means of mindfulness gives up wrong view and dwells on taking Right view upon himself has Right Mindfulness." So these three phenomena Right View, Right Diligence and Right Mindfulness revolve around Right view. - Mahachattarisaka sutta, Heart of Buddha' s Teaching, T.N.Hahn.
Some of my initial thoughts about how to approach the complex system appeared from simple questions that arose in my mind. Please address your question and comments to Dharma Economics here                      [ mitakyatmaildotcom ]. Thanks for sending it.

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Related Post: Breaking Free of the Old Colonial Paradigm.  How can we move away from a scarcity, money, machine and thing oriented society to a self-sufficient, planet, people and life oriented society - an empathic culture of community that actively embraces diversity?
MIT Dictionary of Modern Economics, befines economics as, “the study of the way in which mankind organizes itself to tackle the basic problem of scarcity. All societies have more wants than resources (the factors of production), so that a system must be devised to allocate these resources between competing ends.”


Could Elizabeth Warren, with a Harvard ID save the Middle Class consumers from the predatory banks and financial products? The weakness of Law is that you are continually fighting an external enemy. Mindful system change must take root within our minds.


Note: For the non-Buddhist secular readers of this blog, the term 'Dharma' does not mean religion in its conventional sense. There are six attributes of Dharma that are closer to science than any speculative philosophy. Central to Gandhi's philosophy was the principle of 'swadeshi', which, in effect, means local self-sufficiency. Satish Kumar elaborates on this important concept here on Gandhi's Swadeshi.  How are we to evolve as a living Republic of economic democracy
Note: The change of wording in "Declaration of Independence" and the American Philosophy

You Tube Video List

PBS Commanding Heights: Battle of Ideas for the World economy, Part 1 & 2