tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85794974018498592272024-03-05T18:54:05.794-05:00Deep Conscious Capitalism > Mindful System Change; Transforming Self-Society-Economy: Buddha WayCan we as conscious citizens and engaged Buddhists create our collective future mindfully? It is a social engagement Intention experiment to consciously shift the 'Evolutionary Path' of the planet to create an abundant yet sustainable human-scale economy, a global culture of peace, partnership, genuine free market, unlimited potential for conscious living and right livelihood. Be part of a shared dream, collective solution and joyful r(e)volution Started 08-17-2007 [39 posts]Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-87992769934784764522017-11-16T13:31:00.002-05:002020-09-12T20:38:13.712-04:00Buddhist Perspectives on Money and Economics<div>Visit our New Facebook Learning Group: </div><div><b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/mindful.economics" target="_blank">New Economic Paradigm: Mindful Buddhist Economics</a> </b>& System Change</div><div><br /></div>I wanted some interesting response on the 2012 Millenium Koan (on Money) posted five years ago in this blog, yet have not received any feedback or comment so far.<br />
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Here is an interesting and insightful article on <a href="https://www.lionsroar.com/money-for-nothing/">'<b>Money for Nothing</b>'</a> by <i>David Loy</i> written in 2003. How would a Buddhist system of 'money' look like?<br />
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I raise some questions about ignored aspects of Economics, including money and a way to move forward compassionately in my article <a href="http://exhibitions.globalfundforwomen.org/economica/new-visions/breaking-free">'<b>Breaking Free'</b></a><b> </b>in 2010 after presenting a workshop on 'Deep Conscious Capitalism' in Sakyadhita International Conference of Buddhist Women in Bangkok Thailand in 2009 and a paper on <b>'Dharma Economics'</b> in same forum in 2011.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 18px;">The term <b>“Buddhist Economics” </b>was popularized by <i>E. F. Schumacher</i> in his book </span><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #222222; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; transition-duration: 0s;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r9h0n48S2o">Small Is Beautiful</a>: Economics as if People Mattered</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 18px;"><a href="http://./">.</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 18px;">In Schumacher’s view, the goal of Buddhist economics is “the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption.”</span><br />
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<i>Joel Magnuson</i>, Author and economics Professor at Portland Community College offers alternative to mainstream economics in his 2008 book <b><a href="http://joelcmagnuson.com/bio/">Mindful Economics</a> </b>and 2017 book <span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo25068313.html"><b>From Greed to Wellbeing</b></a><i>: </i>A Buddhist Approach to Resolving Our Economic and Financial Crises. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">“In reviewing the history of modern economics, Magnuson offers a Buddhist critique of the value system it relies upon, arguing that modern economics is fueled by the Buddha’s ‘three fires’ of greed, aggression, and delusion. These poisons, he says, are embedded within our financial institutions and are responsible for our attachment to ‘growth’ as the only measurement of economic success..." - Tricycle Buddhist Review</span></div>
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According to <i>Clair Brown</i>, Professor at UC Berkley and Author of <a href="http://buddhisteconomics.net/"><b>Buddhist Economics</b><i>: </i>An Enlightened approach to Dismal Science</a> in 2017:<br />
"W<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: 18px;">e can reprogram our economic system to create, measure, and evaluate what we value, to develop well-performing economies that provide meaningful lives for everyone while protecting the planet."</span><br />
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<yt-formatted-string class="style-scope ytd-video-owner-renderer" id="owner-name" style="--yt-endpoint-hover-color: var(--yt-channel-owner); background-color: white; line-height: 1.6rem;"><span style="cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; font-size: x-small;">Professor <b>Laszlo Zsolnai </b>summarizes the main <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6KrwUB95nU">principles of<b> Buddhist Economics</b></a> for the </span></yt-formatted-string><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">the Gross National Happiness conference in Bhutan in 2015. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #111111; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Bhutan's Prime Minister <b>Tshering Tobgay</b> shares his country's mission to put happiness before economic growth and set a world standard for environmental preservation in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lc_dlVrg5M">2016 Ted Talk</a>.</span></span><br />
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Thai monk Ven P. A. Payutto's book <b><a href="https://www.urbandharma.org/pdf/Buddhist_Economics.pdf">Buddhist Economics: A Middle Way for the Market Place</a>, </b>1992 is available for download.<br />
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<a href="http://www.google.com/">Google</a> <b>Debt Capitalism</b> and Susmita Barua. She argues the whole financial superstructure of Capitalism and modern market economy is anti-democratic and built on the <b><a href="https://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/a-buddhist-and-interfaith-response-to-debt-capitalism">wrong view of money</a></b> as an instrument of (all public and private) debt. Wrong view (of life and world) arises from unwholesome volitions of mind (like greed, hate and delusion of separate self). <a href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-ditthi/index.html">What is right view?</a> Can we design a sustainable system based on deeper inclusive order of interdependence, and self-organizing regenerative system of thinking?<br />
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<a href="http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Literature_Review_of_Buddhist_Economics">More literature on the subjec</a>t.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-74214745004794158842012-01-12T22:44:00.047-05:002015-09-10T18:24:27.160-04:00The Millennium Koan of 2012<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-size: large;">The meditator abides independently not clinging to anything in the world.</span> - <span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.soma.html" target="_blank">Satipatthana Sutta</a>, Buddha</span></i><br />
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<i>The first inspiration for this blog in 2007 came from this riddle or </i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Koan</a><i style="font-weight: bold;"> </i><i>(captured within yellow line from the left hand corner of a dollar bill). May be it will occupy your Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Before sitting with the Koan, you may want to take <a href="http://whoatemylunch.org/" target="_blank">a bite of lunch</a> here. </i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpV3kOWkEYUUe1ud2dXFS8GngVoFpxd0ZcUxKFDUaIy18yuPjIsl9fQM55djizsTcMowj1kw4Z4FcwUlb1u4u5J1Eo9dKcwkwCqpRvYQbl1UTD6NVpDs6CIVircqxhgfdWqYxTK_bcAtio/s1600/dollar_bill%252C_obverse-clip.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpV3kOWkEYUUe1ud2dXFS8GngVoFpxd0ZcUxKFDUaIy18yuPjIsl9fQM55djizsTcMowj1kw4Z4FcwUlb1u4u5J1Eo9dKcwkwCqpRvYQbl1UTD6NVpDs6CIVircqxhgfdWqYxTK_bcAtio/s320/dollar_bill%252C_obverse-clip.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<i style="background-color: orange;">Contemplative Social Action-<span style="font-size: x-small;">Non-Action~</span></i><br />
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<li style="text-align: left;"><i>Related Questions <a href="http://www.imow.org/economica/stories/viewStory?storyId=4765">: </a><a href="http://thenew.imow.org/economica/new-visions/breaking-free">Breaking Free @IMOW</a></i></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><i>Article <a href="http://www.box.com/s/k8g9jo80zy5hc4tgmi65" target="_blank">Dharma Economics @Jagojjyoti</a></i></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=1qgpv30A9Kq1uG2BE1-5Q8EvLokqb1ztOq_Czr-COckEXqzL2cBDAHdui9-Mx">Exploring Right View</a> @T.Wheel-BPF, p3</i></li>
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<li style="text-align: left;"><i>Can Spain and Greece learn from<a href="http://roarmag.org/2011/06/iceland-crowdsources-constitution-investors-spain-greece/"> Iceland Revolution</a></i></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/02/weekinreview/02marsh.html">Euro web of debt</a>, <a href="http://tripline.net/trip/Mapping_the_European_Debt_Crisis-613264474623100490D4FC49E7C59616">Timeline</a>, <a href="http://roarmag.org/content/economy/">Roarmag</a>.economy</i></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><i>World Bank Whistleblower <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxGinMLS-jM" target="_blank">Karen Hudes</a> educates citizens, state elected officials and finance ministers</i></li>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #5b5b5b; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>“Deep within every one of us lies a natural understanding of good and evil. That is why one man can tell the truth convincingly...but it takes the entire apparatus of the State to peddle a lie, and propagate that lie to new generations.”...Gandhi</i></span></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: red;">"All that we are is the result of what we hav</span></i><i><span style="color: red;">e thought. What we think we become" </span></i><i style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">- Buddha</span></i><br />
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<i style="text-align: right;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Koan: "Public and Private. Not One, Not Two. What the Buddha Will Do?" - SB</span></i><br />
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<i>What is the dhamma of ' money as capital ' ? Can we use <a href="http://dharmaseed.org/talks/audio_player/99/16962.html" target="_blank">dhamma viccaya</a>, the second of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Factors_of_Enlightenment" target="_blank">the seven factors of enlightenment</a> to pierce through our collective delusion?</i><br />
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Can we engage our collective attention, intention and wisdom to transform the<span style="color: #cc0000;"> Vicious </span>cycle of debt, poverty, war, inequality to a <span style="color: #cc0000;">Virtuous</span> system of Dharma Economics which uplifts humanity above greed, fear, trauma and struggle for survival?<br />
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Can we begin to trust the <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_goodness" target="_blank">basic goodness</a></b> of the people and society to seed and grow a virtuous economic system, that is wholesome in the beginning, wholesome in the middle and wholesome in the end? How do we begin to disentangle from the entanglements of <a href="http://vimeo.com/35372114">Crony Capitalism with Bill Moyer</a>?<br />
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<i><span style="color: #6fa8dc; font-size: large;">They did not know it was impossible, so they did it! - </span><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Mark Twain</span></i><br />
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Breaking out of the illusion of false limitation is now possible if we trust in our basic goodness and refuse to be ruled by fear. Pema Chodron on opening to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CVRT-y2wTBY">Fear and Fearlessness</a>. Taking care of earth is taking care of our bodies and healing of earth and humanity are mutually interdependent. In his recent interview with Jo Confino of the Gaurdian, <a href="http://vimeo.com/channels/spiritualecology#37096244">Thich Nat Hahn </a>spoke on liberating our consciousness from Wrong Views through spiritual practice and see Earth as a great and beautiful Bodhisattva.<br />
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Learn how legal constructs "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FtSfUSy28w">Corporate Personhood and Money is Speech"</a> are undermining peoples' and planet's inalienable rights. Can you play with the above concept of money to come up with something fresh and wholesome? What is the source of this debt-based money paradigm? Listen to<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrKV6bfqOck" target="_blank"> Positive Money</a>, UK.<br />
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Can we let go of clinging to this dichotomy of public-private, socialism-capitalism to a clear and silent space in our mind long enough for the sake of all children? What would happen if we wake up and stop projecting a concrete world of debt to a fluid process of debt-free life? How do debt-burden gets passed from consumers, homeowners to <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/04/18/150909686/what-america-owes-in-student-loans" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">young students<i> (see planet money)</i>?</a> Do we have democracy, when our Governments have to constantly borrow from outside? <i><b><a href="http://www.economist.com/comment/1422067#comment-1422067" target="_blank">Global Public Debt Map.</a></b></i><br />
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There are experiments done with different means of open source payment innovation by<b> <a href="http://www.socialtrade.org/" target="_blank">Social Trade Organization </a>(STO). </b>Debt and interest-free<b> </b>Cash and Coin is preferable to electronic system of currency to combat poverty with <i>right understanding of currency</i>, foster real economy and right livelihood for vast majority in the planet because of their transparency and less corruptability at the source. See <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/graphic/2012/mar/09/sahel-food-crisis-map?intcmp=239" target="_blank">Food Crisis in Sahel, West Africa </a>and <a href="http://www.endpoverty2015.org/" target="_blank">End Poverty Campaign by 2015</a>.<br />
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In this Century of preoccupation with 'Self', Citizens came to be seen as <i>'passive consumers'</i> driven by unconscious impulses and dangerous desires. Marriage of Democracy and Capitalism was forged with help of Freud's psychoanalysis and this spawned vast government programs, public relation and mass media strategies. See<a href="http://archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0" target="_blank"> BBC Documentary 'Century of Self' </a>.<br />
<i><span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></i>
<i><span style="color: #674ea7;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"Contentment. That is a very unpopular word. Because the whole economy would collapse if people were content."</span></span><span style="font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">-</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"> Tenzin Palmo</span></span></i><br />
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Dharma of mindful-awareness is about discovering the inner freedom, creativity and joyfulness of 'Selflessness' or freedom from the illusion of mind-made self, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_(spirituality)" target="_blank">ego and alter-ego</a>. (See <a href="http://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/?search=anatta&sort=-rec_date" target="_blank">Dharmaseed teachings on Anatta)</a>.<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: large;">Contemplations ~</span><br />
"Letting go of attachment <i>[and apathy</i> <i>and aversion]</i> is the ultimate generosity, because it connects us with our wisdom and compassion" - <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Ruling Your World, Sakyong Mipham [Insert mine]</i></span><br />
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<i><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #cc0000;">With Zen everything is a good thing. Without Zen even good things are bad things.</span></span> </i>In the Beginners Mind, they say there are many possibilities ~<br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">Inquiry</span>: Is the medium of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money" target="_blank">money</a> (and credit) a private commodity, a public service, a social contract (agreement), a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commons" target="_blank">commons</a>, or a public-private agreement/partnership? Is it some, all or none of these? did the intentions behind modern money arose from one of the skillful (kusala) roots of non-greed, non-aversion or non-delusion, or from one of the unskillful (akusala) states of greed, aversion or delusion?
[note the word 'kusala' as in <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an02/an02.019.than.html">Kusala Sutta</a> is also translated as skillful, productive, fruitful, beneficial, profitable, advantageous states of mind;]
Can we take refuge in our own basic goodness to wake up for the benefit of all beings? Can currency be crowdsourced like the recent <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnYpnvfePMY">Constitution of Icelnad</a>?</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #3d85c6;"><i>- (Susmita Barua)</i></span><br />
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<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring…” Dr. M. L. King Jr., 1967</b></div>
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-small;"><i><b><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9EI2PrDpmw" target="_blank">Monetary Diversity by Bernard Lietaer</a></b></i></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-39338490358766926142011-12-04T00:11:00.041-05:002012-01-20T14:27:33.270-05:00Dharma Economics: A Creative Approach to Mindful System Change<div style="text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;">We are livi</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;">ng 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). </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ead1dc; line-height: 15px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', sans-serif;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;">$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 </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk" style="background-color: #ead1dc; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;">Lehman Brothers</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ead1dc; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"> would dwarf both. </span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #ead1dc;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 23px;"> Journalist Chris Hedges urges students to expose the 1% Plutocrats nourished and glorified by institutions like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlR9rMrYuHU&feature=related">Harvard under the OccupyHarvard</a> movement. </span></span><i style="background-color: #ead1dc; text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">"The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." -<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hedges"> Chris Hedges</a> <b> </b></span></i><br />
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<i style="background-color: #ead1dc; text-align: right;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;"><b><a href="http://livingeconomiesforum.org/Plutocracy">Are We a Plutocracy?</a></b> David Korten speaks on the structure of our democracy. </span></i><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><i><span style="font-family: Muli, arial, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;">001% of the U.S. population owns </span><a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/extreme_inequality" style="color: #194517; font-family: Muli, arial, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 24px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;" target="_self" title="976 times more than 90%">976 times more than the entire bottom 90%</a></i> . </span><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #3e3e3e; font-family: Muli, arial, serif; font-size: smaller; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;">Source:</span><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #3e3e3e; font-family: Muli, arial, serif; font-size: smaller; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;"> </span><a href="http://s.tt/12tvA">EcoLocalize</a>r<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #3e3e3e; font-family: Muli, arial, serif; font-size: smaller; line-height: 24px; text-align: left;"> </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: sans-serif; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><i>"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."</i></span></span><br />
<i>- <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The psychology of self-deception</span></i><br />
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<i>Not recognizing or connecting to suffering within self, sangha and society keeps us in delusion. </i><i>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. - <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Mahachattarisaka sutta, Heart of Buddha' s Teaching, T.N.Hahn.</span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: right;"><i>S</i>ome 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 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Dharma Economics</span> here [ mitakyatmaildotcom ]. Thanks for sending it.</div><br />
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</ul><i>Related Post: <a href="http://conscious-capitalism.blogspot.com/2010/06/breaking-free-of-colonial-industrial.html">Breaking Free of the Old</a> 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?</i><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_993982225" style="background-color: #f3f3f3;">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.”</a></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Could <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFrTZ0ov79I">Elizabeth Warren</a>, 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.</span><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #f3f3f3; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Note: For the non-Buddhist secular readers of this blog, the term 'Dharma' does not mean religion in its conventional sense. There are</span><span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_%28Buddhism%29#Qualities_of_Buddha_Dharma"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">six attributes of Dharma</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> that are closer to science than any speculative philosophy. </span></span></i><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">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 </span><b style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.livingeconomies.org/node/701">on Gandhi's Swadeshi.</a> How are we to evolve as a <i>living Republic of economic democracy</i>? </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b style="font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Note: The change of wording in "Declaration of Independence" and <a href="http://lexrex.com/enlightened/AmericanIdeal/yardstick/pr1.html">the American Philosophy</a></b></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-6551730589643962652011-09-09T17:46:00.028-04:002012-05-25T08:59:13.269-04:00Public Banking, Slow Money, Positive Money and The NEED Act, USA News Flash<span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73gtsiWu8g4&feature=relmfu" style="background-color: #ffd966;">Occupy World Street is spreading...</a></span><br />
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The Bank of North Dakota (BND), is America's oldest and only Public Bank founded upon a somewhat socialist vision. The bank was a cornerstone of the agenda of the Nonpartisan League (NLP), a farmers' political insurgency spawned by anger about outside control of North Dakota's credit and grain markets. Founded in 1915 by A.C. Townley, who became a Socialist Party organizer after he went broke raising flax in western North Dakota.<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-size: small;">Interestingly, the Bank gaurantees Student Loans.</span> - <span style="font-size: small;">[See more at <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/16/bank-of-north-dakotasocia_n_463522.html">Huffington Post</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_North_Dakota">wikipedia</a>]</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">North <span class="highlightedSearchTerm">Dakota</span></span> has had the lowest unemployment in the country (or was tied for the lowest unemployment rate in the country) every single month since July 2008. It also has the fastest job growth rate and have the distinction of being the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008. The state deposits its tax revenues in the Bank, which in turn ensures that a high portion of state funds are invested in the state economy. In addition, the Bank of ND is able to remit a portion of its earnings back to the state treasury (with 19% return on equity in 2010). - Source [ <a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/the-north-dakota-miracle-not-all-about-oil">Ellen Brown, North Dakota's Economic Miracle</a>, Yes Magazine]<br />
In contrast California is the largest state economy in the nation, yet without a state-owned bank, is unable to steer hundreds of billions of dollars in state revenues into productive investment within the state. Here is a funny video on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8vJRo0VaGk">What if we had a public bank</a>? See <a href="http://publicbankinginstitute.org/">what's happening in your state.</a><br />
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We need to integrate public and local banking with local food or slow food movement and local small businesses. "<i style="font-size: medium;">During the past forty years of continued productivity improvements, we have made 30% of farmland unproductive. We lose as much soil every year as we emit carbon into the atmosphere. And then there is the issue of aquifer depletion due to intensive irrigation. Technology, scale, and concentration of capital and power appear to be driving both the productivity gains and the resiliency losses. Just like in finance</i>."- John Fullerton, <a href="http://blog.slowmoneyalliance.org/" style="font-size: medium;">Slow Money Blog</a>, 3/3/11, <a href="http://wikipedia./" style="font-size: medium;">Wikipedia.</a> Other Kinds of Alternative Banking that citizen activists need to study are<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gs_JsuGN74Y"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> Islamic Banking</span></a>, Swedish interest free Banking <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW2pj109Cr8&feature=fvwp&NR=1" style="font-size: x-large;">JAK Report</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, </span><a href="http://permaculture.tv/to-catch-a-dollar-grameen-bank-in-usa/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Grameen Banks </span>Comes to Queens, NY</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">, ethical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triodos_Bank">Triodos</a> </span>bank <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">and</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppyrT4DGS5k" style="font-size: x-large;"> </a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppyrT4DGS5k">Innovative </a><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppyrT4DGS5k" style="font-size: x-large;">Social Banking</a>.</div>
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Armed with the groundbreaking research work of Stephen Zarlenga, founder of American Monetray Institute, Dennis Kucinich introduces Historic <span style="font-size: large;">National Employment and Economic Defense Act</span> to end Fractional Reserve Banking and Private Debt-based money (credit). <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l23fbDsxKI">Watch Part 3 First</a> (pause to listen again around min 4 and 7). Important to note that Public Banking alone is not enough. It does not address the root of the problem, namely the Fractional Reserve System, but the NEED Act does. For example, in the United Kingdom, 75% of lending goes directly into fueling asset price bubbles such as housing, while only 25% is channeled to business and the productive sector. The banking sector is failing to fulfill its supposed role in a capitalist economy. [Source: <a href="http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/power-democracy/">Positive Money, UK</a>]<br />
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America have had a long history of Public Banking starting before the American Revolution. From the perspective of money and banking American History looks very different, see youtube on <span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqL97afZydw">the Real Tea Party</a></span>. View articles on New Economy and how it is unfolding in <a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/">YES magazine!</a> <a href="http://www.freespeech.org/category/series/occupy-wallstreet">Free Speech TV</a><br />
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In Buddhist philosophy, wholesome, mindful and skillful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_%28Buddhism%29"><span style="font-size: large;">View</span></a> without bias plays a key role in entering and walking the path of awakening and freedom for both the individual and society as a whole. Venerable Sariputta described,<i> "A Nobel Disciple is one of right view, whose view is straight, who has perfect confidence in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharma_%28Buddhism%29" title="Dharma">Dhamma</a>, and has arrived at this true Dhamma." My wiki take on </i>Dharma is to cultivate the knowledge and practice of living principles that upholds the fabric of reality, natural phenomena and personality-gestalts of human beings in dynamic interdependence and harmony.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-65456009189071056242011-05-16T13:11:00.060-04:002011-10-04T11:40:49.788-04:00Globalization Forces Indian Farmers to Commit Suicides Daily!<div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/11/every_30_minutes_crushed_by_debt"><b><i>Smita Narula</i></b> of NYU speaks to <i><b>Democracy Now</b></i></a><i><b> </b></i></span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: small;">about this distress call from the from the invisible bottom of our economic food pyramid.</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">"It is estimated that more than a </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i style="color: red;"><b>quarter of a million Indian farmers</b></i> </span>have committed suicide in the last 16 years—the largest wave of recorded suicides in human history. A great number of those affected are cash crop farmers, and cotton farmers in particular. </span><span style="font-size: small;">In <b><i>2009</i></b> alone, the most recent year for which official figures are available, </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i><b>17,638 farmers</b></i> committed suicide—that’s one farmer every 30 minutes. While striking on their own, these figures considerably underestimate the actual number of farmer suicides taking place. </span><span style="font-size: small;">Women, for example, are often excluded from farmer suicide statistics because most do not have title to land—a common prerequisite for being recognized as a farmer in official statistics and programs." - <i><a href="http://www.chrgj.org/publications/docs/every30min.pdf">Souce Document 50 pg. NYU Law School</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>See <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av6dx9yNiCA">role of Monsanto in Indian Farmer suicide</a>. Also their products, including Roundup, Agent orange, Nutrasweet and GMO (genetically modified foods). <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvGddgHRQyg">see the Documentary.</a></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html">Prince Charles of UK has opened Bhumi Vardhaan Foundation</a> to address farmer suicide. </i></span><br />
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</i></span></div><div style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;">Interestingly Tom Paine, one of the founding fathers of the United Sates wrote in Agrarian Justice (1776):<i> "</i></span><i><span style="font-size: small;">Men did not make the earth... It is the value of the improvements only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property... every proprietor owes to the community a ground rent for the land which he holds."</span> </i><span style="font-size: x-small;">He also introduced the concept of <i>gauranteed minimum income </i>from land (payment by all land holders to non-land holders). </span><i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Paul Newman said, "I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out."</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Buddhist economics encourage sharing of gifts from the heart. The practice of daily alms giving by lay community to monks and nuns and the vinaya rules of modesty and virtue were given to develop and preserve the sanctity or sacred nature of a good virtuous society living in reciprocity, as well as, harmony with nature and all sentient beings. Buddha said: <i>"Monks, householders are very helpful to you, as they provide you with the requisites of robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicine. And you, monks, are very helpful to householders, as you teach them the Dhamma admirable in the beginning, admirable in the middle, and admirable in the end, as you expound the holy life both in its particulars and in its essence, entirely complete, surpassingly pure. In this way the <span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;">holy life is lived in mutual dependence</span>, <span style="color: #cc0000;">for the purpose of crossing over the flood, for making a right end to suffering and stress</span>. — Iti 107 <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/economy.html">Source Link</a></i></span><br />
<i>Can we co-create a dhamma economy that is wholesome in the begining, wholesome in the middle and wholesome in the end?</i><br />
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<i>Also see 18,000 Children die of hunger each day, says UN. [<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-17-un-hunger_x.htm">Source</a>] Could Basic Income Grant be a way out of the sick society? see Indymedia <a href="http://la.indymedia.org/news/2011/03/245107.php">article by Harald Kother</a>.</i><br />
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<div class="excerpt"></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-47290036583905502152011-04-07T19:09:00.012-04:002011-05-08T11:49:45.456-04:00Universal Basic Income, Human Security & Real Economy of PeaceRecently I had the privilege to present my paper "Global Citizens Manifesto: Basic Income as Basic Human Right" at the 10th <a href="http://www.usbig.net/">USBIG Conference in New York.</a> I just sent a proposal following a spontaneous impulse and to my surprise it got accepted. As a cyber activist and someone outside academia since 1988, I had some anxiety about economists and academics. I first came across the idea of unconditional basic income grant to all citizens without means test about 10 years ago and I always felt this is what is needed to heal humanity and restore ecological balance in the planet. I presented my ideas in the context of a new debt-free and sustainable economic paradigm, based on right understanding of currency.<br />
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Archbihop Desmond Tutu sent this address to 2010 <a href="http://www.basicincome.org/bien/papers.html#2010">Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN)</a> Congress <br />
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Dr Martin Luther King supported Basic Income for all in 1967. [<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6zVj3nBmNs&feature=player_embedded">see youtube] </a><br />
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There are many innovative ways to fund universal basic income, from land rent, to resource rent (on oil, coal, forest, airwave) to negative tax (via Taxation System and perhaps co2 emission) and direct issue of debt-free public currency. The last one requires civil society engagement to fundamentally shift the current predatory paradigm to a compassionate one by shifting the way we perceive and generate currency.<span class="messageBody"> </span><br />
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<span class="messageBody">In October 2010, $1,281 went out to every man, woman, and child in Alaska. The history shows that any state could do the same. </span>"Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend is closer to a basic income than almost any other policy in the world today." - <a href="http://usbig.net/alaskablog/">Karl Widerquist,</a> Georgetown University-Quatar<br />
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The pilot projects of universal basic income grant have been largely successful in <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%09%20http://www.bignam.org">Namibia</a>. Targeted efforts are underway in <a href="http://www.big.org.za/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=57&op=page&SubMenu=">South Africa</a>, <a href="http://www.cpj.ca/en/blog/chandra/basic-income-brazil">Brazil </a>and perhaps <a href="http://biencanada.wordpress.com/">Canada</a>. Surprisingly <a href="http://usbig.net/bigblog/2010/07/on-the-verge-of-introducing-the-worlds-first-national-basic-income/">Iran is ready to introduce</a> the World's First National Basic Income. Following the recent popular uprising in North Africa and Middle East some are seriously considering basic income to relieve poverty.<br />
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I was fortunate to have a chance meeting and warm discussion with monetary historian <a href="http://www.monetary.org/">Stephen Zarlenga of American Monetary Institute</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVkexjYopH0">Alanna Hartzog</a> of <a href="http://earthrights.net/">Earth Right Institute</a>. More later..<br />
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Meanwhile watch the energizing <b>"Economics of Happiness"</b> documentary in <a href="http://www.theeconomicsofhappiness.org/">this website . </a><br />
Buddha taught a way to complete freedom and happiness that comes from meditative reflection and concentration. He suggested cultivating a wholesome benevolent state of mind (equanimity) that is free of attachment to views and cravings for external things, approval or incentives. Here are some questions for men who see violence and accumulation of wealth as the way to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IripphCr6Q">happiness by Robert Thurman</a>, a Tibetan Buddhist Scholar. See Buddha's view on freedom, inner security and <a href="http://www.pursuit-of-happiness.org/history-of-happiness/buddha/buddha-on-happiness/"><b>Pursuit of Happiness</b></a>.<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.socialjustice.ie/content/main-german-government-party-considers-basic-income-alternative-social-welfare">Germany and Ireland</a></b> have been discussing unconditional basic income for years as an alternative to dysfunctional social welfare system. For some proposed <a href="http://www.working-in-germany.com/basic-income-0098.html">models in Germany visit here</a>. Work is in progress in <a href="http://www.basicincome.com/">Canada</a> , <a href="http://www.basicincome.org/bien/">Brazil and Europe</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-13748164654174498922010-12-24T19:08:00.015-05:002011-03-25T20:57:59.111-04:00Euro 2010 Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Disease of Capitalism <span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Update: As of January 31, 2011, the total Public Debt of the United States of America was $14.13 trillion and was 96.4% of calendar year 2010's annual <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDP" title="GDP">(GDP)</a> of $14.7 trillion</i>.</span><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-TreasDebt_0-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#cite_note-TreasDebt-0">[1]</a></sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-TreasPenny_1-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#cite_note-TreasPenny-1">[2]</a></sup><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-BEAGDP_2-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt#cite_note-BEAGDP-2">[3] (wikipedia) </a>Also see <a href="http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html">National Debt Clock</a></sup><br />
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The Vietnamese Zen Monk and founder of 'Engaged Buddhism' talks about the deep spiritual crisis in the West and the need for living from our core spiritual values in a recent interview with UK Guardian. Thay talks about capitalism as a disease that has now spread throughout the world (even in countries that are home to Buddhism), carried on the winds of globalisation driven by mindless profit, production and consumption: "We have constructed a system we cannot control. It imposes itself on us, and we become its slaves and victims." [<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainability/environment-zen-buddhism-sustainability">Guardian Link</a>]. Thousands of students at UK protest rise in fees.[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKGRxJe5tKU">youtube</a>]. For every US $1000 Africa receives in debt it owes $2300 to the World Bank and IMF <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2RNV6YXhGE">[Link]</a><br />
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Can any Democratic Nation or any of her Citizen remain sovereign under debt-based currency? In early 2010 many countries in European union like Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain (Known affectionately as PIIGS) and Belgium started experiencing soaring public debt resulting in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_European_sovereign_debt_crisis">Euro 2010 crisis</a>. On May 9, 2010 Europe's Finance Ministers approved a comprehensive rescue package worth almost a trillion dollars aimed at ensuring financial stability across Europe by creating the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Financial_Stability_Facility">European Financial Stability Facility</a> (EFSF).<br />
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Here is an interesting image of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/02/weekinreview/02marsh.html">Euro Web of Debt</a>, which appeared in NY Times, May 1, 2010 edition. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/8217842/Eurozones-debt-crisis-pain-by-numbers.html">Painful austerity measures</a> imposed by IMF and EU upon these countries as a condition for rescue or bailout are not working. Iceland went under severe debt crisis two years ago and it had no option but to allow the private banks to fail and let its currency devalue. Iceland's president, <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1672916038">Olafur R. Grimsson, spoke to CNBC</a> about how the country is handling the debt crisis [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932010_Icelandic_financial_crisis">More in Wikipedia</a>].<br />
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Here in the US, the national cohort default rate on federal student loans is 7 percent for borrowers who entered repayment in 2008, which is comparable with the default rate for credit cards (8.8 percent) and home mortgages (9.1 percent). In fact, the total amount outstanding on student loans was $875 billion ($24K per graduating senior), which actually exceeded the amount that Americans owe on their credit cards. [<a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/95633/20101228/american-debt-student-loans-morgage-crisis.htm">Source IB times, 12/28/10</a>]<br />
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Recently I came across this little known book called "Buddhist Catechism" written in 1908 by H.S Olcott<br />
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<b><i><i><b>Question 55. Why does ignorance cause suffering?<br />
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<b>Answer. Because it makes us prize what is not worth prizing, grieve for that we should not grieve for, consider real what is not real but only illusory, and pass our lives in the pursuit of worthless objects, neglecting what is in reality most precious. Col. <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tbc/index.htm">Henry Steel Olcott</a><i></i></b></b></i></i><br />
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At the end of the interview Thay warns, "Without collective awakening the catastrophe would come". After a silence he adds 'we need many Buddhas, one Buddha is not enough".<br />
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<b>On Liberation through Right (True) Realization</b><br />
<i>Owl said, “Then where does Right Realization come in?”<br />
Brown Bear said, “Right Views! Right Views!”<br />
Owl said, “What are Right Views?”<br />
Brown Bear said, “We’re in it together, and we don’t have much time.”<br />
— <span style="font-size: x-small;">from Zen Master Raven: Sayings and Doings of a Wise Bird<br />
by Robert Aitken </span></i><span style="font-size: x-small;">[<a href="http://clearviewblog.org/2011/01/01/rightview/">From Alan Senauke's blog]</a></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.positivemoney.org.uk/whats-wrong-fractional-reserve-banking/"><i>Why fractional reserve banking is unsustainable?</i></a></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-59642153569197843252010-06-11T15:28:00.015-04:002012-07-05T08:53:34.451-04:00Breaking Free of Old, Transitioning to New Paradigm<i>“Everything you do will be insignificant, and yet it is crucially important that you do it.” - Gandhi</i><br />
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There has been a string of worker suicides at Foxconn, a computer and electronic manufacturing company in China, which supplies high tech companies worldwide, and produces Mac-mini, iPod, iPad and i-phone. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1283389/Apple-boss-Steve-Jobs-defends-China-Foxconn-factory-conditions-10-suicides.html">Steve Jobs of Apple</a> Inc. defended Foxconn as 'pretty nice' and 'not a sweatshop.' Between the beginning of January 2008 and the end of January 2010, thirty-four France Télécom employees committed suicide, some leaving notes blaming stress and misery at work. [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn">Wikipedia</a>]. Sweatshops and sweatfactories are no longer limited to garment or athletic products manufacturing. How do we begin to make a transition?<br />
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Our collective liberation awaits our collective literacy of economics and new found perception of currency. This is all possible without violence or force, but through knowledge and right understanding of the nature and function of 'real' economies. The best way to engage ordinary citizens, women, students, activists, social entrepreneurs and humanitarians everywhere is to simply begin discussions on the topics that has shaped our economic-financial world. To transform the 'capital' in 'capitalism' we must begin with the present socio-economic realities and our daily living situation. The following questions could be asked at the kitchen table, in the classroom, engaged citizen groups and throughout the dhamma community for contemplation:<br />
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<i>• What is money? Why is it needed in market buy-sell economy?</i><br />
<i>. </i><i style="background-color: white;">How does money (and credit) originate and put into circulation? Is money same as credit?</i><br />
<i>. What prevents equilibrium in supply and demand of money and credit?</i><br />
<i> • </i><i>What is fractional reserve banking?</i><br />
<i>. Why does money (and credit) originate as 'debt'?</i><br />
<i> • In what context did central banking originate?<br />
• What is usury? How is it related to both ancient and modern (wage) slavery?<br />
• Why do we have ever-growing private and public debt?</i><br />
<i>.</i> <i>Who is collecting all the public and private debts and assets?</i> <i><br />
• What gives money its worth or value?<br />
• Is sustainability possible with unsustainable currency?<br />
• What is the difference between a real economy and a speculative economy?<br />
• How do we generate and circulate money so that all basic human needs are met?<br />
• Do we need different types of currencies for different economic sectors?<br />
• Did currency exist before modern economics?<br />
• Why do we need literacy when it comes to economics and their function in society?<br />
• What role can women play in a more compassionate, humanitarian economy?<br />
• What possibilities exist that we have yet to consider?<br />
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Asking profound questions is a way to generate a breakthrough, creative insights, and unforeseen possibilities. It is up to active, socially-conscious citizens to transform the system--not international banks, corporations and global institutions. The system is held both in our individual minds and our collective perceptions. When we become socially aware and engaged in making choices for the generations to come, our government and institutions are bound to change. The best part of such a transformative conversation: everyone has the opportunity to participate in shattering economic limitations and forging new pathways to a sustainable future. Read more at <a href="http://www.imow.org/economica/stories/viewStory?storyId=4765">IMOW Economica New Visions </a>Page here.<br />
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The whole <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path">Noble Eightfold Path laid out by Buddha</a> is about liberation of mind (both individual and collective consciousness)through 'Samma' (i.e., correct, coherent, complete and true) understanding and release from unwholesome, unskillful mind-body habits and attachment to corrupt views, intention, speech, conduct, and livelihood. A dharma-based economic system must aspire to be good in the begining, good in the middle and good in the end, it must eschew extreme imbalances of rogue Capitalism or Communism and incorporate the best of human values, cross-cultural wisdom of ages and the urgent sustainability and human needs of this time.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-2190622730635350472010-03-23T14:13:00.034-04:002010-04-28T14:11:03.578-04:00Is our Economic System Liberating or Enslaving Us?A British Researcher compiled a survey of the Happiest Countries in the world. The criteria and methodology is not all clear but seemingly includes education, public health and longevity. Among the top 12 happiest countries most are from Europe, Canada is the only large nation to make the list and surprisingly Bhutan came 8th, followed by Brunei (monarchy). USA ranked 23rd. Some of the countries at the top also have high suicide rates, high drug and alchohol addiction and perhaps high national debt. Of course what constitutes happiness is quite intangible and very much influenced by both personal and cultural value systems. This survey have omissions and biases, yet it is a refreshing change of view from the usual national GDP or GNP statistics. [Source: <a href="http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/10/happiest_countries/index_01.htm?chan=rss_topSlideShows_ssi_5">Businessweek</a>]<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Planet_Index">The Happy Planet Index</a>, by the New Economic Foundation takes per capita ecological footprint into account and this gives a quite different view of the world.<br />
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The <a href="http://abundance-blog.marelisa-online.com/2009/07/16/the-buddhist-approach-to-happiness/">Buddhist approach to happiness</a>, well-being and contentment lies in training, mastering and knowing our own mind through the practice of mindful-awareness. Many <a href="http://biopsychiatry.com/happiness/buddhist.html">university studies </a>have found Buddhist meditators' brains show noticeable differences than non-meditators in terms of mood, emotional balance and brain coherence. and anger. Use of <a href="http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03411375.htm">antidepressant in US</a> has doubled from 1996-2005. Professor Flanagan writes: "Antidepressants are currently the favoured method for alleviating negative emotions, but no antidepressant makes a person happy. On the other hand, Buddhist meditation and mindfulness, which were developed 2,500 years before Prozac, can lead to profound happiness<i>."<i></i></i><br />
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How can we be prospering in any real sense while remaining trapped by the chains of mounting debt? Visualeconomics site shows the <a href="http://www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-national-debt-by-country/">national debt as percentage of GDP</a> (Gross Domestic Product) for different countries. The <a href="http://www.usdebtclock.org/">Debt Clock</a> mirrors what is called 'monkey mind' in Buddhism. <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tentrillion/">PBS Frontline </a>inquires into the problem of looming debt-crisis overshadowing the current financial mess. Even before this mess our Government was borrowing money from foreigners to fund essential programs. At the end of FY2009 Gross US debt was 83.4% <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt">of GDP</a> (50% of it was public debt and 30.4% intra-govermental loans). <br />
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Total U.S. consumer debt stands at $2.46 trillion, as of January 2010 and <a href="http://www.projectonstudentdebt.org/state_by_state-data.php">average student debt is rising.</a> FDIC Current list of <b> <a href="http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html">Failed Banks</a>.<b></b></b><br />
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Other interesting news below the radar: There is a recent private <a href="http://www.news.com.au/business/secret-summit-of-top-bankers/story-e6frfm1i-1225827289543">summit of Central Bankers</a> in Sydney. Police chiefs across USA are resigning or being replaced [Link<a href="http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message983642/pg1"></a>]Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-46562196579624171772009-11-23T22:22:00.028-05:002009-12-18T15:11:57.939-05:00Blessed Mindful EngagementAt the annual meeting of the American economists, "No one questioned their contribution to the current frightening state of affairs, no one humbled by events." - <i>How the Entire Economics Profession Failed, by Jeff Madrick</i> <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-08/how-the-entire-economics-profession-failed/">The Daily Beast, 2009-01-08</a>. The profession can start reorienting itself with asking questions like What would be right (wholesome) view of Economy? The right view of Capital? Wealth? Profit? Currency? Growth? Fair Market? Fair Trade? Interest? Employment? Sustainable Economy? Welfare? Business ethics? Responsibility?<br />
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Also watch the PBS Forntline <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/1342007771/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=pbs">"The Card Game"</a> and the unregulated effects of usury on vulnerable consumers.<br />
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Listen to the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fiubmOqH4">very inspiring words of Paul Hawken</a>, Author and Inspiration behind WiserEarth<br />
The Buddha mentions five specific kinds of livelihood which bring harm to others and are therefore to be avoided: dealing in weapons, in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter, slave trade, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking">human trafficking</a> and prostitution), in meat production and butchery, in poisons, and in intoxicants (AN 5:177). He further names several dishonest means of gaining wealth which fall under wrong livelihood: practicing deceit, treachery, soothsaying, trickery, and <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury">usury</a></b> (MN 117). The United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier. Last year the country signed weapons agreements valued at 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar reports <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20090907-us-expands-role-world-leading-weapons-supplier-role-arms-trade">New York Times</a><br />
<a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20090907-us-expands-role-world-leading-weapons-supplier-role-arms-trade"></a><br />
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As Of December 16, 2009 U.S. Census estimates world population to be 6.8 Billion. The world military expenditure is over <a href="http://www.globalissues.org/article/74/the-arms-trade-is-big-business">one thousand billion</a> dollars. Also see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures">Stockholm Peace Research Institute</a> Figures. Take a pause to reflect on <a href="http://groups.gaia.com/what_the_bleep_do_we_know/discussions/view/57579">the significance of Now and the synchronicity at play</a>. "To abstain from all unwholesome action, to cultivate the good, and to purify one's mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas" (<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/waytoend.html#ch4">Dhammapada, v. 183</a>)<i></i>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-38344545545796278822009-11-17T00:25:00.020-05:002009-11-23T22:21:45.692-05:00One Woman Warned About Derivatives & Financial MeltdownFRONTLINE has produced a remarkable documentary titled "The Warning" which documents how Lawrence Summers, Greenspan and Ruben attacked and blocked Mrs. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooksley_Born">Brooksley Born</a>, who was in charge of the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) when she warned of the derivatives danger in the mid 90s and heroically fought to regulate them. The OTC (over the counter) Derivatives market represented a Black Box within the Wall Street, with very little information, reporting, knowledge or understanding by anyone in the Government and its Regulators. The toxic assets of Banks once considered 'too big to fail' consisted mostly of OTC derivatives.<br />
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See how Michael Moore tried to get a simple <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfp9Z4py-Yk">explantion of Derivatives</a> which are complex financial Instruments or rather complicated betting schemes designed to escape regulation. The financial sector has five lobbyists behind every congressman.<br />
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Alan Greenspan, the wizard of Wall Street admitted that his worldview and ideology of 40 years about the self-correcting free market and unfettered capitalism is false. This brilliant presentation takes the problem that created the crisis back through the Greenspan, to its origin in his philosophical mentor, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand">Ayn Rand</a>. Watch the PBS Frontline <a href="http://video.pbs.org/video/1302794657#">"The Warning"</a> here.<br />
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It remains to be seen how Obama fares with his top economic advisors <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sY-EXCckaI&feature=related">Tim Geithner and Larry Summers!</a> Are we as conscious citizens paying attention or willing to learn and grow in <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_in_Buddhism">wisdom</a></b> from our experience? <br />
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Buddha spoke about the importance of the practice of 'heedfulness' or the quality of <i>'appamada'</i> that keeps both kinds of benefit secure — benefits in this life & benefits in lives to come. More on <a href="http://www.appamada.org/page/about-appamada">'appamada'</a>. Also see subtle meaning of 'pamada' and 'mada' in <a href="http://dsal.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/search3advanced?dbname=pali&query=pamada&matchtype=exact&display=utf8">Pali Text society dictionary</a>. Here's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3KhvAAHXf8&feature=related">Bush's insight</a> off the record.<br />
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A site with interesting links and perspectives on <a href="http://guava.physics.uiuc.edu/~nigel/finance.html">'Physicists Play with Finance"</a>.<br />
<p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-27679082219333043372009-10-20T22:57:00.011-04:002009-11-02T10:14:27.989-05:00The Vision & View of Native American Elders<object width="340" height="285"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tqfvUA2vRAM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tqfvUA2vRAM&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="340" height="285"></embed></object><br />
Listen to his comment on leadership and responsibilty and his advice to a CEO. I am enjoying browsing the autographed book 'Blessed Unrest' by Paul Hawken that I received recently from wiserearth facebook passion challenge. When we kill, injure or harm another person we are impacting the entire community around that person.<br />
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<span style="font-style:italic;">"There is vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique...You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open...no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than others." </span>- Martha Graham to Agnes de Mille, Dance to the Piper <br />
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Dhamma is the path of truth (self realization through mindful-awareness), freedom (from ill will, greed and delusion) and non-violence (of body-mind-speech) that is aligned with the universal cosmic principle of life. Can we collectively co-create a mindful system that is aligned with dhamma? As intelligent humans, we are not just interested in survival. We are interested in meaningful survival. When we lose meaning, we lose the will to live.<br />
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<span style="font-style:italic">"Believe me when I tell you, after 60 years of personal experience, that the only real misfortune is to abandon the path of truth....Truth alone will endure, all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time. I must, therefore, continue to bear testimony to Truth even if I am forsaken by all. Mine may today be a voice in the wilderness, but it will be heard when all other voices are silenced, if it is the voice of Truth." </span> - <a href="http://www.mkgandhi.org/truth/index.htm">Gandhi on Truth</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-5544214526265767402009-10-07T00:08:00.019-04:002009-10-27T21:06:33.897-04:00Who are responsible? What can we learn?The Time Magazine identifies top 25 leaders and their policy decisions leading to the current economic collapse. <span style="font-weight:bold;">The top 25 to blame <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1877351_1877350,00.html"></a></span>includes leaders of both parties, a wide variety of institutions, and not just white men. And consumers (all of us) also figure at the top of the list.<br /><br />The following Bill Moyer interview with William K. Black, a senior former bank regulator about the systemic fraud rampant in our financial institutions is worth watching. How do the banksters, CEOs, rating agencies do it - make bad loans (called Ninja loans, liar loans, toxic assets in inside jargons) and get away with it? Bernie Madoff is only a piper compared to the ponzi scheme of major banks that is systemic. The bailout covers up the real situation from the public and violates existing law of receivership (nationalization) of failed banks.<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Rz1b__MdtHY&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Rz1b__MdtHY&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><br /><br />I learned a new thing or two from watching '<a href="http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/">Capitalism: A Love Story</a>" the other day. Corporations are busy buying and profiting from big life insurance known as "<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/02/24/dead-peasant-policies-the-next-big-thing-in-insurance-litigation/">Dead Peasant Policy" </a>on their workers. Women and young workers are worth more when they die and the worker's family don't get to see a penny of the <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/02/24/dead-peasant-policies-the-next-big-thing-in-insurance-litigation/">tax-free windfall</a> corporations receive. This is all done without the knowledge of the employee. When are we going to stand up or sit down and take ownership of our own life, our own mind, our thoughts, prejudices, perception, speech, livelihood, action or non-actions?<br /><br />See the result of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAuHRh8mvVc&feature=related">a recent factory sit-in by laid off workers</a> in Chicago. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUXFyoLgmRE">Visteon Auto workers</a> in London and Belfast, UK occupies several plants over a month before <a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0518/visteon.html">ending sit-in</a>. What is the most ethical action we might take as citizens?<br /><br /><script type="text/javascript" src="http://w.sharethis.com/button/sharethis.js#publisher=fb443cea-65a3-4ed0-93f0-641ccee37d79&type=website"></script>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-84840456169993067042009-08-24T16:58:00.014-04:002013-06-09T20:10:50.180-04:00We are the world, We make the choice, Lets Start GivingLife is for~giving. All the kindnesses we received from our mother, father, siblings, friends, grandparents, relatives, strangers, teachers, partners, co-workers, spouse(s) and children are things we need to reflect on from time to time to practice kindness towards others. Just Listen from your heart...<br />
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"Give and it shall be given to you..in good measure, well pressed and overflowing. In whatever measure its given, will be given back to you." - <a href="http://scripturetext.com/luke/6-38.htm">Jesus</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Buddha_nature">Buddha nature</a> and <a href="http://www.dlshq.org/religions/christconscious.htm"></a>Christ consciousness is our deepest nature (unified field or spectrum of consciousness). If all human beings are made in the image of 'god', how are we imaging the divine in the mirror of our own mind? <a href="http://www.ctrforchristcon.org/christ-consciousness.asp">Do we have a choice</a>? What is the way out of our personal and collective obsessive compulsive mental habits, unconscious attitudes and reactive behavior that leads to agression, separation and mindless cycle of accumulation, production, consumption, destruction, stress and insanity? Does the external social, ecological, and environmental situation mirror the state of our collective mind and mental comfusion?<br />
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Mindfulness is the ariya (noble or ideal) way of life, the brahma (sublime) way of life, the Tathagatha's (an epithet for the Buddha) way of life. All reductionist and partisan views and concepts leads to wrong views, error in perception, wrong thinking, unwholesome view of life and world, distorted perception, unskillful speech, and harmful actions. Application of correct mindfulness sharpens the power of observation, assists in right thinking, correct understanding, non-dual knowledge, inner peace, joy and freedom. An untrained uncultivated mind is easily overwhelmed by greed, ill will, ignorance, conceit, envy, jealousy, worry, restlessness, and skeptical doubt. These are the driving forces behind all conflicts, sickness and suffering we are witnessing in the world today.<br />
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Buddha said, "By protecting self one protects other; by protecting others one protects self". The greatest protection we can give ourselves is by protecting our mind from greed, hatred and ignorance.<br />
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<span style="font-style: italic;">"Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded. But once mastered, no one can help you as much, not even your father or your mother." - Dhammapada</span><br />
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Baudda said, avijja (ignorance and obscured awareness) is the root of all <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dukkha">dukkha</a>. Greed and confusion arises from taints or unwholesome states of mind with strong attachment or aversion to views, events, objects and phenomena.<br />
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Redemption comes from an enlightened choice we can make now. Could we collectively design a currency system from an empty mind without getting mired in any concepts, ideology, theology or dogma or without discounting our human experience now?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-79760904786692743522009-03-25T10:06:00.036-04:002009-07-08T23:16:58.401-04:00Is Sustainability Possible Without Sustainable Currency?We hear so much about sustainability these days as all human organizational systems - social, economic, political, educational, health complexes and their ecological footprints are becoming more and more unbalanced and unsustainable.<br /><br />What would a 'mindful economy' look like? Can we use some principles of living systems to create a functional currency and fair economic system based on a creative application of Buddha's wholesome <a href="http://www.what-buddha-taught.net/Books8/Bhikkhu_Nanamoli_Right_View.htm">understanding (Right View) </a>of human economy and <a href="http://www.vipassana.com/resources/8fp3.php">Right Intention</a> for currency free from greed, ill will and harm?<br /><br />Could we start a <a href="http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu/intro/default.cfm">collective appreciative Inquiry</a> of 'Transforming the Capital in Capitalism? Can we see the true as true and false as false and use <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-vaca/index.html">'Right Speech'</a> in our financial and business dealings? 'Money as debt' is not freedom yet and State-supported bailout of fraudulent banks and crony capitalism is communism of the rich.<br /><br />The<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_china_global_currency;_ylt=AnRpoQD28huuSvvHGtmclyvZn414"> Chinese President wants IMF to start a new Global currency</a>. But would it be wise for leaders of developing world to rely on IMF or World Bank, when so much of their policies to end poverty and speed up development in third world countries are actually deepening and perpetuating the viscious cycle of poverty, corruption of political leaders and massive transfer of wealth from poor to the rich countries. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQruuwuJnKE&feature=related">Ron Paul is for phasing out World Bank</a>.<br /><br />The EU President<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_eu_us_economy">, Czeck PM calls the US plan to spend its way out of recession a 'Road to hell.'</a><br /><br />Our president Obama is graciously receiving <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/openforquestions/">online questions on economy</a> from us today. I asked "Mr president have you watched the Youtube Zeitgeist- On FED? What would you do to free 'we the people' and our governmnet from debt-based fractional reserve currency as Presidents Lincoln, Jackson, Kennedy aspired to give us and world's children?"<br /><br />Here are two books that are addressing unsustainability of Capitalism as it functions now.<br /><a href="http://www.mindfuleconomics.com/">Mindful Economics</a> by Joel M and <a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/default.asp?id=257&utm_source=TStrip&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=DKextr">Agenda for a New Economy</a><a href="http://www.yesmagazine.org/default.asp?id=257&utm_source=TStrip&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=DKextr">: From Phantom Wealth</a> to Real Wealth by David Korten.<br /><br />So what is the Buddha way? The Buddha Way is to understand how systems like capitalism are constructed within the human mind and perception both at the individual and collective level, so we can create a mindful <a href="http://www.wikinomics.com/blog">Wikinomics</a> of compassion, generosity and right understanding.<br /><br />Here's a playful inquiry of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tda0-cDyD0U">Bailout Bull Economics</a> & The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1efDli000Cw">Cow Economics</a><br />And renewed protest against <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF-bGvCLHnM&feature=channel">War-economics</a> on 6th anniversary of Iraq war.<br /><br />And G-20 summit in London takes place amid <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEPSO5gPZMA&feature=channel">public protest</a> and pre-summit <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txGPLxR9ACA&feature=channel">low expectation of economists.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/04/protests_at_the_g20_summit.html">Pictures of 2009 G-20 summit.</a> Leaders pledge <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/02/g-leaders-arrive-crisis-summit/">1.1 trillion dollar to IMF</a> and other Global financial institutions. Other News: <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/03/27/biden.chile.g20.london/index.html">Biden's Pre-summit meet</a>. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-g20-obama30-2009mar30,0,2269642.story">Popular Obama, unpopular plan</a>.<br /><br />Look <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAMfN21inPg&feature=related">which group of plutocrats </a>and technocrats has a summer meetup at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtUHtTcUIfM">Athens, Greece?</a><br /><br />Some call them the <a href="http://www.bilderberg.org/">High Priests</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtUHtTcUIfM">Control Freaks</a> of Globalization. Is our Government bailout succeeding in taking back partial ownership of mega banks by '<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/breakingthebank/view/">Breaking the Bank</a>?'<br /><br />So how do we stop cooperating with and move away from the war-military-intelligence-prison-big pharma-media-think tanks complex and begin to put our collective attention, intelligence and energy towards creating an <a href="http://www.praxispeace.org/">Economy of Peace ?</a><br /><br />And what role we as engaged buddhists, conscious citizens, women, youth, people of color, LGBT can play? <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feFNVH508us">IMAGINE a world</a> living in peace and harmony, no need to kill, die, deceive, delude, persecute or oppress self and others.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-46056072027234292852009-01-16T14:59:00.019-05:002009-03-22T15:36:31.081-04:00Restoring the Spirit of Currency: Loving KindnessI have been wanting to write something soulful and a positive vision to hold onto this year of 2009, which offers us many wonderful expansive creative energies. We have the opportunity to breakthrough the energies of lack, fear, scarcity and greed! The financial breakdown is heightening stress and anxiety. The best way to counter this constricting energy is to simplify our life, be appreciative of what we have and give a little more than we usually do. Since this collective system change intention experiment and discussion was launched after What the Bleep do we know movie, in December 2006, I have seen wonderful things and co-creation taking place in magical ways.<br /><br />Just wanted to share with my readers a soul infused book <a style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;" href="http://www.amazon.com/Money-Love-Reconnecting-Sacred-Origins/dp/0967334608/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1232137718&sr=8-1">Money is Love</a>: <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Returning to the Sacred Origin of Money by Barbara Wilder</span>. I came to this book via my soul friend and author <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.ivysea.org/">Jamie Walters</a>,</span> who recently had a <a href="http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/Ww1np3MQ">conversation with Barbara</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family:Tempus Sans ITC;">Humanity and Money Share Common Essence and Purpose</span></b></span></div><p style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-align: center;"><span style=";font-family:Tempus Sans ITC;font-size:100%;" ><b>Our Source, </b> <b>Infinite Intelligence and Creativity, is also money's source.</b></span></p><p style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="font-family:Tempus Sans ITC;">Our Essence, Love, is the same as money's essence. </span></b></span></p><p style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="font-family:Tempus Sans ITC;">All of life is meant to remember its Source, and fully express its Essence. </span></b></span></p><div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </div><p style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="font-family:Tempus Sans ITC;">When both Source and Essence are shared, there exists Oneness.</span></b></span> </p><div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </div><p style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="font-family:Tempus Sans ITC;">This union makes it possible for understanding, communication, and</span></b></span></p><p style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-align: center;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="font-family:Tempus Sans ITC;"> cooperation to develop between humanity and money. [<a href="http://moneyislove.org/">source</a>]</span></b></span> </p><div style="text-align: center; color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </div><p style="color: rgb(255, 255, 102); text-align: center;"> </p>Our ego-mind does not want to get into those dark, stuck, lost places of deep anguish, hurt and pain, yet that is the only way to dive deep into the heart. So let us all clear the wounded, stuffy, claustrophobic energies around our soul that has so long confined us, limited us and dimmed the light of our own soul. As a child I was afraid of the dark goddess <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali">Kali</a> and identified (still do) with goddess <a href="http://meenakshi.gaia.com/blog/2009/2/goddess_saraswati_shows_lila_the_light_body#comment_386438">Saraswati</a> . Now I find myself more and more accepting and be ONE with Kali.<br /><br />Let us release those deeply entrenched habitual pattern of command and control, victimization, mean spiritedness, secrecy, shame, blame, guilt and accumulation of power over others. It is time drop our masks and our need for external validation through power, money, position and irresponsible sex and invite the power of love into our hearts and homes, our communities and heal all our wounded relationships. Money as 'debt' has been responsible for a Century of War, poverty, crime and injustice.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090115081743.htm">Recent studies</a> find <span style="font-weight: bold;">huge rise in male mortality rates</span> in working aged men (15-69 years) in post-communist countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1989 and 2002, following policies of rapid privatization of formerly state own enterprises (shock doctrine).<br /><br />Can we restore the lost spirit of money through mindful inquiry, wholesome view, skillful speech and putting loving-kindness in action? Yes we can and we must. The great thing about a Mindful Revolution is that it is all about a mind-shift and shifting perceptions within our individual and collective mind. Once we see and accept the possibility in our minds, changes start happening like magic in the outside world. All we need is to plant the vision and gain understanding of the root of the dualistic conflict ridden man-made system of 'money as debt'. We just need to direct the power of collective loving attention to this issue, allow our basic wisdom and deep co-intelligence to arise through mindfulness, and this self-emergent process of conscious co-creation can self-organize itself in our communities, sanghas, social networks, peace and justice groups, green enterprises, interfaith groups, fair trade, labor unions, non-partisan groups, independents, artists, activists, human rights, equality and dignity advocates in science, technology, business, banking, and government.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 204, 255);">"</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 204, 255);" class="huge">When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.</span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 204, 255);">" <span style="font-size:78%;">- Jimi Hendrix</span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-58628577052826220852008-12-06T18:24:00.016-05:002008-12-22T20:40:25.244-05:00Some Not So Visible News<ul><li>Just gotten a note from a friend that Amero may be coming sooner than you think! Don't count on me. Do your own research starting <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_currency_union">at Wikipedia</a><br /></li></ul><a href="http://www.consciousmedianetwork.com/video/110708a.htm">Conscious Media network</a> is featuring a video on Amero and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H65f3q_Lm9U">Lou Dobbs of CNN</a><br />and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaF_MZVWM3E&feature=related">Dennis Kucinich on bailout</a> and debt-based money system.<br /><br />As conscious citizens and consumers we are now becoming increasingly aware that political democracy alone becomes meaningless without economic democracy and economic justice. Wait a minute! Do we even have a political democracy? Why Amero is not being as publicly discussed as Euro has been? Who ultimately benefits from such secrecy?<br /><br />As Ron Paul says, the power to regulate the value of money, does not mean the federal Government can debase the money. Right now our Government is borrowing $2.2 Billion everyday mainly from china and Japan to pay for our overseas empire. As our dollar value declines, we cannot expect these and other countries to hold onto theirs for ever, and when they decide to dispose dollars, our fantasy world comes crashing us. No more empire, no more pledging trillions more in entitlements...if people wants to be free from a state apparatus that that threatens their liberties, squanders their resources on endless wars, destroys their values of dollar and spews forth endless propaganda, there's no force that can stop them...let the Revolution begin. - <a href="http://aha2008.wordpress.com/">The Revolution, Ron Paul</a>.<br /><br />We cannot solve poverty and economic injustice . Yet we seem to have endless supply of debt-currency for the military-intelligence complex, War on Terror exploits, manhattan project, big pharma, destructive derivatives, or adventures in Science like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgLdIly2Xtw&feature=related">CERN Hadron Collider!</a><br /><br />The Buddha Way is the compassionate way of a peaceful warrior, a warrior who has conquered all ignorance, passion and agression through realization of impermanence of all phenomena, interdependence of all life and primordial non-duality of samsara and nirvana. The Buddha way is to be constantly mindful in the way we perceive, think, speak and act in the world and whether our unexamined views, ideas, attention and mindless actions are generating more stress, delusion and dukkha or alleviating them for the well being and happiness of all?<br /><br />Can we save ourselves from our collective ignorance regarding man-made currecy? Can we make the radical shift from the old invisible, unconscious and false paradigm of 'money as debt' to the new luminous and compassionate paradigm of 'money as trust' through collective learning.<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSe3jfJx-Ic"> YES WE CAN! </a>Reach the Millenium goals and save our planet.<br /><br />Let us hold that Vision for 2009! May all beings be free from suffering and the root of suffering!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-59940870021791497042008-11-08T10:43:00.014-05:002008-11-22T21:37:30.733-05:00Free Market Theology & Priests of High ModernityThirty five years of free market ideology and the many intellectual cross currents and <span style="font-style: italic;">'isms'<span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span> of High Tech Modernity (postmodernism) with its common traits of individualism, political liberalism and economic capitalism is failing miserably to improve the human situtaion at the most basic level of collective survival and social well being. Law, regulation, violence, revolutionary ideologies, science and technology are not sufficiently addressing or affecting the roots of injustice in social political structures (including democracy, socialism, communism) and bases of economic system and foundations of society.<br /><br />Ken Jones in his book the New Social Face of Buddhism comments on high modernity's personal identity crisis and its attendant inner void that insatiably <span style="font-style: italic;">needs</span> to be filled. These needs previously addressed by community, religion [and nationalism] are increasingly being commodified into whole culture of <span style="font-style: italic;">consumerism<span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>. Consumerism is winning more converts more quickly than any other previous belief or value system in human history (David Loy).<br /><br />Ken urges Buddhists to renew their understanding of dukkha (suffering) by looking deeply into our contemporary global society, reflecting on how it can be healed. My sense is we need to go back deep into our collective unconscious and develop a deep understanding of our inner journey and outer social institutions begining with gender based patriarchy and ending with class based elitist supremacist global-imperialistic capitalism. With the advent of internet and web 2.0 history is being rewritten from persperctives not explored and disseminated before.<br /><br />Listen to this surprising <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96070766">admission from Alan GreenSpan</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://my.opera.com/ruaconhutthuocphien/blog/2008/10/24/europe-asian-market-plunge-after-greenspan-admission">Asian and European Markets Fall</a> with Greenspan's remark.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><> <a href="http://www.american.com/archive/2008/november-11-08/the-g-20-summit-was-a-failure">G20 Summit was a failure</a> <></span><br /><br />Here are questions posed by engaged Buddhist <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IripphCr6Q">Robert Thurman</a> in Dropping knowledgeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-392153472113319522008-10-15T16:44:00.026-04:002009-01-16T16:08:19.915-05:00Bloggers Bear Witness to Poverty & InequalityI 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.<br /><br />AT Ariyaratne, Founder of <a href="http://www.sarvodaya.org/">Sarvodaya </a>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.<br /><br />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?<br /><div style="font-style: italic;" class="assignment" id="Display_Content"><div class="cms_object" id="Quotes"><blockquote><span class="cms_attribute" id="Quotes-Body">Where wealth is concentrated, the people are dispersed. Where wealth is dispersed, the people are brought together.</span> - <span class="cms_attribute" id="Quotes-Author">Confucius<br /><br /></span></blockquote></div></div>The original Buddhist concept of emptiness and the sanskrit term <span style="font-style: italic;">Sunyata carries the meaning of swollen or pregnant - </span>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />{Listen to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kHhc67GopM&NR=1">Chogyam Trungpa</a> and also see this 2 minute clip from movie <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r6-o1lpJHU">zeitgeist addendum</a>] 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.<br /><pre style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Search Transforming Money: From Debt to Empowerment: Susmita Barua (see comment on sidebar)</span><br /></pre>On NPR <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95906243">Economists Explain How To Save Capitalism, </a>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".<br /><br /><a href="http://www.baibureh.org/">A new film They Come in The Name of Helping</a><br /><pre style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">The Chinese word for transformation consists of two ideograms that</span><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">translate as - danger and opportunity. There is no question that we</span><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">are entering into dangerous times. But there are deep opportunities as</span><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">well. The evolutionary question is: will you, me, and we put our</span><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">wholesome attention, intention and energy towards birthing a new</span><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">dhamma world or keep holding on to the old pardigm that is simply</span><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">unsustainable and breaking apart under its own weight of living</span><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">contradictions.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Search <a href="http://www.yahoo.com">Transforming Money: Debt to Empowerment: </a></span><a href="http://www.yahoo.com"><br /><span style="font-family:lucida grande;">Susmita Barua</span></a><br /></span></pre>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-65542709143686648572008-10-05T12:39:00.029-04:002008-10-31T22:26:36.602-04:00Deep Crisis Is A Deep Creative Opportunity<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"Three things cannot be hidden for long. The Sun, Moon and the Truth" - <span style="font-size:85%;">Buddha</span></span><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />Newsweek predicts the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/162299/page/3">New age of Global Capitalism Begins Now</a>.<br /><br />To face this <a href="http://business.inquirer.net/money/breakingnews/view/20081005-164709/Capitalism-in-deepest-crisis-in-80-years">Deepest Crisis in Capitalism </a>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." <br /><br />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.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/05/60minutes/main4502454_page2.shtml">60 Minutes Interview: Shadow Market of Wall Street 10/05/2008</a><br /><br />Some are predicting the <a href="http://business.inquirer.net/money/breakingnews/view/20081005-164708/Crisis-could-shake-Nobel-Economics-Prize">Crisis Could Shake Nobel Economics Prize</a><br />Financial wizards like George Soros, or Corporate and Technology Icons like <a href="http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/like-jp-morgan-warren-buffett-braves-a-crisis/">Warren Buffet</a>, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1222017469499&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull">Bill Gates</a> and <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/">Nobel Laureates</a> do not seem to have any feasible answer for the long haul.<br /><br />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 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRx12QUv54">Millenium Goals </a>and sustainable ecology/environment? <br /><br />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. <br /><br />We do have this opportunity NOW! Stay alert but <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjJWr3n2wFs&eur">keep the humor</a><br /><br /><script src="http://blogactionday.org/js/4d89b9e801037e1df0ce83b4d849f2c3bf5a797e"></script>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-51562971441889484292008-09-06T23:09:00.021-04:002009-09-04T14:37:21.815-04:00Another View of Poverty: Spiritual, Material and InstitutionalIt is important to distinguish "living in poverty" from "being poor". The people of Cuba have a percapita income that is 1/20th of the USA. Yet there is little malnourishment or homelessness in Cuba, and everyone has basic health care. Infant mortality and life expectancy in Cuba are near identical to what they are in the USA. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42EkxB8umlM&NR=1">Cuba's community response</a> to severe fuel famine and food shortage in 1990's is inspiring and exemplary.<br /><br />The<a href="http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=_xgxCf05Kmw"> Institutions of New Imperialism</a> are located within a square mile of Capitol Hill in Washington DC. Instead of poverty reduction World Bank and IMF policies have fueled social-political turmoil and economic collapse in many developing countries around the World. Ford's empire is bigger than the economy of South Africa. Tiger Woods is paid more for a Nike Commercial than the laborers in Indonesia making Nike products. United States gave money to IMF to fix Russian elections. See the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1Oj7Hk31LY&feature=related">Truth. about WTO</a><br /><br />Former World Bank Chief Economist <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUaJMNtW6GA">Joseph Stiglitz</a> describes how our common economic accounting procedures and statistics hide and distort the real picture and advocates alternative measures like Green GDP, Median Income, GNP instead of GDP and other measures that reflect the health and well being of people not captured by GDP. Countries like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HMbhqPZi-0&feature=related">Costa Rica</a> may be quite high in Green GDP. It remains to be seen how the Happiness Index holds up in a traditional monarchy like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcoQjoZ6toI">Bhutan</a> undergoing a voluntary(?) political transition now.<p><br /><br />The greatest inability of the human race is to understand the cumulative enslavement effect of usury, exponential growth in debt (exceeding money put in circulation) via compound interest. Take a peek at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_uKPgTs0xA">our credit card industry</a>.<br /><br />Listen to "All I see is Spiritual Poverty", <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USCe2EQ_mfM">a song by Bijean</a></p><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USCe2EQ_mfM"><br /></a></p><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-64977379554243675882008-06-26T17:19:00.031-04:002008-10-31T21:29:20.504-04:00Unveiling the Deluded World of Finance & Banking<b><i><div align="right"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><strong>"Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."</strong></span></div> <div align="right"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><strong>-- <span style="font-size:78%;">Margaret Mead</span></strong></span></div></i></b><br /><br />I was surfing the web today on the subject of money after my six weeks trip to India to get over my jetlag. This may make you laugh and cry or make you both sad and mad but we must not go back to sleep and miss this great historic opportunity to come out of our unconscious collective mind prison/poison of delusion, greed and aversion. It is time to wake up!<br /><br /><ul><li>Some naughty Englishmen making a pun of "structured investment vehicles" or products of <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">American Financial Ingenuity</span></span> here on youtube to enlighten the rest of us financially impaired about the recent subprime mortagage crisis that turned Bear & Stearns belly up.</li></ul><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0D2mOWsIhOg&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0D2mOWsIhOg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><ul><li>Read Excerpts of a new book on monetary reform "<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://webofdebt.wordpress.com/feedback/">Web of Debt</a>" by Ellen H. Brown, J.D. She also have a blog with many insightful comments.</li><li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8lkZL1dI3k&feature=related">What is the reason for a central bank?</a> It's connection with the American Revolution<br /></li><li>Have you heard of the new currency <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBo4E77ZXo&feature=related">Amero, Vchip and NAU</a> like the European Union?[View <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU_oUuIcPkg">CNN Report Clips, after 1st minute</a>]</li></ul>Buddha taught dukkha arising fundamentally out of ignorance (avijja) and false view of reality. He also encouraged the spirit of open and free inquiry (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalama_Sutta">Kalama Sutta</a>) in evaluating the merit of any doctrine, teacher or teachings.<br /><br />Since economics have almost acquired the status of a modern secular religion with its own church and priests aka the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Boys"> Chicago Boys</a> and Jeffrey Sachs, we can take the cue from Kalamas and need not stay confused and ignorant and extend the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbXapNPm_xo&feature=related">globalization of empire</a> and dukkha for our children and the planet.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">In the News: Beware The Chicago Boys by Naomi Klein</span>, The Gaurdian June 14,08 [<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/14/barackobama.uselections2008">link]</a><br /><br />Before we can create a new fair currency system for the welfare and happiness of many, we need to develop <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/wheel377.html">sammaditthi </a>or right view (wholesome view, vision and understanding) of money itself. Developing Right view and Right Understanding takes patience, persistence and insight (panna) into our collective reality and collective experience as it is unfolding now, and the nature of our collective mind conditioning.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-84718928456349136482008-04-13T18:03:00.012-04:002009-07-07T21:57:48.991-04:00Tao of Sacred Currency & Sacred Commerce<span style="font-size:85%;">I was eagerly waiting for sometime for this book "Sacred Commerce" since reading about it at Urth.TV a year ago. Now it is out!<br /><br />Sacred Commerce reverses the common assumption that business and spirituality are mutually opposed, and instead looks at business as a path of destiny. Your professional and business activities need not be divorced from your “regular” or “family” life. The notion of capitalism infused with the sacred expands the notion of profit with the concept and the reality of the fourth bottom line. Sacred Commerce advances the idea that commerce can be a vehicle to raise consciousness as well as a path towards Self-realization<br /><br />"The priests of ancient Egypt had vocations and roles above and beyond what we are accustomed to in our time. Some Egyptian priests never left the temple; they served by staying in perpetual dialogue with the universal current of life. Other priests were scribes, healers, teachers, mediators, and celebrants. Still others were known as Merchant Priests. Certain members of the priesthood took up Sacred Commerce as a mission to serve humanity.<br /><br />The Merchant Priests traveled specific energy pathways that were known to them because of their high vibration. These energy pathways, or ley lines, became the trade routes that led from one temple to the next, allowing precious goods to be exchanged between regions. Turquoise, for example, would be exchanged for herbs or incense and fine fabrics would be exchanged for hand-woven baskets. Items of exchange were primarily those high vibration prized objects and elements that raised people’s consciousness, and whose presence made you feel more elated, either by their beauty or by their intrinsic resonance/vibration, like the healing vibration of precious essential oils from flowers.<br /><br />Merchant Priests knew that a healthy society must have a solid foundation. Principles of flow, balance, and abundance were understood as essential, and commerce was a key means to that end." - </span><span style="font-size:85%;">Quoted from Free chapter, <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.sacredcommerce.com/">Sacred Commerce,</a> Rise of Global Citizen by Ayman Swaf and R. Gabrielle<br /><br />I believe the notion sacred currency also existed in many parts of the World including native cultures since Ancient times. Since currency or money is basically a human innovation or <a href="http://www.seek2know.net/cc.html">communication tool</a> (as I see and define money in www tools for education) designed to overcome the limitation of direct exchange or barter. Money was not a usury bearing debt or IOU originally, but a product of sacred trust and collective agreement to use something as a universal medium of exchange. Currency itself was designed to function not only as a pure medium of exchange (with a measure of value), but also as a <span style="font-style: italic;">medium of circulation</span> that allows goods and services to pass freely between developers and users. Human relationships, human labor and all creative gifts of human labor were considered sacred.<br /><br />Usury, also called unearned income or the practice of making money out of money via exhorbitant compound interest was a corruption that happened with loss of sacred trust between heaven and earth within human psyche as some priests and religious and royal heads fell under the spell of <a href="http://www.naljorprisondharmaservice.org/pdf/ThreePoisons.htm"><span style="font-weight: bold;">three mind poisons</span></a> of untamed greed, hatred and delusion. Misperception of money (as a commodity comes from goldsmith warehouse receipts and adopted by fractional reserve based colonnial industrial Bank of England in 1600. Modern banking, finance and <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.monies.cc/publications/usury.htm">usury </a>seem to have first appeared and somewhat perfected <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://batr.org/markets/rates.html">in Sumeria,</a> as evidenced by archaeological findings in the city of Uruk . Usury has been a source of concern historically, since the <a href="http://www.affil.org/consumer_rsc/usury.php">code of Hamurabi.</a> </span><span style="font-size:78%;">Usury (in the original sense of any interest) was denounced by a number of spiritual leaders and philosophers of ancient times, including <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato" title="Plato">Plato</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle" title="Aristotle">Aristotle</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_the_Elder" title="Cato the Elder">Cato</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicero" title="Cicero">Cicero</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger" title="Seneca the Younger">Seneca</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch" title="Plutarch">Plutarch</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquinas" class="mw-redirect" title="Aquinas">Aquinas</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad" title="Muhammad">Muhammad</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses" title="Moses">Moses</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo" title="Philo">Philo</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gautama_Buddha" title="Gautama Buddha">Gautama Buddha</a>.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:78%;"> (wikipedia)<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">Also you can download the colorful issue on complementary currency here<br />at <a href="http://www.dgcmagazine.com/">DGCmagazine April</a> Issue</span><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-86033731367261901202008-04-02T21:59:00.015-04:002008-04-18T13:07:11.660-04:00Is Our Financial House in Order?<span style="font-weight: bold;">Some Scary Economic News</span><br /><br />The Fall of 5th largest Investment Bank Bear Stearns and White Men Playing Bridge, a quickie <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/03/a_quickie_guide_to_the_fall_of.html">time line by Daily Intel</a><br /><br />Why aren't million of <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vfKzHH5Lsw&eurl=http://depression2.tv/d2/node/63">homeowners in jeopardy</a> of losing their homes being bailed out by the Goverment? See the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIb3GYPa3vM&feature=related">PBS analysis of the Domino Effect.</a><br /><br />CNBC Jim Rogers: 'Abolish the Fed' Posted March 12th, 2008 by _<a href="http://depression2.tv/d2/">lupester</a>_<br /><br />Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke should resign and the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fed should be abolished</span> as a way to boost the falling dollar and speed up the recovery of the U.S. economy, investor Jim Rogers, CEO of Rogers Holdings, told CNBC Europe Wednesday. Roger says bailing out of failed Investment banks by FED is not capitalism, it is socialism for the Rich and EU, China, Australia doing better job with inflation than US FED. See <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTXEWh2yT_g">Youtube interview</a><br /><br />US financial system overhaul plan gives more <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/03/29/federal-reserve.html">power to FED,</a><br /><br />Dow rose in today's April Fool's Day rally, Wal Mart stock was up 2.3% - $1.40 per share, or $5.6 billion. Meanwhile, GM, Ford & Toyota all announced that their US car sales <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a17TrX7y9w5I&refer=us" target="_blank">dropped by double digit</a><br /><br />Banking Industry for the first time in 44 years faces revenue shortfall and <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/01/news/companies/banking_jobs.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008040107">200,000 job loss</a><br /><br />SHOULD THE US <a href="http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/6272">NATIONALIZE ITS OWN CURRENCY? </a><br /><br />A debt-free usury-free national currency would restore true democracy and signal the end of centralized privatized fractional reserve banking, transform banking and finance globally and end suicidal imperialism of a few wealthy nations over many. <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipJTqCbETog">don't sweat over Fed, Laugh!</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8579497401849859227.post-56935530036850533552008-02-27T10:03:00.013-05:002008-08-31T00:36:46.021-04:00Monetary Literacy, Education and Innovations<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZlaxi-XuxB3JiseiJQHEXlu2TfAzxnK4hoM8Rwu1QzrVJ7SGEvvJejwLPp9lzofCDSKx7pUTTxo5xW2PFpagonadSPSMs845fqfv3hREPMN6OK3EBvZ7aSGYOl8W-rlZh_H6klKAbCDsT/s1600-h/gosnoopy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZlaxi-XuxB3JiseiJQHEXlu2TfAzxnK4hoM8Rwu1QzrVJ7SGEvvJejwLPp9lzofCDSKx7pUTTxo5xW2PFpagonadSPSMs845fqfv3hREPMN6OK3EBvZ7aSGYOl8W-rlZh_H6klKAbCDsT/s400/gosnoopy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5240536057815769458" border="0" /></a>This is the most important subject conscious citizens, grassroot activists, socially responsible businesses and engaged spiritual groups need to focus on. How can we use our <a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/index.html">dhamma</a> eye to create a debt-free money (abanya mula) and society (samiti)? See <a href="http://pods.gaia.com/conscious_capitalism/discussions/view/251808">my latest post here.</a><br /><br />I am happy to say that by some chance meetings or conspiracy of the Universe. I've been asked to be the first speaker in the newly formed Central KY Healing Arts Association<br /><br />Topic: Deep Conscious Capitalism: Transforming the system mindfully<br /><br />Venue: Tates Creek Public Library<br />Date: March 4, 2008 6-8 PM Actual talk will be 35 minutes followed by 15 minutes discussion.<br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/CentralKYHealingArtsAssociation/">Source Link</a><br /><br />Also see <a href="http://pods.gaia.com/conscious_capitalism/discussions/view/249692">other upcoming conferences</a> on new money and economy here. March 4th talk would be<a href="http://www.seek2know.net/cc.html"> my Third Talk.</a><br /><br />Watch this educational <a href="http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Story of Stuff</span></a> - the mindless chain of production to consumption, waste of resources, land, people and communities, externalization (hiding) of true cost by Annie LeonardUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2