Those in high office

4A.1 "When a man destitute of benevolence is in a high station, he thereby disseminates his wickedness among all below him."

"To place one who is not humane in high office is to scatter his wickedness over the masses. When those who rule lack the guidelines of morality, those below lack adherence to any standards; when courtiers keep no faith with the Dao, workmen keep no faith with their measures; when the nobility violate right, commoners violate laws. If such a state survives it is by luck alone." ~Mencius, 372-289 BC

Prince Peace Initiative & Imagine Peace Movement

Prince reigns at Coachella

This is from 10 years ago. But at the restored LotusFlow3r website is a video of him performing 7 then sliding into Come Together with the bridge of having the audience shout "War, No More!" and then getting the audience to sing "Come Together, Yeah!."

In the first week of learning about Prince I had the thought that to carry on his legacy to spread peace and love and bring in a new dawn for our planet, I came up with the idea of a Prince Peace Initiative and Imagine Peace Tour. It begins with concerts but it's purpose is to create a movement big enough to clean out our government, stand down the war machine, reduce the power of corporations and billionaires back down to proper size and free the people from their stranglehold. I would add, we need to clean up our planet and restore it to health and in the process, restore health to people and our communities. Anyway, I feel totally vindicated that what came to me as an inspiration is indeed a valid idea since Prince already did it and we just need to do a LOT more of it. Lots and LOTS more and no quitting until we have peace and freedom on our planet.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-prince28apr28-story.html

The Way to establish a moral society

Philosophy 312: Oriental Philosophy
Main Concepts of Confucianism

Abstract:  The main concepts of Confucianism are discussed.

IV. Main Concepts of Confucianism: the twin concepts of jen and li are often said to constitute the basis of Confucianism.
	A. Jen (ren): human heartedness; goodness; benevolence, man-to-man-ness; what makes man distinctively human (that which gives human beings their humanity).
		1. The virtue of virtues; Confucius said he never really saw it full expressed. The other virtues follow from it. He never gives and defends a definition of it although he does characterize it.
		2. It is dearer than life itself--the man of jen will sacrifice his life to preserve jen, and conversely it is what makes life worth living.
		3. Jen is a sense for the dignity of human life--a feeling of humanity towards others and self-esteem for yourself.
			a. Such feeling applies to all men--not just one nation or race. It is the foundation of all human relationships.
			b. There is the belief that jen can be obtained; indeed, there is the belief in the natural perfectibility of man. Hence, he rejects the way of human action where one satisfies likes and avoids dislikes.
			c. The first principle of Confucianism is to act according to jen: it is the ultimate guide to human action.
		4. We should seek to extend jen to others.
	B. Li (lee): propriety; concrete guide to human action.
		1. Two basic meanings to li: (1) concrete guide to human relationships or rules of proper action that genuinely embody jen and (2) general principle of social order or the general ordering of life.
		2. Confucius recognized that you need a well ordered society for wren to be expressed.
		3. First Sense: the concrete guide to human relationships.
			a. The way things should be done or propriety: positive rather than negative ("Do's rather than Don'ts).
			b. The main components of propriety emphasize the openness of people to each other.
				(1) The rectification of names: language used in accordance with the truth of things.
				(2) The Doctrine of the Mean: so important that an entire book is dedicated to it in the Confucian canon: the proper action is the way between the extremes.
				(3) The Five Relationships: the way things should be done in social life; none of the relationships are transitive. (Note that 3 of the 5 relations involve family; the family is the basic unit of society).
					(a) father and son (loving / reverential)
					(b) elder brother and younger brother (gentle / respectful)
					(c) husband and wife (good / listening)
					(d) older friend and younger friend (considerate / deferential)
					(e) ruler and subject (benevolent / loyal)
				(4) Respect for age: age gives all things their worth: objects, institutions, and individual lives.
		4. Second Sense of li: principle of social order; ritual; ordering of life; conforming to the norms of jen (the limits and authenticity of li).
			a. Every action affects someone else--there are limits to individuality.
			b. Confucius sought to order an entire way of life.
			c. You shouldn't be left to improvise your responses because you are at a loss as to how to behave.
			d. A. N. Whitehead's quotation of a Cambridge vicar: "For well-conducted people, life presents no problems."
	C. Yi (yee); righteousness; the moral disposition to do good (also a necessary condition for jen or for the superior man).
		1. Yi connotes a moral sense: the ability to recognize what is right and good; the ability to feel, under the circumstances what is the right thing to do.
			a. Not chih, moral wisdom per se, but intuition.
			b. Most of us live under the sway of different kinds of "I's." In this case, the identification is with an impersonal ego. (In Freudian terms, almost like the super-ego.)
			c. The impersonal ego is the assimilated or appropriated values of our culture--the Confucian true self.
		2. Some actions ought to be performed for the sole reason that they are right--regardless of what they produce; not for the sake of something else.
			a. The value in the act is the rightness of the actionregardless of the intention or the consequences of the act.
			b. Hence, yi is a different way than either stoicism(intention with soft determinism) or utilitarianism(consequences with free will).
			c. Confucianism is similar to Kant's ethics of duty: the action is done as a good-in-itself, not as a means to an end.
		3. Acting from yi is quite close to practicing jen. Compare the two situations:
			a. A person does all actions for the sake of yibecause they are the right thing to do (i.e., the behavior forms the disposition). This example is the way we learn; it is not an example of yi.
			b. A person does all actions for the sake of jenbecause respect for humanity implies the right human way to act (i.e., be concerned about who you are, not the individual things you do). This example is practiced until it becomes second-nature, then it is right.
	D. Hsiao (showe): filial piety; reverence
		1. Parents are revered because they are the source of your life. They have sacrificed much for you.
		2. One should do well and make the family name known and respected: bring honor to your family.
		3. Consider someone you respect and admire who saves your life or someone who has sacrificed his life for you--as, indeed, your parents did. Hence, the reverence.
		4. Hsiao implies that you give your parents not only physical care but also emotional and spiritual richness. When the parents die, their unfulfilled aims and purposes should be the purposes of the children.
		5. What do you do if your values are different from your parents? I.e., in a changing society?
		6. The beginnings of jen are found in hsiao (family life).
			a. Once the reverence and respect is understood for parent, hsiao can be extended by generalization to family, friends, society, and mankind.
			b. Respect for the sake of reverence affects who you are.
	E. Chih (chee): moral wisdom; the source of this virtue is knowledge of right and wrong. Chih is added to Confucianism by Mencius (muhn shoos) who believed that people are basically born good.
		1. Since we draw the difference between right and wrong from our own mind, these ideas are innate.
		2. Man is a moral animal for Mencius. Man has the potential to be good for Confucius.
		3. How, then, does Mencius account for the origin of evil?
			a. From external circumstances: nature and the needs for survival.
			b. From society and culture being is disarray: it would be to our disadvantage to be moral.
			c. From lack of knowledge: we do not seek to find out the options we have. We fail to develop our feelings and senses.
	F. Chun-tzu (choon dzuh): the ideal man; the superior man; gentle person in the most significant sense.
		1. He is at home in the world; as he needs nothing himself. He is at the disposal of others and completely beyond personal ambition.
		2. He is intelligent enough to meet anything without fear.
		3. Few people can attain this ideal; the central virtue is, of course, jen.
			a. Personal relationships come before anything else (i.e., before thinking, reasoning, studying).
			b. The five virtues come from within the impersonal ego: (1) kindness, (2) rectitude, (3) decorum, (4) wisdom, and (5) sincerity.
	G. Te (day): power by which men are ruled; the power of moral example (the whole art of government consists in the art of being honest).
		1. The patterns of prestige are used in the service of governance of the country.
		2. Government is good if it can maintain (1) economic sufficiency, (2) military sufficiency, and (3) confidence of the people.
		Check your understanding with a Quiz on the Main Concepts of Confucianism.

Establishing order in society

These are the 5 cardinal relationships that will establish order in society. 

I will eventually type them here but for now here is the pdf I got it from.

The old days

I liked it once upon a time when an organization would make all the arrangements for its members for a convention. The members paid one price for travel and hotel and the local members would travel as a group. We even had clothes that identified who we were so you could tell there were a lot of us, kinda like wearing Kimberly shirts. Man, those were the days. There is nothing like that kind of collectivism to boost morale and forge strong bonds of fellowship. Kinda like the Boy Scout Jamboree, except this was Japanese Buddhism.

The attraction of Harry Potter

Fairy tales are full of magic from Snow White to Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty. Even the granddaddy legend of them all, King Arthur, has the wizard Merlin. Walt Disney himself used the pixie Tinkerbell to announce the Sunday evening Disney movie, such as, Mary Poppins.

As a kid I watched the 60s TV show Bewitched. And we've all seen the image of the magician with the hat, the cape, and the wand uttering the words "abra cadabra" and then pulling a rabbit out of the hat. Though it could never actually happen there was always the secret wish to be able to do magic. To wiggle one's nose or use a wand or cast a spell to make something happen. The popularity of Harry Potter indicates that a great many people have this same wish.

It isn't just about doing magic that draws people into the story though, it is also about the parallel world it represents. The works of fantasy I've read or watched often leaves the ordinary world behind by means of a portal, Alice in Wonderland being a prime example. In Harry Potter the magical world co-exists with our own. In fact, it is the same world. The only difference is that the magical world has been deliberately hidden from the ordinary viewer. In Betelgeuse, the goings-on of the after-world are deliberately hidden until during the wedding the parents are finally able to see the ghost-world. It is a theme played out in many stories and movies including the science fiction film The Matrix.

This is a common theme not only in fairy tales and other works of fiction but in the realm of spiritual teachings where the deeper dimensions of life are revealed to the earnest seeker of spiritual truth. We call these folks mystics. Unfortunately, in the words of Petunia Dursley, they are often called "freaks."

Just as Charles Dickens took great pains to establish that Jacob Marley was dead, dead as a door nail in fact though what was particularly dead about a door nail escaped Dickens, J. K. Rowling made sure we understood from the very beginning what it means to be "normal." This reminds me of the muggle story Peyton Place and the kind of conformity it imposed upon its residents despite the actual reality of their lives.

We all know about the difference between how things appear and how they really are but we often go along with the charade of keeping up appearances even when it is a lie. Of course the Durselys are a caricature, an exaggerated version of people we've all met and known. This is after all a children's story. The muggle drama of Peyton Place leaves little room for imaging a different world or a different way of living and being. With such constrictions it is no wonder that so many people desire to escape the strait jacket of having to be utterly "normal" and seek entry into the magical world of Harry Potter. The Harry Potter stories is like finding the door to the Room of Requirement enabling us to enter the co-existing world of wonderment.

Going even deeper however, is the nature of our own existence and how it is treated by others. In the Dursley household Harry is treated wretchedly. He is made to sleep in the cubby under the stairs among the spiders, barked at and treated like a slave echoing the life of Cinderella. And then, like the fairy god-mother in Cinderella, Hagrid shows up and changes everything in Harry's life. Unbeknownst to Harry, he is the most famous person in the magical world as "the boy who lived."

So along with the secret wish that magic is real and that a magical world exists, there is also the deepest and most secret desire to be thought of as special, that somewhere inside of us is a unique gift or talent hitherto unknown and undiscovered however reluctant we may be to actually find it. In our own world are all those rags to riches stories or of someone being "discovered" by a movie producer. And so Harry Potter represents not only our own desire to escape the "normal" world of muggles but to also discover the true nature and value of our own life in the grand arena of time and space we call existence and then to find our place in it in relation to the others we find here. This desire marks the entry point for all who have ever sought and traveled the path of spiritual awakening. Welcome to Hogwarts.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows

Just so I have it, I'm posting my comment to a blog entry at:
http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/07/22/deathly-hallows/
The blog and the comments are very good reading too.

# NeoLotus on Jul 31st, 2007 at 11:31 am

Since everyone else has done a great job of commenting I only have a few things to add from a non-Western cultural point of view.

The scene when Harry goes to meet Voldemort in the forest to allow himself to be killed reminded me of the scene in “Shogun” when Blackthorn is about to commit seppuku but is then reprieved. It is also, to some extent, reminiscent of the scene in “The Last Samurai” when Katsumoto is dying and says of the cherry blossoms that “they are all perfect.” Charles Taylor’s review of “The Sorcerer’s Stone” is spot on in regards to these stories being deeply rooted in the here and now. Just the act of breathing is a miracle that is thrown away in our daily lives until we know how few breaths are left. Harry’s recognition of this, whether Rowling knew it or not, is very Buddhist in its syncretism with East Asia.

For those who keep insisting that something “otherworldly” or “sublime” must somehow be part of this story, well, people see what they want to see unless they have learned to see what is. I truly believe that Rowling is showing how none of that is necessary in order for good and evil to exist in the world. As Dumbledore says at the end of Chamber that it is our choices that determine who we are when Harry so desperately wanted to be in house Gryffindor rather than house Slytherin. Voldemort exemplified all that is evil by killing Harry’s parents. For what?

And in the explanation of Voldemort’s life in Half-Blood Prince, we see that it was the events and circumstances of his life that created the monster he eventually became. And in Buddhist (karmic) fashion the hallmarks of house Slytherin were of a propensity to cruelty and indifference born from a wizard who thought himself superior to others. As the recipient of that legacy born from the most egregiously authoritarian circumstances of Tom Riddle’s mother and the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father…..well, one does not need Satan to explain the stupidity that humans are capable of. All that is needed, as Mencius says, is for there to be a lack of empathy and commiseration for a human to not be a human. Dr. Gilbert during the Nuremburg trials bears this out when he realizes that evil is the absence of empathy. The creature under the chair at the end of The Deathly Hallows shows precisely what a life born without the benefit of and without the capacity for love and empathy looks like.

If there is indeed a God, what people need to understand about it is that it is not the name or the book or the words that matters. What matters is whether we follow what God (if there is one) etched in our hearts about liking kindness over cruelty. The Malfoys, Narcissa particularly, makes that point very deeply at the beginning of The Half-Blood Prince when she begs Snape to save her child’s life. Bellatrix provides the counter-point to emphasize those who do not know what to truly value in the time we have been given between birth and death. The curt nod of Draco on the platform in the epilogue is the recognition that his own son would not exist had it not been for the defeat of Voldemort.

In the end, this story is in fact a morality tale stripped of unprovable dogmatic belief systems in favor or the more practical realities of living in the here and now and what we do with the time we are given. It will provide the surest method of critical judgement for a whole generation of children (and perhaps some adults) to know whether a doctrine is worthy of following or not.

Think about that the next time you vote. (My apologies. I just had to throw that in there.)

Zen Politics, part one

The thing about Japanese Zen is its minimalism. The whole business of Buddhism generally is to clear away the junk and gunk in our minds so that we can see more clearly what actually is. The effect of Zen is to reduce clutter and achieve focus. In the movie "The Last Samurai" is the observation of "too many minds" when the American was learning to use the sword. In other words, the mind was scattered being focused on too many things that had nothing do with being effective with the sword.

American government and governance has "too many minds." It is neither coherent nor focused on issues the average person cares about. The government's raison d'etre to serve the people has been subverted to serve very narrow and selfish interests all in hot pursuit of the almighty dollar. In this regard, the greedy are extremely well focused and have indeed achieved their end of creating a government that serves them.

Unfortunately, the current political system is, for all intents and purposes, not on the side of people. They spend all their time playing a shell game with the public pretending to listen and then going back to the business of catering to money.

I find the calls for non-partisanship rather disingenuous as if Democrats and Republicans really do have differing views on anything.

The real line for partisanship has nothing to do with political parties. Rather, is has to do with which side of the people/money equation they are on. In other words, does money serve people or do people serve money? At a tax forum with three state senators yesterday I got as much right-wing whitewash as I would get from any GOPer. There was no concern about the human cost of tax policy even though many in the audience tried to make that point.

More importantly, there was no effort by the senators to partner with the people in the audience to help drive policy in a better direction. We were told instead that Gov. Pawlenty holds all the cards and that the legislators have their hands tied because of an insufficient number of them to override a veto--along partisan lines--and gave a litany of apologetics for the GOPers in not voting against a GOP governor.

I find something fundamentally wrong with people who adhere so much to a label that they are willing to check their brain into the delusion world at the cost of real lives.

So, back to Zen politics and a redefinition of partisanship.

I think it is time to do away with the labels that allow wolves in sheep's clothing to fleece the American population. Third parties don't have much a chance, and they'd just be another label anyway. Still, we need something. What exactly it could or should be, I don't know.

There was at one time a Populist Party. There are still all manner of parties listed. The problem is developing enough of a critical mass of popular support to dislodge the ticks bloating themselves on the body politic who call themselves "representatives."

It could also be very possible that there is no way to change or reform what we have now. Those things will have to wait for the catastrophic failure of the entire system before anything new can arise from its ashes.

Our forefathers tried their best to create a system that could endure. But the culture and the prejudices they brought with them from England were too great to be overcome. The aristocracy and demagogues have done their best to ensure that the true American dream of equality, liberty, and consent of the governed would never be made real. Now, we face a coup d'etat where the sovereignty of the people is vested in a single person under a dictatorship as made explicit in NSPD-51.

I don't know how to teach people to be better judges of character. What I do know is that we need a LOT more neighbor to neighbor on-the-ground discussions about policy and who those policies will benefit.

For my part, and for as much as I have called myself a Democrat for most of my voting age years, it is clear that times we live in now are a lot less about which party a person identities with and a lot more about whether they are in fact feeling and thinking human beings.

We don't need an ownership society, we need a give a shit society.

The origin of the principles of humane government

The origin of humane government begins with the human heart. It is the human heart that determines the nature of our experiences in life. It is these experiences which determine everything else.

According to Mencius, without the feeling of commiseration one is not a human.

Therefore:

• The feeling of commiseration is the beginning of humanity or benevolence.
• The feeling of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom.
• The feeling of deference and accommodation is the beginning of propriety.
• The feeling of shame and dislike of the shameless is the beginning of righteousness.

The truth of this is found in a work as far in time and distance as one can get from ancient China. That work is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Although modern western civilization has little in common with ancient China in terms of taste in food, music, or beauty, there is little doubt that we share much in common with the human feelings of kindness versus cruelty.

It is on this basis of common feeling that Mencius says:

"All men have the mind which cannot bear to see the suffering of others. The ancient kings had this mind and therefore they had a government that could not bear to see the suffering of the people. When a government that cannot bear to see the suffering of the people is conducted from a mind that cannot bear to see the suffering of others, the government of the empire will be as easy as making something go round in the palm." (Chan, 1963)

This is not say that lesser men in positions of power will not abuse that power for their own ends. It is for this reason that Confucius clarified the principles of humane government based on the record of exemplary rulership of the ancients, particularly Shun and Yu. Philosophically, the principles of humane government are rooted in commiseration being the beginning of humanity. Without this foundation there is no manner of interpersonal relations whether in a family, among friends, or in government that will bring peace to the land and enable people to enjoy any happiness. It is therefore important to understand that the ultimate basis of all our relations are moral and not merely legal. Even the Declaration of Independence makes this point that all people are created equal and are inviolably morally worthy beings and thus the purpose of government is to ensure that this is so.

Both the Declaration of Independence and the Chinese Mandate of Heaven are clear that when any government is in violation of not only its own principles but of the greater moral basis of all our relations then the people have not only a right, but a duty, to change or abolish it and institute a new government.

Commiseration, therefore, is indeed the basis of humane government.

Why Speak of Profit? I give you benevolence and righteousness.

Mencius: 1A:1

1. Mencius went to see king Hûi of Liang.

2. The king said, 'Venerable sir, since you have not thought it far to come from such a long distance, you must have some good advice to profit my kingdom.'

3. Mencius replied, 'Why must your Majesty use that word "profit?" My advice has only to do with benevolence and righteousness.'

4. 'If your Majesty say, "What will profit my kingdom?"
the ministers will say, "What will profit our families?"
and the people will say, "What will profit me?"
In such a case, from top to bottom, everyone will try to snatch this profit from each other, and the kingdom will be endangered.

In a kingdom of ten thousand chariots, the murderer of his sovereign shall be the family of a thousand chariots. In a kingdom of a thousand chariots, the murderer of his prince shall be the family of a hundred chariots. To have a thousand in ten thousand, and a hundred in a thousand, is still a large allotment, but if righteousness be put last, and profit be put first, people will not be satisfied without snatching all for themselves.

5. 'There never has been a benevolent man who abandoned his parents. There never has been a righteous man who made his sovereign an after thought.

6. 'Let your Majesty say, "Benevolence and righteousness are what matter most." Why must you use that word -- "profit?"'

Commentary:
When the emphasis is profit, people will be selfish and greedy and only think of themselves--Scrooge. When the emphasis is benevolence and righteousness, people will be caring and generous and work for the well-being of all--Mr. Fezziwig.