Quotations about Patriotism and Leadership

Patriotism
You love your country when you try to hold it to its own high standards.  You love your country when you demand that it admits its mistakes and learn from them.  You love your country when you refuse to relax into easy platitudes and indulge in the comfort of historical amnesia.
(Eric Zorn --Chicago Tribune 19, Section 1, Wednesday Feb. 25, 2015)

What does it mean to love one's country?  ...It doesn't mean never criticizing one's country.
(William A. Galston.  WSJ A11, Wed. 25, 2015)

My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to set right.
(Sen. Carl Schurz in the 19th century)

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
(Edmund Burke)

To the extent that our country's beauty is flawed, we strengthen that love by working to remove its blemishes....Citizens inevitably move from love of country because it is their own to assertions of national superiority.  Sometimes these claims are warranted.  But beyond their due bounds, they become arrogant and dangerous....Criticizing the nation to help make it better and stronger is preferable to blind devotion.  
(William A. Galston)

Leading a Country
 Seek truth-tellers rather than flatterers for friendship.
(Plutarch)

Leaders should shun yes-men and seek counsel from those willing to offer frank criticism when warranted.
(Machiavelli)


In a democracy, voters who seek only adulation from their leaders can be equally worrisome.

Flattery of leaders might lead to recklessness, but flattery of the populace can breed complacency.
The president's job is not just to tell us how great and exceptional we are, it is to motivate us to become even greater, even more exceptional, and to show us how to get there.
(Catherine Rampell, Washington Post Opinion Columnist)

Related post:

Tuesday March 1, 2011 "Patriotism, nationalism, and Internationalism."


 

 

The Rich and the Poor

Between the 1930s and the late 1970s, 90% of all workers shared 70% of all income growth.  Between 1980s and 2012, guess how much that 90% got?  Zero!
Elizabeth Warren
MA Senator, former Harvard Law Professor

The Middle Class in the USA

It is difficult to define the middle class in the USA, but there are basic dreams and aspirations that most American middle-class families share:

• Earning enough to purchase and own a home
• Saving a sufficient amount for retirement
• Ability to cover children's college education
• Having a family vacation once or twice a year

According to the 2014 report by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, there were stark regional differences in purchasing power across the USA.  The range of all goods spread nearly 32% points, while that in rents was varying up to almost 97% points among all states and metropolitan areas.  If the national average rent were $1,000, a person living in Mississippi would pay $621, while somebody living in Hawaii would pay $1,590 for the same type of dwelling.  A professor at Cornell University pays less in mortgage for his four-bedroom home in Ithaca, NY than his son pays in rent for a one-room apartment located a few hours south in Brooklyn (Thomas A. Hirschl, Chasing the American Dream, 2014).

With the poverty line at $24,000 for a family of four, somebody in Mississippi at $22,000 gets support from a benefit program, but with an adjusted $25,000, there wouldn't be any benefit available for the family (Sheldon Danziger, Russell Sage Foundation, a social research center in NY). 

President Obama once identified the top earners as those making more than $200,000 a year or households with an income of more than $250,000 a year, but in terms of buying power $200,000 in one location does not translate the same value in different locations (Christopher Chasteen, research director for the Economic Research Institute, a company that conducts cost-of-living and salary research).


Source:
Jo Craven McGinty, "Why Wealth Isn't Defined Simply." WSJ, A2, Sat/Sun Feb. 21-22, 2015.

Some Ajahn Chah's Teachings

Once a visitor asked Ajahn Chah if he was an arahant.  He said:

I am like a tree in the forest.  Birds come to the tree, they sit on its branches, and eat its fruits.  To the birds, the fruits may be sweet or sour or whatever.  But the tree doesn't know anything about it.  The birds say sweet, or they say sour, but from the tree's point of view, this is just the chattering of birds.

Some ordained Westerners think it was not right that Buddhist monks and nunsshould just sit in the forest while other religious organizations were so actively participating in alleviating the plight of the refugees.  So they approached Ajahn Chah to express their concern, and the latter said:

Helping in refugee camps is good.  It is indeed our natural human duty to each other.  But going through our own madness, so that we can lead others through, that's the only cure.  Anyone can go out and distribute clothes and pitch tents, but how many can come into the forest and sit to know their minds?  As long as we don't know how to "clothe" and "feed" people's minds, there will always be a refugee problem somewhere in the world.

Virtue

Virtue is the basis for a harmonious world in which people can live truly as humans and not as animals.  Developing virtue is at the heart of our practice.  Keep the precepts.  Cultivate compassion and respect for all life.  Be mindful in your actions and speech.  Use virtue to make your life simple and pure.  With virtue as a basis for everything you do, your mind will become kind, clear, and quiet.  Meditation will grow easily in this environment.

Virtue and morality are the mother and father of the Dhamma growing within us.  They provide us with the proper nourishment and guidance.

Two Levels of Practice

There are two levels of practice.  The first level forms the foundation, which is the development of virtue, the precepts, in order to bring happiness and harmony among people.  The second level is the practice of Dhamma with the sole goal of liberating the heart.  This liberation is the source of wisdom and compassion, and is the true reason for the Buddha's teaching.  Understanding these two levels is the basis of true practice.

Meditation

Meditation is your breath, your present breath.

Have a steady awareness within yourself.

Steady practice is keeping mindful in every posture.  When coming out of sitting, don't think that you are coming out of meditation, but that you are only changing postures.  If you reflect this way, you will have peace.  Wherever you are, you will have this attitude of practice with you constantly.  You will have a steady awareness within yourself.

 Wisdom

Even when the worst kinds of defilement come up, such as greed and anger, with clear insight and enough wisdom,  you'll see their impermanent nature, and allow them to just fade away.  If you react to them, however, by liking or disliking, that isn't wisdom.  You are only creating more suffering for yourself.

A lot of thinking without wisdom is extreme suffering.

Just watch yourself...If you watch others 10% of the time, and watch yourself 90% of the time, your practice is ok.

You are your own teacher.  Looking for teachers can't solve your own doubts.  Investigate yourself to find the truth, inside, not outside.  Knowing yourself is most important.

Happiness and Suffering

In truth, happiness is suffering in disguise.  They are inseparable.  The Buddha taught us to see suffering as the inherent harm in happiness, and to see them as equal.  So be careful!  When happiness arises, don't be overjoyed, or get carried away.  When suffering comes, don't despair, don't lose yourself in it.  See that they have the same equal value.

Liberation

Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering.

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.  If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.  If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.

If we go beyond appearances and see the truth, we will see that there isn't anything there, but the universal characteristics --birth in the beginning, change in the middle, and cessation in the end.  This is all there is.  If we see that all things are like this, then no problem arises.  If we understand this, we have contentment and peace. 

Time

Time is your present breath.

Birth and Death

Our birth and death are just one thing.  If there were no birth, there would be no death.

Death is as close as our breath.

We must die in order to live.

An Invitation

All that I have said up to now has merely been words.  When people come to see me, I have to say something.  But it is best not to speak about these matters so much.  Better to begin practice without delay.  I am like a good friend inviting you to go somewhere.  Do not hesitate, just get going.  You won't regret it.

Source:
No Ajahn Chan (Compiled and edited by Dhamma Garden, printed for free distribution by The Corporate Body of the Buddha Educational Foundation.  Taiwan,1994)

Emergency Kit

It is never a bad thing to be cautious and well-prepared.  So here it is, an emergency kit that may help save yourself:

A whistle to attract help
Dusk mask(s)
Duck tape
A wrench/plier
Flashlights and batteries

At least one gallon of water
Moist towelettes
Garbage bags

Sleeping bags

First-aid kit: pain medicine, hand sanitizer, tweezers, sharp scissors

At least three days' worth of crackers, cereal, canned foods, and a manual can-opener

Some Notes on US Health Care

In 2014 American spent $3 trillion for health care bills, more than the next ten biggest spenders combined (Japan, Germany, France, China, the UK, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain, and Australia).

In the US: 31.5 MRI machines per one million people  (the extra money produces no better, and in many cases worse, results)
In the UK: 5.9 per one million people

American spend $17 billion/year on artificial knees and hips, and $85.9 billion/year on treating back pain (half of that is unnecessary).
An open-heart surgery to fix an aortic aneurysm costs $190,000.
$451 for each X-ray photo of the heart patient's chest

A hospital CEO in New York earns $3.58 million/year.  The UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) CEO's salary: more than $500 million/year.
The same hospital charges patients $77 for a box of gauze pads or hundreds of dollars for a routine blood test.

Source: Steven Brill.  "What I Learned from My $190,000 Surgery."  Time (January 19, 2015), pp. 34-43.