Change

Change in ourselves and in the world in which we live may not take place in a hurry; it will take time. But if we don't make the effort nothing will happen at all....such change will not take place because of decisions taken by governments or at the UN.  Real change will take place when individuals transform themselves guided by the values that lie at the core at all human ethical systems, scientific findings and common sense....as human beings, equipped with marvelous intelligence and the potential for developing a warm heart, each and everyone of us can become a force for good.

Introduction by the 14th Dalai Lama
February 8, 2015  (p.x)

Source:
Daniel Goleman.  A Force for Good - The Dalai Lama's Vision for Our World (New York, NY: Bantam Books,  Penguin Random House LLC, 2015).  ISBN 978-0-553-39489-4.

Justice or Injustice--That Is the Problem

...Mr Obama said for what the US spends on keeping people in prison per year, $80 billion, there could be universal pre-school, doubled salaries for high school teachers or free tuition at US public colleges or universities.

This week's focus on criminal justice signals a renewed bid by Mr Obama's administration to tackle what he sees as a lack of fairness in the system.

"Communities that give our young people every shot at success, tough but fair courts and prisons that seek to prepare returning citizens to get that second chance...That's what we're here to build," he said.

The last significant changes to the criminal justice system in the US came in 2013 when US Attorney General Eric Holder dropped mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders.

US prisons in numbers

• 208,000 people in federal prisons
• 48% of them for drug offences
• 37% of them are black
• 34% of them are Hispanic
• $80bn the cost of incarceration in the US in 2010

DoJ, Federal Bureau of Prisons

Source:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33531314

Join a Force for Good

1.Free the Mind and Heart

http://www.joinaforce4good.org/understand/free-the-mind-and-heart

When we’ve learned to clear our mind and calm our heart, we can begin to overcome fear, anger, or any of our other destructive daily emotions. To become better at helping others, we can question our self-defeating emotional habits and learn to face turmoil in a calm and reasoned way. There are many techniques to train the heart and mind, but we can start with the steps below.

Understand our emotional patterns—our personal map.

Practice “emotional hygiene” to minimize the spread of destructive feelings.

Pause before acting on impulse.

Combine a calm mind with a warm, giving heart.

2.Embody Compassion

http://www.joinaforce4good.org/understand/embody-compassion

Kindness toward others is part of our biological makeup and can play a larger role in our lives. The first step is simply to recognize that compassion is good for us: Our own well-being lies in the welfare of everyone. Genuine compassion calls for us to transcend the small differences that define race or tribe or group and embrace the commonality of all human beings. Understanding the principles below can help guide us to that goal.

Humans have an innate need both to give and to receive affection.

Caring for others improves our own emotional state.

Our “circle of concern” can gradually extend beyond our own group to include all people.

Compassion is a crucial moral rudder as we tackle the world’s problems.

3.Educate the Heart

http://www.joinaforce4good.org/understand/educate-the-heart

A goal of education could be to create not just good minds but good people. This requires a fundamental rethinking of how teachers prepare children for the challenges of adulthood. It can start with “social and emotional” learning: helping students learn how to recognize and master their turbulent feelings and to acknowledge kindness as an essential ingredient of everyday life. This fresh approach to education rests on the precepts below.

Education should be rooted in both knowledge and ethics.

Social and emotional learning should be based on sound science.

Techniques for emotional self-mastery are as fundamental as math.

An ethics-based education is one key to solving our global problems.

4.Oppose Injustice

http://www.joinaforce4good.org/understand/oppose-injustice

Being compassionate does not mean being passive. Living by the principles of fairness, transparency, and accountability—the three pillars of an equitable society—sometimes requires us to act on those principles in the face of injustice. Beyond sympathy with victims, we are moved to speak out in their defense, to come to their aid, and to shed light on the source of the injustice. This “muscular” compassion is rooted in the simple ideas below.

Do not allow anger to be be a spur to action; compassion, not anger, is a better guide.

Act without hatred or resorting to violence.

When confronting injustice, oppose the act but don’t give up on the person.

Recognize that restraint and nonviolence are not signs of weakness but of strength.

5.Choose Humane Economics

http://www.joinaforce4good.org/understand/choose-humane-economics

Business can both do good and do well. But acting on this principle requires us to reframe our notions of profit, wealth, and success. The ultimate measure of economic strength—on local, national, and global levels—includes the well-being of all people, not just an elite few. Humane economic policy reduces financial inequality while allowing for entrepreneurial dynamism, and it respects the truths listed below.

Loving relationships of all kinds and meaningful work, which yields more than money, are keys to happiness.

Economic freedom can be balanced with altruism.

Humane economic policy is guided by compassion, not self-interest.

Businesses cannot be a force for good when profit is the only yardstick for success.

6.Help Those in Need

http://www.joinaforce4good.org/understand/help-those-in-need

Being a force for good means extending our hand, our heart, and our intellect to serve the neediest among us. This may mean leaving our comfort zone to address the misery of others head-on, with selflessness and compassion. The hard work of helping the defenseless, the disabled, and the impoverished entails more than just charity—it asks us to get to the root of those plights. We can start with the following steps.

Recognize that the origins of poverty are not just circumstance but also mind-set.

Give people the tools they need to help themselves.

Advocate against the inequitable social policies that cause poverty and dislocation.

Support the advancement of women in leadership roles.

7.Heal the Earth

http://www.joinaforce4good.org/understand/heal-the-earth

“A genuine concern for humanity,” the Dalai Lama has said, “means loving the environment.” His words highlight an elementary truth: our well-being links to the ecological well-being of our planet. This holds especially true for the poor, whose lives tend to depend more directly on nature and its dwindling resources. Because environmental degradation is a slow-motion event that easily escapes our notice, we can take the following measures to understand and minimize our role in it.

Advocate for “radical transparency” that exposes the ecological impacts of what we buy and do.

Embrace tools that measure the ecological “true cost” of a product or service.

Encourage finding better solutions to man-made problems, and remain focused on progress—not doom and gloom.

Extend our compassion to include both people and the planet, in equal measure.

8.Connect Across Divides

http://www.joinaforce4good.org/understand/connect-across-divides

When we stop thinking of the world in terms of “us and them,” battle lines disappear and dialogue can begin. The simple act of talking, person-to-person, across divides can defuse conflict and dissolve prejudice, humanizing those whom we’d considered our enemy. Peace on the ground starts inside ourselves, with the acceptance of the core beliefs listed below.

War cannot resolve differences; only dialogue can.

The traits that unite humans far outnumber the differences that divide them.

Hatred is learned and can be unlearned.

True compassion has no national, ethnic, religious, or sectarian boundaries.

Source:
http://www.joinaforce4good.org

Dhamma

Dhamma is here and now.  Learn and observe Dhamma in calm and stillness.  Look inside; you will see.  Don't be fooled or trapped by words and ideas.  Let go everything.    

The US Presidential Race 2016

Some guidelines:

• Examine candidates' credentials and long history of good deeds and lasting legacy/achievements, not flowery words.  Cross-examine their deeds with their words.
• Examine candidates' roles and power influence on both national and international arenas.
• Look for integrity and transparency.
• Select the lesser evil between the two devils.

The 14th Dalai Lama's Teachings (Glastonbury, UK)

1. The Dalai Lama's secret: "Don't worry about stuff you can't change and get nine hours sleep every night."
2. "Carry a message of love, a message of tolerance, a message of forgiveness."
3. "Oneness of humanity, then no basis to kill. I love my life. Everyone has the right to live happily. Most problems are created by man: killing, bullying, cheating exploitation.... We have to find long term solutions.  This is very difficult."
4. "The existing education system is very much orientated about material values. This creates anger, hatred, negative thinking.... If we continue teaching on the value of external, material values, it will be hard to find solutions."
5. "Inner value needs to be added to education from university to kindergarten. I think it's better to include some moral education."
6. "The long term solution of man-made problems: we must look at education about warm heartedness or a sense of care."
7. "The gap between rich and poor is not only morally wrong but practically wrong."
8. "Keep inner strength, utilise common sense, and look at things realistically."
9. If he could have a day off from being Dalai Lama, he would go back to his farming village and drive a tractor.
10. "We are all human, we all have the same potential, potential for positive or potential for negative."
11. Does music make you happy?  "Not really. If music really brings inner peace, can we solve problems in Syria with music? I don't think so. "

Source:
http://www.centralsomersetgazette.co.uk/things-learnt-Dalai-Lama-Glastonbury-Festival/story-26792455-detail/story.html

Why I Didn't Want to Write Much

Most of the entries posted on my blog are quotes or excerpt from others.  I myself rarely contribute anything that seems completely original.  There are some reasons for that behavior pattern of mine.
 
Why do I have to write when many of my thoughts and ideas seem to have been well articulated and even thoroughly discussed somewhere at some point of time, either in black and white, in the cloud or on the Internet?  It will be redundant for me to add what has already been said or published.  Besides, the majority like to trust ideas and opinions from those who are internationally well known and highly respected, and those who have true expertise and authority.  With age, and the more I read and study, the more I feel I am dwindling into no more than a little child.  Isaac Newton said he, too, felt like a child strolling along the beach, collecting pebbles.  The vast ocean, like the vast physical and virtual universes, is awaiting for us to discover.  It is just patience and perseverance and a matter of time to hit the mega find.  A treasure is always somewhere for us to see and to select.  There is almost nothing new or mysterious.  Everything is there, just learn to look for it.  You will be a skillful discoverer.

Another reason is more subtle.  I don't want to use the Internet as a platform to attract public attention to the "I" in my blog.  My blog should be viewed like a notice board, or a reminder for all.  I view the Internet as an easy, familiar but malicious source to inflate or deflate the ego balloon and anything or anyone related to it.  I am a Buddhist, and No Self is one of the fundamental Buddhist concepts in mind training.  When you talk with a Buddhist, whether a Zen master, a monk, a nun, or a Buddhist lay householder, you may test and sense the person's perception and expression of his/her "self" or "ego." It is extremely subtle.  A true Buddhist follower has no self.  You simply cannot find it (the "self") in his/her thoughts, words, and deeds.  Read the 14th Dalai Lama's speech when he accepted the Nobel prize, and you will see.

Finally, the truth is everything changes, even though what has been posted on the Internet so far appears to remain permanent.  Many years from now, I hope, with hindsight I won't have to regret for what I have already posted --no regret whatsoever, simply because I left almost no personal trace.