Stephane Hessel's Messages to the World: Indignez-vous!

A true democracy requires and insists on freedom of the press.

Only when man accedes to complete freedom can we have a democratic state in its ideal form.

The basic motive of the Resistance was indignation.

"As individuals, you are responsible" Jean-Paul Satre. 
The responsibility is that of the individual who will rely neither on a form of power nor on a god.

You must engage --your humanity demands it.
The worst attitude is indifference.

We are not dealing with a small elite anymore, whose actions we can clearly identify.  We are dealing with a vast interdependent world that is interconnected in unprecedented ways.

Two major challenges:
1. The grievous injustices inflicted on people deprived of the essential requirements for a decent life, not only in the third world --in Africa, Asia, Haiti, and elsewhere--but in the suburbs of our largest Western cities, where seclusion and poverty breeds hatred and revolt.  The widening gap between the very poor and very rich is made all the more insulting by the access the poor now have to the Internet and other forms of mass communication that highlight these inequalities.

2. The violation of the basic freedoms and fundamental rights.  In his 1941 State of the Union speech, Franklin Delano Roosevelt articulated the "Four Freedoms" he felt people "everywhere in the world" had a right to enjoy: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear.  The Four Freedom later served as the foundation for the charter of the United Nations, which was adopted in San Francisco on June 24, 1945, and served as the inspiration for the UN's Universal Declaration of human Rights, drafted under the chairmanship of FDR's widow, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each state, of the economic, social, and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality."

To the youth...: look around you and you will find the themes to justify your indignation...You will become aware of situations so deplorable they simply demand civil action.  Seek and you will find!

Violence is an unavoidable failure...the risk of resorting to violence is that it may only perpetuate violence
Jean-Paul Satre (1947)

Hopefulness and the hope for nonviolence must be favored over violence....
The messages of Gandhi, martin L. King Jr., and Nelson Mandela remain relevant even in a world where ideological confrontations and invasive totalitarianism have been overcome.  They are messages of hope, of faith in a society's ability to overcome conflict through mutual understanding and watchful patience.  To achieve this we must rely on our belief in human rights, the violation of which...must provoke our indignation.

The Western obsession with productivity and the accumulation of wealth has led the world into a crisis.

It is high time that integrity, justice, and sustainable development be allowed to prevail.

Source:

Stephane Hessel. Time for Outrage Indignez-Vous! (New York, NY: Hachette Book Group, 2010). 
ISBN: 978-1-4555-0972-0

Web Security -- How to Defense Yourself

Most important:
Passwords: Choose strong passwords.  A sequence of random upper and lower case letters, mixed with numbers and special characters is better than simple, single words or names that are easy to guess.  Do not use the same password for critical sites as for casual throwaways.

In public places with open wireless: Do not do anything important.  Make sure that connections use HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol with Security).  Your browser will show that you are connected with the HTTPS, and you can see an icon of a closed lock which indicates that the link is encrypted.  But HTTPS only encrypts the contents.

Attachments and downloading or installing: Do not click on to view attachments from strangers, or unexpected attachments from friends; don't automatically accept, click, or install when requested.  Don't download programs of dubious provenance.  Be wary about downloading and installing any software unless it comes from a trusted source.

Windows and Microsoft Office programs: Use anti-virus software.  Keep it up to date.  Do not click on the sites that offer to run a security check on you computer.  Turn off macros in Microsoft Office programs.  Disable ActiveX as much as you can.  Keep other software, like browser and operating system, up to date.

Cautious:
Turn off pop-ups and third-party cookies.  You should set up defenses for each browser you use.

Use add-ons like Adblock and Flashblock to reject advertising images.
Use a spam filter on your mail.
Turn off JavaScript in Adobe Reader.
Turn off services that you don't use.
Turn on the firewall on your computer.  It is a software that monitors incoming and outgoing network connsctions, and blosks those that violate access rules.
Use two-factor authentication on your important accounts if available.

Paranoid:
Disable HTML and JavaScript in your mail reader.
Use NoScript to limit JavaScript, and Ghostery to disable trackers.
Turn off all cookies except for sites that you permit.
Use less-frequently targeted systems (Linux or Mac OS X, instead of Windows; Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Opera instead of Internet Explorer...)

The same precautions apply to cell phones, too.

Source:

Brian W. Kernighan.  D  Is for Digital –What a Well-Informed Person Should Know About Computers and Communications.  Published by DisforDigital.net; 2011.  ISBN-13: 978-1463733896

ISBN-10: 1463733895, pp. 177-178.

Leadership and Climate Change

There is a long history of bad things happening, people waking up and then going right back to sleep.  The thing that keeps people from going back to sleep is political leaders exercising what they are paid for, namely, leadership.  We do need that sort of leadership at all levels, including the presidential level.  The rate of climate change is running ahead at this point of our ability to solve the problem.
Climate change has always been tomorrow's problem, but sometime you've got to grapple with it.  That time is now.

Michael Oppenheimer
Wilson School and GeoSciences Professor, Princeton University
                                                           
Source:
The Daily Princetonian, Thursday November 8, 2012, Vol. CXXXVI No. 103, p. 3.

Problems of Digital Technology

Personal Privacy:
Since our personal data are continuously being collected for commercial and governmental purposes, our privacy is diminishing.  Once our personal information is on the web, it remains there forever.
Surveillance Technology:
Tiny cameras, microphones, and web tracking and recording where our cell phones are...all these continue to improve with exponentially decreasing cost of storage and processing.  Our lives are being recorded digitally with or without our knowing it.
Security:
We must be aware of potential cyber-attack and cyber-warfare at all levels, individuals, corporations, and governments.
Copyright:
It is now possible to make unlimited copies of digital material and distributed them throughout the world at no cost.  Copyright and fair use are being replaced by licensing, and digital rights management
Patents:
With more and more computer devices controlled by software, how to protect the legitimate interests of innovators and researched patents?
Resource Allocation:
Those who already have the allocation (big telecom companies) have a great advantage.
Jurisdiction:
With information traveling everywhere, business and social practices may be legal in one jurisdiction but illegal in others.
Control:
Individuals want to limit the control from governments and companies; but the playing fields are far from levels.

Source:

Brian W. Kernighan.  D  Is for Digital –What a Well-Informed Person Should Know About Computers and Communications.  Published by DisforDigital.net; 2011.  ISBN-13: 978-1463733896

ISBN-10: 1463733895

Meditation, Self Examination and Self Reflection

Mind training and meditation are fundamentally self examination and self reflection.  Indeed, they aim at improving oneself spiritually in order to develop wisdom. 

In Buddhist contemplation, the practitioner observes minute changes in his/her body, feelings (sensations), thoughts, and all phenomena (internal and external) from second to second as long as s/he is awake.  This observation practice helps to develop a detachment attitude necessary to investigate all phenomena, and to cultivate an awareness of the unstable, hence empty, nature of reality.  Gradually, after years of mind training and observation, the practitioner's view of all phenomena will be fundamentally transformed.  S/he will see things as they really are.  S/he is no longer trapped in the clouds (veils) of wrong views so common among human beings.

In Buddhism the cultivation of the right view is the first and foremost condition for spiritual development.  It is certainly difficult to develop a view against that of  the multitude.  That's why genuine Buddhists are actually those who go against the flow.  They see things quite differently from others, because they see the true nature of reality.

Searching

In the vast blue sky
You and I, two lone lost birds
Searching for each other.

Most Venerable Maha Thera Thích Minh Châu (1918-2012) --An Exemplary and Unique Bhikkhu

Many have written about Most Venerable Maha Thera Thích Minh Châu's (1918-2012) life and works.  In fact, there is much more one may learn from Him, for His life style, speech and manners... all seemed to send us some Dharma messages.  Those who have worked for Him and known Him for a long time, whether they are Buddhists and non-Buddhists, certainly have benefited a lot from this exemplary and unique Bhikkhu's personality and character.

The Most Venerable Maha Thera was a taciturn person with an unforgettably kind smile on His bright round face.  His half-open, half-closed eyes looked gently and steadily at things in front of Him as if He were in deep meditation.  He was fully aware of what was going on around Him, but was not actually disturbed by any of the surrounding phenomena.  Before His body got weak (due to the Parkinson's disease which he seemed to have contracted in the early 1980s), he would walk agilely and energetically.  Besides the time reserved for His Dharma practice and dissemination, from early dawn to late at night, He would be sitting at the desk either in His own room upstairs in Van Hanh Zen Monastery, or in His Office in the Buddhist Institute located at the same address.  He would focus on His work tirelessly with great concentration.  Occasionally there were some guests, visitors, or disciples whom He had to receive.  Then, near the end of the day, He would spend His late afternoons sitting alone in His simple bamboo rocking chair on the balcony, looking into the void in front of Him in that meditative posture which was always part of Him.

He ate simple vegetarian meals, and preferred salt to soy sauce.  He often drank tea, and usually had a glass of  milk in the afternoon.  He had a small, old grey car which Venerable Thich Tam Duc, one of His disciples, would drive to take Him when He needed to go to the airport, or some temples and places for meetings with government authorities or Buddhist dignitaries.

He was ordained and trained in a Mahayana temple in Hue, Central Vietnam.  However, He had chosen to wear the saffron Theravada robe since He studied Buddhism in Sri Lanka and India in 1952 or later in 1953.  After He returned to Vietnam in 1964, he continued to wear the Theravada robe, even though He lived in Mahayana temples.  It was no wonder that He would be easily recognizable among other Vietnamese monks in brown or grey robes. The saffron robe not only made him unique; it also reflected His life-long vow and aspiration, and His genuine view about Buddhism.  Nearly all His life He had spent searching for, translating, and disseminating the Buddha's authentic teachings in Pali.  He taught and practiced living in  harmony among differences, for He profoundly understood the universal laws of interdependence and  interconnectedness.  To Him, diverse forms and names are human labeling.  Like sea water that has only one taste of salt, the Buddha's Dharma has only the taste of liberation.  Different Buddhist schools or sects are rivers that will eventually pour into the sea, and thus their minor differences will dissolve, and they all will have the same taste of the Buddha's Dharma.  In this light of wisdom, He had helped to train generations of monks and nuns in Vietnam to live and work together in peace and harmony with no discrimination whatsoever. 

The Most Venerable Maha Thera was charismatic, calm and taciturn, but He would never try to impress others.  He would scarecely talk about Himself.  In His speech, He always used the pronoun "we" to refer to Himself, instead of "I."  He would not want to build big temples nor accept many disciples.  In His Dharma talks, He usually said that each person should be his or her own torch.  He was a simple and task-oriented bhikkhu, and a very caring human.  Once in 1988, despite His busy schedule, He managed time to come to the hospital to visit His translator who was also an instructor at the Buddhist School of Higher Studies (former name of the Buddhist Institute in Ho Chi Minh City) , and who had just recovered after a narrow escape from a traffic accident.

Both before and after 1975, his main focus was always on Buddhist education, and on how to disseminate the Buddha's authentic teachings based on Pali sutras to His Vietnamese Buddhists and laypeople.  He set a very clear goal for Himself when He left Vietnam for further Buddhist training in 1952: to study Buddhism as it was originally taught by the Buddha Himself over 2,500 years ago, and, through formal education, to teach Buddhists and laypeople how to apply what the Buddha taught to their daily life, so that they might benefit from Buddhist teachings in their own lives, and bring peace and harmony to life on earth.  From His young adulthood to the end of His life, He devotedly served Buddhism, never perturbed by any comments or criticisms.  With persistence and perseverance, He kept working on what He had vowed to accomplish in life.  He was solid like a mountain, not moved or disturbed by what others said about Him.  Following the Buddha's example, He would never argue with anybody in the mundane world.

During His Dharma talks one could find peace and joy, and the Dharma taste of liberation right here and now.  He highly revered the Buddha's words, and would present the sutra as it had been originally recorded from the Buddha's times.  In His translations, He would retain the repetitions in the sutra, word for word, knowing that it was the best way for one to absorb and benefit from sutras.  Listening to the Most Venerable Maha Thera, one might have the impression as if one were reliving the Buddha;'s times, and listening to the Buddha Himself.

Near the end of His life, despite His declining health, the Most Venerable Maha Thera kept on teaching, translating, and completing tasks the Buddhist Sangha assigned Him.  He did not stop working until He became too weak and had to rely on a wheel-chair, and the help of His close disciples.  He could have received medical treatment in the 1980s, but He probably refused to go to Japan for any treatment or surgery.  The reason of his refusal might probably be that He did not want to waste people's time and money, for He had already known Parkinson's was uncurable.