A Few Notes About the American Constitution

The American Constitution is a terse text written by the people of America (clearly stated in the Preamble), and accessible to ordinary people. However, it is more than the text itself, because it implies unwritten principles or higher laws that are not specified in the text, but enforceable beyond the judiciary.  The Constitution tells us the way the American society is governed and how its government is organized.  Not only does the Constitution, both written and unwritten, specify the entrenched procedures and institutional features of the American system; it also contains tools and techniques which make the system function.
In today's world, with plentiful global opportunities and spiraling technological changes, the Constitution is no longer separate from the fast changing world.   Forever an unfinished text, it is subject to future amendments, but it remains the supreme law of the land, and the property open to all generations of American law-making (!) citizens for their contributions.  Issues related to terrorism, gender or sexual orientation, immigration and the rights to become POTUS, virtual business transactions, Internet intellectual property, Internet freedom and privacy versus national security, medical research and human ethics, national health versus foreign aids and pandemic viruses...are among top priorities on the judicial agenda.  

The Third Industrial Revolution

Today, Internet communication technology is converging with renewable energies, giving rise to a Third Industrial Revolution. The creation of a renewable energy regime, loaded by buildings, partially stored in the form of hydrogen, distributed via an energy internet—a smart intergrid—and connected to plug in zero emission transport, opens the door to a Third Industrial Revolution. The entire system is interactive, integrated and seamless. This interconnectedness is creating whole new opportunities for cross-industry relationships. The Third Industrial Revolution brings with it a new era of “distributed capitalism” in which millions of existing and new businesses and homeowners become energy players. In the process, it will create millions of green jobs, jump start a new technology revolution, and dramatically increase productivity, as well as mitigate climate change.

Five pillars

The five pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution, as described by Mr. Rifkin in his book The Third Industrial Revolution are:

1. Shifting to Renewable Energy: Renewable forms of energy— solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, ocean waves, and biomass— make up the first of the five pillars of the Third Industrial Revolution. While these energies still account for a small percentage of the global energy mix, they are growing rapidly as governments mandate targets and benchmarks for their widespread introduction into the market.
2. Buildings as Power Plants: New technological breakthroughs make it possible, for the first time, to design and construct buildings that create all of their own energy from locally available renewable energy sources, allowing us to re-conceptualize the future of buildings as “power plants”. The commercial and economic implications are vast and far reaching for the real estate industry and, for that matter, every region in the world. In 25 years from now, millions of existing and new buildings – homes, offices, shopping malls, industrial and technology parks – will serve as both “power plants” and habitats. These buildings will collect and generate energy locally from the sun, wind, garbage, agricultural and forestry waste, ocean waves and tides, hydro and geothermal– enough energy to provide for their own power needs as well as surplus energy that can be shared.
3. Deploying Hydrogen and other storage technologies in every building and throughout the infrastructure to store intermittent energies. To maximize renewable energy and to minimize cost it will be necessary to develop storage methods that facilitate the conversion of intermittent supplies of these energy sources into reliable assets. Batteries, differentiated water pumping, and other media, can provide limited storage capacity. There is, however, one storage medium that is widely available and can be relatively efficient. Hydrogen is the universal medium that “stores” all forms of renewable energy to assure that a stable and reliable supply is available for power generation and, equally important, for transport.
4. Using Internet technology to transform the power grid of every continent into an energy sharing Internet that acts just like the Internet. The reconfiguration of the world's power grid, along the lines of the internet, allowing businesses and homeowners to produce their own energy and share it with each other, is just now being tested by power companies in Europe. The new smart grids or intergrids will revolutionize the way electricity is produced and delivered. Millions of existing and new buildings—homes, offices, factories—will be converted or built to serve as green power plants that can capture local renewable energy—solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydro, and ocean waves—to create electricity to power the buildings, while sharing the surplus power with others across a smart energy Internet, just like we now produce our own information and share it with each other across the Internet.
5. Transitioning the transport fleet to electric, plug in and fuel cell vehicles that can buy and sell electricity on a smart continental energy Internet. The electricity we produce in our buildings from renewable energy will also be used to power electric plug-in cars or to create hydrogen to power fuel cell vehicles. The electric plug in vehicles, in turn, will also serve as portable power plants that can sell electricity back to the main grid.

These five pillars make up an indivisible technological platform—an emergent system whose properties and functions are qualitatively different from the sum of its parts. In other words, the synergies between the pillars create a new economic paradigm that can transform the world.

Big Data and the Third Industrial Revolution

As Rifkin describes on the Third Industrial Revolution website, "The intelligent TIR infrastructure—the Internet of Things—will connect everyone and everything in a seamless network. People, machines, natural resources, production lines, logistics networks, consumption habits, recycling flows, and virtually every other aspect of economic and social life will be connected via sensors and software to the TIR platform, continually feeding Big Data to every node—businesses, homes, vehicles, etc.—moment to moment in real time. The Big Data, in turn, will be analyzed with advanced analytics, transformed into predictive algorithms, and programmed into automated systems, to improve thermodynamic efficiencies, dramatically increase productivity, and reduce the marginal cost of producing and delivering a full range of goods and services to near zero across the entire economy.
Some of the leading IT companies in the world are already busy at work on the build-out of the Internet of Things infrastructure for a Third Industrial Revolution. GE’s “Industrial Internet,” Cisco’s “Internet of Things,” IBM’s “Smarter Planet," and Siemen’s “Sustainable Cities” are among the many initiatives currently underway to bring online an intelligent infrastructure that can connect neighborhoods, cities, regions, continents, and the global economy, in what industry observers call a global “neural network.” The network is designed to be open, distributive, and collaborative, allowing anyone, anywhere, and at any time, the opportunity to access it and use the Big Data to create new apps for managing their daily lives.
The increased energy efficiency and accompanying productivity gains that come with the shift into a Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure, prepares the way for a sustainable circular economy. Using less of the earth’s resources more efficiently and productively and making the transition from carbon based fuels to renewable energies, is a defining feature of the Collaborative Age."

3D Printing in the Third Industrial Revolution

As Rifkin describes on the Third Industrial Revolution website, "While the Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) economy allows millions of people to produce their own virtual information and energy, a new digital manufacturing revolution now opens up the possibility of following suit in the production of durable goods. In the new era, everyone can potentially be their own manufacturer as well as their own internet site and power company. The process is called 3D printing.
3-D Printers run off a three-dimensional product using computer aided design. Software directs the 3-D printer to build successive layers of the product using powder, molten plastic, or metals to create the material scaffolding. The 3-D printer can produce multiple copies just like a photocopy machine. All sorts of goods, from jewelry to mobile phones, auto and aircraft parts, medical implants, and batteries are being “printed out” in what is being termed “additive manufacturing,” distinguishing it from the “subtractive manufacturing,” which involves cutting down and pairing off materials and then attaching them together. 3-D entrepreneurs are particularly bullish about additive manufacturing, because the process requires as little as 10 percent of the raw material expended in traditional manufacturing and uses less energy than conventional factory production, thus greatly reducing the cost.
The energy saved at every step of the digital manufacturing process, from reduction in materials used, to less energy expended in making the product, when applied across the global economy, adds up to a qualitative increase in energy efficiency beyond anything imaginable in the First and Second Industrial Revolutions.
The democratization of manufacturing is being accompanied by the tumbling costs of marketing. Because of the centralized nature of the communication technologies of the first and second industrial revolutions—newspapers, magazines, radio, and television—marketing costs were high and favored giant firms who could afford to devote substantial funds to market their products and services. The internet has transformed marketing from a significant expense to a negligible cost, allowing start ups and small and medium size enterprises to market their goods and services on internet sites that stretch over virtual space, enabling them to compete and even out compete many of the giant business enterprises of the 21st century.
As the new 3-D technology becomes more widespread, on site, just in time customized manufacturing of products will also reduce logistics costs with the possibility of huge energy savings. The cost of transporting products will plummet in the coming decades because an increasing array of goods will be produced locally in thousands of micro-manufacturing plants and transported regionally by trucks powered by green electricity and hydrogen generated on site.
The lateral scaling of the Third Industrial Revolution allows small and medium size enterprises to flourish. Still, global companies will not disappear. Rather, they will increasingly metamorphose from primary producers and distributors to aggregators. In the new economic era, their role will be to coordinate and manage the multiple networks that move commerce and trade across the value chain."

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Industrial_Revolution:_How_Lateral_Power_is_Transforming_Energy,_the_Economy,_and_the_World

Most Venerable Thích Trí Tịnh -- A Biography- Part V

In 1947 Venerable Thích Trí Tịnh translated the Lotus Sutra at Liên Hải Buddhist Studies School.  After that he translated the Three Jewels Sutra, the Kṣitigarbha (Địa Tạng) Sutra, and the Samantabhadra/Fugen (Phổ Hiền) Chapter.  In 1951, at the request of the South Vietnam Sangha Association (Giáo Hội Tăng Già Nam Việt), he translated Precepts of the Boddhisattva for chanting on Boddhisattva Days.  In 1952 he wrote The Path to Sukhāvatī (Đường Về Cực Lạc) at Linh Sơn Pagoda, Vũng Tàu.  At Vạn Đức pagoda, he translated  Avataṃsaka Sutra  (Hoa Nghiêm) in 1964, then the MahaNirvana Sutra, and the MahaPrajna Sutra.  From 1972 to 1978 he translated more Chinese versions of the Great Jewels (Đại Bảo Tích) (01-160). 
 
In 1962 he was the Vice-President of the Buddhist Studies Institute in Central Vietnam.   In 1964 when the United Vietnam Buddhist Sangha was established, he was elected to be the Head of the Council of Monks Issues.  In 1973 he was the Vice-President of  Buddhist Dissemination (Hóa Đạo) Institute.  In 1978 together with three other Most Venerables, Trí Nghiêm in Nha Trang, Giác Tánh at Nguyên Thiều Pagoda, Bình Định, and Minh Tâm in Phan Rang, he was promoted by the Most Venerable Patriarch.  It was he who suggested the symbol of the Dharma Wheel with 12 spokes for the United Vietnam Buddhist Sangha Association (Tam chuyển Pháp Luân Tứ Đế).  In 1981 he became the Deputy President of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha Association, and in 1982 he was also the Head of the Administrative Council of the Ho Chi Minh City Sangha Association.   In 1984 he was elected the President of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha Association.  In 1987 he delegated his position as Head of the Administrative Council of the Ho Chi Minh City Sangha Association to Most Ven. Thiện Hào.  In 1992 he became the Deputy Patriarch of the Vietnam Buddhist Sangha and also its Chief Supervisor of Precepts Observation until his demise.

All his life Most Venerable Thích Trí Tịnh always served the Sangha, and practiced Buddhism with a focus on studying sutras, chanting sutras and Buddhas' names, teaching monks and nuns, and translating sutras from Chinese into Vietnamese.  Every fortnight he would preside at the Boddhisattva Precept Acceptance Ceremony held for laypeople to learn to live the monastic life at Vạn Đức Pagoda.  
He was a great shining example for all Vietnamese monks and nuns, and a genuine Buddhist follower in Vietnam.

Source: 

Hương Sen Vạn Đức

http://www.daophatngaynay.com/vn/phatgiao-vn/con-nguoi-vn/14880-tieu-su-dai-lao-ht-thich-tri-tinh.html

A Message About Vesak 2014 from the 14th Dalai Lama

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama MESSAGE I extend my greetings to participants of the 11th Anniversary Celebrations and International Buddhist Conference on the United Nations Day of Vesak 2014, being hosted by the National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha (NVBS). For Buddhists across the world, Vesak is a day when we not only honour and celebrate the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and Mahaparinirvana, but also remind ourselves of the importance of leading our lives in accordance with his noble teachings. Buddha Shakyamuni attained enlightenment and taught in India over two thousand years ago, yet his teachings remain refreshing and relevant even in today’s world. Today, for example, there is a growing global awareness of the importance of non-violence. Its application is not restricted merely to other human beings, but also has to do with ecology, the environment and our relations with all the other living beings with whom we share the planet. Non-violence thus can be applied in our day-to-day lives whatever our position or vocation. The purpose of life is to be happy. As a Buddhist I have found that our own mental attitude is the most influential factor in working towards that goal. In order to change conditions outside ourselves, whether they concern the environment or relations with others, we must first change within ourselves. Inner peace is the key. In that state of mind you can face difficulties with calm and reason, while retaining your inner happiness. The teachings of love, kindness and tolerance, the conduct of nonviolence, the Buddhist theory that all things are relative, as well as a variety of techniques for calming the mind are a source of that inner peace. I believe Buddhism has an important role to play in our modern world; its concept of interdependence accords closely with fundamental notions of modern science. We can think of Buddhism in terms of three main categories - philosophy, science and religion. The religious part involves principles and practices that are of concern to Buddhists alone, but the Buddhist philosophy of interdependence as well as the Buddhist science of mind and human emotions are of great benefit to everyone. As we know, modern science has developed a highly sophisticated understanding of the physical world, including the subtle workings of the body and the brain. Buddhist science on the other hand, has devoted itself to developing a detailed, first-person understanding of many aspects of the mind and emotions, areas still relatively new to modern science. Each therefore has crucial knowledge with which to complement the other. I believe that a synthesis of these two approaches has great potential to lead to discoveries that will enrich our physical, emotional and social well-being. Until the last fifty years or so, the world's diverse Buddhist communities had only a distant inkling of each other's existence and little appreciation of how much they held in common. As the Buddha's teaching took root in different places, certain variations in the style in which it was practised and upheld evolved naturally. However, I believe that time has now come to communicate freely with one another; after all, our various Buddhist traditions are but branches springing from a common trunk and roots. May I therefore appeal to this assembly of esteemed Buddhist elders and representatives to take this opportunity to improve and extend communications amongst ourselves, in order that the Buddhist community as a whole will be able to contribute more effectively to human happiness and peace of mind throughout the world. March 26, 2014 Source: http://www.undv2014vietnam.com

Most Venerable Thích Trí Tịnh -- A Biography- Part IV

In the South, the monk students temporarily dwelt at Vĩnh Tràng Pagoda, Mỹ Tho, the abbot of which was Venerable Trí Long.  After that Venerables Thiện Hoa, and Trí Quang also came to  Lưỡng Xuyên to supervise the new school. Meanwhile, the young monk Trí Tịnh went to Kim Huê Pagoda, Sa Đéc, for a retreat. On June 19,1945, he took a lifetime vow, and received the bhikkhu's precepts at a ceremony held at Long An Pagoda, Sa Đéc, which was presided by the Most Venerable Abbot of Kim Huê Pagoda. 
With the August Revolution uprising in 1945, the Lưỡng Xuyên Buddhist Studies School was dispersed.  Venerable Thiện Hoa returned to Phật Quang Pagoda,Trà ôn, Cần Thơ, where his brother Most Venerable Thiện Tâm was the abbot, and started to build a temporary new school.  Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh left Sa Đéc for Phật Quang, and with Venerable Thiện Hoa, he began to gather monk students to build up Phật Quang Buddhist Studies School, which was to open at the end of that year.  The majority of the monk students were newly recruited, because most of the previous monk students had to be dispersed here and there due to national insecurity.  At the end of 1946 the local ethnic groups' uprisings forced the Buddhist school administrators to evacuate some monk students to Vạn Phưóc Pagoda, Phú Lâm, Chợ Lớn. After that, with Venerable Huyền Dung, Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh
founded Liên Hải Buddhist Studies School, which attracted about 70 monk students scattered from all over the place.  Venerable Đạt Từ from Thiền Tôn Pagoda,Thủ Đức, came to help as a supervisor.  Bhikkhus Quảng Liên and Quảng Huệ also provided assistance.  It was here that Minh Cảnh, a novice, received the major vows and became a monk.  Bhikkhus Quảng Liên and Bửu Huệ also accepted major vows at the same pagoda.  In 1950 Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh had to resign from administration responsibilities due to poor health, and retreated to Linh Sơn Ancient Pagoda in Vũng Tàu.  Venerable Thiện Hoa who had returned from the North took charge of all the school administration.  In 1951 Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh was elected to be the Abbot of Linh Sơn.  In 1952 the South Vietnam Sangha Association (Giáo Hội Tăng Già Nam Việt) was established in Sài Gòn, and he was selected Head of its Education Department and its Vinaya Superintendent.  Soon after that when the national Buddhist Sangha was established, he was again elected Head of its Education Department, and a member in the Tripitaka Translation Council, as well as Vice-Chief Executive of the Sangha.  Because he had been given so many duties, he had to resign from abbotship at Linh Sơn Pagoda, and to delegate the duty to Venerable Tịnh Viên until the latter deceased in 1995.
With Bhikkhu Trí Tịnh's strong aspirations for Buddhist dissemination, founding Buddhist temples and monasteries, and training for future generations of monks and nuns, he was respectfully invited to be the abbot of an ancient pagoda located in an isolated and remote area at Bình Đức, Tâm Bình, Thủ Đức District (Tam Phú, Thủ Đức, Ho Chi Minh City nowadays).   He rebuilt the pagoda there and named it Vạn Đức.  Gradually, his reputation was spreading, and more and more monks and nuns came to live nearby and to learn the Dharma from him, forming a new Buddhist congregation called "Vạn Đức Congregation," which is well-known in the region.
In 1955 with a vow to teach sentient beings in a period of time when Buddhism was degrading and vulnerable, he established the Great Bliss Congregation of Buddhists, and taught them to chant names of Buddhas and to pray for entering the Pure Land after death.  Following his teachings, this Congregation has sparked a movement of Buddhist practice which emphasizes the Pure Land as the realm to enter at the end of one's life.  Thus he was the First Patriarch who renewed the Pure Land School in Vietnam.  He mastered all Buddhist sutras, and oriental medicine.  Thanks to his translations of Mahayana sutras, all Vietnamese monks, nuns and laypeople can understand these sutras.  His translations are lucid and valuable.  He focused on translating correctly, precisely, clearly, truthfully, and smoothly, so that the reader or the chanter may understand the core meanings and the implications in the sutras without any doubt about semantic ambiguity. 

(To be continued)
Source: 

Hương Sen Vạn Đức

http://www.daophatngaynay.com/vn/phatgiao-vn/con-nguoi-vn/14880-tieu-su-dai-lao-ht-thich-tri-tinh.html

Most Venerable Thích Trí Tịnh -- A Biography- Part III

When the young monk arrived in Huế, he did not know which pagoda to stay at.  With the help of some rickshaw men, he learned that at Tây Thiên Pagoda, there were some monks from the South.  It turned out the Abbot of the pagoda was Most Venerable Giác Nhiên, the Second Patriarch of the United Vietnam Buddhist Sanga.  It was there that he met two monks who years later would became Most Venerables Thiện Hòa, and Thiện Hoa.  Most Venerable Giác Tâm from Duyên Giác Pagoda , Bến Tre Province, had already graduated, and now was teaching the Lankavatara Sutra.  After the class was adjourned, Most Venerable Giác Tâm  asked him to read what had just been taught again.  He read and explained the text so clearly that Most Venerable Giác Tâm encouraged him to get formal training, which the former would happily help to prepare the paperwork for the latter's admission.  Because the young monk had no sponsor, the school granted him some fellowship, so he could get support while studying.  When he was admitted into the class, it was almost at the end of the curriculum for the Elementary Level.  There were only a few months left before the entrance examination to the Intermediate Level.  He could learn most subjects without much difficulty, except for the Vijnaptimatrasiddhi-sastra (Duy Thức), which he had no idea about.  He had to borrow notebooks from classmates, and learned by himself.  Gradually he could understand it.  When there was a test about Vijnaptimatrasiddhi-sastra, he got the highest grade in his class.  No wonder the Most Venerable who was in charge of academic affairs was interested in him, while his friends felt awed.  At the oral exam, Dr. Lê Đình Thám asked the young monk and candidate to open the book randomly in order to explain the content of the page he got.  He could not explain the page well, since he had not learned about it.  The doctor said, "Although this student came later than his classmates, he will be useful."
In the end, the young monk was ranked 7th in his class. 

Early in 1941 the young monk received the ten precepts in Huế under the Most Venerable Abbot of  Quốc Ân Pagoda.  After that he continued to learn and completed the Intermediate Level and graduated near the end of 1942.  In 1945 he graduated the Advanced Level.  That same year the Annam Buddhist Studies School (An Nam Phật Học) moved to Kim Sơn Monastery (Tòng Lâm Kim Sơn).  He was assigned Head Supervisor of the School.  Because of the famine both in Huế and in the North, the School Board decided to move 40 of its students of the Elementary and Intermediate Levels to the South, under his supervision.  Most Venerables Thiện Hoa and Trí Quang were to found a new school, the goal of which was to build the Lưỡng Xuyên Buddhist Studies School (Lưỡng Xuyên Phật Học). 

(To be continued)

Source:
 Hương Sen Vạn Đức

http://www.daophatngaynay.com/vn/phatgiao-vn/con-nguoi-vn/14880-tieu-su-dai-lao-ht-thich-tri-tinh.html