When I was in high school in the ‘80s I learned in our socio-economic class that a UN study said the world had at that time enough food-growing capacity to feed 1&1/2 times the global population and that by the year 2000 the population would be between 6 & 7 billion. Since that time the population has risen by almost 50% (from around 4.5 billion to around 6.7 billion – check out the worls pop here and here). So we are now at the point where the planet could produce enough food to feed it’s entire population. It is clear that over the last two decades we have not achieved, as if it were ever our aim, planetwide freedom from hunger; it remains an unrealized potential – but not for long.

Our population continues to grow at a geometric rate and, if it has not already done so, will soon outstrip the planet’s capacity to feed it.
The capacity has been there up until now. Now we are at, or near, the turning point. This should not alarm anyone – we’ve never shown ourselves interested in fulfilling the potential offered by the planet’s food growing capacity. All that’s changing is our ‘option’ to fulfill the potential.

When I say ‘we have never shown’ an interest, I mean as a species, a collective. Individuals have, but they have not been the ones elected to governmental rule. From our wealth we have developed technologies to serve our needs and those needs are not, it would seem, to be of service to others; our wealth has been achieved by the exploitation of others, especially of the weaker societies and those most needing our help. Our preferred goals for our technologies seem to be the gathering of more wealth, comfort, entertainment and….

I do not say this to give you, or myself, a guilt trip. It is merely to highlight our capacity to ignore or put into the background of our consciousness the deepest needs of others, especially if they are outside our immediate environment. Our governments do not campaign to their electorates on promises of tackling world hunger (why?); for the same reason, few would have the gall to honor their committed portion of GNP as aid to global poverty, currently around 1%, let alone to raise it to 10%. It is left up to individuals to decide what, if anything, they’ll do to address the big issues of the planet, how much of a ‘sacrifice’ is acceptable to us.

I believe that we will only have inner peace when we allow these issues into our consciousness and address them in someway, according to our capacity; when we lighten up a bit and do not take ourselves and our whims so seriously, and allow ourselves to be more human; when we are able to include the weakest among us in our thoughtfulness and concerns. From a disposition, and a position, of helpfulness, our internal and external peace, and happiness, will grow.

“Few seem to realize how many of the evils from which we suffer are wholly unnecessary, and that they could be abolished by a united effort within a few years. If a majority in every civilized country so desired, we could, within twenty years, abolish all abject poverty, quite half the illness in the world, the whole economic slavery which binds down nine tenths of our population; we could fill the world with beauty and joy, and secure the reign of universal peace. It is only because imagination is sluggish, and what always has been is regarded as what always must be. With good-will, generosity, intelligence, these things could be brought about.”

From Nobel Prize Winner Bertrand Russell’s Political Ideals.

Suggested reading, Bertrand Russell’s essays In Praise of Idleness and Political Ideals.

Help – for your consideration – The Smile Train.

Having gotten the Golden Gate bus from San Francisco to Tam Junction I stood on Shoreline Hwy in the warm midday sun hitching a ride to Green Gulch Farm (http://www.sfzc.org/ggf) where I was living at the time. The two women who stopped, Jessie & Coco, told me they’d been to a party on Muir Beach near Green Gulch a week or so ago, and one of them, Coco, had fallen asleep on the beach, to awake at dawn to the sound of crashing waves…she said ‘it was just like listening to a tape, only real’. I smiled at the juxtaposition….up to now I had thought of tapes as mimicking ‘reality’, but here the tape was more ‘real’ and the morning beach reminding Coco of the tape. They turned off the highway and drove down into Green Gulch to get a better look of the temple they had up to now only seen in passing from above.

Which ‘reality’ do we live in most, which do we prefer? My feeling is that we can experience peace in either or both, but for me there is a much deeper sense of completeness and at-one-ness (atonement?) in the ‘organic’ type, perhaps because we belong more fully to it. Maybe this difference will be attenuated over time, maybe even reversed.

It is wonderful to hear wisdom where you don’t expect it. One example is the Broadway musical Avenue Q. For those who have not seen the show, Avenue Q uses actors with puppets to tell the story of a group of people living in a, well let’s just say, inexpensive part of New York.

The show deals with regular life subjects such as homelessness, despare, heartbreak, desire, and disappointment. If you don’t want me to spoil the end, stop reading now.

But, at the end of this wonderful production is a number simply named “For Now”. For now is a very simple song about how everything changes, and however you feel, or whatever situation you are in good or bad is temporary, so there is no reason to hold on to it to tightly.

It occurred to me recently that a lot of the fighting in the world could be attached to a resistance to change. People worried about the ‘evil’ people taking resources away from ‘us’. Maybe if we can spread the ‘for now’ wisdom, there would be less pain and suffering in the world.

“For Now” with a cartoon video

Before you think from my description the show is a downer. Here is a wonderful performance at the Tony Awards of “It sucks to be me”.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

– His Holiness the 14th the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso

Originally inspired by Peace Pilgrim, a woman who walked for peace for 28 years, director Tara Golden concieved of the idea of a film that would combine a narrative story line and a documentary journey. The idea was to mix the powerful story of a man who does a peace walk with the real life adventure of walking every step of way through Scotland and England. The plan was to meet interesting local charactors along the 1100 mile hike and to integrate them into the story, and it worked up until a point.

The hike started well in John O’Groats on June 5th but along the way we faced conflict, creative differences and a car accident. Two crew members decided not to go on further than Glasgow. With only two of us left we found that we were not able to make the film as planned and restructured the film as a documentary.

Additional clips from the film can be found on our channel and each adds to our story.. They are presented to you here in a collage form but will be interwined in the final film.

Note from Tara: You can see an improved version of this edit on my channel. You can get the book on peacepilrgim for free from peacepilgrim.org

George Bush: “Let’s put it this way. Money trumps peace sometimes.”

January 2^nd, 2000, was a sunny day in San Francisco and there was much activity going on at the Zen Center on Page Street. Sometime after breakfast myself and four others had our heads shaved, except for a square ½ inch on the back of the crown; this was reserved for shaving during the ordination ceremony later that day.

During the ordination ceremony the five of us received the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts in the Soto Zen lineage of Buddhism. This was a great day for us, with many of our family and friends coming long and short distances for the occasion; my two sisters had flown from Dublin, Ireland, to be at my ordination. You could say it was a grand affair, though as things go in the West, fairly low key.

Of the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts, three of them are known as the Three Pure Precepts, and they are usually rendered as i) vowing to avoid all evil, ii) vowing to do all good, and iii) vowing to purify the mind. The third one is also often rendered as ‘vowing to save all beings’.

For the last 3½ years or so I’ve been working in the Zen Center’s development office, helping maintain the database of donors, members and interested persons. The software package we use is Raiser’s Edge, I guess it’s supposed to give you an ‘edge’ in your fundraising. Well, whatever, each person or organization that is recorded in Raiser’s Edge is stored as a ‘constituent’, and whenever you close a constituent’s record you are asked “do you want to save changes?’’. Clicking ‘yes’ gets a ‘ping-ping’ and the message ‘’constituent has been saved’’ appears. This often brought a smile to my face; so here I am, I thought, saving all beings.

On the face of it, viewed as a task, or as a goal, the vow or intention to save all beings is, well, let’s say grandiose, if not plain old impractical. In fact, it’s so impractical that we know it isn’t meant literally; and, literally or not, save them from what? This is one of the many worthwhile things a Zen monk, or any sincere practicing Buddhist gets to ponder.

Generally, our intention is to save them from suffering, something which is much easier said than done, especially when you realize that their (our) fundamental approach to life is more likely going to perpetuate than ameliorate suffering. In some ways we’re in a no-win situation as it will all end in disintegration, or death; it’s all impermanent and our story is, in the end, one of loss. (Even if you make it into Heaven, in Buddhism the cautionary note is, that too is impermanent!).

So the Buddhist turns his and her attention to the problem and nature of suffering, seeking for themselves and for others release from suffering through understanding, or insight, and seeking to adopt an approach to life that ameliorates rather than perpetuates suffering. The ordination ceremony is a rite of passage representing this new direction in one’s life.

The cultivation of Wisdom and Compassion is the primary focus of all Buddhist practice. And so at the core of the vow to save all beings there is a deep commitment to understand the nature of suffering. Most Buddhists engage in meditation practices which help bring about inner-peace, and this inner-peace, or calm, helps in the cultivation of Wisdom & Compassion; in fact the cultivation of compassion and insight also helps bring about inner-peace.

I originally started this contribution to the ‘American Peace Project’ with the title ‘Against Peace’. What I had in mind is the idea of doing nothing, which somehow the expression ‘give peace a chance’ conveys to me. It suggests that all we have to do is not be violent, not go to war or lift a fist to anyone and peace will follow. Although I believe these to be very worthy precepts for an individual and a society to hold, more is needed to achieve peace.

It may be the word ‘chance’ that carries this passive impression for me…..if the phrase were ‘give peace a try’, that would not convey to me the same sense of passivity, though maybe there is still some sense of it in the ‘give’….like it’s optional, without commitment, decided on a whim; ‘make peace not war’, or simply ‘make peace’ would go further along the road in conveying the sense of effort and commitment that’s needed to achieve peace, particularly if faced with an opponent that is far from ‘giving peace a chance’.

Cultivating an inner peace has helped me tremendously in maintaining an external peace in my relationships – at work, in the neighborhood and at home. It is a measure of inner-peace which enables one to not be reactive in argument, which allows one to address the concerns and difficulties the other is facing, and allows you to express yours in a non-threatening way; it allows one to be committed to a process of non-threatening behavior, because you yourself feel less threatened; it gives one the inner-calm-space from which to respond in a reasonable & thoughtful manner; basically it enables one to remain calm in the face of adversity and in so doing to be able to respond reasonably rather than react defensively. This sounds good, and it is, many people have found it to be so.

(I am looking forward to Al Gore’s book ‘The Assault on Reason’, for the assault on reason is also an assault on the ability to be reasonable and responsible and I feel that there is much in our present culture (or lack of) that promotes reactivity at the expense of response-ability).

As you may guess, I would really like all people to develop inner-calm, inner-peace, for their own well-being and for the well-being of those around them. I’m not really interested in whether people become Buddhist or not, just that they learn peaceful ways.

One of the lessons I think I’ve learned over the last decade or so is that peace, that is peace between you and me, takes effort and commitment, it often requires negotiation. Happily, you don’t have to be a Buddhist, or even a meditator, to understand this – there are many examples of leaders committed to peace.

An example that comes to mind is the late President J.F. Kennedy, because a few weeks ago I watched the movie Thirteen Days, and recommend it as an example of statesmanship in the pursuit of peace.

Time and again we see Kennedy under pressure from his military command to take action which would lead to war – his commitment though, is to avoid war, while not ignoring the threat of missiles in Cuba.

It seems true that in the line he took he did expose Americans to a possible nuclear hit, by delaying military action against Cuba (and thus giving them time to arm nuclear missiles) in the pursuit of a peaceful resolution of the crisis, and he considered that risk worthwhile as his other options would have almost certainly lead to (nuclear) war with the USSR. So in order to negotiate peace, he accepted some risk, because the risk of not accepting that risk was greater.

More recently, President Clinton made a considerable effort to broker a peace agreement in Northern Ireland, and that eventually proved successful. I was on a trip back to Ireland in ’99 or ’98 when the peace talks seemed to be breaking down, and whenever one side of the conflict would loose their cool and leave the talks, it was the Americans who would bring them back and keep the talks moving, keep them on track; I don’t think it would have succeeded without the drive and commitment of the US administration of the time…..I believe Clinton had similar hopes for the Middle East; the last round of talks there fell through just before his term of office was up.

I spent a month in Ireland, Belfast, this year, playing a supporting role in the emerging Zen Center there, and I was very happy to hear other people sharing this view, saying that Clinton had been a big factor in bringing peace there.

I believe that there are some acts that dehumanise the receiver and the perpetrater..war and violence are, in my view, such acts. Often we choose not to do things because we ‘have our pride’, in the sense of self-worth; there are certain things we will not do, such as stealing or robbing, because we believe ourselves to be above it, we would feel small if we did it, we would let ourselves down.

Violence and war should be viewed in the same way, but with much greater emphasis, something to be avoided if at all possible; we know that if we go to war, or resort to violence, we have failed ourselves, let ourselves down in our own eyes, and in a sense, let the ‘opponent’ win by getting us to trash our deeply held values.

We need to set limits, establish values, as to what we will and will not do; limits to the behaviour that we are willing to accept as coming from ourself(ves)…..much of this has been done and codified in domestic and international law; often these limits will be challenged by this or that situation, or rather, our ability to keep our own values, individually and collectively, will be challenged, and the question then is, can we hold fast…..

So peace takes effort and commitment, it is not a passive thing, and pursuit of it can be helped by recalling how horrifying war is, War is Hell, and how much suffering war brings….I am not saying that we should never fight, or never be prepared to fight, but it should really be a last resort; we should, in my opinion, be tenacious in not going to war, in finding other ways to secure external peace. We should be proactive about peace, passionate about it (look at Kennedy in Thirteen Days)….and, wouldn’t it be nice if we were aglow with inner-peace while we are consumed by our goal of external peace through peaceful means? In the words of Sangharakshita, founder of the Western Buddhist Order, ‘Peace is a Fire’.

Anyone else guess that the ‘surge’ was permenant from the beginning?

Bill O’Reilly “They want to break down the white christian male power structure..”

Religion seems to be a poison in a society. Wait, before you stop reading, I’m not talking about spirituality or personal beliefs. Personal beliefs are fine. Without personal beliefs we could not get around in the world. And, I’m not talking about faith either. Faith is just a belief put into action.

For example, I walk around in my third floor apartment with complete faith that the floor is going to hold me. I believe that I am not going to fall right through. Could I fall through the floor, of course, floors get weak. But if I did not have a belief that the floor would hold me then I could never go home. So, faith and belief are not truth.

Beliefs are normally formed by our personal experience. Since everyones experiences vary, it it obvious that their beliefs will also vary. Personal beliefs are not right or wrong, they are just conclusions that we have formed from our own personal experiences.

When someone holds a belief so tight that they think that people who do not hold the same belief are wrong, then that belief ceases to be a personal belief and becomes religion. Religion does not have to be about mystical realms and gods. One belief that I used to elevate to religion was music. I believed that rock and roll was the only real music and everything else was crap, and everyone was going to hear about it. It was a stupid thing to get so upset about. It hurt me and it hurt my relationship with other people.

Because of my deeply held belief that everything else is wrong except for what I thought was right, I did not expose myself to anything else, which only enforced my belief. By doing this I missed a lot of great opportunities to experience new and wonderful things.

Personal religion is bad enough, it normally only harms the individual and people who come in contact with that one person. However, when religion becomes organized it’s potential to do harm reaches to entire societies, and now with new technologies the entire world.

Most organized religions teach people that they are right and everyone else is wrong. They are going to be rewarded and everyone else is going to be punished. They are better than everyone else, and they are ordained by God to tell everyone else what to believe.

People who belong to organized religions are taught that the heads of these religions are speaking for God, and since they believe that God is always right, then they believe that what they are told is absolute truth.

These beliefs can become dangerous when combined with what social scientists call “herd mentality” or what is commonly referred to in the media as “Mob Mentality”. When people who have a common belief get together they validate those beliefs for each other. If they put those beliefs into action, they validate the rightness of that action as well. This is why people in a group will do things that individuals would never do on their own.
It is herd mentality combined with religion that brought us the Crusades, NAZI Germany, the KKK, and the attack of September 11th. These groups all use religion to justify their actions. These are extreme examples but the same type of dangerous mentality is at play in the American government and society. People all over the country are seriously injured or killed in the name of the Christian God on a daily basis. When religious organizations try to force their beliefs on others against their will, it is a form of tyranny.

But, what are the beliefs of a religion? If a religion has a moral code based on absolute truth, then why are there so many religions? Why are those religions so fractured? Why is there disagreements within those fractured groups?

When people say that we should all live by the moral code of one religion or another, what code are they talking about? There is no single code or belief of a religious organization. Religious organizations are made up of a group of people centered around one idea. But, the particular details tend to differ.

What tends to happen is that someone will take their own personal beliefs and call them the beliefs of the religion. When someone else rejects this belief, then others who identify themselves with this religion will see it as a personal attack.

This is very apparent when, as is usually the case, ignorance is mixed with religion. This is demonstrated most easily by the fact that states keep making laws restricting the rights of gay people in the name of religion. The selling point being that gay people are bad for society and are a bunch of child molesters and dope addicts, which has been proven false. In poll after poll, people state that they want everyone to have equal rights. But, someone can get on television and tell you that everyone else in the religion that you identify with want these laws. And, you believe them, because you don’t know otherwise. In these cases they have also mixed fear and religion, an extremely dangerous combination.

Using this combination of religion, ignorance and fear, people with an agenda can hijack religion and lead a large group of people in a direction that they would not normally go on their own. This is known as a “cult of personality”. Jonestown, Waco and the war in Iraq are extreme examples. Religious people are easily manipulated. All you have to do is tell them that your actions are condoned by the religion they belong to, and they are ready to back you 100 percent.

Another development in American society is the combination of corporatism and religion. Corporations using religion to generate profit. Because religious people are easy to manipulate, they are now the number one group to target for scams. Because of the belief that the church is always right and infallible. Scams by groups claiming to be Christian organizations net billions each year and growing.

So, believe anything you want. But,be very careful when someone tells you that they have a direct line to God, or that they know the truth. Because, someone saying they know the truth is a sure sign that they don’t.

It is strange to me that a simple thing like a smile can appear so strange to people. When I smile on the subway on my way to work in the morning, I get varied reactions. Some people wonder what is wrong with me. Some people move away from me. While others smile back. But, I know that someone is going to feel better because they saw someone smiling on the train. I know I am not the only one, but the more of us there are, the better.

Generate peace. Smile.