Einstein had the opinion there were 5 ascending levels of intelligence.

Ready?

1. Smart

2. Intelligent

3. Brilliant

4. Genius

5. Simple

Yes, #5 was simple. In other words, WISDOM.

Wisdom thinking means simple thinking, globular thinking of causes and effects. It entails understanding that all events have a cause and effect relationship - blowback - and that events run their course via principles well catalogued by Taoism.  For instance, principles such as  yin turns into yang and yang into yin at extremes. That subsidizing or incentivizing  or advertising behavior produces more of it. 

There are all sorts of wisdom principles I could discuss like this, but all I wanted to do is make you understand that the highest wisdom involves simplicity. The I-Ching, for instance, is said to encode the highest knowledge of Chinese culture in its simple structure. As my teacher always pointed  out, the more advanced a civilization, the simpler its description of knowledge and wisdom.

And speaking of the I-Ching, I’m almost done with the new Karma Calculator fortune program, and wanted to see what it said about Al Gore since he won a Nobel Prize. Gore’s been pretty much ignored for the last several years, and I wanted to see if the Karma Calculator had any hints of worldwide recognition that comes with the Nobel Prize. I was just curious…it doesn’t tell everything but at times it reveals LOTS.

Well one section of the reading does indicate that Gore would receive some type of fantastic reward or recognition – an "imperial decree from heaven" delivered by a phoenix no less (the highest type of  fame and recognition).  So a 1000 year  old book used the words and imagery known in its time to correctly indicate  the highest type of recognition in the land for Gore for 2007. It also suggests he’s working hard on his image this year, or something else to get rid of blemishes.

Here’s a small excerpt from the full Al Gore  Karma Calculator fortune for the year, which runs about 3-4 pages, and you can see the I-Ching’s symbology for great recognition that came through the Nobel Prize.

As the Chinese maintain and as has been proved once again, the I-Ching does embody the height of simplicity and wisdom. You’ll have to wait till later to see the rest of these fortunes…

—–

Ha ha ha … it’s several hours later and someone just told me that the symbology of the burning fish represents global warming. So Gore is acting very holy or sanctimonious (like a monk) pointing out to future generations (the child) that the oceans are warming (the burning fish) but it’s not too late yet.

I’m just laughing and laughing and laughing because when I first posted this hours ago I didn’t realize what that sentence referred to, and now I know. That’s the metaphoric language of the I-Ching for you. Its simplicity has encoded the highest wisdom for explaining Gore’s fortune … and this is from nearly a thousand years ago. Of course this is just a tiny section of the Karma Calculator reading for this year of his life, whereas other sections reveal  lots of details in more direct language, but I didn’t want to publicly reveal them. As long as you have a fairly accurate birth time (to within two hours), you can have a Karma Calculator reading calculated.

 

The University of Chicago has produced another Nobel Prize winner. Congratulations. I will introduce, in a bit, a topic which I believe will be recognized as a Nobel years later — the fact that free trade isn’t always a good thing, especially when the job losses that result reach a certain level that outweighs the benefits of lower consumer prices.

In other words, it doesn’t matter if things are cheap if you have no money to buy them because you don’t have a job!

Correct?

Such is the current trajectory of the US free trade policy, based on the inherent idea that a nation can survive as a service economy (the history of trade route cities proves otherwise) rather tan a manufacturing economy and that importing low cost workers will help you stave off decline as this happens. Actually, it only exacerbates countless problems because of unfactored costs.

But enough of that…let’s talk about getting rich, really rich. How rich? Warren Buffet or Bill Gates rich…

Why is Warren Buffet rich? Well it’s his karma - you can say the causes are from this life, and try to emulate them, but I doubt you’ll get the same results. Why? A past karmic foundation must be there for the results to be so LARGE, no?

But there are two reasons among many conventional  ones, if we prod into that area, which I want to discuss.

One little known reason behind Buffet’s success: Rich people tend to have longer time frames than ordinary people. They think in terms of the long term, and delay current consumption for future consumption. Their decisions are made with a long view in mind. They act for the long term. They invest for the long term. They make decisions with the long term in mind.

If only our leaders would think that way, rather than "How do I vote to win votes?"

By thinking in terms of the long term, rather than in 4 month long quarters (as most corporations do), Buffet isn’t worried about what the stock market will do tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. When he buys, his heart is at rest because he’s made an investment in a company, not a trading opportunity. He’s thinking of the long term and uses a long term horizon for his investment decisions. He makes the RIGHT decision because he’s thinking long term.

Hmmmm …. statesmen should think that way as well.

There’s a second thing here — he thinks in terms of buying a whole company….being the sole owner. That changes your perspective as well as to what to buy and what to do;  it changes your perspective as to what you should do in terms of strategies and decisions, because once again the next few reporting quarters don’t matter. You’re the owner — the long term matters. Survival matters, not raping the firm or destroying it for short term gains.

When you make decisions as if you are the sole owner, you tend to protect your property a lot better than if you were just a temporary steward, who wants to therefore squeeze every dollar out of it he possibly can. I’ve seen it for myself in visiting Communist China that when you make decisions as if you are the sole owner of private property, everything runs better, too. When no one is the owner, boy oh boy is it a mess. (That’s just reason #8247 why Communism is the stupidist thing around). When you give KFC managers a stake in their little chicken outfit,  productivity and profits improve almost overnight in the very same location that was managed by the very same person.

As I always said, think with WISDOM and you’ll get it. Play with PhDs all day long with their theories and you won’t. The US education system has now, for the past 30 years as an example, played with all sorts of new theoretical ways to teach and the results are now worse off than ever… the same can be said for our medical system that was once the shining light of the world. So much for PhDs vs. common sense wisdom and management.

This is all important for our topic… which is how should the leader  of a country think?

The leader of a country, elected or not, should think as if he is the sole owner of the country and make decisions with the long term in mind, rather than what’s popular or unpopular to win him/her votes for the next election. He is a steward of long term decisions and consequences.

The short term type of thinking — to get votes for the next election — will sooner or later put the country in chaos and lead to many catastrophes, disasters and emergencies, or slow deteriorations rather than just 20 year crises, where everything could have been prevented. In order not to lose a vote, decisions that need to be made are never made. No one says anything important. No one wants to act until it’s too late.

That is the job description of the politician. Not the statesman.

A perfect example is the benefit of having one official  language for a country.

HISTORY shows, yes history shows that countries fracture across language lines. Time and again, across nations and across time, countries fracture across language lines. Go check it. Go prove it. Try to say "this time it’s different."

Countries that unify the language, on the other hand, cultivate an underlying framework for unity; those that don’t unify the language make it just that much harder to stay together over time. Witness China and India; India still has several dozen languages that are an impediment to national unity compared to the unity seen in China, which decided to institute one language and writing system ages ago.  No one says you should not permit multiple language usage in a country. History just shows you should make one official language for all government purposes. That forces a minimum level of conformity and a common standard. It’s a unifying force for the nation.

What about " free trade "… 

The economics behind free trade developed  during agricultural economies, not during industrial times of manufactured goods with high technology and huge firms that benefit from economies of scale.  It was developed  by countries that would benefit from the concept without being hurt by it.  They were  "special cases."

With globalization and free trade REALLY going international, countries are finding out that they really aren’t benefitting as they assumed they would according to the free trade dogma.  What it really means is that someone can come into your country and conquer you economically, which I’ve shown how to do in my book on Kuan Tzu.

Some academics have finally put a finger on it - Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests, by Ralph Gomory and William Baumol. They have been called the "Martin Luther" of the Free Trade Church of globalization because their economic arguments favor a reformation of the process which is now destroying countries, especially the US. Within 50 years the idea will be discredited because of "special cases", but by then it will be too late.

For example, there are indeed differences to the strength of your economy depending on what you export. If two nations export the same amount of goods, but one wholly in the form of pretzels and the other computer chips, one has more strategic strength than the other even though the dollar volume of exports is the same. 

Common sense, but classical models don’t allow for this …  nor do they allow for the fact that at some point the benefit of cheap goods is less important than an extreme of unemployment … and thus we see the decline of our most beneficial industries in return for the growth of shaky service based ones. This puts an economy at risks during times of crisis and extremes … and guess what? Extremes and crises seem to happen every 40-60 years or so!

To me the countries of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and so forth are not the BIG security threats to the US. This is is the basis of it all - economic security. Job loss and related issues are THE NATIONAL THREAT, and this is what’s being ignored. See Freedom to Fascism for an eye-opening understanding.

Common sense is not so common.  Take a look around you right now with what’s going on in the world. Is what is championed on the news or in public as the mainstream conclusion the right conclusion or course of action?

I’m talking about all sorts of topics…what we take for the common sense, conventional wisdom thing to do because talking heads said it’s smart….

Gardasil, that Merck vaccine I warned you about several blog posts back, has already been linked to 5 deaths and over 2000  adverse reactions, bringing the "known total" of such problems to an astronomical amount.

This is happening to  little girls, mind you, with no risk of cancer at that age — and they’re still pushing it. Duh? Who’s getting compensated that they pushed this so strongly in spite of the logica against it and who’s not thinking straight? Which legislators should lose office?

Conventional wisdom - You want to risk vaccinating 11-12 year old girls (with practically zero risk of cervical cancer at that age)  with an untested vaccine with no long term studies of effects (such as causing cancer itself, or even the possibility of induced sterility) … and you want to do this when only 4000 people per year (out of 150 million women) die of cervical cancer and this is the initial response rate ? 

â–ª 31 were life threatening. This is 1.4% of the girls reported.

â–ª 1385 required the girls be sent to the emergency room. That is 62.75% of the girls reported. What???????

â–ª 451 females at the time of this report had not recovered. That is 20.43% of the girls reported .

â–ª 51 females were disabled when these figures were filed. That is 2.31% of the girls reported .

â–ª 5 girls died. Their ages were 12, 15, 19 and two the age was unknown at the time of the report. This is a death rate of .23%.

Ok  let’s swich to other topics and show you more conventional wisdom thinking.

Mercury is unsafe in seafood we’re told, but all of a sudden it’s safe in vaccines and in dental amalgam fillings. How about cell phones are perfectly safe and don’t increase your chances of brain tumors? What about that old one — "there’s no evidence that smoking  causes cancer," something everyone knew to be false but championed for years.

I could just have easily pointed out a bunch of common sense opinions in the field of politics, foreign affairs, Iran/Iraq, the economy, medicine, science (global warming yes, but caused by CO2?) and so forth like the fact that "NAFTA will create jobs for the US" ( look at Ross Perot correct observation that you’d hear a giant sucking sound of job losses). 

You know what all these main stream, common sense ideas (that are wrong) have in common? Vested interests — big money behind them. So stop swallowing what people tout as conventional wisdom.

Think before you swallow this any longer.

And old story comes to mind …

King Wen [of Zhou] asked the grand duke [Lü Shang], “What about the lord who labors to elevate the wise but does not garner the effect, so that the disorder of the world increases to an extreme that becomes dangerous?” 

     The grand duke said, “He elevates the wise but does no use them.  This is because he elevates the names of the wise and does not get the reality of the wise. 

     King Wen said, “Where is the fault?” 

     The grand duke said, “The fault is in using what the worldly praise and not getting the really wise.” 

     King Wen said, “What is using what the worldly praise?” 

     The grand duke said, “To listen to the praise of the worldly is to take the unwise as the wise, to take the unintelligent as the intelligent, to take the disloyal as the loyal, to take the unfaithful as the faithful.  If the lord takes as wise and intelligent those praised by the worldly and takes as unworthy those reviled by the worldly, then the majority party will advance and the minority party will retreat.  Thus, when the wicked group together, they obscure the wise; the loyal ministers die without crime, and the wicked ministers seek court ranks with flattery.  Thus, the disorder of the world increases to an extreme, and as a result, the country cannot avoid peril.”  [From the early Chinese work of martial strategy, the Liu Tao (Six Strategies).]

SOURCE: http://www.stanford.edu/group/scbs/sztp3/translations/shobogenzo/translations/butsudo/translation.html

You can buy lots of wisdom books at http://www.asiapacbooks.com/category.asp?cid=43. I recommend:

THREE STRATEGIES OF HUANG SHI GONG

SIXTEEN STRATEGIES OF ZHUGE LIANG

THIRTY-SIX STRATAGEMS

SIX STRATEGIES FOR WAR

I have all the Asiapac books. If you have no time to read the original translations, just read these summaries. They are faster, and you’ll get the point about how to think and act with wisdom. People always ask me how to learn strategic thinking if you have no teacher and this is one of the ways … read the classic books on wisdom thinking and strategy.

 

The management consultant Peter Drucker is famous for saying, "Marketing and innovation are the two chief functions of business. You get paid for creating a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance, which is innovation. Everything else is a cost center."

In other words, for a company … and thus a national economy to grow … you have to create new products through innovation, and then sell them. For a country, you want to sell them overseas via exports. If you just sell them inside the country, you’re not attracting more money into the country but just redistributing money within the country, much as a casino does not create new wealth but just rearranges the ownership of it. But let’s leave aside the topic of exports for now.

How do you increase innovation at a firm? How do you teach people innovation?

One method I support is TRIZ -  Theory of Inventive Problem Solving. Part of my recommendations for  increasing innovation in a nation is making sure engineering students are intorduced to TRIZ.

What is it?

TRIZ was developed by the Russian engineer and researcher Genrich Altshuller and his colleagues starting in 1946. They believed that learning how to invent can be   reduced to a process that can be taught.

Think what that would do to the innovation pipeline of a country, and the effect on the economy! Think about it!

By examining a large database of patented inventions, Altshuller came to the conclusion that inventing is often the removal of a technical contradiction with the help of certain principles. He looked at hundeds of thousands of patents to come up with his principles for solving technical problems, or contradictions, and thereby formulating inventive engineering breakthroughs.

Whenever anyone looks at thousands, or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of anything to come up with basic principles, consistencies or conclusions, I pay attenton. To create a body of learning from this is to create a tremendous resource!

I’ve always felt that this was a key to rejuvenating the US engineering education, or at least making sure that US ingenuity keeps the country at the top of the economic heap since innovation is what’s holding the economy together right now while manufacturing declines. If innovation dies, the economy will soon die, too. So I was very disappointed recently to find out that the Carnegie Foundation rejected a grant to the TRIZ foundation to test the improvement of creativity and innovation in students after they have been exposed to some basic TRIZ knowledge. Very disappointed. When you look at an economy and all its complicated pieces, it’s easy to get lost without being able to identify some of the key joints upon which it swings, and the micro changes that can produce gargantuan changes. TRIZ falls into that category exactly.

I’m disappointed to no end, for our nation’s sake. It reminds me of ham radio popularization in Jordan … Wayne Green, founder of Byte and 73 magazine, helped introduce  ham radio into the country and because of the support of the King and his ministers, years later the country was awash with savvy, technically educated engineers all because of the wise sponsorship of a hobby. Foreign labor no longer needed to be imported and national security was enhanced all because they identified a little joint  upon which they could swing big doors, and oiled that tiny joint at virtually no cost to the country. As a statesmenen, that’s what you look for — low cost, zero cost changes with gigantic positive results. You can go  look up the story of amateur radio in Jordan at www.waynegreen.com.

As to marketing innovation, there are so many sources out there it’s ridiculous, but one Brainstorming video I like people to review is the one put out by Doug Hall’s Eureka Ranch. The process he uses to come up with new products, refined over the years, is exactly what’s need by large corporations who get too large and thereby lose their innovative juices because of all the bureaucracy that gets built in.

TRIZ … and brainstorming. Two things to learn for increased innovation. Improtant for a nation’s economy.

I believe in TRIZ so much that if I was a presidential candidate, I’d make sure this was introduced to schools and engineering colleages. You have to work on causes, not effects, and this is EXACTLY the way to proceed!

Pop Quiz: What form of government is the United States?

If you answered a "democracy" - Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. 

Technically speaking, the USA was founded as a "Constitutional Republic." However, it uses democratic elections/means to ELECT OFFICIALS who must act according to constitutional law that limits governmental powers over the people. That’s a big difference. A democracy, on the other hand, is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner!!!

The USA is a Constitutional Republic wherein your rights, as an individual, are protected against being taken away by the government or anyone else. They are protected or enshrined in a Bill of Rights. Otherwise, people can vote away your rights just because they’re a majority. On the receiving end, that’s called "persecution," isn’t it?

Think about it. Yes, in a pure democracy, your rights can be voted away or taken away, and thus a majority can control or suppress a minority. If you’re that minority, by definition you are not free. Who said you’re "free" in a democracy if someone just took away your rights? 

Big distinction. That’s why people have to break the Pavlovian habit opf saying "Democracry, Democracy" and substitute for it "CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC."

The Founding Fathers of the US hated  democracy as the worst form of government you can have because in a democracy  the majority rules, and the 51% majority can be a tyrant over the other 49% stripping them of everything in the name of "democracy - majority rules." So don’t get this wrong in the future. Stop repeating "Demopcracy" and start saying "Constitutional Republic with a Bill of Rights." Remember what Benjamin Franklin said so that you always get it right: "A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner."

Get it? Democracy is not synomous with freedom. Protected individual rights are synonomous with freedom ….

In a  democracy (not a Constitutional Republic, mind you), if  the majority of 51% (or the government saying it’s "acting for the common good") decides to deprive you of some rights, then you’re out of luck. You can lose your freedom of speech, property, the right to protect and defend yourself and so forth. That’s what people are presently worried about, because it is happening. 

Democracies are tyrannies, so thought our Founding Fathers, but  Constitutional Republics protect you from tyrannies. However, to elect candidates to office, yes you use democratic elections….elections without voter fraud because of electronic counting machines that are rigged to choose pre-selected winners.

Why do most people get this wrong?  Watch the Aaron Russo video and learn a bit as to what’s going on. Really it’s worth your time. It’s really, really, really that good. Stay with it to the end because it takes a while to get into the meat.

So the US is a Constitutional Republic, but there are cycles of history (see Schlesinger’s Cycles of American History as one such synopsis) wherein there is an ebb and flow of affairs, and in particular, there are always moves to strip away the rights of people bit by bit without their knowing. England has turned into a virtual police state because of this, and the US is following suit. That’s why people hope they have a free and independent judicial system that follows the rule of law, and if it doesn’t, the people have the option of

(1) jury nullification and

(2) instituting laws for judicial accountability wherein judges and prosecutors can be brought up on charges for not following the law.

I think it’s time to look at both of these again. Look at that District Attorney  Mike Nifong , for instance, who kept pursing the innocent Duke lacrosse players (Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans ) on rape charges when some were not even at the scene of the incident, proven by video cameras of banking activities and so forth.

Frankly, most people don’t care about any of this. As my teacher used to say, most people just want to have a chance in life, want to be able to get along with their lives (jobs need to be available) with very little interference from the state and have access to justice when they need it. True, true. As I point out in my book on Kuan Tzu, today everyone shouts DEMOCRACY as supposedly the cure-all for the world. In earlier times this was Christianity, Industrialization, Capitalism and other things in turn … each of which ultimately proved lacking as the "savior of the world."

The problem is, there are always people behind the scene who crave power and control, or believe they know what’s best for social engineering (see Intellectuals, by Paul Johnson) and want to warp things this way or that. These are people who because of their wealth or position, believe that they now have the wisdom conferred on them to be able to make conclusions in these areas, or the rights to so order them. Just because they’re rich they now think they’re wise…or entitled to call the shots for others.

Galbraith even wrote about this saying the newly found rich, because of their newly found wealth, often start assuming that because of their financial success they possess a degree of wisdom and intelligence extending to all sorts of affairs of which they know nothing. Their cultivation and study, I dare say, is quite lacking. As my Teacher once said about the Chinese who wanted to change the Chinese writing system, only after you were already a master of many forms of Chinese  writing through the dynasties, and understood the ins and outs, only then you might be a little qualified to discuss matters.

A related issue I often see – some people mistakenly try to correct every little thing in the world when sometimes it’s better to leave well enough alone, despite the slippage of injustice here and there. As Taoism says,  water must circulate freely  and its flow should not unduly be obstructed. Where would you be if you had to fill out a Form 1040 for giving the neighbor’s kid $20 for mowing the lawn to help him out some  Saturday weekend? Pleasssssse - give me a break. The more legalistic you get, the more the black market will grow as a necessity because it MUST exist, it is always there just as there is always a certain minimum amount of unempoyment. History has shown this time and again.

Neveretheless, people without wisdom but with good intentions want laws to proliferate here and there to the extent, as was shown in the Legalism period of Chinese history and in certain Roman periods,  that everyone becomes guilty of something just by virtue of living – everyone becomes an unindicted felon. In ancient Assyria, I believe it was,  the eventual size of the government  bureaucracy necessary to collect taxes and institute the laws became so overhwelming that this burden  destroyed the Empire.

This proliferation of laws allows for three major things to happen:

1. Useless and burdensome government bureacracy, oversight and control grows and Grows and GROWS

2. Everyone loses respect for the law (since everyone must break the law to survive), which is the worst possible thing to happen because in effect it now means you have NO LAWS because no one’s following them (everyone is a criminal, so why bother anymore) — you’ve wrecked the whole system — the extreme of yang becomes yin and vica versa … see China as a modern example

3. It allows for the arbitrary exercise of government power via selective prosecution - the government can come and get you anytime they want (it reminds me of the story by Jimmy Rogers in Investment Biker where he needs the local currency of some country for some transaction, the government official directs him to the black market as the only means available, and then tries to arrest him for the transaction afterwards in order to shake him down for a bribe - LOL)

That’s why I don’t believe we should try to legislate everything "bad" out of existence. Some things are just best left alone - the appendage of the word "hate" onto crimes being just another such category subject to abuse. I really despise this one, and know the secret design behind the move. Just ask yourself — are not the laws good enough that if you are caught for buglarizing or killing someone you will be punished for it?   The appendage of "hate" is redundant…and people without wisdom thinking don’t see what it’s being set up to be eventually used for.

Frankly, I agree with Aaron Russo that if I don’t commit violence, theft or fraud against another human being, I should be able to live my life as I wish making all the mistakes I must in the quest for self-improvement. Otherwise, the road of cultviation will eventually be curtailed, too, as it makes you an independent being free of the system. I don’t need someone else telling me how to live my life, or how I must go about healing myself if I’m sick, or what I’m not allowed to eat (raw milk illegal? we’ve drunk it for thousands of years). I don’t want to be under Communism, and not under Socialism either.

What about you? 

I remember reading Ernst Gombecht’s The Story of Art, or one of his other works, and his talking to friends who worked in the Nazi bureaucracy. Gombrecht asked them if they believed in all the things done and they aid, "Well no, of course,  but you know we have families to support. You know how it is" That’s how and why people go along with the evil in the world. It seems so ordinary, but people almost always do go along with wrong things saying, "Well, we’re civil servants and we all have families to support." That’s why you need a Bill of Rights, a Constitutional Republic, free and independent juries,   the ability to issue citizen  arrests, jury nullification, whistleblowers need to be protected and so forth…

If you can find the quote then let me know…I surrounded by so many books here that I couldn’t find either of my copies of his books.

That’s how it happens. People don’t have the courage to stand up and say "No, this is wrong." They don’t realize that they will have to pay the karmic price either way - the karma of refusing, painful as it may be, is actually far less than doing what they know is wrong because they will reap that result themselves directly when the time comes due.

You may look at things with only the short term consequencs in mind, but you cannot escape karma. That’s why sages refuse to do what is wrong, even upon penalty of death. You can kill him (be forewarned that you  reap terrible karma for killing, persecuting, or jailing a sage, as Buddha warned), but you cannot force a sage to do anything.

Socrates refused to arrest a man named Leon of Salimis, though ordered by the Thirty Tyrants. Socrates went home while the others obeyed the order, and went home when given the orders even though he knew it might mean his death. He simply refused to do evil, but the ruling democracy was making all the leaders of Athens perform these illegal arrests so that everyone was thus guilty of some blame.  You have your own choices in life. Think about it. Socrates said, "I refused to do what I knew to be wrong, even thoug it might cost me my life."

Once again, think about it. Like wathcing the actor Henry Fonda in 12 Angry Men, that IS the true fiber of the American Republic.

Moral: Stop shouting "Democracy, Democracy" and start shouting, "Constitutional Republic. Protect our Rights!"

Here’s a recent article summarizing many of the current theories on ghosts.

http://www.realtown.com/articles/haunted-real-estate-a-primer-for-real-estate-agents

When I was young, my three brothers and I used to listen to comedian George Carlin, who is famous for his Seven Dirty Words routine that encompassed "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." You can look them up on Wikipedia if you’re that interested.

George has been making a resurgence in these last few years, though he’s still using those dirty words in his comedy routines (and more). I was recently made aware of some videos of his comedy sketches freely available on the web. George likes to make fun of contemporary American culture and many strange things people do.

Enjoy….but be careful about the Dirty Words if that offends you (seems Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock and lots of other comedians are using them, so Carlin is no stranger there).

Religion:

The Ten Commandments:

I’ve always liked Winston Churchill. You may have disagreed with him or disliked him or even opposed him, but you had to respect him. A cultured man, a cultivated man, a wise man, a useful, pragmatic man. In his own way, we can say that he was somewhat kin to Benjamin Franklin in that he was multiskilled, a statesman politician, extremely literate, a learner and a student of history….the best of the best.

I remember reading a book on favorite books, and in it the History of The Second World War (by Churchill) was cited by several Harvard professors as the most influential  book  on their careers. That’s something.

Some of Winston’s conclusions from studying history:

* Statesmen (not politicians) have 4 qualities:
  - a bedrock of principle 
  - a moral compass
  - a vision
  - an ability to build consensus to achieve the vision

* When you analyze the rise and fall of nations, it is ultimately because of the decision of individuals (not large anonymous social, economic forces)… yes, individuals [ex. specific acts by Bush, Rumsfeld, etc. rather than "forces"]

* The Middle East, often cited as the cradle of civilization, has been the graveyard of countless empires despite both good or bad intentions, and will probably continue to be so. The Romans and so many other peoples have learned that. [ex. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.]

* Technology and science cannot ultimately save you or free you from history’s lessons. They are not your ultimate salvation. [see the blog post on Nan Huai Chin's book for an apt quote]

* Freedom is not a universally, globally shared value and neither is democracy. However, greed and the desire for power ARE universal.

 

More wisdom food! 

Can bacteria cause cancer? Can viruses or microbes cause cancer?

Heresy!

Let’s crucify the guy who says this. (I wonder if this is a reverse "hate crime" in persecuting such opinions, even though there’s tons of research backing it up. LOL!).

Here’s a great snopysis of the literature on microbes and cancer, and the fact there is a connection but "pathologists, dermatologists, infectious disease specialists, oncologists, virologists, microbiologists, and basically all medical scientists … have ignored a century of cancer research pointing to cancer microbes."

The author Alan Cantwell  explains why. The explanation is very believable and UNDERSTANDABLE as even saying this makes you a threat to the medical establishment, with billions at stake and hundreds of very red, embarrassed faces. As the author wrote, "As I see it, the identification of simple-to-see cancer microbes would cause havoc in the scientific world and in the cancer treatment industry. It would be the biggest embarrassment to befall modern medicine."

http://bacteriality.com/2007/09/11/cantwell

Incidentally, the author Alan Cantwell  mentions that bacteria can cause scleroderma (a skin hardening disease that can kill), which Dr. Brown found out ages ago. That’s one reason I wrote a book on Scleroderma and told people witht he condition to seek a rheumatologist who can administer the Dr. Brown-Mercola antibiotic protocol which has saved thousands of lives - PROVEN! Every now and then I even get a letter from someone telling me how it saved their child’s life.

And you know what?

Though a prescription antibiotic protocol works in reversing scleroderma, and though this knowledge is no threat to the medical establishment because it still involves the use of establishment drugs and thousands of "incurables" have been saved, it’s still not accepted by the establishment.

Imagine that. Reminds me of the case where that Australian doctor proved the bacteria H.Pylori was causing many cases of stomach ulcers and the pharmaceutical medical establishment, with billions of dollars at stake since the cure cost less than $10, lined up not to see if he was correct but to try to defeat him. Hmmmmmmmm……money at stake, but in this case what’s at stake?

As I say with nearly everything — the internet is in front of you. Do your research. Be independent. Think! You’re so lucky to have the internet….I had to buy and READ hundreds and hundreds of books over the years to learn all these things, and now they are yours at zero expense and at your very fingertips on demand. Make use of it as you never know if it will be taken away.

 

When one studies Zen, they are first introduced to Abhidharma theory, which is like Catholic catechism of definitions for all the factors of the mind. Within this field of study, one is taught all the factors within the form, sensation, conception, volition and consciousness skandhas. Masters who later awaken typically first master Abhidharma  theory, and then practice various  meditation techniques to let go of these categories of mental events (illusions) which arise in the mind. Abhidharma theory helps you recognize the mental factors you observe in shamatha-vispassana practice, and thus observing, you can realize you must let go of them.

That’s how you make meditation progress…it’s called "wisdom insight." From introspection, you recognize the factors  of mind constraining you, and then let go of them once you realize you’ve been holding onto, or clinging to THEM.

One of the factors that always intrigued me in Abhidharma training are the "omnipresent mental factors of mind" present within the skandha of volition. It’s easy to get rid of the coarse thoughts of form and sensation skandha, more difficult to get rid of the refined thoughts of the conception skandha, and as for these — wow, it’s difficult to cultivate through the volitions skandha!

The omnipresent mental factors, as explained in Measuring Meditation, are ever present mental factors involved with all mental states. (Measuring Meditation by the way, has the most extensive explanation of these factors found in the English language and  that section alone took two plus  years of compilation using every English reference available at the time in addition to Master Nan’s lectures on Vasubandhu’s writings, which you can find through Numata Press. So if you want to learn more about the skandhas, pick it up.)   Since these are omnipresent events which accompany every state of mind, and since spiritual cultivation involves liberating ourselves from attachment to various mental states, in cultivation it helps to understand a little of the nature of these five omnipresent factors. It helps to know what you must stop clinging onto.

When we analyze the ten omnipresent mental factors that accompany all states of mind that belong to the skandha of volition, we find that they can be divided into two groups of five components each: the (1) basic omnipresent factors and (2) object-determining events (mental states which determine an object).

The five basic omnipresent events which are present no matter what activity the mind is involved with, include:

 (1) attention, mental engagement, or intentional action (concentration)
 (2) contact
 (3) feeling, or sensation
 (4) perception, cognition or discrimination
 (5) intention, or volition (also called penetration)

Various meditation methods actually try to tie up one or another of these factors to help you realize enlightenment, but that’s such a high level discussion that it’s not appropriate here.

The second set of five mental factors are called "independent" mental events, or "object-determining" mental states, because they occur in conjunction with objects of sense. They are determinative in regard to objects, meaning they are responsible for determining objects. These five mental factors include:

 (6) zest, interest or aspiration
 (7) determination, resolution or resolve
 (8) mindfulness, or recollection
 (9) concentration, one-pointedness, samadhi or stabilization
 (10) discernment, insight, wisdom or prajna

Okay, enough of this. Why bother to go into this, especially as it hurts the head? Indian culture loves this sort of hair splitting definition scheme, but  Chinese typically hate this sort of thing. Nevertheless, in the evolution of  religion,  theology, culture, etc. every school goes through this type of definition specification. The difference with Abhidharma theory is that it’s used  to help you awaken, whereas most schools simple want consistency or the intellectual development of dogma. Abhidharma theory is a tool to help you categorize mental states in meditation.

So why all the fuss? 

Because I want to discuss "determination" – one of the  factors within the Volitions skandha – determination. 

Determination is the act of staying with something. It is the activity of remaining firm with something you have selected for investigation because of your interest.

Now here’s the MAIN POINT, and the purpose of this blog post …

In many regimes, the government goes about punishing people for having "wrong thoughts." As my teacher says — an expert at controlling thoughts, emptying thoughts, analyzing thoughts —  this is ludicrous since absolutely everyone sports incorrect and nonvirtuous thoughts at times. It’s like Jimmy Carter honestly admitting he lusted in his heart, and the whole world gasped as if they never did. 

Big deal, everyone does that, so why persecute people just for having differing thoughts? Yet many governments or people punish, persecute, or even imprison you for having "wrong thoughts" or think people SHOULD punish or persecute or ridicule you. The living Hell is when they cannot defeat your facts or logic so they  try to assassinate your character for your thought independence from their norm, what THEY want you to think. My advice: be brave — we admire in history those who were brave int he face of this.

In other words, many people persecute independent thinking….and this problem is getting bigger and bigger today. In fact, it’s the hallmark of Communism, tyrannies and totalitarianism. And it’s encroaching into democratic societies.

Beware of this — and remember that it’s usually done by people  of little culture themselves event though they’re standing up pretending THEY’RE the ones with a higher standard. Nonsense.

If you are critical or disagree with some religious or political policy,  history   shows you are often accused of all sorts of crazy names - a standard smear tactic because it immediately changes the subject. Now instead of people talking about the topic, they totally ignore the substance of your claims and start talking about your personality and what you’re like as a person….as if that mattered to the truth of the topic at hand and somehow negates the importance of the points you raise. It’s like I always say about reincarnation: opinions don’t matter, belief doesn’t matter — it’s either a fact or it’s not a fact, a truth or a falsity. What you believe has nothing to do with it being a fact or not, and the facts tend to support it more than dismiss it.

Anyway, as Dan Kennedy says, if we always "killed the messenger" because we disagreed with the message (the "thoughts") we’d all be dead. There are  times you just have to stand up for what’s right and speak it, offense or no offense, to arrive at a policy good for all.

You can see it on TV now where  commentators now just call you names when they disagree with you because they cannot debate your facts. You’re attacked for an idea, a view, an opinion. They cannot challenge your facts, so they revert to name calling. low class — as I said, men or women of little culture. People who lack cultivation.

Well, calling people names because you disagree with them  is just nonsense. Consider this: most everyone holds a religious conviction different than the rest of the world’s population,  and the world still goes on, and you don’t DARE call those disagreeing with you names. You respect their views, period. They have amazingly different opinions (errant views by your account since their religion differs), and yet everything still functions, the world goes on without a hitch. 

Frankly, the press can "make a sinner a saint, or a saint a sinner," so you should ignore this type of smear campaign. You are wiser than that, or I hope, as a reader of this blog, that you are … otherwise I’m wasting my fingers typing this.

Judge people by what they do, not by what is said about them. And furthermore, don’t trust the press 100%. Do your own investigations and thinking for that’s what cultivation teaches you.

For instance, even as I write this, there’s a  Republican political candidate running for President — Ron Paul — who keeps winning most of the straw polls and it’s been kept out of the news, or it’s on purpose reported that only a few hundred or dozen people show up at his speeches when it’s in the thousands and he’s nearly  the top campaign funds champion out of all the Republican Party candidates. The establishment doesn’t want him to win since he’d change ALL THE RULES, so there’s an unspoken news embargo on the guy so that you can’t find out about him. Bet you didn’t even hear of him or know he was doing so well … thanks to the popular press people so trust. Point made. (Apologies — I had to use some current issue). Go to google video or YouTube to find out about him. Great stuff to consider even if he doesn’t win.

Getting back to our main story, it’s now become popular once again, as it was in the Middle Ages and in Communist and totalitarian countries, to punish people  or inflict harm or reputation damage or even imprison people  for having "wrong thoughts" (see Germany).

This is wrong, extremely wrong as everybody  "errs" along these lines. EVERYONE!  It’s Communistic to be doing this. Ex-President Jimmy Carter was honest when he said he lusted in his heart. No big deal. I don’t know a man who escaped this sort of guilt. The big deal would be if he did something about it over and over again, and even there it would depend on WHAT he did if anything at all. What’s his business is his business. The point is – if you have "wrong thoughts" or "errant opinions" or "disagreeing opinions"  or a "difference of opinion" vis-a- vis others over some subject, does that mean you should be punished, persecuted or what not? 

No! Never punish someone for wrong thoughts.

This is where I big time disagree with the politically correct, the hate crimes people , the people ready to call you a bigot or anti-Semite or anti-American or racist or immoral or whatever at a moment’s notice. It’s all nonsense. You are allowed to hold whatever thoughts you want, or to criticize any policy you want (because that’s how you improve things), or say whatever you want.

HATE CRIMES are a big attempt at control. If you steal, kill, rape, or whatever,  the laws are good enough as is to find you  guilty … you don’t need to add an extra topping  on the cake to make that determination, which is just going to lead to all sorts of manipulations and attempts to gag people from speaking their mind. If someone broke the law they broke the law and that’s good enough, so the idea of categorizing crimes as "hate crimes" is actually an attempt at imposing censorship.

Abhidharma theory teaches that what you really have to worry about, at least in terms of cultivation or when you are trying to teach your children, is the case of afflicted determination, which is wrong resolve. Not false thoughts or wrong thoughts, but wrong resolve.

You do not have to worry about random wrong thoughts, but wrong thoughts held with determination and resolve as a barrier to cultivation. Determination is basically the activity of holding onto a particular thing without allowing the mind to be stolen by something else. 

Even there, that’s not the problem society-wise, just cultivation-wise which is your own personal concern. The problem societywise is acting detrimentally on afflicted  determination to commit a crime. Not even thinking about something with afflicted determination is the crime (knowing what they do, you’d have nearly all the men in the world arrested for lust - LOL!), or just acting on it, but acting on afflicted  determination to commit a crime.

That’s why we just ignore crazy people in the world as long as they don’t do anything wrong. They’re always operating in the realm of wrong thoughts and wrong thoughts held with determination, but unless they commit a crime you just ignore them. The world’s a big place, you should not try to kill all the germs. Sometimes germs are useful - they do have a role to play.

Now think about this slowly … in today’s world, has society progressed that you are now in danger of being criticized, ostracized or persecuted and attacked for having "wrong thoughts?"   What type of "wrong thoughts" ? Who’s to say your thoughts are wrong and theirs are right? Is it because they’re int he position of power and you aren’t? Probably.  If discussion is the means by which we arrive at correct thinking, policies, views or ways, why is it so wrong or dangerous  to talk about difficult subjects and consider conflicting opinions? Our country was born that way, and now it’s considered a threat or vice? So who’s to say your thoughts are wrong?

Answer: Vested interests. Those  in power who want THEIR agendas to reign, not yours. Put someone else in power and then THEY’LL do the same thing.

And who (what groups) typically threatens you with persecution on this account, having the gall to mix your right to personal opinions (or even active criticism)  with a crime?

Be careful of any groups that try to do this to you. Most likely, they are the ones trying to pull something over on you. Just to bolster you a bit, please remember that the attack is a low class attack, an attack showing lack of culture, and so that double calls to mind the fact that their views and positions better be  carefully examined.

Everyone has wrong thoughts, wrong habits, wrong prejudices and pre-dispositions. You ignore them for the majority of people int he world every single moment of every single day. Thoughts are your own personal karma, and it’s your job to cultivate to get rid of them in order to achieve enlightenment, not someone else’s job to put you in a straight-jacket just because your thoughts disagree.

Do you march into someone else’s church and shout obscenities, saying they’re all wrong? Do you do that to a mosque or a temple? Of course not, but you so disagree with the views of these other groups because you most probably DO have a religion of your own.

That in itself tells you to ignore the name calling when it happens. It’s usually someone trying to hide something or protect something — a vested interest that really, under scrutiny, cannot be defended.

So that’s afflicted determination held with the intent to commit a criminal act….the only thing to worry about.

And as to cultivation and meditation …

Yes, the key to eliminating ALL wrong thoughts is self-cultivation to reach the state absent of thoughts, including the thought of being an ego, individual or separate being. In self-cultivation, the target is to silence the mind and abandon "false thoughts." Then you can be free of  the 5 errant or deviant perspectives or prejudices that are ALSO components of the volition skandha. What are those?

* the view of taking the body, identifying with the body as the self
* taking one-sided views or extreme views
* holding false, errant views - views of untruths proven by facts to be wrong
* holding your own views as supreme (self-cherished views, clinging to your own subjective perspective)
* the view of holding rules and rituals as the way to spiritual excellence, the Tao

When you cultivate enlightenment, you actually free yourself from these 5 errant perspectives, so for someone to call you prejudiced is just laughable when you are a real cultivator with accomplishment. It’s their own agenda at play, that’s all. Upon enlightenment and the smashing of the ego  you can call yourself one with God, and so forth, though of course, you’ll probably get killed or be persecuted when that happens as was the case with Jesus, al-Hallaj, and so forth. Typically, the higher your Tao, the more "yin" that will arise to attack you because you are now "yang." That’s another reason why masters proclaiming the way are typically killed.

Anyway, the path of cultivating away false thoughts is why I champion stopping & seeing, cessation-contemplation, shamatha-vipassana practice in the MeditationExpert.com website, as well as in my book on Socrates. That practice  of self-cultivation is not only the  way to empower people with a tool for self-improvement,  but a way to help people become self-correcting, and a way to strengthen society and eventually free it of prejudice.

Forget about the people who call you a bigot, racist, traitor, non-patriot, anti-American, anti-Semite, anti-Christian, Communist, Socialist, fascist, conspiracy nut, immoral,  gay lover, nut case, disloyal, evil, criminal, non-progressive, reactionary, and all the other terms popularly bandied about with vehemence when you happen to pull away the curtain on some issue that some people want  to keep secret, or propose change that threatens vested interests. They have their own issues. Just work on yourself with spiritual cultivation.

 

There’s a very famous book entitled "The Autobiography of Han Shan." It dates from the 1500’s and you can find translations of it on the web.

www.hsuyun.org/Dharma/zbohy/Literature/HanShan/hanshan-home.html
www.abuddhistlibrary.com/…/Han%20Shan/Autobiography/Han%20Shan%20Autobiography%20and%20Maxims.rtf
www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/Translations/TheAutobiographyOfHanShan.pdf

The autobiography features the story of the Zen monk Han Shan, and how he cultivated enlightenment via the method of listening to sound as well as other techniques.

Because of his subsequent samadhi concentration, Han Shan could copy a sutra, recite a mantra, and carry on a conversation simultaneously — ALL at the same time (see his Thirty-third Year (1578-9)). 

Even when people came to try to break his conversation by disturbing him, we would make no error in his text copying or mantra recitation, and could do multiple things at once. Such is just one of the powers of samadhi concentration….it’s not limited to Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Taoism, Hinduism or any other school. Whoever cultivates samadhi can do wondrous things.

Why this story?

It seems that you can also train your mind, in a mundane fashion, so that it can carry out multiple tasks at the same time.

This is very interesting — Harry Kahne: Multiple Mentality http://www.rexresearch.com/kahne/kahne.htm . Harry claims that you don’t need an extraordinary mind, just training.

Interesting….

 

I always try to teach people to use their noggins to try to decipher what goes on in the world. Even if they’re wrong, this is how you have to train yourself  if you want to become a leader. People read history where everything in the past seems clear, but never train themselves to use the signs in front of them to read the probable future, which is what matters as that’s where you’re going to live.  Even if you’re wrong, you have to start training yourself to think about things. You’ll be wrong at times, and may reach different conclusions from others (just as doctors presented with the same facts often reach different diagnoses), but you have to start training yourself anyway.

As an example — and sure I could be wrong –  but here’s my take of recent developments in Russia….

Just recently a B-52 bomber was loaded with nuclear weapons and flown over American airspace (against the law and a BIG breach of security and protocols) to land at Barksdale airport base, which is only used for staging operations for Iraq. That base is never used for decommissioning atomic weapons.

http://freeworldsurvey.blogspot.com/2007/09/6-nukes-fly-over-us-big-problems-with.html

The big hubabbaloo is, "How could this have happened as it’s against policy, the law, security and protocol? Who screwed up?"

Whether this was a tip off to the American public (by someone high up inside the military) that we’re preparing to use nuclear weapons in Iran, or the Chinese are showing us they’ve gained control of our secure military communications system (from successful cyber attacks), or just an extraordinary  procedural glitch mistake is unknown. We’ll never know. Watching "60 Minutes" over the years, you learn that the military rarely ever fesses up to anything, and the people at the bottom of the chain of command typically get blamed for the mistakes/orders of those higher up the chain. Maybe the mistake admission is even a "deliberate leak" intended to serve as a veiled warning to Iran, letting it  conclude the missiles are bound for Iran. If so, such strategies are designed with the word "think" in mind.

But let’s proceed, but before we do, a reminder that because of this goof, the US is having a military plane "stand down" on September 14, just as there was a NORAD stand down ordered for 9-11. Strange with all the posturing about not revealing things to potential terrorists that you would publicly announce to terrorists  that all military fighters  will be standing down on day X . Of course, recent terror events, such as London July 7, 2005, have occurred when drills and exercises went live — it’s a well used technique of controlling intended operations.

Now, it’s no secret the US is preparing to attack Iran and has prepared military plans to that extent. Much has been written on this already in the news and President Bush has shown he just as much wants to go into Iran as he wanted to go into Iraq, with those plans actually having been set well before 911:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inyCkCvqRO0&v3

So the will is there, the planning is done, the stage is set. All you need is an excuse  trigger or just a "go ahead" decision if it’s something you’ve really been planning to do.

Today the Russians explode the world’s strongest thermobaric weapon, a mid-air vacuum bomb that creates pressure shockwaves exactly like an atomic weapon without the radiation side effects. It’s a mega-bomb.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1155952320070911

Why such timing?

Let’s review:  the US wants to attack Iran…known. Possibly the US wants to use nuclear weapons in Iran proactively, and has even changed military policy to allow this to happen.  Preparations are near completion ….commonly known.   Iran talks to Russia. Russia now detonates a non-atomic weapon - the "Dad of all bombs" - with just as much destructive killing power as an atomic blast, without the radiation, to demonstrate its capabilities.

Translation: Russia is saying to the US — if you do X, we can do Y, WITHOUT resorting to nuclear weapons and escalating matters. Be careful. Choose.

Another "think" scenario.

Of course, every nation likes to demonstrate to others its military capabilities as a deterrent. It’s just good policy - show you have a strong or unbeatable hand, and no one bothers to challenge you. When new superweapons are unveiled, timing is a critical factor selected to maximize military purposes. It’s Strategy 101 - you’re stupid if you don’t. So with the timing this is yet another plausible way to interpret the tensions brought out by the Mideast.

Everyone has opinions, so I could be wrong. So could you. So could they. So could us. So could them … and what about those guys? So could … you get the point. Who cares — the point is to get the brain working, like playing chess for the mental exercise. As citizens we don’t do enough of that mental questioning anymore, especially when trying to figure out the long term consequences of policies we governmentally institute. If you had access to actual military and intelligence reports and communiques on a daily basis, it’s more a question of knowing something rather than guessing anything, so thinking is what you have left due to lack of information. Prediction is a game of futility for half of the people in the stock market every day, and yet it must be done even though you’re often wrong…the successful are those who outthink the others.  All I want you to do is start thinking with wisdom, even if your conclusion is wrong you have to start training to exercise the noggin and linking the dots. 

For instance, take the plane that hit the Pentagon on 911 — you’ve seen dozens of plane crash  pictures  on TV news reports over the years, but in this case no plane wings debris was found at all, no plane engines were found, no luggage was found or passengers were found. The hole  in the pentagon’s wall was smaller than the nose of the aircraft (just the size of a missile), no windows broken on the side of the impact circle, the videotapes from a hotel across the way were confiscated within 5 minutes of the crash (wow, that was quick) and have never been publicly released (as if it’s national security?), expert pilots have testified that THEY could not fly the flight trajectory after years of training and terrorists were supposed to be able to do this after just a few weeks, etc, etc. Exercise your brain — even a teenager can do this to reach a logical conclusion,and you don’t want to be embarrassed by the unbiased mental deductive abilities of a teenager. LOL! A teenager can outthink talking heads to arrive at logical conclusiosn simply using the famous Sherlock Holmes saying: "It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however, improbable, must be the truth. Sometimes the unthinkable is the truth, so you have to start thinking wider, deeper, longer to train to consider the improbable, implausible, and so forth. That’s actually how ordinary financial careers are made great careers on Wall Street.

This is wisdom training.

You have to learn geopolitics too. In The Evil Empire, by Alexandre De Marenches (previous head of head of the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage  or SDECE, France’s external intelligence agency - equivalent to the CIA), he often lamented that people don’t look at maps or learn to run such scenarios through their heads as training vehicles. People don’t study PAST history, and they don’t run scenarios through their heads as plausible future paths either. In Liar’s Poker, we learn that this scenario playing (institutionalized by Shell Oil) with the figuring out of lateral consequences is one way  to prepare for successful financial trades. So all I’m doing is reciting three other fields where people say you should try to learn to think this way just as a matter of course in life. The only way you can learn and get better at it is via practice. Humor me and start trying it.Itdoesn’tmatterifyou’rewrong,

As to Iraq and Iran — Winston Churchill pointed out in his histories that this area of the world has been the graveyard of countless empires, something the Romans and so many others have learned time and again. Let us hope we do not have to learn the very same lesson so many others have due to stupidity in foreign policy.

I was having a family conversation the other day, and happened to quote something I found in a book a long time ago which explained why people complain that a lot of lawyers have no ethics. I like to give credit where credit is due (Stages students know I have hundreds of footnotes in their materials), but unfortunately, I can’t remember where it’s from.

It went somewhat as follows (and you have to excuse my memory for the exact wording): "Since lawyers are basically trained to take any side of an argument, it’s not that they are trained to be open-minded. It’s that they are taught to lose their moral center."

Think about it — you’re taught to take any side of an argument, not the RIGHT side, and thus some take this as a lesson to lose their moral center….which is often why many will take on all sorts of cases, even unjust ones, just for the money.  Not everyone, of course, but some — yes.

That explains some of the negativity people hold about lawyers, including a claim about a lack of ethics, aside from their tactics and other items. Don’t take this as me badmouthing lawyers as a group, because I have plenty of fine, outstanding lawyer friends and have no such conceptions. I just want you to think, in a wisdom way, about how exposure and slow acculturation works. To everyone - no. To some - yes. Hold on for the rest of the teriyaki sauce lesson…

What about salesmen?

Motivated by pressure or income or bonuses or the need to sell to keep their job (or whatever — greed or survival), Salesmen are taught to go to extremes/do whatever it takes to sell goods and services, and therefore it is not surprising that they often fall victim to exaggeration or eventually outright lying in order to sell products.

Same for marketers who fall too deep into their field of practice, and don’t watch themselves. The net result is slipperiness, or just outright lying. This "slipperiness" or "greasiness" factor is an interesting choice of words, because in facial fortune telling, one subset of characteristics for some liars is that they sometimes do extrude excess oil from their skin in conjunction with this liar-prone character.

Another interesting facial fortune feature of empty talkers and even liars or just boasters — no fine/defined lip line for their upper lip (hard to describe this - you need someone to show you). Of course if you want to spot people lying, watch where the pupils of their eyes go versus when giving factual responses, see whether they touch their nose or face, and so forth. For instance, Clinton’s blinking rate when denying his affair with Monica Lewinsky went up to 120 times/minute versus the normal 35 times, and he also ended up using a hand and arm in exclamation which he never uses normally. But enough of the body language lesson …

Someone once told me, of the police who turn to crime, "In being exposed to crime day after day, at first they are appalled and repelled by it, but by-and-by they learn to tolerate, accept and then embrace it." 

Hmmmmm. Stage (1) be appalled, stage (2) acclimate to it, stage (3) accept it as normal, stage (4) embrace it as a normal way of life.

Similarly, in Communist China, lying was essential for survival and promotion, so this habit (and other related lacks of ethics necessary for survival) became accepted as normal and many Chinese still carry this over into today’s world to the consternation of all who deal with them, even though Communism, for all intents and purposes, is dead (and thankfully so).

By the way, socialism, which is trumpeted by many "elites" today, has its own set of problems leading to no good ends that they just cannot understand because they brainwash themselves with crazy thinking just as idealistically wrong, Utopian, Messiah-like, impossible and spirit-numbing as believing in Communism. I suggest they go read Intellectuals by Paul Johnson to show how wrong the intellectuals are with all their wishful thinking that throws aside an understanding of basic human nature.

What about corporations?

"Corporations act to make profits, and in pursuit of profits (or corporate employees running after bonuses), are willing to destroy culture and communities, human rights and even attack (in order to destroy) helpful competing items in society in pursuit of more profits. All that matters is profits –  anything in the way of higher profits is crushed or destroyed if possible, even if it serves a societal function."

Corporations do not ask, "Is it ethical, is what we’re doing right?" Corporations ask, "Is it profitable, is it profit maximizing?"

The amazingly outrageous fact to realize is that sometimes individuals within corporations commit gigantic-mundo magnitude scale crimes and their personal benefit is a meagre  $10,000 bonus within the corporate gears. It simply amazes me the damage people will do not for BIIIIIIIG MONEY, but for a relatively minor amount of money. A common heard justification to help the self-talk numb out the conscience, "It’s Okay if it’s legal." Along those lines, when governments pass  laws to persecute various religious groups, that makes it right????

Frankly, the profit motive of corporations has done so much to destroy so many things in pursuit of profits that it’s amazing. I’m a big promoter of business — without it no one has work, or income and there is no money for services and taxes etc. , but just warn you of the excess when corporations make the rules. The pure profit motive destroys humanistic concerns. It actually imperils a nation.

Witness, as two examples, seeds with terminator genes designed so an agribusiness can have monopolistic control over food supply. That’s a recipe for disaster (and a concern at the level of strategic national security no one seems to be addressing, as is the lack of adequate government seed banks spread throughout the world - we can spend billions on war but not a few million to protect our seed supply in case there ever is an attack on us - stupidity supreme) when finally some crop disease or blight comes along, and then and only then will politicians wake up and say "Why didn’t they know this might happen?" Well, I’m telling you now it’s just a matter of time….use your common sense and legislate against this as otherwise you imperil the nation and put it at risk.

Or, how about the corporation push for water privatization? I am pro-business and champion business inthe extreme, but I seriously question whether business entities should be allowed to make political campaign contributions because  of the wellproven principle and track record of money corrupting politics to no good ends.

You must always practice introspection, and have a business objective other than just "to make money," because frankly "to make money" as an objective without any other purpose for existence justifies selling drugs, products that don’t work, financial fraud and so forth. If you are in business, you have to think about what you are doing, including the karma of a situation. Buddha actually spoke of this and the need for ‘"right livelihood." Confucius spoke of this as well, as did Mencius. Confucius said:

Wealth and high position are what men desire but unless they can be obtained in the correct way, I will not dwell in them. Poverty and low position are what men dislike but if they are obtained by following the correct way, do not avoid them. If the True Gentlemen abandons benevolence, how will he be able to make a name for himself? The True Gentleman does not act contrary to benevolence even for the short time it takes to eat a meal. He must hold to this when in favorable circumstances as well as in times of difficulty. …

 The True Gentleman thinks of virtue, the inferior man thinks of land [wealth]. The True Gentleman thinks of the law [acting contrary to ethics], the inferior man thinks of profit.

Of Szuma Chien, the Grand historian of China, it is written:

As the Grand Historian was reading Mencius, he unconsciously put the book down and sighed when he came to the place where King Hui of Liang asked Mencius, ‘How will you profit my country?’ The historian said, ‘Ah, profit is truly the beginning of disorder. That is why Confucius seldom spoke of profit, always shoring up the source.’ The source is the beginning. Whether it is found among the upper classes or the lower classes, the degeneracy of lust for profit is basically the same. When those in public office profit unfairly, then the law is disordered. When those in the private sector profit by deception, then business is disordered. When business is disorderly, people are contentious and dissatisfied; when law is disorderly, the citizenry is resentful and disobedient. This is how people get to be so rebellious and belligerent that they don’t care if they die. Is this not a demonstration of how, ‘Profit is truly the beginning of disorder’? The sages and saints were deeply cautious and aloof from profit, giving honor and precedence to humanity and justice. But in later times there were still those who deceived each other in hopes of profit; what limit is there to those who destroy morality and ruin education? How much the more serious is the problem when the path of adventurous profiteering is publicly espoused and pursued; under these conditions, how could we hope for the world’s morals and customs to be upright, and not be thin and weak?

From Good to Great discusses the need for a corporate purpose other than just profits (highly recommended), and for years I’ve struggled with the outline of a book on this topic and entrepreneurship, etc. but so far, no luck.

For instance, we have drug companies that try to crush, destroy and eliminate any helpful natural alternatives that are in the way of higher profits. (As Master Nan said, beware if you’re a pharma exec instituting such policies and strategies because one of the karma side effects of so doing, despite whatever beautiful sounding label you put on your efforts, is that in some life you will be denied access to the medicines you need.)

In pursuit of profits,  mining companies and  timber companies have been known  to strip mine or cut down all trees on a mountain and destroy the land. The history of banking in the world shows that bankers have been known to start  wars because of the profit potential - not finance wars because of profit potential, but help START them, initiate them in order to make money from the interest that must be paid on the debt that will be accrued. I’ll leave it to you to go read the dozens of books on this topic. 

We also had the famous baby formula case I was taught in my MS Nutrition program where as a profit maximizing strategy in poor countries, baby formula  companies gave away their product for free during the early stages of a mother’s breastfeeding but stopped the free samples after their lactation dried up, which led to hundreds of thousands of babies dying in impoverished countries when the poor mothers could not afford the milk (and now could not feed the  babies because they no longer produced milk).

This is the problem with corporations that only act as profit maximizers. And by the way, this is why some CEOs wisely hire external consultants as their ethical consultants and voice of conscience, because they are often too close to the situation and get involved with their own group think. A good strategy to consider –

On to intelligence professionals …

We absolutely need intelligence agencies – you’d be crazy to think a country can survive without a CIA-KGB-MOSSAD-MI5-etc. You’re crazy to just blindly criticize a CIA or MOSSAD. All countries need intelligence agencies, and you’re probably not qualified to rule/lead if you’d think otherwise (the question of their abusing their power is a different issue entirely). But the problem with spies is that after lying for a living, lies come too easily in life. They cannot be trusted for almost anything anymore in regular life. Lying becomes ingrained as a way of life, and people can sense this. Same goes if you become an undercover agent.

Anyway, just a few random thoughts along the lines of "lawyers are trained to take either side of an argument, right or wrong, and so are taught to lose their moral center."

Not all, of course, but and interesting viewpoint…don’t misconstrue it and say I’m anti-lawyers, anti-salesmen, anti-police, anti-corporations, anti-profit making, anti-anything. Just teaching you one of the principles you can apply to your thinking at times to understand how things eventually develop over time.

Moral: If you soak the meat in teriyaki sauce  a long time, after a while it tastes like teriyaki sauce. That’s all you need to know.

 

I warned you to watch the Aaron Russo video where he recounts his interviews with the Rockefellers, and told of the banking plan to eventually chip everyone for control purposes.

Well luckily California has tried to nip this chipping in the bud before it ever happens, and you should, too.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-scan31aug31%2C0%2C2715647.story

Why the story? To show you that the plan is already in motion … it’s already happening. AT THE GOVERNMENT LEVEL IT’S HAPPENING RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES. It’s not nonsense, it’s already here. It’s not fiction, over-reaction, or conspiracy theory 101 — they’re already doing it or trying to do it.

Solution: Oppose it. Identity cards as well. You already have enough identity.

And, oh, by the way ,those chips they want inside you cause cancer. Here’s another article summarizng the fact that the RFID component of those chips causes cancer - you don’t want this inside you:

http://www.dailytech.com/RFID+Chips+Linked+to+FastGrowing+Cancer/article8796.htm

I laugh when I go to the airport and my ID is checked 5, 6, 7 times before I get  on the plane, supposedly for security purposes. How does the extra 4-5 times make things more secure? If someone blows up the plane, now they know the name. Did the excess name checking help? 

As for tagging human beings with computer chips, don’t fall in love with scientific advancements or sci-fi.

You should never let someone put THEIR foreign body inside yours, especially for "Identification" or other purposes. Even having them mark you in some invisible ink sort of way is wrong. This is what happened to the Jews in WWII and look at the ultimate purposes, and think of the potential abuse. And as for the fact that the chips an have RFID capabilities, which means you can be tracked (or people can find you "in case of an emergency"), that’s even of more concern and worry.

Think back 10, 20, 30 or even 50 years…do you mean to tell me that  what we’ve used for ID or security or other purposes over that time didn’t work?

Ridiculous.

You should oppose this hair brained scheme wherever you find it. The potential for abuse is enormous. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Solution: deny even a foot hold.

And when the scanners-readers break down for these things anyway, since being machines they will eventually break down at some time or another (ever been held up in customs or at a cash register because it broke or the computer went down?), what will they have to fall back upon anyway? The good old, old-fashioned methods that work without any problems, compared to this new suggestion that costs extra. Since you still need the old system, it’s another reason to leave well enough alone.

I prefer using sunshine to melt ice rather than spending money on expensive solutions or coming up with elaborate, ridiculous schemes like this for marginal benefits, at best, over what is….and for secretive motives that go unvoiced, but are planned for the future…or which are unplanned by anyone, but the system design makes it vulnerable to such.

Just as during Joseph’s day the Israelites didn’t know what they were ultimately getting into when they went to Egypt for food, use your wisdom thinking to see how this will ultimately develop and become used and abused  if the idea eventually becomes accepted as OKAY and commonplace….the old slow encroachment and acclimitization tactic.

When you study the I-Ching, you learn to recognize the meaning of a hexagram (gua) and what it portends. As my teacher often taught me, everything is an I-Ching gua hanging there, you just have to learn how to interpret it. Well, Aaron Russo already told you how to interpret this, and this timely news article shows it happening. When you see all the preparations that have been carefully made for the institution of martial law, you can guess what the plan is there as well.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you … if they chip you you become cattle, plain and simple, despite whatever excuses / benefits they can come up with. The path to enlightenment requires you to use your human eyes, and wisdom eyes. You can read history and ask yourself, "Why didn’t they just stand up and DO something?" Well, at least in telling you I’m doing my share. What about you? People always ask what they can do to create merit that costs little, and thisis one of those things — insist that your state governemtn and the federal government forbid chipping because of the potential of abuse … no ifs, ands or buts. History shows what you already know — if you give it an inch, they’ll eventually take a foot; original intents are eventually diverted to elsewhere goals.

I’m sure some official will cite  chipping is for "terrorism" purposes, or national ID purposes, or for your own medical protection (we’ve dropped to #17 in the world because of our medical "improvements" over the last decade, and this is to help further?) or some other such nonsense (remember the $10,000 bank deposit reporting rule designed to help stop the flow of drug money laundring …yeah, right). See through to the facts. Even with 5, no 10, no 20, no 1000 times these benefits, the CONS outweigh the PROS, plain and simple.

It seems we may need a constitutional amendment for personal  privacy as well as for your right to use whatever medical/health procedures you deem fit, as it’s your body and your choice.

 

 

P.S. http://www.policestateplanning.com/implanted_microchips.htm

Blair Warren has a great blog on persuasion, and is always a joy to read. Recently he posted the following story, which he graciously allowed me to reprint. 

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Mr. Amazing’s Magic Rocks

A man sets up a booth at a fair.  He then places an ordinary rock upon his table and hangs a banner behind him that reads:

 

Mr. Amazing’s Wealth Attracting Rocks - $20
Money Back Guarantee

 

Onlookers gather around the mysterious salesman and soon one approaches him.

“How do I know these rocks really attract wealth?”

“They work based on universal laws and are proven effective by quantum physics.  You don’t have to do anything except think about wealth.  The rock does the rest.”

“And you’ll return my money if it doesn’t work?”

“Absolutely.”

The onlooker pauses, then slaps a $20 bill on the table and leaves with his magic rock.

Mr. Amazing pulls another rock from a box and gently places it upon the table.

Another onlooker steps forward.

“How do I know these rocks work?” he asks.

“Well, I could tell you all about universal laws and quantum physics, but instead I’ll prove they work right here, right now.”

“Okay.  Prove it.”

Mr. Amazing points to the $20 on the table and says, “See that?  It wasn’t there just a few moments ago.  I manifested it using my magic rocks.”

The onlooker thinks for a moment, then realizes that Mr. Amazing is correct.  The money wasn’t there just a few moments ago.  He immediately slaps a $20 bill down on the table and he, too, leaves with a magic rock.

The remaining onlookers are now closing in on the table.  They overhear Mr. Amazing and another customer talking.

“How do I know these rocks work?” the customer asks.

“You see that $40 on the table?  It was only $20 a few moments ago.”

Hearing this, the crowd goes mad and everyone is now fighting to be the next lucky customer.

But soon, reality sets in on some of his former customers.  Most are too embarrassed to ask for a refund, but a few do just that.

“I’d be happy to return your money, but are you sure you have been thinking about wealth?” Mr. Amazing asks them.

“Constantly,” one man assures him.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because I know my rocks attract wealth.  Just look at this pile of money here.  It’s much, much larger than it was when you were here earlier today and I owe it all to my magic rocks.  Perhaps you aren’t thinking correctly.”

The customers look confused.  After all, Mr. Amazing is correct.  His pile of money is much larger than it was before.

“You know,” says Mr. Amazing, “I really want to see you folks enjoy the same type of prosperity I enjoy so you might consider taking one of my wealth attraction seminars.  They aren’t cheap, but they really work for me.”

His customers lean in a bit, but seem uncommitted.

“I’ll tell you what,” Mr. Amazing says, “I’ll even take $20 off the price of the seminar.  That way you’re getting all your money back and get to learn my advanced success strategies.”

The customers fight to present him with their credit cards.

And soon the day is done Mr. Amazing tallies his earnings.  To celebrate, he goes out and buys a new wardrobe, a luxury car, a new home, and plans his dream vacation.

The next week, he is spotted at another fair and overheard saying…

“How can I prove these rocks work?  Just look at all my success.  I didn’t have any of these things last week.  And I owe it all to my magic rocks.”

With that, Mr. Amazing is mobbed and becomes a legend.

And though many will try, none of his customers will be able to duplicate his success or discover the true secret behind it.  But they won’t give up for they’ll still have hope.  After all, they’ll still have their magic rocks.

 

The end.

 

Of course, this is just a fable.  Something like this could never work in real life.

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Does this story remind you of something you know about that was recently on Oprah and the like?  "The Secret," which made Oprah and has gone on to make $20 million, offers this idea that you can attract good fortune to yourself just by opening yourself up to it, and projecting your needs and wants into the universe.

Baloney. Sloppy thinking. Ridiculous. And a bad influence to society to even suggest this with an absence of responsibility and hard work.

The karma you received is only the karma you deserve in life. If you haven’t created the merit to receive some excellence you desire, all the mental projection in the world will do nothing for you. What comes, good or bad, is ALL due to karma. And it’s karma you created, so don’t blame other people.

If you create good karma, then good fortune will result even if you don’t want it, and the opposite holds true. No matter how good your fortune this instant, some bad fortune from some ancient karmic life situation is always ready to come due - no one lives a perfect life. That’s why Zen teaches you it’s how you DEAL with what arises that matters.

Basically, if you want a new future in THIS life which is different from  the karmic fate you already laid out (created) for this life due to past actions, you have to create it with actions other