Seeing Red re (Product) Red on Thoughts Chasing Thoughts is a good read on the recent program to provide AIDS relief in Africa. And it correctly identifies some misgivings about the effort to commercialize charity and whether or not it is efficient or transparently honest. You need to read that article before this one for some things to make sense. It’s a pleasant read, and I like the contrarian point of view expressed because it adds perspective to a new charitable fad.

I’m not persuaded that AIDS relief is the most import issue for Africa’s needy. I’m not convinced more money for medicine is THE issue for AIDS relief. Doctors, nurses, infrastructure, refrigeration, etc. might be more limiting than the drugs themselves. But what the Buddhist hell, increasing the funding for this probably won’t hurt either, particularly if it’s added money rather than money carved from somewhere else.

This post is a follow-on post to an earlier one that discussed the sense of the sacred.
I’ve finally figured out in my mind how to lay out a 7 cicruit Cretan labryrinth in my back yard with temporary materials that won’t kill grass as I try it out. These Christian meditational labyrinths are not a maze; once you enter, you will inevitably find your way to the center, though it may not be obvious, and you will seem to be going the wrong way sometimes.

A recent story about NBC pulling the plug on a Maddona video scene in which she mounts a cross triggered a bit of reflection on culture, freedom, and a sense of the sacred. It was similar in a way to cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed that stirred up violence in the Muslim world. In retaliation, one Muslim museum sponsored a cartoon contest on the Holocaust, which struck me as repugnant while the Prophet cartoons did not.

I’ve struggled with this quite a bit during my life. I have a scientific bent. Science has a stellar track record is demolishing sacred cows. It has systematically destroyed our myths about who we are, what our importance is, and our place in the universe. Now it threatens to define life itself as nothing more than DNA strips to be manipulated at will by those with its tools in hand.

In looking at mostly Buddhist blogs recently, I’ve noticed many of them bent toward politics. There is the usual decrying of Bush, the U.S. involvement in Iraq, the Republican scandals with the expected antidote of voting the Republicans out of office and replacing them with Democrats. Mind you, I’m sympathetic with everything they say, and at the same time I’m not too excited.

Only a relatively small portion of the American electorate can think. Those are reachable. Most others fit the category of the quote by A. E. Housman

Paul: It’s seems ridiculous to me to believe in a mere theory like evolution, when it contradicts the very word of God himself. Why would I choose to believe some theory which is always changing, and has holes in it, when the unchanging Truth of God is the alternative? It seems really silly to discard the weighty words of the Bible for ever-changing scientific theories.

They show up in a minivan. The ringleader descends, gives a few words of instruction, and sends them off in twos, Bible tucked under their arms, filled with literature to convert the wicked. The JWs start with a smile, and then launch a practiced introductory line.

JW: “Nice day for (whatever I’m doing at the moment). I bet you have some questions about the Bible, don’t you? Things that were never quite explained to you.”

“No, not really. I don’t read it anymore, or have any questions about it.”

JW:“Why don’t you read the Bible?,” and draws a deep breath.

“I didn’t find it helpful.”

JW: “Would you mind if I read a bit of the Bible and prayed with you,” nodding toward the door.

From Transformations in Consciousness by Franklin Wolfe

The new sacred content of consciousness radically affects the reality evaluation without altering the photographic image of the sensible world. The consequences that follow are enormously important, though they are of such a subtle nature that they do not readily lend themselves to description. For instance, one knows the universe to be the best possible world, and everything is as it should be, despite all the seeming disharmony and barbarism. It is Realized that the out-of-joint world is an effect of an incomplete consciousness – the kind of product one receives by the collaboration of conception and perception when the introceptive function is not awakened. The latter is like the reverse side of an embroidered cloth where the effect is chaotic and there are many loose threads. However, on the other side we have a perfectly orderly design. One one side it seems that mere chance accounts for the pattern and that humankind lives in a alien world that has no inner sympathy with our purposes and yearnings, while the other side reveals a perfect order in complete sympathetic rapport with the deepest human yearnings and aspirations. In the sacred world, one is at home and nothing feels strange. There is no need of melioration. There is no problem of making a better world, since that which is, already is the best that possible could be.