Heruka wrote:ronnewmexico wrote:Ok...so what.
i consider myself to be in the minority culture of love and life.
Take caution friend, not to polarize yourself in your statements. I say this because there is always a danger of creating an us-them kind of syndrome which just makes more eye-for-an-eye arguments that just keep blindin' the rest of the world.
If you touch into modern life, you touch into the culture of death. If you touch into the present moment, you touch into life and death. The cultural majority of the world desires happiness, and love, and is unfortunately ignorant to not realize its creating its deathbed.
This is no different than you and I. How many things in your own life are there by the design of your choices? You are just as much a part of the culture of death as you are of the culture of life. As is the rest of the samsaric world.
I don't mean to sound stern, if anything I'm offering a gentle reminder to not polarize into "I'm *insert label*" and they're *insert label*" The truth is we are they and they are us. LOL.
We are all always caught somewhere between life in death in the uncertainties we face when we just don't know how to fix the mess we made. And in this sense, whether it's painful or not to acknowledge, we're all in the same boat.
So my question is, what does polarizing the idea into these separate parts do for you that helps you practice dharma. I think most evidence suggests that reality is NOT parts but a non-dual moment to moment happening with dependent relationship to all its causes and conditions and effects. This is a very complex network of causalities, correlations, and karma is a big part of this ongoing happening... We only see parts because of View.
I agree with Keith on this. I would hope the appropriate compulsory restrictions are applied to the development of GMOs. However, at least in US, with the way de-regulation has been revealing itself to be rampant all throughout US infrastructure, I don't have too much expectation that more regulations will be put in place any time soon. We also don't have long term track records of the effects of certain kinds of GMO manipulations can have on the human body, child or adult. There are some studies, but really, when you start making tomatoes produce digestable proteins that aren't natural to a "regular" tomato... There might be questions about introducing mutations before knowing long term consequence this creation will have...
Death is as much a business as life is. Because the two are completely interconnected, and one could not exist without the other. I'm not condoning unethical behaviors of legislative institutions, but I'm saying the reality is that we must look past the conventions we set up and recognize how we are in this just as deep as anyone else, and there really is no escape from it. We will die to one day, every single person here, will not be here in 200 years. Think about it. The world is constantly trying to continue to build upon itself while it struggles in losing the wise generations always having to face the same dilemmas all over again, as they slowly shift into grand big national and natural catastrophes. This is the nature of living.
Always the bitter with the sweet.
The media won't report on this because the "media" at least in the US and several other countries is completely privatized. There is no real "free press" left. It's all owned. I believe UPI (United Press International) is owned by the same person, and last I knew that person was Reverend Moon of the Moonies. Talk about
This happened I think in 2000, it's been 10 years there has been no commercial "free press" besides NPR and PBS? Look it up, interesting story how he came to buy them... oh just found a quick link article for your frightening uh, I mean reference
http://www.mediachannel.org/originals/upi-moon.shtmlSo where are you gonna get the truth? Look around, the press is mostly a joke. These forums are some of the few places you can find people who spend way too much time online knowing useless things like the events of the world, and you have to dig your own worms. Nothing offered by the media can be taken as is anymore. I mean you can, there's no shame in it, but it's not necessarily much of a guide on the accuracy of what news you're getting.
To expect the media to report fairly when its content is completely conditional on the agendas of the private pockets funding it, dunno, seems naive when the reality is quite another thing... It's like expecting baseballers to go off the steroids when really everyone does it because the standard has now been set by the steroids in a lot of ways. Steroided players do better, right or wrong, the steroids work for the athletes, regardless of the horrible effects the steroids have in the short and long term is of no concern to the moneymachine that pumps out steroided athletes on the one hand while cursing and making big shows of how appalled the commissions are... please. No demand, no supply. This is the way of suffering. And this is how it repeats on and on and on... In the same way, sensationalized suffering makes news.
The best you can do is educate yourself and help others educate themselves, but don't set up barriers between you and they, because as my OmBoy dearest Kahlil Gibran says, sadness is a wall between two gardens. And honestly, do we need any more fear and paranoia than we already have all around us?
Just a couple thoughts, dharma friends.
Ogyen.
