This is where the Gratitude Bell is. There is a great view from up there.

When you chime the bell you are supposed to think with gratitude of your ancestors. I remember when I once walked to the bell in summer, I got very hot. Last Wednesday in the midst of August, I had no problem walking up to the bell. I do love the bell’s sound. It spreads far and wide over the surrounding area.

I find calm and inner peace reflecting on something like this. We found this verse the other day when we were walking with Caroline around the Nan Tien Temple.

We took the following photos after we had a very satisfying vegetarian lunch in the temples downstairs tea-rooms.

—-

http://theaimn.com/immoral-act/

1) Crimea is Russian forever:

It was an event of special significance for the country and the people, because Crimea is where our people live, and the peninsula is of strategic importance for Russia as the spiritual source of the development of a multifaceted but solid Russian nation and a centralised Russian state. It was in Crimea, in the ancient city of Chersonesus or Korsun, as ancient Russian chroniclers called it, that Grand Prince Vladimir was baptised before bringing Christianity to Rus.

In addition to ethnic similarity, a common language, common elements of their material culture, a common territory, even though its borders were not marked then, and a nascent common economy and government, Christianity was a powerful spiritual unifying force that helped involve various tribes and tribal unions of the vast Eastern Slavic world in the creation of a Russian nation and Russian state. It was thanks to this…

It is Sunday. late afternoon, So the weekend is nearing its end. I plan on enjoying ME TIME tonight. I feel, I very much need a lot of ME TIME right now. To recharge my batteries so to speak. This is probably because over the course of a week or so I had plenty of interaction. Maybe, to accommodate a lot of different people over just a few days can stress me out a bit too much. I feel I have to interact with a great number of people. In one of the relationship videos, I have been looking at recently, I think it said, for a good close relationship you need only about five people. Any more people than that, would have to stay on your outer circle. Well, it might be good for me, to think about this a bit more, and then come to a decision, how…

The Culture of Make Believe

Derrick Jensen

Chelsea Green (2002)

Book Review

This book is about self-delusion we all practice under capitalism to deaden our biological needs for the “higher” goal of production. As Jensen puts it, people have to be “domesticated” just like animals.

As puts it,

For civilization to survive we can’t simply be who were are, but must tweaked, torn, our psyches twisted to conform to a social reality based on exploitation.

[…]

You domesticate people to the point they no longer perceive your control as unjust and attempt to join you in oppressing those who do.[1]

According to Jensen, he arrived at these conclusions through research into the psychological basis of hate crimes and genocide. He now believes entitlement is key to most atrocities. People whose privilege stems from exploiting an oppressed group commit hate crimes when threatened with losing it.[2] In fact, perpetrators of mass…