Wake Up America - Best Speech at the convention.

So far the best speech at the convention by far was by Dennis Kucinich. It will be very hard for Obama to top "Wake Up America!"

Considering that Kucinich was given only 5 minutes and not the 20 he deserved, I'd go so far as to say it was the best 5 minute political speech in my lifetime of 58 years.

The Obama campaign made a big mistake putting Kucinich in the sub-prime time slot. So far Obama is running a "safe" campaign just like Kerry in 2004, and so far the polls show that Obama may get the very same result.

Putting the inspiring Kucinich into sub-prime time, and giving the uninspiring corporate spokesman Warner the keynote address shows the low note that the Obama campaign is playing, and the note sounds pretty sour too.

The Obama campaign is micro-managing and controlling the convention just like Kerry did in 2004, and they are driving the party into the same ditch.

Betsy Rothstein at TheHill Opens her report with

Obama tightens grip on podium speeches
Written by Betsy Rothstein

DENVER — Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is tightening the reins on campaign speeches and stressing that speakers emphasize a rags-to-riches theme.

Members of Congress and others who have been asked to address the convention must have their speeches approved by the Obama campaign. In many cases, the speeches are drastically changed — to the point where the original speech is completely scrapped, Democratic sources say.

This kind of propaganda management of the convention drains the life out of it. It is no wonder that most of the speeches are so poor. The leadership of the Democratic Party needs to learn some day that its vitality is in the free voices of the people, not in the scripted advertising of political professionals. If Candidate Obama won't let the authentic voices of his own Party speak, people had better get prepared now for the same or worse treatment from President Obama. Folks, people don't change when they get to the White House, they become more tight in their control not less.

Rothstein also reports on the Obama tampering and censorship with Kucinich's speech:

Yet not every speech has been completely overhauled. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who was asked by Obama to speak about the economy, was scheduled to deliver his speech Tuesday afternoon. The Obama campaign struck just one line from his speech, which slammed the Republicans and the Bush administration, according to a Democratic source.

That line, addressing Republicans, read: “They’re asking for another four years — in a just world, they’d get 10 to 20.”

Too bad that was censored. I bet it would have brought the roof down.

Here's the YouTube video of Dennis' speech.

Here's the text from the Convention website (edited to what Dennis actually said.)

Dennis Kucinich, (OH-10)Tuesday, August 26, 2008 at 04:35 PM

Hello Fellow Democrats. Are you ready for November?

This one's for you, Stephanie.

Fellow Democrats let's go to Election Day. It’s Election Day 2008, and we Democrats are giving America a wake-up call. Wake up, America. In 2001, the oil companies, the war contractors and the neo-con artists seized the economy and added 4 trillion dollars of unproductive spending to the national debt. We now pay four times more for defense, three times more for gasoline and home heating oil and twice what we paid for health care.

Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their homes, their health care, their pensions. Trillions of dollars for an unnecessary war paid for with borrowed money. Tens of billions of dollars in cash and weapons disappeared into thin air, at the cost of the lives of our troops and innocent Iraqis, while all the president’s oilmen are maneuvering to grab Iraq’s oil.

Borrowed money to bomb bridges in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. No money to rebuild bridges in America. Money to start a hot war with Iran. Now we have another cold war with Russia, and the American economy has become a game of Russian roulette.

Now, if there was an Olympics for misleading, mismanaging and misappropriating, this administration would take the gold. World records for violations of national and international law. They want another four-year term to continue to alienate our allies, spend our children’s inheritance and hollow out our economy.

We can’t afford another Republican administration. Wake up, America. The insurance companies took over health care. Wake up, America. The pharmaceutical companies took over drug pricing.

Wake up, America. The speculators took over Wall Street. Wake up, America. They want to take your Social Security. Wake up, America. Multinational corporations took over our trade policies, factories are closing, good paying jobs are being lost.

Wake up, America. We went into Iraq for oil. The oil companies want more. War against Iran will mean $10-a-gallon gasoline. The oil administration, they want to drill more, into your wallet. Wake up, America. Contrators, those war contractors want more. An Iran war will cost 5 to 10 trillion dollars.

Now, this administration can tap our phones. They can’t tap our creative spirit. They can open our mail. But they can’t open economic opportunities. They can track our every move. They lost track of the economy while the cost of food, gasoline and electricity skyrockets. Now they skillfully played our post-9/11 fears and they've allowed the few to profit at the expense of the many. Every day we get the color orange, while the oil companies, the insurance companies, the speculators, the war contractors get the color green.

Wake up, America. Now, this is not a call for you to take a new direction from right to left. This is call for you to go from down to up. Up with the rights of workers. Up with wages. Up with fair trade. Up with creating millions of good paying jobs, rebuilding our bridges, our water systems, our sewer systems, our ports. Up with creating millions of sustainable energy jobs to lower the cost of energy, lower carbon emissions and protect the environment.

Up with health care for all. Up with education for all. Up with home ownership. Up with guaranteed retirement benefits. Up with peace. Up with prosperity. Up with the Democratic Party. Up with Obama-Biden.

Wake up, America. Wake up, America. Wake up, America.

Karma and Rebirth

Some thoughts musing in response to comments about karma and rebirth.

It was said, "When the living being dies, the consciousness suddenly is disembodied."

There is no entity to be called "the consciousness" that becomes embodied or disembodied. Consciousness (used in the expansive sense that includes the unconscious or Alaya consciousness) is like a great river with many tributaries.

DNA is the materialist version of karma. The complexity of the structure and function of karma is as complex as the structure and function of DNA. That is why Buddha only gave the most simple teachings about karma of the kind "you reap what you sow" or "there is bright karma, dark karma, and mixed karma." These simple formulations of karma are helpful in creating the mental affinity for moral actions.

But to delve into the complex workings of karma can be counter productive by confusing people who have not had the deep experience of no self and then lead them to doubt karma and its efficacy. So Buddha usually would not provide detailed answers to questions about an individual's karma or past lives and only would offer vague or sketchy comments about them.

It was asked, "What is it that is reborn?"

There are two factors that lead to the complexity of thinking about karma. First that there is no self, only a self image, and second that karma doesn't function mechanically like a machine, but organically like life.

Because we find belief in a self that is embodied to be very comforting in the face of uncertainty and the unknown, we create many more or less gross to subtle images of the self to confirm our desire in a self to believe in. Thus we imagine that there is a thing that goes from life to life, something that wears the body like a robe and puts on a new embodiment in a new life like putting on a new robe. Seeking to know what this "something" is becomes the Buddha search and inquiry.

But simply calling it "consciousness" that becomes embodied in the next life is not enough because that kind of "consciousness" just becomes a new self image to hang onto. Hanging on to that kind of self image creates the idea that there is a linear thread of a single chain through many past lives so that a person has one life, then another, then another, in a singular chain. This is a machine view and is not the way karma and rebirth function.

Karma and rebirth function like a great river. An image one should have in mind when considering karma is a map of a great river system like the Amazon, the Mississippi, the Congo, the Nile, or the Yangtze. When we are at any place in the river there are many tributaries that have flowed into the river. Isn't it interesting that where ever any two tributaries come together that only one tributary bears the name of the river? Why is the source of the Mississippi identified as one location and not as the many locations that comprise the source of each of the tributaries? Why is the source of the Missouri river not called the source of the Mississippi? The naming of rivers is a social convention in which the larger of the two tributaries at any point of convergence is considered the main stream of the river and bears the name of the great river while the other tributary gets another name.

Karma is like that also. If we follow our past lives "backward" we imagine there is only one mainstream and call that our chain of past lives, but in fact there are many tributaries of past lives,but our social convention is to ignore those that conflict with our self image of being a singular separate self or soul traveling from life to life. So to give a concrete example, if today we were to ask what was our past life in the year 1658 we would have very many tributaries of actual contributory lives but we would select only one life as the mainstream and call that "my" past life.

Because when people do remember past lives they sometimes do remember several past lives in the same time era, that can cause confusion by challenging the belief system that the self is a separate stream. If someone remembers two past lives in the same time period, that can cause them to doubt the veracity of their memories because we believe in a self and that the self can't be in two places at the same time. That doubt can then lead to a disbelief in or denial of karma, and that can then lead to a nihilistic view that disavows morality altogether. Thus for people who firmly believe in a self, talking too much or too openly about the intricacies of karma becomes counter productive. It is easier to believe in the simplistic self than to try to understand the nuances of the complexities of karma as it relates to the self image in the cream of Consciousness.

Similar patterns for the image of the organicity of the functioning of karma can also be found in the image of a tree with spreading roots and limbs, or in the veins of a single leaf. This non-linearity and non-machine view of karma must be understood if one wants to have a realistic appreciation of how karma and rebirth function.

Some one asked, "Am i to have blind faith that this boy who apparently was a caring good natured boy deserved this to happen because of some action many lifetimes ago?"

Please remember to not confuse the judgemental concept of "deserving" with the observation of "actions" and "results." Asking whether a person "deserves" what happens to them (or any of their circumstances) shows dualistic judgementalism.

For example, none of us knows whether the boy's circumstances were the results of past actions or were innocent uncaused bodhisattva actions. We easily observe that the emotional pain people feel is the result of being human and the functioning of the 5 bundles (skandhas) of our personalities. When apparently "bad things" happen to apparently "innocent" people, we should remember to reserve judgement on the big picture, because we don't know the karmic patterns involved. Of course that doesn't mean that we don't bring the perpetrators to face the judgement of society for their actions, and hopefully the judgement of society will be as compassionate and merciful as it is firm and corrective. (The Sutra of Angulimala is an important koan in this regard.)

Most important, since there was nothing you personally could do, do you know what causes you feel pain in relation to this event you only heard about? Obviously you felt great empathy for the boy and his family. Do you simply take such empathy at face value or do you inquire into it? How much of the pain arises from realizing that the world doesn't conform to our expectations? In other words, did the concept "deserving" arise in your mind or in the world? Before you heard the story you felt one way and then you heard the story and felt differently. Ask and inquire "who feels the pain" using your meditation as your crucible. The conundrum of Buddhism is that we have to let go of our tightly held concepts of "good and evil" in order to see our original face and awaken to the original good.


As I see it, we have to distinguish, on the one hand, the expedient use of the concepts of karma and rebirth used to help us disengage from our habitual models of the world and, on the other hand, the misuse of the concepts of karma and rebirth that turn them into doctrines and even dogmas that only get us more entangled in our habitual models of the world.

We use the self-image, centered on the concepts of "us," "our," "I", "me" and "mine", to make sense out of everything that happens in consciousness and to divide up all things (dharmas) into causes and results. But fundamentally the division of everything that happens into causes and results is arbitrary because each dharma-thing is simultaneously both a cause and result, and the arbitrary division relies on the contextual concepts of time and space that bind us within materialist world views.

In Western Science the concept of "cause and effect" is used to create the temporary illusions of power and control over everything that happens in the framework of time and space, whereas in Buddhism the concept of "cause and result" (karma) is used to transcend the temporary illusions of power and control over everything that happens to realize the unborn suchness that is timeless and spaceless (sunyata).

"I see you oh, Housebuilder, and you shall build no more, the rafters are broken and the ridge beam is shattered." Dhammapada (11:154)

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Someone wrote: "Sometimes I think that Karma is misinterpreted. Like we think that when we die something that is in us like a spirit or a essence or anything for that matter is reborn. Also we hear often that some go to heaven and some to hell. If the Buddha said there is no soul then there is obviously nothing that goes to heaven and to hell. Perhaps when he talks of heaven hell and the hungry ghosts etc, he is using allegories for this world."
And another responded, "And if there's no soul or self, i shouldn't be held responsible for actions i did yesterday, last year, or even 10 seconds ago, because that obviously wasn't me. it's party time!"

These kinds of exchanges sadden me, because I would hope that inquirers would have a clearer appreciation of the teaching of karma. But they are also examples of how people may take such simplistic views of karma that they will rationalize their doubts into Nihilistic views such as "It's party time."

It is a basic fact of karma analysis that karma is not about "being held responsible" as if by some supreme being or celestial court of law. This is so in the manner that if you put your hand in a flame you will feel the pain; it is not that something or someone is "holding you responsible" for having put your hand in the flame. If you are in a car and driving toward a cliff, if nothing is done to change course or halt the car, then the car will go over the cliff. That is the karma dynamic: it is not that going over the cliff is being "held responsible" for driving the car in that direction. Same with karma, an action will have a result that the action is directed toward, unless an intervening action will change the course of events. Just karma physics.

Another karma metapohor is gardening. Certain seeds, once planted will sprout and grow and bear the result of what was sown. But if certain events prevent the development of the seed, then the karma of that seed won't be something to reap. But given the fruitful condition of most mind soil, most seeds do sprout, which is why people can't avoid karma simply by ignoring it with wishful thinking that they won't reap what they sow.

Karma is responsibility in the generic sense, in that karma is our ability to respond to our circumstances. We respond with thought, word, and deed, which is our karma. We have formed identities in consciousness, so our responses are in the form of action-intention complexes of mental (and emotional) formations in which the action and intention are inseparable. The coherence of the relations between all our action-intention complexes is what becomes the appearance of our identity or personality, which we then mistake as a "soul" or "self" when in fact there is no underlying "thing" at the core of the onion or the banana tree stalk.

In short, having "a soul" or "a self" has nothing to do with karma, while having a self-image or an identity has everything to do with karma.

The mechanism of rebirth and karma has nothing to do with something "like a spirit or a essence or anything" moving from life to life. Look at a wave in the ocean. It only appears that something is moving through the water. But a boat or a duck on the surface merely goes up and down as the wave passes by, the wave does not move the boat or duck horizontally because the water is not moving horizontally, even though it appears that something is moving horizontally. That is like karma. Each life is like an up and down motion, but over lifetimes there is a horizontal appearance of movement without any "thing" or "essence" actually moving from life to life. The wave is the appearance of an essence moving from life to life, but it is only the dynamics that are "transferred" not a "thing."

The wave dynamics appear in life to life because it is the ocean that is appearing in life to life, the wave dynamics are only an appearance of identity and are not separate from the ocean. There is no identity actually "moving," and no identity existing individually or separate from the ocean. This is why the Diamond Cutter Sutra says though there is the appearance of a living being, and the Bodhisattvas liberate countless living beings, in reality, no living being is liberated.

This is the simplest that I can make it.

People do have past life memories, and that does not mean that consciousness as a thing is transferred, only that the memory arises and falls in the continuum of time and space through the associations of identity. Many people are fooled into thinking because they have a memory of a past life that they "were" that person in the past life. It is not that simple.

In wave dynamics we can observe what are called interference patterns when waves cross each other. This can occur in karmic transmission of identity-waves so that several people can have similar cross-reference points. This is why certain powerful identities seem to resonate with many people who connect to past life memories. It is not always a wish fulfillment, because part of what makes a powerful identity pattern is the way that the karmic-waves have come together in focused conjunction in a wave formation that creates a big-wave identity-formation. When that identity "dies" the wave formations can divide again just as waves in water separate after they have moved through each other in the wave interference pattern.

In my experience, appreciating the wave dynamics of water and light (electromagnetic fields) are the best way to begin to understand how the dynamics of karma function.

A brief look at Intelligent Design

Many people think there is a basic conflict between religion and evolution as a scientific theory. As I see it the conflict is not between religion and science, but between religion as myth and revelation and science as observation. Buddhism is at its core a religion of observation, not of mythic revelation, so there is no fundamental conflict between Buddhism and science.

(To those who are familiar with the mythic aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and marvel at the idea that Buddhism is not a religion of myth and revelation at its core, let me just say that Buddhism sees such myths as "the five cosmic Buddhas" as metaphorical teaching devices for people who want to hold onto the feelings of security of such things. They are not seen as statements of objective existence but as devices that will be seen through as the practitioner develops understanding going beyond such naive views, just as a student of science develops understandings that alter the naive view of the world as earth-centric or flat.)

To me the words "intelligent design" are not objectionable per se, because as a Buddhist I have a different take on both "intelligence" and "design." As I see it, intelligence is inherent in all component things. For example, the more we look deeply into the human body within the cells, the more we see what looks to the imagination like cities or factories of immense activity and complexity. This coherence of complexity is an expression of a level or dimension of intelligence that is integral with the manifestation of life at that level. What we call our personal consciousness at the "macro" level of individuality, is itself "built upon" the foundation of the totality of consciousness at the sub-cellular level.

A principle tenet of Buddhism is called "anatman" meaning that there is no separate "self" or "soul" or "entity" within or beyond an individual or distinguishable from the unity of the person-environment, and so similarly there is no need to posit the existence of a "designer" separate from the design. To speak of the design of nature is the recognition of the laws of nature and the functions and principles of consciousness that provide for pattern creation and recognition in the universe.

Creationism in Buddhism means that the complete and completely incomprehensible and undifferentiated emptiness or nothingness separates itself into one and zero, expanding toward one and contracting towards zero. Between one and zero is "the line" of the event horizon, that includes the fundamental polarizing effect that is apparent in a wave formation with a "hill" and a "trough". As the event horizon vibrates with greater varieties of expansion and contraction along the line, for example as a string of a guitar or violin vibrates with sub-harmonics, with expansions on expansions, expansions on contractions, contractions on contractions, and contractions on expansions, exponentially replicating in patterns upon patterns and patterns within patterns, all in-filled with randomness as part of the balance-imbalance of the complexity, then the universe as we know it is created.

In this view, creation is not something that just happened in the past or is separate from the immediate current of time -- it is time itself -- and it occurs moment to moment as conditions arise, form, and dissolve. Evolution is the tracking of the changes of creation through conventional time in the sphere of biology. By tracking the changes in as many spheres as we can (e.g., in biology, geography, meteorology, psychology, etc.) we can get a sense of the laws, principles, and patterns (Dharma and dharmas) that occur naturally in the changes of our universe as it is created moment to moment as seen through the three-cornered prism of conventional time viewed as past, present, and future.

P.S. This blog was stimulated by finding a 12/2006 blog "Orr on Dawkins" at Evolutionblog

Obama is blind that Afghanistan is a lost cause

A Quickie:

Obama's centrist militant blather about moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan is a sign that he really doesn't offer any change in foreign policy principles and is just offering the usual political bait and switch for political expediency. He doesn't have a clue about real change in foreign policy, such as what Dennis Kucinich means by not using war as an instrument of foreign policy.

Afghanistan is already a lost cause for US foreign policy, and unless a radical change in direction is made in the policy toward Afghanistan -- a change in fundamental principles in foreign relations -- Afghanistan will continue to be lost.

We are aiding and abetting the war lords and drug lords growing opium poppies and the opium trade is as high as it has ever been. We are supporting Hamid Karzai who is protecting the war lords from prosecution, while the war lords continue to prevent the development of democracy in their territories. Karzai has hardly any influence beyond Kabul and only has that control because he won't challenge the war lords and local dictators.

Our current policy in Afghanistan puts the local villagers in direct danger by leaving them defenseless to the Taliban insurgents after the US and NATO troops pass through. There is no Afghanistan structure for local village defense and self rule. In much if not most of Afghanistan, women are still as oppressed under the current government as they were before.

In sum, the U.S. has failed in Afghanistan as much as we have failed in Iraq to understand the people and the conflicts and to support the real education in democracy and reform; instead we have merely supported hacks and gangsters in the Afghanistan government.

We have already lost Afghanistan and transferring more troops there will only prolong the agony because there is no realistic goal nor is there strategy to attain the goal.

This comment is responding to Earl Ofari Hutchinson's column at the
Huffington Post and comments at The Young Turks.

What Obama Needs To Learn From Progressives

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[Cross Posted at dailykos.com ]

You can’t have a critical mass for change if you don’t have a mass of criticism about what needs to be changed.

In my recent daily post from Portside I received the recent essay at In These Times by Ken Brociner titled The American Left: What Progressives Can Learn from Obama

Brociner begins by saying,

One of the trademarks of Barack Obama's presidential campaign has been his commitment to a new style of politics. Last year, in answering a question about negative campaigning and ad hominem attacks on opponents, he said: "My preference going forward is that we have to be careful not to slip into playing the game as it is customarily played."

Here's my quick response as a reader's reply to Portside:

Re: The American Left: What Progressives Can Learn from Obama

As a radical progressive I got a good laugh from Ken Brociner's essay. Ken, you haven't presented anything that progressives can learn from Obama. Obama says "we have to be careful not to slip into playing the game as it is customarily played," and then he goes to AIPAC and plays the game completely customarily and his flip-flop cave-in on Telecom Imunity is completely customary politics, just to name two examples. Ken, in case you didn't notice, Petraeus did betray the USA, and Sirota is right that Obama is keeping hush on important issues. Ken, Obama is the best choice among what the two party machines have to offer, but after observing Obama's first two weeks as the nominee and his rush to the center, only uncritical admirers of Barack Obama can still believe he has a genuine desire to transcend old political habits.

Gregory Wonderwheel
Santa Rosa.

As you can see I'm not at all enamored by Barack Obama's candidacy. His speech at AIPAC the day after achieving the nomination was an abomination and supreme display of pandering at its worst. Self-styled progressives like Ken Brociner leave me wondering if there is a political label that Democratic centrists won't try to usurp?

So looking at Brociner's essay a little deeper, afer the first paragraph presented above, he goes on to praise Obama for running "an unusually fair-minded and positive campaign."

Next Brociner says,

Obama's commitment to a different brand of politics represents more than a mere preference for taking the high road in the rough-and-tumble world of political combat. The Illinois senator has, in fact, developed what amounts to an alternative philosophical outlook toward politics. And it is a perspective that, I believe, too many progressives have been ignoring at their own peril.

Unfortunately, Brociner then laspes back into discussing issues of political campaigning style and does not provide any examples of the "alternative philosophical outlook" that Obama is supposed to have developed. So it appears that this alternative philosophical outlook only extends to trying to be a "nice guy" campaigner.

The problem that progressives have with Obama is not as Broiner alleges that we don't trust his motivations, it is that we don't trust his politics. So far he appears to be nothing more than a better window dressing on the Democratic Party. Brociner wants us to believe that every political "enemy" be they vanilla liberal Democrat or rabid neo-con really sincerely believes "they are working to
make the world a better place." So? Perhaps Brociner's view is the problem. What ar ewe to make of people who believe they are working to make the world a better place but who are doing so in a manner that makes it worse? Okay, assuming George Bush and Dick Cheney really wanted to make the world a better place by lying to the public and illegally invading and occupying Iraq, how does that "new philosophy" help us?

Assuming that Barack Obama really wants to make the world a better place when he goes to AIPAC and kisses their shoes regurgitating their false talking points right back to them, while Israel contiues its illegal and inhumane appartheid occupation and blocade of Palestine, how does that express a new "philosophical outlook" in political policy or principles?

It is not progressives who have a one-dimensional analysis, it is Brociner who is presenting a cartoonish version of reality by erasing the facts from the picture. What is happening and why? Brociner cites a September 2005 essay by Obama sent to the Daily Kos blogs titled "Tone, Truth and the Democratic Party."

Brociner includes the following excerpt from Obama's appeal:

"...I firmly believe that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, or oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate."

That looks good on paper or the computer screen, but why then does Obama dumb down his political debate at every opportunity to do otherwise? Whe did Obama go to AIPAC and not mention that Israel's blocade of the movement of goods in and out of Palestine is a crime against humanity? Why doesn't Obama, who was a Constitutional law professor, use his new status as the leader of the Democratic Party to educate the electorate about the 4th Amenedment and why Telecom Imunity violates it, but instead he dumbs down the issue and falsely pretends that this bill is a compromise. That's not a new "philosophy" that's the same old stick up the rear that the American people have come to expect from politicians that leads to "a cynical electorate" that is anything but "selfish."

Obama is the one who is creating the dishonest tone to the election when he supports an assault on the Constitution and calls it a good deal for the people. The fundamental dishonesty to the Democratic Party is that Obama is conceding that he has no argument against the Republicans on national security. And on top of that Obama's basis message is even though George Bush has the power now, don't worry when Obama is president he will exercise it responsibility. That is not a new philosophy of government; that is the oldest political scam in the world. What Obama needs to learn from progressives is to quit the political con game and keep it real.

P.S. I recommend Glenn Greenwald's blog Obama's support for the FISA "compromise"

Why there is still time and reason for impeachment of Bush.

Dennis Kucinich is introducing a bill with Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. Conyers already presented the bogus argument that there wasn't enough time to impeach Cheney last year so we can expect to hear the same baloney from him about the Bush impeachment. However there is plenty of time as impeachment can be completed in four months as Clinton's was.

The most important reason for impeachment now is not remove Bush in order to get a new leadership but to establish the historical record for the deterrence and prevention of Bush-like tyrants in the future.

I am very grateful for Kucinich doing this now and I hope it becomes a campaign issue in every Congressional district.

When we see Conyers saying, "There isn’t the time here for it." Let him know you know he is lying. Of course there is time. And of course Conyers will be doing everything in his power to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy by his own delaying tactics. I call this playing a desperation card because it is so lacking in substance. It is nothing more than B.S., i.e.,blowing smoke.

Why isn't there time? The history of recent impeachments show that there is time. According to the History Place article on Nixon's impeachment, Sen. Sam Ervin began the Watergate investigation in February of 1973 for the purpose of investigating all of the events surrounding Watergate and other allegations of political spying and sabotage After a nearly year-long court battle over the release of Nixon's tapes, the three articles of impeachment against Nixon were approved by the House judiciary committee on the three days of July 27, 29, and 30, 1974. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Thus, impeachment achieved its purpose from the beginning of the investigation to resignation in 18 months. But most of that time was the court battle over the tapes. For Bush there is no foreseeable reason for such a protracted delay of Bush's impeachment investigation to be held up in the courts.

All the evidence against Bush is already in the public domain. Testimony like McClellan's will only be icing on the cake. The evidence merely needs to be presented at a judiciary committee in an organized fashion to create the record for preferring the charges to the Senate. There are 6 months left in Bush's presidency and with no need for an original investigation like Watergate to occur we have plenty enough time, if the Democrats don't put up the road blocks.

In fact there was no time consuming preliminary investigation conducted by the House in Clinton's impeachment. According to the History Place entry on Clinton's impeachment, impeachment proceedings were initiated on October 8, 1998. The House and the Judiciary Committee did not need to conduct original investigations itself and instead relied upon testimony presented at the committee hearings. The Judiciary Committee sent a list of 81 questions to Clinton for him to either admit or deny under oath, and his responses then became the basis for one of the articles of impeachment. The committee voted on articles of impeachment on December 11, 1998, and upon the passage of H. Res. 611, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the full House of Representatives. And the Senate trial lasted from January 7, 1999, until February 12, 1999. Thus, the impeachment and trial of Clinton took only four months. We have that much time.

There are books already published with the allegations of Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors. It would only take a relatively short time to present the case for impeachment by the appropriate witnesses to introduce the events and facts in these books as evidence. It should/could/would take only two or three months for the House to vote on articles of impeachment.

If started before Bush leaves office it might be able to continue weven after he leaves.

If delays are created by the Democrats or Republicans, there is also the question of whether or not impeachment would be made moot by the end of Bush's term. In other words, the Constitution may allow impeachment of a president even after he has left office.

Certainly it is arguable that if impeachment proceedings are begun while the president is in office, because Article I Section 3 of the Constitution provides that judgement may extend to "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" that an impeachment is not made moot simply by the president leaving office, because a judgement disqualifying Bush from future office would still be an effective punishment that is not made moot by his leaving office by the end of the term.

When Nixon resigned the impeachment hearings were stopped because it was seen that his resignation was punishment enough. But if Bush didn't resign, as we know he wouldn't, if he stays through his term and is simply out of office by the time running out, then he would escape all punishment, so as I see it in order to have a punishment, since removal form office would be moot, the punishment that would be available is the disqualification clause. I would argue that leaving office would make impeachment moot only if the removal from office clause were the only punishment available. Since the disqualification clause is an additional punishment I believe impeachment would not be moot if Bush leaves office on January 21, 2009.

This is an interesting Constitutional question that I have not seen specifically addressed yet. If anyone knows references to this question please post them.

And besides, even if the Republicans could delay a vote on impeachment until January 2009 and that would make impeachment constitutionally moot, impeachment proceedings would still have been the right thing to do and in the name of upholding the rule of law. Conyers and Pelosi act like they doesn't understand that the rule of law is an even more important legacy than whether or not Bush is able to run out the clock. By putting impeachment on the table now, the Democrats finally would be saying that no matter how close to the end of a term a president is, he or she can't escape the checks and balances of our Constitutional democracy.

However, by refusing to allow impeachment proceedings to go forward, it is Conyers and the Democrats who would be preventing justice and it is Conyers and he Democrats who are thumbing their noses at our Constitutional system of protections. It is Conyers and the Democrats who are letting a criminal President literally get away with murder. It is Conyers and the Democrats who are establishing the precedent that a president doesn't have to worry in the least about committing high crimes and misdemeanors if he is near the end of his term.

If the People's sovereignty is not upheld at the very minimum by at least having a hearing of the impeachment charges against George Bush, who is arguably the worst criminal president in our history, then Conyers and the Democratic Party are the one's who should be held responsible and accountable for aiding and abetting Bush's crimes. Not only that, they will be laying the foundation for the future crimes of future presidents even yet to be born. Unless Congress takes impeachment seriously, they will be sending a message to all future Presidents that the days of being held accountable re over. That is the open door to fascism.

We are always hearing how the delusional Bush claims that history will show he ws right and the people are wrong. Impeachment is the best and necessary way to write the initial historical record today that will be used in the future to document that Bush is the worst President in US history.

Why did Clinton lose? Plain and simple in one word: Judgement

Adding to the post mortems of the Clinton campaign, in my view Clinton lost because she didn't have the good judgement to win. She didn't have the good judgement to know who is in the Democratic Party and what their issues were. Clinton didn't have the judgement to see past her own issues. She didn't have the judgement to know that a leader doesn't ignore the base of the Party in fundamental issues.

At every crucial fork in the road, she misjudged the Democratic base. No amount of "experience" can make up for poor judgement unless it is used to transform poor judgement into good judgement. Unfortunately for her, Clinton just couldn't or wouldn't admit that her poor judgement on the war needed transformation. She did not have the judgement to lead herself out of the corner she had painted herself into. A leader needs the judgement to know the difference between pandering and following, and while Clinton showed no reluctance to pander on certain issues, she was incapable of following the majority of the Party's base on the most important concern of the day, and without demonstrating the judgement of responsive leadership she doomed herself and couldn't win.

In 2002, Clinton didn't have the judgement to vote against George W. Bush and he war. This was when she lost me in her bid to become president. Clinton didn't have the judgement in 2002 to know that if she wanted to run for president in either 2004 or 2008 that in 2002 she needed to show leadership against the Republican war machine. She needed to have the judgement of knowing right from wrong when it came to Bush's doctrine of preemptive war. She needed the judgement to know that the people want a leader who knows the difference between waging a war of defense from a war of offence. Clinton didn't have the judgement of Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to be elected to Congress, who voted against the First World War.

Then in 2004, Clinton went on Larry King (among other venues) and still did not have the judgement to apologize. Instead she defended her vote and defended the war with its preemptive war doctrine, claiming only that President Bush was failing to execute the war properly.

Thus, Clinton lost her campaign way before the actual race had begun.

Yes, if there had been no Obama, no viable alternative, Clinton may have gotten away with her poor judgement. But the majority of the Democratic Party was hungering for someone to stand up against Bush, not for someone who followed him off the cliff. So even though Obama didn't fight strongly against Bush once he came to the Senate, the mere fact that he was on record at the time in a speech opposing the war was enough to give his improbable campaign credibility with the Democratic base as the candidate to be rallied around and to trust as someone who had the judgement to say "No" to the stupidity of the war. No amount of sheer charisma on Obama's part would have been enough to catapult Obama into the lead if he did not have the war as the fulcrum.

Once the campaign started and before the first primaries, Clinton still refused to apologize for her war vote. She blamed Bush for lying when she still didn't recognize that the rule against preemptive war is in large part just for the purpose of protecting the people from an executive's lies, precisely because a president has too many enticements not to lie if a war will be of use to shore up a failing administration. If she had the judgement to say, "My vote was a mistake because I was not giving enough importance to the doctrine against preemptive war, and now I have learned the lesson why preemptive war is wrong" then she might have had a chance. She would have demonstrated analysis at work.

Instead she continued to embrace war as an option of diplomacy, instead of as a last resort of self defense when there are no other options. So she voted for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, once again demonstrating that she had learned absolutely nothing from the Democratic Party's base.

There are just too many forks in the road to list where Clinton demonstrated she did not have the judgement to listen to the Party's base and make corrections. Here are just a few the instances of failed judgement at the turning points.

At the crossroads of deciding to run on "experience" or on the vision of a better future, whether it is called "hope" or "change,"
she misjudged and chose "experience" even though her husband had run against "experience" and won.

At the crossroads of healthcare, instead of using the judgement to see that the Democratic base wants single payer health care, she chose not to show leadership and instead essentially adopted and edited version of John Edward's healthcare proposal. One has to wonder why, since she had made healthcare a center piece of her campaign she did not have an original, innovative, and bold proposal at hand before she even officially announced her candidacy?

After the first four primaries and the writing was on the wall that Obama was the frontrunner and Clinton needed a new strategy beyond the hollow claim of "experience", one that would show her leadership in action, Hillary could have come out strong against Bush and called for his impeachment. Only an issue like impeachment could have brought a significant portion of the progressive base of the party (that is of those who needed more than the mere fact that she is a woman) toward her. If she didn't want to go all the way to impeachment, she could have at least promised to call for an independent prosecutor to conduct a complete and thorough criminal justice investigation of the Bush administration's crimes leading up to the war. Instead even after Bush's lies were completely apparent, she denied the need for impeachment and did not offer any leadership toward an alternative. At this time of course, Obama didn't support impeachment or an alternative either, but he didn’t have the need to do so because he had the high ground of his anti-war vote and was the front runner. It was the need to show bold leadership at that time when she was behind that Clinton again misjudged.

Lastly, on Tues, June 3, Clinton once again showed her poor judgement by refusing to concede, and instead of selflessly stating the obvious and eloquently and graciously praising her opponent and getting behind him, she had the poor judgement to think she could continue her campaign with a tasteless appeal to her supporters to help her decide what to do next. If on the last day of the campaign she didn't have the judgement to see that she had lost and to know how to be decisive and to rise to the occasion to admit defeat, then she still didn't have the judgement to be Vice President, much less President.

Cross posted at The Daily Kos

The Sutra of the Dog's-Life Ascetic.

Is this funny? To me, Punna and Seniya are the Abbot and Costello or Laural and Hardy of the sutras. I find their questioning of the Buddha about the other's future life instead of their own to be touching and hilarious at the same time. I laugh every time I read it.

This is my retelling of the Kukkuravatika Sutta based on the translation by Nanamoli Bhikkhu.

###

Thus have I heard. One time these two ascetics walked into a vihara where the Buddha was staying temporarily.

Punna was an ox-functioning ascetic who imitated the life of an ox. He moved with slow deliberate motions. He ate only vegetables. Seniya was a naked dog-function ascetic who imitated the life of a dog even to the point of never wearing clothes, always lying on the floor, and eating food that is thrown on the ground.

The two politely exchanged greetings and small talk with the Blessed One. Seniya, naked with his hair uncut and uncombed, sat to the side of Buddha curled up like a dog. Punna sat too beside him.

Punna and Seniya were the best of friends, but they were each jealous of the animal duty they felt called to practice and they teased often each other saying things like, "You dog you will never get to heaven acting like a dog, only an ox is a noble creature who shows the way to heaven." or "You dumb ox, you will never get enlightened acting like a cow, only by living the freedom of a dog will you find true liberation." Though they teased each other, they remained true companions to each other.

As they settled down and knowing the Buddha's reputation for having the power to know people's future lives, Punna asked, with a sly grin, "Blessed One, Seniya here is a dog's-life ascetic. He really tries hard and is diligent to live like a dog. He even eats from the ground when a donor throws his food down. What is going to become of him? What will be his future destination in rebirth?"

Buddha said, "Oh Punna, please don't ask me that! Let it be. People aren't meant to know what their future lives are going to be."

But now Punna was really curious and repeated his request. "Buddha, come on, Seniya is a really good dog. Isn't that going to make his future wonderful? What's going to come of him?"

And again Buddha said, "No Punna, don't ask me this kind of question. Enough, let it be."

And a third time Punna, said, "Honorable One, Seniya does what is really hard to do. And he's done if for a long time, too. He doesn't even wear clothes. He has lived like a dog with no regard for his shame as a human. He really deserves to hear what his efforts will get him."

Buddha said, "Well, since I certainly can't talk you out of it Punna, by saying 'Enough. Let it be.' I'll answer you. Punna, when a person acts like a dog, walks like a dog, barks like a dog, scratches like a dog, eats like a dog, sleeps like a dog, and fully and unstintingly performs like a dog, then on the dissolution of the body after death they will be reborn in the company of dogs. When you live like a dog and die like a dog, then you will be reborn as a dog. That is, at least if you are truly a dog. But if while acting like a dog a person thinks, 'By being a dog I will get to heaven faster, I will be reborn in heaven after my death, because I gave up my humanity and demonstrated the great goal of unattachment by acting like a dog I will be reborn as a greater or lesser heavenly being where the streets are paved with gold and the days are filled with bliss." If a person acting like a dog has these misguided thoughts of heaven, then of course their wrong views about how things work will lead them straight to hell, they will be reborn directly into hell where they will be whipped, kicked, and starved like a dog."

On hearing this, Seniya began to cry and shed great tears. The Buddha said, "See Punna, you had to ask even though I told you, 'Let it be. Do not ask me that.'"

Seniya said, "It's okay Blessed One, I'm not weeping just because of what you have said. These are not just tears of self-pity; they are tears of joy at hearing the truth from the lips of the Blessed One. But now Venerable sir, please tell us, here is Punna the ox-function ascetic who spends all his time living the plain and simple life of an ox. What will be his karmic reward in the next life?"

Buddha said, "Oh Seniya, please don't ask me that! Let it be. People aren't meant to know what their future lives are going to be."

But now Seniya was even more curious and repeated his request. "Buddha, come on, Punna is a really great ox. Isn't that going to make his future sacred and joyful? What's going to come of him?"

And again Buddha said, "No Seniya, don't ask me this kind of question. Enough, let it be."

And a third time Seniya, said, "Honorable One, Punna does what is really hard to do. And he's done if for a long time, too. He doesn't think of wealth, fame or power. He has lived like an ox with no regard for his shame as a human. Doesn't he really deserve to hear what his efforts will get him?"

Buddha said, "Well, since I certainly can't talk you out of it Seniya, by saying 'Enough. Let it be.' I'll answer you. Seniya. When a person acts like an ox, walks like an ox, eats like an ox, sleeps like an ox, and fully and unstintingly performs like an ox, then on the dissolution of he body after death they will be reborn in the company of oxen. When you live like an ox and die like an ox, then you will be reborn as a ox. That is, at least if you are truly an ox. But if while acting like an ox a person thinks, 'By being an ox I will get to heaven faster, I will be reborn in heaven after my death, because I gave up my humanity and demonstrated the great goal of unattachment by acting like an ox. I will be reborn as a greater or lesser heavenly being where the streets are paved with gold and the days are filled with bliss." If a person acting like an ox has these mistaken thoughts of heaven, then of course their wrong views about how things work will lead them straight to hell, they will be reborn directly into hell where they will be whipped, yoked and put to terribly tedious and tiring labor like an ox."

When this was said, Punna wept and shed tears. Then the Blessed One said to Seniya, "See, I could not persuade you to remain silent,"

Punna said, "Honored One, I am not weeping because the Blessed One has told me this. I have confidence in the Blessed One and know the Blessed One will teach us the Dharma in such a way that we may abandon our animal functions and practice the way."

The Buddha said, "Punna, listen and heed well what I shall say."

"Yes, venerable," he replied.

The Blessed One said: ""Punna, there are four kinds of karma that I proclaim since I have had realization myself with direct knowledge. What are the four? They are dark karma with dark ripening, bright karma with bright ripening, dark-and-bright karma with dark-and-bright ripening, and karma that is not dark and not bright with neither-dark-nor-bright ripening that leads instantly to the exhaustion of karma.
"What is dark karma with dark ripening? It is when someone produces a bodily act with affliction, one produces a verbal act with affliction, or one produces a mental act with affliction. By so doing, that one acting like that reappears in a world with affliction. When that happens, the afflictions of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind touch the person. Being touched by these, one then feels afflicting feelings deeply painful as in the case of beings in hell. Thus a being's own rebirth is due to the being: One reappears owing to the karmic acts one has performed. When one has reappeared, the contacts of the six senses touch one. Thus I say all beings are heirs of their karmas. This is called dark karma with dark ripening.

"And what is bright karma with bright ripening? It is when someone produces a bodily act without affliction, one produces a verbal act without affliction, and one produces a mental act without affliction. By doing so, the one acting like that reappears in a world without affliction. When that happens, the unafflicting contacts of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind touch the person. Being touched by these, one feels unafflicted feelings entirely pleasant as in the case of the the gods of Resplendently Radiant Glory. Thus a being's reappearance is due to the being: one reappears owing to the karmas one has performed. When one has reappeared, the six contacts touch one. Thus I say all beings are heirs of their karmas. This is called bright karma with bright ripening.

"What is dark-and-bright karma with dark-and-bright ripening? This is when someone produces a bodily act both with and without affliction, one produces a verbal act both with and without affliction, and one produces a mental act both with and without affliction. By doing so, one reappears in a world both with and without affliction. When that happens, both afflicting and unafflicting contacts of the six senses touch one. Being touched by these, one feels afflicting and unafflicting feelings with mingled pleasure and pain as in the case of human beings and some heavenly beings and some inhabitants of the states of deprivation. Thus a being's reappearance is due to the being: one reappears owing to the karmas one has performed. When one has reappeared, sense contacts touch him. Thus I say all beings are heirs of their karmas. This is called dark-and-bright karma with dark-and-bright ripening.

"What is neither-dark-nor-bright karma with neither-dark-nor-bright ripening that leads to the exhaustion of karma? As to the previous kinds of karma, any choice in abandoning the kind of karma that is dark with dark ripening, any determination in abandoning the kind of karma that is bright with bright ripening, and any decision in abandoning the kind of karma that is dark-and bright with dark-and-bright ripening: this is called neither-dark-nor-bright karma with neither-dark-nor-bright ripening.

"These are the four kinds of karma proclaimed by me after personal realization with direct knowledge."

After hearing this, Punna, a son of the Koliyan clan and an ox-functioning ascetic, said to the Blessed One: "Magnificent, Master Gotama! Magnificent, Master Gotama! The Dharma has been clarified in many ways by Master Gotama as though he were turning upright what had been tipped over, revealing the hidden, showing the way to one who is lost, holding up a lamp in the darkness for those with eyes to see.

"I go to Master Gotama for refuge and to the Dharma and to the Sangha of followers. From today let Master Gotama remember me as a lay follower who has gone to him for refuge for life."

But Seniya the naked dog-function ascetic said: "Magnificent, Master Gotama!... The Dharma has been clarified in many ways by Master Gotama as though he were turning upright what had been tipped over, revealing the hidden, showing the way to one who is lost, holding up a lamp in the darkness for those with eyes to see.

"I go to Master Gotama for refuge and to the Dhamma and to the Sangha of followers. I would receive the going forth under Master Gotama and the full admission as a monk."

The Buddha said, "Seniya, one who has previously belonged to another religion and wants the going forth and the full admission in this Dharma and Discipline has to live on probation for four months. At the end of the four months monks who are satisfied in their minds give the novice the ceremony of going forth into homelessness and also the full admission to the monks' state. During the probation period, a difference in persons has become known to me in this."

Seniya said, "Honored one, if those who belonged formerly to another religion and want the going forth and the full admission in this Dharma and Discipline live on probation for four months and at the end of four months monks who are satisfied in their minds give them the going forth ceremony into homelessness and the full admission to the monks' state, then I will live on probation for four years and at the end of the four years let monks who are satisfied in their minds give me the going forth into homelessness and the full admission to the monks' state."

Seniya the naked dog-function ascetic received the going forth under the Blessed One, and he received the full admission. And not long after his full admission, after dwelling alone, withdrawn, diligent, ardent, and self-controlled, the venerable Seniya by personal realization with direct knowledge immediately and directly entered and abided in that supreme goal of the holy life for the sake of which relatives rightly go forth from the home life into homelessness. He had direct knowledge thus: "Birth is exhausted, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more of this to come."

And the venerable Seniya became one of the arhats.

###

A Question on Translating the Heart Sutra

This is from my post at E-sangha on a thread about the Heart Sutra. "Bee j" was asking about a line in Red Pine's translation.

bee j,May 23 2008, 09:04 AM

they see through delusions and finally nirvana

the few versions i've read online (for example, yours also Gregory) always mention 'attain nirvana' but here Red Pine has expressedly chosen this wording . he states that he chose to do this to illustrate that bodhisattvas see through not only delusions concerning the existence of samsara, but also of the existence of nirvana. further, they see through delusions concerning the non-existance of nirvana as both terms cannot be applied to that which is beyond duality.

what do you folk make of his choice? curious to know
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Basically, whether "attain" is there depends on the Sanskrit source that one uses to translate from. There are two Sanskrit versions, one is the shortest and the other is the longer version. The longer version is associated more with Tibetan sources while the shorter version is associated more with the Chinese. The longer has an introduction setting up the scene with Buddha inspiring and empowering both Sariputra to ask Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva his question and Avalokitesvara to answer.

The shorter version of the Heart Sutra has: viparyasa-atikranto nishtha-nirvanah.
The longer version of the Heart Sutra has: viparyasa-atikranto nishtha-nirvanah-praptah.

"prApta" means "attained to, reached, arrived at, met with, found, incurred, got, acquired, gained."

Some interlinear translations could be:
viparyasa -atikranto -nistha -nirvana -prapta
upside down views- transcend -final(ly) -nirvana -attained
delusion -surpassed -lastly -nirvana -found
error -overcame -in the end -nirvana -arrived at

The question is whether prapta should be included or not. Red Pine says,

"Several copies of the longer version of the Heart Sutra add the verb prapta (attain) at the end of the phrase nishtha nirvana (finally nirvana). Conze also included it in his Sanskrit edition of 1948/1957 (cf. Buddhist Wisdom Books), but he deleted it in his second edition in 1967 (cf. Thirty Years of Buddhist Studies(. Other translators and commentators, either aware of this variant or thinking it must be implied, have taken this phrase to mean something equivilent to 'finally attain nirvana.'"

It shows Red Pine is taking a position when he says several copies of the longer version add the verb, because one could just as well say the short version dropped or lost the verb.

Red Pine feels that including the verb attain after the word nirvana can't be correct because earlier the sutra says "no attainment, no non-attainment." Red Pine adds,

To avoid this problem, I have read both viparyasa (delusion) and nishtha-nirvana (finally nirvana) as objects of the verb atikranto (see through), which is allowed by the vagaries of Sanskrit grammer in the absence of prapta.

Notice that Red Pine makes the somewhat circular argument that prapta doesn't belong there and since it is not there the phrase can be read as a verb surrounded by two nouns as objects instead of a noun-verb and adjective-noun-verb. That argument can be turned around just as well to say that the grammar of having a noun-verb-adjective-noun and read to mean direct object-verb-adjective-direct object with both direct objects referring to the same verb is so odd that the prapta as the verb to the second noun should be there and must have been inadvertently dropped in the shorter version.

In other words, considering the grammar, it is more reasonable to take the prapta as lost in the shorter version than added in the longer version because the longer version is more grammatically correct. This is logical,

Also it is more reasonable to consider the verb dropped in the shorter version because of the natural process of condensation of the Heart Sutra into shorter and shorter versions. But this too is a subject of some controversy because people don't agree which came first, the longer or the shorter.

As Donald S. Lopez, Jr. succinctly writes,

The Heart Sutra exists in two basic versions, a shorter version and a longer, with the shorter beginning with Avalokitesvara contemplating the meaning of the profound perfection of wisdom and ending with the mantra and the longer adding a prologue, in which Buddha enters into samadhi, and an epilogue, in which he rises from the samadhi and praises Avalokitesvara.

Traditionally, a sutra has some basic parts that are all there in the longer version but are not all there in the shorter version. In fact, the shorter version doesn't really qualify for the title of Sutra because it is missing necessary parts. The primary parts of a sutra are (1) the opening statement "Thus have I heard" indicating that the text is the Buddha's words (Buddhavacana), (2) a statement of the location where the teaching was delivered, (3) the statement of the audience of monks or Bodhisattvas present and the identification of the monk or Bodhisattva (or layman) who is the primary interlocutor of the Buddha that resulted in the Sutra being delivered, and (4) the central content of the sutra.

In this view, the longer version of the Heart Sutra is itself a condensation from the very much longer Prajnaparamita Sutras. But some people believe the Heart Sutra was first written as a dharini or long mantra for recitation, not as a sutra. From this view Heart Sutra had later additions of the prologue and epilogue to make it look like a sutra. If this later view is correct then in fact it is not a sutra at all because there is no Buddhavacana, in fact the Buddha is not present at all, and so this is not the teaching from the words of the Buddha. In the longer version, it is stated that the location is the Vulture Peak and the Buddha, in the opening, is in samadhi and the whole interaction between Avalokitesvara and Sariputra. is stimulated and instigated and empowered directly by Buddha from within his samadhi. And in the ending the Buddha arises from samadhi and confirms the teaching as correct. Thus the longer, even though it is not very much longer has all the essential traditional components of a Sutra.

So each person needs to determine for him or her self whether they see the longer version as the more appropriate with the shorter version a condensation of it, or they see the shorter version as the more authentic with the longer version adding parts to convert a dharini or mantra into a sutra.

It should be remembered that the Heart Sutra is the only major Prajnaparamita text in which Avalokitesvara appears. There are doctrinal reasons for this because the greater Prajnaparamita Sutras deal with the path and with compassion while the Heart Sutra is totally condensed to the essence of enlightenment. The inclusive presence of Avalokitesvara embodies all the material of the greater Prajnaparamita that is left out, and in fact demonstrates graphically that the wisdom imparted by Avalokitesvara is not separable from the compassion and the Bodhisattva path that Avalokitesvara also embodies.

So Red Pine's strongest argument is not based on the grammar ro the history of the text but upon the view of the teaching presented in the text.

Thus, bodhisattvas do not reach or attain nirvana but overcome all delusions, including those that concern the ultimate goal of nirvana, namely, views taht see nirvana as either permanent or not permanent, pleasurable or not pleasurable, self-existent or not self-existent, pure or not pure. Nirvana is dimply the final delusion. Thus Mahayana sutras never tire of telling us that bodhisattvas do not attain nirvana and even avoid it, that their goal is elsewhaer, namely the liberation of all beings. This is also the view of the Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-five Thousand Lines, which states that while bodhisattvas lead others to nirvana, nirvana itself is a dream or delusion.

Except for the last sentence, I agree with what is stated but I don't agree that it determines the question of whether prapta is rightfully in the text or not. For example the Diamond Cutter Sutra says the Dharma is no-Dharma therefore it is called Dharma; it doesn't do away with the word Dharma. The Prajnaparamita also says that beings are no=beings therefore they are called beings; it doesn't stop using the word "beings". Similarly the Heart Sutra says the equivalent of attainment is no-attainment therefore it is called attainment. The longer sentence or string of ideas presented beginning with the "Therefore Sariputra" begins with "Therefore sariputra, without attainment, ....." and ends with "... final nirvana attained." This is in fact the view taken by the last sentence of Red Pine's quote above even though he doesn't appear to be aware of it. If bodhisattvas lead others to a dream, then there would be no talk of "leading" or of "nirvana" at all. But beings attain nirvana even though beings are no-beings, nirvana is a dream and they do it without attainment.

So without a convincing historical reason to leave out prapta nor a convincing teaching reason, I'm left with the question of the grammar which I also don't find convincing. We should remember that Red Pine is taking two steps in his presentation: first he says prapta should be out, and then as his second step he is saying that both delusion and nirvana are direct objects of the verb atikranto. I can see no grammatical justification for that. Even without the sentencing-ending verb of prapta, the noun-verb pairing of viparyasa -atikranto (delusion-overcome) has no internal suggestion or grammatical clue, at all, that the verb "overcoming" also includes the following adjective-noun pair of nistha -nirvana.

The point is that when prapta is left out of the line, then grammatically there is a missing verb after nistha -nirvana, and the question remains, which verb should be implied: a repetition of the preceding verb, or the historical verb present in the longer text?

Thus if prapta were left out the line would literally read: "delusion overcome final(ly) nirvana."

To read it as Red Pine does means you have to read into it either the repetition of the verb as "delusion overcome final nirvana overcome" or read into it a missing conjunction such as "delusion overcome likewise final nirvana."

My view is that with the evidence of the longer text having prapta written down, then the obvious historical or traditional implication of the missing ending verb is that it is prapta and not atikranto.

Also the presence of the adjective nistha meaning final or finally also separates the word nirvana as a noun from the preceding verb atikranto. Even when the word prapta is left out the phrase reads, "delusion overcome finally nirvana." There is no purpose for the word final or finally if it did not imply the final result of the whole string of points immediately preceding it: beginning with the "Therefore Sariputra": (1) without attainment, (2) bodhisattvas rely on Prajnaparamita (3) dwelling serenely (4) without obstacles in awareness (5) overcoming delusions and (6) finally nirvana [is attained]." As this is the attaining without attainment., the attainment of no-attainment of the Prajnaparamita, there is no teaching or grammatical basis for leaving out the concluding prapta form the shorter version unless it is clear by the translator's usage that the whole sentence ends with the final realization of nirvana, not the overcoming of nirvana as a delusion.

As a last note, I don't agree with Red Pine that "see through" is an appropriate translation of atikranto. I can find no visual image in either the root ati or kranta:

ari - ind. [probably neut. of an obsolete adj. %{atin} , passing , going , beyond ; see %{at} , and cf. Old Germ. {anti} , {unti} , {inti} , {unde} , {indi} , &c. ; Eng. {and} ; Germ. {und} ; Gk. $ , $ , Lat. {ante} ; Lith. {ant} ; &3473[12,2] Arm. {ti} ; Zd. {aiti}]. As a prefix to verbs and their derivatives , expresses beyond , over , and , if not standing by itself , leaves the accent on the verb or its derivative ; %{as} , %{ati-kram} ( %{kram}) , to overstep , Ved. Inf. %{ati-kra4me} , (fit) to be walked on , to be passed RV. i , 105 , 16 , %{ati-kra4maNa} n. see s.v. When prefixed to nouns , not derived from verbs , it expresses beyond , surpassing , %{as} , %{ati-kaza} , past the whip , %{ati-mAnuSa} , superhuman , &c. see s.v. As a separable adverb or preposition (with acc.) , Ved. beyond ; (with gen.)over , at the top of RV. AV.

krAnta - mfn. gone , gone over or across ; spread , extended ; attacking , invading , gone to or against ; overcome (as by astonishment) Ragh. xiv , 17 ; surpassed ; m. a horse L. ; (in astron.) declination W. ; (%{A}) f. N. of a plant (a kind of Solanum) L. ; a species of the Atyasht2i metre ; (%{am}) n. a step (%{viSNoH@krAnta} , `" the step of Vishn2u "' , N. of a ceremony S3Br. xiii ; cf. %{viSNu-krama}) S3Br. Mn. xii , 121 ; (in astron.) a certain aspect when the moon is in conjunction with a planet.

Both roots of the word are movement or spacial images, not visual images. So acceptable translations of arikranto would include: stepping over, going across, overcoming, surpassing, transcending, etc. It should be noted that arikranto, with both of its roots including the meaning element of "gone", becomes a precursor or harbinger of the word gate (from the Sanskrit gata meaning "gone") that is central to the Heart Sutra's tantric mantra.

Nothing in either ati or kranta remotely suggests "seeing" or any other visual function or image. In my view, Red Pine is inserting here his own imagery into the translation for the purpose of making his construction of "seeing through both delusion and final nirvana" seem more plausible.

My conclusion on Red Pine's book is that it includes a lot of valuable material, including his own historical and linguistic commentary, but I have several points of disagreement with his translation, including some I have not raised here.

In my translation of the traditional shorter version I deliberately reinsert the opening "Thus have I heard" to indicate it is a sutra and not a mantra, and I insert the word "attain" (prapta) for clarification and conformation with the larger version.

_/|\_
Gregory

What Should Obama Say to the American Voter?

[Cross-posted at Daily Kos Diaries]

Fantasy sports' leagues allow the participants to pretend they are team owners, managers, and coaches. To a large degree, DKos and other blogging websites are fantasy political leagues where we get to pretend we are advisors, campaign managers and speech writers.

When Obama becomes the nominee he will have the convention podium from which to launch his campaign. What should he say to the American People? Below, is my contribution as a fantasy speechwriter to the nominee about what I think he should include in his acceptance speech. I'm not offering a polished speech nor a comprehensive speech that includes every item that I think he should cover. It is just my "first draft" suggestion aimed at those important controversial issues that I think should not be left out of his speech at the convention. Is Obama a Muslim? Will he be a leader of "a small minority" of Blacks? Is he patriotic? I think Obama needs to address these questions directly and boldly, and very personally.

Like a good political fantasy league, I'd like to see what others consider to be the necessary additions to what the "speechwriting team" has for what should be in Obama's convention speech. What do you think should be included?

Text of speech that I would write for Barack Obama:

Now, I'd like to speak directly to the American people about some of those issues that you may have heard about me through rumor or whispering campaigns on the internet.

Of course I invite you to read the two books I've written, but I want you to know that just because I've written two books about my life and my vision for America, that I am not an "egghead" elitist. I had help on those books from good editors and others. Yes, I graduated from college and law school, and I am proud of those accomplishments, but a college degree does not make a person elitist. America has realized the dream of higher education for more and more of our people, so it is how a person uses that degree and how it affects their relations with others that shows whether they have gotten the swollen head of elitism from their education. I think my work in community organizing and voter registration drives, as an attorney protecting workers and voters rights, as a representative in the Illinois State legislature, and as a United States Senator show very clearly that I have not forgotten what it means to grow up in our economically stratified society.

To put it another way, there is an inclusive elitism and an exclusive elitism. Merely by being in the United States Senate both John McCain and myself have becomes members of the elites. In fact, Senator McCain has been one of the elites for over 30 years both by virtue of being a senator and by marrying into the wealth of his current wife's family. So what is important when you vote for president is not to think that you are voting for one candidate who is elite and the other who is not, but to vote for the candidate who understands you and is in touch with your situation in life whatever it may be, as I do. I am inclusive and I want every American to enjoy and benefit from the same opportunities that I have had. I'm not the exclusive kind of elitist who claims to represent all the people but who hides his wife's tax returns and refuses to disclose them.

I was born in Hawaii and my parents separated when I was two years old. For a few years I lived with my single mom until she remarried and then we moved to Indonesia where my step-father was from for three years. At the age of ten I returned to Honolulu and was raised by my grandparents on my mom's side. After graduating high school I was fortunate enough to be able to move out to attend college, first at Occidental College then at Columbia University where I majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. If this makes me an elite in foreign affairs, then that is an elitism that I am proud of.

You may have heard the lie that when I lived in Indonesia with my step-father from the age of 7 to 10 that I was a Muslim. This falsehood is not only an insult to me, but this lie is an insult to Islam and indeed even to Christianity. As a child I was not forced to adopt any religion and I did not adopt any religion. I sometimes attended the mosque with my step-father, and so of course I learned more about the faith of Islam than most Americans do. So it is important that Americans know that Islam, just like Christianity, is a religion that says a person does not truly belong to the faith until he or she can make a declaration of faith as a mature person.

When I returned to Hawaii at age 10 I returned to the Christian culture of my grandparents and when I became a mature young adult capable of deciding for myself what faith I would follow I chose Christianity and the religion of Jesus Christ. Instead of making me anti-Christian, I believe that my early contacts with Islam not only gave me a greater appreciation and respect for the real Islam, but also the knowledge my faith in Christianity could be confirmed by experience and not just because it was the religion of my parents.

So, I'm not a Muslim, I am a Christian, but one thing that my childhood experience with Muslim's taught me is that Muslim's are very much just like us Christians. They have faith in God, they love their families and want to support them with their honest work, they want their children to have a safe world to live in, they want peace with their neighbors just like you and I do. It is very sad for me, having as I do direct knowledge and contact with relatives who are Muslims, to see how the faith of Islam is twisted and perverted by a very few extremists, and also to see how these very few Muslim extremists are played up by our own homegrown right-wing extremists as if they were the majority of Muslims. This we must change together. I ask all Americans to set aside your prejudices and whatever your religion or if you have no religion, to not be taken in by the anit-Muslim propaganda that you may hear. There are bad apples in Islam just as there are in every religion, but if we are to have peace in this world then we must recognize that the overwhelming majority of people of every faith are at heart human beings with the same dreams and love for their families and friends.

There is also a rumor going around that when I am elected I will be a leader for Black people but not for Whites. It has been said during this primary campaign that I will be a leader only for a small minority of Americans. It has been said that I don't' appeal to White voters. My primary victories from Iowa to Vermont to Oregon to Alaska show that there is no issue that this campaign is appealing to White voters.

So let's be clear, these statements come from people who have not resolved their own personal issues about race. Resolving the race issues in America is something that we must change together, and if my personal story of race can help bring about this change in America then I will be most humbled for that. Yes, I am an African American. My father was from Kenya and I was born in Hawaii. In the United States today, there are many people who still judge a book by the cover and the person by the color of their skin. So when people see me they often pigeon-hole me as African American by how I look. That kind of racial prejudice is something I grew up with and have had to deal with.

But I am also proud to be a European American. My mother from Kansas came from European ancestors and that too is part of my life and self identity. In my life, in my body, my blood and my bones, I am both, both African American and European American and I am not ashamed of either. I believe that this personal experience gives me something uniquely suited to the office of President of the United States that no other candidate has offered. I will not be a leader of a small minority but a leader for everyone of every ancestry because I know what it means to have a family in which the ancestral rivers from different continents flow.

And of course there are those extremists who have questioned my patriotism and charged that I am unpatriotic because I don't usually wear a flag lapel pin. It's pretty funny how most of the right-wing pundits who make this absurd charge against me aren't wearing flag pins themselves. Friends, just to be clear, I wear my patriotism in my heart, not on my sleeve or my lapel.

I love this country with all my heart, and I swear to defend the United States of America and our Constitution to the utmost. It is because I take patriotism seriously that I don't believe a flag pin is an obligatory part of what being a patriot is. My fellow Americans, don't be fooled by false patriotism. That is something we must change together.

The false patriot says the President must never be criticized and it is un-American to oppose the President's war. A true patriot, however, agrees with the words of our 26th President Teddy Roosevelt who said,

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic, but is morally treasonable to the American pubic."

When I am President, I will invite the criticism of the American people. I know that all people can't agree all the time, but I also know that I will need your guidance as well as your support. I will not be like our current President who never allows criticism and who doesn't even read the newspapers for fear of running into it.

In America, patriotism is not about following the person who shouts the loudest about loving country and saluting the flag, patriotism is following the steady and quite voice of conscience to uphold and defend the democratic principles held dear by a sovereign people.

It is false patriotism to start a war using deliberate exaggerations about fake threats to the United States. I will never do either, lie to you about fake threats nor start a war based on such false .

It is false patriotism to call someone an appeaser just because he would speak to or negotiate with the leaders of opposing nations as every other President has done. Even a person who doesn't have an education in international affairs knows you can't negotiate an end to hostile feelings between you and another if you don't speak with them.

It is false patriotism to claim to love American and the American people and then to leave a large part of a great American city like New Orleans to wreck and ruin, with many of its economically disadvantaged citizens wrongfully displaced from their homes and scattered out of state, and to leave it to rebuild itself without providing necessary federal aid and support.

It is false patriotism that supports unauthorized spying on American citizens.

It is false patriotism that supports torture and kidnapping in the name of national security. Torture doesn't work, and kidnapping in the name of rendition for the cause of national security doesn't bring us security. Immoral actions only bring us the reputation in the world of being immoral actors.

As president I will call false patriotism what it is, and I will ask you the American people to support true patriotism with the courage to stand up for honesty and integrity in the Oval office and for fair play and honest dealings for our international friends and foes alike.

......

[Please add comments for any ideas for additional issues such as environment, health care, economy, etc. ]