One of the big reasons that I rejected the traditional God-as-puppet-master type of Christian thinking is because I had lived enough, and seen enough, and experienced enough that I just could not believe that God is “pulling the strings”, so to speak.

I frequently hear and see people attributing the good stuff in their life- scoring a touchdown, or having a good family life, or a good job- to God. The implication is that since they were good, God rewarded them with neato stuff. The worst example of this is that purple-haired lady on what I call the Jesus channel on TV, TBN. There’s a very strong undercurrent that comes through on that show that the conspicuous displays of wealth only go to prove that they’re really good people, and thus are rewarded by God.

Of course, this is bunk. Pretty much any time Jesus himself was talking about rich people, he was slagging on them and pointing out how hard it’d be for them to get anywhere- the quote is that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich dude to get into heaven. Jesus brought hope to the meek, the poor, the sick, the old, the outcast. He hung with lepers and prostitutes, gathered a bunch of stinky common old fishermen to be his comrades and disciples.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that in my life, I’ve seen good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people, and vice versa. I think it’s just random. People are always willing to say that if/when they’re good, and good things happen, why, that’s a reward for being good- but when bad things happen to a good person, that’s not any kind of punishment; that’s just a challenge, a chance for them to excel, and hey God wouldn’t give people more than they can handle, right? (Millions of people who’ve committed suicide would appear to negate THAT little argument, but let’s leave that alone for now.)

So what of karma? The idea of karma is often almost identical to this; if you live a good life, put bugs outside instead of killing them and are nice to people and such, then you’ll be rewarded in this life and/or a future life with wealth, good family, etc.

Well, not exactly. I believe that karmic tendencies do exist, but what karma is really about (to me) is in how advanced our soul/spirit/life force (for lack of an exact term) is. The good and bad things are still going to happen, more or less at random; while we can make good causes for some things (for example, those that properly maintain their car are less likely to have car trouble hit them out of the blue while out on the road) in the end some things are simply beyond our control.

What IS in our control is our reaction to these events. If I get cancer, I can choose to descend into a life condition of hell; I can bemoan my suffering, feel crappy, and so forth. But based on my karmic tendencies and what I have done in this life to bring out my Buddha nature- that highest part of our lives- I might also blast right on through an episode of cancer with a great attitude. To succeed in life, to come out a winner- that’s good karma.

Luckily, Nichiren Daishonin, the guy who came up with the version of Buddhism that I practice, has given us a method for working on our karma, improving it and building up our ability to withstand the random-bad stuff when it happens (and to not lose our heads over the random-good stuff, either!) That’s what our chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo is all about. It raises our life condition, activates our Buddha nature, and gives us a method of praying and meditation… all at the same time.

The great thing about this spiritual practice is that even if you do not believe in karma, or “Buddha nature”, you can still benefit from the chanting, meditation, and prayer. These are things that have settled people’s minds for thousands of years in all kinds of religions; obviously, as a practictioner of Nichiren Buddhism, I believe that our chanting and gongyo is the way to go- but I’m open minded enough that I support anyone who wants to develop a practice and help themselves with a calm, focussed mind.

So there’s some Buddhist content for you. Probably not ultra-orthodox from the SGI point of view, but I’m not really a spokesman for the group, either.

There’s a pretty good article in today’s Seattle Times about whether or not it’s a good idea if Hilary Clinton runs for President.

I think her husband did a pretty good job. I think he was fairly weak as a man, morally, but as President of the nation, the results are pretty clear- balanced the budget, then got it into a surplus situation so we could pay down some of our debt; improved social conditions for millions of Americans; kept us out of foreign messes; generally did a good job.

Sure, there was the whole lying-to-the-American-people thing, but that was pretty ridiculous that it was made into such a big deal.

But the thing that you got with Bill Clinton was the warm fuzziness along with the incredibly-smart-policy-wonk bit. With Hilary, you don’t get any warmth; she just strikes too many people (including me) as being mean, cold, nasty.

Maybe I’m just prejudiced against a woman in a position of power… that could be. But I don’t think so; there’s women leaders that I admire and think well of that are powerful to boot.

The bigger problem for the Democrats, though, is that Hilary running for office is very polarizing. Sure, some of the Democratic base loves her and would march to Mordor for her; the problem is that there’s a ton of independent types, or lean-progressive types (like me), who just can’t stand her and would have a hard time voting for her. I’d do it, but I wouldn’t like it.

The other names that are being kicked around are boring. The guy I want to see run, the guy who could change the face of the Democrats for a long time to come, is Barack Obama. Unfortunately, he probably won’t do it.

If Hilary runs, you have to figure she’s the instant front-runner. Republicans keep dropping like flies in attempting to race against her for Senate in New York this year; yet she’s got millions in the bank for the election already. If she doesn’t get any opposition, she can save some of that money (or a lot of that money) and transfer it to a run for President.

Other problems with Hilary besides the lack of warmth is the fact that a lot of people see her as somewhat crooked- personally, I think she was and is a lot more crooked than Bill ever was. Bill just wanted to chase girls; Hilary made suspicious amounts of money (who makes almost *exactly* $100,000 trading cattle futures?) and the whole bit with the records from the Whitewater thing being “lost” for years, then somehow turning up in Hilary’s possession sounds awfully sketchy to me.

Whitewater itself, I don’t think was all that big of a deal- the Clintons lost a couple hundred grand there, after all. Hilary didn’t kill Vince Foster, nor did she have it done- the guy was depressed and did it himself. The travel office thing was bad, but also just part of politics. Most of the other stuff around Hilary isn’t any big deal, but you can bet that Fox News and the right-wingers will go to town on it; they’ll have a “scandal a week” and it’ll dominate the race.

No, I think Hilary would do better to not run. But I’m afraid we’re going to be stuck with her, so I guess the time to accept it and mobilize to fight the stuff is now.

So I’ve been kicking around this whole deal with the port operations being outsourced to a company that’s headquartered in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. This is a relatively long post, so click for more:
Read the rest of this entry »

So I wrote the post “Don’t Do That” and reposted an email that I’d written to the organizers of a movement against the ballot measures that would overturn Washington State’s civil rights law. I got a nice note back from the main leader, saying how she was dismayed that in the media they basically cherry-picked the one little thing she said out of a ton of other stuff. (Which is just par for the course for the media, actually.)

I wrote her this email back, with more thoughts on what strategy should be used in this fight:

Thanks for the note back. Welcome to the wonderful world of the media, where the one little thing that you figured they won’t notice and that you’d rather they let go is the one thing they pick up on and will drive into the ground.

All I can do is urge you to ensure that everyone is on the same core message and no matter what, no matter WHAT, stay on it. I was reminded of a recent episode of The West Wing (sad that it’s going off the air) where John Spencer’s character, Leo McGarry, is running for VP. He’s being nagged by Kristin Chenowith’s character, Annabeth Schott, about not answering questions.

Basic advice? If you don’t accept the premise of the question, don’t even bother trying to answer it.

Stay on message, stay on message, stay on message. You can bet Eyman’s going to; the message is going to be “they don’t even want you to VOTE on it!” That’s why the reporter tubed you (and don’t forget THAT, either), because that’s the “debate”.

I know it’d be nice to re-run the “Hand Of Washington” campaign and try to keep the measures from even making the ballot, but I
think we have to be ready for the fact that the uber-right is going to be able to drag up enough signatures. Therefore, now is the time to start hitting people over and over and over again with the message that it’s not special rights; it’s basic human decency.

Heck, if I had the dough, I’d produce a series of ads featuring Gospel readings. Imagine an ad, with some choice quotes aimed at gays from your Falwells and Robertsons and that crackpot in Kansas with his whole “God hates fags” schtick… and then put up this quote: “11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” (That’s Matthew 5.11-12)

Then close with the tagline: “Think Jesus would fire someone for being gay? Vote NO on Initiative blah-de-blah.”

Or perhaps:
“Tim Eyman and Ken Hutchison want to deny basic rights to someone just because that person is gay or lesbian. Two thousand years ago, Jesus said to us: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.”

“Think Jesus would refuse someone a place to live because they were gay? Vote no on Initiative blah-de-blah.”

Seriously. Clobber them where it hurts. If it gets to the ballot, their entire argument is going to be one based on two main things; first, that these are “special rights” that the “Seattle liberals” don’t want people to vote on, and that the homos are going to be coming for their children; and second,
that religious and moral imperatives demand that they treat gays like crap.

But with the vast majority of people calling themselves “Christians”, and with Jesus’ entire message being about, you know, hope and love and treating each other decently, even the people we don’t ordinarily like, it’s pretty hard to be “Christian” if you’re not acting like Christ. Hit ‘em where
they’re weakest! Sun Tzu!

I know I’m ranting a bit, which is a weakness of mine… but so be it. It’s important that this measure not be overturned, because the people of the state will be tired of the issue by the time this election is done; they won’t want to hear anything more about it for some time. So… better to be on the winning side than to have to put it off and have to wait several more years before getting the inevitable through.