lotusinthemud

UK: London Calling ~ Climate March ~ Sat 3 Nov

12.00 pm at Lincoln's Inn Fields (Holborn Tube)

December 3rd is the Saturday midway through the "MOP" (First "Meeting of Parties" to the Kyoto Protocol) Climate Talks in Montreal, 28th November-9th December. The London Demo is part of the International Day of Climate Protest with climate demos planned all around the world from Montreal to Japan. For more info click here.
Help create a global wave of protest to press for the urgent action we need to prevent the catastrophic destabilisation of global climate.

 

BOOKS BY DAVID (DHARMAVIDYA) AND CAROLINE BRAZIER

Amida Trust now have copies of 'Zen Therapy' and 'The Feeling Buddha' for sale
Books now available:

David Brazier      Beyond Carl Rogers       £10.99

David Brazier      Zen Therapy                 £8.99

David Brazier      The Feeling Buddha       £7.99

David Brazier      The New Buddhism        £7.99

Caroline Brazier  Buddhist Psychology       £7.99
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'Nuclear: the Wrong Answer.': Greenpeace disrupts Blair speech

Greenpeace disrupts Blair speech
10.15am: Greenpeace disrupts CBI conference where

PM was to speak, unfurling a banner with the slogan: 

'Nuclear: the Wrong Answer.'

Anti-nuclear protesters from Greenpeace this morning disrupted an anticipated speech at the CBI conference by Tony Blair, unfurling a banner with the slogan "Nuclear: Wrong Answer".

The prime minister had been due to formally announce a review of British energy policy, which many predict will herald the building of a new generation of domestic nuclear reactors.

But 10 minutes before Mr Blair was due to speak at the venue in Islington, north London, protesters clambered into the roof gantries, chaining themselves to roof beams and dropping what appeared to be confetti.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/story/0,9061,1653297,00.html#article_continue
From nebsangha

Make Poverty History - Lend us your eyes

1st December is World AIDS Day.

Thanks to the pressure of campaigners like you in July at the G8 leaders   committed to providing AIDS treatment for everyone who needs it by 2010.   This is a real cause for hope .

This World AIDS Day we want to keep the pressure on world leaders to make   sure they honour these promises.

A huge photo-petition of people's eyes is set to remind Tony Blair and   other world leaders that we are watching them on their promises about AIDS   treatment - and we need your eyes to do it!

Do Social Engagement and Practice Conflict?

From Dharmavidya's Questions In The Sand
QUESTION: From the looks of things, the Amida Trust does a lot of work devoted to thinking about issues of engagement, social issues and Buddhism, and so forth. What are you learning and discovering about how notions of monasticism might be reshaping in the 21st century. Similarly, what have noticed about new trends in thinking about engaged Buddhism? Is anything apparent to you in terms of what distinct, new energies/ideas Westerners can offer these two areas? As far as you understand my dilemma, do you have any thoughts? What wisdom might your tradition have to offer in terms of thinking about work in the world and the priestly/monastic vocation?

DHARMAVIDYA: Thank you. Good question. First, the issue of monasticism. Buddhist renunciant practitioners might be called monks, but the original concept was not that of a cloistered person following a rule of stabilitas (staying in one place) which is the definition of monk in most western traditions. Buddhist monks were really friars. They are mobile (homeless) in basic concept.

Warheads into Medicine

Dirty Dealings - The Arms Trade's Hidden Costs and Secret Agenda

Thursday 1st December is World Aids Day. HIV/AIDs is a global
emergency claiming over 8,000 lives every day. To mark World
Aids Day Greater Manchester & District Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament is holding a public meeting in Manchester to
highlight the obscenity that is the UK government proposing to
spend an estimated £25 billion on a new generation of nuclear
weapons, namely a replacement for Trident, when 5 people die
every minute from AIDS.

Anti-War Campaigners arrested for holding Bell-Ringing Ceremony Outside Parliament

100,000 Rings: In Remembrance of the Iraqi Civilian and Military Dead

Two women were arrested on Friday 25th November while holding a bell-ringing ceremony outside Parliament as part of an international peace event to mark the anniversary of the release of the Lancet study on 29th October 2004 which estimated 100,000 people had died since the beginning of the war in Iraq.

In Time, Things Will Change

There simply is nothing to which we can attach
ourselves, no matter how hard we try. In time,
things will change and the conditions that
produced our current desires will be gone.
Why then cling to them now?

-Master Hsing Yun, "The Indescribable"

Nothing Is Everything

Student: I don't understand what emptiness means.

Chogyam Trungpa: When we talk of emptiness, it means the absence of
solidity, the absence of fixed notions which cannot be changed, which have
no relationship to us at all but which remain as they are, separate.

Ah - how apt

The word of the day is Lassitude.

For most of this year the M.E. has been less good - more so since June or July - and particularly the last few weeks. That's why a great deal of my blogging is lacking in 'oomph' - if I've managed to do something then I don't have the energy to blog about it. Meaning to take time out, meaning to say 'No' more often. But then.... I have just discovered an important meeting at the Uni this afternoon - one of a series of meetings that it took two years to get going. So I'll be setting off into this dark day, this slushy snow because it's not good if the series folds....