I must say that I’m not taking to the streets amid all these protests that are sweeping the world under a variety of names. And I also must say that I am pleased to see it happening, overjoyed, in fact.
It has taken awhile for this awakening of sorts to emerge. I remember years and years ago someone (maybe Al Gore? maybe not) saying that the « old » way of thinking, of organizing and bringing about change was on its way out, that the « future » was community-based, « unorganized » in the sense of not being centered on an « official » body, party, group, but bands of overlapping bands, interconnecting rings of people joined together. And so it is.
The point is that we’re all in this together, the 99% and the 1%, rich and poor, strong and weak, haves and have-nots.
Yet I’m still surprised to notice that the Americans and their « Occupy Wall Street » assume that they are at the forefront. When the fact is, it all started elsewhere — in the Arab Spring, obviously, but also with Stéphane Hessel’s phenomenal pamphlet, « Indignez-vous! » (« Time for Outrage » is the English title) published last fall, then the movement launched in Madrid in May…
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter where it « started. » We could even say that the protests were « started » by the very people they are targeting.
I see that Buddhists are jumping in with the slogan « Occupy the Present. »
Funny, because the truth is that the present can’t be « occupied. » And in a sense, believing otherwise is what got us all into this deluded mess that is our world today.
Indignation!
About the Author: zenscribe
Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste.
The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.
my teacher once told me something like:
"While levitating – St Theresa of Avila said to the nuns stairing at her: go and help your sisters."
Bernie Glassman once said:
"When we do this (zen) just for ourselves – we didn’t understand a thing."
In my country a psychopate was found to do a number of rapes and murders.
Everyone pities the victims – no one is compassioned for this man.
i felt different. To me he is the one who needs care too. Maybe most of all…
When we had his genetical material maybe we were just like him…
We were just lucky.
We live our wealthy lives not feeling how it afects others for ex in Africa etc etc…
But this doesnt mean the psychopate… doing what he is doing…
the same with the economic system…
there is some psychopatology in the system too… not feeling the consequenses for the other… becous virual. But hungry people are not virtuel. They are real…
And you don’t feed them with spiritual nosense like … "occupy the present".
the present just passed by naming it…
I am irritated by this " ocuppy the present " – thing.
for it is like they want to make it "spiritual" as they don’t live in this world. As if the spirtiual is not all this. As if it is something on its own. As if you cannot take a place in all this. As if you have to disolve…
i am irritated by the way they seem to just pass what is living in all those people – as if it is not comming from somewhere… as if they want to make it abstract…
When life is unbalanced – it will search balance again… nothing else…
what do they do when they stand next to someone who is hungry for long – no food for their children – becouse of all this mess: just say "occupy the present???"
This is a great test to see the real spiritual from the lost to me…
We can sit for the poor and the rich – but that doesn’t mean we have to support structures creating suffering and poverty. We don’t help the rich by this.
We can see – and take our place…
Or we can turn our heads away… only saying: "occupy the present"
What’s the present?
And the 12 march saw the biggest street protest ever in portugal. spanish said they were inspired by the portuguese. this sounds very good to my portuguese ego!
so, the present can just be…
lived?
witnessed?
embodied?