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Toxic Zen Story #30: The Zen-Tantric Wing of the Republican Party.
Barack Obama's Difficulties Became An Asset,
And A Liability To John McCain.
--------------------------------------------
Because of Obama's 'alien-ness' problem, being pitched first by the
Clinton campaign and after that by the McCain campaign ... His
campaign would not allow him to be seen or photographed in connection
with anything weird (slander of the Lotus Sutra), such as Buddha
statues on his desk (like John Kerry), or walking hand-in-hand with
the Dalai Lama (both John McCain and Lindsay Graham did), or in a
Buddhist Temple receiving money from a priest (Al Gore).
No matter how hard they campaigned, nothing broke their way (Gore,
Kerry, McCain). They made one mistake after another, wrong action and
wrong inaction.
___________________________________________________
The answers to these difficult questions lie with the basic structure
of the Republican Party.
.. Sweeping Generalization:
.. Republicans Love Principles, but Despise Humanity.
From the Democrats.Org website:
.. In 1844, the [Democratic-Republican] National Convention
.. simplified the Party's name to the Democratic Party.
From www.bartleby.com/65/re/RepublcnP.html:
.. The name [Republican] reappeared in the 1850s, when the
.. present-day Republican party was founded. At that time
.. the crucial issue of the extension of slavery into the
.. territories split the Democratic party and the Whig
.. party, and opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
.. organized the new Republican party. Jackson, Mich., is
.. called the birthplace of the party (July 6, 1854) and
.. Joseph Medill is credited with having suggested its name,
.. but these distinctions are also claimed for other places
.. and other men.
..
.. By 1855 the new party was well launched in the North.
.. Anti-slavery Whigs such as William Seward and Thurlow
.. Weed were dominant in the new grouping, but elements of
.. the Know-Nothing movement, together with the Free-Soil
.. party, abolitionists, and anti-Nebraska Democrats also
.. supplied strength. The party's national organization was
.. perfected at Pittsburgh in Feb., 1856, and its first
.. presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, made a
.. creditable showing against victorious James Buchanan. The
.. party opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and
.. the extension of slavery, denounced the Supreme Court's
.. decision in the Dred Scott Case, and favored the
.. admission of Kansas as a free state.
..
.. Generally belligerent toward the South, the Republicans
.. were regarded by Southerners with mingled hatred and fear
.. as sectional tension increased. They were successful in
.. the elections of 1858 and passed over their better-known
.. leaders to nominate Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The party
.. platform in 1860 included planks calling for a high
.. protective tariff, free homesteads, and a
.. transcontinental railroad; these were bids for support
.. among Westerners, farmers, and eastern manufacturing
.. interests.
..
.. Lincoln's victory over Stephen A. Douglas, John C.
.. Breckinridge, and John Bell was the signal for the
.. secession of the Southern states, and the Civil War
.. followed. Union military failures early in the war and
.. conservative opposition to such measures as the
.. Emancipation Proclamation caused the party to lose ground
.. in the Congressional elections of 1862. But despite
.. mutterings against his leadership, Lincoln, renominated
.. on the Union (Republican) ticket in 1864, defeated Gen.
.. George B. McClellan.
..
.. Although a separate ticket headed by the radical Frémont
.. withdrew before the election in 1864, the cleavage within
.. the party between radicals and moderates widened as the
.. war progressed. Radicals such as Benjamin F. Wade, Henry
.. W. Davis, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Edwin M.
.. Stanton advocated a punitive policy for the South, while
.. Lincoln and the moderates were inclined to leniency. The
.. division was made complete when, after Lincoln's
.. assassination, his successor, Andrew Johnson, adopted a
.. moderate program of Reconstruction. Johnson, a Jacksonian
.. Democrat from Tennessee, had been added to the ticket in
.. 1864 to strengthen the idea of a Union party. Ultimately
.. his policies and attempts to implement them antagonized
.. his supporters among the moderate Republicans and paved
.. the way for the triumph of the radicals in the
.. congressional elections of 1866. The height of radical
.. power was reached in 1868 with the impeachment of
.. Johnson, which was defeated by only a one-vote margin.
..
.. The nomination of the war hero Ulysses S. Grant assured
.. Republican success over the Democrats led by Horatio
.. Seymour in the presidential election of 1868. The
.. radicals were supreme under Grant, but their excesses and
.. the open scandals of the administration created a new
.. schism, leading to the formation of the Liberal
.. Republican party. Its candidate, Horace Greeley, although
.. supported by the Democrats, was not popular enough to
.. defeat Grant in 1872, and corruption became even more
.. widespread.
From the Reconstruction era of the reign of Radical Republicans to
now, there have been many shifts in the Republican Party.
The Party of Lincoln has now, for the second election in a row,
effectively created a pattern of election victory by denying the
voting rights of African-Americans as their basic strategy. This seems
wildly paradoxical.
Looking back in history to the period after the Civil War and the
assassination of Lincoln, one could easily make the declarative
statement of position of the Republican Party platform:
.. "The only thing wrong with Radical Reconstruction
.. ... was that it didn't go deep enough and last
.. long enough to finish the job."
Those basic principles have gradually shifted from Reconstruction
time, to the complete embrace of Southern political movements which
were formerly the province of the Democratic Party under Lyndon
Johnson.
Those movements range from the extreme views of former Klan members
(who are not at all blind to racial differences) to those of the
Christian Coalition (who are fairly blind to racial differences).
Hence, the rise and subsequent fall of Trent Lott as Senate Majority
Leader, and the failure of Patrick Buchanan's attempted independent
run for President, which did not create a new movement, or even a
tectonic shift in Party direction. And the movement of Lee Atwater and
his disciple Karl Rove has now played itself nearly out, destroying
the Party of Lincoln that betrayed its founder.
Those events can be viewed as the unseen hand of of the founder, which
still is alive in the Republican Party: SOME principles ARE
unnacceptable to the Republican Party membership.
Although the principles of Republicanism have shifted over the last
150 years, the absolute focus on Party Loyalty has not. This is the
major defining element of the Republican Party: Loyalty to the
principles which are held by the Republican leadership.
So, how can this be? Loyalty to principles that have so drastically
shifted over time?
The answer is that the shifts are always small or are larger under a
powerful leader. Given enough time, small shifts can undermine
mountainous canons and forge entirely new ones, which are held with
the same fervency and loyalty, as that which was directed towards the
previous canons, which are now unrecognizable to the faithful.
All of this comes from personal loyalty to the party leaders.
Those are the only persons who can change the canons of the Republican
Party acceptably. So, after Ronald Reagan, Republican fiscal
conservatism included embracing huge deficits wholeheartedly.
Indeed, after Reagan, if a Republican does not embrace large deficits
as fiscal conservatism, this is treasonous towards the memory of
Ronald Reagan, and calls him into question. Which is basically why
George W. Bush beat John McCain in the 2000 Republican Primary.
John McCain clung to the fiscal policy of the pre-Reagan Republican
Party, which made him a traitor to Reagan. George W. Bush was loyal,
and so he won.
And once John McCain turned tail on his own beliefs and supported Bush
in the 2004 convention speech to the Party faithful, he was
salvageable politically, but had sold his maverick soul. The McCain of
2000 was truly dead.
In another example, Reagan established the standard of appropriate
retaliation, when in October 23, 1983, 241 Marines in Beirut, Lebanon
were killed by a single truck bomb. This was a spectacular catastrophe
engineered by the White House, who wanted a visible (and unprotected)
presence in the large barracks there. The bombing was ostensibly done
by a Hezbollah offshoot, the Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement,
which was backed by Iran and Syria.
Reagan, impotently preserving Arab relations, did not retaliate in
Lebanon and TWO DAYS LATER attacked Grenada (October 25, 1983), whose
communist regime, supported by Cuba, on an isolated and tiny island
constituted an imminent threat to some American medical students.
America kicked ass !!! This provided a much needed tough-guy role for
Reagan after getting the marines murdered in Beirut.
Rumsfeld WAS unfortunately paying attention. From 60 Minutes:
.. The top counter-terrorism advisor, [Richard] Clarke was
.. briefing the highest government officials, including
.. President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
.. in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
..
.. "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq....We all
.. said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan," recounts
.. Clarke, "and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good
.. targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets
.. in Iraq.' I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets
.. in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with [the
.. September 11 attacks].'"
Clarke was not in unity with the Zen-Tantric Republican group mind.
But then, of course, he might have correctly viewed the invasion of
Iraq as far more dangerous and costly than the invasion of Grenada.
Which is NOT how the NeoCons were viewing it, trapped as they were in
the Reagan group-think of 20 years before. THIS IS THE ROOT OF THEIR
MISTAKE AND IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
[It also explains why no one in the White House could see 9/11 coming
from the source of that other Zen-Tantric believer in Al Qaeda: see
"Toxic Zen Story #22.8: Green Dragon Zen and Physical Zen in the
Palestinian struggle, from Yasser Arafat to Usama Bin Ladin: Suicide
Bombing."]
So ... working hand-in-hand with their Zen-Tantric brothers in Al
Qaeda, who have superceded Saddam Hussein as the most powerful agents
of that shared evil in the Middle East ... the NeoCons have:
.. 1. Removed Bin Laden's biggest competitor, Saddam Hussein.
.. 2. Let Bin Laden and Zawahari slip through into Pakistan.
.. 3. Tied down the American armed forces in an endless
.. struggle in Iraq.
.. 4. So that they cannot be used to get Bin Laden, because
.. even though we know where he is, it would take an
.. Iraq-sized invasion to get him, and we can only do the
.. one in Iraq FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.
There is a term for this particular kind of unity, in Japanese. It is
called "wagoso", which is the absolute and unquestioning unity of
believers that closely follows the minds of the priests in support of
the temple of their sect.
It is this "wagoso" that allowed the Japanese government to gain the
unwavering support of an entire country to support the Pacific War
under Imperial Way Buddhism and Imperial State Zen.
They did it by simply approaching the local priests and forcing them
to accept the Shinto Talisman to be placed in the Temple altars and
family shrines, etc.
Only two Buddhists in all of Japan completely resisted this effort by
the Imperial State Zen to distort Buddhism into a war machine, they
were Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda of the Soka Gakkai.
Interestingly, George H.W. Bush, was friendly to the Soka Gakkai and
the follower of Josei Toda, President Daisaku Ikeda, when the older
Bush was President of the United States. His son, George W. Bush, also
sent some nice messages to the SGI.
No family is all bad, or all good. So there is redemption for the
Republican Party, if they can cling to their highest original
principles and reverse the course of their mistaken leaders and their
gradual accretions that have undermined the good principles of their
founders. This is what Lincoln called, "Listening to the better angels
of their[our] nature."
Until that time, we cannot expect the Republican Party, as a group, to
rationally weigh the evidence. As individuals, Republicans are like
any Americans, generally very wonderful people.
Quote: addendum on November 4th 2008, election day:
Barack Obama's Difficulties Become An Asset,
And A Liability To John McCain.
--------------------------------------------
Because of Obama's 'alien-ness' problem, being pitched first by the
Clinton campaign and after that by the McCain campaign ... His
campaign would not allow him to be seen or photographed in connection
with anything weird (slander of the Lotus Sutra), such as Buddha
statues on his desk (like John Kerry), or walking hand-in-hand with
the Dalai Lama (both John McCain and Lindsay Graham did), or in a
Buddhist Temple receiving money from a priest (Al Gore).
No matter how hard they campaigned, nothing broke their way (Gore,
Kerry, McCain). They made one mistake after another, wrong action and
wrong inaction.
Good Heavens, Sarah Palin. People will endlessly ask over the years,
what could have possessed him? It was like he was a different person.
Not the John McCain we know, the 'happy warrior'. The hero of the
Hanoi Hilton, crusading against torture, and in the end, giving into
pressure ON TORTURE.
____ Epilog _______________________________________
The Buddha's highest teachings were the purpose of the Buddha's advent
on this earth.
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to drain people's compassion
with discussions of the emptiness and meaninglessness of life which is
just a void.
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people to live in
such a narrow and momentary way, that there would be no context for
self-examination and conscience.
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to possess people's minds with
such illogic as to befuddle their ability to choose correctly between
what is good and what is evil.
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people how to commit
atrocities and genocide, in the exploration of their "infinite
possibilities", or "new states of being".
The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people how to maim
and kill with their hands efficiently, quietly, loudly, with increased
terror inflicted, or to maximize their subjugation to control the
public sentiments for political ends.
These are all profoundly evil distortions of the Buddha's true
teachings, which introduce infinities in the variables holding good
and evil, removing all shades of gray in the propositional calculus of
value.
Simply stated, the Buddha made his advent on this earth with the
purpose of teaching the compassionate way of the bodhisattva, which is
at the heart of the true entity of all phenomena, which is the eternal
Buddha at one with the eternal Law. Which is how to navigate the sea
of sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. He originally set
out on his path, because of his observation of the sufferings of
common people and wanting to understand the source of those sufferings
(enlightened wisdom) and how to transform those sufferings into
unshakable happiness (enlightened action).
When you embrace the void and acausality, your initial intention to
explore Being and essence doesn't matter ... the result is always the
same: chaos and misery, and utter ruination and emptiness to you,
your family, and your country.
But things don't have to be that way ...
___________________________________________________
Nichiren Daishonin writes (Encouragement to a Sick Person, WND p. 7 :
.. "During the Former and Middle Days of the Law, the
.. five impurities began to appear, and in the Latter
.. Day, they are rampant. They give rise to the great
.. waves of a gale, which not only beat against the
.. shore, but strike each other. The impurity of
.. thought has been such that, as the Former and
.. Middle Days of the Law gradually passed, people
.. transmitted insignificant erroneous teachings
.. while destroying the unfathomable correct
.. teaching. It therefore appears that more people
.. have fallen into the evil paths because of errors
.. with respect to Buddhism than because of secular
.. misdeeds."
Because Bodhidharma discarded the Buddha's highest teaching (the Lotus
Sutra), and due to his lazy nature turned to shortcuts to
enlightenment, he came to the distorted view that life is acausal and
empty, that the true entity is the void.
This erroneous view really comes from a misunderstanding of the Sutra
of Immeasurable Meanings, where the True Entity is described by
negation (the only way it can be): "... neither square, nor round,
neither short, nor long, ..."
The description of the True Entity is logically voidal, but the True
Entity itself is not. Bodhidharma was simply confused, due to the
slander of negligence (laziness), and false confidence. The truth of
life is that at the heart of the True Entity is the compassion of a
bodhisattva for others.
Non-substantiality does not mean empty. Life has value. Humans are
respectworthy. There is a purpose to everything. And every cause has
an effect, so we are responsible for our thoughts, words and deeds.
Zen is acausal. Zen is the greatest poison, which compares to the even
greater medicine of the Lotus Sutra.
Suffice it to say: the purpose of Zen in the world is to corrupt and
undermine everything that is not based upon the truth and the true
teaching. All religions, disciplines, institutions and organizations
which are undermined by Zen will eventually fall after glaring
revelation of their worst defects, sooner rather than later.
If there is some good in your family, locality, society and culture,
or country that you would like to retain, then cease the Zen, and
begin to apply the medicine of the Lotus Sutra to heal the Zen wound
in your life.
"Zen is the work of devilish minds." - Nichiren
-Chas.
.. a prescription for the poisoned ones:
..
.. The only antidote for the toxic effects of Zen in your life ...
..
.. be that from Zen meditation, or the variant forms: physical
.. Zen in the martial arts, Qigong, Acupuncture, Falun Gong,
.. Copenhagen Convention of Quantum Mechanics, EST,
.. Landmark Education, Nazism, Bushido, the Jesuits,
.. Al Qaeda, or merely from having the distorted view that life
.. is acausal, and that the true entity of all phenomena
.. is the void ...
..
.. with the effects of the loss of loved ones, detachment,
.. isolation or various forms of emptiness in your life ...
..
.. is the Lotus Sutra: chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo
.. at least 3 times, twice a day, for the rest of your life,
.. in at least a whisper ...
..
.. and if you can, chant abundantly in a resonant voice !!!
..
.. Nichiren Daishonin's Gosho and the
.. SGI Dictionary of Buddhism are located at:
..
http://www.sgilibrary.org/writings.php
http://www.sgilibrary.org/dict.html
..
.. The full 28 Chapters of the Lotus Sutra (and many other
.. wonderful things) are online at the SGI website:
..
http://sgi-usa.org/buddhism/library/Buddhism/LotusSutra/
..
.. To find an SGI Community Center:
..
http://www.sgi-usa.org/sgilocations/
__________________________________
LS Chap. 2
Now before this great assembly
I must clear away all doubts and perplexities.
There is no discrepancy in the words of the Buddhas,
there is only the one vehicle, not two.
For numberless kalpas in the past
countless Buddhas who have now entered extinction,
a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, million types
in numbers incapable of calculation-
such World-Honored Ones,
using different types of causes, similes, and parables,
the power of countless expedient means,
have expounded the characteristics of teachings.
These World-Honored Ones
have all preached the doctrine of the single vehicle,
converting countless living beings
and causing them to enter the Buddha way.
And these great sage lords,
knowing what is desired deep in the minds
of the heavenly and human beings and the other living things
throughout all the worlds,
have employed still other expedient means
to help illuminate the highest truth.
This anthology:
http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=%22disavailing+zen%22+(%22Toxic+Zen%22+OR+%22Survivor+Gita%22+OR+%2247+U.S.C.+223%22)&scoring=d&num=100& |
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