Riane Eisler: What Is True Courage?

Our greatest courage will always be found in the strength, tenderness, wisdom, and compassion of our hearts. My home, inside and out, is filled with Kuan Yin statues, ever reminding  me of this greater truth. — Molly

Kuan Yin. Photo by Molly

So many of the models of courage we've had, ones that are still taught to boys and girls, are about going out to slay the dragon, to kill. It's a courage that's born out of fear, anger, and hate. But there's this other kind of courage. It's the courage to risk your life, not in war, not in battle, not out of fear ... but out of love and a sense of injustice that has to be challenged. It takes far more courage to challenge unjust authority without violence than it takes to kill all the monsters in all the stories told to children about the meaning of bravery.

— Riane Eisler 

America’s Post-9/11 Wars Have Cost $5.9 Trillion

 This is incredibly heartbreaking.

Another world is possible. — Molly

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Not to mention 240,000 civilian deaths and 21 million displaced. And yet a  congressional commission is urging yet more money for a bloated Pentagon.

By William D. Hartung

Just in time for next year’s Pentagon spending debate, a new report is calling for a huge increase in the Defense Department’s budget, which is already at one of the highest levels since World War II. The document was produced by the National Defense Strategy Commission, a congressionally mandated group charged with assessing the Trump administration’s new national-defense strategy.

The premise of the new report is that America faces a “national security emergency” that leaves its ability to defend “its allies, its partners, and its own vital interests” increasingly in doubt.

As its solution, the commission calls for an increase in Pentagon spending of 3 to 5 percent above inflation for at least the next five years. According to calculations by Taxpayers for Common Sense, the high end of this range would mean an annual Pentagon budget of an astonishing $972 billion by 2024—a potential boon for Lockheed Martin and its fellow weapons-makers, but a disaster for US taxpayers. It is unlikely that Congress will sign off on such a hefty increase, but the fact that it has been put forward at all will provide more rhetorical ammunition for the hawks on Capitol Hill, making it all the harder to rein in runaway Pentagon spending.

It’s not as if the Defense Department is starved for funds. The United States spends more on its military than the next seven countries in the world combined (five of which are US allies). The increase in Pentagon spending in the past two years alone is greater than the entire military budget of Russia. And that’s before the massive increases proposed by the strategy commission.

Please continue this article here: https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-military-madness/

Healing Quotes For Dark Times

It is my belief that these times — and truly all times — ask of us to strengthen our hearts and to look deeply into the values we profess and the degree to which we actually live by them. Ignorance and fear are powerful forces. The antidotes that I have discovered on my journey, and through many painful and life changing experiences, are rooted in courage and humility, integrity and curiosity, connectedness and kindness, compassion and wisdom, and a fierce commitment to truth and to the well-being of us all. Imagine a world where we humans have learned to live by the Golden Rule. Just imagine. This becomes more and more possible as we each assume responsibility for identifying, owning, befriending, healing, and transforming the obstacles we carry within ourselves that we have built against love. As we befriend ourselves, we become increasingly able to intervene on the impulse, the triggers, the harmful belief systems and unskilled behavior patterns which give rise to our projections, our fears, and our creating a Them, an Other, and all the myriad of ways that we justify our judgments and the dehumanization of human beings who are different from ourselves. We can do this. We can adopt the powerful intention to heal ourselves and live with ever increasing mindfulness and caring and kindness toward all beings. We can be the Light and the Love that our world hungers for. Just imagine a world where this is so... Molly

Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

When we hold on to our opinions with aggression, no matter how valid our cause, we are simply adding more aggression to the planet, and violence and pain increase. Cultivating nonaggression is cultivating peace. — Pema Chödrön

 

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. — Albert Einstein

 

Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. ― Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed 

 

No people can be both ignorant and free. ― Thomas Jefferson

 

The most violent element in society is ignorance. ― Emma Goldman 

 

War and peace start in the human heart - and whether that heart is open or whether that heart closes has global implications. ― Pema Chödrön 

 

The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period of one's life. ― The Dalai Lama 

 

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. ― Oliver Wendell Holmes  

 

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere... A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Spiritual practice involves, on the one hand, acting out of concern for others' well-being. On the other, it entails transforming ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so. — The Dalai Lama

What do we most need to do to save our world? What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying. — Thích Nhất Hạnh

We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts. — Pema Chödrön

We often think of peace as the absence of war, that if powerful countries would reduce their weapon arsenals, we could have peace. But if we look deeply into the weapons, we see our own minds- our own prejudices, fears and ignorance. Even if we transport all the bombs to the moon, the roots of war and the roots of bombs are still there, in our hearts and minds, and sooner or later we will make new bombs. To work for peace is to uproot war from ourselves and from the hearts of men and women. To prepare for war, to give millions of men and women the opportunity to practice killing day and night in their hearts, is to plant millions of seeds of violence, anger, frustration, and fear that will be passed on for generations to come. ― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Living Buddha, Living Christ

 

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. — Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967

 

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth is revolutionary. — George Orwell

 

The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. — Thomas Paine

 

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. — Carl Jung 

 

Action creates its own courage and courage is as contagious as fear. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. — Eleanor Roosevelt

 

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. ― Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. ― Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ― Paulo Freire

In our time, when high technology guided by values such as conquest, exploitation, and domination threaten our very survival, we need economics driven by an ethos of caring. We need a caring revolution. ― Riane Eisler

 

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. ― Rumi

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ― Mary Oliver

 
Joy comes not through possession or ownership but through a wise and loving heart... Weigh the true advantages of forgiveness and resentment to the heart. Then choose. ― Jack Kornfield 

 

Everything we think, feel, and do has an effect on our ancestors and all future generations and reverberates throughout the Universe. Therefore, our smile helps everyone. ― Thích Nhất Hạnh

I feel that compassionate thought is the most precious thing there is. It is something that only we human beings can develop. And if we have a good heart, a warm heart, warm feelings, we will be happy and satisfied ourselves, and our friends will experience a friendly and peaceful atmosphere as well. This can be experienced community to community, country to country, continent to continent. ― The Dalai Lama

 

Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart. — Rumi

 

The more we love, the more real we become. — Stephen Levine 

   

My religion is very simple- my religion is kindness. — The Dalai Lama

 

We must become the change we seek in the world. — Mohandas Gandhi

 

♥ ♥ ♥

 

May the light within us all grow brighter and brighter.

Bless us all, no exceptions. — Molly