This weekend I’m going to make a short, one-day sesshin.I mentioned recently that I’m volunteering at a local elementary school, and in the past week I’ve seen a variety of divine beings, demons, animal beings, and hungry ghosts making their Halloween plans.Some families will be honoring their ancestors who have passed away, maybe enjoying a meal with them in the presence of well-loved objects that hold their memories.Here in eastern Washington, bright leaves are falling.It’s a good weekend for a sesshin.
This morning I’ll make a menu and clean a little, and this afternoon I’ll do some shopping and prepare a couple of dishes ahead.My Dad and I already have a pretty regular schedule, meals interspersed with work periods — he in his workshop, and I in the yard or in various ways in the wider world — so for this Saturday’s sesshin here at home, things will look pretty much the same.I’ll add in an extra period of zazen outside, and I’ll see what my mind does when I step away from social media for a while and be still in the presence of the world.Before the work period in the garden, I’ll light incense and think about my uncle, who passed away last November and who also loved to garden.I’ll spend a little time in the evening doing zazen and talking with friends at our meeting of mitras.
In most ways, it will be an ordinary day, so it may be a stretch to call it a sesshin.It’s been interesting to talk with a few people about what makes a sesshin, or how one looks, especially the community aspect, which I’ve appreciated very much.For right now, I’m looking forward to this quiet one at home.
Recently, I read a story about an astronaut’s experience seeing our fragile blue planet from outer space. After spending a total of 164 days in space aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Ron Garan returned to Earth carrying something far more consequential than space equipment or mission data. He returned with a transformed understanding of humanity itself.
Astronauts who have viewed the Earth from space sometimes describe a profound transformation in their understanding of the world. This experience, known as the overview effect, involves seeing our planet as a single, interconnected whole, suspended in the vastness of space.
From that perspective, national boundaries disappear. The distinctions that ordinarily divide humanity seem less substantial. What remains is a fragile, beautiful planet upon which all life depends.
Astronauts, like Ron Garan, have not discovered something previously unknown. They already understood that the Earth is one planet and that life is interconnected. What changes is not their knowledge but their experience of reality. Something previously understood intellectually becomes directly apparent.
The overview effect offers an interesting parallel to kenshō, or seeing into one’s original nature, in Zen Buddhism. Kenshō is not simply an intellectual understanding of emptiness or interdependence. It is a direct recognition of reality beyond our habitual distinctions between self and other.
But an important question follows: What happens after such an experience? Does a moment of awakening fundamentally transform how we live? Or do the familiar habits of mind continue to shape our responses to the world?
The Śūraṅgama Sūtra, an influential Mahāyāna Buddhist text, addresses the distinction between sudden awakening and continued cultivation.
Throughout the sutra, the Buddha challenges Ānanda to investigate the nature of mind. Ānanda repeatedly attempts to locate mind within ordinary perception and thought. Through this questioning, the Buddha reveals the limitations of trying to grasp the mind as an object of thought or perception. He points instead toward the fundamental nature of awareness, which cannot be grasped conceptually, but needs to be experienced.
This recognition does not create something new. Rather, it reveals what has always been present but obscured by ignorance and attachment.
Yet the sutra also recognizes that insight does not necessarily eliminate deeply established habits of conditioning.
A traditional analogy associated with this teaching describes the relationship between wind and waves. When the wind suddenly ceases, the waves do not immediately disappear. They continue moving under the influence of their accumulated momentum, gradually settling into stillness.
Similarly, awakening may occur suddenly, while the habitual movements of the conditioned mind continue.
We may recognize the absence of a fixed, independent self, yet still respond defensively to criticism. We may understand the interdependence of all beings, yet continue to act from fear, attachment, or self-interest.
The insight is genuine, but its implications have not yet fully permeated our lives.
Continued cultivation is therefore not an attempt to manufacture Buddha-nature. It is the ongoing process through which deeply rooted habits of separation and attachment gradually lose their hold.
But Dōgen, the thirteenth-century founder of Japanese Sōtō Zen, introduces another dimension to this understanding.
In Bendōwa, Dōgen emphasizes the inseparability of practice and realization. We ordinarily imagine that practice leads to enlightenment or that after enlightenment we must continue practicing to perfect what we have discovered.
Dōgen challenged the separation of means and ends. For him, practice was not simply a method for achieving realization. Authentic practice is itself the expression of realization.
In Genjōkōan, Dōgen recounts a story about a Zen master fanning himself. A monk asks why the master needs to use a fan if the nature of wind is everywhere.
The master explains that although the nature of wind is ever-present, the monk does not understand its actualization. And he continues fanning.
The wind does not need to be created. Yet its universal presence does not make the activity of fanning unnecessary.
Likewise, Buddha-nature is not something we produce through practice. But its ever-present nature does not make practice unnecessary. Practice is the actualization of realization in our lives.
This suggests a subtle relationship between the Śūraṅgama Sūtra and Dōgen.
The Śūraṅgama Sūtra helps explain why sudden awakening does not immediately free us from habitual conditioning. Dōgen brings another perspective. Practice is not merely what follows awakening, gradually perfecting an earlier insight. Practice is itself the continuing expression of realization. Awakening is not confined to a particular experience in the past, nor is it a state waiting to be achieved in the future.
We do not sit zazen merely to recover a previous experience of insight. Nor do we practice simply in anticipation of some future state of perfection.
We practice because sitting, attending, letting go, and responding compassionately are themselves expressions of the Buddha Way.
Returning to earth from the moon aboard Apollo 14, astronaut Edgar Mitchell, described a profound experience of unity. He later associated this experience with samādhi, or profound meditative absorption.
What is particularly interesting is that Mitchell did not regard this experience as the end of his inquiry. He spent much of the remainder of his life exploring consciousness and the nature of reality. In 2008, Mitchell participated in a public dialogue with Chan Buddhist Master Sheng Yen titled ‘The Buddha Mind, Universe, and Awakening’. His experience raises the same question we encounter in Zen practice: What do we do with a moment of profound insight?
Perhaps the answer is that we do not need to do anything extraordinary with it. We return to the ordinary circumstances of our lives, where insight is continually tested, clarified, and expressed.
The Śūraṅgama Sūtra reminds us that the wind may cease suddenly while the waves continue to move. Dōgen reminds us that practice is not simply waiting for the waves to become still.
Each moment of practice is itself an expression of awakening. We do not need to escape the movement of the ocean to realize its nature.
When I first began sitting, I somehow had the mistaken idea that Buddhists were supposed to be some what detached from the world and aloof observers rather than participants. Nowadays, in thinking about upcoming elections I began to reflect on the ways in which our practice impacts the way we participate in politics.
Ven. Thubten Chodon, in an article published on Sravasti Abbey’s website recently wrote,
“In a monastery, in a Dharma center, in a family, we are always in relationship to those immediately around us as well as to the broader society and to all sentient beings. Even in a remote hermitage, we still live in relationship with each and every living being. Our challenge is to make this relationship a healthy one, physically, verbally, and mentally. With a pure motivation, voting and being politically active can be ways of sharing our vision, and values with others, in an attempt to stop harm and create happiness in society.
The challenges of being an informed voter and a wise citizen are many. For example, how do we keep abreast of current issues without being swept away by the media blitz? How can we learn enough to make wise choices without becoming involved in trivial affairs or allowing attachment and anger arise towards candidates and their views?”
In the Zuimonki, Dōgen stated: “To enter the Buddha Way is to stop discriminating between good and evil and to cast aside the mind that says this is good and that is bad, forgetting the mind of good for my body, what for my mind, but follow the words and deeds of the buddhas and ancestors.”
There is a certain amount of discipline required to examinewithin ourself if we are spending excessive time soaking up the information from the media. I know people who are essentially addicted to news from from the Internet and TV. It requires discipline to see whether or not we have a wise relationship to the media, neither ignoring or becoming obsessed with gathering information. We must take care not to label ourselves as belonging to a fixed viewpoint, which could cut us off from the openness to see all sides of an issue. It’s not wrong to have a viewpoint or opinion, but it can be a mistake to be attached blindly to it.
It seems to me that instead of mindfulness, the attention of politicians and their campaign managers is upon an absorption with their own power. Voters perceptions are under a barrage of manipulation by campaign advertising and the news media and the politicians know that fear and self-interest can be used to influence the voters decisions. Our Buddhist practice opens us to the profound connectedness between people and our interdependence. Through our practice we can discover that these political concepts have limitations, including our own opinions of what is right and wrong or about the way things ought to be. Loosening the grip on the ego helps us shift our perspective and develop insight. We can in a sense zoom out and see a wider perspective. Instead of complaining, “ Why is this happening to me? “, we can say, “This is a natural part of the human experience.” Instead of fixed judgments of good and bad we can understand that situations are complex. Instead of reacting immediately with fear and anger to what we hear in the news. We can pause and respond with the clarity gained from our practice. We can set an example for others by not being judgmental and giving way to angry opinions about political views of others with which we disagree.
I would like to turn to a short excerpt from an article titled ”Why Democracy Needs Dharma” by David Kaczynski, who is theexecutive director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty. It was published on the Lion’s Roar website as part of a group of articles on the topic of views on the practice of politics.
“Can there be a truly democratic politics without dharma in the broad sense? Through practice, we place ourselves in open connectedness with others while avoiding the impatient overreaching of concepts toward some imagined outcome. When we work to benefit others, skillful means emerge from the insights of Buddhist practice and from a deep regard for others’ Buddha Nature. This is the kind of “liberation” Buddhists know about.
The ideal of democracy in the West, with its emphasis on process, inclusiveness and human dignity, is imbued with many of the qualities and insights of the dharma.
As Buddhists, we also understand that there is no truth or wisdom without compassion. Engaged Buddhism represents an antidote to the politics of fear, hate, violence and separation. We realize that on the path to enlightenment, no one is left behind. Practice and study help us avoid the traps of polarized thinking. We resist war, yet we honor the soldier’s pain and sacrifice. We oppose the death penalty, yet we open our hearts to murder victims’ family members. We know that truth and transformation can be realized through listening and paying attention, as well as through speaking and taking action. We are the ones who don’t turn our heads away, who abide without discouragement, and who avoid becoming a mirror image of the enemy, because in the end we have no enemies.”
In the days leading up to this year’s general midterm election, we must more than ever see the events of our world clearly for what they really are, not reacting from anger, not reacting from judgmentalism. Rather, by using skillful means we should vote not from attachment to our limited perspective but look for the wider perspective gained from our training. I don’t think that it is an exaggeration in one sense to say it is inherent in our Bodhisattva vows to be a part of the electoral process. We can make responsible decisions, doing what we can to move our society away from what Sensei has so appropriately described as a pyramidal society, one which is organized around attachment to wealth and power, and toward a society which is oriented around inclusive and supportive systems based on the Dharma and expressing our Buddha nature.
Chieko’s statement, “There is no sky in Tokyo,” can be understood more broadly to mean that cities lack nature—there are neither vast open skies nor abundant green fields. Amid the skyscrapers of the concrete jungle, conflicts arise and airplanes crash into skyscrapers. The pyramids of ancient civilizations have fallen into ruins, while modern civilization faces the danger of a global catastrophe that could bring about the end of the world.
The Eight Sufferings and Four Forms of Collective Suffering call upon us to “Know thyself,” “Seek holiness,” “The greatest victor is one who conquers oneself,” and “Return to nature.” Conventional notions such as the self and the state are constructs formed through symbols and karma, rather than independent realities corresponding to the ultimate truth of Dharma—dependent origination and no-self. Modern science and philosophy are increasingly approaching insights comparable to Buddhism’s Two Truths, which distinguish conventional truth from ultimate truth.
The religious, spiritual, and cultural revolutions of the Axial Age brought about a fundamental transformation of pyramidal civilization. They recognized the universal principles of nature under such names as Dharma, Dao, and Deus, and taught people to follow their truth and compassion. They advocated and practiced universal disciplines comparable to the Three Learning of morality, synthesis, and prognosis (śīla, samādhi, prajñā), establishing communities dedicated to these ideals. Yet the pyramidal structures of karma, the Three Poisons—greed, hatred, and delusion—and the Three Ms frequently infiltrated these religious and spiritual communities.
The fundamental universal law of the Awakened Way (Buddhism)—the Dharma of all dharmas—is dependent origination: “All phenomena originate depending on causes and conditions.” Therefore, all things and beings are interrelated and relative; nothing and no one exists in isolation, possesses absolute independence, or exercises ultimate sovereignty. Consequently, monopolization, dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and civilizational collapse arising from the absolutization of the self, state, race, or other identities constitute violations of the precepts, the universal law, and the true Way. Such actions must never be accepted or justified.
The Awakened Way teaches that anyone can calm karmic activities through serene sitting, enter nirvāṇa (the cessation of the karma winds), and awaken to the Dharma. Thus, everyone has the potential to become a Buddha (Awakened One) or a Bodhisattva (one who shares and practices the Awakened Way), working together with all beings as friends to resolve every form of suffering. The world’s religions, seeking a return to holiness (wholly wholesomeness), have also shared the true friendship in need, idealized as Mitra and Mithra, et al.
Pyramidal civilization has a history of approximately 5,000 years, an exceedingly brief period compared with the immense histories of the universe, life, humanity, and human culture. It is less than half the duration of Japan’s Jōmon culture, which continued for more than 10,000 years. Now that pyramidal civilization has entered a dead end threatening global catastrophe, it must be transformed. Such transformation is possible through the awakened actions of the great majority of people, whose collective efforts can ultimately prevail.
Jōmon culture maintained coexistence, cooperation, and co-prosperity with forests and the natural world. Rather than pursuing “Only Now, Only Money, Only Myself,” it exemplified the possibility of living for “All Life, into the Future.” Without succumbing to the Three Poisons, the Three Ms, and the Five Calamities—delusion, discrimination, exploitation, slaughter, and destruction—it endured without developing into a pyramidal civilization characterized by large-scale warfare, colonization, slavery, rigid class hierarchies, nuclear weapons, and catastrophic destruction.
By transforming the Three Onlys into the Three Alls, and the Three Poisons into the Three Learning, we can resolve the various forms of suffering. We can transform the Three Ms and Five Calamities into the Three Hs (Holy Life, Heart, Harmony) and Five Blessings—awakening, freedom, equality, friendship, and peace. All beings can then enjoy equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy. We can transform our values, actions, lifestyles, and lives themselves—from the shared death, shared downfall, and shared extinction of pyramidal civilization to the coexistence, cooperation, and co-prosperity of the Culture of the Life–Indra’s Net.
Movements to transform pyramidal civilization into the Culture of the Life Indra-net have arisen repeatedly since the Axial Age. Even today, the awakened actions of ordinary people continue, with demonstrations emerging around the world against the Four Collective Karmic Suffering—dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and civilizational collapse. We must recognize that the selves, states, corporations, religions, media organizations, and educational institutions are all fictitious bodies rather than absolute realities. They must therefore be critically examined and reformed.
If we merely depend on others to fulfill our aspirations, we will be like those who wait a hundred years for a muddy river to become clear. Not only will our ideals remain unrealized, but all living beings may face a “Silent Spring,” a “Nuclear Winter,” a summer in which “the World Is Burning,” and an autumn of not merely “Mass Extinction” but potentially “Total Extinction.” We do not know when a global catastrophe might occur. Therefore, here and now, let us take the first step, relying on ourselves as our refuge and the Dharma as our refuge (atta-dīpa, dhamma-dīpa), becoming friends to ourselves and others, and working together for the well-being of all beings!
Every morning, we place the rakusu on our heads, bring our hands together in gassho, and chant this verse. Then we put the rakusu on.
This morning I want to speak about what it means to wear a vow. Most of our vows are invisible. They live in our intentions, in our hearts, and on the cushion. The robe is different. It makes our commitment visible. People see it before we open our mouths. They may not know our names or our personal histories, but they see that we have dedicated
ourselves to this path.
When I wear the robe, I am reminded that it is not an ornament or a claim about myself. It is a reminder of the vow I have taken: to practice the Buddha’s teaching and to live for the benefit of all beings. The robe asks me to keep returning to that vow.
In the first chapter of the Dhammapada, verses 9 and 10, the Buddha speaks about truthfulness and the robe: “Whoever wears the monastic robe while still stained by defilements, lacking self-control and truthfulness, is not worthy of the robe. But whoever is cleansed of defilements, established in virtue, endowed with self-control and truthfulness, is truly worthy of the robe.”
These are strong words. When I hear them, I turn the question toward my own practice. Am I
living truthfully? Am I treating this robe and the vow it represents with care? What does it mean for me to wear the teaching sincerely?
Last week, while attending sesshin at Upaya, I found myself reflecting on these questions in a very personal way. Just before zazen, one of the guiding teachers saw my robe and understood it to mean that I had received transmission in the way it is typically understood in American Zen. She was kind and generous. She said she had not realized I was transmitted and invited me to take a different seat and face outward toward the room, as transmitted teachers do in her Soto Zen tradition. I have another whole thought about the “special seats” and my feelings about it not being egalitarian, but that is for another time.
The bell for zazen was about to ring. I had perhaps sixty seconds. In that moment, I felt caught between precepts. If I accepted the invitation without saying anything, I felt I might allow an impression to stand that I could not honestly claim. But explaining the circumstances fully would take more time than I had and might draw the room
away from the silence we were about to enter. I felt the difficulty of trying to honor truthfulness while also caring for the moment and the people around me. I said what I could in that minute. I declined the seat honestly, though I could not offer the full
explanation. Then I returned to my place and faced the wall.
Later, I spoke with her and explained my teacher’s views and the background of my practice as I understand them. She listened with appreciation and said that, in her tradition, what I described was equivalent, but our language was different. We were able to meet each other with openness, and the misunderstanding was resolved between us.
Still, I carried the feeling of that brief moment with me through the sesshin. I had felt the weight of wanting to honor the robe and the vow, while not knowing how to express the whole truth in the time available. Sitting with that discomfort became part of my practice.
We often think of the precepts as clear instructions for what to do. But in daily life, we may find ourselves trying to honor several commitments at once. We may not find perfect words or an effortless path. In those moments, practice can mean pausing, acting as honestly as we can, and returning later to listen and explain more fully.
For me, that is one way of wearing the vow. It is not about never being misunderstood or always knowing the right thing to say. It is about remembering what the robe asks of me: to meet each moment with honesty, humility, and care, and to keep returning to the path when I fall short. as stated in the Dhamapada, “The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far.” (Verse 63).
When we take the Three Pure Precepts, we vow to refrain from harm, to cultivate good, and to live for the benefit of all beings. These vows are not separate from ordinary encounters. They are present in how we speak, how we listen, and how we respond when something is difficult or unclear.
Sometimes honoring the vow means speaking plainly. Sometimes it means recognizing that we cannot explain everything in the moment and making space to return to the conversation later. And sometimes it means sitting down, facing the wall, and continuing to practice with an open heart.
The robe cannot practice for us. It cannot make us wise or truthful simply because we wear it. But it can remind us of what we have vowed to cultivate. It can call us back to the precepts and to the care we hope to embody.
I would wear my robe everywhere, every day, because it reminds me of the vows that guide my life. I want my words and actions to honor those vows and to be worthy of the trust that someone might place in the teaching.
Each morning, before we put on the rakusu, we place it on our heads, bring our hands together in gassho, and speak the verse. In that pause, we remember what we are undertaking. Then we put it on and enter the world. The world will meet us with its joys, its difficulties, and its unexpected moments. Each one gives us another opportunity to practice the vow we have spoken.
I would like to offer two questions to take with you to your cushion:
What does the robe remind me that I have vowed to practice?
How can I meet the next difficult or uncertain moment with truthfulness, humility, and
care?
Let us return to the verse:
Great is the robe of liberation,
Markless garb of merit making,
Wearing the Tathagata’s teaching,
We vow to save all beings.
May we wear our vows with gratitude for what we have received. May we meet one another with honesty and care. And may our lives give expression to the teaching we wear.
There are two paths: the Path of Seeing and the Path of Cultivation―insight and practice, the unity of knowledge and action. Like the two wings of a bird or the two wheels of a vehicle, both are necessary to achieve the proper and effective results of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. Insight requires a broad, deep, and long-range perspective, while the practice of the Way, also called paṭipadā (the path of practice), requires proceeding step by step, placing each foot firmly and safely on the ground.
The significance of the Axial Age lay in its call for a 180-degree transformation from Pyramidal Civilization to the Culture of the Life Indra-net. It was a religious revolution seeking a return from sin (separated sickness) to holiness (wholly wholesomeness), understood as reconnection (religare), through the infinite and universal cultural values of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. It was also a spiritual and cultural revolution, transforming the struggle for Money, Matter, and Might into the cultivation of Holy Life, Heart, and Harmony. This revolution continues to the present day.
The Universal Law (universal truth/ethic) has been called Dharma, Dao, Deus, and other names. In the Awakened Way (Buddhism), Dharma is understood through Dependent Origination (pratītya-samutpāda): all things arise and cease through innumerable causes and conditions. Therefore, everything is interrelated and relative, and nothing exists in isolation or as an absolute. The phenomenal world is characterized by impermanence, suffering (the absence of sovereign control), and no-self.
No-self means that there is no permanent, sovereign self. Like a drop of spray rising from the great ocean, what we call the self is originally inseparable from the ocean and ultimately returns to it. Nevertheless, in ordinary transactions, conventional understanding, and conventional truth, we recognize and identify with a separate self. From the standpoint of ultimate truth, however, we are parts of and one with the Dharma world and the universe. We must awaken, repent, return, and reunite with holiness (wholly wholesome: the wholeness and health of all).
Confucius said, “To govern is to rectify” (zheng zhe zheng ye). The Chinese character 正 (right; Recht) can be interpreted as “stopping at the One.” It signifies proceeding toward the right goal and, ultimately, returning to and abiding in our original nature. The Awakened One practiced this through samādhi (synthesis), attaining nirvāṇa (the stilling of karma) and awakening through seated meditation.
In the Awakened Way, the Three Learnings―morality (śīla), concentration or synthesis (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā)―cultivate body and mind, including volition, emotion, and intellection. Samādhi integrates these faculties and enables their realization in practice.
The Five Precepts prohibit killing, stealing, false speech, sexual misconduct, and intoxicants. They constitute essential morality and ethics for social life and share fundamental standards of conduct with the Ten Commandments and the ethical teachings of other religions.
Amid worldwide peace movements seeking to avert the danger of nuclear war, the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions proclaimed the Global Ethic, articulating shared ethical commitments corresponding to these precepts, including equality and partnership between women and men as its fourth directive. Environmental protection was subsequently emphasized as a further commitment. The Global Ethic calls upon everyone, whether religious or nonreligious, to observe these principles. It must be practiced by both individuals and societies.
Neither the self nor the state is isolated or absolute in the world of Dependent Origination. Both are conditioned constructs. Therefore, individuals and nations alike must observe the Precepts and the Global Ethic, undertake peaceful action corresponding to concentration, and cultivate farsighted insight corresponding to wisdom.
We must abandon the narrow mentality of “Money alone, Now alone, Myself alone” and extend our vision to all lives, all beings, and future generations. Resources and energies now directed toward violence, armaments, war, and nuclear weapons should instead be redirected toward peace, equality, freedom, and autonomy.
Yet our present world is dominated by MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction: the nuclear strategy of mutual destruction.The Path to the Solution of Catastrophic Suffering
There are two paths: the Path of Seeing and the Path of Cultivation―insight and practice, the unity of knowledge and action. Like the two wings of a bird or the two wheels of a vehicle, both are necessary to achieve the proper and effective results of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. Insight requires a broad, deep, and long-range perspective, while the practice of the Way, also called paṭipadā (the path of practice), requires proceeding step by step, placing each foot firmly and safely on the ground.
The significance of the Axial Age lay in its call for a 180-degree transformation from Pyramidal Civilization to the Culture of the Life–Indra’s Net. It was a religious revolution seeking a return from sin (separation and sickness) to holiness (wholly wholesome integration), understood as reconnection (religare), through the infinite and universal cultural values of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. It was also a spiritual and cultural revolution, transforming the struggle for Money, Matter, and Might into the cultivation of Life, Heart, and Harmony. This revolution continues to the present day.
The Universal Law (universal principle and truth) has been called Dharma, Dao, Deus, and other names. In the Awakened Way (Buddhism), Dharma is understood through Dependent Origination (pratītya-samutpāda): all things arise and cease through innumerable causes and conditions. Therefore, everything is interdependent and relative, and nothing exists in isolation or as an absolute. The phenomenal world is characterized by impermanence, suffering (the absence of sovereign control), and no-self.
No-self means that there is no permanent, sovereign self. Like a drop of spray rising from the great ocean, what we call the self is originally inseparable from the ocean and ultimately returns to it. Nevertheless, in ordinary transactions, conventional understanding, and conventional truth, we recognize and identify with a separate self. From the standpoint of ultimate truth, however, we are parts of and one with the Dharma world and the universe. We must awaken, repent, return, and reunite with holiness (wholly wholesome: the wholeness and health of all).
Confucius said, “To govern is to rectify” (zheng zhe zheng ye). The Chinese character 正 (right; Recht) can be interpreted as “stopping at the One.” It signifies proceeding toward the right goal and, ultimately, returning to and abiding in our original nature. The Awakened One practiced this through samādhi (synthesis or integration), attaining nirvāṇa (the stilling of karma) and awakening through seated meditation.
In the Awakened Way, the Three Learnings―morality (śīla), concentration or synthesis (samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā)―cultivate body and mind, including volition, emotion, and intellection. Samādhi integrates these faculties and enables their realization in practice.
The Five Precepts prohibit killing, stealing, false speech, sexual misconduct, and intoxicants. They constitute essential morality and ethics for social life and share fundamental standards of conduct with the Ten Commandments and the ethical teachings of other religions.
Amid worldwide peace movements seeking to avert the danger of nuclear war, the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions proclaimed the Global Ethic, articulating shared ethical commitments corresponding to these precepts, including equality and partnership between women and men as its fourth directive. Environmental protection was subsequently emphasized as a further commitment. The Global Ethic calls upon everyone, whether religious or nonreligious, to observe these principles. It must be practiced by both individuals and societies.
Neither the self nor the state is isolated or absolute in the world of Dependent Origination. Both are conditioned constructs. Therefore, individuals and nations alike must observe the Precepts and the Global Ethic, undertake peaceful action corresponding to concentration, and cultivate farsighted insight corresponding to wisdom.
We must abandon the narrow mentality of “Money alone, Now alone, Myself alone” and extend our vision to all lives, all beings, and future generations. Resources and energies now directed toward violence, armaments, war, and nuclear weapons should instead be redirected toward peace, equality, freedom, and autonomy.
Yet our present world is dominated by MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction: the nuclear strategy of mutual destruction) MAGIC (Military–Academic– Government–Industry Complex) MONEY (Means Of Nearly Every Yield/Yielding).
Under these powers, the Four Collective Sufferings―dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and civilizational collapse― engulf the world. We do not know when a global catastrophe might occur. Collective suffering can be resolved only through the collective awakening, action, and cooperation of all members of the community.
Let us eliminate nuclear weapons, which pose one of the most immediate threats of catastrophe to humanity, all living beings, and the environment. Let us end wars waged for dictators, monopolies, and special-interest groups. Let us end dictatorships that plunge the world into chaos and suffering.
When the great majority of people awaken and act together, they possess the collective power to prevail. Let us refuse to be bought by money, redirect its use toward the common good, reform unjust laws and institutions, and make them serve all beings.
Let us understand the history and organization of the universe, Earth, life, living beings, and humanity. Within this immense history, Pyramidal Civilization emerged only very recently and has existed for a relatively short time. Its characteristic patterns are karma, ego, the Three Poisons, the 3Ms, and the Five Calamities.
We must transform these into the Dharma, eco-consciousness, the Three Learnings, the 3Hs, and the Five Blessings of the Culture of the Life Indra-net, grounded in the Universal Law that has operated throughout the vast history of existence.
This is the transformation:
From Karma to Dharma.
From Ego to Eco.
From the Three Poisons to the Three Learnings.
From the 3Ms―Money, Matter, Might―to the 3Hs―Life, Heart, Harmony.
From the Five Calamities―Delusion, Bondage, Discrimination, Exploitation, Destruction―to the Five Blessings―Awakening, Freedom, Equality, Friendship, Peace.
From Domination to Autonomy.
From Competition to Cooperation.
From Pyramidal Civilization to the Culture of the Life–Indra’s Net.
Let us realize a Pure Land of awakening, wisdom, and compassion, where all beings live in coexistence, cooperation, and co-prosperity.
From Pyramidal Civilization, which places Money at the highest value, to the Culture of the Life Indra-net, which places Life at the highest value.
From the world of karma driven by nescience and craving to the world of awakened compassionate action grounded in the Dharma of Dependent Origination.
Let us transcend the struggle for Money, Matter, and Might; cultivate Holy Life, Heart, and Harmony; and realize a world of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness, where all living beings coexist, cooperate, and prosper together!
“Money makes power yield; Dharma makes wisdom prevail.”
The Vimalakirti Sutra and Reflections on the Role of Suffering
Last week I was reading the Vimalakirti Sutra, and a statement attributed to the Buddha in Chapter 1 gave me pause.
The Vimalakirtri Sutra is that wonderful sutra in which Shariputra, Manjushri, and several hundred Bodhisattvas and heavenly beings pay a sick call visit on Vimalakirti, and Vimalakirti expounds on the dharma from his small room.
In the first chapter of the sutra, the Buddha, along with the Bodhisattva Jeweled Accumulation discuss how the world is a Pure Land to those who attain Buddhahood. Shariputra, in his thoughts, replies to the effect that’s not how he saw things. Specifically, this is a world of suffering, so how can we call it a Pure Land. At that point, one of the brahma kings jumps into the conversation, and tells Shariputra that “it’s your mind that has highs and lows and does not rest on Buddha wisdom.” At that point, in the Burton Watson translation, the Buddha says “my land has always been pure like this. But because I wish to save those persons who are lowly and inferior, I make it seem an impure land full of defilements.” Robert Thurman translates this passage as “this Buddha-field is always pure, but the Tathagata makes it appear to be spoiled by many faults, in order to bring about the maturity of inferior living beings.”
This is very odd. The Buddha is saying the world is pure, but appears the way it does to facilitate our awakening. In other words, suffering has a purpose.
Reading this, I was immediately reminded of Gottfried Leibniz, who in the 1600’s in his Discourse on Metaphysics, argued that this is the best of all possible worlds because God is all knowing, powerful, and loving, thus the world we inhabit is the best it could possibly be. “Best” here is defined as achieving the greatest variety of existence and phenomena through the simplest and consistent set of fundamental laws.
Now of course, Buddhism does not concern itself with the idea of a creator God. Also, the origins and purpose of the universe rank among the four imponderables, (the other three being the workings of karma, the mind of the Buddha, and the power of a concentrated mind).
Returning to Leibniz, he was a target for criticism by Voltaire, as well as others for arguing that this could in any way be the best of all possible worlds. I think this was most artfully put by Dostoevsky in the Brothers Karamazov, where the character Ivan states that if the suffering of an innocent child is the cost of admission to this universe, he wishes to return his ticket.
Of course, returning the ticket is not an option. The world is what it is. So what are we to make of it? Since Buddhism is not a theistic religion, it has never had to come up with an explanation for suffering and evil. It just is. But the Vimalakirti Sutra tells us that being born into a world that appears to be defiled is most conducive to awakening, and the world appears to us that way for our awakening. Our “ticket” to awakening is part of a package deal involving suffering.
It’s not my intention to speculate as to why the world is the way it is. But I think there is an important implication to this passage from the Vimalakirti Sutra. If, as Zen and Mahayana Buddhism teach, all appearances are processes or events in a vast interconnected web of becoming, then the suffering of our fellow sentient beings cannot be partitioned off as someone else’s problem. Rather, it is part and parcel with our existence in this vast web. If our suffering, and the suffering of others is the price of admission for having a chance at awakening, it is obvious that kindness, compassion and whole-hearted striving towards awakening is non-negotiable.
The Bhodisatva vow to liberate all beings takes on a new importance in view of this.
I have been thinking about the state of the world today. I do not chase the news but somehow, it finds me. Gaza, the War in Ukraine, Ice … human life treated like a game of chess. In our country the spirit of manipulation, and mistrust by those in power is generated with impunity. The intentional violation of our nations most sacred grounds and institutions (the White House, the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institute, National Parks and Monuments, and even the entrance to our most hallowed ground … Arlington Cemetery} is disturbing. Not to mention Climate Inaction, and blatant corruption. As my father used to say about the state of affairs, “It’s a holy mess!”
Where I live, I see so many positive things. The Food Bank Market that provides nourishment for those who have little; Room-at-the-Inn that provides housing during the cold winter months for those who live on the street; Mobility Worldwide that makes hand driven carts that are sent all over the world to those with lower leg injuries. Needless to say, I like to think and act locally. Not that everything is orderly, peaceful and wholesome at the local level either … but it is real.
In my queries of AI concerning the relationship between Zen practice and this ‘holy mess’, it provided some useful insight we all can relate to as practitioners.
Zen practice is not about polishing life until it becomes pristine, quiet, or orderly. Zen is the radical capacity to wake up right inside the unfinished, unpredictable, and imperfect nature of our actual lives.
Sometimes I find myself thinking, “Once I get through this stressful project, once my health stabilizes, once the house is quiet—then I’ll really settle into practice.”
But life doesn’t pause for our practice. Zen was never meant to be a sanctuary from reality, but a direct intimacy with reality as it is—dirty dishes, unreturned messages, unexpected delays, and all. Life doesn’t pause for our practice.
Zen asks something much bolder of us: What if this very moment, in all its incomplete, cluttered, and uncertain glory, is already the complete field of wisdom?
When we sit on the cushion, we don’t sit to eradicate the noise of the world. We sit so we can stop waging war against it. The same is true off the cushion. The mess of life isn’t an interruption to our path; it is our path.
Awakening isn’t floating above the world in a cloud of calm. It is stepping directly into the mud with open hands and an undivided heart—willing to meet whatever shows up next. We do our best, sometimes it doesn’t work out, and sometimes we fall.
Gary Snyder, the American Zen Poet is quoted, “Doing the right thing doesn’t guarantee you’re going to win, but you don’t do it just to win. You do it because it’s the right work to do.” Binary ideas like “optimism” (believing an action will succeed) and “pessimism” (believing an action will fail) are irrelevant distractions. The imperative is simply to engage directly in the work that the present moment requires. This is not to say attitude is not important – simply it is necessary to engage.
サンフランシスコ禅センターの元住職、ゾケツ・ノーマン・フィッシャー（Zoketsu Norman Fischer）は、『Lion’s Roar』誌に「計らいなく戒を実践するには（How to Practice Sila Without Calculation）」という記事を書いています。その中で、次のように述べています。
There’s a story from the Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha about a teaching concerning honesty. Rahula, the young son of the Buddha had been caught in a deliberate lie, so the Buddha went to visit him at the Bamboo Grove and he used a water pot to teach him the importance of truthfulness. Buddha poured some of the water out of the pot and he explained to his son that the amount of water left in the bowl represented the tiny amount a spiritual life left in a person who feels no shame in lying. Pouring out the water demonstrated that the spiritual life of a liar is thrown away and wasted. Turning it right side up again it showed how empty and hollow it was comparing the liar’s lost integrity as that of a useless vessel.
Sila or morality and ethics constitute one of the Three Learnings, the others beingsamādhi (concentration or synthesis) and prajñā (wisdom or prognosis as sensei has translated it). The practice of sila brings together three related aspects of the eightfold path , those being right speech, right action, and right livelihood. The Sila Paramitra, the perfection of moral behavior provides a framework upon which the triple learnings can be built.
At the Columbia Zen Buddhist Priory where I train, we place a great deal of emphasis on following the Precepts. The Precepts as part of the practice of sila paramita, provide a sort of road map, a more concrete framework toward incorporating the ideals of morality into everyday life. Meditation on the one hand provides awareness, like the headlights on a car that allow us to see the road at night. The Precepts on the other hand are like the steering wheel. The road may curve to the left, but we might want to go to the right. We have the choice to remain on the road or turn off the road in search of our own destination. The metaphor of driving suggests that turning off the road is not the wise choice.
Zoketsu Norman Fisher, the former Abbot of the San Francisco Zen center wrote an article in Lion’s Roar entitled “How to Practice Sila Without Calculation”. In the article he says,
”The bodhisattva path begins with bodhicitta — a sudden or gradual certainty that the only thing that makes sense in this life is to be of benefit, to love, to be loved, and to express that love through all your actions. Bodhicitta completely reorients your life and opens up the path. Whereas before you had been seeking relief from your suffering, or instruction in what you thought of as transcendent enlightenment, now you see that enlightenment, is, in fact, love and compassion, and that this is itself relief from suffering.
The question then becomes, how can I achieve this? What do I need to do to express, develop, and sustain compassion? And the answer is, practice the six practices: generosity, morality, patience, energy, meditation, and wisdom. That’s the way to develop compassion.
For bodhisattvas, sila paramita is serene, loving conduct. It’s speaking, acting, and thinking out of love and the desire to be of service, a practice that helps you to further develop love for others, which causes others to love you. There are many teachings about how others will be drawn to you, and be cooperative with you, when you practice sila paramita. To benefit others is to influence them for the good, drawing them to kindness and goodness, and serving as an example of that. But this is done innocently and without intentionality. Bodhisattvas are without calculation.
So one side of sila paramita is the practice of loving and being loved, cultivating love. The other side reminds us to pay attention that we don’t get carried away, that we maintain a sense of mindfulness and watchfulness, so we don’t end up causing harm in our enthusiasm.” As my practice matures I find that as I examine my actions I see the Precepts as an increasingly subtle tool which allows a closer and closer examination of my actions. For example, I find the precept against killing extending even to the act of eating, a necessary activity. If I eat a carrot, I kill the carrot. For that reason, I reflect deeply at the beginning of each meal on how that food has come to me and whether my actions which are sustained by that meal will provide merit to others. The precept against stealing, can be extended to the practice of generosity. Sila paramita encourages us to be giving. To be honest in our speech, it seems to me, requires that we examine whether or not what we are saying is simply our own opinion, which we have to admit could be mistaken. The Buddha went to great lengths to govern whether or not he spoke the truth. It had to be welcome, and beneficial as well as true before he would speak. The admonition against intoxication can extend to anything which draws our attention away from our practice of the Dharma. I have begun to examine if some of my lifestyle choices are strictly from habit. Any habitual practice can in many ways be like an addiction.
Let’s try daily to see the ways in which the exercise of sila can deepen our practice.
The Buddha (Awakened One) chose not to stop at the solution to his own suffering but to share the Awakened Way of the Dharma with all sentient beings. The traditional account of Brahmā’s request for the Buddha to teach may be understood as a religious skillful means (upāya) familiar to the people of that time, emphasizing the vital importance of liberating all beings through the warning that, unless the Dharma were taught, “the world would perish.”
One of the most important teachings of the Awakened Way is the Four Holy Truths (Catvāri Ārya-satyāni), which present a method for solving problems and suffering: suffering (duḥkha), its cause (samudaya), the cessation of its cause (nirodha), and the way to its cessation (mārga). This methodology can be applied to any problem, including the suffering of individuals and nations and the means of resolving it.
We have already examined how the causes of catastrophic suffering lie in blind faith in the myth of the state and the violent acts arising from it. To eliminate these causes, individuals must awaken to the Triple Poisons—greed, hatred, and delusion—that lead people to blind belief and destructive action, as well as to the karma of competition for survival inherited from the past that has produced these poisons. Such awakening must be accompanied by action, and we must know and practice concrete methods for overcoming these causes.
Throughout human history, revolutions in production, urban society, and spiritual culture have repeatedly transformed civilization. Yet humanity now confronts global problematique, suffering under dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and the threat of civilizational collapse, with the Doomsday Clock standing at 85 seconds to midnight. This dead end reveals fundamental problems within pyramidal civilization itself and demonstrates the necessity of a religious, spiritual, and cultural revolution to overcome them.
Underlying the religious, spiritual, and cultural revolutions of the Axial Age were conceptions of universal law or principle, expressed through such terms as Dharma, Dao, and Deus. Their essential aim was a return, reunification, or repentance—a transformation from ego-centered existence (sin: separation, sickness, and suffering) to Dharma-centered existence (holiness: wholeness, health, and happiness). This transformation sought to change societies characterized by division, discrimination, conflict, and bondage into societies of harmony, equality, peace, and freedom.
Confucius taught that government (政治：zheng) means governing rightly and bringing things into proper order（正: zheng）. Mencius distinguished the hegemonic way of rule by force （覇道）from the kingly way of benevolence and virtue（王道）, regarding the latter as the right way. The character zheng (正: 一＋止：one＋foot) may be understood as proceeding toward a right goal or oneness, while such terms as right and Recht likewise express ideas of correctness and justice. Politics, derived from polis, concerns the proper guidance and ordering of the city and citizens, although the historical background of political organization has often involved centralized, hierarchical rule.
The Awakened Way relates that Siddhattha chose the path of a peaceful Awakened One rather than that of a wheel-turning universal monarch (cakravartin) wielding weapons and force. Emperor Aśoka, deeply remorseful over the Kalinga War, subsequently promoted victory through the Dharma (Dharma-vijaya) rather than military conquest. He extended the message of the Dharma toward Macedonia, Egypt, Western Asia, Sri Lanka, and other regions, and proclaimed reconciliation, compassion, and ethical conduct through his rock and pillar edicts.
Among the four great ancient civilizations, the archaeological remains of the Indus Civilization show no clear evidence of monumental royal domination or large-scale warfare. The harmonious Buddhist Sangha, meanwhile, formed a distinctive community based not on the Triple Poisons but on non-possession, living on joy, and offerings given in faith. It cultivated equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy. Such a community provides an important model for the transformation from pyramidal civilization to the culture of the Life Indra-net.
Viewed through the universal Dharma of dependent origination—the interrelation and relativity of all things—pyramidal civilization arose through the specialization and concentration of society, economics, and politics. To overcome the Four Forms of Collective Suffering produced by collective karma, humanity must return to the universal Dharma and develop the culture of the Life Indra-net. What is desirable is a society of all beings resembling the harmonious Sangha, in which people live in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy through reliance on themselves and the Dharma (atta-dīpa, dhamma-dīpa), even without a centralized government.
We must awaken to the universal Dharma, stand upon ourselves and the Dharma, and transform karma into Dharma, ego into eco, domination into autonomy, competition into cooperation, and pyramidal civilization into the culture of the Life Indra-net. If we can realize a common world in which all sentient beings live together as friends in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy, all can enjoy a Pure Land of bliss.
To take refuge in the Dharma as our island (dhamma-dīpa) means understanding the universal Dharma of dependent origination: all things are interrelated and relative, and nothing and no one exists in isolation or as an absolute entity. We must observe and uphold the precepts and Global Ethic essential to social life, both for ourselves and with others. Those who violate these fundamental ethical principles should be prevented from assuming public office or removed from office. The ideal of Mitra, Mithra, Maitreya, et al—friendship cherished in religious traditions—must not permit national myths (myths), dictatorship, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction: nukes), or MAGIC (Military-Academic-Government-Industry-Complex).
To take refuge in ourselves as our island (atta-dīpa) means recognizing that each of us is an indispensable crystal in the Indra-net, fabric of the Dharma, dependent origination, bearing both rights and responsibilities. We must act on this understanding rather than leaving everything to others or depending upon them. We must become those who help themselves, awakening and acting in accordance with the Dharma, while calling upon others to do likewise. Silence, indifference, and inaction in the face of wrongdoing amount to tacit approval and complicity.
Following the First Revolutions—the Agricultural, Urban, and Spiritual Revolutions—humanity has entered an age that calls for the Second Revolutions: the Industrial, Civic, and Global Ethical Revolutions. The Global Ethical Revolution is a revolution of coexistence grounded in universal responsibility under the universal Dharma, aiming to realize a culture of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. Through these transformations, humanity must advance material production, social self-governance, and spiritual awakening on the global scale.
Among politics, economics, society, and culture, politics has lagged furthest behind in globalization and in upholding the Global Ethic. The reasons lie in the centralized domination of pyramidal civilization and the blind obedience of the majority, particularly their bondage to the myth of the state. Now is the time to listen to and amplify, by every possible means, the voices calling for the Dharma and justice!
The Buddha (Awakened One) chose not to stop at the solution to his own suffering but to share the Awakened Way of the Dharma with all sentient beings. The traditional account of Brahmā’s request for the Buddha to teach may be understood as a religious skillful means (upāya) familiar to the people of that time, emphasizing the vital importance of liberating all beings through the warning that, unless the Dharma were taught, “the world would perish.”
One of the most important teachings of the Awakened Way is the Four Holy Truths (Catvāri Ārya-satyāni), which present a method for solving problems and suffering: suffering (duḥkha), its cause (samudaya), the cessation of its cause (nirodha), and the way to its cessation (mārga). This methodology can be applied to any problem, including the suffering of individuals and nations and the means of resolving it.
We have already examined how the causes of catastrophic suffering lie in blind faith in the myth of the state and the violent acts arising from it. To eliminate these causes, individuals must awaken to the Triple Poisons—greed, hatred, and delusion—that lead people to blind belief and destructive action, as well as to the karma of competition for survival inherited from the past that has produced these poisons. Such awakening must be accompanied by action, and we must know and practice concrete methods for overcoming these causes.
Throughout human history, revolutions in production, urban society, and spiritual culture have repeatedly transformed civilization. Yet humanity now confronts global problematique, suffering under dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and the threat of civilizational collapse, with the Doomsday Clock standing at 85 seconds to midnight. This dead end reveals fundamental problems within pyramidal civilization itself and demonstrates the necessity of a religious, spiritual, and cultural revolution to overcome them.
Underlying the religious, spiritual, and cultural revolutions of the Axial Age were conceptions of universal law or principle, expressed through such terms as Dharma, Dao, and Deus. Their essential aim was a return, reunification, or repentance—a transformation from ego-centered existence (sin: separation, sickness, and suffering) to Dharma-centered existence (holiness: wholeness, health, and happiness). This transformation sought to change societies characterized by division, discrimination, conflict, and bondage into societies of harmony, equality, peace, and freedom.
Confucius taught that government (政治：zheng) means governing rightly and bringing things into proper order（正: zheng）. Mencius distinguished the hegemonic way of rule by force （覇道）from the kingly way of benevolence and virtue（王道）, regarding the latter as the right way. The character zheng (正: 一＋止：one＋foot) may be understood as proceeding toward a right goal or oneness, while such terms as right and Recht likewise express ideas of correctness and justice. Politics, derived from polis, concerns the proper guidance and ordering of the city and citizens, although the historical background of political organization has often involved centralized, hierarchical rule.
The Awakened Way relates that Siddhattha chose the path of a peaceful Awakened One rather than that of a wheel-turning universal monarch (cakravartin) wielding weapons and force. Emperor Aśoka, deeply remorseful over the Kalinga War, subsequently promoted victory through the Dharma (Dharma-vijaya) rather than military conquest. He extended the message of the Dharma toward Macedonia, Egypt, Western Asia, Sri Lanka, and other regions, and proclaimed reconciliation, compassion, and ethical conduct through his rock and pillar edicts.
Among the four great ancient civilizations, the archaeological remains of the Indus Civilization show no clear evidence of monumental royal domination or large-scale warfare. The harmonious Buddhist Sangha, meanwhile, formed a distinctive community based not on the Triple Poisons but on non-possession, living on joy, and offerings given in faith. It cultivated equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy. Such a community provides an important model for the transformation from pyramidal civilization to the culture of the Life Indra-net.
Viewed through the universal Dharma of dependent origination—the interrelation and relativity of all things—pyramidal civilization arose through the specialization and concentration of society, economics, and politics. To overcome the Four Forms of Collective Suffering produced by collective karma, humanity must return to the universal Dharma and develop the culture of the Life Indra-net. What is desirable is a society of all beings resembling the harmonious Sangha, in which people live in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy through reliance on themselves and the Dharma (atta-dīpa, dhamma-dīpa), even without a centralized government.
We must awaken to the universal Dharma, stand upon ourselves and the Dharma, and transform karma into Dharma, ego into eco, domination into autonomy, competition into cooperation, and pyramidal civilization into the culture of the Life Indra-net. If we can realize a common world in which all sentient beings live together as friends in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy, all can enjoy a Pure Land of bliss.
To take refuge in the Dharma as our island (dhamma-dīpa) means understanding the universal Dharma of dependent origination: all things are interrelated and relative, and nothing and no one exists in isolation or as an absolute entity. We must observe and uphold the precepts and Global Ethic essential to social life, both for ourselves and with others. Those who violate these fundamental ethical principles should be prevented from assuming public office or removed from office. The ideal of Mitra, Mithra, Maitreya, et al—friendship cherished in religious traditions—must not permit national myths (myths), dictatorship, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction: nukes), or MAGIC (Military-Academic-Government-Industry-Complex).
To take refuge in ourselves as our island (atta-dīpa) means recognizing that each of us is an indispensable crystal in the Indra-net, fabric of the Dharma, dependent origination, bearing both rights and responsibilities. We must act on this understanding rather than leaving everything to others or depending upon them. We must become those who help themselves, awakening and acting in accordance with the Dharma, while calling upon others to do likewise. Silence, indifference, and inaction in the face of wrongdoing amount to tacit approval and complicity.
Following the First Revolutions—the Agricultural, Urban, and Spiritual Revolutions—humanity has entered an age that calls for the Second Revolutions: the Industrial, Civic, and Global Ethical Revolutions. The Global Ethical Revolution is a revolution of coexistence grounded in universal responsibility under the universal Dharma, aiming to realize a culture of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. Through these transformations, humanity must advance material production, social self-governance, and spiritual awakening on the global scale.
Among politics, economics, society, and culture, politics has lagged furthest behind in globalization and in upholding the Global Ethic. The reasons lie in the centralized domination of pyramidal civilization and the blind obedience of the majority, particularly their bondage to the myth of the state. Now is the time to listen to and amplify, by every possible means, the voices calling for the Dharma and justice!
The Buddha (Awakened One) chose not to stop at the solution to his own suffering but to share the Awakened Way of the Dharma with all sentient beings. The traditional account of Brahmā’s request for the Buddha to teach may be understood as a religious skillful means (upāya) familiar to the people of that time, emphasizing the vital importance of liberating all beings through the warning that, unless the Dharma were taught, “the world would perish.”
One of the most important teachings of the Awakened Way is the Four Holy Truths (Catvāri Ārya-satyāni), which present a method for solving problems and suffering: suffering (duḥkha), its cause (samudaya), the cessation of its cause (nirodha), and the way to its cessation (mārga). This methodology can be applied to any problem, including the suffering of individuals and nations and the means of resolving it.
We have already examined how the causes of catastrophic suffering lie in blind faith in the myth of the state and the violent acts arising from it. To eliminate these causes, individuals must awaken to the Triple Poisons—greed, hatred, and delusion—that lead people to blind belief and destructive action, as well as to the karma of competition for survival inherited from the past that has produced these poisons. Such awakening must be accompanied by action, and we must know and practice concrete methods for overcoming these causes.
Throughout human history, revolutions in production, urban society, and spiritual culture have repeatedly transformed civilization. Yet humanity now confronts global problematique, suffering under dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and the threat of civilizational collapse, with the Doomsday Clock standing at 85 seconds to midnight. This dead end reveals fundamental problems within pyramidal civilization itself and demonstrates the necessity of a religious, spiritual, and cultural revolution to overcome them.
Underlying the religious, spiritual, and cultural revolutions of the Axial Age were conceptions of universal law or principle, expressed through such terms as Dharma, Dao, and Deus. Their essential aim was a return, reunification, or repentance—a transformation from ego-centered existence (sin: separation, sickness, and suffering) to Dharma-centered existence (holiness: wholeness, health, and happiness). This transformation sought to change societies characterized by division, discrimination, conflict, and bondage into societies of harmony, equality, peace, and freedom.
Confucius taught that government (政治：zheng) means governing rightly and bringing things into proper order（正: zheng）. Mencius distinguished the hegemonic way of rule by force （覇道）from the kingly way of benevolence and virtue（王道）, regarding the latter as the right way. The character zheng (正: 一＋止：one＋foot) may be understood as proceeding toward a right goal or oneness, while such terms as right and Recht likewise express ideas of correctness and justice. Politics, derived from polis, concerns the proper guidance and ordering of the city and citizens, although the historical background of political organization has often involved centralized, hierarchical rule.
The Awakened Way relates that Siddhattha chose the path of a peaceful Awakened One rather than that of a wheel-turning universal monarch (cakravartin) wielding weapons and force. Emperor Aśoka, deeply remorseful over the Kalinga War, subsequently promoted victory through the Dharma (Dharma-vijaya) rather than military conquest. He extended the message of the Dharma toward Macedonia, Egypt, Western Asia, Sri Lanka, and other regions, and proclaimed reconciliation, compassion, and ethical conduct through his rock and pillar edicts.
Among the four great ancient civilizations, the archaeological remains of the Indus Civilization show no clear evidence of monumental royal domination or large-scale warfare. The harmonious Buddhist Sangha, meanwhile, formed a distinctive community based not on the Triple Poisons but on non-possession, living on joy, and offerings given in faith. It cultivated equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy. Such a community provides an important model for the transformation from pyramidal civilization to the culture of the Life Indra-net.
Viewed through the universal Dharma of dependent origination—the interrelation and relativity of all things—pyramidal civilization arose through the specialization and concentration of society, economics, and politics. To overcome the Four Forms of Collective Suffering produced by collective karma, humanity must return to the universal Dharma and develop the culture of the Life Indra-net. What is desirable is a society of all beings resembling the harmonious Sangha, in which people live in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy through reliance on themselves and the Dharma (atta-dīpa, dhamma-dīpa), even without a centralized government.
We must awaken to the universal Dharma, stand upon ourselves and the Dharma, and transform karma into Dharma, ego into eco, domination into autonomy, competition into cooperation, and pyramidal civilization into the culture of the Life Indra-net. If we can realize a common world in which all sentient beings live together as friends in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy, all can enjoy a Pure Land of bliss.
To take refuge in the Dharma as our island (dhamma-dīpa) means understanding the universal Dharma of dependent origination: all things are interrelated and relative, and nothing and no one exists in isolation or as an absolute entity. We must observe and uphold the precepts and Global Ethic essential to social life, both for ourselves and with others. Those who violate these fundamental ethical principles should be prevented from assuming public office or removed from office. The ideal of Mitra, Mithra, Maitreya, et al—friendship cherished in religious traditions—must not permit national myths (myths), dictatorship, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction: nukes), or MAGIC (Military-Academic-Government-Industry-Complex).
To take refuge in ourselves as our island (atta-dīpa) means recognizing that each of us is an indispensable crystal in the Indra-net, fabric of the Dharma, dependent origination, bearing both rights and responsibilities. We must act on this understanding rather than leaving everything to others or depending upon them. We must become those who help themselves, awakening and acting in accordance with the Dharma, while calling upon others to do likewise. Silence, indifference, and inaction in the face of wrongdoing amount to tacit approval and complicity.
Following the First Revolutions—the Agricultural, Urban, and Spiritual Revolutions—humanity has entered an age that calls for the Second Revolutions: the Industrial, Civic, and Global Ethical Revolutions. The Global Ethical Revolution is a revolution of coexistence grounded in universal responsibility under the universal Dharma, aiming to realize a culture of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. Through these transformations, humanity must advance material production, social self-governance, and spiritual awakening on the global scale.
Among politics, economics, society, and culture, politics has lagged furthest behind in globalization and in upholding the Global Ethic. The reasons lie in the centralized domination of pyramidal civilization and the blind obedience of the majority, particularly their bondage to the myth of the state. Now is the time to listen to and amplify, by every possible means, the voices calling for the Dharma and justice!
The Buddha (Awakened One) chose not to stop at the solution to his own suffering but to share the Awakened Way of the Dharma with all sentient beings. The traditional account of Brahmā’s request for the Buddha to teach may be understood as a religious skillful means (upāya) familiar to the people of that time, emphasizing the vital importance of liberating all beings through the warning that, unless the Dharma were taught, “the world would perish.”
One of the most important teachings of the Awakened Way is the Four Holy Truths (Catvāri Ārya-satyāni), which present a method for solving problems and suffering: suffering (duḥkha), its cause (samudaya), the cessation of its cause (nirodha), and the way to its cessation (mārga). This methodology can be applied to any problem, including the suffering of individuals and nations and the means of resolving it.
We have already examined how the causes of catastrophic suffering lie in blind faith in the myth of the state and the violent acts arising from it. To eliminate these causes, individuals must awaken to the Triple Poisons—greed, hatred, and delusion—that lead people to blind belief and destructive action, as well as to the karma of competition for survival inherited from the past that has produced these poisons. Such awakening must be accompanied by action, and we must know and practice concrete methods for overcoming these causes.
Throughout human history, revolutions in production, urban society, and spiritual culture have repeatedly transformed civilization. Yet humanity now confronts global problematique, suffering under dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and the threat of civilizational collapse, with the Doomsday Clock standing at 85 seconds to midnight. This dead end reveals fundamental problems within pyramidal civilization itself and demonstrates the necessity of a religious, spiritual, and cultural revolution to overcome them.
Underlying the religious, spiritual, and cultural revolutions of the Axial Age were conceptions of universal law or principle, expressed through such terms as Dharma, Dao, and Deus. Their essential aim was a return, reunification, or repentance—a transformation from ego-centered existence (sin: separation, sickness, and suffering) to Dharma-centered existence (holiness: wholeness, health, and happiness). This transformation sought to change societies characterized by division, discrimination, conflict, and bondage into societies of harmony, equality, peace, and freedom.
Confucius taught that government (政治：zheng) means governing rightly and bringing things into proper order（正: zheng）. Mencius distinguished the hegemonic way of rule by force （覇道）from the kingly way of benevolence and virtue（王道）, regarding the latter as the right way. The character zheng (正: 一＋止：one＋foot) may be understood as proceeding toward a right goal or oneness, while such terms as right and Recht likewise express ideas of correctness and justice. Politics, derived from polis, concerns the proper guidance and ordering of the city and citizens, although the historical background of political organization has often involved centralized, hierarchical rule.
The Awakened Way relates that Siddhattha chose the path of a peaceful Awakened One rather than that of a wheel-turning universal monarch (cakravartin) wielding weapons and force. Emperor Aśoka, deeply remorseful over the Kalinga War, subsequently promoted victory through the Dharma (Dharma-vijaya) rather than military conquest. He extended the message of the Dharma toward Macedonia, Egypt, Western Asia, Sri Lanka, and other regions, and proclaimed reconciliation, compassion, and ethical conduct through his rock and pillar edicts.
Among the four great ancient civilizations, the archaeological remains of the Indus Civilization show no clear evidence of monumental royal domination or large-scale warfare. The harmonious Buddhist Sangha, meanwhile, formed a distinctive community based not on the Triple Poisons but on non-possession, living on joy, and offerings given in faith. It cultivated equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy. Such a community provides an important model for the transformation from pyramidal civilization to the culture of the Life Indra-net.
Viewed through the universal Dharma of dependent origination—the interrelation and relativity of all things—pyramidal civilization arose through the specialization and concentration of society, economics, and politics. To overcome the Four Forms of Collective Suffering produced by collective karma, humanity must return to the universal Dharma and develop the culture of the Life Indra-net. What is desirable is a society of all beings resembling the harmonious Sangha, in which people live in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy through reliance on themselves and the Dharma (atta-dīpa, dhamma-dīpa), even without a centralized government.
We must awaken to the universal Dharma, stand upon ourselves and the Dharma, and transform karma into Dharma, ego into eco, domination into autonomy, competition into cooperation, and pyramidal civilization into the culture of the Life Indra-net. If we can realize a common world in which all sentient beings live together as friends in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy, all can enjoy a Pure Land of bliss.
To take refuge in the Dharma as our island (dhamma-dīpa) means understanding the universal Dharma of dependent origination: all things are interrelated and relative, and nothing and no one exists in isolation or as an absolute entity. We must observe and uphold the precepts and Global Ethic essential to social life, both for ourselves and with others. Those who violate these fundamental ethical principles should be prevented from assuming public office or removed from office. The ideal of Mitra, Mithra, Maitreya, et al—friendship cherished in religious traditions—must not permit national myths (myths), dictatorship, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction: nukes), or MAGIC (Military-Academic-Government-Industry-Complex).
To take refuge in ourselves as our island (atta-dīpa) means recognizing that each of us is an indispensable crystal in the Indra-net, fabric of the Dharma, dependent origination, bearing both rights and responsibilities. We must act on this understanding rather than leaving everything to others or depending upon them. We must become those who help themselves, awakening and acting in accordance with the Dharma, while calling upon others to do likewise. Silence, indifference, and inaction in the face of wrongdoing amount to tacit approval and complicity.
Following the First Revolutions—the Agricultural, Urban, and Spiritual Revolutions—humanity has entered an age that calls for the Second Revolutions: the Industrial, Civic, and Global Ethical Revolutions. The Global Ethical Revolution is a revolution of coexistence grounded in universal responsibility under the universal Dharma, aiming to realize a culture of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. Through these transformations, humanity must advance material production, social self-governance, and spiritual awakening on the global scale.
Among politics, economics, society, and culture, politics has lagged furthest behind in globalization and in upholding the Global Ethic. The reasons lie in the centralized domination of pyramidal civilization and the blind obedience of the majority, particularly their bondage to the myth of the state. Now is the time to listen to and amplify, by every possible means, the voices calling for the Dharma and justice!
The Buddha (Awakened One) chose not to stop at the solution to his own suffering but to share the Awakened Way of the Dharma with all sentient beings. The traditional account of Brahmā’s request for the Buddha to teach may be understood as a religious skillful means (upāya) familiar to the people of that time, emphasizing the vital importance of liberating all beings through the warning that, unless the Dharma were taught, “the world would perish.”
One of the most important teachings of the Awakened Way is the Four Holy Truths (Catvāri Ārya-satyāni), which present a method for solving problems and suffering: suffering (duḥkha), its cause (samudaya), the cessation of its cause (nirodha), and the way to its cessation (mārga). This methodology can be applied to any problem, including the suffering of individuals and nations and the means of resolving it.
We have already examined how the causes of catastrophic suffering lie in blind faith in the myth of the state and the violent acts arising from it. To eliminate these causes, individuals must awaken to the Triple Poisons—greed, hatred, and delusion—that lead people to blind belief and destructive action, as well as to the karma of competition for survival inherited from the past that has produced these poisons. Such awakening must be accompanied by action, and we must know and practice concrete methods for overcoming these causes.
Throughout human history, revolutions in production, urban society, and spiritual culture have repeatedly transformed civilization. Yet humanity now confronts global problematique, suffering under dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and the threat of civilizational collapse, with the Doomsday Clock standing at 85 seconds to midnight. This dead end reveals fundamental problems within pyramidal civilization itself and demonstrates the necessity of a religious, spiritual, and cultural revolution to overcome them.
Underlying the religious, spiritual, and cultural revolutions of the Axial Age were conceptions of universal law or principle, expressed through such terms as Dharma, Dao, and Deus. Their essential aim was a return, reunification, or repentance—a transformation from ego-centered existence (sin: separation, sickness, and suffering) to Dharma-centered existence (holiness: wholeness, health, and happiness). This transformation sought to change societies characterized by division, discrimination, conflict, and bondage into societies of harmony, equality, peace, and freedom.
Confucius taught that government (政治：zheng) means governing rightly and bringing things into proper order（正: zheng）. Mencius distinguished the hegemonic way of rule by force （覇道）from the kingly way of benevolence and virtue（王道）, regarding the latter as the right way. The character zheng (正: 一＋止：one＋foot) may be understood as proceeding toward a right goal or oneness, while such terms as right and Recht likewise express ideas of correctness and justice. Politics, derived from polis, concerns the proper guidance and ordering of the city and citizens, although the historical background of political organization has often involved centralized, hierarchical rule.
The Awakened Way relates that Siddhattha chose the path of a peaceful Awakened One rather than that of a wheel-turning universal monarch (cakravartin) wielding weapons and force. Emperor Aśoka, deeply remorseful over the Kalinga War, subsequently promoted victory through the Dharma (Dharma-vijaya) rather than military conquest. He extended the message of the Dharma toward Macedonia, Egypt, Western Asia, Sri Lanka, and other regions, and proclaimed reconciliation, compassion, and ethical conduct through his rock and pillar edicts.
Among the four great ancient civilizations, the archaeological remains of the Indus Civilization show no clear evidence of monumental royal domination or large-scale warfare. The harmonious Buddhist Sangha, meanwhile, formed a distinctive community based not on the Triple Poisons but on non-possession, living on joy, and offerings given in faith. It cultivated equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy. Such a community provides an important model for the transformation from pyramidal civilization to the culture of the Life Indra-net.
Viewed through the universal Dharma of dependent origination—the interrelation and relativity of all things—pyramidal civilization arose through the specialization and concentration of society, economics, and politics. To overcome the Four Forms of Collective Suffering produced by collective karma, humanity must return to the universal Dharma and develop the culture of the Life Indra-net. What is desirable is a society of all beings resembling the harmonious Sangha, in which people live in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy through reliance on themselves and the Dharma (atta-dīpa, dhamma-dīpa), even without a centralized government.
We must awaken to the universal Dharma, stand upon ourselves and the Dharma, and transform karma into Dharma, ego into eco, domination into autonomy, competition into cooperation, and pyramidal civilization into the culture of the Life Indra-net. If we can realize a common world in which all sentient beings live together as friends in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy, all can enjoy a Pure Land of bliss.
To take refuge in the Dharma as our island (dhamma-dīpa) means understanding the universal Dharma of dependent origination: all things are interrelated and relative, and nothing and no one exists in isolation or as an absolute entity. We must observe and uphold the precepts and Global Ethic essential to social life, both for ourselves and with others. Those who violate these fundamental ethical principles should be prevented from assuming public office or removed from office. The ideal of Mitra, Mithra, Maitreya, et al—friendship cherished in religious traditions—must not permit national myths (myths), dictatorship, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction: nukes), or MAGIC (Military-Academic-Government-Industry-Complex).
To take refuge in ourselves as our island (atta-dīpa) means recognizing that each of us is an indispensable crystal in the Indra-net, fabric of the Dharma, dependent origination, bearing both rights and responsibilities. We must act on this understanding rather than leaving everything to others or depending upon them. We must become those who help themselves, awakening and acting in accordance with the Dharma, while calling upon others to do likewise. Silence, indifference, and inaction in the face of wrongdoing amount to tacit approval and complicity.
Following the First Revolutions—the Agricultural, Urban, and Spiritual Revolutions—humanity has entered an age that calls for the Second Revolutions: the Industrial, Civic, and Global Ethical Revolutions. The Global Ethical Revolution is a revolution of coexistence grounded in universal responsibility under the universal Dharma, aiming to realize a culture of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. Through these transformations, humanity must advance material production, social self-governance, and spiritual awakening on the global scale.
Among politics, economics, society, and culture, politics has lagged furthest behind in globalization and in upholding the Global Ethic. The reasons lie in the centralized domination of pyramidal civilization and the blind obedience of the majority, particularly their bondage to the myth of the state. Now is the time to listen to and amplify, by every possible means, the voices calling for the Dharma and justice!
The Buddha (Awakened One) chose not to stop at the solution to his own suffering but to share the Awakened Way of the Dharma with all sentient beings. The traditional account of Brahmā’s request for the Buddha to teach may be understood as a religious skillful means (upāya) familiar to the people of that time, emphasizing the vital importance of liberating all beings through the warning that, unless the Dharma were taught, “the world would perish.”
One of the most important teachings of the Awakened Way is the Four Holy Truths (Catvāri Ārya-satyāni), which present a method for solving problems and suffering: suffering (duḥkha), its cause (samudaya), the cessation of its cause (nirodha), and the way to its cessation (mārga). This methodology can be applied to any problem, including the suffering of individuals and nations and the means of resolving it.
We have already examined how the causes of catastrophic suffering lie in blind faith in the myth of the state and the violent acts arising from it. To eliminate these causes, individuals must awaken to the Triple Poisons—greed, hatred, and delusion—that lead people to blind belief and destructive action, as well as to the karma of competition for survival inherited from the past that has produced these poisons. Such awakening must be accompanied by action, and we must know and practice concrete methods for overcoming these causes.
Throughout human history, revolutions in production, urban society, and spiritual culture have repeatedly transformed civilization. Yet humanity now confronts global problematique, suffering under dictatorship, war, nuclear catastrophe, and the threat of civilizational collapse, with the Doomsday Clock standing at 85 seconds to midnight. This dead end reveals fundamental problems within pyramidal civilization itself and demonstrates the necessity of a religious, spiritual, and cultural revolution to overcome them.
Underlying the religious, spiritual, and cultural revolutions of the Axial Age were conceptions of universal law or principle, expressed through such terms as Dharma, Dao, and Deus. Their essential aim was a return, reunification, or repentance—a transformation from ego-centered existence (sin: separation, sickness, and suffering) to Dharma-centered existence (holiness: wholeness, health, and happiness). This transformation sought to change societies characterized by division, discrimination, conflict, and bondage into societies of harmony, equality, peace, and freedom.
Confucius taught that government (政治：zheng) means governing rightly and bringing things into proper order（正: zheng）. Mencius distinguished the hegemonic way of rule by force （覇道）from the kingly way of benevolence and virtue（王道）, regarding the latter as the right way. The character zheng (正: 一＋止：one＋foot) may be understood as proceeding toward a right goal or oneness, while such terms as right and Recht likewise express ideas of correctness and justice. Politics, derived from polis, concerns the proper guidance and ordering of the city and citizens, although the historical background of political organization has often involved centralized, hierarchical rule.
The Awakened Way relates that Siddhattha chose the path of a peaceful Awakened One rather than that of a wheel-turning universal monarch (cakravartin) wielding weapons and force. Emperor Aśoka, deeply remorseful over the Kalinga War, subsequently promoted victory through the Dharma (Dharma-vijaya) rather than military conquest. He extended the message of the Dharma toward Macedonia, Egypt, Western Asia, Sri Lanka, and other regions, and proclaimed reconciliation, compassion, and ethical conduct through his rock and pillar edicts.
Among the four great ancient civilizations, the archaeological remains of the Indus Civilization show no clear evidence of monumental royal domination or large-scale warfare. The harmonious Buddhist Sangha, meanwhile, formed a distinctive community based not on the Triple Poisons but on non-possession, living on joy, and offerings given in faith. It cultivated equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy. Such a community provides an important model for the transformation from pyramidal civilization to the culture of the Life Indra-net.
Viewed through the universal Dharma of dependent origination—the interrelation and relativity of all things—pyramidal civilization arose through the specialization and concentration of society, economics, and politics. To overcome the Four Forms of Collective Suffering produced by collective karma, humanity must return to the universal Dharma and develop the culture of the Life Indra-net. What is desirable is a society of all beings resembling the harmonious Sangha, in which people live in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy through reliance on themselves and the Dharma (atta-dīpa, dhamma-dīpa), even without a centralized government.
We must awaken to the universal Dharma, stand upon ourselves and the Dharma, and transform karma into Dharma, ego into eco, domination into autonomy, competition into cooperation, and pyramidal civilization into the culture of the Life Indra-net. If we can realize a common world in which all sentient beings live together as friends in equality, peace, freedom, and autonomy, all can enjoy a Pure Land of bliss.
To take refuge in the Dharma as our island (dhamma-dīpa) means understanding the universal Dharma of dependent origination: all things are interrelated and relative, and nothing and no one exists in isolation or as an absolute entity. We must observe and uphold the precepts and Global Ethic essential to social life, both for ourselves and with others. Those who violate these fundamental ethical principles should be prevented from assuming public office or removed from office. The ideal of Mitra, Mithra, Maitreya, et al—friendship cherished in religious traditions—must not permit national myths (myths), dictatorship, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction: nukes), or MAGIC (Military-Academic-Government-Industry-Complex).
To take refuge in ourselves as our island (atta-dīpa) means recognizing that each of us is an indispensable crystal in the Indra-net, fabric of the Dharma, dependent origination, bearing both rights and responsibilities. We must act on this understanding rather than leaving everything to others or depending upon them. We must become those who help themselves, awakening and acting in accordance with the Dharma, while calling upon others to do likewise. Silence, indifference, and inaction in the face of wrongdoing amount to tacit approval and complicity.
Following the First Revolutions—the Agricultural, Urban, and Spiritual Revolutions—humanity has entered an age that calls for the Second Revolutions: the Industrial, Civic, and Global Ethical Revolutions. The Global Ethical Revolution is a revolution of coexistence grounded in universal responsibility under the universal Dharma, aiming to realize a culture of Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Holiness. Through these transformations, humanity must advance material production, social self-governance, and spiritual awakening on the global scale.
Among politics, economics, society, and culture, politics has lagged furthest behind in globalization and in upholding the Global Ethic. The reasons lie in the centralized domination of pyramidal civilization and the blind obedience of the majority, particularly their bondage to the myth of the state. Now is the time to listen to and amplify, by every possible means, the voices calling for the Dharma and justice!
