Welcome to the October 14, 2005 edition of the Satya Center newsletter. Warm greetings from your Editor, Curtis Lang. 

 

The Scorpio Full Moon at 7:57 PM EST this evening occurs at a transformative time of year. Winter is coming, and in Upstate New York we are about to experience the first nights of hard frost. Most of the local farms’ root crops have now been taken into the barn. This is the time of year when inhabitants of farming societies around the world traditionally measure the state of their stores against the projected winter need of animals and community members.

 

And this is the traditional time for alchemical transformation of foods, when canning, freezing, and processing for winter food storage must be completed. Prior to the industrialization of agriculture, the ability of a farmer or householder to “put by” foods for the cold season could spell the difference between Thanksgiving Feast and eventual famine. When a farmer had an overabundance of a particular crop, such as cabbage, cucumbers, Swiss chard, turnips, or squash, it was vitally important to preserve the surplus for consumption in the dead of winter.

 

Natural fermentation processes of various kinds have been utilized by farmers around the world for thousands of years for this purpose. Interestingly enough, successful fermentation of vegetables depends upon the vitality of the soil in which they are grown. Vegetables that have been chemically fertilized or treated with chemical insecticides do not have the same capacity to produce the beneficial bacteria required for proper fermentation.

 

Here on Roxbury Road, neighbors gathered at the off-the-grid Solar powered home of Betsy Cashen and Chris Stearn to make sauerkraut through an ancient, artisanal process called lacto-fermentation.

 

Here’s our neighbor’s recipe for production of Sauerkraut, and a pictorial essay of Sauerkraut Production.

 

Lacto-fermentation preserves foods without recourse to canning or freezing. During the simple fermentation process, lactic acid, a natural food preservative, is produced by the putrefaction of bacteria commonly found on leaves and plants of various kinds of food crops.

 

Over 3500 traditional, fermented foods exist world-wide, including miso, alcohol, wines, beer, yogurt, quark and the original recipe for ketchup, but here in the Hudson Valley, sauerkraut is one of the most celebrated. The traditional method for making kraut was practiced in Roman times, and was mentioned by the Roman historian Pliny.

 

“Pickling, brewing and culturing are other terms to describe this process,” says Satya Center contributor and nutrition author Rebecca Wood, “by which friendly enzymes, fungi and bacteria pre-digest a food. Fermentation increases the flavor, medicinal value and nutrition of foods.”

 

Scientific studies have shown that daily consumption of lacto-fermented vegetables helps in reestablishment and maintenance of beneficial intestinal flora, and aids immune function. Raw fermented vegetables aid digestion, relieve constipation and are associated with decreased allergies and infections.

 

Sauerkraut is not made with sugar, vinegar or sodium benzoate. Nor does it need to be canned or pasteurized. If you are shopping for sauerkraut in a store, be sure not to buy any that has been canned or pasteurized, because these industrial food processing techniques destroy the valuable enzymes.

 

Cabbage is pounded and mixed with salt to promote the growth of lactobacilli. Salt draws water out of the cabbage, creating brine, in which the cabbage will ferment and sour without rotting. This promotes the creation of lactic acid.

 

The bacteria in the mixture feed on plant sugars in the brine, and proliferate wildly. Once mixed, the cabbage must be tightly packed into an airtight container and left to ferment at room temperature for a period of time. When completed, the sauerkraut is ready to be placed in cold storage.

 

This is the alchemy of food, which traditionally takes place at the time of the Scorpio Full Moon. Relatively undigestible raw cabbage, which corresponds to the raw substance of the human personality, is transformed through lactofermentation rituals into pure nutritional gold, a relatively long-lasting, extremely potent and nutritionally rich food substance that can sustain the community throughout the long dark nights of the winter season, when the plants die off and the Earth inhales long and deeply of the Cosmic Forces streaming in from the Stars.

 

Interestingly enough, Scorpio is the Zodiacal sign that governs the alchemical process of fermentation or putrefaction.

 

For the alchemists, who represent the Western mystery school tradition, putrefaction represents the first in a series of transformative steps that result in the perfection of the psyche.

 

Putrefaction is the “black step” ruled by Saturn and by Scorpio, when the alchemical material, the initiate’s psyche, is decomposed into its various constituent elements, air, water and earth, or the mental, emotional and physical bodies. The putrefaction process is thus analogous to the process of Death, whereby the physical body decomposes into its various constituent elements. On a psychic level, putrefaction represents the “Dark Night of the Soul”, when repressed memories, karmic debris and psychic blockages rise to the surface prior to a process of releasing.

 

According to the ancient wisdom teachings of the Hindu Vedas, “Born of the Earth, man, when he dies, returns to his mother.” This corresponds to the Jungian conception of Death – the atomization of the personality and the return of the energy contained within that personality to the collective unconscious.

 

The concept of Death as part of the transmigration of souls in a process of reincarnation first surfaced during the dawn of agricultural society, when humans first conceived of a cycle of death and rebirth, linked to their understanding of the seasonal cycles of cultivated plant growth.

 

The Hindu sacred text known as The Upanishads says that “The Tree of Samsara (Illusion), or the relative universe, is characterized by a continuous series of births and deaths, without beginning or end. The only way to cut it down is through the knowledge and realization of Atman’s identity with Brahman.”

 

It is only by conscious realization of the ultimate unity of all reality, both immanent and transcendent, that one gains release from the eternal cycle of reincarnation. It is only through conscious identification of the individual soul (Atman) with the transcendent energy that sustains and vivifies all of creation (Brahman) that one obtains enlightenment.

 

This goal of enlightenment corresponds to the ultimate goal of the alchemists – to turn the lead of the egoistic personality into the gold of Divine Consciousness.

 

The wisdom teachings of the alchemists were captured in the pictorial tradition of the Tarot cards. Tarot Trump 13, called Death, refers both to physical death and to the death of the egoistic personality, which is an illusory death. For the personality remains after this death, but it is stripped of the illusion of control. The aspirant no longer lives to satisfy individual material desires at the expense of others, or without thought for the consequences of actions upon the larger Web of Life that comprises the great Karmic Wheel of Existence figured in Tarot Trump 10, The Wheel of Fortune.

 

This is the death by water that is the culmination of the spiritual exercise pictured in Trump 12, the Hanged Man. As at the moment of physical death, the ego is submerged completely in the collective consciousness of humanity and the evolutionary record of all sentient beings incarnating over time on planet Earth.

 

This is the true baptism of water, and this baptism leads to new life, to a true rebirth of the spirit, the flesh and the soul.  

 

This Scorpio Full Moon is the time of Cosmic Transition when we stand poised at the edge of the Watery Abyss, and when we plunge into that Universal Womb from which we came.

 

This is the season of the year when we can all begin to make substantial progress in our inner work. The darkening of the light outside corresponds to increasing light within. Now is the time to rededicate ourselves to our spiritual practice, and renew our efforts to transform our own inner raw materials into gold.

 

May you each enjoy a profound personal transformation during this most auspicious time of year, and may your own personal fermentation result in the production of a fruitful new life of spirit, moving you ever closer to Union with the Divine.

 

 

We are pleased to welcome a new Satya Center Global Visionary to these pages. Starhawk, a longtime progressive political activist and prolific writer located in San Francisco, explores the treacherous crossroads where spirituality and politics intersect in an article entitled “Toward an Activist Spirituality”.

 

Starhawk is the author of "The Spiral Dance", "Dreaming the Dark", "The Pagan Book of Living and Dying", and other works of nonfiction and fiction. Her work as a modern day pagan, or earth-based spiritual leader, is driven by a love of Life and the desire to bring the “creative power of spirituality to political activism”. She has organized, trained protestors and has been in the front lines of global peace and justice movements around the world.

 

Esoteric Astrologer Malvin Artley details how the painful initiations that are required of all human beings during the course of their spiritual evolution are epitomized in the struggles of the typical Scorpio. Malvin details the steps along the transformative Scorpionic path called “The Baptism by Water”, in which the initiate is torn between desire and love, power and compassion, the lower and the higher Self, in his new article, “The Nature of Scorpio: Scorpio Full Moon 2005”.

 

“It is perhaps because Scorpio is the sign that ultimately rules humanity on many levels that people have so much trouble with it,” Malvin explains. “-- because we sense unconsciously what is to eventually come for all of us and it makes us uneasy. Scorpios are great at holding up mirrors in which we see ourselves. This is why they are so good as psychologists and investigators.”

 

Herbalist and author Susun Weed explores how herbal healing, meditation, and healthy living habits insure that wise women can enjoy the opportunities and pleasures of “Fertility After Forty”.

 

“More and more women are waiting until their late thirties, early forties, even late forties, to have children” says Weed. “Is this too late? Are these destined to have high-risk pregnancies? Will these children have more birth defects? The answer to these questions - and others like them - is ‘no!’ for wise women who enlist the help of green allies to increase fertility, ensure conception, prevent birth defects, and promote a healthy pregnancy and an easy delivery.”

 

Jann Garritty of the Flower Essence Society interviewed psychotherapist Dr. Laurie Pappas concerning the potential for use of flower essences as part of the therapeutic regimen along with medication or as a substitute for medication. Read all about it, including short case studies, detailed in Jann’s new article entitled “Flower Essence Therapy: a Perfect Adjunct to Psychotherapy”.

 

Jann says that “Dr. Pappas begins by offering flower essence therapy as an alternative to medications saying, ‘let’s see how it works, how it feels, but if you must go on to using medication, I still suggest using flower essences in conjunction with it.’ She has found that clients needing antidepressants can take smaller doses by combining them with flower essence therapy. They have a calming effect especially for those with depression and anxiety: ‘Flower essences come to mind right away and I offer them immediately to anxious or depressed clients. They work so well, particularly if we can keep them away from medications. The essences give them something to take the edge off and think clearly.’”

 

Jane and I have added a new section to our crystal gallery. We are now offering Kabbalistic-cut quartz, amethyst and citrine healing wands for the very first time. These magnificent Kabbalistic wands, cut according to the specifications of Marcel Vogel, are truly rare and powerful precision Light instruments as well as lovely jewel like crystal wands.

 

Marcel Vogel worked for IBM for 27 years doing research and development. He developed the magnetic coating for IBM’s disc drive, which acts as the storage unit for a computer's memory and he created the first liquid crystal displays, or LCDs.

 

“In the 1970’s Vogel did pioneering work in man-plant communication experiments,” according to The Legacy of Marcel Vogel website. “This led him to the study of quartz crystals and the creation of a faceted crystal that is now known as the Vogel-cut® crystal. The Vogel-cut® crystal is an instrument that serves to store, amplify, convert, and cohere subtle energies.”

 

Vogel learned that when he pointed a crystal at another person, the crystal would amplify the person’s thoughts and emotions. This often also led to putting the individual into an altered state of consciousness. The next step was for Vogel to utilize the quartz crystals for therapeutic purposes. Energy and crystal healers prize Vogel cut quartz crystals to this day.

 

Satya Center offers clear quartz Kabballistic healing wands in the traditional flat faceted cuts originally invented by Marcel Vogel. We have wands available with 8, 12, 13, 21, 24, and 33 facets. The large, female end of each of these wands is cut precisely to the interior angle of 51 degrees, 51 minutes and 51 seconds, the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza. Universal Life Force Energy (also called prana or chi) enters the female end of the wand, spirals down the body of the wand, and is amplified every time it encounters a facet. The super-charged energy stream coalesces at the male end of the wand, and is emitted as a highly coherent laser-like beam for use in meditation, vibrational healing and subtle communications.

 

Kabbalistic "dream wands" are also available in a variety of styles:  four concave faces, with 24 facets on both the male and female ends; 6 concave faces with 36 facets on male & female ends; and 7 concave faces with 40 facets on both male & female ends.

 

Kabbalistic healing wands are available in quartz, citrine and amethyst, and they range in price from $500 to $2500.

 

Each type of wand has special qualities imparted by the sacred geometry of the individual piece. Please email us or call Satya Center at 518.672.4584 if you are interested in purchasing a Kabbalistic wand.

 

Jane and I also recently posted a selection of Reiki-attuned, cleaned and cleared quartz, amethyst, startling clear citrine, celestite, aventurine and tourmaline specialty pieces and jewelry in the Satya Center Crystal Gallery. We’ve got points, wands, pendants, towers, room generators, earrings, bracelets, candleholders and more!

 

We’ve also received some new Lemurian Quartz Seed Crystals from the one mine in Brazil where these luminous, rosy striated unpolished healing crystals originate, including an amazing, one-of-a-kind 2.8 pound shamanic healing wand that is suitable for individual healing sessions, connecting to the global electro-magnetic energy grid, and for sending energy to large groups of people and large geographic areas in meditation sessions. We’ve also got a selection of amazingly clear polished Lemurian crystals for your inspection.

 

We have posted a new inventory of Amethyst pendants, towers,  crystal spheres and specialty pieces each of which we personally selected from a warehouse jam-packed with fine crystals.

 

We also have an expanded selection of clear and rutillated quartz clusters, altarpieces, wands, pendants, jewelry and candleholders.

 

We invite you to check out these new energetic tools for consciousness expansion, healing and auric protection.

 

 

Read breaking news stories updated 24/7 from Pacific News Service. Tune in to Satya Center’s 24/7 environmental news headlines and listen to environmental news radio from Environmental News Network at ENN EarthNews.

 

The Prophets Versus Empire
Yes! Magazine by Rev. Richard Lang, 11/15/05

    . . .Today, we live inside an Empire. We have chosen the path of Pharaoh: a path of domination rather than justice. Under the guise of priestly (Christian) rhetoric, the current administration has disrespected the Constitution, and made a mockery of our political process that balances power between branches of government. It has abandoned the rule of international law, disregarded human and civil rights, and unleashed economic chaos on the poor and on the land. We are dealing with outlaws who are drunk on the blood of imperial power. Whether it be Afghanistan or Iraq, Venezuela or Colombia, the Philippines or Haiti, wherever brown-skinned people live, the dogs of war are unleashed. Whenever people claim their own livestock, land, or even their bodies, this administration steps in to suppress any that dare to rise as an alternative to Empire.
   Meanwhile, the causes of Christ—love of enemy, forgiveness of sin, practice of generosity, openness to the stranger, resistance to Empire, liberation of the poor—are today being subverted by a hardening of heart. To put it bluntly, Christ is once again being crucified through the merger of privileged imperial wealth and the religious priests who benefit from Empire’s plunder. We are, in other words, living in similar times to those betrayed by Joseph. Pharaoh wants our livestock, land, and labor.
   But Empires contain the seeds of their own destruction. Today we are seeing the hollowing out of our institutions, the defeat of our military, the environmental consequences of our arrogance, and the bewilderment of our people. Truly we live in a time without vision. The Empire has run its course and is dying. The American way of life is dying: 6 percent of the world’s population consuming 40 percent of the world’s resources is neither sustainable nor just. We need to let the Empire die. And as it is dying, we need to build a parallel culture to replace it.

 

The Los Angeles Times, By Robert Scheer, 11/01/05

    The most intriguing revelation of Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's news conference last week was his assertion that he would have presented his indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby a year ago if not for the intransigence of reporters who refused to testify before the grand jury. He said that without that delay, "we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005."

    Had that been the case, John Kerry probably would be president of the United States today.

 

The Wall Street Journal, By JOHN HARWOOD, 11/10/05

   Republicans, wincing from losses in two governors' races this week and President Bush's current political weakness, face a broader problem as well: Some of the party's most potent traditional advantages appear to be eroding.

   Amid their failure Tuesday to take back governor's seats in either Virginia or New Jersey, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll shows that Republicans have lost the upper hand on a series of issues they've counted on to preserve their congressional majorities in 2006.

   Among other findings, the poll indicates that voters no longer prefer Republicans to Democrats on handling taxes, cutting government spending, dealing with immigration and directing foreign policy.

   Meanwhile, Democrats have restored their earlier edges on subjects such as education and Social Security, on which Mr. Bush has sought to make inroads among targeted constituencies.

 

All the King's Media
The Nation, by WILLIAM GREIDER, November 21, 2005
   Amid the smoke and stench of burning careers, Washington feels a bit like the last days of the ancien régime. As the world's finest democracy, we do not do guillotines. But there are other less bloody rituals of humiliation, designed to reassure the populace that order is restored, the Republic cleansed. Let the perp walks begin. Whether the public feels reassured is another matter.
   George W. Bush's plight leads me to thoughts of Louis XV and his royal court in the eighteenth century. Politics may not have changed as much as modern pretensions assume. Like Bush, the French king was quite popular until he was scorned, stubbornly self-certain in his exercise of power yet strangely submissive to manipulation by his courtiers. Like Louis Quinze, our American magistrate (whose own position was secured through court intrigues, not elections) has lost the "royal touch." Certain influential cliques openly jeer the leader they not so long ago extolled; others gossip about royal tantrums and other symptoms of lost direction. The accusations stalking his important counselors and assembly leaders might even send some of them to jail. These political upsets might matter less if the government were not so inept at fulfilling its routine obligations, like storm relief. The king's sorry war drags on without resolution, with people still arguing over why exactly he started it. The staff of life--oil, not bread--has become punishingly expensive. The government is broke, borrowing formidable sums from rival nations. The king pretends nothing has changed.
   The burnt odor in Washington is from the disintegrating authority of the governing classes.

Who killed New Orleans?
International Socialist Review Issue 44, November–December 2005
by MIKE DAVIS
   I RECENTLY spent a week in New Orleans and southern Louisiana with my colleague Anthony Fontenot interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists, and rank-and-file folks. Even as the latest floodwaters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration. The only things that have returned to “normal” are police brutality and elite intrigues against the city’s Black majority.
   Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn’t the sinister grayish-brown sludge that coats the streets of Treme and the Ninth Ward, but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple “incompetence” or “failure of leadership,” locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect—the murder not the accidental death of a great city.
   In rather random order, here is a revised list of twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people with whom we spoke and who continue to correspond with us.

 

By  Doug Ireland,  AlterNet, November 8, 2005.

   With 30-year-old roots and a familiar story, the riots should be about as shocking as the outcome of an Egyptian election.

   Saturday night was the 10th day of the spreading youth riots that have much of France in flames, the worst night since the first riot erupted in a suburban Paris ghetto of low-income housing, with 1295 vehicles -- from private cars to public buses -- burned Sunday night, a huge jump from the 897 set afire the previous evening.

   And, for the first time, the violence born in the suburban ghettos invaded the center of Paris -- some 40 vehicles were set alight in Le Marais (the pricey home to the most famous gay ghetto in Paris), around the Place de la Republique nearby, and in the bourgeois 17th arrondissement, just a stone's throw from the dilapidated ghetto of the Goutte d'Or in the 18th arrondissement.

   As someone who lived in France for nearly a decade, and who has visited those suburban ghettos, where the violence started, on reporting trips any number of times, I have not been surprised by this tsunami of inchoate youth rebellion that is engulfing France.

   It is the result of thirty years of government neglect: of the failure of the French political classes -- of both right and left -- to make any serious effort to integrate its Muslim and black populations into the larger French economy and culture; and of the deep-seated, searing, soul-destroying racism that the unemployed and profoundly alienated young of the ghettos face every day of their lives, both from the police, and when trying to find a job or decent housing.

 

AsiaTimes Online, By Kaveh L Afrasiabi, Nov 12, 2005

   Later this month, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will debate the Iran issue, and already in the welter of competing interests and considerations riveting the attention of the IAEA's governing board, the issue of where Russia stands has gained a unique prominence.

   This is because Russia is Iran's sole nuclear partner and, until now, the only major power explicitly acknowledging Iran's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty-based right to the full nuclear fuel cycle. Moscow has clear economic and geostrategic vested interests with Iran, has consented to Iran's observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and is disinclined to join the US-European Union cooperation vis-a-vis Iran.

   However, there are strong indications that Russia's position on Iran's nuclear program is less than iron-clad, and that might explain the latest bite in US-EU diplomacy meant to weaken Moscow's opposition to sending Iran's nuclear dossier to the United Nations Security Council, and, perhaps, to achieve a Russian turnaround to the detriment of Tehran's interests.

The Zapatista Challenge  in Mexico's Presidential Elections
Counterpunch, By JOHN ROSS, 11/05/05
     This past October 1st, Mexico's Federal  Electoral Institute (IFE) cut the official ribbon on the 2006 presidential election year but the campaign has already been in high gear for many months now. The frontrunner, Andres Manual Lopez Obrador of the left-center Party of the Democratic Revolution  (PRD) is methodically barnstorming the outer reaches of the republic drawing big crowds. And competing candidates for the presidential  nominations of the once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and President Vicente Fox's right-wing National Action or PAN Party are engaged in colorful slugfests full of invective  and innuendo.
     In short, 2006 is shaping up to be a typical election year here. But "La Otra Campana". The Other Campaign could radically change these perceptions.
     The Other Campaign is the brainchild of the largely indigenous Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) whose Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle (the "Sexta") issued in June called for a new approach to doing national politics. The Chiapas-based Mayan rebels plan to carry the Other Campaign to the rest of the country from "the Rio Bravo to the Suchiate" during the 2006 electoral process in a drive to consolidate the non-electoral, anti-capitalist left. Instead of running candidates, the Other Campaign calls for the enactment of a new national constitution that would bar privatization of public resources and other neo-liberal outrages, and insure indigenous autonomy for Mexico's 57 distinct Indian peoples. The Other Campaign will also provide the EZLN with a platform from which to build an organization of indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in every state in the Mexican union.

 

StarIQ, By Robert Gover, November 8, 2005

   . . .Just as there was growing conflict between pro and anti-slavery forces in the 1830s—the last time Neptune traversed Aquarius—there is now growing conflict between American workers and the super wealthy. Long-term I am optimistic, for I know we Americans are resourceful, hard working and innovative. We will find a way to solve the problem, once we know precisely what the problem is. Push come to shove, we can create new laws, new corporations and a new monetary system that spreads wealth to all parts of American society. In the short-term, though, I am pessimistic. Historically, new record gaps between rich and poor have always led into great depressions.

   . . .Can we avoid a next great depression? Yes, if we change the monetary system that now has our government and mercantile aristocracy burying our children in impossibly deep debt to banks. As Congressman E. G. Spaulding of Buffalo, NY, asked on the brink of the Civil War:  “Why...should we go into Wall Street, State Street, Chestnut Street, or any other street begging for money? I am unwilling that this Government should be left in the hands of any class of men, bankers or moneylenders, however respectable or patriotic they may be. The Government is much stronger than any of them.”  Instead of borrowing from banks, the Union Government issued its own money, called Greenbacks.

   Now the need is to take control of money (currency and credit) out of the hands of the Federal Reserve System - a group of chummy, profit-motivated bankers —and put it into the hands of a civil authority responsible to the population at large.

 

Environmental News Network, By Lester R. Brown, 11/01/05

   With the price of oil above $50 a barrel, political instability in the Middle East on the rise, and little slack in the world oil economy, we need a new energy strategy. Fortunately, a new strategy is emerging using two new technologies.

   Gas-electric hybrid engines and advanced-design wind turbines offer a way to wean ourselves from imported oil. If over the next decade we convert the U.S. automobile fleet to gas-electric hybrids with the efficiency of today’s Toyota Prius, we could cut our gasoline use in half. No change in the number of vehicles, no change in miles driven — just doing it more efficiently.

    . . . With gas-electric hybrid vehicles now on the market, the stage is set for the second step to reduce oil dependence: the use of wind-generated electricity to power automobiles. If we add to the gas-electric hybrid a plug-in capacity and a second battery to increase its electricity storage capacity, motorists could then do their commuting, shopping and other short-distance travel largely with electricity, saving gasoline for the occasional long trip. This could lop another 20 percent off gasoline use in addition to the initial 50-percent cut from shifting to gas-electric hybrids, for a total reduction of 70 percent.

 

Libération, By Nicolas Riou, 10/31/05

    Whether we like it or not, the consumption society is changing. The desire to consume is still there, but the motors of desire are no longer the same as those that marked the preceding decades.

     . . . In an aging society that has no common reference points or collective mission, consumption becomes real therapy. Food brands' health discourse, automobile brands' security arguments reassure an anxious society that is not very self-confident. Objects console us, confirm us in our existence, or furnish the void that confronts us. From now on, we must approach the consumption society with a new solution key, in which their emotional value wins out over their function.

 

 

        The rest of us could be covered with iron cast shields, but some sore spot always exists in us, which is fantastic. That sore spot is known as embryonic compassion, potential compassion. At least we have some kind of gap, some discrepancy in our state of being, which allows basic sanity to shine through....Not only that, but there is also an inner wound, which is called tathagatagarbha, or buddha nature. Buddha nature is like a heart that is sliced and bruised by wisdom and compassion.

         When the external wound and the internal wound begin to meet and to communicate, then we begin to realize that our whole being is made out of one complete sore spot altogether. That vulnerability is compassion. We really have no way to defend ourselves anymore at all. A gigantic cosmic wound is all over the place -- an inward wound and an external wound at the same time. Both are sensitive to cold air, hot air, and little disturbances of atmosphere which begin to affect us both inwardly and outwardly. It is the living flame of love, if you would like to call it that.

 

From TRAINING THE MIND AND CULTIVATING LOVING-KINDNESS, by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche