zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — yes, we can feel for Muslim victims as we do in a different register for their persecutors, Buddhists untethered from their moorings ]
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When Muslims are the victims of terrorism, there isn't the fraction of western attention as when they're the perpetrators. https://t.co/yxFOR8O4TY

— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) September 2, 2017

I must respond:

Burma: #HRW Satellite Images Show Massive Fire Destruction of #Rohingya villages pic.twitter.com/laVDsLZp4D

— hipbonegamer (@hipbonegamer) September 3, 2017

Yes, the core, the deepest stratum of being — zen’s “original face” == the soul goes out. Whether heart and mind follow is variable, utterly human, as you observe.

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Readings:

Washington Post, Hundreds are dead in Burma as the Rohingya crisis explodes again

Human Rights Watch, Burma: Satellite Images Show Massive Fire Destruction

[ by Charles Cameron — of the space race and children unborn, hungry ]
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Here are the closing lines of the poem, The Earth is a Satellite of the Moon, by Leonel Rugama:

The children of the people of Acahaulinca, because of hunger,
are not born
they hunger to be born, only to die of hunger.
Blessed are the poor for they shall inherit the moon.

I find these lines quite striking.

Rugama’s moon is a bleak moon, but that’s a function of Rugama’s comparison of the cost of moon shots with the fate of generations hungry in Acahaulinca, wherever that is. I can point you to the moon, though — with the mandatory zen caution.

Ouroboros, btw.

[ by Charles Cameron — this from the Pew Forum ]
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After 500 Years, Reformation-Era Divisions Have Lost Much of Their Potency
“Pew Research Center,” August 31, 2017

As Protestants prepare to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, new Pew Research Center surveys show that in both Western Europe and the United States, the theological differences that split Western Christianity in the 1500s have diminished to a degree that might have shocked Christians in past centuries. Across Europe and the U.S., the prevailing view is that Protestants and Catholics today are more similar religiously than they are different. And while the Reformation led to more than a century of devastating wars and persecution in Europe, both Protestants and Catholics across the continent now overwhelmingly express willingness to accept each other as neighbors and even as family members.

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Now, if Islam manages to heal the worst of its divisions in, say, a century or so, what will we have to say, looking back on the two processes?

And whoah, Buddhism? Where’s that at?

[ by Charles Cameron — Schindler is one of my regular reads, civil war is still avoidable ]
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Notice the neat reversal in John’s “notwithstanding” comment. Very nicely done.

The far-left has faced less public scrutiny than their sparring partners after Charlottesville. Part of this is the habitual double standard about genocidal totalitarianisms in our country: Carrying a Nazi flag is considered unthinkably offensive, while brandishing a Soviet one is viewed as much less awful — and possibly only quirky — notwithstanding that Stalin murdered more people than Hitler did.

Indeed, in recent weeks quite a few mainstream liberals have gushed about the “anti-fascists” on the left who engage in violent street theater with the far-right.

murder hitler : murder stalin :: flag stalin : flag hitler — does that cover it?

Stalinists, Nazis, alt-left, alt-right — what a miniscule battlefield threatening to draw in so .many more from left, right, who are otherwise moderate.

Look, consider — calls for Trump to be impeached — according to USA Today, Americans split 42%-42% on impeaching Trump — wow — and Jim Bakker, reverend, declares Christians will start a civil war ifTrump is impeached

Y’all going to fetch pitchforks and tiki torches? I’ve never seen so many donkey and elephant sheep nearing a ravine, hungry for chaos.

Stay cool, folks.

[ by Charles Cameron — party time! — i have a strange sense of party, oxen invited ]
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I’m delighted to note a Boustrophedon reference. first by a poet, naturally, Ange Mlinko, in her poem:

A levitating anvil. Omen of seagull
Blown inland. Ranch gate said riverstyx,
but it was the woodland that looked lethal:

no place to put down your foot. Bucolics
demand boustrophedon.

— then in the New Yorker cmmentary by Dan Chiasson:

Art imitates life imitating art: “boustrophedon” describes the path that a plow takes as it moves back and forth in a field, the same serpentine path followed by rivers and by classical manuscripts that alternate between left-right and right-left lines of text. Soon, our contemporary Eurydice in the wrong footwear makes the momentous decision to “shed her red wedge / with its Mary Jane band.” Orpheus, who knows how the story ends, steps in to mansplain her error.

Boustrophedon — plus Orpheus!

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You remember how obsessed I am with boustrophedon?

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Yes indeed, something to watch out for.