In 2016, Toward a Calmer, More Peaceful New Year

Hi friends, I wish you a blessed New Year in 2016, and so it will be if Thich Nhah Hanh touches your life.

I just now enjoyed reviewing previous New Years posts here at Katalusis.  The photo and mention of Thich Nhat Hanh touched my heart today as he recovers from a serious stroke. Plum Village, Thay's retreat center, posted this update on his health recently:

Thay continues to enjoy peaceful and happy moments gazing at the Golden Gate Bridge and making outings to the botanical gardens and other beautiful scenic spots in San Francisco. With the support of a brace on his right leg, Thay has begun to put more weight through the right side of his body and is training to become gradually more independent in terms of balance and standing. He continues to practice walking every day, for several hours per day, with the support of his physiotherapist and monastic attendants, who are receiving expert guidance and training.

Read more at Plum Village:

Please find below my earlier post quoting Thay:

Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, has long been a powerful advocate for self-compassion. 

TNH advises us to embrace powerful emotions such as anger, jealousy, and addictive cravings instead of igniting a war within ourselves between what we perceive as our positive and negative feelings. 

Through this integrative process, we are better able to center ourselves and respond calmly to whatever arises in our daily lives.

As facilitator of my mindfulness meditation group today, I selected for our reading excerpts from TNH’s article in the Shambala Sun: “Thich Nhat Hanh on Loosening the Knots of Anger:”

To be happy, to me, is to suffer less. If we were not capable of transforming the pain within ourselves, happiness would not be possible.

Many people look for happiness outside themselves, but true happiness must come from inside of us. Our culture tells us that happiness comes from having a lot of money, a lot of power and a high position in society. But if you observe carefully, you will see that many rich and famous people are not happy. Many of them commit suicide.

The Buddha and the monks and nuns of his time did not own anything except their three robes and one bowl. But they were very happy, because they had something extremely precious: freedom.

According to the Buddha's teachings, the most basic condition for happiness is freedom. Here we do not mean political freedom, but freedom from the mental formations of anger, despair, jealousy and delusion. These mental formations are described by the Buddha as poisons. As long as these poisons are still in our heart, happiness can not be possible.

In order to be free from anger, we have to practice, whether we are Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish. We cannot ask the Buddha, Jesus, God or Mohammed to take anger out of our hearts for us. There are concrete instructions on how to transform the craving, anger and confusion within us. If we follow these instructions and learn to take good care of our suffering, we can help others do the same.

The Knots of Anger

In our consciousness there are blocks of pain, anger and frustration called internal formations. They are also called knots because they tie us up and obstruct our freedom.

When someone insults us or does something unkind to us, an internal formation is created in our consciousness. If you don't know how to undo the internal knot and transform it, the knot will stay there for a long time. And the next time someone says something or does something to you of the same nature, that internal formation will grow stronger. As knots or blocks of pain in us, our internal formations have the power to push us, to dictate our behavior.

After a while, it becomes very difficult for us to transform, to undo the knots, and we cannot ease the constriction of this crystallized formation. The Sanskrit word for internal formation is samyojana. It means "to crystallize." Every one of us has internal formations that we need to take care of. With the practice of meditation we can undo these knots and experience transformation and healing.

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Post debate, Hillary's lead broadens

AP photo via USA Today.

The Dem's ultra Lefties got the rug pulled out from them again with the latest CNN poll numbers showing Hillary's lead over Sanders broadening. So far, so good, if like me, you're concerned the DNC might try to sabotage HRC again in their efforts to nominate Sanders, this year's darling of the Left. Reminder to the Dem's ultra Lefties: Obama lunged to the right the minute you ordained him as the 08 nominee.

About that latest poll, CNN reports:

Watch CNN's interview with Bernie Sanders on "New Day" Thursday at 9 a.m. ET.

Washington (CNN)

Hillary Clinton maintains a commanding lead in a new CNN/ORC poll, boosted by broader support in the days after the latest debate between the remaining three Democratic presidential candidates.

Overall, Clinton tops Sanders among registered voters who are Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents 50% to 34%. That's a slightly tighter margin than in late-November, when Clinton led 58% to 30% over Sanders.

But those overall results mask a shift back toward Clinton following the Democratic debate on Saturday night. In interviews conducted before the debate, Sanders ran closer to Clinton, with 37% support to Clinton's 45%. Among those interviewed after the debate, Clinton's lead grew to 60% vs. Sanders' 27%.

READ THE POLL RESULTS

The Sanders campaign focuses heavily on economic issues, and the new poll suggests he has boosted his standing on that issue. Yet Sanders continues to trail Clinton as the candidate better able to handle economic issues, 47% say they think Clinton is best able to handle it, 39% Sanders.

The former secretary of state has even larger leads on foreign policy matters and ISIS, however, topping Sanders 72% to 15% on foreign policy, 63% to 18% on ISIS. Clinton also holds a 21-point advantage over Sanders on handling gun policy, 51% prefer Clinton vs. 30% Sanders. 

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Potty-mouth Donald Trump

Courtesy of a New Domain.

Love this column at the NY Times by Frank Bruni - with accuracy and a bit of humor, Bruni reminds us of Trump's phobias and his vulgarity:

Everybody pees.

That’s actually the name of a public service campaign by the National Kidney Foundation, and I thought it a needless statement of the obvious until Donald Trump brought me to my senses. 

Apparently some people think that the laws of urology don’t apply to them. Apparently Trump is in this category.

On Monday he said this of Hillary Clinton’s mid-debate bathroom break: “I know where she went. It’s disgusting. I don’t want to talk about it. No, it’s too disgusting.”

He didn’t specify why. But it’s difficult to find anything indecorous about Clinton’s behavior unless you see it as entirely volitional and utterly controllable — something you do to indulge yourself, something that can be put off for hours or forever, an emblem of your weakness. I guess in Trump’s world, only “low energy” people need to go.

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A powerful duo on behalf of women: Gloria Steinem and Hillary Clinton

Steinem with Hillary Clinton at a Girls Learn International event in 2006. Photograph: Jemal Countess/WireImage for Glamour Magazine via the Guardian.

I'm up early two days before having guests for dinner on Christmas Eve and browsing the Web this morning brought me this treasure: an excerpt from Gloria Steinem's book, On The Road, in which she reflects on another outstanding female leader in "Why the White House needs Hillary Clinton:"

I know Hillary Clinton mostly in the way we all do, as a public figure in good times and bad, one who became part of our lives and even our dreams. I once introduced her to a thousand women in a hotel ballroom. Standing behind her as she spoke, I could see the binder on the lectern with her speech carefully laid out – and also that she wasn’t reading from it. Instead, she was responding to people who had spoken before her, addressing activists and leaders she saw in the audience, and putting their work in a national and global context – all in such clear and graceful sentences that no one would have guessed she hadn’t written them in advance. It was an on-the-spot tour de force, perhaps the best I’ve ever heard.

But what clinched it for me was listening to her speak after a performance of Eve Ensler’s play Necessary Targets, based on interviews with women in one of the camps set up to treat women who had endured unspeakable suffering, humiliation, and torture in the ethnic wars within the former Yugoslavia. To speak to an audience that had just heard these heartbreaking horrors seemed impossible for anyone, and Hillary had the added burden of representing the Clinton administration, which had been criticised for slowness in stopping this genocide. Nonetheless, she rose in the silence, with no possibility of preparing, and began to speak quietly – about suffering, about the importance of serving as witnesses to suffering. Most crucial of all, she admitted this country’s slowness in intervening. By the time she sat down, she had brought the audience together and given us all a shared meeting place: the simple truth.

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Malala schools Donald Trump

 It didn't take teenager Malala Yousafzai long to squelch the Donald's ugly discriminatory attacks on Muslims. The youngest ever Nobel Prize winner is living proof of the benefits of education for women and girls and one would hope for men and boys - Donald Trump was obviously short-changed in his schooling.

 

I'm wondering this morning if Trump might find much needed insight with an adult education class or two. Would a class in religious studies be of help? In the meantime, Malala nudges Donald, an embarrassment to the United States, toward enlightenment about terrorism and other humanitarian concerns.

 

Here's Malala:

 

Malala Yousafzai offered up a reality check for Donald Trump and any other politician attacking the entire Muslim faith. 

"The more you speak about Islam and against all Muslims, the more terrorists we create," she said in an interview with Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

Yousafzai, who last year became the youngest-ever Nobel laureate when she won the Nobel Peace Prize, was asked about the "wild things being said about Islam and Muslims," such as the GOP presidential candidate's call to stop all Muslims from entering the United States.

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Hillary vs. Trump; she wins big!

You have to love this headline at The Hill:


December 14, 2015, 12:00 am

Poll: Clinton would sail to win over Trump

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton would easily defeat GOP counterpart Donald Trump in a general election match-up, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released early Monday.

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Email Alerts

Riding on the back of an elephant

I received a greeting card last year from my daughter-in-law's parents; the photo on the card showed Florence and Shelly sitting comfortably on the back of an elephant during one of their many trips abroad. We can only hope that our children's children will be able to enjoy a similar experience in the years to come. This email from Jamie Rappaport Clark, President, Defenders of Wildlife, is a warning:

Elephants on the Brink We owe it to future generations to leave behind a world as rich and wondrous with wildlife as the one we inherited. Your urgent donation will help us fight wildlife trafficking and protect imperiled wildlife. Dear Virginia, Picture it. At current rates of poaching, the last African elephant in the wild will die sometime before January 1, 2030. Every 15 minutes, an elephant falls to a poacher’s bullet. Babies are left orphaned and eventually starve. Driving this crisis is the global demand for ivory. And it might surprise you to know that the United States is one of the world’s largest ivory consumers. Help us stem the global trade in endangered wildlife with an urgent gift to Defenders of Wildlife. The good news is President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping made an historic promise in September to enact nearly complete bans on ivory import and export and end the domestic commercial ivory trade within the U.S. and China once and for all. The bad news is the anti-conservation extremists and their cronies in Congress have introduced bills to make it easier to import and sell ivory. Totally reprehensible. With your help, we’re fighting for wildlife by: Fighting the anti-conservation extremists and others who would hasten the extinction of elephants and other species threatened by wildlife trafficking; Mobilizing against Congressional efforts to weaken proposed restrictions on the domestic ivory trade; Advocating for laws to put wildlife trafficking in the same law enforcement category as racketeering and money laundering, with similar consequences; Organizing grassroots pressure for state-level bans on animal parts from elephants, sharks, sea turtles, lions and other wildlife; and Working to stop the importation of imperiled big game "trophies." It’s not too late. If we can end demand for elephant ivory and other wildlife products, the poaching will stop. We owe it to future generations to leave behind a world as rich and wondrous with wildlife as the one we inherited. Won’t you help with a generous donation today? For the wild ones, Jamie Rappaport Clark President, Defenders of Wildlife

Defenders of Wildlife leads the pack when it comes to protecting wild animals and plants in their natural communities

Defenders of Wildlife | 1130 17th St NW, Washington, DC 20036 | defenders.org

Momentum builds for the first woman president!

At this point in the game, it would be hard to stop Hillary from winning the Democratic Party's primary, but I'm still going to keep my eye on the Lefties who are known to do whatever it takes to get their MAN nominated. Catch up on the latest poll results below:

Hillary Clinton greeted audience in Iowa. Credit Nati Harnik/Associated Press; courtesy of the Caucus, NY Times.

Hillary Clinton is building on her lead over Senator Bernie Sanders in Iowa, according to a new poll that shows the former secretary of state gaining momentum less than two months before the state’s caucuses.

A survey released on Monday by The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics found that 48 percent of Democrats who expect to caucus next year support Mrs. Clinton, while 39 percent back Mr. Sanders and 4 percent are for Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland. 

Mrs. Clinton has widened her lead over Mr. Sanders since October, when she was beating the Vermont senator by a margin of 42 to 37 percent. That poll included Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as a potential presidential candidate, but much of his support shifted to Mrs. Clinton when Mr. Biden opted not to run.

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Global climate change agreement

 The news of the historic climate change agreement in Paris broke the same day I posted Naomi Klein's piece on climate change and disaster capitalism.

 The Huffington Post headlined the story on its front page:

After two weeks of tense talks, word-wrangling and marathon overnight meetings, diplomats in Paris agreed to a global climate change accord on Saturday evening -- a day after the summit's scheduled conclusion.

Leaders and experts cheered the historic agreement that emerged from the 21st Conference of the Parties, or COP21, calling it ambitious and realistic, and a crucial step in protecting the Earth for future generations.

"The decisive deal for the planet is here," French President François Hollande told delegates Saturday morning, shortly before releasing the final draft. Outside, thousands of protesters had begun filling Paris streets in an appeal for a strong climate pact. 

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Naomi Klein: Climate change and "disaster capitalism"

Credit: Susanne Miller, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Public domain image. 

Naomi Klein suggests the current climate crisis is a chance to make our world more equitable. That, Naomi insists, would be "a once in a century chance." In this recently published article, Naomi mentions her personal climate change wake up call, and I'm thinking it's about time for all of us to wake up to our endangered planet:

These remarks are adapted from a speech by Naomi Klein on Monday at "Now is Not the Time For Small Steps: Solutions to the Climate Crisis and the Role of Trade Unions" at Salle Olympe de Gouges.

PARIS -- Here is what we know about what to expect from the official climate negotiations.
The deal that will be unveiled in less than a week -- likely to much fanfare and self-congratulation from politicians and an overly deferential press -- will not be enough to keep us safe. In fact, it will be extraordinarily dangerous.

The targets that the major economies brought to Paris lead us to a future of 3-4 degrees warming -- those are the Tyndall Centre's numbers -- not 2 degrees, as was pledged in Copenhagen. Two degrees is how our governments defined "dangerous warming" in the Copenhagen Accord.

And we also know from leading climate scientists like James Hansen that 2 degrees is too high. Indeed we know from lived experience that the amount we've already warmed the globe is too much. We are already living the era of dangerous warming. It is already costing many thousands of lives and livelihoods -- from the Philippines to Bangladesh to Nigeria to New Orleans to the Marshall Islands.

Speaking about climate change as if "dangerous" is a place far off in the distance is nothing less than, as my friend Kumi Naidoo put it yesterday, "subliminal racism." And it's getting less and less subliminal every day. 

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Hillary Clinton trumps Trump in 2016 match-up

First Lady's official portrait;

 

looking forward to Madam President's official portrait.

 



In addition to leading the field as the nominee for the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton is trumping Trump and leading the other Republican candidates according to CNN's recent poll of potential 2016 match-ups. Clinton's support among Latinos appears to be a significant factor in these match-ups - someone might suggest to Donald Trump that bigotry is not a winning platform in a diverse electorate.

Here's the story from CNN:

Hillary Clinton leads the Republican presidential field in hypothetical general-election match-ups, with Ben Carson and Marco Rubio running the closest to her, according to a new national MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist poll. 

And with just one exception, the margin of Clinton's lead among Latino voters determines just how competitive each match-up is. 

Clinton's biggest lead is against current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump: She's ahead of him by 11 points among all voters, 52 percent to 41 percent, and a whopping 42 points among Latino voters, 69 percent to 27 percent. 

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Get used to it: Commander in Chief Hillary Clinton

The latest CNN poll shows Hillary Clinton way out in front of Bernie Sanders, the current darling of the Democratic Party's left wing. She could wrap up the Democratic nomination this time unless the lefties decide to sabotage her as they did in 2008 when they opted instead for the young, inexperienced male candidate, Barack Obama.

From the looks of things lately, though, it seems the American people have matured a bit and learned the importance of foreign policy expertise in a volatile world. From her years of public service, as well as her tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has extensive, in-depth foreign policy experience; Sanders has none.

Here's the latest word from CNN:

(CNN)In a Democratic field that has winnowed to just three candidates, Hillary Clinton has regained a dominant lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, topping him by a 28-point margin, her widest in CNN/ORC polling since July. 

Clinton leads Sanders 58% to 30%, with former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley registering just 2%, according to a CNN/ORC Poll released Friday.

New CNN/ORC Poll: Full results for 2016 Democrats

The poll finds Clinton widely seen as better able to handle matters of foreign policy than Sanders, an advantage that has likely helped the former secretary of state as global affairs and national security have gained prominence in the presidential campaign. Broad majorities of Democratic voters report that they trust Clinton most on foreign policy (74%) and handling ISIS (59%), and as best able to handle the responsibilities that come with being commander-in-chief (64%).

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Let's all be hope for polar bears, whales, and walrus!

Hey, Katalusis friends, I kind of like the idea of being hope for polar bears, whales, and walrus (see the letter below), and I think you will, too!

Via FGGAM.ORG.

The walrus.

A Humpback whale from the public domain archives of the USFW.

Dear Virginia,


You are hope for polar bears, whales and walrus.

You shone a light on Shell’s mishaps and misdeeds. You made sure drilling regulations were tight. After Shell left, your voices helped deny Big Oil’s Arctic Ocean lease extension requests. And you helped secure a two-year reprieve on new lease sales! Victories like this are so critical for creatures already coping with climate change.

But attacks on America’s Arctic continue. So, on Giving Tuesday, to encourage effective supporters like you to keep hope alive, your gift will be matched. Please take advantage of this offer and donate today!


As soon as Shell left the Arctic Ocean, Alaska Governor Bill Walker pushed the White House to sink drills into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s Coastal Plain. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) called opening up the Refuge a ‘top priority.’

So far, these politicians haven’t been successful in drilling through the heart of the Coastal Plain, But, these are not the only politicians threatening birthing polar bears and caribou. With your help we can fight and win the strongest protections for the Arctic Refuge.

For over 20 years, the League has identified and fought back Big Oil schemes lurking in the shadows. When destructive plans surface, we rally our forces and do what we do best: defend America’s last frontier in Alaska – the most majestic and wild public lands in our country.

Next year we have big plans.

We will seal the deal on the strongest possible protections for polar bear and caribou birthing grounds in the Arctic Refuge in President Obama’s last term.

We will push back on existing leases in the Arctic Ocean and encourage the President to take drilling in the region off the table for good. Whales and walrus should be free from Big Oil’s drills and deafening noises.

Please take this opportunity on Giving Tuesday to be that spark of hope for polar bears, caribou, walrus and whales. Your gift will be matched dollar for dollar.

Thank you,


Cindy
Executive Director
Alaskan Wilderness League