Monday, June 12, 2006
Designed Learning - Peter Block
Designed Learning
This looks like it could be my next great New Thang to discover. Yuppers. Time to dive in and investigate Peter Block and his world!
This looks like it could be my next great New Thang to discover. Yuppers. Time to dive in and investigate Peter Block and his world!
Saturday, June 10, 2006
The secret Howard plantations - National - smh.com.au
The secret Howard plantations - National - smh.com.au
Here is the text in full...since the page will disappear from the SMH soon enough.
The secret Howard plantations
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June 10, 2006
There is more to the Prime Minister's family history than modesty, honesty and hard work, writes David Marr.
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THE corner of Ewart Street and Wardell Road in Sydney's Dulwich Hill is sacred ground for John Howard and the modern Liberal Party. For nearly 30 years, the Prime Minister's father ran a service station on this spot, setting an example his son thinks Australia should follow.
"I was brought up to believe that about the best thing you could ever do in your life," he said soon after taking office in 1996, "was to start up a business with nothing, work your insides out, hope you earned a bit of money, and pass on a bit of it to your kids."
His mother's church and his father's service station have come to stand as markers of respectability, honesty and the Howard family's deep roots in the suburban heart of the nation. To be the son of a service station proprietor allows John Howard to claim as a qualification for high office that he was and remains an ordinary Australian.
But Howard's father had another life. While this old soldier worked his humble Sydney service station, he was also - on paper - a New Guinea planter with a string of estates where 200 native labourers grew copra in his name. Lyall Howard had cashed in his status as a returned digger to "dummy" for the trading house W. R. Carpenter and Company Ltd. His own father, Walter, was doing it, too. The Howard case provoked secret, official investigations at the highest levels in Canberra, but they and their powerful backer got away with the scam.
The Treaty of Versailles spelt the end for the German planters of New Guinea. Australia took over the colony, stripped them of their land and sent them packing in the early 1920s. The prime minister, Billy Hughes, promised "New Guinea for the returned serviceman" and ex-diggers were offered very generous terms when 40,000 hectares of plantations went on the market in 1926 and 1927.
A hefty catalogue spruiked them as "The Envy of Planters, The Magnet of Copra Buyers" and quoted Shakespeare to inspire investors down south: "There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune."
For Lyall Falconer Howard, the tide was well out. He had fought in France, was gassed at Passchendaele and returned home to work as a mechanic at CSR. The Prime Minister remembers his father as "a very quiet, very, very lovely bloke". About the time Lyall married the forceful Mona Kell, he lost his job at CSR. As the plantations came on the market, she was about to give birth to their first son, Walter.
Yet at this nadir, Lyall Howard tendered to buy four plantations on Kar Kar, a high volcanic island with perfect soil off the coast of Madang. He was awarded two: Kavilo for £9800 and Marangis for £30,600 - in today's currency a total of roughly $4 million. As an ex-digger, he had only to stump up a 15 per cent deposit and then pay off the rest over 20 years. Every penny of that £6060 deposit - and more - was provided by Carpenters.
Copra went into soap, margarine, cooking oil and even explosives. The market was always volatile and plantations were prey to cyclones and bugs. But until the industry was ruined by American soya beans in the late 1980s, copra brought prosperity to the Pacific and made fortunes for the two Australian companies that dominated the trade: Burns Philp and Carpenters.
Both were desperate to mop up the old German plantations. Both were using dummies: former diggers who bought in their own names but signed management of the businesses over to their backers lock, stock and barrel. Carpenters and Burns Philp could have tendered for these plantations in their own names, but they had to outlay twice the deposit and pay the balance in half the time. Using dummies slashed their costs and sabotaged Canberra's policy of favouring old soldiers.
It was a scandal from the start. Returning from a tour of New Guinea in 1927, Senator John Chapman of South Australia declared: "Statements regarding dummying are so widely current, so persistent and so serious that I consider the Government should authorise an inquiry into them immediately." It did not happen. Canberra fine-tuned the regulations but never took effective action to stamp out what the Commonwealth auditor-general denounced that year as the "dummying evil".
His portrait of the typical dummy fitted Lyall Howard to a tee: returned soldiers with few or no assets and no experience of plantation life who may never stir from Australia to visit their holdings. There is a legend still alive in New Guinea that a legless ex-digger found himself the owner of the mighty Bopiri plantation but lived out his days pulling the rope in the Burns Philp lift in Bridge Street, Sydney.
When the third and last tranche of plantations was offered for sale in July 1927, Lyall Howard put up his hand to pay £60,100 for a big place on a remote island near Manus. Agita had 150,000 palms on more than a thousand hectares worked by 80 labourers. And his father, Walter - the grandfather of the Prime Minister - tendered £25,100 for Enuk spread over a number of sandy little islands near Kavieng, the capital of New Ireland.
For the father-and-son team, 1927 was a remarkable year. Here they were, planters on a great scale with estates scattered all round the Bismarck Sea, but their hearts were set on Dulwich Hill. In July that year they took over the Wardell Garage and Service Station at a weekly rental of £4 and began the long slog that was to make them bywords in this country for enterprise and the virtues of work.
Old Bill Middleton, a famous New Guinea planter, established his family's fortunes by winning the tender for one of the Kar Kar plantations in 1926. Middleton is dead now, but his son, Sir John, remembers him accusing the big companies of corrupting the sale of the expropriated plantations. "There were politicians involved back home. He threatened that if he didn't get Kulili he was going to blow the lid on the whole thing."
Kulili was another of the plantations Lyall Howard was after. Middleton beat him to it - he bid more - and went on to become one of the biggest producers of copra in Papua New Guinea. The difference was that the Middletons had capital. "If you didn't have money the companies would take you over," said Sir John on the phone from Kulili a few weeks ago. "My father worked for the Bank of NSW on the Samarai goldfields from 1910 to 1914. And he was a very good poker player."
Sir John knew of a couple of soldiers who "lucked out" and kept their plantations but they seemed to have family connections with the Carpenter family. The rest of the soldiers lost out. "The tenderers were bound hand and foot to the companies. Carpenters were pretty good and fairly ruthless running the plantations. You know what they called W. R. Carpenters before the war? 'Would Rob Christ.' Burns Philp they called 'Bloody Pirates'."
Only a few pages of the fat files on the Howard holdings in the National Archives carry their signatures. All the business of Kavilo, Marangis, Enuk and Agita - along with at least 20 more plantations - was conducted by Carpenters. Those files survive because, until the last penny of the purchase price was paid, title to the plantations remained with a Rabaul official called the Custodian of Expropriated Properties.
Oddly, the custodian could not be persuaded to take allegations of dummying seriously. By early 1929, the administrator of New Guinea - the custodian's great rival in the territory - was fed up with the lack of action and decided to challenge a particularly blatant case. He sent a coded cable to Canberra: "Walter and Lyall Falconer Howard apply consent purchase property valued at £25,000 and £100,000 respectively. Strongly suspect dummies for Carpenter and Coy. Could Investigation Branch enquire into status and financial circumstances these men and report the result urgently?"
The branch - which would one day turn into ASIO - got to work and within a week reported on the financial position of the father - "was chief fitter at the Zoo, Taronga Park" - and the son. "The personal financial position of Howard Senior was and still is presumed to be modest: he had an equity of about £100 in land at Bankstown, and no other item is known. The son had an equity of £750 in a cottage at Marrickville."
The branch thought the garage a well-run little business. "It no doubt provides a living for the proprietors, but could not be regarded as a foundation for such transactions as those mentioned in the passage from the Mandated Territory, and there is no reason to suppose that the private resources of the Howards could make any difference in that regard."
The facts were sent to the attorney-general, John Latham (later the chief justice, Sir John), who wrote an opinion for Treasury: "Unless [the Howards] can show that they have some further property of substantial value, and that they propose to take a real interest in managing the plantations, it appears to me to be very difficult for the Custodian to satisfy himself that their intention is to acquire the property in order to hold and use it for their own exclusive benefit."
These opinions, investigations and cables were all secret. But the auditor-general wrote of the Howards in his 1928-29 report that he had "no doubt whatever that dummying exists" in their case, though he found "the offence is not so open and the pretence is better maintained" than in other schemes he had examined. The auditor-general also reported that Lyall Howard was applying to have transferred to himself two more plantations financed by Carpenters - Koka and Katu, worth £40,000.
At this point, the government changed and the new Labor attorney-general, Frank Brennan, seems to have decided to introduce fresh regulations "for the future control of dummying" rather than pursue the motor mechanics of Dulwich Hill.
The administrator kept on the case for a few more months, discussing it with the new treasurer, Ted Theodore, but finally - after another confrontation with the custodian - declared himself "satisfied with the bona fides of the Howards". They never got Koka and Katu, but the Enuk and Agita contracts were finally approved in March 1930.
The custodian was to disappear under a cloud soon after and turn up as Carpenters' London representative. But however it happened, the Howards' tropical empire scraped through intact just as the Depression crashed down on copra, Carpenters, New Guinea and the motor trade. An officially approved elaborate sham was now in place from which the family would not shake itself entirely free until the early 1960s.
John Howard declined to be interviewed about his family's adventures in New Guinea, so several questions remain unanswered. It is not clear how they were recruited by Carpenters, whether the family ever expected to own these plantations or what they got out of putting their names to these deals.
They appear to have been paid up front. Records in the National Archives show Carpenters paid Lyall Howard every penny he needed to put down deposits on the first two plantations - plus £540 more. The money came through in June 1927 and may have been the seed finance for the Dulwich Hill garage which father and son took over the following month.
Dummies were often paid an annual fee for the use of their names. And if the opportunity ever came to transfer their holdings to their backers, the dummies were usually paid a premium.
The best of the plantations in the Howard name, Marangis, was transferred early on to a Carpenters subsidiary. The custodian approved the transfer in 1931 on the ground that Coconut Products Ltd "may be expected to have more stability than a private purchaser".
Backers also advanced money to their dummies in return for even bigger mortgages over the businesses. In late 1930, the Howards signed new mortgages over Kavilo, Agita and Enuk for a total of more than £17,000. It is not known how much of that huge sum was invested in the islands and how much - if any - ended up in Dulwich Hill.
While it is not certain how the Howards benefited, it is very clear the family remained useful to Carpenters all the way to the end. That these plantations were conducted in the name of a couple of mechanics from Dulwich Hill allowed the trading corporation to cry poor through the Depression, the war and its aftermath. The files are fat with pleas from Carpenters for concessions of one kind or another because their "clients" the Howards could not pay.
Rent due to native title holders on Enuk was not paid from 1932 until 1935 while Carpenters brawled with the new custodian for a cheaper lease. The company was adamant that Walter Howard could not pay. The custodian demanded proof: "If he is in such a bad financial position that he cannot pay anything at all, Mr Howard should produce figures showing his revenue and expenditure." Carpenters eventually got the lease it wanted.
But Enuk and Agita proved poor investments. After the war, Carpenters decided to abandon these sandy, remote plantations along with a dozen others "because of their uneconomic value today". In 1950, a rare letter to the custodian in Lyall Howard's hand backed Carpenters' decision: "I have not the money to carry on and therefore am unable to meet my obligations under the contract."
Abandoning the plantations was not easy. Lyall owed £5500 in unpaid instalments for the purchase of Agita, and his father's estate - Walter had died in 1948 - owed a further £2500 for the purchase of Enuk. These debts might have wiped the family out, but after a few months of pursuing the poor Howards of Dulwich Hill, the custodian threw in the towel and the contracts were cancelled in 1951.
That was almost, but not quite, the end of the story. In 1949 the Howards had sold the last of their holdings to Carpenters. But the transfer of Kavilo was never registered, an omission only discovered by a baffled custodian in 1960. Month after month, letters demanding action from Lyall Howard went unanswered by solicitors. Finally the custodian wrote to the Howard family home in William Street, Earlwood.
But Lyall had died of chronic bronchitis in 1955 and only his widow and son John - law graduate and Young Liberal - were left at home. The paperwork for Kavilo's transfer was at last completed in 1962. Then for many years a long silence fell on the story, broken by occasional references in histories and academic papers on the lost plantation world of New Guinea. Strangely, these plantations never seem to feature in the Prime Minister's repertoire of stories about the ethos of his family.
In February this year, launching a book that celebrates his 10 years in office, John Howard once more harked back to the role of the garage in forming his fundamental values. He was myth-making again. "The whole idea of doing something with your life was about personal achievement, and starting a business. That has influenced my attitude, because my father had a garage … I guess working for yourself, working for private enterprise, and not working for the government, was something I was brought up to believe in."
That's one version, but as always in politics, real life is more human, more complex and more interesting than myth.
Here is the text in full...since the page will disappear from the SMH soon enough.
The secret Howard plantations
*
* Normal font
* Large font
June 10, 2006
There is more to the Prime Minister's family history than modesty, honesty and hard work, writes David Marr.
AdvertisementAdvertisement
THE corner of Ewart Street and Wardell Road in Sydney's Dulwich Hill is sacred ground for John Howard and the modern Liberal Party. For nearly 30 years, the Prime Minister's father ran a service station on this spot, setting an example his son thinks Australia should follow.
"I was brought up to believe that about the best thing you could ever do in your life," he said soon after taking office in 1996, "was to start up a business with nothing, work your insides out, hope you earned a bit of money, and pass on a bit of it to your kids."
His mother's church and his father's service station have come to stand as markers of respectability, honesty and the Howard family's deep roots in the suburban heart of the nation. To be the son of a service station proprietor allows John Howard to claim as a qualification for high office that he was and remains an ordinary Australian.
But Howard's father had another life. While this old soldier worked his humble Sydney service station, he was also - on paper - a New Guinea planter with a string of estates where 200 native labourers grew copra in his name. Lyall Howard had cashed in his status as a returned digger to "dummy" for the trading house W. R. Carpenter and Company Ltd. His own father, Walter, was doing it, too. The Howard case provoked secret, official investigations at the highest levels in Canberra, but they and their powerful backer got away with the scam.
The Treaty of Versailles spelt the end for the German planters of New Guinea. Australia took over the colony, stripped them of their land and sent them packing in the early 1920s. The prime minister, Billy Hughes, promised "New Guinea for the returned serviceman" and ex-diggers were offered very generous terms when 40,000 hectares of plantations went on the market in 1926 and 1927.
A hefty catalogue spruiked them as "The Envy of Planters, The Magnet of Copra Buyers" and quoted Shakespeare to inspire investors down south: "There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune."
For Lyall Falconer Howard, the tide was well out. He had fought in France, was gassed at Passchendaele and returned home to work as a mechanic at CSR. The Prime Minister remembers his father as "a very quiet, very, very lovely bloke". About the time Lyall married the forceful Mona Kell, he lost his job at CSR. As the plantations came on the market, she was about to give birth to their first son, Walter.
Yet at this nadir, Lyall Howard tendered to buy four plantations on Kar Kar, a high volcanic island with perfect soil off the coast of Madang. He was awarded two: Kavilo for £9800 and Marangis for £30,600 - in today's currency a total of roughly $4 million. As an ex-digger, he had only to stump up a 15 per cent deposit and then pay off the rest over 20 years. Every penny of that £6060 deposit - and more - was provided by Carpenters.
Copra went into soap, margarine, cooking oil and even explosives. The market was always volatile and plantations were prey to cyclones and bugs. But until the industry was ruined by American soya beans in the late 1980s, copra brought prosperity to the Pacific and made fortunes for the two Australian companies that dominated the trade: Burns Philp and Carpenters.
Both were desperate to mop up the old German plantations. Both were using dummies: former diggers who bought in their own names but signed management of the businesses over to their backers lock, stock and barrel. Carpenters and Burns Philp could have tendered for these plantations in their own names, but they had to outlay twice the deposit and pay the balance in half the time. Using dummies slashed their costs and sabotaged Canberra's policy of favouring old soldiers.
It was a scandal from the start. Returning from a tour of New Guinea in 1927, Senator John Chapman of South Australia declared: "Statements regarding dummying are so widely current, so persistent and so serious that I consider the Government should authorise an inquiry into them immediately." It did not happen. Canberra fine-tuned the regulations but never took effective action to stamp out what the Commonwealth auditor-general denounced that year as the "dummying evil".
His portrait of the typical dummy fitted Lyall Howard to a tee: returned soldiers with few or no assets and no experience of plantation life who may never stir from Australia to visit their holdings. There is a legend still alive in New Guinea that a legless ex-digger found himself the owner of the mighty Bopiri plantation but lived out his days pulling the rope in the Burns Philp lift in Bridge Street, Sydney.
When the third and last tranche of plantations was offered for sale in July 1927, Lyall Howard put up his hand to pay £60,100 for a big place on a remote island near Manus. Agita had 150,000 palms on more than a thousand hectares worked by 80 labourers. And his father, Walter - the grandfather of the Prime Minister - tendered £25,100 for Enuk spread over a number of sandy little islands near Kavieng, the capital of New Ireland.
For the father-and-son team, 1927 was a remarkable year. Here they were, planters on a great scale with estates scattered all round the Bismarck Sea, but their hearts were set on Dulwich Hill. In July that year they took over the Wardell Garage and Service Station at a weekly rental of £4 and began the long slog that was to make them bywords in this country for enterprise and the virtues of work.
Old Bill Middleton, a famous New Guinea planter, established his family's fortunes by winning the tender for one of the Kar Kar plantations in 1926. Middleton is dead now, but his son, Sir John, remembers him accusing the big companies of corrupting the sale of the expropriated plantations. "There were politicians involved back home. He threatened that if he didn't get Kulili he was going to blow the lid on the whole thing."
Kulili was another of the plantations Lyall Howard was after. Middleton beat him to it - he bid more - and went on to become one of the biggest producers of copra in Papua New Guinea. The difference was that the Middletons had capital. "If you didn't have money the companies would take you over," said Sir John on the phone from Kulili a few weeks ago. "My father worked for the Bank of NSW on the Samarai goldfields from 1910 to 1914. And he was a very good poker player."
Sir John knew of a couple of soldiers who "lucked out" and kept their plantations but they seemed to have family connections with the Carpenter family. The rest of the soldiers lost out. "The tenderers were bound hand and foot to the companies. Carpenters were pretty good and fairly ruthless running the plantations. You know what they called W. R. Carpenters before the war? 'Would Rob Christ.' Burns Philp they called 'Bloody Pirates'."
Only a few pages of the fat files on the Howard holdings in the National Archives carry their signatures. All the business of Kavilo, Marangis, Enuk and Agita - along with at least 20 more plantations - was conducted by Carpenters. Those files survive because, until the last penny of the purchase price was paid, title to the plantations remained with a Rabaul official called the Custodian of Expropriated Properties.
Oddly, the custodian could not be persuaded to take allegations of dummying seriously. By early 1929, the administrator of New Guinea - the custodian's great rival in the territory - was fed up with the lack of action and decided to challenge a particularly blatant case. He sent a coded cable to Canberra: "Walter and Lyall Falconer Howard apply consent purchase property valued at £25,000 and £100,000 respectively. Strongly suspect dummies for Carpenter and Coy. Could Investigation Branch enquire into status and financial circumstances these men and report the result urgently?"
The branch - which would one day turn into ASIO - got to work and within a week reported on the financial position of the father - "was chief fitter at the Zoo, Taronga Park" - and the son. "The personal financial position of Howard Senior was and still is presumed to be modest: he had an equity of about £100 in land at Bankstown, and no other item is known. The son had an equity of £750 in a cottage at Marrickville."
The branch thought the garage a well-run little business. "It no doubt provides a living for the proprietors, but could not be regarded as a foundation for such transactions as those mentioned in the passage from the Mandated Territory, and there is no reason to suppose that the private resources of the Howards could make any difference in that regard."
The facts were sent to the attorney-general, John Latham (later the chief justice, Sir John), who wrote an opinion for Treasury: "Unless [the Howards] can show that they have some further property of substantial value, and that they propose to take a real interest in managing the plantations, it appears to me to be very difficult for the Custodian to satisfy himself that their intention is to acquire the property in order to hold and use it for their own exclusive benefit."
These opinions, investigations and cables were all secret. But the auditor-general wrote of the Howards in his 1928-29 report that he had "no doubt whatever that dummying exists" in their case, though he found "the offence is not so open and the pretence is better maintained" than in other schemes he had examined. The auditor-general also reported that Lyall Howard was applying to have transferred to himself two more plantations financed by Carpenters - Koka and Katu, worth £40,000.
At this point, the government changed and the new Labor attorney-general, Frank Brennan, seems to have decided to introduce fresh regulations "for the future control of dummying" rather than pursue the motor mechanics of Dulwich Hill.
The administrator kept on the case for a few more months, discussing it with the new treasurer, Ted Theodore, but finally - after another confrontation with the custodian - declared himself "satisfied with the bona fides of the Howards". They never got Koka and Katu, but the Enuk and Agita contracts were finally approved in March 1930.
The custodian was to disappear under a cloud soon after and turn up as Carpenters' London representative. But however it happened, the Howards' tropical empire scraped through intact just as the Depression crashed down on copra, Carpenters, New Guinea and the motor trade. An officially approved elaborate sham was now in place from which the family would not shake itself entirely free until the early 1960s.
John Howard declined to be interviewed about his family's adventures in New Guinea, so several questions remain unanswered. It is not clear how they were recruited by Carpenters, whether the family ever expected to own these plantations or what they got out of putting their names to these deals.
They appear to have been paid up front. Records in the National Archives show Carpenters paid Lyall Howard every penny he needed to put down deposits on the first two plantations - plus £540 more. The money came through in June 1927 and may have been the seed finance for the Dulwich Hill garage which father and son took over the following month.
Dummies were often paid an annual fee for the use of their names. And if the opportunity ever came to transfer their holdings to their backers, the dummies were usually paid a premium.
The best of the plantations in the Howard name, Marangis, was transferred early on to a Carpenters subsidiary. The custodian approved the transfer in 1931 on the ground that Coconut Products Ltd "may be expected to have more stability than a private purchaser".
Backers also advanced money to their dummies in return for even bigger mortgages over the businesses. In late 1930, the Howards signed new mortgages over Kavilo, Agita and Enuk for a total of more than £17,000. It is not known how much of that huge sum was invested in the islands and how much - if any - ended up in Dulwich Hill.
While it is not certain how the Howards benefited, it is very clear the family remained useful to Carpenters all the way to the end. That these plantations were conducted in the name of a couple of mechanics from Dulwich Hill allowed the trading corporation to cry poor through the Depression, the war and its aftermath. The files are fat with pleas from Carpenters for concessions of one kind or another because their "clients" the Howards could not pay.
Rent due to native title holders on Enuk was not paid from 1932 until 1935 while Carpenters brawled with the new custodian for a cheaper lease. The company was adamant that Walter Howard could not pay. The custodian demanded proof: "If he is in such a bad financial position that he cannot pay anything at all, Mr Howard should produce figures showing his revenue and expenditure." Carpenters eventually got the lease it wanted.
But Enuk and Agita proved poor investments. After the war, Carpenters decided to abandon these sandy, remote plantations along with a dozen others "because of their uneconomic value today". In 1950, a rare letter to the custodian in Lyall Howard's hand backed Carpenters' decision: "I have not the money to carry on and therefore am unable to meet my obligations under the contract."
Abandoning the plantations was not easy. Lyall owed £5500 in unpaid instalments for the purchase of Agita, and his father's estate - Walter had died in 1948 - owed a further £2500 for the purchase of Enuk. These debts might have wiped the family out, but after a few months of pursuing the poor Howards of Dulwich Hill, the custodian threw in the towel and the contracts were cancelled in 1951.
That was almost, but not quite, the end of the story. In 1949 the Howards had sold the last of their holdings to Carpenters. But the transfer of Kavilo was never registered, an omission only discovered by a baffled custodian in 1960. Month after month, letters demanding action from Lyall Howard went unanswered by solicitors. Finally the custodian wrote to the Howard family home in William Street, Earlwood.
But Lyall had died of chronic bronchitis in 1955 and only his widow and son John - law graduate and Young Liberal - were left at home. The paperwork for Kavilo's transfer was at last completed in 1962. Then for many years a long silence fell on the story, broken by occasional references in histories and academic papers on the lost plantation world of New Guinea. Strangely, these plantations never seem to feature in the Prime Minister's repertoire of stories about the ethos of his family.
In February this year, launching a book that celebrates his 10 years in office, John Howard once more harked back to the role of the garage in forming his fundamental values. He was myth-making again. "The whole idea of doing something with your life was about personal achievement, and starting a business. That has influenced my attitude, because my father had a garage … I guess working for yourself, working for private enterprise, and not working for the government, was something I was brought up to believe in."
That's one version, but as always in politics, real life is more human, more complex and more interesting than myth.
Monday, June 05, 2006
David Maister > Articles > Are Law Firms Manageable?
David Maister > Articles > Are Law Firms Manageable?: "A former managing partner with whom I have discussed this says, “It’s not that I don’t trust my partners."
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Germain Greer on Women and Leisure
Memo women: relax
June 3, 2006
Men fish, play golf, watch football, play computer games. Women shop. But don't confuse that with having fun, argues Germaine Greer.
Women either don't do leisure, or they do free leisure, or at best cheap leisure, or they fail to perceive any difference between work and leisure. Ask what a woman's leisure activity is and you're apt to be told, "Shopping".
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/06/02/1148956490897.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
June 3, 2006
Men fish, play golf, watch football, play computer games. Women shop. But don't confuse that with having fun, argues Germaine Greer.
Women either don't do leisure, or they do free leisure, or at best cheap leisure, or they fail to perceive any difference between work and leisure. Ask what a woman's leisure activity is and you're apt to be told, "Shopping".
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/06/02/1148956490897.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Friday, June 02, 2006
Step-by-Step Beginners Guide to Project Management
Step-by-Step Beginners Guide to Project Management | Lifehack.Community Beta
Step-by-Step Beginners Guide to Project Management Submitted by Lee Iwan on Tue,
2006-05-30 18:20. General | Article | GTD | Management | Motivation |
Productivity In my experience, projects must; actively involve all the group members, have excellent communication and access to project information, have a shared desired outcome, have specific dates for completion of tasks, and have all the required tools (when needed) in order to finish. If there is no enthusiasm in the group, your project is dead or doomed to be incredibly dull and tedious. It’s all about very simple questions; what, where, who, how, when, how much, and fixing specific dates and commitments from the group members. The key to success is the leadership and maintaining the level of enthusiasm of the group members, mixed with the correct resources and tools available on time, and a shared sense of urgency in order to bring the project to completion. Here is a simple outline that may help in organizing the project and the participants.
16 Steps to a Finished Project
1. Determine the objective and specific desired outcome. Write it down.
2. Identify and organize the people who might be interested or are required in order to bring the project to completion. Ask them to participate, and comment on their level of enthusiasm or belief that the project can or will be successful.
3. Identify a project leader and coordinator, this should be accepted by all involved in the project. No consensus, keep trying.
4. Begin “brainstorming” and create scenarios on how to achieve the desired outcome (this may have be broken down into sub-tasks). Make a date when all this creative thinking will be finished and a written draft can be printed and shared.
5. Identify factors that influence or limit the project that are beyond your control (global economic forces, natural disasters, competition, etc.) and factors that are in your control (capital invested, personnel, prices, etc.). Identify the risks or warning flags that might surface. Write this down.
6. Determine and identify the tools (capital, equipment, machinery), the people (administration, sales, suppliers, customers), and the time required to complete the objectives. Write this down.
7. Organize the people involved in the project. Review the proposed project, the factors of influence, the tools, people and time. Determine the best path, tools, time frame, and write it down.
8. Organize the tasks and sub-tasks in chronological order. Write it down.
9. Ask each participant if they are committed to participating in the project, completing their tasks on time and reaching the final outcome. If there is no commitment, find out why and resolve.
10. Develop a list of initial actions and outcomes that must be started and completed. Identify the responsible parties and dates. Write it down.
11. Request specific (realistic) dates for the completion of tasks, sub-tasks and objectives. Write it down.
12. The leader must follow-up on all dates and compromises. Make this information public to all others involved in the project. Communicate all deliveries of sub-tasks, or lack of delivery with the group.
13. Make certain that the group knows the status of the project at all times, everyone should either be waiting for information or the outcome of an ongoing activity, or actively working on obtaining information or finalizing an activity.
14. If a group member is unable or unwilling to finish tasks on time, discover why and take immediate action to support or replace the member.
15. For any major problems or setbacks, get the group together to work out new scenarios and dates of completion.
16. Celebrate the big milestones and victories.
Step-by-Step Beginners Guide to Project Management Submitted by Lee Iwan on Tue,
2006-05-30 18:20. General | Article | GTD | Management | Motivation |
Productivity In my experience, projects must; actively involve all the group members, have excellent communication and access to project information, have a shared desired outcome, have specific dates for completion of tasks, and have all the required tools (when needed) in order to finish. If there is no enthusiasm in the group, your project is dead or doomed to be incredibly dull and tedious. It’s all about very simple questions; what, where, who, how, when, how much, and fixing specific dates and commitments from the group members. The key to success is the leadership and maintaining the level of enthusiasm of the group members, mixed with the correct resources and tools available on time, and a shared sense of urgency in order to bring the project to completion. Here is a simple outline that may help in organizing the project and the participants.
16 Steps to a Finished Project
1. Determine the objective and specific desired outcome. Write it down.
2. Identify and organize the people who might be interested or are required in order to bring the project to completion. Ask them to participate, and comment on their level of enthusiasm or belief that the project can or will be successful.
3. Identify a project leader and coordinator, this should be accepted by all involved in the project. No consensus, keep trying.
4. Begin “brainstorming” and create scenarios on how to achieve the desired outcome (this may have be broken down into sub-tasks). Make a date when all this creative thinking will be finished and a written draft can be printed and shared.
5. Identify factors that influence or limit the project that are beyond your control (global economic forces, natural disasters, competition, etc.) and factors that are in your control (capital invested, personnel, prices, etc.). Identify the risks or warning flags that might surface. Write this down.
6. Determine and identify the tools (capital, equipment, machinery), the people (administration, sales, suppliers, customers), and the time required to complete the objectives. Write this down.
7. Organize the people involved in the project. Review the proposed project, the factors of influence, the tools, people and time. Determine the best path, tools, time frame, and write it down.
8. Organize the tasks and sub-tasks in chronological order. Write it down.
9. Ask each participant if they are committed to participating in the project, completing their tasks on time and reaching the final outcome. If there is no commitment, find out why and resolve.
10. Develop a list of initial actions and outcomes that must be started and completed. Identify the responsible parties and dates. Write it down.
11. Request specific (realistic) dates for the completion of tasks, sub-tasks and objectives. Write it down.
12. The leader must follow-up on all dates and compromises. Make this information public to all others involved in the project. Communicate all deliveries of sub-tasks, or lack of delivery with the group.
13. Make certain that the group knows the status of the project at all times, everyone should either be waiting for information or the outcome of an ongoing activity, or actively working on obtaining information or finalizing an activity.
14. If a group member is unable or unwilling to finish tasks on time, discover why and take immediate action to support or replace the member.
15. For any major problems or setbacks, get the group together to work out new scenarios and dates of completion.
16. Celebrate the big milestones and victories.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
Class in America: Shadowy Lines That Still Divide - New York Times
Class in America: Shadowy Lines That Still Divide - New York Times
The idea of fixed class positions, on the other hand, rubs many the wrong way. Americans have never been comfortable with the notion of a pecking order based on anything other than talent and hard work. Class contradicts their assumptions about the American dream, equal opportunity and the reasons for their own successes and even failures. Americans, constitutionally optimistic, are disinclined to see themselves as stuck.
The idea of fixed class positions, on the other hand, rubs many the wrong way. Americans have never been comfortable with the notion of a pecking order based on anything other than talent and hard work. Class contradicts their assumptions about the American dream, equal opportunity and the reasons for their own successes and even failures. Americans, constitutionally optimistic, are disinclined to see themselves as stuck.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Chicago Tribune | Aneurysm test urged for men at risk
Chicago Tribune | Aneurysm test urged for men at risk
Aneurysm test urged for men at risk
By Gina Kolata
New York Times News Service
Published February 1, 2005
In a sharp change from current policy, an influential medical advisory group is recommending that all men aged 65 to 75 who have ever smoked have an ultrasound screening test to see if they are developing a condition that could kill them in minutes by bursting a major artery in the abdomen.
Aneurysm test urged for men at risk
By Gina Kolata
New York Times News Service
Published February 1, 2005
In a sharp change from current policy, an influential medical advisory group is recommending that all men aged 65 to 75 who have ever smoked have an ultrasound screening test to see if they are developing a condition that could kill them in minutes by bursting a major artery in the abdomen.
Friday, January 07, 2005
Sunday, November 21, 2004
The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation
The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation
Everyone seeks peace and harmony, because these are what we lack in our lives. From time to time we all experience agitation, irritation, disharmony, suffering; and when one suffers from agitation, one does not keep this misery limited to oneself. One keeps distributing it to others as well. The agitation permeates the atmosphere around the miserable person. Everyone who comes into contact with him also becomes irritated, agitated. Certainly this is not the proper way to live.
One ought to live at peace with oneself, and at peace with all others. After all, a human being is a social being. He has to live in society--to live and deal with others. How are we to live peacefully? How are we to remain harmonious with ourselves, and to maintain peace and harmony around us, so that others can also live peacefully and harmoniously?
One is agitated. To come out of the agitation, one has to know the basic reason for it, the cause of the suffering. If one investigates the problem, it will become clear that whenever one starts generating any negativity or defilement in the mind, one is bound to become agitated. A negativity in the mind, a mental defilement or impurity, cannot exist with peace and harmony.
How does one start generating negativity? Again, by investigating, it becomes clear. I become very unhappy when I find someone behaving in a way which I don't like, when I find something happening which I don't like. Unwanted things happen and I create tension within myself. Wanted things do not happen, some obstacles come in the way, and again I create tension within myself; I start tying knots within myself. And throughout life, unwanted things keep on happening, wanted things may or may not happen, and this process or reaction, of tying knots--Gordian knots--makes the entire mental and physical structure so tense, so full of negativity, that life becomes miserable.
Now one way to solve the problem is to arrange that nothing unwanted happens in my life and that everything keeps on happening exactly as I desire. i must develop such power, or somebody else must have the power and must come to my aid when I request him, that unwanted things do not happen and that everything I want happens. But this is not possible. There is no one in the world whose desires are always fulfilled, in whose life everything happens according to his wishes, without anything unwanted happening. Things keep on occurring that are contrary to our desires and wishes. So the question arises, how am I not to react blindly in the face of these things which I don't like? How not to create tension? How to remain peaceful and harmonious?
In India as well as in other countries, wise saintly persons of the past studied this problem--the problem of human suffering--and found a solution: if something unwanted happens and one starts to react by generating anger, fear or any negativity, then as soon as possible one should divert one's attention to something else. For example, get up, take a glass of water, start drinking--your anger will not multiply and you'll be coming out of anger. Or start counting: one, two, three, four. Or start repeating a word, or a phrase, or some mantra, perhaps the name of a deity or saintly person in whom you have devotion; the mind is diverted, and to some extent, you'll be out of the negativity, out of anger.
This solution was helpful: it worked. It still works. Practicing this, the mind feels free from agitation. In fact, however, the solution works only at the conscious level. Actually, by diverting the attention, one pushes the negativity deep into the unconscious, and on this level one continues to generate and multiply the same defilements. At the surface level there is a layer of peace and harmony, but in the depths of the mind there is a sleeping volcano of suppressed negativity which sooner or later will explode in violent eruption.
Other explorers of inner truth went still further in their search; and by experiencing the reality of mind and matter within themselves they recognized that diverting the attention is only running away from the problem. Escape is no solution: one must face the problem. Whenever a negativity arises in the mind, just observe it, face it. As soon as one starts observing any mental defilement, it begins to lose strength. Slowly it withers away and is uprooted.
A good solution: it avoids both extremes--suppression and free license. Keeping the negativity in the unconscious will not eradicate it; and allowing it to manifest in physical or vocal action will only create more problems. But if one just observes, then the defilement passes away, and one has eradicated that negativity, one is freed from the defilement.
This sounds wonderful, but is it really practical? For an average person, is it easy to face the defilement? When anger arises, it overpowers us so quickly that we don't even notice. Then overpowered by anger, we commit certain actions physically or vocally which are harmful to us and to others. Later, when the anger has passed, we start crying and repenting, begging pardon from this or that person or from God: 'Oh, I made a mistake, please excuse me!' But the next time we are in a similar situation, we again react in the same way. All that repenting does not help at all.
The difficulty is that I am not aware when a defilement starts. It begins deep in the unconscious level of the mind, and by the time it reaches the conscious level, it has gained so much strength that it overwhelms me, and I cannot observe it.
Then I must keep a private secretary with me, so that whenever anger starts, he says, 'Look master, anger is starting!' Since I cannot know when this anger will start, I must have three private secretaries for three shifts, around the clock! Suppose I can afford that, and the anger starts to arise. At once my secretary tells me, 'Oh, master, look--anger has started!' The first thing I will do is slap and abuse him: 'You fool! Do you think you are paid to teach me?' I am so overpowered by anger that no good advise will help.
Even supposing wisdom prevails and I do not slap him. Instead I say, 'Thank you very much. Now I must sit down and observe my anger.' Yet it is possible? As soon as I close my eyes and try to observe the anger, immediately the object of anger come into my mind--the person or incident because of which I become angry. Then I am not observing the anger itself. I am merely observing the external stimulus of the emotion. This will only serve to multiply the anger; this is no solution. It is very difficult to observe any abstract negativity, abstract emotion, divorced from the external object which aroused it.
However, one who reached the ultimate truth found a real solution. He discovered that whenever any defilement arises in the mind, simultaneously two things start happening at the physical level. One is that the breath loses its normal rhythm. We start breathing hard whenever a negativity comes into the mind. This is easy to observe. At subtler level, some kind of biochemical reaction starts within the body--some sensation. Every defilement will generate one sensation or another inside, in one part of the body or another.
This is a practical solution. An ordinary person cannot observe abstract defilements of the mind--abstract fear, anger, or passion. But with proper training and practice, it is very easy to observe respiration and bodily sensations--both of which are directly related to the mental defilements.
Respiration and sensation will help me in two ways. Firstly, they will be like my private secretaries. As soon as a defilement starts in my mind, my breath will lose its normality; it will start shouting, 'Look, something has gone wrong!' I cannot slap my breath; I have to accept the warning. Similarly the sensations tell me that something has gone wrong. Then having been warned, I start observing my respiration, my sensation, and I find very quickly that the defilement passes away.
This mental-physical phenomenon is like a coin with two sides. On the one side are whatever thoughts or emotions are arising in the mind. One the other side are the respiration and sensations in the body. Any thought or emotion, any mental defilement, manifests itself in the breath and the sensation of that moment. Thus, by observing the respiration or the sensation, I am in fact observing the mental defilement. Instead of running away from the problem, I am facing reality as it is. Then I shall find that the defilement loses its strength: it can no longer overpower me as it did in the past. If I persist, the defilement eventually disappears altogether, and I remain peaceful and happy.
In this way, the techniques of self-observation shows us reality in its two aspects, inner and outer. Previously, one always looked with open eyes, missing the inner truth. I always looked outside for the cause of my unhappiness; I always blamed and tried to change the reality outside. Being ignorant of the inner reality, I never understood that the cause of suffering lies within, in my own blind reactions toward pleasant and unpleasant sensations.
Now, with training, I can see the other side of the coin. I can be aware of my breathing and also of what is happening inside me. Whatever it is, breath or sensation, I learn just to observe it, without losing the balance of the mind. I stop reacting, stop multiplying my misery. Instead, I allow the defilement to manifest and pass away.
The more one practices this technique, the more quickly one will find one will come out of negativity. Gradually the mind becomes freed of the defilements; it becomes pure. A pure mind is always full of love--selfless love for all others; full of compassion for the failings and sufferings of others; full of joy at their success and happiness; full of equanimity in the face of any situation.
When one reaches this stage, the entire pattern of one's life starts changing. It is no longer possible to do anything vocally or physically which will disturb the peace and happiness of others. Instead, the balanced mind not only becomes peaceful in itself, but it helps others also to become peaceful. The atmosphere surrounding such a person will become permeated with peace and harmony, and this will start affecting others too.
By learning to remain balanced in the face of everything one experiences inside, one develops detachment towards all that one encounters in external situations as well. However, this detachment is not escapism or indifference to the problems of the world. A Vipassana meditator becomes more sensitive to the sufferings of others, and does his utmost to relieve their suffering in whatever way he can--not with any agitation but with a mind full of love, compassion and equanimity. He learns holy indifference--how to be fully committed, fully involved in helping others, while at the same time maintaining the balance of his mind. In this way he remains peaceful and happy, while working for the peace and happiness of others.
This is what the Buddha taught; an art of living. He never established or taught any religion, any 'ism'. He never instructed his followers to practice any rites or rituals, any blind or empty formalities. Instead, he taught just to observe nature as it is, by observing reality inside. Out of ignorance, one keeps reacting in a way which is harmful to oneself and to others. But when wisdom arises--the wisdom of observing the reality as it is--one come out of this habit of reaction. When one ceases to react blindly, then one is capable of real action--action proceeding from a balanced mind, a mind which sees and understands the truth. Such action can only be positive, creative, helpful to oneself and to others.
What is necessary, then, is to 'know thyself'--advice which every wise person has given. One must know oneself not just at the intellectual level, the level of ideas and theories. Nor does this mean to know just at the emotional or devotional level, simply accepting blindly what one has heard or read. Such knowledge is not enough. Rather one must know realty at the actual level. One must experience directly the reality of this mental-physical phenomenon. This alone is what will help us to come out of defilements, out of suffering.
This direct experience of one's own reality, this techniques of self-observation, is what is called 'Vipassana' meditation. In the language of India in the time of the Buddha, passana meant seeing with open eyes, in the ordinary way; but Vipassana is observing things as they really are, not just as they seem to be. Apparent truth has to be penetrated, until one reaches the ultimate truth of the entire mental and physical structure. When one experiences this truth, then one learns to stop reacting blindly, to stop creating defilements--and naturally the old defilements gradually are eradicated. One come out of all the misery and experiences happiness.
There are three steps to the training which is given in a Vipassana meditation course Firstly, one must abstain from any action, physical or vocal, which disturbs the peace and harmony of others. One cannot work to liberate oneself from defilements in the mind while at the same time one continues to perform deeds of body and speech which only multiply those defilements. Therefore, a code of morality is the essential first step of the practice. One undertakes not to kill, not to steal, not to commit sexual misconduct, not to tell lies, and not to use intoxicants. By abstaining from such action, one allows the mind to quiet down sufficiently so that it can proceed with the task at hand.
The next step is to develop some mastery over this wild mind, by training it to remain fixed on a single object: the breath. One tries to keep one's attention for as long as possible on the respiration. This is not a breathing exercise: one does not regulate the breath. Instead one observes natural respiration as it is, as it comes in, as it goes out. In this way one further calms the mind so that it is no longer overpowered by violent negativities. At the same time, one is concentrating the mind, making it sharp and penetrating, capable of the work of insight.
These first two steps of living a moral life and controlling the mind are very necessary and beneficial in themselves; but they will lead to self-repression, unless one takes the third step - purifying the mind of defilements by developing insight into one's own nature. This is Vipassana: experiencing one's own reality, by the systematic and dispassionate observation of the ever-changing mind-matter phenomenon manifesting itself as sensation within oneself. This is the culmination of the teaching of the Buddha: self-purification by self-observation.
This can be practiced by one and all. Everyone faces the problem of suffering. it is a universal disease which requires a universal remedy--not a sectarian one. When one suffers from anger, it is not a Buddhist anger, Hindu anger, or Christian anger. Anger is anger. When one become agitated as a result of this anger, this agitation is not Christian, or Hindu, or Buddhist. The malady is universal. The remedy must also be universal.
Vipassana is such a remedy. No one will object to a code of living which respects the peace and harmony of others. No one will object to developing control over the mind. No one will object to developing insight into one's own reality, by which it is possible to free the mind of negativities. Vipassana is a universal path.
Observing reality as it is by observing the truth inside--this is knowing oneself at the actual, experiential level. As one practices, one keeps coming out of the misery of defilements. From the gross, external, apparent truth, one penetrates to the ultimate truth of mind and matter. Then one transcends that, and experiences a truth which is beyond mind and matter, beyond time and space, beyond the conditioned field of relativity: the truth of total liberation from all defilements, all impurities, all suffering. Whatever name one gives this ultimate truth, is irrelevant; it is the final goal of everyone.
May you all experience this ultimate truth. May all people come out of their defilements, their misery. May they enjoy real happiness, real peace, real harmony.
MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY
The above text is based upon a talk given by Mr. S.N. Goenka in Berne, Switzerland.
Everyone seeks peace and harmony, because these are what we lack in our lives. From time to time we all experience agitation, irritation, disharmony, suffering; and when one suffers from agitation, one does not keep this misery limited to oneself. One keeps distributing it to others as well. The agitation permeates the atmosphere around the miserable person. Everyone who comes into contact with him also becomes irritated, agitated. Certainly this is not the proper way to live.
One ought to live at peace with oneself, and at peace with all others. After all, a human being is a social being. He has to live in society--to live and deal with others. How are we to live peacefully? How are we to remain harmonious with ourselves, and to maintain peace and harmony around us, so that others can also live peacefully and harmoniously?
One is agitated. To come out of the agitation, one has to know the basic reason for it, the cause of the suffering. If one investigates the problem, it will become clear that whenever one starts generating any negativity or defilement in the mind, one is bound to become agitated. A negativity in the mind, a mental defilement or impurity, cannot exist with peace and harmony.
How does one start generating negativity? Again, by investigating, it becomes clear. I become very unhappy when I find someone behaving in a way which I don't like, when I find something happening which I don't like. Unwanted things happen and I create tension within myself. Wanted things do not happen, some obstacles come in the way, and again I create tension within myself; I start tying knots within myself. And throughout life, unwanted things keep on happening, wanted things may or may not happen, and this process or reaction, of tying knots--Gordian knots--makes the entire mental and physical structure so tense, so full of negativity, that life becomes miserable.
Now one way to solve the problem is to arrange that nothing unwanted happens in my life and that everything keeps on happening exactly as I desire. i must develop such power, or somebody else must have the power and must come to my aid when I request him, that unwanted things do not happen and that everything I want happens. But this is not possible. There is no one in the world whose desires are always fulfilled, in whose life everything happens according to his wishes, without anything unwanted happening. Things keep on occurring that are contrary to our desires and wishes. So the question arises, how am I not to react blindly in the face of these things which I don't like? How not to create tension? How to remain peaceful and harmonious?
In India as well as in other countries, wise saintly persons of the past studied this problem--the problem of human suffering--and found a solution: if something unwanted happens and one starts to react by generating anger, fear or any negativity, then as soon as possible one should divert one's attention to something else. For example, get up, take a glass of water, start drinking--your anger will not multiply and you'll be coming out of anger. Or start counting: one, two, three, four. Or start repeating a word, or a phrase, or some mantra, perhaps the name of a deity or saintly person in whom you have devotion; the mind is diverted, and to some extent, you'll be out of the negativity, out of anger.
This solution was helpful: it worked. It still works. Practicing this, the mind feels free from agitation. In fact, however, the solution works only at the conscious level. Actually, by diverting the attention, one pushes the negativity deep into the unconscious, and on this level one continues to generate and multiply the same defilements. At the surface level there is a layer of peace and harmony, but in the depths of the mind there is a sleeping volcano of suppressed negativity which sooner or later will explode in violent eruption.
Other explorers of inner truth went still further in their search; and by experiencing the reality of mind and matter within themselves they recognized that diverting the attention is only running away from the problem. Escape is no solution: one must face the problem. Whenever a negativity arises in the mind, just observe it, face it. As soon as one starts observing any mental defilement, it begins to lose strength. Slowly it withers away and is uprooted.
A good solution: it avoids both extremes--suppression and free license. Keeping the negativity in the unconscious will not eradicate it; and allowing it to manifest in physical or vocal action will only create more problems. But if one just observes, then the defilement passes away, and one has eradicated that negativity, one is freed from the defilement.
This sounds wonderful, but is it really practical? For an average person, is it easy to face the defilement? When anger arises, it overpowers us so quickly that we don't even notice. Then overpowered by anger, we commit certain actions physically or vocally which are harmful to us and to others. Later, when the anger has passed, we start crying and repenting, begging pardon from this or that person or from God: 'Oh, I made a mistake, please excuse me!' But the next time we are in a similar situation, we again react in the same way. All that repenting does not help at all.
The difficulty is that I am not aware when a defilement starts. It begins deep in the unconscious level of the mind, and by the time it reaches the conscious level, it has gained so much strength that it overwhelms me, and I cannot observe it.
Then I must keep a private secretary with me, so that whenever anger starts, he says, 'Look master, anger is starting!' Since I cannot know when this anger will start, I must have three private secretaries for three shifts, around the clock! Suppose I can afford that, and the anger starts to arise. At once my secretary tells me, 'Oh, master, look--anger has started!' The first thing I will do is slap and abuse him: 'You fool! Do you think you are paid to teach me?' I am so overpowered by anger that no good advise will help.
Even supposing wisdom prevails and I do not slap him. Instead I say, 'Thank you very much. Now I must sit down and observe my anger.' Yet it is possible? As soon as I close my eyes and try to observe the anger, immediately the object of anger come into my mind--the person or incident because of which I become angry. Then I am not observing the anger itself. I am merely observing the external stimulus of the emotion. This will only serve to multiply the anger; this is no solution. It is very difficult to observe any abstract negativity, abstract emotion, divorced from the external object which aroused it.
However, one who reached the ultimate truth found a real solution. He discovered that whenever any defilement arises in the mind, simultaneously two things start happening at the physical level. One is that the breath loses its normal rhythm. We start breathing hard whenever a negativity comes into the mind. This is easy to observe. At subtler level, some kind of biochemical reaction starts within the body--some sensation. Every defilement will generate one sensation or another inside, in one part of the body or another.
This is a practical solution. An ordinary person cannot observe abstract defilements of the mind--abstract fear, anger, or passion. But with proper training and practice, it is very easy to observe respiration and bodily sensations--both of which are directly related to the mental defilements.
Respiration and sensation will help me in two ways. Firstly, they will be like my private secretaries. As soon as a defilement starts in my mind, my breath will lose its normality; it will start shouting, 'Look, something has gone wrong!' I cannot slap my breath; I have to accept the warning. Similarly the sensations tell me that something has gone wrong. Then having been warned, I start observing my respiration, my sensation, and I find very quickly that the defilement passes away.
This mental-physical phenomenon is like a coin with two sides. On the one side are whatever thoughts or emotions are arising in the mind. One the other side are the respiration and sensations in the body. Any thought or emotion, any mental defilement, manifests itself in the breath and the sensation of that moment. Thus, by observing the respiration or the sensation, I am in fact observing the mental defilement. Instead of running away from the problem, I am facing reality as it is. Then I shall find that the defilement loses its strength: it can no longer overpower me as it did in the past. If I persist, the defilement eventually disappears altogether, and I remain peaceful and happy.
In this way, the techniques of self-observation shows us reality in its two aspects, inner and outer. Previously, one always looked with open eyes, missing the inner truth. I always looked outside for the cause of my unhappiness; I always blamed and tried to change the reality outside. Being ignorant of the inner reality, I never understood that the cause of suffering lies within, in my own blind reactions toward pleasant and unpleasant sensations.
Now, with training, I can see the other side of the coin. I can be aware of my breathing and also of what is happening inside me. Whatever it is, breath or sensation, I learn just to observe it, without losing the balance of the mind. I stop reacting, stop multiplying my misery. Instead, I allow the defilement to manifest and pass away.
The more one practices this technique, the more quickly one will find one will come out of negativity. Gradually the mind becomes freed of the defilements; it becomes pure. A pure mind is always full of love--selfless love for all others; full of compassion for the failings and sufferings of others; full of joy at their success and happiness; full of equanimity in the face of any situation.
When one reaches this stage, the entire pattern of one's life starts changing. It is no longer possible to do anything vocally or physically which will disturb the peace and happiness of others. Instead, the balanced mind not only becomes peaceful in itself, but it helps others also to become peaceful. The atmosphere surrounding such a person will become permeated with peace and harmony, and this will start affecting others too.
By learning to remain balanced in the face of everything one experiences inside, one develops detachment towards all that one encounters in external situations as well. However, this detachment is not escapism or indifference to the problems of the world. A Vipassana meditator becomes more sensitive to the sufferings of others, and does his utmost to relieve their suffering in whatever way he can--not with any agitation but with a mind full of love, compassion and equanimity. He learns holy indifference--how to be fully committed, fully involved in helping others, while at the same time maintaining the balance of his mind. In this way he remains peaceful and happy, while working for the peace and happiness of others.
This is what the Buddha taught; an art of living. He never established or taught any religion, any 'ism'. He never instructed his followers to practice any rites or rituals, any blind or empty formalities. Instead, he taught just to observe nature as it is, by observing reality inside. Out of ignorance, one keeps reacting in a way which is harmful to oneself and to others. But when wisdom arises--the wisdom of observing the reality as it is--one come out of this habit of reaction. When one ceases to react blindly, then one is capable of real action--action proceeding from a balanced mind, a mind which sees and understands the truth. Such action can only be positive, creative, helpful to oneself and to others.
What is necessary, then, is to 'know thyself'--advice which every wise person has given. One must know oneself not just at the intellectual level, the level of ideas and theories. Nor does this mean to know just at the emotional or devotional level, simply accepting blindly what one has heard or read. Such knowledge is not enough. Rather one must know realty at the actual level. One must experience directly the reality of this mental-physical phenomenon. This alone is what will help us to come out of defilements, out of suffering.
This direct experience of one's own reality, this techniques of self-observation, is what is called 'Vipassana' meditation. In the language of India in the time of the Buddha, passana meant seeing with open eyes, in the ordinary way; but Vipassana is observing things as they really are, not just as they seem to be. Apparent truth has to be penetrated, until one reaches the ultimate truth of the entire mental and physical structure. When one experiences this truth, then one learns to stop reacting blindly, to stop creating defilements--and naturally the old defilements gradually are eradicated. One come out of all the misery and experiences happiness.
There are three steps to the training which is given in a Vipassana meditation course Firstly, one must abstain from any action, physical or vocal, which disturbs the peace and harmony of others. One cannot work to liberate oneself from defilements in the mind while at the same time one continues to perform deeds of body and speech which only multiply those defilements. Therefore, a code of morality is the essential first step of the practice. One undertakes not to kill, not to steal, not to commit sexual misconduct, not to tell lies, and not to use intoxicants. By abstaining from such action, one allows the mind to quiet down sufficiently so that it can proceed with the task at hand.
The next step is to develop some mastery over this wild mind, by training it to remain fixed on a single object: the breath. One tries to keep one's attention for as long as possible on the respiration. This is not a breathing exercise: one does not regulate the breath. Instead one observes natural respiration as it is, as it comes in, as it goes out. In this way one further calms the mind so that it is no longer overpowered by violent negativities. At the same time, one is concentrating the mind, making it sharp and penetrating, capable of the work of insight.
These first two steps of living a moral life and controlling the mind are very necessary and beneficial in themselves; but they will lead to self-repression, unless one takes the third step - purifying the mind of defilements by developing insight into one's own nature. This is Vipassana: experiencing one's own reality, by the systematic and dispassionate observation of the ever-changing mind-matter phenomenon manifesting itself as sensation within oneself. This is the culmination of the teaching of the Buddha: self-purification by self-observation.
This can be practiced by one and all. Everyone faces the problem of suffering. it is a universal disease which requires a universal remedy--not a sectarian one. When one suffers from anger, it is not a Buddhist anger, Hindu anger, or Christian anger. Anger is anger. When one become agitated as a result of this anger, this agitation is not Christian, or Hindu, or Buddhist. The malady is universal. The remedy must also be universal.
Vipassana is such a remedy. No one will object to a code of living which respects the peace and harmony of others. No one will object to developing control over the mind. No one will object to developing insight into one's own reality, by which it is possible to free the mind of negativities. Vipassana is a universal path.
Observing reality as it is by observing the truth inside--this is knowing oneself at the actual, experiential level. As one practices, one keeps coming out of the misery of defilements. From the gross, external, apparent truth, one penetrates to the ultimate truth of mind and matter. Then one transcends that, and experiences a truth which is beyond mind and matter, beyond time and space, beyond the conditioned field of relativity: the truth of total liberation from all defilements, all impurities, all suffering. Whatever name one gives this ultimate truth, is irrelevant; it is the final goal of everyone.
May you all experience this ultimate truth. May all people come out of their defilements, their misery. May they enjoy real happiness, real peace, real harmony.
MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY
The above text is based upon a talk given by Mr. S.N. Goenka in Berne, Switzerland.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
The Cultural Creatives
Are You a Cultural Creative?
Do you dislike all the emphasis in modern culture on success and "making it," on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury goods? Do you care deeply about the destruction of the environment and would pay higher taxes or prices to clean it up and to stop global warming? Are you unhappy with both the left and the right in politics and want to find a new way that does not simply steer a middle course?
In this landmark book, sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson draw upon thirteen years of survey research studies on more than 100,000 Americans, plus more than 100 focus groups and dozens of in-depth interviews. They reveal who the Cultural Creatives are and the fascinating story of their emergence over the last generation, using vivid examples and engaging personal stories to describe their distinctive values and lifestyles.
The Cultural Creatives care deeply about ecology and saving the planet, about relationships, peace, and social justice, about self-actualization, spirituality, and self-expression. Surprisingly, they are both inner-directed and socially concerned; they're activists, volunteers, and contributors to good causes more often than other Americans. But because they've been so invisible, they are astonished to find out how many others share both their values and their way of life. Once they realize their numbers, their impact on America promises to be enormous, shaping a new agenda for the twenty-first century.
What makes the appearance of the Cultural Creatives especially timely is that our civilization is in the midst of an epochal change, caught between globalization, accelerating technologies, and a deteriorating planetary ecology. A creative minority can have enormous leverage to carry us into a new renaissance instead of a disastrous fall. The book ends with a number of maps for the remarkable journey that our civilization is embarked upon: initiations, evolutionary models, scenarios, and the elements of a new mythos for our time. The Cultural Creatives offers a more hopeful future and prepares us all for a transition to a new, saner, and wiser culture.
About the Author
PAUL H. RAY, PH.D., was educated at Yale and the University of Michigan, where he was also an associate professor. Currently he is executive vice president of American LIVES, Inc., a market research and opinion polling firm doing research on the lifestyles and values of Americans. He has headed more than 100 major research and consulting projects and has published numerous articles on values and social change.
SHERRY RUTH ANDERSON, PH.D., was educated at Goucher College and the University of Toronto, where she was an associate professor and head of psychological research at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry. She is the author of numerous articles in psychology and coauthor of the best-selling Feminine Face of God.
The authors are married and live in Northern California. Their Web site is culturalcreatives.org.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Rites of Compassion: Three Days with the Dalai Lama
Rites of Compassion: Three Days with the Dalai Lama
Compassion, as both a practice and an emotion, is fundamental to Tibetan Buddhism. The focus is not simply on altering one's internal feeling states but on living the philosophy that regards all people as equals by freeing oneself from both clinging to close ones and rejection of enemies.
The Dalai Lama defined compassion as that which "inspires others to be free of suffering." ...
Compassion, as both a practice and an emotion, is fundamental to Tibetan Buddhism. The focus is not simply on altering one's internal feeling states but on living the philosophy that regards all people as equals by freeing oneself from both clinging to close ones and rejection of enemies.
The Dalai Lama defined compassion as that which "inspires others to be free of suffering." ...
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Anger Turned Inward - Psychological Self-Help
Anger Turned Inward - Psychological Self-Help
More on depression....
http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap6/chap6g.htm
More on depression....
http://mentalhelp.net/psyhelp/chap6/chap6g.htm
Irrational Ideas - Psychological Self-Help
Irrational Ideas - Psychological Self-Help''
Here is an interesting article on depression.
No wonder I love the tools that NLP gives us for Thinking Well.
Here is an interesting article on depression.
No wonder I love the tools that NLP gives us for Thinking Well.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Garden Update For My Sister the Honorary Canuck
Here are some pics to keep Chickie up-t0-date with where my garden's 'at'. Starting with my hedge!
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