A Quote by Howard Zinn
The awful scenes of death and suffering we were witnessing on our television screens have been going on in other parts of the world for a long time, and only now can we begin to know what people have gone through, often as a result of our policies.
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Religion used to be the opium of the people. To those suffering humiliation, pain, illness, and serfdom, religion promised the reward of an after life. But now, we are witnessing a transformation, a true opium of the people is the belief in nothingness after death, the huge solace, the huge comfort of thinking that for our betrayals, our greed, our cowardice, our murders, we are not going to be judged.
Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real? I remember at the time of the wreck-- people were so kind and helpful and solid. Everyone pretended that our lives until that moment had been every bit as real as the moment itself and that the future must be real too, when the truth was that our reality had been purchased only by Lyell's death. In another hour or so we had all faded out again and gone our dim ways.
I think that one of the many advantages of death accruing over a long period of time is that you do have time to meet a lot of other people who are going through similar situations and one of the great delights of our life actually was sitting around in labs waiting for the results of tests and talking to other people who were waiting to find out whether their cancer numbers were going in the right direction or not.
So the system we have in radio and television today is the direct result of government policies that have been made in our name, in the name of the people, on our behalf, but without our informed consent.
There is a difference. You watch television, you don't witness it. But, while watching television, if you start witnessing yourself watching television, then there are two processes going on: you are watching television, and something within you is witnessing the process of watching television. Witnessing is deeper, far deeper. It is not equivalent to watching. Watching is superficial. So remember that meditation is witnessing.
Through my youth, there was imposed on us a culture relentlessly English. English books were all you could buy; English television filled our screens, and in consequence, England seemed to matter in a way that our world didn't.
We've lost our sense of outrage, our anger, and our grief about what's going on in our culture right now, what's going on in our country, the atrocities that are being committed in our names around the world. They've gone missing; these feelings have gone missing.
The great benefit of science is that it can contribute tremendously to the alleviation of suffering at the physical level, but it is only through the cultivation of the qualities of the human heart and the transformation of our attitudes that we can begin to address and overcome our mental suffering...
Our future is only limited by our commitment to keep the momentum going. Now that television has been set free from all constraints - including time, place, and all previous definitions - what comes next?
How often do we use other people as screens upon which to project our obsessions? Our discontents, dreams, desires, and fears? Well, I always thought, often enough that its a wonder the whole waking world isn't simply viewed as an endless improvised film. One with as many screenwriters, producers, and directors as there are actors
I'm grateful to see my work flourish in my lifetime. Many of the great people in our history were not able to see how much their work, suffering and sacrifices enriched our lives and pushed our struggle forward. But I've been blessed to see my work begin in a family home, spread around the world and be embraced by millions of African people throughout the world African community.
A friend of mine said to me not long ago, "Terry you are married to sorrow." I looked at him and said, "No, I am not married to sorrow, I just choose not to look away." To not avert our eyes to suffering is to trust the power of presence. Joy emerges through suffering. Suffering is a component of joy. Whether we are sitting with a loved one dying or witnessing dolphins side-by-side watching the oil burning in the Gulf of Mexico, to be present with the world is to be alive. I think of Rilke once again, "Beauty is the beginning of terror." We can breathe our way toward courage.
Until now in world's history, whenever we've had a dark age, its been temporary and local. And other parts of the world have been doing fine. And eventually, they help you get out of the dark age. We are now facing a possible dark age which is going to be world-wide and permanent! That's not fun. That's a different thing. But once we have established many worlds, we can do whatever we want as long as we do it one world at a time.
Let me put it in a rather larger picture framework. Let's go to the longest time frame, the time frame of the life of our sun. As a star, our sun is about halfway through its life cycle. In the long run, we only have a couple of billion more years likely that we can inhabit this planet. By that time, we're going to have to be out of here before our sun dies. Now, I don't think we need to wait that long, and we certainly shouldn't wait that long. At the moment, we are not on a sustainable path.
Only one same reason is shared by all of us: we wish to create worlds as real as, but other than the world that is. Or was. This is why we cannot plan. We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.
The Three Wiseman: The weather has been awful, The countryside is dreary, Marsh, jungle, rock; and echoes mock, Calling our hope unlawful; But a silly song can help along Yours ever and sincerely: At least we know for certain that we are three old sinners, that this journey is much too long, that we want our dinners, and miss our wives, our books, our dogs, but have only the vaguest idea why we are what we are. To discover how to be human now Is the reason we follow this star.
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