There are at least four mega or supervolcanos on Earth. When they erupt most, if not all, plant and animal life on our planet is wiped out. The largest of these megavolcanos is under Yellowstone National Park. It has a 600,000 year cycle. That is, it erupts every 600,000 years. It has been 640,000 years since its last eruption.
Nova, TPT Channel 2, 26.9.2006
‘ The planet’s temperature has climbed to levels not seen in thousands of years, warming that has begun to affect plants and animals, researchers report in Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Earth has been warming at a rate of 0.36 degree Fahrenheit per decade for the last 30 years, according to the research team led by James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
That brings the overall temperature to the warmest in the current interglacial period, which began about 12,000 years ago.
…”This evidence implies that we are getting close to dangerous levels of human-made pollution,” Hansen said in a statement.
…Hansen, who first warned of the danger of climate change decades ago, said that human-made greenhouse gases have become the dominant climate change factor.
…The study said the recent warming has brought global temperature to a level within about one degree Celsius _ 1.8 degree Fahrenheit _ of the maximum temperature of the past million years.’
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.pnas.org. Quote from Road Runner News 25.9.2006.
“Developmental psychologists have looked at scales of development for decades. And once you start understanding these, the first thing you want to know is: How can we help adults move through these stages? … And, interestingly, there is only one thing that’s been consistently demonstrated to move people, on average, about two stages - and that’s meditation…
…Amrit Sen, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, demonstrated that there’s never been a famine in a democratic country. A democracy stems from at least stage-five moral development. Since seventy percent of the world’s population is not there, the single best thing you can do to end world famine is to meditate. Meditation has a profound impact on the average level of consciousness in the world. It’s very, very important…
…meditation is a way to help you disidentify with finite objects and rest in that ground of being which is your very nature, your very SELF… meditation is extrememly important, and don’t ever let anybody tell you that it’s just not having any impact on the world. You’re changing the fundamental fabric of the cosmos when you meditate.”
Ken Wilber in what is enlightenment magazine, Issue 32.
It’s helpful to think about human consciousness as stratified and pluridimensional, with layers that are wholes within wholes, going from simple and rudimentary at birth, to increasingly complex and whole layers superimposed upon their predecessor in a way that includes the previous layer but transcends it. Formless meditation looks directly at the layer you are currently grounded in.
There are things to consider:
Evolution is based on cooperation, not competition.
We are now deep into the 6th mass extinction event to hit this planet. This event is unique because it has been caused by humans.
Biologist Bruce Lipton, PhD.
Dr. Lipton is the author of Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles, 2005 and earlier titles.
Thanks so much to everyone for the great donations again for our 2006 garage sale!!! Most people reading this probably know that the garage sale was held, for the first time this year, at Suzanne & Russ’s home in their phenomenal “Prayer Barn.” Use the search box in the right hand column at the top of this page if you would like to see a picture of the barn. Even with the dramatic change in location, receipts from the sale came within a couple hundred dollars of breaking our record year holding the sale at the Center. The money from the garage sale goes into our operating budget, which supports the people studying and practicing at the Center.
It was wonderful to be able to plan for the garage sale without being concerned about whether we would get rained out. Instead, what we got was that scorching, hot weather. The barn provided shade and lots of great space. We were able to set up ahead of time and we could leave everything set up overnight for the first time. Suzanne cooked fantastic food for the workers’ lunches - a big bonus. You might want to sign up to work next year just for the lunch - really.
Most of the KTC sangha work in one role or another at the garage sale, and many of our patrons donate wonderful things year after year. Every one of you matters. Everything you do makes a difference. Special thanks to Carolyn Peterson for pulling it all off with a fantastic coordinator effort!
The 2007 garage sale is out there, headed our way…
Buddhism is one of the great world religions. Buddhism is non-theistic. It is not about God. It is about the Tibetan word which points at the “ground of all being.” We translate that Tibetan word into English as “mind,” but the Tibetan word does not mean what that Enlish word mind means - not even close.
Our English word “mind” frequently means something as small as an epi-phenomenon of brain - not even close. Not even in the ball park.
We often use the word consciousness in place of the Tibetan word for what Buddhism is about. “Consciousness” comes closer, but the real issue is fundamental to the summit Buddhists wish to attain - words don’t go there.
The “ground of all being” can be looked at directly - but words, with their extraordinary limitedness, can not be used to label it; especially in the West where we have no experiential cultural habits. We value the intellectual. We value the material. We imagine ourselves to be separate. We believe our shadow belongs to what it’s projected on… everything is out there… This whole package is a long, long, non linear ways from looking directly at the ground of all being.
But still, we can use the word consciousness to talk about what Tibetan Buddhism… all Buddhism… is about.