Do your best. Speak the truth.
…Concern shifts, then, from care of the person, or care of the other, to care for the relational process. From what forms of relationship do we flourish? Here again is a pragmatic question for conversations now in progress.
The pragmatic answer is do FIML. ABN
Women against gun ownership are irrational. Guns are called the ‘great equalizer’ because they allow the physically weak to protect themselves from the physically strong. Gun-control in USA originally started to keep guns out of the hands of blacks, who to this day have by far the highest murder rate in USA. American whites as a group have a lower violent crime rate than Europe. It’s no longer a secret that our ruling cabal hates white people and white culture. We are down but not out. At least learn how to protect yourself and then do it. Even the Dalai Lama supports this position. ABN
Caroline Ellison, a former top executive in Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed crypto empire, was sentenced to two years in prison Tuesday — after a judge praised her “remarkable,” damning testimony against her ex-lover at his fraud trial.
The 29-year-old MIT grad held back tears and bowed her head slightly forward after Judge Lewis Kaplan revealed her fate at a hearing in Manhattan federal court.
The judge drew a distinction Tuesday between her and Bankman-Fried, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison after the judge found he did not show any remorse for his crimes.
“While you were gravely culpable in this fraud, there is no doubt that you had remarkable cooperation,” Judge Kaplan said. “That’s a fundamental distinction between you and Mr Bankman-Fried.”
Still the winner:
Researchers have discovered strange entities hiding in our guts and mouths that may represent an entirely new class of life—if they are even alive.
Dubbed “obelisks,” these tiny rings of RNA can fold into a structure that looks more like a rod, hence the name. They’re also surprisingly commonplace in our microbiomes—the community of viruses, bacteria, fungi, and their genes that live in our bodies. Yet, they’ve gone undetected until now and represent the latest discovery in an ever-growing list of mysterious “genetic agents” hiding in plain sight. Indeed, the researchers who discovered them report that their function, if they have one, is a mystery.
I hope the word scientist becomes obsolete. Insofar as it has any meaning at all, we are all scientists. Frequent use of the word scientist promotes scientism as we saw during the plandemic. Fauci even claimed he was the science and most of the world bowed before his nonsense. People who do research in special fields are researchers. That’s a good term for an honorable profession which describes what they actually do without conferring upon them the sketchy status of priest of something arcane. ABN
Are your thought patterns valid? Are your premises true? Is your mind sound?
Buddhism further asks are your mental states wholesome? Are they conducive to enlightenment, wisdom, freedom from delusion?
There are many things we can do while alone to clean up our thought processes. And there are some things we can only do with the help of another person.
Only another person can tell us if our premises, thoughts, and conclusions (however tentative) about them are true, valid, and sound.
Buddhism has a concept of a “spiritual friend,” a “good friend,” a noble friend,” or an “admirable friend.” All of these terms are translations of the Pali Kalyāṇa-mittatā, which is well-explained at that link. (Chinese 善知識). That link is well-worth reading in full.
From the link above and from many years of working with Buddhist literature and people, my sense is that a Buddhist “good friend” is someone who is to be admired and emulated. They are similar to what we mean today by mentors or “good role models.”
I deeply respect the concept of a Buddhist good friend, but find it lacks what I consider the preeminent virtue of philosophical psychology—real-time honesty based on a teachable technique.
Indeed, I cannot find anything anywhere in world philosophy, religion, or literature that provides a teachable technique for attaining real-time honesty with another person.
I also do not quite understand how this could be.
For many centuries human beings have thought about life but no one has come up with a technique like FIML?
How can that be?
I do not see a technique like FIML anywhere in the history of human philosophy nor anywhere in modern psychology.
The importance of a “good friend” who does FIML with you cannot be overemphasized because it is only through such a friend that you can discover where your premises about them are right or wrong, where your thoughts about them are valid or not, and through those discoveries where your mind itself is arranged soundly or not.
first posted MAY 30, 2017
UPDATE 12/14/23: Buddhists can and should make Buddhist practice their own, update or improve the practice with new ideas that are sound, valid, and true. This is a very positive and excellent side of Buddhism, which itself is not written in stone. Buddhism is preeminently a mind-to-mind teaching. It does not depend on ancient texts or the absolute interpretation of words. It depends on fulsome understanding of the deep truths at the core of all Buddhist thinking—impermanence, emptiness, and nirvana. Anything that is consonant with those three truths and conforms to Buddhist morals is good Buddhism. Anything that contradicts those three truths and/or Buddhist morals is not Buddhism.
The Buddha encouraged teaching the Dharma in people’s native languages. He discouraged writing his teachings down because he did not want them to become sacred texts that people worship rather than understand. FIML practice is an efficient, detailed, sound, and accurate way for “good friends” to deeply share mind-to-mind communion/communication with each other. In this sense, it is excellent Buddhist practice. FIML has no other teaching than how to communicate really well with a good friend. FIML does not tell you what to think or believe. Anyone can do it. ABN
The messaging app Telegram has said it will hand over users’ IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities who have search warrants or other valid legal requests.
The change to its terms of service and privacy policy “should discourage criminals”, CEO Pavel Durov said in a Telegram post on Monday.
“While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk,” he continued.
The announcement marks a significant reversal for Mr Durov, the platform’s Russian-born co-founder who was detained by French authorities last month at an airport just north of Paris.
“Telegram’s marketing as a platform that would resist government demands attracted people that wanted to feel safe sharing their political views in places like Russia, Belarus, and the Middle East,” Mr Scott-Railton said.
“Many are now scrutinizing Telegram’s announcement with a basic question in mind: does this mean the platform will start cooperating with authorities in repressive regimes?”
Telegram has not given much clarity on how the company will handle the demands from leaders of such regimes in the future, he added.
Cybersecurity experts say that while Telegram has removed some groups in the past, it has a far weaker system of moderating extremist and illegal content than competing social media companies and messenger apps.
Before the recent policy expansion, Telegram would only supply information on terror suspects, according to 404 Media.
The inhumane treatment of inmates who have been sentenced to death has come under increased scrutiny in Japan, with legal experts criticizing authorities for giving little to no warning of an impending execution and denying those on death row basic human contact.
Japan has no established regulations regarding how much warning an inmate on death row should be given before they are sent to the gallows, but anecdotal evidence shows they were informed the day before at least until the 1970s. Currently, inmates are notified just one or two hours before they are hanged.
Inmates’ contact with anyone other than prison guards is also heavily restricted, with interactions by writing or in person prohibited after rulings are finalized. Previously, inmates were permitted to see family members prior to their executions.
On the evening of December 10, 2018, Michael Kovrig was out for dinner in Beijing with his six-months-pregnant partner, unaware it was the last time he’d enjoy her company for more than two and a half years.
Strolling home, the couple climbed a spiral staircase in front of his apartment building.
“And boom … I come out of the stairs and there’s a dozen men in black, cameras on them, dressed identically, but no … markings, no badges, no nothing, surrounding us, shouting in Chinese, ‘That’s him,'” he told CBC News Chief Correspondent Adrienne Arsenault in an interview airing Monday.
He said a woman stepped forward and held up a piece of paper he wasn’t given a chance to read.
“Apparently in Chinese it had a warrant for my arrest on it,” he said. “They grabbed me. They grabbed my phone so I couldn’t make a call. They pinned my arms.”
The men pulled his partner away from him. His number one concern, he said, was her safety and the safety of their unborn child.
American Buddhist Net 