A fascinating hour-long interview with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as they outline the backstory to the Israel-Hamas peace agreement in Gaza.
During a segment (prompted below) Witkoff and Kushner are outlining the step-by-step process as they engaged the leaders of Qatar, Turkey and Egypt. Witkoff reveals how the CIA was briefing them both, multiple times a day, and the briefing itself was exactly the opposite of what Emir of Qatar and Presidents of Turkey and Egypt were telling them. The CIA intelligence was the exact opposite of reality. WATCH:
What they are describing is EXACTLY why we outlined how ‘outside govt’ emissaries were/are vitally necessary to work around the control agenda of the U.S. Intelligence Community. This small example is stunning in magnitude when considered around the importance of the moment.
On a positive note, with Witkoff making this stunning public statement, we can now add a major datapoint to President Trump’s reference of NOT TRUSTING the CIA. Combined with the previous assertions of Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard on essentially the same level of outlook, this example of the CIA getting it wrong (misleading the administration) has long-range ramifications beyond the Hamas example.
With this backdrop for reference, surely now we can have an optimistic sense that President Trump doesn’t trust the CIA intelligence on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The two men tasked with getting Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire have revealed what it took to get Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize to Qatari officials for a deadly attack on Hamas targets in the country.
Donald Trump‘s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff told how the American President was left furious by the surprise attack on Doha on September 9, which he feared could derail peace talks as lead Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya’s son was among those killed.
They noted that Trump was oblivious to the Israeli prime minister’s plan to strike Doha and they ‘felt betrayed’ by the attack.
‘I think he felt like the Israelis were getting a little bit out of control,’ Kushner said. ‘It was time to be very strong and stop them from doing things that he felt were not in their long term interest.’
‘The apology needed to happen,’ Witkoff said. ‘We were not moving forward without the apology and the president said to [Netanyahu], “People apologize.”‘
‘It was the linchpin that got us to the next place,’ he added. ‘It was really, really important that it happened.’
Trump then held the phone for Netanyahu on September 29 as he read a scripted apology to Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani from the Oval Office.
The President also gave Qatar a new security guarantee – and even allowed Kushner and Witkoff to speak directly with Hamas officials, despite the United States designating the group as a terrorist organization.
The new revelations came as Trump responded to claims that Hamas has once again started firing at Israeli targets.
FIML practice first generates and then depends upon clear communication between partners.
When clear communication is established, FIML increases mental clarity and positive feelings. Another way of saying this is FIML practice reduces both mental confusion and neurotic feelings.
Thus, FIML can be fairly easily explained or understood by referring to these three basic outcomes:
clear communication
elevated or enhanced mental clarity
increased positive feelings
Stated in the negative, these same three basic outcomes of FIML practice are:
elimination of communication blockages
reduction or elimination of metal confusion
reduction or elimination of neurotic feelings
FIML practice does not emphasize a difference between private confusion (neurosis) and public confusion (irrational semiotics of a culture or society). We do recognize that there is a difference between the public and the private, but this difference lies on a continuum: a private neurosis is often shaped by cultural semiotics while cultural semiotics are often grounded in the neurotic feelings of many individuals.
A good deal of psychological reasoning today is based on what is “normal”, what “most people feel”, and/or what deviates from that or interferes with an individual’s ability to function within “normal” ranges. FIML recognizes social norms, but partners are not asked to judge themselves on that basis. Nor are partners encouraged to label themselves with psychological terms. Rather, partners are encouraged (and shown how) to discover for themselves how to understand themselves based the three outcomes described above. We are confident that the high ethical standards required to do FIML successfully will show partners with great clarity that sound ethics are essential to human fulfillment.
FIML is a liberative practice because it frees partners from mental confusion, emotional suffering, and the hardships of unsatisfying communication. Since FIML works with real data agreed upon by both partners it avoids idealism and wishful-thinking.
FIML enhances traditional Buddhist practices because it allows partners to share their introspections while checking each others’ work. When we speak an inner truth to someone who we know will understand and who cares about us, that inner truth will deepen and benefit both partners. Based on the three outcomes described above, FIML partners will be able to create a sort of subculture of their own founded on standards that they both (all) find fulfilling and right.
In most of our descriptions of FIML, we have tried to use ordinary words while providing clear definitions of them if they have a special meaning in the context of FIML. One word that is especially important is neurosis. By this term, we mean “mistaken interpretation” or “ongoing mistaken interpretation.” We use the word this way because it is a basic tenet of FIML that most, if not all, mental and emotional suffering is generated by communication errors. We proudly use the words error, mistake, wrong, erroneous, incorrect and so on when describing communication problems because communication problems almost always are grounded in mistakes: someone heard wrong, interpreted wrongly, spoke wrongly, and so on. FIML practice shows partners how to identify and correct these mistakes the moment they appear, thus forestalling the generation or perdurance of full-blown neurosis.
FIML is less concerned with long explanations about the past and more concerned with the dynamic moment during which partners communicate and react to each other based on real data that can be retrieved and agreed upon by both of them. The mental and emotional clarity that results from this practice is highly rewarding and within the reach of most people with the basic necessary conditions–a trusted partner, enough time to do the practice, mutual caring.
China’s first heavyweight attack helicopter the Z-20T, which was developed to complement the Z-10, has been featured in flight demonstrations at the 7th China Helicopter Exposition in Tianjin.
The new aircraft made its first public appearance during a military parade on September 3, and combines an airlift capability with integrated firepower in a single airframe.
The manoeuvres performed included including hovering turns and O-shaped landings, which highlighted the aircraft’s applicability in a number of real-world combat operations. Elaborating on the Z-20T’s role, deputy chief designer at the China Helicopter Research and Development Institute Zhu Minfeng said it was designed to “assault transport and airlift operations in mountainous, forested, and urban areas,” and was able to “strike high-value enemy targets, counter both ground and aerial threats in plain and plateau regions, and provide fire support for ground forces.”
If we consider spoken language as a complex linear system, we will be able to use it as a pretty good standard for understanding individual psychology as well as interpersonal communication.
All words have words associated with them. Though we all share many of the same word-associations (coffee/beverage; booze/drunk; etc.), we also all have an abundance of word associations that belong only to us. I suppose this is fairly obvious, though I am not so sure it is well enough appreciated.
For example, we all know that coffee is a beverage and that booze can make people drunk, but beyond that each one of us has many other associations connected with these words, unique associations which have been gathered through years of experience. You may have pleasant associations with coffee and unpleasant ones with booze, or it could be the other way around. You may visualize the Caribbean when you think of either of these words, or Alaska. As the associations become richer and get further from the word which generated them, the psycholinguistic network they create will become increasingly complex.
If we could put diagrams of these associative networks on paper–including all of the images and feelings which go with them–I am sure that each person would be uniquely identifiable from just a few of them, in much the same way that we can be identified from our fingerprints. No two of us are alike in how we use and understand language.
The ways in which words, phrases, word-associations, gestures, tones of voice, expressions, dramatic poses, and so on strike each one of us are unique. This point is more than touched upon by an Emory University study, Metaphorically feeling: Comprehending textural metaphors activates somatosensory cortex, which demonstrates that “texture-selective somatosensory cortex in the parietal operculum is activated when processing sentences containing textural metaphors.”
What this means is that when people hear a tactile metaphor (soft as silk), the brain responds, at least in part, as if the person is feeling silk. I would contend that this and similar sorts of extended responses within the brain (and body) are a huge part of virtually all interpersonal communication. In this context, what FIML does is allow partners to access these deep associations and sort them out rationally without becoming lost in different associative versions of the “same” linguistic event.
FIML does not have to always depend on language, but it helps to bring it back to the actual words spoken as much as possible because the other sorts of associations and emotions that are generated during speech events are simply too complex to sort out without a stable reference point most of the time. Actual short bits of speech provide partners with the best data that both can readily agree upon. The many associations connected to that short segment of speech are often a big part of the material of an extended FIML discussion.
Donald Trump felt ‘betrayed’ by Israel’s surprise attack on Qatar, sparking a major decision that led to a historic peace deal and secured the release of Israeli hostages.
The strikes forced the Hamas leaders ‘underground’, abruptly halting talks that Trump’s team had been holding with negotiators just one day prior, the pair told CBS’s 60 Minutes.
‘We woke up the next morning to find out there had been this attack,’ Witkoff said.
It marked the first crack in a relationship that was seen as unbreakable – Trump’s decades-long friendship with Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu that had defined his Middle East policy since the first administration.
The White House was oblivious to the Israeli prime minister’s plans to strike Doha, Witkoff explained, and said he and Kushner ‘felt betrayed’ by the attack.
Section three has been added to the Diamond Sutra. A link to the sutra can be found at the top of this page or here.
Kumarajiva’s translation of the Diamond Sutra was divided into thirty-two sections by Prince Zhaoming of the Liang Dynasty (502-587). The sutra has been divided in different ways by others, but the Zhaoming division has remained the most widely used to this day. The titles of the sections are also his.
Section Three is called “The Heart of the Mahayana” because it contains the basic Mahayana vow to help all sentient beings attain enlightenment. In a word, to “save” them. The version and explanation of the vow in this section is the “heart,” or deepest explanation of the vow, because it includes both the helping part and the empty part.
As the Buddha says in this section, “All great bodhisattvas…should realize as they vow to save all sentient beings that in truth there are no sentient beings to be saved.”
This is both an answer to Subhuti’s question and a rephrasing of it. In the last paragraph of this section, the Buddha answers with more detail: “Subhuti, if a bodhisattva has laksana of self, laksana of human beings, laksana of sentient beings, or laksana of a soul, then he is not a bodhisattva.”
Laksana is a Sanskrit word meaning “characteristic,” “mark,” “symptom,” or “mental thing (dharma).” It is often translated as “characteristic,” “mark,” “thought,” or “idea.”
The basic meaning of laksana is “dharma of the mind” or “thing of the mind.” Thus, if a bodhisattva has any “thing at all in their mind about there being selves, human beings, sentient beings, or souls” when they are generous, they are not truly a bodhisattva. This describes the ultimate selflessness of self and other.
In this translation, the word “soul” has been used. A more literal translation would be an entity that “takes rebirth” or lives after this body is gone.
Word choices are fascinating and need to be discussed, but to avoid getting lost in them, it is best to remember that in this section, the Buddha is categorically saying that no matter what kind of sentient being you can conceive of, in truth, there are no sentient beings, there is no saving them, and if a bodhisattva has an iota of a sense that they are doing that or that they have a self, then they are not truly a bodhisattva.
In other posts we have discussed fractals in the humanities. This concept may help in understanding the meaning of this section and in glimpsing the meaning of the sutra itself. Surely all of us at one time or another have acted with a pure heart and a pure mind to give to or help another with no thought of ourselves or even of them. For at least a moment we dwelt within a pure state of mind and feeling that was utterly selfless, sublime.
Rather than say that state is the Diamond Sutra, let’s say that it is a state that points toward the meaning of the sutra. That state is a small fractal of the larger fractal set described by the sutra. Altruistic consciousness freed from the marks self, other, calculation, design.
NOTE: My original intention was to post the entire sutra and do commentaries on each section within six months or one year. I have not been able to do that due to other commitments and interests but may go for it at some point. The Diamond Sutra is a beautiful work of literature and an important text for Buddhist practitioners. It would be good if everyone were exposed to it and at least had some sense of what it means. ABN
Despite the intuition that strongly held beliefs are particularly difficult to change, the data on error correction indicate that general information errors that people commit with a high degree of belief are especially easy to correct.(Emphasis added.)
According to the study, this happens due to:
…enhanced attention and encoding that results from a metacognitive mismatch between the person’s confidence in their responses and the true answer.
This is exactly what happens when a FIML query shows the questioner that his/her assumptions about what their partner’s thoughts or intentions were, were wrong.
Initially, FIML partners may experience some embarrassment or disbelief at being wrong. But since FIML queries are generally based on negative impressions, after some practice being shown to be wrong will typically produce feelings of relief and even delight.
A FIML query will generally arise out of a state of “enhanced attention” and usually further increase it by being spoken about. Incidentally, this is probably the most difficult aspect of FIML practice—controlling the emotions that accompany enhanced attention, especially when that attention concerns our own emotional reactions.
With continued practice of FIML, however, even strongly held erroneous interpersonal beliefs will be fairly easily corrected whenever they are discovered during a FIML discussion. Correcting core false beliefs (mistaken interpretations) has a wide-ranging, beneficial effect on all aspects of a person’s life.
Since the hypercorrection effect discussed in the linked study only occurs during moments of enhanced attention, the FIML technique of focusing quickly on good data agreed upon by both partners can be seen as a way of inducing states of enhanced attention that will lead to deep changes in both partners. This technique (using good data) also turns the discussion from one about feelings to one about “information,” which the study finds makes errors “especially easy to correct.”
Furthermore, since FIML practice tends to deal with very small incidents, the enhanced attention FIML induces works like a laser that quickly and painlessly excises erroneous thoughts and feelings while they are still small and have not been allowed to grow into full-blown emotional reactions.
As the world’s leading superpower, we face malign state actors that deliberately engage in non-economic—or even counter-economic—activities.
By “economic,” I mean commerce in which sales prices actually exceed costs of goods sold.
To stop China from gutting entire manufacturing verticals such as steel, aluminum, and pharmaceutical APIs, we must implement strategic price floors and off-take agreements in industries essential to our national security.
Public-private partnerships are the best way to mobilize America’s brightest minds and boldest innovators.
In other sectors—like advanced semiconductors—we must end the self-defeating practice of helping our adversaries modernize their militaries with our own technology.
The biggest problem with revealing 2020 election fraud, is the consequences.
That said, the competence of the United States government, and indeed our constitutional republic itself, is weakened without a full public airing of the fraud.
The White House has hired Stop The Steal lawyer Kurt Olsen as a ‘Special Govt Employee,’ The Wall Street Journal (Rupert Murdoch) is going bananas:
(WSJ) – “Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who unsuccessfully pushed claims of voter fraud, has joined the administration as a “special government employee,” some of the people said. The appointment gives Olsen 130 days to work from within the White House without giving up any private business interests. He is talking directly with President Trump, the people said.
Trump asked Olsen to join the administration to work on election issues important to him, a senior administration official said. Olsen started his job in the past month, some of the people said, and has told others he wants to examine election machines.
Olsen has begun asking intelligence agencies for information about the 2020 election, the officials said. Olsen has told others he also wants to weed out some government employees who he believes are disloyal to Trump.
Representatives for the White House and Justice Department declined to comment, and Olsen didn’t respond to requests for comment.” (read more)
American Buddhist Net 