Vinhos
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Criminality is not a perverted disposition to do evil rather than good. It is merely a childish tendency to take shortcuts. All crime has the nature of a smash and grab raid; it is an attempt to get something for nothing. The thief steals instead of working...
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Strassmann proposed an elegant experiment whereby they would use barium chloride to carry the "parent" radioactive substance out of the irradiated uranium solution. Barium chloride precipitates in perfect crystals which can be relied upon to be clean...
- Crashing The System
On January 15, 1990, AT&T's long-distance telephone switching system crashed. This was a strange, dire, huge event. Sixty thousand people lost their telephone service completely. During the nine long hours of frantic effort that it took to restore...
- As últimas Palavras De Dutch Schutz — Para Separar Garrafas Fotografadas Sobre Fundos Diferentes.
Na noite de 23 de Outubro de 1935, o gangster Dutch Schultz (Arthur Flegenheimer), o seu contabilista Otto "Abbadabba" Berman, e dois guarda-costas, Bernard "Lulu" Rosencrantz e Abe Landau, encontravam-se no interior do Palace Chophouse, em Newark, quando...
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I am sad I feel that the future is hopeless and that things cannot improve I am bored and dissatisfied with everything I am a complete failure as a person I am guilty, I am being punished I would like to kill myself I used to be able to cry but...
Vinhos
NOTHING IS SACRED. Doubt — in everything — is absolutely essential. Everything, no matter how great, how fundamental, how beautiful, or important it is, must be questioned.
It's only when people believe that their beliefs are above questioning, that their beliefs alone are beyond all doubt, that they can be as truly horrible as we all know they can be. Belief is the force behind every evil mankind has ever done. You can't find one truly evil act in human history that was not based on belief — and the stronger their belief, the more evil human beings can be.
Here's one of my beliefs: Everything is sacred. Every blade of grass, every cockroach, every speck of dust, every flower, every pool of mud outside a graffiti-splattered warehouse is God. Everything is a worthy object of worship. If you can't bow down before that putrefying roadkill on I-76, you have no business worshiping leatherbound tomes and marble icons surrounded by stained glass.
And here's one more: Everything is profane. "Saving the planet" is a waste of time and preserving the environment is a waste of energy. Flowers stink and birdsong is irritating noise.
On the other hand, nothing is sacred and nothing is profane. Not even your sorry ass. If we hold anything sacred above anything else — ever — we're riding along in the fast-lane to hell. And by "anything" I mean anything — our family, our friends, our country, our God. We cannot hold any of that stuff any more sacred than anything else we encounter in our lives or we're doomed. I'm not just going for dramatic elocution here. The act of regarding anything at all as more worthy of respect than anything else is the first step down the short and slippery path to the utter annihilation of all mankind.
And what happens if we follow that dangerous path to the end? We've had numerous hints that ought to give us a clue. They linger darkly on in our collective memories: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Final Solution, "9-11". We might even be able to rattle off the dates of these awful events — but the lesson, we haven't yet absorbed. And until we really learn it, kids will keep getting new dates to memorize for history class.
When you hold something sacred, you try to hold that thing apart from the rest of the universe. But this really can't be done. Nothing can be separated from everything else. Red is only red because it's not green or yellow or blue. Heavy metal is heavy metal because it's not polka or barbershop. Nothing in the universe has any inherent existence apart from everything else. Good is only good when contrasted with evil. You are only you because you’re not everyone else. But this kind of separateness isn't really how the universe works.
You cannot possibly honor God if you can't honor every last one of God's manifestations. Killing someone in God's name is ridiculous. If we do that, we are killing God and killing truth.
But what is truth? What is God? How can you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, these lofty ideas?
Truth screams at you from billboard cigarette ads. God sings to you in Muzak® versions of Barry Manilow songs. Truth announces itself when you kick away a discarded bottle of Colt 45 Malt Liquor. Truth rains on you from the sky above, and God forms in puddles at your feet. You eat God and excrete truth four hours later. Take a whiff — what a lovely fragrance the truth has! Truth is reality itself. God is reality itself. Enlightenment, by the way, is reality itself. And here it is.
It's only when people believe that their beliefs are above questioning, that their beliefs alone are beyond all doubt, that they can be as truly horrible as we all know they can be. Belief is the force behind every evil mankind has ever done. You can't find one truly evil act in human history that was not based on belief — and the stronger their belief, the more evil human beings can be.
Here's one of my beliefs: Everything is sacred. Every blade of grass, every cockroach, every speck of dust, every flower, every pool of mud outside a graffiti-splattered warehouse is God. Everything is a worthy object of worship. If you can't bow down before that putrefying roadkill on I-76, you have no business worshiping leatherbound tomes and marble icons surrounded by stained glass.
And here's one more: Everything is profane. "Saving the planet" is a waste of time and preserving the environment is a waste of energy. Flowers stink and birdsong is irritating noise.
On the other hand, nothing is sacred and nothing is profane. Not even your sorry ass. If we hold anything sacred above anything else — ever — we're riding along in the fast-lane to hell. And by "anything" I mean anything — our family, our friends, our country, our God. We cannot hold any of that stuff any more sacred than anything else we encounter in our lives or we're doomed. I'm not just going for dramatic elocution here. The act of regarding anything at all as more worthy of respect than anything else is the first step down the short and slippery path to the utter annihilation of all mankind.
And what happens if we follow that dangerous path to the end? We've had numerous hints that ought to give us a clue. They linger darkly on in our collective memories: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Final Solution, "9-11". We might even be able to rattle off the dates of these awful events — but the lesson, we haven't yet absorbed. And until we really learn it, kids will keep getting new dates to memorize for history class.
When you hold something sacred, you try to hold that thing apart from the rest of the universe. But this really can't be done. Nothing can be separated from everything else. Red is only red because it's not green or yellow or blue. Heavy metal is heavy metal because it's not polka or barbershop. Nothing in the universe has any inherent existence apart from everything else. Good is only good when contrasted with evil. You are only you because you’re not everyone else. But this kind of separateness isn't really how the universe works.
You cannot possibly honor God if you can't honor every last one of God's manifestations. Killing someone in God's name is ridiculous. If we do that, we are killing God and killing truth.
But what is truth? What is God? How can you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, these lofty ideas?
Truth screams at you from billboard cigarette ads. God sings to you in Muzak® versions of Barry Manilow songs. Truth announces itself when you kick away a discarded bottle of Colt 45 Malt Liquor. Truth rains on you from the sky above, and God forms in puddles at your feet. You eat God and excrete truth four hours later. Take a whiff — what a lovely fragrance the truth has! Truth is reality itself. God is reality itself. Enlightenment, by the way, is reality itself. And here it is.
Brad Warner,
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality,
Wisdom Publications, Boston, 1994.
Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality,
Wisdom Publications, Boston, 1994.
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Criminality is not a perverted disposition to do evil rather than good. It is merely a childish tendency to take shortcuts. All crime has the nature of a smash and grab raid; it is an attempt to get something for nothing. The thief steals instead of working...
-
Strassmann proposed an elegant experiment whereby they would use barium chloride to carry the "parent" radioactive substance out of the irradiated uranium solution. Barium chloride precipitates in perfect crystals which can be relied upon to be clean...
- Crashing The System
On January 15, 1990, AT&T's long-distance telephone switching system crashed. This was a strange, dire, huge event. Sixty thousand people lost their telephone service completely. During the nine long hours of frantic effort that it took to restore...
- As últimas Palavras De Dutch Schutz — Para Separar Garrafas Fotografadas Sobre Fundos Diferentes.
Na noite de 23 de Outubro de 1935, o gangster Dutch Schultz (Arthur Flegenheimer), o seu contabilista Otto "Abbadabba" Berman, e dois guarda-costas, Bernard "Lulu" Rosencrantz e Abe Landau, encontravam-se no interior do Palace Chophouse, em Newark, quando...
-
I am sad I feel that the future is hopeless and that things cannot improve I am bored and dissatisfied with everything I am a complete failure as a person I am guilty, I am being punished I would like to kill myself I used to be able to cry but...