Sam’s free flowing word rhythm concoction

Sam has surpassed a verbal milestone and is now putting words together.  For example, walking to the dining room (unlike most people our dining room is an entirely different building, proof of our life of luxury) we passed his cousin, Laura’s, car.  The entire dialogue at breakfast consisted of  ”Lala ca.” Marti and I were so excited (for the first 15 minutes of the repetition) that Sam was able to recognize ownership.  This was such a rookie parent mistake.  How American of us to rejoice in Sam’s ability to understand personal ownership.  And when personal ownership is developed, their is only one word to sum up the feeling: Mine!  Yes, Sam has begun saying “mine.”  More like “My,” but the glimmer in his eye causes me to step back and wonder, “Who are you?  What have you done with Sam?”  And then he smiles and I relax.  I know that mine is only going to get much worse.  Our kids are really kind at letting us enter the deep end slowly.  At least Sam is good at that.

But let us not complain.  Sam can also say “Obama,” “Yes we can,” and “Yes we did.” Just joking.  But I am excited that Sam is going to come into consciousness with him as our president.  The countries first black president will be Sam’s first period.  He will have such a different take on it than me. Perhaps Sam’s big first will be a female president, prefereably of the progressive persuasion.  Anyway, what else is Sam saying?  He told mom the other morning that he pooped his pants and was quite disgusted by it (those who have heard it, imagine Sam’s throat scratching sound in fast forward). Again, we were so excited.  Hasn’t happened again, but I am such a proud father.  I can hold my head up at the park, look other parents in the eye, and say, “My son knows when he shits on himself.  Isn’t he amazing?”  In the mornings now, after Marti has gone to the office (about the Sam distance from home as our dining room) Sam asks, “Momma?”  I answer him, “Momma’s at work.”  He replies, “Truck.”  I agree with him.  He has caught mom taking the LMB truck to the office instead of walking.  He likes to point out when we are cheating.  And he has a lot to point out.

Got Hope?

The Doctor, the Medicine, the Potential

My dad posted a reply to my previous post asking for more information on what the Buddhist practice of refuge is.  I can give some ideas but my experience of refuge is limited and recently felt on a any level beyond superficial, and was aroused only due to the kindness of Yangsi Rinpoche.  With that being said, I offer my completely misconstrued concept and practice of refuge.

The best explanation I’ve heard of refuge is a medical one.  When you are ill (suffering mental afflictions) you go to the doctor (the Buddha) for a prescription (the dharma) that you must take to get better.  You are supported in your recovery by those who are healthy and loving (the Sangha).  So in order to go for refuge you have to understand two things:  1) you are ill or suffering and 2) that you have the potential to be free of the illness/suffering.  What Rinpoche helped me understand last week was the latter.

The question may arise, what is meant by suffering?  In the Buddhist context, we are not talking solely about physical or emotional discomfort, although these are included.  But they have there roots in a much deeper cause of suffering: ignorance, or misunderstanding how we and the world exist.  This misunderstanding is said to keep us imprisoned in our own destructive emotions, thoughts, habits, and patterns, in constant search of safety, security, comfort, and pleasure from something outside of us.  Some of those external things may be able to provide temporary pleasure and security, but in the end even the Buddha can not save oneself.  He is there to show you how to do it, much like a doctor to a patient.  Ultimately, it is the patient herself that is responsible for making sure that the medicine is taken, that takes the appropriate measures to heal. 

There are two types of faith involved in going for refuge.  There is faith in the
Buddha, that he has the qualifications to prescribe an end to suffering.  This is like having faith in ones doctor and requires checking his qualifications, asking questions, talking with others.  Just as a person would not go to just anyone who calls herself a Doctor.  Usually we ask friends, check the doctor’s credentials, look the doctor up online.  In the same way, one should check the Buddha through researching his teachings and asking LOTS of questions.  Then if the teachings seem to make sense one can, with some degree of faith, take refuge in the Buddha. 

The other faith one needs is the faith in oneself, that ones mind can transform into something wise, kind, and blissful.  I personally find this one most difficult, and it has been an obstacle for me in developing faith in the Buddha.  If I don’t have faith in my own ability to transform, how could I have faith in another’s ability?  For me, this is how refuge has slowly percolated down from my oversized crown into my doubting heart, giving it a splash of seeing the possible within myself and others.  With this grain of faith in the mind/hearts ability to change, I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.

Rinpoche’s Inspiration

This past week Yangsi Rinpoche visited our The Land of Medicine Buddha.  Wow!  What an amazing being.  Not only is he the President of Maitripa College, but I would consider this his smallest accomplishment.  Not that he cares about my ranking of his accomplishments.  I would consider the absolute digestion of the dharma into his being and the inspiration which that provides as his most powerful quality.

Of course, being around Rinpoche reflects for me how out of control my mind is.  Rinpoche is calm, centered, his wisdom does not weigh him down but seems to be a cause for his lightness of being, a cause for his curiosity and laughter.  Even more amazing is the fact that while he shows me my own crazies, he also is a living example of how the crazies can be overcome.  According to Buddhism, Rinpoche (and the Buddha, for that matter) was as crazy as me, but through the application of the dharma (the best medication for crazies) he was able to slowly realize the ultimate reality of hmself and his mind.  And man, when you relaize that, you can be so spontanious and responsive to the needs of those around you and that is what Rinoche was like during his teachings.  He was chastising himself for not being able to stay on topic, for constantly leaving the root text, but he did it with such gentleness, such laughter, not like the catholic school teacher I keep with me in my head.  This was my third teaching with Rinpoche, and it was by far the most powerful for me.  Not so much the words.  The teachings themselves were extremely difficult and I retained perhaps a few ideas. But beign around Rinpoche was the biggest shot of inspiration I have had in years.

Not since all of the time we spent with our absolutely amazing, hugely kind, wisely humble, friend Yeshi Dorjee (see image) have I felt such inspiration. One of the few things I actually remember Rinpoche talking about was the question:  “Is refuge a choice, a decision, or an inspiration?”  In my head I decided that it was a choice.  But Rinpoche said that refuge is about inspiration. I sat on that for a while, not necessarily agreeing with him.  Refuge had felt more like a burden, a choice I made that I need to stay committed to.  Sort of like the burden I felt as a kid when I accpeted Christ as my saviour.  Now I can’t have a fun life because of this choice I made.  This was my understanding of refuge. I now have a little understanding of what Rinpoche was saying.  Being around him gave me the faith for myself to change, to open up, to, as the buddhists say, subdue my mind. Taking refuge in Rinpoche not only means taking refuge in his realization but also in the fact that he was at one time a crazy, that he applied the medicine and overcame his crazy with the help of others along the way.  The fact that this process works, that I can experience if at least through others, gives me inspiration for my practice.  Rinpoche, you are so brilliant.  Thank you.  Namo gurubye!

Throwing Trucks

It is not okay to throw trucks.  I don’t care if we are talking about full-sized SUVs or Sam’s play trucks.  It is especially not okay to throw trucks at other people.  Well, try telling that to a little person who has a vocabulary of 10-15 words, at most, and who is lacking the ability to put most of those words together, besides the two: “More truck.”  And this little person (I will not name names) does not know what “throw” means.  So you can not tell him “No throw,” or actually you can repeat it over and over like a mantra and he just sort of stairs at you like you are weird, which you maybe.  This is one of those experiences of complete unknowing as a parent.  I know that if I throw it and say “No” he-who-shall-not-be-named will think dad is the best person ever because I just invented a game called “Throw truck NO!”  Also known as schizophrenia.   Here’s what I did.

I took the truck away and told him he could not have the truck because he threw at me and mom (repeatedly).  I think all he got out of that sentence was “No truck mom dad.”  He kept pointing at the truck going “More truck more truck more truck more truck.” You see how crazy it can make you?  You probably didn’t even read the last one.  I don’t have that luxury; that sentence lives in my house. Finally I said in my best stern voice, “Sam, no truck.”  So he walks away from me, picks up one of his shoes, and yells at it in his best impersonation, “No No!”  His whole body is into it, thrusting forward and backward.  I’m thinking, is this really what I look like?  Marti’s hands are over her face, failing at hiding her laughter.  I’m left feeling impotent.  Yes, impotent.  Limp.  Powerless.  I am consciously equating power with penis because, as my dad once said to me when I was a teenager, “It’s like your kicking me in the balls!”  I’m sorry dad.  While Sam has not kicked me in the balls, he has laughed at the size of my penis (power).  If power is a skyscraper, at that moment I was a basement.  And while it did create some comedy, I am left wondering how to not get involved in the power struggles (as well as how not to equate the penis with power) with Sam.  How do I get him to stop throwing his vehicle at people without a) cutting off his arms, b) starting a toxic bonfire of all potentially lethal toys Sam may throw at us one day, or c) having a relationship with him that revolves around raised voices, slammed doors, bruised balls, and patriarchal notions of authority and power?  Parenting: such simple questions.

Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats’ Bailout Betrayal

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AP photo / Susan Walsh

Rep. Dennis Kucinich does bailout battle in the halls of Congress.

from truthdig.com

By Chris Hedges

The passing of the $850-billion bailout pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was murdered by the Democratic Party.

We are on our own. And don’t expect any
help from Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who lobbied hard for the bill and
voted for it. Ignore their rhetoric. Look coldly at the ballots they
cast against us. We, as citizens, have only a handful of
representatives left in Washington, most of whom were left sputtering
in rage and frustration on the House floor. The sad irony is that some
of them were Republican.

“This was the largest single act of class warfare in the modern history of this country,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich,
D-Ohio, who led the fight in the House against the bailout, told me by
phone from Cleveland. “It is a direct attack on the American people’s
ability to be able to stabilize their homes and their neighborhoods.
This single vote will define the careers of everyone. We are back to
taxation without representation, to markets that are openly rigged.”

“We buried the New Deal,” he said of the
vote. “Instead of Democrats going back to classic New Deal economics
where we prime the pump of the economy and start money circulating
among the population through saving homes, creating jobs and building a
new infrastructure, our leaders chose to accelerate the wealth of the
nation upwards. They did so in a way that was destructive of
free-market principles. They ripped away all the familiar moorings. We
are in an uncharted sea where the traditional roles of the political
parties are being switched. The Democrats have unfortunately become so
enamored and beholden to Wall Street that we are not functioning to
defend the economic interest of the broad base of the American people.
It was up to the Republicans to protect not just a so-called free
market but the American taxpayer and attempt to block this. This is an
outrage. This was democracy’s Black Friday.”

Obama arrived on the Senate floor
Brutus-like to thrust a knife into the back of the working and middle
class. He lobbied hard for the bill. He did so, according to some who
met with him on Capitol Hill, because he feared that if he opposed the
bailout and it triggered a market collapse it could cost him the
election. Better to placate the thieves on Wall Street than stand up
for the masses of enraged and swindled citizens.

Obama’s betrayal is the betrayal of the Democratic Party. The Democrats gave us the Financial Services Modernization Act
of 1999, which ripped down the firewalls that were put in place by the
1933 Glass-Steagall Act. The 1933 act, designed to prevent the kind of
meltdown we are now experiencing, established the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp. (FDIC). It set in place banking reforms to stop
speculators from hijacking the financial system. With Glass-Steagall
demolished, and the passage of NAFTA, the Democrats, led by Bill
Clinton, tumbled gleefully into bed with corporations and Wall Street
speculators. They achieved fundraising parity with the Republicans.
They used institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a welfare
gravy train. The Democrats, including Obama, are as compromised as the
Republicans.

Obama’s voting record in the Senate is in
line with the corrupt Democratic mainstream, including Biden, who works
on behalf of corporations and especially the credit card industry.
Obama knows where power lies in the United States. It is not with the
citizens, who with ratios of 100 to 1 pleaded with their
representatives in Washington not to loot the national treasury to bail
out Wall Street investment firms. Power lies with the corporations.
These corporations, not us, pick who runs for president. You cannot be
a candidate without their blessing and money. These corporations,
including the Commission on Presidential Debates, a private
corporation, determine who gets to speak and what issues candidates can
or cannot challenge, from universal, not-for-profit, single-payer
health care to Wall Street bailouts to NAFTA. If you do not follow the
corporate script you become as marginal and invisible as Ralph Nader or Bob Barr or Cynthia McKinney.

Obama has always served his corporate
masters. He opposed Rep. John Murtha’s call for immediate withdrawal
from Iraq and supported continued funding for the war. He voted in July
2005 to reauthorize the Patriot Act. He did not support an amendment
that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card
interest rates at 30 percent. He opposed a bill that would have
reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872, which allows mineral
companies to rape federal land for profit. He did not back the
single-payer health care bill HR 676,
sponsored by Kucinich and John Conyers. He advocates the death penalty
and nuclear power. He backed the class-action “reform” bill—the Class
Action Fairness Act (CAFA)—that was part of a large lobbying effort by
financial firms, which make up Obama’s second-biggest single bloc of
donors. CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to
hear most class-action lawsuits. Workers, under CAFA, would no longer
have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of
defying powerful corporations. CAFA moves these cases into
corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges.

Obama’s support for the bailout, however,
is his most egregious betrayal. He had a brief, shining moment to prove
he could lead, to capitalize on a popular revolt that cut across the
political spectrum. He never attempted to address or mobilize the
aspirations and passions of the vast majority of Americans. He was as
craven, servile and cowardly as the party he represents. He returned to
the campaign trail after Friday’s vote as a slick and polished sales
representative for our corporate state, telling us to calm down and
accept the inevitable.

“Some of the most powerful speeches
against this were given by members of the Republican Party who are on
the political right,” Kucinich said. “They did a superb job in poking
holes in the underlying assumptions of the bailout. They say what they
believe. Give me somebody who says what they believe and I can figure
out how to get them to a new place. When people say one thing and do
another it is very hard to be able to move a debate.”

So let us honor, in our moment of defeat,
the handful of elected officials who valiantly defied their party
leaderships in the House to stage a remarkable revolt that at first
succeeded. Kucinich is one. There were others—Brad Sherman, Marcy
Kaptur, Peter DeFazio, Lloyd Doggett and Robert C. “Bobby” Scott. They
are about all that is left of the old Democratic Party, the party that
once looked out for the poor and the working class. Send them a note of
thanks. They deserve it. And if you live in their districts make sure
you get to the polls in November. They did not sell you out.

“We had two take-it-or-leave-it
propositions and the second one was worse than the first,” Kucinich
said, referring to the plan that came loaded with pages of tax cuts.
“Tax cuts are antithetical to a bailout. We never solved the problem.
There were never any hearings on the bill. This premise, that we could
prop up the stock market with a $700-billion investment and create some
liquidity, was flawed. The problem is that banks do not want to loan to
each other. It is not a liquidity problem. Banks are afraid they are
going to collapse in short selling. There is a war going on between
security firms and banks. Banks are under assault. They are not
loaning. The dynamic is driven by the Accounting Standards Board, the
Securities and Exchange Commission and the Fed.”

The root of the financial crisis, as
critics of the bailout plan point out, is that millions of homeowners
cannot pay their mortgages. The bailout, as the market decline on
Friday following the vote illustrated, does not address the crisis. It
solves nothing for the 10 million Americans who face foreclosure. It
solves nothing for the growing numbers of unemployed and underemployed.
It may well be the equivalent of tossing $850 billion of taxpayer money
(including $150 billion in tax cuts) into a furnace and watching
passively as our economy continues its plunge.

“We face a perfect financial storm,”
Kucinich warned. “The elements are the deficit spending for the war of
3 to 4 trillion dollars, the trillion and more tax cuts, the war itself
and the lack of serious investment in the country. We are being
hollowed out. We are going to see more unemployment and more people
losing their homes. With $700 billion we could have made a real
investment in the country, in jobs, in infrastructure and in homes.
Instead, we got robbed.”

Joe Bidden is a Father

Thank you, Joe Bidden.  It was quite unexpected.  You see, I am not crazy about you.  I don’t hate you; it’s just that you are such a politician.  But during Thursday’s debate I got to see a different side of you, for a moment, and that was Joe Bidden the father. I want to thank you for pointing out to Mrs. Palin the sexism within which she was operating.  The sexism that says that men do not know how to raise a family, to nurture a loved one, or the enormous weight of raising children.  And you called her on it, on the implication that because you are a man you do not know these things.  Not only did you point them out verbally, but you allowed your heart to get involved.  Perhaps this was staged.  If so, it was a gamble.  One that I am thankful for.  I wish you would promote male nurturance, selflessness, and vulnerability more.  But on the other hand,I have never voted for someone who has won.  So don’t listen to me.

The Bailout Revolution

from truthdig.com

Boston Tea Party, 2008

AP photo / Henny Ray Abrams

A statue of George Washington on the steps of Federal Hall overlooks the New York Stock Exchange.

By Robert Scheer

How dare you throw that tea into Boston Harbor! Such is the anti-democratic arrogance of the fear-mongering pundits and politicians who tell us if we taxpayers don’t instantly give the Wall Street banking bandits a $700-billion bailout, we are destroying America. Instead of applauding representatives from both parties who, for once, heeded the public rather than the fat cats, the established pundits blasted those who dared get out of line.

It was a time for some of the best commentators to fail and, as much as I hate to admit it, for Lou Dobbs, and even Newt Gingrich, to shine. Dobbs called it correctly: The sky is not falling, there is time for reasoned debate, and why isn’t the public being listened to? Gingrich put it best when he said short-circuiting serious congressional oversight over an enormous transfer of taxpayer dollars to an industry is “un-American.” Others, with whom I typically am in far greater agreement, just rolled over to give the bankers what they demanded.

“When Madmen Reign” was the headline on a column by Bob Herbert in The New York Times that absolves the Democrats from any responsibility for the crisis despite a willingness of their party’s leadership in the past to vote for key legislation proposed by what Herbert condemns as the “anti-regulation, free market zealots” of the Republican Party. Both parties betrayed the principles of a true free market—remember Adam Smith’s invisible hand, under which no market player could unilaterally set price?—in favor of the concentrated power of oligopoly to control everything.

Those Republicans who dared to vote, this time, against the demands of the Wall Street power brokers were derided by New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks as engaging in the “Revolt of the Nihilists.” While suddenly embracing President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal as the positive alternative to nihilistic behavior, Brooks ignored Roosevelt’s main achievement, which was to put the public interest before that of the Wall Street titans.

Wasn’t it nihilistic when Congress, led by Republicans but supported by key Democrats, including then-President Bill Clinton, shredded the protections put into place by Roosevelt to control an ever-avaricious banking industry?

Anyone who has bothered to study that history knows that Sen. John McCain was deeply involved in the push for rampant deregulation, and his choice of former Senate Banking Committee Chairman Phil Gramm, the principal author of the decisive deregulation legislation, to co-chair the McCain presidential campaign mocks McCain’s attempt to blame the crisis on everyone but himself.

The Democrats, however, also are culpable, and it was sickening to watch Clinton on “The Daily Show” getting away with blaming a crisis he helped create on overexcited home purchasers. I don’t blame “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart for not knowing enough about the subject to challenge Clinton on his own fervent support of deregulation, but it is disappointing that Paul Krugman, an economist and one of the nation’s sharpest commentators, should also miss that point. Indeed, in his column for The New York Times castigating McCain for his connection to Gramm, Krugman said voters should be reassured that Barack Obama has Clinton’s treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, to turn to for advice on how to handle this mess.

Rubin, the former head of Goldman Sachs, worked as hard as Gramm to pass the legislation his Wall Street buddies wanted. Rubin then returned to Wall Street as a honcho at Citigroup, the first company to successfully exploit the new legislation’s nefarious loopholes. As for his insight, it was as recently as January of this year that Rubin termed the financial meltdown a normal phase of the business cycle.

Back in the spring, two months after Rubin’s “what, me worry?” silliness on the economy, Obama gave a brilliant speech on Wall Street’s problems at the same venue, Manhattan’s Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, in which he singled out as central to the problem the legislation that Rubin had gotten Clinton to sign.

Obama should stick with the wisdom of a community organizer from the tough side of Chicago: Fight the bankers who swindle unsuspecting homeowners, and restore the bailout provision that Democratic leaders had proposed but then abandoned—stopping the home foreclosures by empowering bankruptcy court judges to force a renegotiation of terms.

Any bailout worthy of support should put endangered homeowners first, not the bankers who swindled them.

Robert Scheer is author of a new book, “The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America.”

Getting Personal on the Bailout

I went to my sister’s wedding over the weekend.  The wedding was in Bakersfield, California, one of the places hit hardest by the mortgage debacle.  She is marrying a fine man, he’s 6′4″ with an excellent outside jumper, but even more important he loves my sister and adores her children.  Jordyn, my sister’s three year old, all ready calls him daddy.  Brad also happens to work for one of the biggest home builders in the city.

The night before the wedding I asked him how his job was being affected by all the market chaos.  He told me he’d had to layoff two people, assuming there responsibilities.  They were not random employees (not that that would make it better); they were close friends of his.  While Brad seems confident about his job, I worry about him and my sister.

Brad is also a homeowner; a homeowner who is trying to sell his monolith of a home before his mortgage goes haywire in two-and-a-half years.  This surprised me.  We here all kinds of talk of lower class, poor people being the ones taking out the mortgages.  I think we assume that they got duped because they are poor and they don’t know how to handle money.  But Brad said that that was the only lone he could get, perhaps because he was a first time buyer.  I don’t know.  My nose is already big enough; I didn’t need to stick it in any further.  Brad says that there are people who interested in buying but no banks want to loan them money.  I worry about them. 

So why did I cheer when I heard that the House of Representatives didn’t pass the bailout this morning?  Wouldn’t it have freed up more money so that the banks could start loaning again?  Wouldn’t it have helped Brad and Molly in the future?  I have no idea.  Perhaps.  But that is the people’s money and should be coming back to the people if anyone.  How many people could stay within there homes with $700 Billion?  How many people could get into a new home with a low-interest rate govt guaranteed loan, not unlike student loans? 

I want my sister and Brad to be able to sell there home, or stay if they like.  But why do we need to go through the middle man (the banks) in order for some money to trickle down to them?  Why not give it to them and let it trickle up?

Old School: Putting the Ego on a Diet

The time where I must decided if I am returning back to school next semester has snuck up on me, like fall, like daylight savings time coming to an end and not realizing it until I arrive an hour late to work.  This has never happened to me before and I hope by using it as a metaphor I do not do it this year.  This past week, while talking to my cousin on the phone, I realized, “Oh shit! I need to figure this out.” So here ’s what I am thinking, at this moment on this day (in other words, don’t hold me to any of this as of sunrise tomorrow).

1. When I started going to school I was a simple bookstore employee and a darling of a husband, but I was not a father or responsible for the operations of Land of Medicine Buddha (LMB).  I do not believe I am capable of going to school and continuing being Operations Manager at LMB.  I mean, sure I am capable. But I am also capable of being very grumpy, developing ulsers, and being a father from a distance.  Is this what I really want to do?  What’s the harm in giving up the operations position?  I am learning a lot, both vocationally and spiritually, in my position.  I am being challenged and am having to take more responsibility than I find comfortable.  The latter is a good thing, if not enjoyable, like those weights people put on their ankles to help them lose weight.  My job is an ankle weight as I try and shrink the weight of my ego.  However, school would give me a BA, something that can make me more employable in the future.  Did I really just say that?  Sometimes the responsibility thing gets taken too far.  Advantage: No School.
2. Sam.  I have a really ideal position right now in that I get to spend mornings with him, pretty much everyday. I love our time together and Sam will never be this age again (so I am told).  However, if I get my ass back to school I may not get as much time with him, but I may be able to get a better job in the future that will allow me to save up for his education.  Looking at these two, one is a definite (getting time with Sam) and one is possible (education).  Is Sam going to go to college? Is there going to be college when the economy is finished crumbling?  Am I going to be alive in ten years?  A more essential education:  love and affection or a paid for college tuition?  Advantage: No School
3. Marti.  Sweetness.  Fat of my heart (inside joke, not an insult.  I swear.)  Marti has a vision and is inspired to get her Doula license.  If I go back next semester she is going to have to put it off until I finish (The first senior citizen to get her Doula license).   She is ready to go ahead right now and I am wavering.  We can pay ffor her license with our savings.  I go farther into debt.  Plus, when I’m in school our marriage lacks nutrients, sunlight, and gets too much rain.  Nothing stinkier than a rotting plant. Advantage: No School
4. Education.  I find the education at CSUMB to be lacking.  It is scholastically easy and offers only techniques of body and speech on how to be a better person.  On the other hand I have begun attending Buddhist classes again and am loving the way it addresses the heart.  All speech can be non-violent if it is imbued with loving-kindness and compassion.  But arranging your words in a certain form, not matter how non-violent it may proclaim to be, can be very violent if the heart speaking it is filled with jealousy, hatred, irritation, etc.  To be fair, a Buddhist education may help me towards enlightenment, but it’s practical application (ie, materialistic) is limited.  A BA will help me be more employable (did I already say that?  Gotta get that out of my mind.)  An enlightened heart or a job.  Does it have to be one or the other?  The teachings, if applied, are guaranteed to benefit me.  A BA is no guarantee for employment (Thousands of dollars later, Marti has yet to find a job in her BA field). Advantage: No school
5. Pride.  Not going to school makes me feel like a loser. Advantage: School
6. Evolution.  Having my pride hurt is good for my attachment to my reputation. Adavantage: No School
7. Writing.  In school, there is no time to write. However, could write with others in a workshop. However, Lew the Astrologer, said to keep my writing very personal and private (like this blog, for example).  Advantage No School, the astrologer card

I really could keep going.  But it seems clear the decision has been made.  But I fear the finality of it.  What if I have a fallout with my boss?  What if LMB runs out of money?  What if Sam is embarrassed by my lack of education, and all of his friends make fun of me and call me dummy (or worse, Superdoof) and throw their toys at me.  What if everyone shakes their head in shame and whispers to each other, “Oh that Ben.  He never could finish anything!”  What if I actually follow my heart and try to lose a little bit of ego weight?