Surface Encounters Service and Installation

It is said a great Zen teacher asked an initiate to sit by a stream until he heard all the water had to teach. After days of bending his mind around the scene, a small monkey happened by and, in one seeming bound of joy, splashed about in the stream. The initiate wept and returned to his teacher who scolded him lovingly, “The monkey heard. You just listened.”

With the best of intentions, we often build false careers of studying the river without ever getting wet. In this way, we can ponder great philosophy without ever telling the truth, or analyze our pain without ever feeling it, or study holy places without ever making where we live sacred. In this way, we can build a cathedral on the water’s edge, spending all our time keeping it clean. Or we can count our money or say our prayers, without ever spending anything or ever feeling God’s presence. In this way, we can play music or make love skillfully without ever feeling the music or our passion.

The apprentice was brought to tears because the monkey, slapping and yapping its way in the river, had landed in a moment of joy, and the apprentice knew that all his reverence and devotion and meditation hadn’t brought him the joy of a monkey.

The river, of course, is the ongoing moment of our living. It is the current that calls us to inhabit our lives. And no matter how close we come, no matter how much we get from staying close with a sensitive heart, nothing will open us to joy but entering the stream.

I once was on a screened-in porch on a lake I used to visit every summer for 20 years. My friend and I were watching it rain, as we had done countless times over the years. Suddenly, like that simple and beautiful monkey, my friend bounded up, slapped the screen door open, tracked his clothes, and jumped into the rain-filled lake.

I watched like the apprentice, feeling the pain of always being dry, and then I shed my clothes, and jumped in, too.

There we were: in the center of the lake, water from above in our mouths, in our eyes, pelting us, water entering water, lives entering their living. Each pelt of rain, on us, and in the lake, uttering… joy, joy, joy.

* As you move through your day, notice your interactions with others and with the life around you.

* Notice if you are watching what is happening or if you are a part of it.

* If you are watching, place your heart in the stream of what is before you, the way you might dip your hand in running water.

* Do this by opening your heart with your out-breath and letting life in with your in-breath… watch and be… open and let in… listen and get wet…

It’s time to free American democracy from the devastating social and economic consequences of the systemic and wholesale bribery of politicians and elected officials. Thanks to the growing Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, the consciousness of millions of people across the United States has been irreversible raised about this counterproductive predicament.

Public politicians ought to be “free” from the monetary bribes of the avarice and psychotic greed of the 1% who, many of whom, do not give a damn about the masses of poor and working class people.

There are some who have shown an arrogant disdain for the democratic principles of fairness, equal justice and opportunity, inclusiveness, and diversity. They openly buy politicians and pimp them to do whatever they want to obtain their insatiable desires for monopoly control.

As a means of stopping the bribery, there needs to be a Constitutional Amendment to make it illegal to buy, financially contribute to or to use money to influence federal elected officials. That would mean that the future election campaigns for all members of Congress as well as for the office of the President and the Vice President will be totally publicly financed. This will stop the partisan gridlock that has plagued Washington for too long, because the politicians will be working for the people again, not for the corporations who line up outside their office to lobby.

This would definitely not limit or deter freedom of speech, but would rather significantly enhance public political accountability, transparency and the “freedom” of political discourse from the often hidden reactionary hands of a few who would only manipulate the political system for their own narrow exclusive gains.

We welcome the sight of increasing numbers of people in protest actions that have been re-awakened on this issue. In order to effectively challenge income inequality, there needs to be a focus on establishing greater accountability between elected officials and the people who vote for them.

As the nation is about to go into full gear once again with the fast approaching 2012 national elections, there is a sense of urgency about making sure that the elections will be not be brought and controlled by the 1%. “Power to the people” ultimately means the empowerment of the masses through full participatory democracy and sustainable development. This idea benefits every American, whether you belong to the Tea Party, Democratic Party, Republican Party or no party.

There is a good regulatory resolution pending before the Los Angeles City Council that also calls for a Constitutional Amendment that would ban corporations from using money under the disguise of free speech and to further prohibit money from corporations to use to influence elections and political campaigns. The resolution was brought before the LA City Council by a national grass-roots group know as Move to Amend. Other anti-bribery coalitions are springing up across the nation. Much respect goes out to the Occupy Wall Street movement as the most visible and diverse movement for economic justice and equality.

We cannot afford to let the current status quo inequities continue without a nationwide show of solidarity and demand for change. It’s time for the 100% to demand a stop to the political bribery system.

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