Podcast appearances and mentions of Jon Mitchell

In this episode of the Your Harrogate Podcast, presenter Pete Egerton speaks to Harrogate Town manager Simon Weaver. Plus, the countdown begins to the 2025 Great Yorkshire Show!Harrogate Town hosted their final fans' forum on Wednesday (30th April) at the Exercise Stadium, allowing fans to put their questions to a panel that included first team manager, Simon Weaver.Now safe for another campaign in league two, the gaffer admits that the 24/25 season has been extra tough with too many long-term injuries.The team head to Morecambe this Saturday (3rd May) and hope to finish with another three points, to send the ever-growing fanbase home with some smiles!State-of-the-art tractors, an Aberdeen Angus bull and some famous faces joined forces to launch the countdown to this year's Great Yorkshire Show on Thursday (1st May).The show will return to Harrogate's Great Yorkshire Showground on Tuesday 8th July and run till Friday 11th July.The Show is elevating its digital platforms this year with a new GYS App and a new YouTube series focussing on some of the exhibitors and contributors who make the Show the success it is today.The YouTube series "Great Yorkshire Show: Behind the Scenes "will see TV presenters Christine Talbot, Jon Mitchell and Duncan Wood joined by farming YouTuber and TikTok star Joe Seels as they meet some of the farmers and exhibitors as they prepare for, and compete in, the Show.We hear from the four presenters, plus Yorkshire Agricultural Society's chief executive Allister Nixon, alongside show director, Rachel Coates...

Audrey Snyder & Jon Sauber return for updates on the Nittany Lions as they near closer to the Spring Game. Plus, news on the transfer portal and the departures of Jon Mitchell, Ta'Mere Robinson and more. How will this impact Penn State going forward and will there be any additional departures in the next week? This week the media also caught up with Jim Knowles and James Franklin and got a look at the new defense under Knowles.

Subscribe to Blue White Illustrated on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3KzEcqKCheck out the site too! - https://bit.ly/3u8dilDThe Penn State Nittany Lions football team heads into the final week of spring football on Saturday. That means the team is in the final week of spring football recruiting as well. Join the BWI Live Recruiting Show today to hear which players are joining the team for practice this weekend. Reporters Sean Fitz and Ryan Snyder discuss the team's visitors, the importance of the prospects this coming weekend, and more! The BWI Live Show airs Tuesday through Thursday at 10 a.m. on YouTube. Join the show live to ask Fitz and Snyder questions or give your thoughts on the recruits the team is assembling in the Class of 2026. The best way to know when we go live is to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and enable notifications. That way, you'll receive alerts for when we go live and post breaking news and commitment videos. More Penn State Portal Updates Of course, the biggest Penn State football news this week is about the spring transfer portal window. Three additional players entered the portal on Wednesday afternoon. Linebackers Ta'Mere Robinson and Beckham Dee, plus cornerback Jon Mitchell, will no longer be part of the program. Snyder and Fitz will discuss what they know of the situation and describe the impact of the losses.  If you haven't checked it out yet, we have a transfer portal HQ at Blue White Illustrated, bringing all the intel and updates you need about the team's portal activity into one place. Upcoming weekend packs a punch The upcoming recruiting visitors for Penn State football might be one of the better lists of the spring. Snyder will discuss the important names he's gathered this week about who is joining the program to watch practice. We'll preview the importance of these late spring visits now that most teams are done with spring football. Can the team make some big moves with the Blue-White Game on the horizon? Top cornerback target Khary Adams is no longer visiting USC for an official visit this summer. Does that increase Penn State's chances of landing one of its top cornerback targets on the board? We'll discuss the latest movement in the recruiting world outside of Penn State. Finally, our recruiting experts will discuss their conversations with prospects who've recently visited Penn State. Snyder spoke with both quarteback passing coach Brad Maendler and Tom Falzone, father of new PSU QB Commit Peyton Falzone. What has he learned about the latest Nittany Lion? He'll highlight what led to Falzone's decision to join the program.  #PennState  #NittanyLions  JOIN Blue White Illustrated: https://www.on3.com/teams/penn-state-nittany-lions/join/?plan=annualSUBSCRIBE to Blue White Illustrated on YouTube and enable alerts - new highlights and videos uploaded regularly: https://www.youtube.com/c/bluewhiteillustratedvideo?sub_confirmationBookmark our homepage: https://www.on3.com/teams/penn-state-nittany-lions/Subscribe to BWI Magazine and Newsletters:  https://bluewhiteonline.com Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BlueWhiteIllustrated/Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/PennStateOn3

Richie offers his reaction to Penn State Football losing linebacker ⁠Ta'Mere Robinson⁠ to the Transfer Portal (0:30) and how his loss will effect the linebacker room as a whole (1:57).He then talks about the loss of corner ⁠Jon Mitchell⁠ to the Transfer Portal (6:10) and finishes up by taking a look at how many more players need to leave in order to hit the 105 roster limit (8:07)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠JOIN Happy Valley Insider Today for FREE!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow @PennStateRivals on Twitter/X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow @PennStateRivals on Instagram⁠⁠⁠

John Mitchell speaks on the vitality of prayer. 

This session of the radio show shares my conversation with Jon Mitchell, composer of the Chamber opera, Mary Anning, Fossil Hunter. Timothy Ayres-Kerr, joins us for the discussion on the origin of this opera and its scheduled performance in Grafton on April 5. Tim will play the role of William Buckland. We find out that he did not prepare for this by eating “mice on toast.” He does share some vocal insights on this role, his preparation and the history of opera in America in the course of our conversation.We met to record this conversation in the Franklin TV & Radio studios on Tuesday, March 11, 2025. We talk about Origin story, cast of historical characters, chamber opera in 2 actsClaflin Hill performance at the Apple Tree Arts Center in GraftonAdditions & changes to the performance, only 1 of the original cast unable to returnDean College Vocal Ensembles to join as the chorusThe conversation runs about 42 minutes. Let's listen to my conversation with Jon and Tim--------------Jon Ceander Mitchell -> his UMass Boston profile page (although he is now retired) https://faculty.umb.edu/jon_mitchell/ Tim Ayres-Kerr - FPAC profile -> https://www.fspaonline.com/news.php?id=1604 TIm's page -> https://timsingsthings.wixsite.com/mysite Conductor Luis Viquez webpage -> https://www.luisviquezmusic.com/ Tickets available for the Claflin Hill performance at the Apple Tree Arts Center in Grafton -> https://www.claflinhill.org/claflin-hill-apple-tree-arts-chamber-series/chamber-concert-1-khjjzMary Anning's wikipedia page -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anning Flyer for the April 5, 2025 performance -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/15z8kqYSuETXL45PRFEXuQjtnek6n4J6R/view?usp=sharingProgram from the June 2024 performance -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/13UyjkG6CyzR0iMW21nIlPk_niEHj0x1N/view?usp=drive_link --------------We are now producing this in collaboration with Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) or 102.9 on the Franklin area radio dial. This podcast is my public service effort for Franklin but we can't do it alone. We can always use your help.How can you help?If you can use the information that you find here, please tell your friends and neighborsIf you don't like something here, please let me knowAnd if you have interest in reporting on meetings or events, please reach out. We'll share and show you what and how we do what we doThrough this feedback loop we can continue to make improvements. I thank you for listening.For additional information, please visit

Andrea Mrozek and Peter Jon Mitchell are co-authors of the important new book 'I Do...Why Marriage Still Matters.' I wanted to speak to Andrea and Peter Jon to learn of the advantages of those who are married in comparison to those in other situations such as cohabiting and why the sometimes-labelled 'archaic' setup of traditional marriage still holds up in the 21st century.Some highlights from this episode include whether or not polyamory is just an Internet fad, whether or not marriage actually is in active decline, and why you should prioritise marriage even if you aren't religious.--You can find more of Andrea & Peter Jon's work at the following links:- https://www.cardus.ca/research-library/family/i-do-why-marriage-still-matters/- https://www.cardus.ca/personnel/andrea-mrozek/- https://www.cardus.ca/personnel/peter-jon-mitchell/Follow For All The Saints on social media for updates and inspiring content:www.instagram.com/forallthesaintspodhttps://www.facebook.com/forallthesaintspod/For All The Saints episodes are released every Monday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and more:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVDUQg_qZIU&list=UULFFf7vzrJ2LNWmp1Kl-c6K9Qhttps://open.spotify.com/show/3j64txm9qbGVVZOM48P4HS?si=bb31d048e05141f2https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/for-all-the-saints/id1703815271If you have feedback or any suggestions for topics or guests, connect with Ben & Sean via hello@forallthesaints.org or DM on InstagramConversations to Refresh Your Faith.For All The Saints podcast was established in 2023 by Ben Hancock to express his passion and desire for more dialogue around faith, religious belief, and believers' perspectives on the topics of our day. Tune into For All The Saints every Monday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more.Follow For All The Saints on social media for daily inspiration.

Welcome to Inside Policy Talks, where we dive into the ideas and policies shaping Canada's future!In this episode, Peter Copeland, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Program at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, sits down with Cardus' Senior Fellow Andrea Mrozek and Program Director Peter Jon Mitchell.The discussion covers the trends and social effects surrounding marriage and family formation in Canada - Mrozek and Mitchell provide a comprehensive overview of the declining marriage rates and their implications, from poor economic and social well-being to the challenges young adults face in starting families.Both reflect on the importance of marriage as an institution, highlighting its contributions to social stability, economic prosperity, and positive outcomes for children.The guests also explore cultural and policy factors influencing marriage, from individualism to the impact of feminism and propose ways for governments to promote marriage, such as removing policy disincentives and fostering positive portrayals in media and culture.Be sure to share and subscribe to Inside Policy Talks for more thought-provoking analysis on the key policy issues facing Canada today!

The new Trump administration is set on taking down the wind industry as part of its energy plans. New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell discusses Trumps executive order on wind energy and what it means for the industries future in the coming years. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Host: Robert Hatfield  |  Released Thursday, October 31, 2024 In this insightful episode of Preachers in Training, Robert Hatfield sits down with Jon Mitchell to discuss practical tips for meeting with elders. Whether you're a preacher who regularly works with an eldership or you're preparing for your first meeting, this episode offers valuable advice for […]

Lex didn't die, Dan has some book recommendations beyond his own and Moltz wants Apple Intelligence for PowerPC.Welcome, modestly updated iPad mini 7.Mark Gurman says Apple is working on a cheaper Vision.Jason Snell liked "Submerged".Jon Mitchell is a Vision Pro superfan.Dan is aware of Copenhagen but not Copenhagen.Our thanks to Indochino, where you'll find the best made to measure shirts and suits at a great price. Use the promo code "REBOUND" and get $50 off any purchase of $399 or more.If you want to help out the show and get some great bonus content, consider becoming a Rebound Prime member! Just go to prime.reboundcast.com to check it out!You can now also support the show by buying shirts, iPhone cases, hats and more items featuring our catchphrase, "TECHNOLOGY" and now shirts and hats featuring our stylish logo!

The Liberals like to talk about their childcare program, but childcare operators and experts are starting to identify big failures in implementation. On today's episode I discuss the mechanics of the childcare program with two experts - Krystal Churcher from the the Association of Alberta Childcare Entrepreneurs and Peter Jon Mitchell from Cardus, an Ottawa-based think tank. We're pleased to be back with more episodes following our summer hiatus, bringing you longer form conversations about the big issues of the day.

The AHP team is on the ground this week in Chicago for the Democratic National Convention, where host Debbie Cox Bultan is catching up with NewDEAL Leaders from across the country. Today, she talks to two exceptional mayors – Shelby County, TN, Mayor Lee Harris, and New Bedford, MA, Mayor Jon Mitchell – who share their favorite parts from the opening night of the convention and what they look forward to in the coming days.

Following the Tesla stock plunge after earnings, Wedbush's Dan Ives says he thinks Tesla is the most undervalued AI play in the stock market. Alternatively, former Tesla president Jon Mitchell thinks Tesla is not doing so well, but what's bad for Tesla is good for the competition. Related video: Tesla Stock Plunges on Earnings. Here's Why! https://youtu.be/_GfyTy4holA Referenced videos Tesla Is the Most Undervalued AI Play, Ives Says https://youtu.be/a-hBCq1JA9A What's bad for Tesla is good for the sector, says former Tesla president Jon McNeill https://youtu.be/2IujOacUxIE Stocks Today With JJ channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jjstockstoday Sharesight is my recommended portfolio tracking and reporting tool. Join over 400K investors worldwide who trust Sharesight, including me. See the special offer (referral link): https://sharesightlimited.cmail20.com/t/r-l-tdjhzjk-niuxvol-i/ Join The Art of Value Patreon community for exclusive content I don't share anywhere else: https:/www.patreon.com/TheArtofValue Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser and nothing in this content is financial advice. This content is for general education and entertainment purposes only. Do your own analysis and seek professional financial advice before making any investment decision.

Following the Tesla stock plunge after earnings, Wedbush's Dan Ives says he thinks Tesla is the most undervalued AI play in the stock market. Alternatively, former Tesla president Jon Mitchell thinks Tesla is not doing so well, but what's bad for Tesla is good for the competition. Related video: Tesla Stock Plunges on Earnings. Here's Why! https://youtu.be/_GfyTy4holA Referenced videos Tesla Is the Most Undervalued AI Play, Ives Says https://youtu.be/a-hBCq1JA9A What's bad for Tesla is good for the sector, says former Tesla president Jon McNeill https://youtu.be/2IujOacUxIE Stocks Today With JJ channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jjstockstoday Sharesight is my recommended portfolio tracking and reporting tool. Join over 400K investors worldwide who trust Sharesight, including me. See the special offer (referral link): https://sharesightlimited.cmail20.com/t/r-l-tdjhzjk-niuxvol-i/ Join The Art of Value Patreon community for exclusive content I don't share anywhere else: https:/www.patreon.com/TheArtofValue Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser and nothing in this content is financial advice. This content is for general education and entertainment purposes only. Do your own analysis and seek professional financial advice before making any investment decision.

This week on Newsmakers: New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell discusses the latest South Coast Rail delay, the outlook for offshore wind, his recent trip to Israel, challenges downtown and more.

Joining us today is Dr. Jon Mitchell, a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex. Dr. Mitchell is an expert in religious anthropology and researches questions of identity and political alignment in various regions… Dr. Mitchell's primary research site is Malta, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Here, he conducted his doctoral research during the 1990s – a time of rapid social and political transformation. Most recently, he has been researching the places and processes of belief while exploring the social, political, and economic significance of Maltese football.  Click play to find out: The difference between biblical archaeology and the anthropology of religion.  The effects of Europeanization on the island of Malta.  Why immigrants tend to cluster in specific industries.  The ways that pilgrimage sites impact surrounding economies. You can learn about Dr. Mitchell and his work here! Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9C

MMAFx: Thank you to our partner MMAFx! Order the highly acclaimed MMAFx Hand Fighting & Hand Speed Training instructional video set and help your football athlete GAIN AN EDGE over their opponent www.mmafx.net Contact Coach Bruce Lombard to set up a FREE consultation for MMAFx One-on-One private trainings, small group trainings, or team clinics at Bruce@mmafx.net On3 Team Rankings: https://www.on3.com/db/rankings/team/football/2024/ Today on the Penn State Recruiting Show, we're discussing the final stages of the 2024 recruiting cycle before focusing on the next phase in 2025. We're recapping the latest On3 rankings update before National Signing Day and then previewing the next and final Junior Day before the February dead period begins later this month. Join the show live at 10 a.m. every Tuesday and Thursday on YouTube, or catch the replay embedded in this article. We're bringing you the best recruiting content this offseason. Penn State gets a five star player in final rankings For the second time in three seasons, one of Penn State's offensive line commits has earned a fifth star in the final recruiting rankings. Erie native Cooper Cousins skyrocketed up the rankings this fall after a dominant performance during the All-Star season. Recruiting Insiders Ryan Snyder and Sean Fitz will discuss where Penn State's top targets landed in the On300. Here's what On3 national scout Cody Bellaire said about Cousins. “Cooper Cousins' tape is filled with pancakes and tossing defenders out of the club,” On3 National Scout Cody Bellaire wrote following his All-American week. “With that said, we knew he would be physical and feisty, but we didn't know just how violent he would truly be when facing some of the top competition in the country. Throughout the week, Cousins was powerful at the point of attack. He finished blocks in the run game and was battling through the whistle during one-on-one's. His movement skills were on full display during 9-on-7 and team periods. We also discuss Jon Mitchell's ascent back to the top 100 in the final On3 Rankings and where the rest of Penn State's nine prospects landed on that list. Penn State Junior Day Preview Penn State hosts its final Junior Day before the dead period closes down recruiting for the month of February. We'll discuss which regional prospects coming to Camppus this weekend are most important or interesting. The player that stands out most is quarterback Matt Zollers. Snyder explains that while most junior day visits aren't as critical, the quarterback differs. He also delves into why Zollers, in particular, is a critical visit this weekend. We'll also discuss regional receiver Jeff Exinor out of McDonogh and his fit with the program. Snyder gives a stat about receiver recruiting that is eye-opening. Lastly, we preview the 2026 class with Harrisburg offensive lineman Kevin Brown. Thanks to our sponsor: https://myperfectfranchise.net/ Subscribe to Blue White Illustrated on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3KzEcqK Check out the site too! - https://bit.ly/3u8dilD #PennState #NittanyLions JOIN Blue White Illustrated: https://www.on3.com/teams/penn-state-nittany-lions/join/?plan=annual SUBSCRIBE to Blue White Illustrated on YouTube and enable alerts - new highlights and videos uploaded regularly: https://www.youtube.com/c/bluewhiteillustratedvideo?sub_confirmation Bookmark our homepage: https://www.on3.com/teams/penn-state-nittany-lions/ Subscribe to BWI Magazine and Newsletters: https://bluewhiteonline.com Download our podcasts: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/LRL3155877513?selected=DSVV2664982394 Like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/BlueWhiteIllustrated/ Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/PennStateOn3 Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shall they inherit the playing time?That's the question hosts Donnie Collins and Sam Fremin set out to answer on this week's edition of the Penn Stated podcast, when they break down the 16 early enrollees on Penn State's spring roster.Which of them do Donnie and Sam believe will have the best chance to compete for playing time immediately with a big spring? Who is the prospect we'll learn most about simply by which position the coaching staff chooses to start him at?And will the highest-rated -- and arguably best -- prospect of them all have perhaps the most difficult road to earn a shot at seeing the field with regularity in the fall?The guys then spend the second segment discussing the new NIL-based methods by which the Ohio State Buckeyes are loading their roster this offseason. Is overloading the roster with talent out of the transfer portal necessarily the best way to build a cohesive team? Free agency in other sports indicate it isn't necessarily a clear path to greatness.To contact Donnie, drop an email at dcollins@scrantontimes.com, or send him a message on Twitter @PennStateTT.Listen and subscribe on Apple podcastsListen and subscribe on Google podcastsListen and subscribe on Spotify

Religion enormously affects how social, political, and economic systems function. Also known as the anthropology of religion, this fascinating field of research explains a lot about our society – and the individuals who live in it. Joining us to discuss his perspective on religious anthropology is Dr. Jon Mitchell, a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex. Dr. Mitchell is currently researching “Pilgrimomics,” a program that analyzes pilgrimage across five different faith groups. By looking at various migrant groups across the UK, he is attempting to uncover the economic dimensions of pilgrimage. This reveals exciting information about how and why different religious collectives move through the world, and the economic implications this has… In this discussion, we go over: How biblical archaeology and the anthropology of religion differ from each other.  An overview of the political and religious processes on the island of Malta.  What Europeanization is, and how it affects various societies.  How economies are affected by pilgrimage sites.  You can learn about Dr. Mitchell and his work here! Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/38oMlMr

Joining us today is Dr. Jon Mitchell, a Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex. Dr. Mitchell is an expert in religious anthropology and researches questions of identity and political alignment in various regions… Dr. Mitchell's primary research site is Malta, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Here, he conducted his doctoral research during the 1990s – a time of rapid social and political transformation. Most recently, he has been researching the places and processes of belief while exploring the social, political, and economic significance of Maltese football.  Click play to find out: The difference between biblical archaeology and the anthropology of religion.  The effects of Europeanization on the island of Malta.  Why immigrants tend to cluster in specific industries.  The ways that pilgrimage sites impact surrounding economies. You can learn about Dr. Mitchell and his work here! Take advantage of a 5% discount on Ekster accessories by using the code FINDINGGENIUS. Enhance your style and functionality with premium accessories. Visit bit.ly/3uiVX9R to explore latest collection. Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9C

HSR - Mandarin Football - Jon Mitchell/AJ Belgrage - Shorter by 1010 XL Jax Sports Radio

This episode was recorded while at the American Society for Microbiology's (ASM) Microbe 2023. I went over what I liked about this conference as a first timer. I also talk more about other courses I took and my experience overall. Then I was joined by great company: Elizabeth Deyett and Jon Mitchell from the Microbe Moment, They have a podcast called the Microbe Moment with the Microbigals. They talk about the impact of microbes in life, provide historical perspectives, and more. They also attended the conference and Elizabeth actually presented a poster. Tune in to listen to this great conversation.....Link to the Microbe Moment's podcast and webpage: https://www.microbigals.com/the-microbe-moment-science-podcast

Marcus discusses the "Standard of Appearance" plan released by New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell at his State of the City address.

Marcus discusses the "Standard of Appearance" plan released by New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell at his State of the City address.

According to recruiting insider Ryan Snyder, Penn State football recruiting in 2024 could have experienced a turning point last week. Today on the BWI Live Recruiting Show, Snyder and host Thomas Frank Carr discuss what Snyder means by that statement from this weekend. If you want to find out for yourself, join the show at 10 am on YouTube and get in on the conversation. Of course, the best way to know when Blue White Illustrated goes live is to subscribe to our channel and enable notifications.  Today the show tackles the commitment of Jon Mitchell, plus the relationship with Florida teammates Antoine Belgrave-Shorter and Penn State. They'll also let you know which prospect didn't make it to campus this weekend and what names you need to know from the weekend.  Penn State gets a pleasant surprise with Mitchell As Blue White Illustrated covered this weekend, Penn State got a welcome surprise when four-star corner and top 100 player Jon Mitchell committed to the program Saturday morning. Snyder caught up with Mitchell's trainer and learned how the commitment went down and how Mitchell felt about the program.  Next, they'll discuss how teammate and friend, Belgrave-Shorter, feels about the program. The 6-0 175-pound cornerback prospect is a fast-rising player in 2024 and should be a hot commodity in Florida.  It wasn't all good for Penn State this weekend, though. One critical recruit didn't make it to campus on Saturday, which Snyder and Fitz outlined as an important visit on Friday. Beyond that, the weekend featured committed players and regional prospects.  However, the duo will discuss a handful of names on the show. Namely players from the Class of 2025 that Penn State is working on early in the process. Learn more about New Jersey prospect John Forster, Virginia corner Shamari Earls, and more. The team also welcomed a familiar face back to campus.  Next, T-Frank highlights the new names to discuss in Penn State's quest to beef up its defensive tackle class this cycle and beyond. Today, he and Snyder highlight 2024 prospect Jordan Thomas and review the film for two new names in the group; DeAndre Cook and Eric Mensah.  Snyder and T-Frank close out the show by discussing the newest offers that went out this weekend. Aside from Cook, the team focused on future classes all the way down to 2027. Find out what names are possibly on the horizon for Penn State football.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

PennState.Rivals.com publisher Richie Schnyderite and lead beat writer Dylan Callaghan-Croley offer their instant reactions to Penn State Football landing 2024 Florida cornerback Jon Mitchell. Then the guys do a deep dive into the big recruiting weekend, featuring several top targets. Finally the guys finish up by talking Penn State Basketball, a new player coming to Happy Valley, other top transfer portal targets and who else could fill out the roster. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/psu365/message

The Miami Hurricanes began week three of spring football practice with linebacker Francisco Mauigoa and running back Henry Parrish Jr. among the standouts. Head coach Mario Cristobal praised both after practice. Mauigoa intercepted Tyler Van Dyke late in team drills. The Hurricanes continue to see Francisco's younger brother Francis, an early enrollee, earn starter's reps at right tackle. Host Alex Donno offers a full recap to spring practice number 7 with further observations on quarterbacks Tyler Van Dyke, Jacurri Brown and Emory Williams. Williams shows an impressive base with his footwork in drills. He was clearly very well coached in high school. Donno was also impressed by WR Colbie Young, running back Don Chaney Jr. and freshmen tight ends Riley Williams and Jackson Carver. Donno recaps a handful of recruiting visitors, including cornerbacks Jamari Howard and Jon Mitchell. Donno had a chance to meet Hialeah Westland quarterback Max Lawrence, who is hoping to stay home in South Florida in the class of 2023. Donno asks which of Miami's current top 5 offensive linemen would move to the bench if and when Zion Nelson gets healthy again. Zion will reportedly be ready for the start of fall camp. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order. FanDuel Make Every Moment More. Don't miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Miami Hurricanes began week three of spring football practice with linebacker Francisco Mauigoa and running back Henry Parrish Jr. among the standouts. Head coach Mario Cristobal praised both after practice. Mauigoa intercepted Tyler Van Dyke late in team drills. The Hurricanes continue to see Francisco's younger brother Francis, an early enrollee, earn starter's reps at right tackle.  Host Alex Donno offers a full recap to spring practice number 7 with further observations on quarterbacks Tyler Van Dyke, Jacurri Brown and Emory Williams. Williams shows an impressive base with his footwork in drills. He was clearly very well coached in high school. Donno was also impressed by WR Colbie Young, running back Don Chaney Jr. and freshmen tight ends Riley Williams and Jackson Carver.  Donno recaps a handful of recruiting visitors, including cornerbacks Jamari Howard and Jon Mitchell. Donno had a chance to meet Hialeah Westland quarterback Max Lawrence, who is hoping to stay home in South Florida in the class of 2023. Donno asks which of Miami's current top 5 offensive linemen would move to the bench if and when Zion Nelson gets healthy again. Zion will reportedly be ready for the start of fall camp.  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Built Bar Built Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKEDON15,” and you'll get 15% off your next order. FanDuel Make Every Moment More. Don't miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell discusses DATTCO stopping services from NB to Boston if there are not enough funds,See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Notre Dame is welcoming a high number of very talented 2024 and 2025 recruits over the next four days. That list includes five-star defensive tackle Justin Scott, big time tight end Jaden Reddell and talented cornerback Jon Mitchell among many, many others. There are also some elite players from the 2025 class coming in this weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In light of Aotearoa being in a National State of Emergency, our expert today has been working in emergency and disaster management for 25 years. Jon Mitchell is the Capability Development Manager at Joint Centre for Disaster Research at Massey University.

This week on Newsmakers: New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell. The veteran Democrat, now in his 11th year leading the region's second-largest city, is currently weighing whether to run for another term this fall. He discusses Gov. Maura Healey's visit to the region, offshore wind and fishing, the City Council and more.

Rev. Jon Mitchell teaches the power of fasting, helping eliminate some of the stigmas and fears surrounding this important spiritual discipline. Fasting is an opportunity for us as Christ-followers to put our spiritual hunger before God and allow Him to sustain, nourish, and strengthen us for intimacy and breakthrough.

Host: Robert Hatfield  |  Released Thursday, November 17, 2022 Jon Mitchell, pulpit minister for the East Main church of Christ in Murfreesboro, TN, joins Robert to discuss this week’s listener-requested topic, “Dealing with Difficult Brethren.” Watch the Video Episode Resource: [PODCAST] “How to Love People Who Don't Love You” with Steve Higginbotham (Preachers in Training […]

Host: Robert Hatfield  |  Released Thursday, November 17, 2022 Jon Mitchell, pulpit minister for the East Main church of Christ in Murfreesboro, TN, joins Robert to discuss this week’s listener-requested topic, “Dealing with Difficult Brethren.” Watch the Video Episode Resource: [PODCAST] “How to Love People Who Don't Love You” with Steve Higginbotham (Preachers in Training […]

In this second edition of the Client Series, Christina is joined by dream chaser and coffee extraordinaire, Jon Mitchell. Tune in to the real behind the scenes of entrepreneurship, from the highs to the lows, to the grit that it takes to run a successful business. This journey is not for the faint of heart, but it's definitely worth it in the end. In this episode you will learn:The biggest lie in the self-development industry The real behind the scenes of entrepreneurshipHow accountability can transform your businessLiving for your dreams and not for others opinions Sign up for the Decide It's Your Turn Mastermind! Get on the Podcast Text List to receive a link every Thursday to new episodes, why I recorded it, and a really cool takeaway! Text me the word “podcast” to (501) 222-3362.To schedule a time for a free Clarity Call with me, text me the word “CALL” to (501) 222-3362.  Sign up for the Decide It's Your Turn Mastermind! If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating  and leave us a comment on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser and Castbox about what you'd like us to talk about that will help you realize that at any moment, any day, you too can decide, it's your turn! Christina Lecuyer's Bio:Christina Lecuyer is a former Professional Golfer, a three-time reality television competitor, Confidence + Mindset Coach, Motivational Speaker, and Founder of The Decide It's Your Turn™ Mastermind, as well as Decide It's Your Turn™: Women's CEO Retreat. Christina's mission in life is to empower people to fully live in their purpose, confidently and successfully! Decide It's Your Turn! PodcastResources and Links:Christina Lecuyer's WebsiteSign up for the Decide It's Your Turn™ MastermindJoin the 1:1 Coaching waitlistFollow us on InstagramFollow us on FacebookLooking for our Tweets?Christina Lecuyer on YouTubeHashtags : #justbe #decisionfaithaction #decideitsyourturn

In this episode, I give a quick recap of  my interview with Jon Mitchell including: - The PQS Method for better health so you can finally cut through all of the noise and confusion- The 6 factors that affect your health long term- The book that got him started in entrepreneurship and the #1 thing that made him successful And so much more...  Jon Mitchell is a Functional Medicine Physician Assistant turned Health Consultant. Jon is a graduate of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and has worked in urgent care and addiction medicine before switching to Functional Medicine. He has also worked in pharmaceutical research, as an EMT, and an ER Tech.Click Here to go to Jon's website*************************************************************You will never maximize your potential on your own so I'm personally inviting you to come and join me in the private Extraordinary Man Facebook group so you can level up your business and your life. Just Click Here to join the Extraordinary Man private Facebook group. Iron sharpens iron and this is the #1 place for you to connect with me and other like-minded men who are on a mission to maximize their potential. My goal is to help you become the man God created you to be in all areas of your life. So come and join us in the Facebook group and upgrade your business and your life.Follow me on Instagram: @ryanhorn25

Jon Mitchell is a Functional Medicine Physician Assistant turned Health Consultant. Jon is a graduate of Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and has worked in urgent care and addiction medicine before switching to Functional Medicine. He has also worked in pharmaceutical research, as an EMT, and an ER Tech.In this episode, we discuss:- The PQS Method for better health so you can finally cut through all of the noise and confusion- The 6 factors that affect your health long term- The book that got him started in entrepreneurship and the #1 thing that made him successful And so much more...  Click Here to go to Jon's website**************************************************You will never maximize your potential on your own so I'm personally inviting you to come and join me in the private Extraordinary Man Facebook group so you can level up your business and your life. Just Click Here to join the Extraordinary Man private Facebook group. Iron sharpens iron and this is the #1 place for you to connect with me and other like-minded men who are on a mission to maximize their potential. My goal is to help you become the man God created you to be in all areas of your life. So come and join us in the Facebook group and upgrade your business and your life.Follow Ryan on Instagram: @ryanhorn25

It's not personal.But it manifests that way —Universally.* * *As promised in the last segment, we will finish this series of five by taking up the remaining pair of combinations — the intersection of the Personal from the Four Spheres, with the Cessation of suffering from the Four Noble Truths, which involves the Eightfold Path previously touched upon. Personal Cessation is the only kind there can be, it seems. Even the Natural Cessation of physical death is not considered the end of suffering in Buddhism, owing to the principle of rebirth. Social Cessation does not seem that germane, other than the relatively decreasing engagement that comes with aging. But ask anyone in assisted living, palliative or hospice care, and you will find most of the issues that arise are social in nature. It must be admitted that if Cessation of suffering can and does actually occur in the midst of life, it must be a Universal phenomenon, as well as Personal. But the only dimension that counts must be the Personal, i.e. how we actually experience and embrace it.The graphic illustrates the correlation of the Four Spheres of reality — the Personal, Social, Natural and Universal — with the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism — the Existence, Origin, Cessation, and Path to Cessation, of suffering, dukkha, a comprehensive model of lay Zen householder practice.The Personal sphere is the bubble in which we sit when we assume the zazen posture. As mentioned, we do not thereby totally leave behind the Social, any more than we can escape the Natural and Universal spheres of influence, notwithstanding ancient claims to the contrary for the powers of meditation. But we can establish some distance between ourselves and others in meditation. Master Dogen hints at this in Fukanzazengi [Principles of Seated Meditation], his early tract on zazen:Now, in doing zazen it is desirable to have a quiet room. You should be temperate in eating and drinking, forsaking all delusive relationships.The operative phrase here is “forsaking all delusive relationships,” which begs the question: Which, if any, of the many relationships we have are not delusive? In another teaching, Genjokoan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point], Dogen lays out four transitions in Zen practice in descriptive, but cryptic, terms:To study the Buddha way is to study the self To study the self is to forget the self To forget the self is to be actualized by the myriad things When actualized by the myriad things your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away No trace of realization remains and this no-trace continues endlessly Another translation says something like: “to forget the self is to be enlightened by all things; to be enlightened by all things is to remove the barrier between self and other and go on in traceless enlightenment forever.” This can be misinterpreted, I think, to indicate that this realization is a kind of “kumbaya” moment, where we see and embrace the fact that we are all alike, all in the same boat, et cetera, and why “Can't we all just get along?” In other words, a Social interpretation of self and others, plural, and removing any apparent barriers. But I do not think this is what Master Dogen is getting at.If instead we “remove the barrier between self and other,” singular, this identifies the fundamental relationship that we have to resolve, above and before all others. Like Bodhidharma alone in his cave, self-and-other are still present. This basic bifurcation in our apprehension of reality is akin to the Fall from Grace in Buddhism. It amounts to a kind of category error, one that develops in early childhood via the natural process called individuation, i.e. becoming aware of ourselves as individual beings separate from mom, the crib, and everything else. This is further reinforced by parents, teachers and peers, in conventional education. Which, in our culture, does not typically include meditation.Not that this growing awareness of separate individuality is not true; it is just that it is not complete. The rest of the story is that we are intricately interconnected to all of our relationships, including with other human beings, but also sentient beings of other species in the animal kingdom, as well as plant life, and the insentient world. In other words, the Personal cannot be isolated from the Natural and Universal, let alone the Social. Master Dogen goes on to suggest that in zazen, however, we suspend judgment about all of this for the moment, at least for the time we are on the cushion:Setting everything aside, think of neither good nor evil, right or wrong. Thus having stopped the various functions of your mind, give up even the idea of becoming a Buddha.Note that “everything,” here, primarily entailing those judgment calls in the Social sphere, such as identifying “good and evil, right and wrong,” are to be set aside, in zazen. And that this kind of thinking represents the natural functioning of the mind, that is, the thinking or discriminating mind, known as citta in Sanskrit, the complement of bodhi, or wisdom mind. I think we can define these terms simply as analytical versus intuitive aspects of the total mind, or bodhicitta. This basic division of the mind into a dyad, or binary, we may take as the psychology or mind science of the times, as compared to the more complex models of the brain and its functions propounded by science today.The main point here is that the ordinary functions of the mind —which we advisedly tend to label as “monkey mind” — reach a point of diminishing returns, though I don't think we can literally stop them. Like a live monkey, citta will eventually wear itself out, lie down and take a nap. Trying to stop the functions of the mind intentionally only turns out to be more monkey business, as in the Ch'an poem Hshinshinming [Trust in Mind]:Trying to stop activity to achieve passivity, the very effort fills you with activityThis is one of the many catch-22s that we find in Zen practice. And not only on the cushion, as Dogen goes on to remind us:This holds true not only for zazen but for all your daily actions.So the Personal Cessation of suffering may be experienced not as a sudden, irreversible event, like a thunderbolt from the sky, but a series of gradual, incremental cessations of our knee-jerk reactions to events. Both in the Personal sphere, particularly in meditation, as well as interactions with others in the Social and Natural spheres. This attitude adjustment may extend to other forces in the Universal realm, such as the effects of climate change. Or something as simple, but potentially deadly, as a sunburn.One premise that has to be reinforced from time to time in Zen and other meditation circles, is that our practice does not, and cannot, reveal anything that is not already true. Meditation does not and cannot change anything, other than our personal apprehension and appreciation of our own reality. The revered Zen Buddhist saint, Bodhidharma, declared that it is not necessary to do zazen in order to “grasp the vital principle.” Which tells us that we do zazen for some other reason, namely to set aside all delusive relationships, for one example. Which suggests that we must be harboring a lot of delusive relationships, whether we are aware of them or not. Otherwise, why does zazen require so much time?As I mention in The Original Frontier, the first reason most people give as to why they cannot do meditation, is that they do not have time. This is mainly because they look for immediate results, and give up when the novelty wears off, and they cannot detect sufficient positive feedback to encourage them to continue. According to the principles of zazen, and Personal Cessation, meditation does not necessarily take any time at all to take effect. Since we are getting in our own way, all we have to do is stop. Aha, you say — but that's how they get you. Catch-22 déjà vu.If the Cessation of suffering writ large is dependent upon case-by-case Personal Cessation of all those habits of thought and behavior that are getting in the way, how do we recognize and identify them, and relinquish our attachments or aversions to them that keep dragging us down? I think one of the key attitude adjustments is to recognize that we are not only receiving, but interpreting, our experience, even at the near-subliminal level in zazen. If we can set aside any interpretation at all — let alone judgments of good and evil, right and wrong, at least while we are on the cushion — then maybe we can move that dharma gate a little.One last consideration before we leave this perhaps overly convoluted analysis of the intersection of the Four Noble Truths with my model of the Four Spheres of Influence, suggests another connection with the teachings of Buddhism. The spheres of internal and external reality correlate with the Three Treasures of classical Buddhism. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha track to the Personal, Universal and Social spheres. Briefly, Buddha — indicating practice on the cushion as a practical matter, but also our original nature, or birthright as human beings — is obviously a very Personal dimension of Zen practice. Of course, in light of its deeper connotations as “original nature,” it has Universal and Social implications. The study of and propagation of Dharma clearly involves a Social program of education — or “sharing the dharma assets,” expressed as a Precept — but also a Personal endeavor, climbing the Zen mountain. Again with Universal implications as Dharma, capital D, as the Way, or Tao, the law that governs the universe. Sangha is most obviously Social in character, but also Universal, representing the entirety of the human species from its origins hundreds of thousands of years in the misty past, to its current manifestation in facing the looming possibility of the Anthropocene Extinction, the sixth such global catastrophe on record. I could go on. But it is time to shift to another paradigm.Meanwhile, please continue practicing in the holistic context of the Four Spheres and the Four Noble Truths, as well as the Three Treasures. Climbing Zen Mountain, and then descending.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

All are on the Path,Though many do not know it.This Path is no path.* * *The focus of this segment, the intersection of the Social Sphere and the Path to Cessation, sounds dangerously close to “sociopath,” a term that is becoming more and more familiar in the era of extreme divisiveness in the cultural and political landscape, not only in the USA but around the globe. What more appropriate designation for the president living in luxury in Russia, who finds it desirable to be constantly bombing and shelling civilians, women and children, in Ukraine? But then, what name is most fitting for a president who tries to steal an election? “Narcissist” doesn't quite cut it.When we return from our meditation to our family, or sally forth into the public fray — crossing the boundary between the Personal and Social spheres as shown in the graphic model — we enter the Original Frontier™ that Buddha must have encountered the night of his profound enlightenment some 2500 years ago. Perhaps the more accurate term would be “reenter,” as the Social sphere into which he had been born and raised had not changed — he had changed. In the 1960s, the “reentry problem” became a ubiquitous trope, designating that segue back into so-called normality, following a psychedelic-induced “trip” to what appeared to be another world. One of my design students at U of I, Chicago Circle campus, described it as “dumping out all of the drawers in the house in one big pile, and next day, having to put all that stuff back where it belongs.” A psychotropic, rather than alcoholic, hangover.Of course, we never completely leave the Social realm, even when intently focusing on the Personal, in meditation. The influences of our particular social milieu are ever-present, even in the deep isolation of meditation. The Four Spheres are not only outside of us, they are also inside. The body's biology and inherited DNA are obvious examples of the Natural. Subtle movements of chemistry and the neurological verge on the microcosmic Universal. As do such subtle phenomena as circadian rhythms, subliminal responses to sunlight, and the tidal pull of the moon.Not that we are conscious of these influences. The inner Social sphere includes such unconscious elements as self-identity, i.e. association with family ancestry, including persuasions such as identifying with the political party that our parents favored. In receiving the Zen Buddhist lay precepts, we embrace interpretations of others regarding the avoidance of killing, stealing, lying, and so forth, on a conscious level. But we harbor built-in precepts inherited from parents and peers, all unbeknownst to ourselves. Zen's Precepts often belabor the obvious. But they bear repetition.Considering the intersection of the Social sphere with the Path, we call to mind its eight dimensions. Not capitalized here, in order to embrace them as Universal and Natural, as well as Social and Personal, rather than as holy writ. Right view and thought, or understanding, which together comprise right wisdom; right speech, action and livelihood, or right conduct; and right effort, mindfulness and meditation, taken together as right discipline. With our usual caveat that the term “right,” as used here, is more of a verb than an adjective. It indicates taking right action to correct our worldview and understanding, bringing them more into alignment with the worldview of Buddhism, or Buddha himself.One could argue that effort, mindfulness and meditation live entirely within the Personal sphere of action, as exemplified by Bodhidharma, alone in his cave in ancient China. But we point to the halo- or ripple-effect of our personal discipline upon others around us, once we do leave the cushion and reenter the Social realm. Master Dogen is attributed with encouraging us to do one thing, and to do it well enough that we can even do it in front of other people. I have not been able to locate this saying in the written record, but in his famous Genjokoan [Actualizing the Fundamental Point] he declares that “Doing one practice is practicing completely.” This is analogous to the current Zen trope that asks, If you want to drill for water, would you drill a lot of shallow wells, or one deep well? This applies broadly.In the fields of performing arts and athletics, connections of the discipline of Personal effort to Social performance becomes obvious, through repetition of rehearsal and practicing routines. As does the recommendation that “practice makes perfect,” notwithstanding the Buddhist tenet of fundamental imperfection. But the training, while clearly physical, is not only physical. Highly trained athletes are often guilty of making “mental errors.” Gymnasts, musicians, dancers and pole vaulters who persevere and break records, or move audiences to laughter or tears, are examples of this principle. They realize the non-separation of the Personal and Social, following the Path of process and progress through which we integrate inner discipline and outer conduct. In Zen as well as the arts, we arrive at a convergence in which wisdom emerges, on physical as well as mental and emotional planes.Let's take a brief look at each of the eight dimensions and its connection to the Social sphere, beginning where our practice begins, with right meditation. Sometimes rendered traditionally as contemplation or concentration, that there is right meditation suggests that there could be wrong meditation. Again, the usage is not exactly right versus wrong here on the Personal level of meditation practice, but we can agree that there may be wrong attitudes or usages of meditation in the Social context. For example, if we make a divisive or wedge issue of our zazen practice within the dynamics of our household, allowing it to affect our relationships to our family — spouse, children, parents, even in-laws — that might be an example of wrong meditation. An old saying holds that if your spouse and children are happy, your meditation is working. Adding an hour of meditation to our daily routine should not be a cause celebre, but can be inserted at an hour and in a place that does not disrupt or disturb anyone. In fact, practicing zazen should add to the harmony of the household, just as it does to the Zen community, or Sangha.Right mindfulness in the Social realm would suggest extending this Personal caution and humility to the workspace, whether in the office or in the field. Making a display of wearing a wrist mala, for example, calls upon our fellow workers, managers and team members to respond, with questions or comments. While Zen practice has definite benefits in terms of our relationship to colleagues under the stressful conditions of productivity demands, making an issue of it with people who have little or no familiarity with Zen is not advisable. It introduces an irrelevant and even irritating element into a situation already fraught with potential for friction and conflict, e.g. along political or ideological lines. Not that we should be evasive about it, or try to hide the fact that we engage in a practice — meditation — that has its detractors, and does not yet enjoy the kind of mainstream acceptability that it is gaining.A similarly inappropriate, and more common, phenomenon, is the tendency of some to insert their religious views into the business environment, when the business itself has little or nothing to do with religion. I have worked for a relatively large corporation where one of the partners held regular prayer meetings. He was also involved in an illicit affair with one of the employees. Along with being mindful of our practice, we practice mindfulness of context.Right effort plays into the Social context as well, witnessed as our tendency to overdo and overthink all of these relationships, sometimes to the detriment of the relationship. In a comment I came across recently, a mother cogently summed up one example of this syndrome, suggesting that we would be a whole lot less worried about what other people thought of us if we realized how seldom they do. We have all been there, done that, when a colleague or boss makes a comment and we spend the next all-too-long period of time ruminating over it, fretting about what the person really meant, and insulted that they do not appreciate us for the contribution we make to the corporate cause.There are innumerable books published about this, one I heard reviewed on television titled “Neanderthals at Work” by Albert J. Bernstein. He suggests that in the modern office setting you have three distinct types of coping strategies or views of the situation, one he called something like the politician, another the believer, and the third the genius. The “politician,” an example of the bad boss syndrome, schmoozes the people above them, while largely ignoring those lower on the ladder, or worse, criticizing them as a way of improving his position. The “believer” thinks the politician is immoral, feeling that as long as they come to work and do their job, they should not have to play politics. The “genius” comes out of the computer room to solve the problem du jour, but is often culpable in creating the problem. The politician looks down on the other two as naive, simply not understanding how things work in the modern office. Focusing on the boss is the natural approach to the reporting structure. The problem is not that these tendencies exist, but that their adherents do not understand each other, which exacerbates the friction between them.Which brings us to another four-pointed model, my take on the traditional Zen jargon term, “Samadhi,” usually capitalized to stress the high regard in which it is held. I reduce it to the more prosaic “balance.” This concept is simple enough to grasp that no illustration is required. The first of the four is physical samadhi, the centered and balanced form of the zazen posture, leaning neither to the right or left, or front or back, as Master Dogen explains what it is not. From it, or along with it, comes the second samadhi, emotional balance: more calm, less anxiety. Thirdly we begin to experience mental samadhi: more clarity, less confusion. And finally, after some time, social samadhi: more harmony, less friction in our relationships to others. These four comprehend the inner-Personal and outer-Social benefits, or side-effects of Zen meditation practice.Most people want to leap to the Social aspect right away, to handle interpersonal transactions with greater patience and compassion. But Zen goes deeper, of course. When the upright posture becomes more natural and comfortable, the heart-mind (J. shin) becomes calmer and clearer naturally. When one becomes more patient with the monkey mind, and more comfortable in one's own skin through zazen, it becomes easier to have patience with others. But we have to be patient with the time that it takes to get over ourselves, and to divest ourselves of a lot of excess baggage we carry around. This is why Zen takes so long to penetrate to the deeper levels of Samadhi, as a transformational experience, sometimes regarded as the precursor to the fabled spiritual insight (J. satori) of Zen.Summing up so far, we have looked briefly at the Universal Existence of Dukkha, change or suffering, that we are to fully understand; its Natural Origin, or craving, which we are to fully abandon — and which is built-into birth as a human being — which is considered the necessary condition for Buddhist awakening; and the Social Path recommended by Shakyamuni Buddha, which we are to follow to its ultimate conclusion in the Cessation of suffering. A caveat is in order as to this last claim. In the Heart Sutra we chant: “Given Emptiness, no suffering, no end of suffering.” This is not a contradiction, but indicates that the kind of suffering that can come to an end is that self- and mutually-inflicted suffering, intentionally and unintentionally, that we visit upon ourselves and others. The Natural suffering of aging, sickness and death, which come with the territory of sentient existence, do not, cannot, come to an end. But embracing that fact as reality, and perfectly natural, mitigates the suffering as a human meme.Continuing, we will next take up the remaining pair of the combinations of the Four Spheres and the Four Noble Truths, the Personal and the Cessation of suffering, which necessarily involves the Eightfold Path to cessation. Personal Cessation is the only kind there is. Stay tuned one more time.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Not unnatural,Suffering is only change.It's not personal.* * *Continuing where we left off last time, in this segment we will look at the intersection of the Natural sphere with Buddhism's Origin of suffering. The graphic illustrating correlations between the Four Spheres — Universal, Natural, Social, and Personal; and the Existence, Origin, Cessation, and Eightfold Path to cessation of suffering — is included again for your convenience and reference.In the Repentance verse of Soto Zen liturgy we chant:All my past and harmful karma Born of beginningless greed, hate and delusion Through body mouth and mind I now fully avow“Avow” does not commonly appear in our daily vernacular, but it simply means to admit openly, or to confess. Monastics apparently had a more rigorous routine for confessing and repenting specific transgressions they may have committed, violations of what were known in India as Vinaya, in Japan as Shingi, basically the rules and regulations of conduct in the monastic setting. We have Master Dogen's version, as well as Master Keizan's from a few generations later, the two being known respectively as the “father and mother” of Soto Zen in Japan. One factoid that people like to point out is that there were hundreds more rules for nuns than there were for monks. Interpret that however you like. Or do your research. Usually the Three Treasure Refuges verse follows on the heels of Repentance:I take refuge in BuddhaI take refuge in DharmaI take refute in SanghaI take refuge in Buddha the fully awakened oneI take refuge in Dharma the compassionate teachingsI take refuge in Sangha the harmonious communityI have completely taken refuge in BuddhaI have completely taken refuge in DharmaI have completely taken refuge in SanghaThe condensation of repentance into a catchall phrase represents not just our usual laziness, I think, but a recognition that we may be engaging in karmic actions without knowing it. So just in case, we fess up to whatever we may have done, and “accept all consequence with equanimity,” as another version has it. And then we take refuge in the Three Treasures, just for good measure.The line that indicates the connection between Origin and Natural is that bit about karmic consequences stemming from our very body, mouth and mind, the “Three Actions” of Buddhism. Another version has “born of body, mouth and mind,” which I think captures the meaning more precisely. That is, most of our desires, attachments and aversions, some of which get us into trouble, come with the territory of being born as a human being. As such, they are not exactly our fault. But what we do about it is our fault, or may be to our credit. There is the implication that we can “pay off” our accumulated karma, like a bad debt. The good news is that if we recognize that we did not create, or design, this situation in which we find ourselves, we can perhaps redesign our approach to it, embracing its seeming contradictions. Its “Designer” may not be so “Intelligent” as some would have us believe.When you take an unbiased look at the Natural conditions of our birth and growth as part of a species, certain obvious limitations and undesirable aspects emerge. Does it really have to be so messy? Buddha identified these causes and conditions of circumstance, the matrix of existence, variously, such as: the reification of self emerging through the process of individuation as a child; the conventional wisdom of the social milieu into which we are born; and the predations of aging, sickness and death to which we are all subject. The necessity for survival of the species is not a personal goal, but one of the species itself, as Schopenhauer points out in “The World as Will,” his treatise on how we usually get it all wrong. That we are fulfilling our heart's desire in pursuing the loves of our life is a kind of category error, based on a primordial ignorance of how this existence thing really works. Very Zen.That the Origin of our suffering may thus be regarded as Natural should precipitate a sigh of relief. But these biological facts do not relieve us of the necessity of now dealing with the actual experience of our desires, and the onset of angst, regret, hope, and disappointed expectations, that ensue. The rollercoaster of Social life inserts itself into the mix with little regard to our opinion. Once we have experienced all the highs and lows, however, they average out when we slow to a stop, and step off of the train.One of the unfortunate dimensions of life in modern society, vis-à-vis these known issues of Buddhism, is that they are not widely recognized as such, nor are they ordinarily part of the early curriculum in Western countries. We do not expose our youngsters to practicing meditation. Usually a young person begins hearing about Eastern wisdom when they are in their late teens or early twenties, when the onslaught of hormones has long since had its sometimes deleterious, and even disastrous, effects. Especially with the advent of widespread online accessibility to what we call “pornography.” As one of the Supremes famously intoned, I don't know how to define it, but I recognize it when I see it.It is ironic that the most natural of functions in the Natural sphere — that of reproduction of the species — becomes so distorted in its intersection with the Social realm of human behavior. But that discussion may be better left to the next segment, on the conflation of the Noble Eightfold Path with the Social sphere. For now let us just shake our heads at the willful blindness built into our concept of childhood, and our feckless efforts to control the process of maturation into an adult. It is a compelling example of the Social sphere interfering with the Natural sphere — the biological facts of existence — thereby exacerbating the Origin of suffering, our ignorance-fueled craving. What's the matter with kids today?One could argue that the Origin of our suffering is Universal, as is its existence. The role of Nature in the Universal scheme of things is intricately intertwined with the origin of life on this planet, and the possibility of life on others, in the “Goldilocks Zone” near — in astronomical units — to another star. Speculations as to the arrival of intergalactic spermatozoa in the form of ancient comets or meteors, delivering the foundational chemistry of organisms to our waiting, fertile planet, like sperm to egg, model the entire cosmos as analogous to a kind of organism, giving birth to stars, as in the famous “pillars of creation” image from NASA's Hubble telescope, to the spark of life itself. These analogies are examples of our proclivity to find familiar patterns in the strangest of new information, now flooding in as images from the far reaches of science, thanks to the Hubble, and now the Webb, telescopes. Another is the familiar trope about developing fins at one stage of the fetus in the womb:More than just a catchy phrase, “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” is the foundation of recapitulation theory. Recapitulation theory posits that the development of individual organisms (ontogeny) follows (recapitulates) the same phases of the evolution of larger ancestral groups of related organisms (phylogeny).These cultural memes also indicate the comprehensive nature of the Ignorance, capital I, into which we are born, rather than into sin, according to Buddhism. Not the kind of willful ignorance that we have to learn, which can be considered a kind of sin, I suppose, if not against God, then against our original buddha-nature. Willfully ignoring the “compassionate teachings,” for example, as the Buddha's legacy is characterized. They are compassionate in that they consist of descriptions of the suffering innate in existence, as well as our tendency to make it worse; as well as prescriptions for what to do about it, such as the Noble Eightfold Path. Which will be the subject of our next segment, in its relationship to the Social sphere.Meanwhile, wrapping up our meditation on the Natural Origin of suffering, it is, or should be, transparent that there is no Existence without change, and so “change” is interchangeable with “suffering.” Everything that we see, hear, smell, taste, feel — and yes, everything we think — is the effect of change. We are literally hearing the sound of suffering, like Avalokiteshvara. And we are seeing it as well as feeling it at all times, in every moment. If nothing were changing, we could not perceive it. We never breathe the same breath twice, and we can never have the same thought, twice, though it may seem that we do. This is natural, and this inexorable, instantaneous change, is the true source of our suffering. Get used to it.The fact that some forms of change provide welcome relief in our lives, while others seem to deliver more stress, should make it clear that dukkha is neutral. Suffering is not being inflicted upon us as a kind of punishment, though it may be considered a kind of test. Zen recommends embracing what life brings us as a natural consequence of our existence as a sentient being, even though we may not enjoy it at the time. Don't worry, it will change. This does not mean, however, that we should not do anything about it, to improve our circumstances. This and other dimensions of behavior in the Social realm will be one focus of the next segment, reviewing the Path in its eight dimensions. Stay tuned.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Yes, universal!Existence unlimitedto our perception* * *In the last session we concluded the introduction to this summary of the intersection of Design Thinking and Zen by linking Buddha's Four Noble Truths to my Four Spheres of Influence and Endeavor as encountered in daily life. The semantic model shown illustrates correlations between the Four Spheres — Universal, Natural, Social, and Personal — and the Existence, Origin, Cessation, and Eightfold Path to cessation, of suffering. We will explore the connections of each in order, in the next four segments. These include: Universal Existence, Natural Origin, Social Path, and Personal Cessation, all linked to dukkha, the Buddhist term usually translated as “suffering.” As we will see, it has a broader meaning.Sometimes overlooked in considering the Four Noble Truths are Buddha's admonitions, charges, or challenges accompanying each. We are to strive to “fully understand” the existence of suffering; to abandon its origin, usually interpreted as craving; to realize its cessation, hopefully in this lifetime; and to fully follow the Noble Eightfold Path to the realization of suffering. That's a tall order.But if we take the Design thinking approach, we can regard the prospect of fully understanding the existence of suffering as just another example of fully defining the problem, albeit the most intractable and elusive of all problems, that of existence itself. The proposition that existence is a problem, or should be regarded as such, is itself subject to challenge. But most religions and philosophies characterize our existence as a human being as a kind of test, from Job's Old Testament lament, to the triumph of reasoning of the Enlightenment, and theism's personal epiphany of being reborn, as well as Zen Buddhism's potential of spiritual awakening — kensho or satori in Japanese. Of course, the usual caveat applies, that the approach to solving this problem in Zen begins and ends with experience on the cushion, or informed by that process of personal introspection. As we often emphasize in interfaith dialog with other clergy and students online, world peace can only come about through the establishment of personal peace. Zen's pop-up exam takes place in zazen, pass or fail.Another way to phrase the first Noble Truth is that Existence is of the nature of suffering. That is, dukkha may be regarded simply as inexorable change. Galaxies colliding in space is an example of Universal Existence of change. It is not personal, but a universal principle. Human beings are necessarily caught up in it, through birth, aging, sickness and death, and tend to take it very personally. This is why it is called “suffering.” But this suffering is too laden with emotional and sentimental connotations to fit the definition of a universal principle. Suffering in the Buddhist sense has a connotation of allowing, as in “Suffer the little children to come unto me,” paraphrasing a comment attributed to Christ. He is also quoted as saying that unless we become like little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.So in the face of universal change, we are reduced to the state of children. Innocent, perhaps, but still responsible for adapting to reality. We find examples of human suffering in all spheres of our existence, including personal issues of aging, sickness and death, which is also characteristic of the natural sphere, where our relationship to Nature is ever-more challenging, owing partially to our success as a species in dominating the planet and diminishing the resources of life support. But most of us are inclined to identify the sources of our suffering as social in nature.These are all conjoined, as the pressures of living in modern society are certainly linked to the pressures of population. From stress on the commute to family unity at home, and comity at the office, much of our dissatisfaction with life in the fast lane stems from the fact that there are so many others queuing up in that same lane. And, of course, they are not usually as polite or considerate as you or I tend to be. In the modern idiom, they do not, or will not, stay in their lane, and out of ours.Please excuse me if you have heard this before, but I think an experiment I read about is germane. The scientists involved simply took the classic rats-in-the-maze to a new level, adding more and more rats. At a certain point of overpopulation or crowding, the rats began attacking each other. In human terms, each began to blame the others for the situation. If memory serves, it revealed a kind of proportionality between the space available and the degree of occupancy, which may reflect a natural limit to the population of any species. There is a relevant question in Taoism, from the “Tao te Ching” of Lao Tzu if memory serves, which asks the question, something like, Which is more destructive — success or failure? The very success of a species may be akin to the growth of a virus, which finally exceeds the capacity of its host to sustain, leading to the death of the host but also of the parasite.Another Taoist saying reminds us that, When the blaming begins, there is no end to the blame, or some such admonition. What we see in politics these days is largely the blame game writ large, usually on a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't basis. Increasingly, decisions regarding spending decreasing resources are taken in this no-win kind of context. Even speaking out on a given issue, no matter what position one takes, is likely to bring down hostilities upon one's head, from the cold waters of the social media. The very anonymity provided by the network fosters the tendency of many disgruntled fellow travelers to fire broadsides at every comment, no matter how reasonable or anodyne. The privacy of the original communication is often compromised, exposing the messenger to the mob, including searchable data such as the identities of their family members, along with contact and location information. Thus, the natural moan of stress and threat of living is amplified to a scream through the feedback process, like a mic and speaker facing each other. Humans are the worst enemy of humans.When we turn from our social world — as restricted to human beings — to the natural sphere, we find other social animals, such as elephants and whales, who have their own networks, and presumably some level of stress emanating from them. Much more certainly they suffer from the dire circumstances in which they live as prey to other species, primarily the encroachment of humans on their turf, and as victims of the harvesting of ivory and other private parts for such human dalliances as trivial trinkets, and supposed aphrodisiacs. Our stewardship of the creatures of the Earth has demonstrated a downward curve for most of our history, but now that we are outnumbering as well as outmaneuvering our distant cousins, many are staring into the abyss of extinction. Which is where the Natural sphere is trumped by the Universal. From the perspective of the victim of extinction, it matters little whether the end comes as the result of a meteor or comet, or the slow erosion of viable food stocks and potable water. So-called “pets” and live exhibits such as zoos are the few remaining concessions to inclusion of lowly beasts in our social circle, now that the age of horsepower has long since passed.When we look at the intersection of the Universal and the Natural, disregarding for the nonce the Social and Personal realms, we see that it is also not a respecter of persons, or dharma beings. The most awe-inspiring example may be the black hole, at least based on our current understanding of cosmic dynamics of change, dukkha on the largest scales we can envision. Whole galaxies, solar systems, stars, planets, moons and asteroids and all, provide the daily fare keeping the monster fed. We charmingly describe such processes with familiar tropes, such as that a black hole is “eating” its way through the universe, gobbling celestial bodies as we consume lesser animals and plants of the globe. A recent special on the blue whale identified them as the largest mammals to ever live on the planet — in the ocean, more exactly — as large as a Boeing 737. Yet they live on krill, one of the smallest animals on the planet. But the volume of their dining may be the closest living analogy to a black hole in the animal kingdom. Tens of thousands of tons of water in one gulp! Yet even this behemoth may be threatened with extinction, owing to the activities of the noisome human parasite.In the face of such vast scales of existence, and with the looming threat of universal and natural chickens coming home to roost, through imminent climate change, the very idea that what we call suffering is indeed universal may be disturbing, even overwhelming. And as Master Dogen reminds us in Jijuyu Zammai —Self-fulfilling Samadhi, even if we manage to divest ourselves of our ignorance, and the “whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's seal, and the entire sky turns into enlightenment,” even then “all this does not appear within perception, because it is unconstructedness in stillness, it is immediate realization.” So the frustration with the ungraspable nature of this truth is baked in. But we mustn't forget the micro, along with the macrocosmos. The microcosmos is also the manifestation of the universal existence of suffering, just on the other end of the scale spectrum. It recalls a line from one of our beloved Ch'an poems, Hokyo Zammai [Precious Mirror Samadhi], by Master Tozan, founder of Soto Zen in China:So minute it enters where there is no gap — so vast it transcends dimensionA hairsbreadth deviation and you are out of tuneI hear an unspoken “but” or “however” before this last bombshell — any deviation, however slight, and we are “out of tune.” Like tuning an old-fashioned analog radio dial, a little to the left or to the right, we get nothing but static. Only when we hit the frequency dead on in the middle, do we receive the transmission with clarity. If we persist in our meditation, we can hopefully penetrate beyond the Personal, Social and Natural barriers, all the way to the Universal, which is not only outside us at the furthest remove, but also inside us, at the most intimate. As Master Hakuin reminds, actually there is no “inner,” nor is there any “outer.” It is all clear, clean through. Spacetime is neither space, nor time.In the next segment we will take a look at Natural Origin, the origin of our suffering through the craving of our body, our mouth, and our mind. Stay tuned.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Both solve a problem —though of differing import.Zen's is the broadest.* * *In the last session of live dharma dialog online at the Zen center — transcribed as the last podcast in the series on the most recent spate of mass shootings — the last participant worried that meditation would not help children in the classroom, owing to the complexity of the many personal and social issues they are confronting. Not least, the elephant in every public American classroom these days, the threat of yet another school shooter. The exchange went as follows:But don't give up! You're creative.No I won't give up. Thanks very much for your teaching.So I mean to encourage you similarly. No matter how bad it gets, don't give up on your zazen practice. And be creative in your personal life and approach to problem-solving. I closed the last by stating that this concludes the dharma dialog that took place on this occasion. But the dialog continues. In the next four sections we will draw some interim conclusions as a kind of summary of Zen and Design thinking, or those aspects of this intersection discussed to date, namely the Four Noble Truths, the first teaching of Buddha, and the Four Spheres of influence and Endeavor, my attempt at a comprehensive model of the real world in which we live and practice Zen.Buddha's First Sermon, alternatively called “Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Law,” “The Middle Way,” or “The Four Noble Truths,” lays out his description of the reality that all sentient beings face, and his prescription for what action to take to deal with it, namely the Noble Eightfold Path. We will include my semantic models of these teachings, along with my configuration of the Four Spheres in which we live and practice — the Personal, Social, Natural, and the Universal. Hopefully we can draw some correlations between the two models to get a better vision of how our Zen life can proceed in the context of the current complexities of the world. The illustration below shows that my model of nesting spheres can be usefully associated with both quartets.Before going into specifics of the four truths and their interconnectedness with the four nested spheres of our existence, it seems pertinent to ask the question: Why four? Why not five, or three, or six, eight, or twelve? I believe it has to do with what R. Buckminster Fuller developed and taught in his design science and geodesic geometry developments. The fourth point closes the system.Interestingly, if not coincidentally, Sokei-an, the Rinzai priest who accompanied Soen Shaku on his trip to America to introduce Zen Buddhism to the West at a world convocation of religions toward the end of the 19th century, said something similar about the relationship of Buddhism to Christianity. Paraphrasing broadly, he commented something to the effect that Buddha appeared some 2500 years ago and counting, propounding a kind of compassion and wisdom that required the surrender of the self. 500 years or so later, Christ appeared, preaching a kind of divine love that “closed the teaching.” In other words, the two great religious systems are complementary, not competitive.If we recall the many other teachings that are expressed in sets of four, there are the four fundamental elements of tradition: earth, wind, fire, and water. The four logical propositions, or tetralemma of ancient pedigree: it is; it is not; it both is and is not; it neither is nor is not. Then there are the four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter. In a more contemporary context there are the four fundamental forces of the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces, potentially with a fifth or more lurking in the shadows of dark matter and dark energy. Modern biology posits four forces of evolution: mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection. The seemingly impossible phenomenon of an airplane in flight is also explained by four forces: lift, thrust, drag and weight. Orville and Wilbur must have figured that one out.Setting aside for now the apparent contradiction that in each of these cases, we can find other qualified candidates for inclusion, such as space and consciousness, sometimes listed with the other four elements, remember that Fuller was positing the simplest model of any given system, which by definition has an inside and an outside. The tetrahedron is the first geometric shape to fill the bill. But it is deceptively simple in appearance. When we look at the connecting tissue between the four points, we see that there are six such, and each can be interpreted as cutting both ways, resulting in twelve aspects of interconnectedness between the four points. (See illustration if you cannot visualize for yourself.)Not coincidentally, this number, 12, the familiar “dozen” from the Latin duodecim, pops up regularly here and there in the vernacular, in all sorts of categories of information: twelve lunar cycles or months of the solar year; the visible spectrum or color wheel; the hours of the day (in Master Dogen's day, doubled to 24 in modern times), and not to forget the twelve apostles as an outlier, with Jesus making a baker's dozen. You may counter that there are only three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow, in terms of pigment. But the hues that we can distinguish separately tend to fall into twelve combinations of the three primaries, the secondaries of violet, orange and green, and the tertiaries of red-violet and red-orange, blue-violet (or purple) and blue-green, yellow-orange and yellow-green, closing the circle. And then there is the Twelvefold Chain of Interdependent Origination, Buddhism's summary model of how things get to be the way they are, through life cycles of rebirth, aging sickness and death that are the lot of all sentient beings. Most importantly of course, those of the human persuasion.We can point to many groupings of less than four, such as the Three Treasures of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Or the three legs of the Zen stool articulated by John Daido Loori: faith, doubt, and perseverance. Or the Three Times, past future and present. For each of these triads, I would submit that the fourth point is YOU. You complete the tetrad, the four-pointed system, in your relation to the other three. Buddhism is like that. It included the observer from the very beginning. Buddha was a human being, and had no interest in expounding a theory of existence that did not include human beings as observers. The whole point of his teaching is the nature of reality and our place in it.Other teachings such as the Noble Eightfold Path can be parsed into a tripartite grouping: Right Wisdom (view and thought or understanding and intention); Right Ethics or Conduct (Speech, Action and Livelihood); and Right Discipline (Effort, Mindfulness and Meditation) again with the caveat that the English term “right” is a limiting translation for the intended meaning. Buddha's “right” is more a verb than an adjective, taking action to right our raft, sailing on the seas of Samsara. Again, the fourth component completing this model is, dear seeker, yourself.While these enumerations may appear to be arbitrary, they do seem to function as memory aids, mnemonics, as well as revealing an underlying need and yearning for order, in conceiving a model of our existence, which can seem so chaotic and arbitrary in its manifestations. We can be forgiven a bit of conjecture in our efforts to explain the unexplainable and conceive of the inconceivable. As long as we are willing to return to the cushion, and contemplate our creative grasp of reality, I say: No harm, no foul. The monkey mind has some utility, if limited, in adapting to and embracing reality, warts and all.In the next session we will return to consideration of the quartets of Noble Truths and nesting spheres. We will look at each of the pairs of correlates in order: Universal Existence — of sufffering, that is — Natural Origin, Social Path, and Personal Cessation, of dukkha. Stay tuned.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Final solution —What if there isn't any?Back to the cushion.* * *We concluded the last segment on perhaps an overly pessimistic note, that engaging the current spate of daily atrocities through the established political process may never result in any of your preferred outcomes. But Zen encourages us to approach life like the superior player plays the game of Go. The inferior player gets bogged down in territorial fights in one corner of the board, and may win that battle, but meanwhile the opponent is winning in all other areas of the board. Strengthening our position may not be as obvious as we think, or where we should invest the effort – at home, at work, in the political arena? Where do we place our priority for action, with limited resources and time? The dialog continues:Someone asks: We see these arguments go into the issue of gun control. But not much emphasis on the mental health.I say: Well, other than as an excuse, an avoidance of tougher issues to confront or blame.What kind of compassion from the Buddha — talking about gun control, I know that if they wouldn't have guns, they would choose another weapon, which is the case in Japan. So the underlying issue is still there.I say: Okay, so in Japan, what other weapon would they choose?They would drive into a group of people by bus… so the scale is smaller but the underlying issue is the same. And so from you, to the shooter, or his environment, what kind of compassion or comment can you give me?I say: Yeah, a different take on compassion is that we are already the recipient of compassion, the compassion of the universe just to allow our existence. Scientists, physicists, and people who know will tell you that it doesn't have to be designed that way — there doesn't have to be an intelligence in the universe, it can theoretically exist without any sentient beings. So I think we start from a root base like that. Although we arise out of ignorance, and not everything we do is intelligent, we don't know for sure, ultimately. We don't know much at all, really, about reality. But one thing is for sure, it allows us to exist. And so, if you feel the recipient of that compassion, and that's meaningful to you, I don't see how you would need to get anything from anybody else, after that. Some people attribute that feeling to God.And so again, if the kids started practicing meditation and they were raised in an environment where the outer influences on them at an early age — when they are easily influenced, other-directed, and impressionable, the formative years — it might make a difference. I grew up in the 1950s, a pretty prohibitive environment, in many ways. And I now know, looking back on the mistakes I made, that a lot of them were reactions to what I was being told and pushed to do, and not to do.So this same independent thinking, and interdependent action, I think is probably native to a child, at a certain age. Then as they grow, they are conditioned, educated by peer pressure, by parents, teachers and the culture, to look at the world this way, instead of that way. My suggestion would be that young children as soon as possible start doing meditation. And that they do it in some non-sectarian, non-religious way. So that they are able to develop a healthier relationship to aging, sickness and death, you know.As soon as these children were killed, nobody has seen a photograph of any of them. It's all hidden. When people get old, like me, they put you away in a home, so that nobody has to deal with you, except nurses and professionals. In the old days, Buddha's time, corpses would be lying out in the open. Sick people would be there on the street. You couldn't hide from it.So I think that if you go down the analysis of what is wrong, it's a vast kind of picture. But I think we could at least begin with meditation. That's why the problem of what do we teach in schools — critical race theory, teaching abstinence, having classes on sexuality and gender, or not having any — all of these factors to my way of thinking are different facets of the same problem.I think that for us, again, the revolution begins at home. I failed miserably in raising my kids in my first marriage. When I look back on that I try to do something about it. If you had a time machine you could maybe go back in time and try to fix things. In our marital relations and family we all make these mistakes. So, I think that if we can grow up — and wake up — and we can individually start behaving differently within our small circle, then maybe that ripple effect can effect others. I don't see any other solution. No top-down solutions.Someone asks: Lead by example.I say: By example. Matsuoka Roshi made this point about the monks that immolated themselves in Vietnam. He said that they stopped the war, those two famous incidents of the monks immolating themselves. Most people in this country would say they're crazy, they're nuts. And would disagree that that did anything to stop the war. In some cases you may have to be willing to be the crucifixion. You may have to be willing to be the sacrifice. There are many stories in history of people like that. Altruistic self-sacrifice for the benefit of the larger group. What works in one situation may not work in another.Someone asks: I think that teaching Zen in classrooms just wouldn't work. I'm not really sure why because kids go through so much stuff during their lives with peer pressure and adolescence…I say: We have a couple of examples of teachers in our communal history. In one case we discussed the rowdiness of kids, and I suggested maybe a kind of dokusan, or interview. It was a large class, unruly 12-year-olds, in that range. It was a big classroom, with a relatively private corner office, partially enclosed. He invited each student to come in during the day to talk to him when the others were working on assignment. One person at a time, taking turns. He just invited them to talk about whatever they wanted to talk about. It didn't have to be about the lesson or the class. He said that made a difference.Another was a young woman at our Wichita affiliate. She had just taken a job at a school in a more affluent neighborhood, but still had the discipline problems she had had before. We talked through it, and I suggested looking at what we do at the zendo. We don't boss people around and tell them what to do. We ring a bell, we have signals that everybody agrees to, to stop this and start that, et cetera. We chant vows, and so forth.So she started with her kids. She bought a bell & brought it into the classroom. She would ring the bell ding-ding-ding-ding-ding like a rolldown, when she wanted their attention, like we do when we are going to give a toast at a wedding. That got their attention. And then she let them ring the bell for certain things that happened during the day as a regular thing. To get to take a turn ringing the bell was sort of a big deal. This was middle school. They put together four vows that they would chant or recite every morning together as a group. They had them do some meditation, just sitting still for a while and quiet, a quiet period. A lot of schools do that. And she said it was like a 180-degree turnaround.So I think there is some evidence that some things can work. But you're right. For a lot of children, what happens in the classroom is the least of their troubles. It's what happens when they go home, and outside, in the neighborhood. Latchkey situations.From a social perspective, we can look at how we can offer meditation in a non-sectarian way to private schools and private groups. Cracking the nut of the public schools, the county and so forth, you run right into the same political situation you saw happen after each of these shootings. There are too many people who are just looking for a job with the county, too much churning going on to get a program off the ground. But don't give up! You're creative.No I won't give up. Thanks very much for your teaching.This concludes the dharma dialog that took place on this occasion. But the dialog continues.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Be realistic —Give up your designs on life.It has its own plan.* * *In the last segment we addressed the first few questions that arose from the Zen community regarding the most recent mass shootings in the context of buddhadharma and daily life practice, concluding with the point that Zen Buddhism is not overly optimistic on these issues, but certainly not pessimistic, either, as generally regarded by the uninitiated, owing to its emphasis on confronting suffering rather than trying to avoid it. Zazen practice is thought to engender an attitude not of resignation or hopelessness, but a practical approach to problem-solving, beginning with the premise that some problems are not amenable to quick resolution. In fact, we may not see the end of this particular insanity in American life in our lifetimes. To continue where we left off:Someone asks: Thank you for your willingness to step forward and wade into these very painful events that occur, when so many spiritual and political leaders go silent, when a very massive loss of life occurs.I say: Well, you can't blame them. You're bound to be misunderstood and maybe vilified, no matter what tact you take in the context of these emotionally sensitive affairsYes. I am speaking to you out of an emotional place. This Uvalde, this shooting at this school, has triggered a lot of emotions. Sadness, tears, anger, frustration. Wanting to do something. Not wanting to just stand back while these things occur. Getting even more angry when I hear what our political leaders who are bold enough to step forward have to say about protecting my right to go publicly into the community with assault weapons and bags of ammunition, like somehow that‘s patriotic and the right thing to do. I have a sense to bolt. I live in a community that actually puts assault rifles on their campaign signs. It feels toxic, and there's actually a little bit of fear. To be fair, a lot of them are hard-working, good people. But I have this strong sense to bolt. But I don't know where to go. I don't particularly want to leave my state. But to find some kind of like-minded community, that would be required, I think, or maybe even leave my country. I am sharing these with you, and thank you for listening. I welcome your thoughts.Sure. Well, I would say, Welcome to the club. I think you're not alone. A lot of people have the same thoughts, escaping to Canada, and even fantasies of taking revenge. Why doesn't someone go shoot up the NRA convention, you know? Like — you guys seem to think this is a good idea — well, here it is.But you can understand the arguments on both sides, to some degree. Thich Nhat Hanh did a lot of work on world peace, and of course he came from Vietnam, where they saw massive atrocities that would probably make these look like child's play, no pun intended. But he said in order to work for world peace, you must be world peace. You cannot take a side. And that's hard. That's hard to do. It's really hard not to take a side, when some things seem so glaringly obvious, obviously wrong-headed.Even logical comparisons fall short in the face of the stubbornness of fixed opinions. One that stands out starkly for me as just being a neutral fact, is that every other country that has brought access to weapons under control does not have this problem. And they do have all the other problems that this is blamed on, such as mental health issues. So that's a glaring discrepancy to my way of thinking, but one that assumes that politics — unlike anything else in our culture — works on logic. And it is very clear that politics is probably one of the most emotional professions, or categories of activities, that we have in modern culture. Probably always was.Buckminster Fuller, as you may know, was an indirect mentor to me. I met him a couple of times. I never was his student, but he was an influencer of my generation of design professionals. He called his design approach “anticipatory comprehensive design science.” He tried to anticipate problems before they happened. This is how he taught his students. Come up with solutions. Do the definition, do the analysis, the prognosis and so forth, and come up with solutions so they are sitting there, ready to go, when the rest of society recognizes: This is a problem. So that's a big, heavy lift, to do that well. His geodesic domes were examples of that, along with a lot of other things that he did in his lifetime.He was a philosopher as well, and wrote about a lot of subjects, including politics. He said it all began with Malthus and Darwin. Malthus did a world resource inventory, and concluded there's not enough to go around, basically. Darwin developed his origin of species, which was then misinterpreted to mean survival of the fittest — meaning whoever is strongest, basically — and so the politicians said, Keep me in power, I'll make sure we get ours. And to hell with the rest of the world. I said that. That was the robber barons period. Might makes right.His other comment on politicians was something like, We turn to politicians for solutions to our problems. But if they had any solutions they wouldn't be politicians. Politicians' job number one is status quo — maintaining the status quo for themselves, for their constituents, for their sponsors. So that's the beginning of the corruption, right there.When we look at Buddha's example, he did not become a politician. He had the opportunity. He was warrior class and was slated to be chief of the Shakya clan, which is close to a political position. But he would be reporting to the Brahmins, who were the number one caste; the warrior caste was number two. So you could say that Buddha was basically a draft-dodger. He didn't want to do that. And he was highly placed and wealthy enough that he had the option to pull out of the usual social program assigned to people in his position.So we want to have a realistic view of what Buddhism is about, and how it probably started, as well. Buddha apparently did not go against the political structure of the time, the caste system, head-to-head. One of our members, a Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist, recently published a book titled “Caste,” in which she posits that actually, we live in a caste system, but we don't call it that. She considers race to be just one of many aspects or dimensions of the total caste system in this society. Read the book.What Buddha did — at least if the story has historicity — was to set up an alternative way of living. Like many of the communes in the 1960s into the 1970s tried to do here. I knew a lot of people who tried that. They were based on a lot of faulty premises, I think, which is why and how many or most of them failed. I think the difference is that Buddha's community was based on meditation. It was also based on the ideas of impermanence and imperfection, and so forth, Buddha's model of reality. But essentially it was based on the communal practice of meditation. That's the glue that held it together, in my opinion.I think we are doing something similar. We're a bit like a Tupperware marketing approach going underground, into peoples' houses, not going into the stores. We are trying to bring this practice into this culture as kind of an almost subversive activity. We are training people, if what I feel is true, we train people to think truly independently and find true freedom; and be able to act interdependently. It's the most subversive political thing you can do. Because every political system depends upon people thinking dependently, and acting co-dependently. The real revolution starts at home, with each individual. Every top-down solution we have ever seen has not worked. Just after the revolution, guess who owned the dachas at the lake? The Bolsheviks. Same system, different players. Shuffle the deck, that's all it is.If you become truly independent, and are willing to act interdependently, then by the ripple effect, we will build a better society. We are fortunate to be in a democracy where we can do this without being persecuted. So far.Someone asks: I'm hearing a lot of discussion about how to practice compassion and not let events like this just utterly annihilate you. You are called to witness suffering, to hear the cries of sentient beings and not turn away. We can't take a pass, we can't ignore the causes of suffering. We should avow our complicity in the structures here. I keep thinking about just how related we are as a species. Human beings do not have much genetic variation compared to other types of animals. We are all very similar. You are not more than fifteen, sixteen cousins away from most people on the planet. Just by the nature of life, you're fourteenth-million cousin of your cat, or something, you know what I mean?I say: And in terms of proximate causes, you're only one airplane ride away from anybody else on the planet. Many exacerbating conditions such as this have never existed before in society.Someone asks: That's what I think when I think about starting here with human nature, and not getting into the fear that is obviously the goal of these fascist strikes on the heart of open society. It is not hard to see what's really happening here. There is this act of terrorism, there is this radiating atmosphere of menace. It is intended to intimidate us. And Zen training is supposed to give us some impulse toughness, in order to persevere against that. And you're right, that can be freedom.I say: A historical claim of Zen has always been that it is a way of facing life, but it is also a way of facing death. That is why it has had such a tight relationship to the martial arts and the military throughout China and Japan. If you look at the consistent factor of Zen transitioning from India through China to Vietnam, Korea, Japan and the Far East, it's like this — I hate to use a cliché like “beacon of light” — it's just this constant thing that is moving through all this insanity. If you think that what we are facing is bad, try going back to China or Japan during their warring periods. Or Vietnam for that matter. The so-called history of humankind is “written in blood,” you know. And yet, Zen somehow survived.So I think it's pretty strong. I think you can't go too far wrong, by emphasizing Zen as kind of the core of what you do. The center to which you return and reconsider, maybe, you know, Well I blew that one. Like the other day I tried to hold our monthly ZENtalk open-ended discussion via Zoom. I thought I had it all set up, but I couldn't even find the way to get the meeting to start. Zoom Zen. Zen Zoom.One of the connections between Design and Zen is that we experiment. We take a risk, we take a chance, and we fail, again and again. As Dogen said, “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” Another expression he used was, “The bullseye depends on the hundred misses.” So in Zen, we are not afraid to take action. In Design, we try to define the problem thoroughly before taking action, just as a hedge on your bet, you know. So that you are not only going on gut level intuition with your own confirmation bias and all that kind of stuff. We mitigate the risk to the extent feasible, but without analysis paralysis. Design has historically been primarily a group process. Great inventions have come up in groups, not brilliant individuals in their ivory towers, as commonly thought. I think the same thing is true in Zen. Dogen, Bodhidharma, Buddha — they were all surrounded by groups of people who were all working together in a collaborative way to pull this off, make this Zen thing happen. It wasn't a Lone Ranger, individual genius kind of proposition.And I think that's what we need to do now. We need to bind together as much as we can, and take collaborative action to do our best to create an alternative to this insanity that we see. Doesn't have to be on a big scale. We don't have to go up against “them.” Of course, some of our people are supporting politicians. It's okay to get involved in the politics. I don't see any reason not to. But don't get your hopes up that that's going to provide the final solution, that political action is going to make it all different. Human nature is a stubborn thing. Especially when facts are no longer that stubborn.To be continued.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Inevitable —Yet so unnecessary!Enough suffering.* * *As mentioned in the first segment of this series, one Sunday at the Zen center we conducted a dialog on the recent school shootings and general dystopian state of affairs, as a kind of “dharma combat,” an open and frank discussion of how Zen practice does or does not address the ongoing chaos of modern life in America. In this and the two following segments we will close out this discussion, largely quoting the question-and-answer dynamic that transpired online and in person that day. As usual in Zen dialog, the answers more often than not raise more questions than they provide any pat answers.Master Dogen, in Shobogenzo Bendowa — A Talk About Pursuing the Truth — includes a section of questions and his answers at the end. The format I have chosen, “Someone asks: I say:” below is adopted from that approach. After my brief introductory recap of the subject, quoting a couple of the paragraphs from the prior segment, we opened the floor for discussion. The following is what ensued.Someone asks: What is the best we can do in a situation like this? How can we be centered in dharma without being numb to what's going on around us? Where does the rubber meet the road between practice and avoidance?I say: Mastuoka Roshi was once asked this question, regarding “engaged Zen.” He simply took the zazen posture, saying “This is the most you can do.” What I think he meant is that unless you gain clarity on the cushion, and resolve your personal conflicts with regard to life and death, you cannot really enter the fray in the public realm without adding to the confusion. As long as you have preconceptions, or a bias as to the outcomes, you cannot really engage in a balanced and compassionate manner. If on the other hand you can see both sides of the issue — or in today's context, the many sides of the issue — you may be able to help.Clarification is what we go for in zazen, but the path to it is fraught with confusion and frustration. In pursuing clarity in zazen, one thing that becomes clear is our own complicity, and the degree of responsibility we share in the details of our complex lives. We may be complicit in sharing the karma of our community, but not the direct responsibility, e.g. of the shooter as the proximate cause. Both can be true at once. We are complicit in, but not responsible for, the specific event. But we are definitely responsible for what we do about it now. Karma and its consequences continue through the Three Times — past future & present — according to Zen Buddhism. What we do in the present will probably comprise the most appropriate action, if we thoroughly examine the situation in zazen.Zazen is not a panacea. It does not change anything by “spooky action at a distance” or magical thinking. But in terms of psychology it helps us to see ourselves and our place in this situation.Someone asks: Is there any actual realistic thing we can do to face this situation? What can we do?I say: I think we have to take the long view. This is not to say that we should not rise up in arms, and change everything we can change that is part of the problem. But if you look back on Japan — where our Zen teachers come from — during WWII, Japan and the United States were at each other's throats. We witnessed the calamity of dropping nuclear bombs on civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the former of which was Matsuoka Roshi's family home. And which to this day I don't agree had to be done, and a lot of other people disagree with that atrocity as well. Nonetheless, Japan and USA are now allies We're, quote, “friends.” So you have to look back on 50 years and say, Well, what was that all about then? It took generations dying off, for us to recover the relationship on a normalized basis between the two countries.So I think that reflects the kind of patience that we learn to practice in Zen. The kind of patience that is not associated with outcomes. Parents with their children, children with their aging parents, et cetera, practice patience with each other and within society. We do, but it's always connected to the outcome. I am going to count to ten, hold my breath, hold my tongue. I am going to be patient in this situation, because it's going to work out the way I want it to.In Zen I think we practice the kind of patience that says this may never work out the way I want it to. And yet I will practice patience with that, because that's the nature of the beast. It's suffering. It is impermanent, it's imperfect, insubstantial, et cetera — all the teachings of Buddhism apply here.I think what we are doing as practice leaders and practitioners is, as Matsuoka Roshi said, the most you can do. We are hopefully teaching people how to deal with their own ignorance, and potentially how to overcome it, by practicing meditation. It's not passive. It is not a retreat from reality. It's a way of girding your loins to go out and go back into battle, you could say. I think we are training armies of soldiers who can go into tough situations, and do probably closer to the right thing that has to be done.I think that's the mission of Zen. It could eventually lead to world peace, if we survive long enough, if we don't blow the planet up entirely. And I think it's our only hope for world peace, personally. I think that the other religions have largely failed. Not intentionally, not because of any particular fault that they have. Politics has failed, as well. From my perspective, the only thing that we have left is Zen.I think we are already doing what we should do about it. It is just, Can we catch up to it in time? We are training individuals to think independently, and to act interdependently. That is the most we can do. The people we're training, they will go out and take action. It is not my place to tell people what they should or should not do. For my part, I need to spend all my time training people this way. So that they will go out and become political, they will go out and join the movement. But the action they take will be from a more compassionate or wise, universalist kind of perspective, than from trying to help my team win, in this situation. Which is what we see with all of the so-called movements.Matsuoka Roshi taught that Zen can bridge East and West. I think Zen can bridge this problem as well. It takes time, and we all have to do our best. Any chance I get I will speak out, as Matsuoka Roshi did, as you know if you've read his collected talks. He spoke out about Vietnam, about WWII, civil rights. He was very much a peacemaker and bridge-builder. It's incumbent upon us to do everything we can, whatever we can.Someone asks: When it comes to universalism — the ideas of emptiness and compassion — to me it seems logical that they would help people to understand that they don't have to be so selfish, they don't have to be so narcissistic and hateful. But how can we help people like that banish some of those delusions? Is there any way we can help them, even in a gentle way?I say: Again, my opinion is, Zen can help. I've tried things like joining the Fulton County Interfaith committee. I was co-chair of the board of that committee for a year, when I began to see that what I was trying to do was never going to happen. I was trying to get the county to introduce meditation into the schools. I think: get them early. If you start people sitting in meditation when they are young, in middle school, elementary grade levels, then by the time they get to high school they might be more capable of dealing with things like hormonal rage, and all the rejection they receive from people around them. They might be able to have more of a sense of humor about it, and see it for what it is, and not take it personally. I sound like Johnny-one-note, but my answer is, get the kids sitting on the cushions.I spoke about this a little bit on my recent podcast, about the “incels” the “involuntary celibates” at certain ages, adolescents primarily. They watch porn on TV or social media, and see that all the girls “want it” and so forth. And then they turn to their local community, and no one wants to have anything to do with them. And so their frustration mounts. The sexuality, the hormones, the social construct that we have, the religious backdrop, these are all contributing factors, as well as probably the killer, shoot-‘em-up computer games. Everything has something to contribute.And it all seems, to my way of thinking, to be part of the same problem, like different koans. In Zen, there are 1700 classical koans, and they are all pointing to the same truth. The way I look at this problem, every dimension of it, like facets of a diamond, they are all part of it. And so it's very difficult to get to the root cause, to the core of it. But I think Buddha identified that.It's the sense of self, needing to defend that self. Needing to empower and consume, for that person to have power and wealth, and to consume what everybody wants. It's predictable — if you take a bunch of conscripts in their teens and twenties from Russia, and send them to invade a country with weaponry — it's predictable what they are going to do. Because you have to dehumanize the population that you are invading, to begin with.So none of this is surprising. Buddha would not be surprised by any of this. He would just be aghast at the scale of everything. And how, to this point, Buddhism has failed. We have failed to adopt these principles, the Precepts, Paramitas, et cetera. This is why we aspire to buddha nature — to wake up — and not to human nature. We are seeing human nature on display. Some people would probably resent that. They say, No, no, that's inhumane. But look at how we treat the rest of the species — livestock and wildlife — and how we treat the planet. It's human behavior. It's humanity. And that's not pessimistic. It's not overly optimistic, either. It's realistic.To be continued.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

The final lesson.Cannot postpone forever;learned now or never.* * *Each fifth Sunday, of which there are four per year (unless there is yet another anomaly I do not understand about the common calendar), we hold our version of what is called “dharma combat,” or hossen in Japanese. This exercise is based upon our understanding of how the ancestors of Zen structured their public discourse. Public, that is, in the sense that all members of a temple or monastery were invited to join the dialog. Whether they really went public with it is a matter for historians.Another term, mondo, which I understand means “crossing of swords,” indicates a brief exchange, like the clashing of two samurai in the days of hand-to-hand combat, now long lost to history in the age of drones, except for the occasional storming of the capitol, much in the news lately as the January 6 committee initiates its prime-time presentations. Hossen is an extended exchange, which lasts longer than the typical clash of two swordsmen.These exchanges between Zen masters and their students, or between two students training under the same master — that somehow got written down, with rice paper and brush, mind you — constitute a major part of the written record. Some are anecdotal, others evolve into one of the body of illogical riddles attributed chiefly to the Rinzai sect, known as koan or koans in English plural form, kung-an in Chinese. One connotation of the latter is “public case,” which defines the ever-changing koan of everyday life that we are facing in these challenging times.I decided to focus one of our dharma combat sessions — which should really be disarmed to a less threatening terminology, such as “dharma dialog” — on the recent mass shootings, latest in a long history of illogical events that nobody wants to talk about, but cannot avoid discussing. Like a koan, they challenge our very grasp of reality.In looking at this problem from both a Design and Zen perspective, the first thing is to try to define it as thoroughly as possible. I reasoned that having an open-ended dialog about it, in the context of a Zen exchange of our understanding of dharma, might bring out the many dimensions of the problem. Compared to responding to the perspective of sincere students of the Way, attempting to articulate the definition of this particular problem on my own might turn out to be a fool's errand. The following is what I came up with in examining my own reaction, to be amplified by the dialog in due time. The transcription of that focus group will follow in future segments. Let's enumerate the players.The human constituents to be examined involve the victims, first and foremost, and their loved ones, the second tier of victims. Then the proximate community of witnesses, the third tier of victims. Fourth, the perpetrators, the shooters, who might be considered victims themselves, in some sense. Fifth, there are the enablers of the perps, those who directly profit from the mayhem, who can hardly be considered victims. Sixth, the onlookers, the vast media audience. And seventh, perhaps the last tier of victims, those running for their lives in other parts of the world, dealing with their own threats from local disasters, natural and man-made, and not helped by this local, disastrous distraction. And, eighth, the larger group of enablers, who indirectly profit from such catastrophes, be it from a financial or political perspective. If I have inadvertently left anybody out, I apologize. Any oversights may become clear in the dialog.Looking at this koan from a Zen perspective necessarily entails comparisons with a cultural perspective, which is largely theistic, stemming primarily from belief systems of the Abrahamic religions. We see this in the vernacular of such terms as “evil” referencing the perps, references to God's will, the victims being “laid to rest,” and so forth. Part of the pain suffered by all, amplified by media, is the sheer repetition of the same tropes, and reliance on the same memes, we have witnessed in past incidents. Which have the property of piling on, until the problem seems intractable by virtue of its very familiarity.In this context I hope and feel that the Buddhist view, as I understand it, may offer some solace, and some promise for a long-term solution to this recurrent tragedy. One of the first memes to be compared and contrasted may be the belief of being “born into sin,” versus birth arising from Ignorance, the first link in the Twelvefold Chain of Interdependent Co-Arising, Buddhism's model of how things get to be the lamentable way they are. In broaching this comparison of spiritual hypotheses, I am fully aware that we are opening a virtual Pandora's box, which we may not be able to close again.Any and all discussions of such events, while emotions are still raw, are fraught with such possibilities. But with these events now occurring weekly, and likely to get worse, it seems we no longer have the luxury of not engaging in the dialog, at least, to begin to define potential solutions, and determine what action we may take, on both personal and social levels. The timeworn expression of good intentions, “to make sure this can never happen again,” begins to ring hollow in the face of the increasing frequency and viciousness of the attacks. So please bear with me. These suggestions are for you to take under consideration in your own view of, and response to, the situation, not as superior opinions.At risk of repeating myself, let me emphasize once again that Buddhist teachings are not meant to be debated in comparison with other teachings of religion or philosophy, let alone ideology. As Buddha himself is said to have instructed on his deathbed, do not simply take his word for anything, but work out our own salvation. In that spirit we offer alternative ways of thinking, and approaching even the most difficult of traumas that the world has to offer. Again we ask, “What if?” and follow with “If, then…”If we are indeed born into ignorance, rather than the “original sin” committed by primordial ancestors, then the perpetrators and victims, as well as all observers, proximate or remote, are facing the same problem. The victims are acting out of innocence, simply pursuing their lives in accord with the expectations of families, friends and community. This amounts to a kind of innocent ignorance, simply not knowing that they are, or may be, in danger.The perpetrators act out of a different kind of ignorance, one that prompts them to turn their greed, anger and delusion — Buddhism's Three Poisons — into attacks on others, in effect blaming others for their own suffering. Taoism, one of the root sources of Zen in China, is attributed with saying something like, “When the blaming begins, there is no end to the blame.”What we always see, immediately following the latest atrocity, is the blame-game writ large. Everyone who may be held responsible for the terrible event seeks to deflect blame, citing “mental health,” the parents, the weapons manufacturers, et cetera. The list is truly endless. We all feel complicit to a certain degree. Which brings up one dual pair requiring clarification: complicity versus responsibility.We can be complicit — which simply means “involved with others,” in a situation without being responsible for what takes place — or culpable, which means “deserving blame.” The degree of culpability is often a matter of closeness to, or distance from, the given event. The trigger man is obviously closest to the crime, but beyond that, it becomes less determinant. The expression, “What did they know, and when did they know it?” becomes determinative in the investigation of the timeline, or the “tick-tock,” the current term of art.The “motive” of the shooters always becomes an obsession, at least of the news media and officials in the follow-up. In the light of the ever-accumulating history, it becomes more and more obvious that the motive does not matter, if knowing it does not help us stop the shootings. Where the perp is killed, either by himself or others, the main source of information regarding motives is lost, unless they have left a paper or virtual trail, up to and including a manifesto. On the other hand, it seems self-evident that the motives of all or most of these young men are the same: they want to deflect their own rage onto others, and perhaps draw attention or gain fame in the process. In other words, they have no real motive, in any rational sense. This is the basis of the argument that they are mentally ill. If they are mentally ill, the culpability of everyone else becomes a moot issue. But Buddhism would hold that we are all mentally ill, if not to the same degree. The main mental illness is ignorance of the truth, which we all share in common, and which defines the futility of these acts of desperation.This is where the public “debate” turns ugly, from sympathy for the innocents to the witch hunt for the guilty. One group of well-meaning people will fault the manufacturers and sales distribution of the AR rapid-fire rifles, weapons of war. Others cite the lack of preparation and failures of the policing forces, running down the minute-by-minute timeline. All sides begin to turn on each other, like rats in an overcrowded maze. Accusations fly, complaining that the real root of the problem is elsewhere, as in a recent political opinion, quote, “every time a demented or disturbed individual does this they try to use it to support their radical agenda,” the “they” here being the opposite political party. But it cuts both ways. Either side could make the same statement, equally effectively. This is the definition of stalemate.The very first of the Grave Precepts of Buddhism, translated variously, is “Affirm life – Do not kill.” Or in some versions, “I take up the way of not killing.” When we consider this objectively and absolutely, it is rendered impossible, of course. This human body has to continuously kill with its immune system, in order to survive. We have to kill in order to eat. But of course we do not have to kill indiscriminately, as in the mass shootings at various public venues, or in shelling civilians in Ukraine. We have to kill selectively, however, in order to maintain our lifestyles, whether in a modern urban setting, or in a tribal setting in the jungle. Death is inevitable, and only a matter of time. Violence is inherent, and only a matter of direction. As the charming political trope puts it, “It depends on whose ox is being gored.”This winner versus loser mentality infects and underlies much of what is askew in human interactions. In truth we are all winners and losers. We have won the birthright of Buddhism — the potential for awakening — but in the end we inevitably lose this life through aging, sickness and death. So our time available for realizing this insight is severely limited. Meanwhile most of us go through life without even knowing that we have this ability, this capability and capacity to find what we are really looking for, instead of futilely pursuing other fantasies. It is truly pitiable, and applies to all of us equally. This is the wake-up call of Zen. I hope that you hear it in your life, and that all beings will be able to do so eventually.To be continued.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

Today on the show, host and NewDEAL Leader Ryan Coonerty talks with Jon Mitchell, the mayor of New Bedford, Massachusetts, about how his city is leading the way in offshore wind projects and mitigating the effects of climate change. He also shares his advice for leaders looking to tackle climate change by transitioning to new industries as seamlessly as possible, drawn from his four terms of experience as mayor. Ryan and Mayor Mitchell discuss how rural towns, small cities, and superstar cities are catered to differently by political parties and what federal and state policymakers should know about small cities to improve the lives of the residents. Mayor Mitchell also discusses the erosion of trust in institutions and why transparency is key to building trust during times of change like we are living in now. Finally, he touches on stories from his time as a prosecutor for high-profile cases, including his work with the task force searching for Boston mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger. Stay tuned to the end of the episode to hear about the great balance of big and small city life that you can find in a trip or move to New Bedford, plus the great seafood!

Your potential is in your body, not just your mind. Yes, that includes your business potential.  If you're not physically fit, you're not mentally fit. Ill health, fatigue, and malnutrition are cognition killers. Too many entrepreneurs think that sacrificing health for business is a necessary evil. It's not.  It's an unnecessary mistake. Today, we welcome […] The post MBA1738 Guest Teacher – Jon Mitchell – How to Maximize Productivity With Biohacking appeared first on The $100 MBA.