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A Mirror Reflects Everything | May 18, 2014
This moment is very important—whether the world is empty or not, whether it exists or not, doesn’t matter. Take away your opinion, then what? What is left? That is the point. Take away your opinion—your condition, situation—then your mind is clear like space. Clear like space means clear like a mirror. A mirror reflects everything: the sky is blue, tree is green, sugar is sweet.
—Zen Master Seung Sahn, “Boom!”
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India's ruling Congress party admitted defeat this morning as the Narendra Modi wave washed over the country in a scale few had predicted. Initial counting in the country’s general election pointed to a massive victory for his opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and the worst ever performance for the Congress. As noisy victory celebrations involving drums and horns broke out outside the BJP’s headquarters in the centre of Delhi where 100,000 traditional Indian sweets had been ordered in preparation, a few streets away at the Congress’s offices, the mood was grey. “We accept defeat. We are ready to sit in the opposition,” Congress party spokesman Rajeev Shukla told reporters. “Modi promised the moon and stars to the people. People bought that dream.”From the Associated Press:
Modi's singular message on the economy has helped him ignore or beat back criticism of his personal life -- including his strong links to a right-wing Hindu nationalist group, as well as his four-decade marriage to a retired school teacher he had never mentioned publicly until last month. Born in 1950, Modi will be India's first prime minister born after the country's violent 1947 partition and independence from imperial Britain. His rise marks a paradigm shift for the secular democracy after decades of welfare policies that have emphasized lifting the country's impoverished. Modi has extolled the merits of trickle-down economics through industrialization. He also has maintained strong links with the conservative, paramilitary Hindu nationalist group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS, which some describe as neo-fascist.From the Voice Of America:
The right-wing Hindu nationalist party will return to its leadership role after 10 years, as the ruling Congress Party conceded defeat Friday. Modi’s critics remain uneasy about how the Hindu nationalist leader will govern a diverse nation with many religious minorities. As governor of Gujarat state, he was criticized for his handling of Hindu-Muslim rioting that killed more than 1,000 people in 2002. India’s Supreme Court cleared Modi of charges that he incited the violence.(Tipped by JMG reader Jamie)
Just over a week since taking office, President Luis Guillermo Solís made history Friday morning when he became the first Costa Rican leader to raise the rainbow flag of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement on even mast with the Costa Rican red-white-and-blue tricolor on the lawn of the Casa Presidencial. Vice President Ana Helena Chacón hoisted the flag in honor of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, May 17. “This is the house of all Costa Ricans. When we say all Costa Ricans we mean all, without exclusion, without violence, without harassment in absolute respect for the rights of each one,” Solís told a crowd of LGBT leaders and advocates during his brief comments on the lawn.LGBT Costa Ricans enjoy protections in employment, public accommodations, and other areas, but same-sex marriage, gay adoption, and military service remain banned. Perhaps that will change soon.
I think that to deal with things openly there has to be an open back-and-forth dialogue. Tolerance can't just work one way. You can't just be one way, that anybody who speaks out... this cannot turn into a Gestapo-type situation where if you express discomfort with something, then you're cast as a homophobe and you're fined by the league. I think that there has to be a back-and-forth.
So what you're saying is that Michael Sam has to put up with people disrespecting who he is... and he just has to put up with it and take it? ...What you're saying is he's supposed to be silent, that he's supposed to stand silently by and let people disrespect him.
Hatred's not new, bigotry is not new, ignorance isn't new. And so when someone denigrates somebody else for who they are... I understand you're saying that it has to be a two-way conversation. But tolerance, no, is not -- it should not be a two-way street. It's a one-way street.You cannot say to someone that who you are is wrong, an abomination, is horrible, you know, get a room, and all of those other things that people said about Michael Sam, and not be... made to understand that what you're saying and what you're doing is wrong.
