DD Justice Vigil Open Invite

(noon. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Jan 11 through 22. See my initial essay yesterday. January 22 marks the day that Guantanamo would’ve closed had that been… possible…. according to that 2009 inaugural promise.

Dharma Bums. For the duration of this ten day or so Vigil, I invite you to contribute or participate in whatever way you choose, but I would like to encourage you to attend bloggily in some small or large way.

A very simple thing anyone can do would be to change your sig for the duration.

Another simple thing you could do is to post an Essay on the subject. You can post three per day here y’know. 😉 Surely you’d be willing to devote one to this effort? It doesn’t have to be info heavy or link rich even. Some thoughts, a photo montage or music video or something simple is fine.

Just do it. No Sign Up Sheet or anything. Be excellent.

Attend.

Witness.

No justice, no peace.

Some sig worthy Justice Quotes …. up for grabs! 🙂

Justice without force is powerless; force without justice is tyrannical. ~Blaise Pascal

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You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man’s freedom. You can only be free if I am free. ~Clarence Darrow

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We’ve got to take back the ideal of justice, we’ve got to take back this principle of human dignity. We’ve got to take it back from vengeance, from hatred, we’ve got to say: look, we’re all in this together. We are human beings. ~David Kaczynski

ha ha I better quit that, y’all can find your own! lol

Look. I don’t do “wonk”. I skim over a lot of details a lot of the time. I lack patience. I don’t comment in certain topics even though I do read (and tip) them. Sigh. I boomerang back always to Peace & Justice. It’s important. It’s the foundational glue.

Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free.

True peace with oneself and with the world around us can only be achieved through the development of mental peace. The other phenomena mentioned above are similarly interrelated. Thus, for example, we see that a clean environment, wealth or democracy mean little in the face of war, especially nuclear war, and that material development is not sufficient to ensure human happiness.

Material progress is of course important for human advancement. In Tibet, we paid much to little attention to technological and economic development, and today we realize that this was a mistake. At the same time, material development without spiritual development can also cause serious problems. In some countries too much attention is paid to external things and very little importance is given to inner development. I believe both are important and must be developed side by side so as to achieve a good balance between them. Tibetans are always described by foreign visitors as being a happy, jovial people. This is part of our national character, formed by cultural and religious values that stress the importance of mental peace through the generation of love and kindness to all other living sentient beings, both human and animal. Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquillity. In that state of mind you can deal with situations with calmness and reason, while keeping your inner happiness. This is very important. Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed or unhappy because of circumstances.

~ Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, The Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1989

Thing is… this is my grounding. My core. My roots. The noise, the insistence to “Yell Louder” is what drew me to Docudharma a year or so ago. The purity if you will. The calm within the cacophony keeps me tight … and lifts me up.

I need you, you need me.

I believe in the essential unity of all people and for that matter of all lives.

Therefore, I believe that if one person gains spiritually, the whole world gains,

and if one person falls, the whole world falls to that extent.

~Mohandas K. Gandhi

Please join me.  In solidarity.