Organ Mountain Zen



Saturday, April 27, 2013

Sequester Values

With Palms together,


Good Morning Everyone,



Our government does not care about the people it serves or the people who serve it. A story on the Huffington Post helped me see this more clearly. Apparently, Congress decided rather quickly to lift sequester restrictions on programs assisting our nation’s airline traffic, but did nothing to ease the constraints being imposed on programs that actually save lives such as Meals on Wheels, Medicare, and support services for our military, among a host of others.



This, it seems to me, is a class issue, and because it is so, should involve the conscience of those in all faith traditions, including Zen Buddhism Programs that help our poor, our retired, and those least able to mobilize and advocate, have been set aside, and the one program that assists those who are in a position to afford to fly from one place to another is granted a lessoning of restrictions. This is outrageous. Since when is it a priority over life itself to fly?



I grant that air travel is a necessity from an economic standpoint. People traveling from one point to another are often contributing to our economic well-being as a nation, but the sequester does not prevent air travel, it simply slowed it down. No one likes to wait in lines, but perhaps waiting in line offers an opportunity to think about our spending priorities. Apparently, we dislike such considerations. I also grant that I no longer am willing to fly, refusing to offer myself up to draconian TSA measures that invade my privacy without warrant. But, even if all of a sudden the TSA were to disappear, I still would not fly, preferring instead to ride my Harley Davidson from point to point enjoying the resultant intimacy with our country. It seems to me that our health and quality of life issues are far more important than whether we wait in line for flights to other places. From a Zen Buddhist point of view, we have an obligation to not kill and through its positive, care for, protect, and nurture life. I do not see saving time in a line at an airport as in any way connected to this precept. Apparently our Congress thinks otherwise. I think this is a disgrace.



Zen practice is nothing if it does not engage us in the world around us. Our precepts are a guide to living a morally up-right life and the foundation of this is ahimsa, do no harm. Valuing airline wait times over people’s lives does harm. Perhaps this sequester has a value in that it forces us, as it has me, to look deeply at what really matters. May all beings be free from suffering.

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