Category Archives: Insights

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Improve the Situation

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America stands at a crossroads and a brink. In the years ahead, the outcomes will shape the nation for generations. These are dangerous times. Over the past few years, much of what we cherish has been under threat – democracy, civility, and truth. 

The Republican Party announced today that it is replacing its emblem from an elephant with a condom because it better reflects the party’s stance on key issues facing America. A condom accepts inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you’re getting screwed.

Taking any action to improve the situation is better than doing nothing, no matter how small. Write a letter, make a phone call, talk to a neighbor, talk to several people, vote and elect new representatives, attend a meeting, get involved, and make a difference.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Gandhi

Satoru

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Pigeons and Rats. 

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If you were in organized crime, pigeons and rats, stool pigeons, and betraying rats would be synonymous. Unfortunately, they are still synonymous, even if you are just an ordinary citizen. In Ahearn Park, between Grand Street and East Broadway, two older women with shopping carts full of crumbs, old bread, seeds, and other foods spread out twenty-foot lines of food on the ground. The feed pigeons don’t eat in the daytime; the rats feast on at night. The pigeon population and the rat population have doubled. The renewed Ahearn Park is supposed to be an enduring oasis in the Lower East Side. But the benches are covered with bird poo, and the rats at night ruin it.

One day, I saw these women spreading out their garbage in the middle of the park. My neighbors sitting in the park said, “See, this is what they do every day about this time.” Since the 7th precinct was just a block away, I walked over and spoke to the young cop with beautiful hair and an attitude at the desk. I told him the situation. He made a call on his cell phone, and by the time I walked back to the park, the cops were there talking to the two women.

I asked the two policemen, “Isn’t this a summons offense for throwing so much garbage in the street? They said, “We can’t give them a summons unless we see them doing it.” 
I answered, “Walk away to your patrol car across the street, and you will see them throwing the garbage. The cops left and were not seen again. The woman came back and dumped the trash on the floor. It is not against the law to feed the pigeons. It is against the law to dump garbage and feed the rats. I know the pigeons spread hepatitis, and the rats can spread all sorts of diseases. I went back to the precinct the following day. I received a cop’s stupid response.

“It’s New York, Whatayaexpect? 

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Casting Zen Pearls

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Perhaps the most significant attribute a person can develop for success in life is the adaptability to change, and the ability to embrace change itself. Examine the last few years of your life. How much has changed? How many things in your existence have you altered? How much have you progressed? Most of us are arrogant and stubborn in our interpretation of our self-image and our life’s. We are comfortable with what we have developed, and the progress we have made, and cannot accept a quantum leap forward because it requires first unlearning a behavior and then, substituting an unfamiliar action in order to obtain a rational change forward.

If we always do what we have always done, although it is easier, then we will always get the same results. But the few opportunities to radically improve our lives usually are disguised in alternative actions and uncomfortable beginnings that require new efforts and a change in our behavior and our preconceived limitations.

So, luck, or in reality preparation meeting opportunity, only works if you are flexible and have the scope to face the realization that you have been; procrastinating, preoccupied, not prioritizing, and making excuses, (which in reality is just a well-planned lie,) and not making time to alter your direction and grow.

So, meditate on living in the now and being absolutely engaged, open yourself to new opportunities, cultivate a more objective persona, simplify and plan, and adapt as your new mantra, Life is Action.

Satoru

 

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Sense of Humor

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Exercise probably helps to sustain your life more then any other factor. It allows us to have more focus, energy, and relaxation because it reduces stress. The second most important factor in prolonging your life is probably a sense of humor. Laughing also deactivates stress hormones and aids the immune system. People with a developed sense of humor tend to be more creative and more adapt at solving the many problems that life gives us. It improves many cognitive functions. Most of all, it helps people get along with others.

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website dating

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Satoru, I have broken off with my sweetheart and am searching the Internet for a new love. But I am in conflict with my Zen proclivity and the disappointment of my digital search. I read your last blog and laughed as I applied your/the Zen advice. My problem was completely alleviated. Can you help me with this dilemma?

The  dating websites should be declared a gigantic, permeating, buyer-beware zone. The most obvious problem is that they do not vet potentials for truthfulness so the biggest impediment in all-online dating is dishonesty. However, if you accept this fact, then screen very carefully, you might find a winner among the many players. But you must move on from a screen-dependent life and rethink your relationship to technology and our new always connected culture and its many forms of digital exhaustion. For years television and weed was a great zone out form of relaxation and a way to escape involvement. Now the digital age has given us an interactive diversion that sucks us in to believing that we are connected and refining our relationships and lists. Conversation, physical interaction, visual stimulation, sensatory experience, and significant bonding connections have taken a back seat to our computers, pads and cell phones. Not to denigrate the fantastic accomplishments of communication and facilitations that the digital age has given to us. But, interpersonal relationships, eye-to-eye contact, and acquiring a new honey, are about being in a state of communication, living physically, and in the now.