[Buddha-l] Re: Greetings from Oviedo

[Benito Carral]

On  Wednesday,  September  28,  2005,  Richard P. Hayes
wrote:

> Welcome back.

   Thank you. :-)

> Compared  to the disagreements that some subscribers
> have had with the moderator, yours were very mild.

   The  good  thing  about disagreements is that we all
can  learn  from them (and the them can be dealt with).
Although from different stands, I think that most of us
share  a  common  and  global  goal, try to make this a
better  world  for  everyone.  There  are  a lot of bad
(corporations)  and  mindless (victims) guys out there,
so we should work together.

> Still,  they  were  enough to keep you from polluting
> your  mind  with  the  contents of buddha-l for a few
> months, and that is probably good for you.

   I  would  rather  say  that  I have used my time and
intellectual resources in related issues, mostly social
analysus  and  global justice. I have even been elected
president  of  a  new  association,  Asociación para la
Sensibilización    sobre    la    Diversidad   Cultural
(Association   for  the  Sensitization  about  Cultural
Diversity),   where   we   have  been  developing  some
interestings projects. By the way, we need new creative
force  for  our  now  paused  Collective Dharma Insight
project  (if someone is interested in joining our team,
please, contact me).

> This week I have been reading with my students one of
> the  best expositions on Buddhist theory and practice
> I  have  ever  read anywhere, namely, Bhikkhu Bodhi's
> The Way to the End of Suffering,"

   Thank  you for sharing with us these interesting and
usefeful words by Bhikku Bodhi. I have been an activist
anti-cellular  phones  tirany since some years ago. I'm
surrounded by idle talk (I have also sinned, I confess)
and I can't swallow it. Although I have discovered that
sometimes  it's  necessary  to  participate  in  stupid
talking  in  order  to  mobilize individuals in new and
more constructive (I hope) directions.

> By  sheer  coincidence,  I  happened  to watch Martin
> Scorsese's   documentary  on  Bob  Dylan  just  after
> reading that. [...] So why did so many of us like it?
> Mass delusion? Quién sabe?

   I  suppose  that  it  has  something  to do with the
feeling  one  can  get  through Dylan's songs that it's
possible  to  use  music  in  order  to become aware of
social  conflicts  and  join  people. By an interesting
coincidence,  I watched today _Big Fish_ by Tim Burton,
where  one  can  get  the  feeling of how powerful (and
wonderful,  and  warming)  stories  can  be in order to
shape  reality.  Yesterday  I  asked a friend, "Can you
still   dreaming   meaningful,  warming  and  beautiful
stories?"  He  said,  "Yes, I can," and I sighed with a
feeling  of  trust.  (I  know  that we all can disagree
about  what  a "meaningful, warming and beatiful story"
is--mine   are   about   family   life   and   friendly
lifestiles--,   but,   hey!,  I  said  something  about
disagreements at the beginning. :-)

> Nothing  has happened since you left. History came to
> an end, and nothing came along to replace it. It will
> not  take  more  than  ten minutes to read everything
> that has been written here since you last logged on.

   Well,  I  hope  to  enjoy those ten minutes sometime
along this week.

> With  a  passive,  vacant and sterile mind, I remain,
> for the time being,

   Thank you for you nice wellcoming.

   Best wishes,

   Beni