Speaker 2 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful. Some good friend enabled me to present them to you. If you enjoy them and find them useful, please think of becoming a member of Tibet house us to help preserve Tibetan culture. Tibet house is the Lamas cultural center in America. All best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 3 00:00:48 This is episode 290 Making every day, earth day. And Tibet's third poll.
Speaker 2 00:01:15 I am here now and, uh, I always like earth day. I'm very fond of it because it, it happens also to be the birthday of my youngest son, who I believe the first earth day was 1970, I think. And my son was born 68 on April 22nd. So I considered auspicious from the beginning and, um, I've always taken earth day very seriously, naturally. Well now only because I have a brain and I realize that we are wrecking the earth and we're gonna be in dire straits in another decade. If we keep going like this, letting, letting ourselves be enslaved by the fossil fuel companies and countries. If this goes on for another decade, we really P pretty sunk. I'm afraid all of us, not already. I think people in Africa, in the middle east Pakistan, those areas where they get 130 degrees, things like that, I think they're pretty close to done, but I think we'll all be done for sure if we, um, if we keep going like this. So anyway, I love birthday. And in those days I used to think of the Buddha
Speaker 2 00:02:29 Who when challenged by the devil Mara, the tempt, not to be a Buddha, like why, how dare he be a Budha sort of thing? He counter challenged Mara by saying, well, you Mara. He took him my great teaching. He said, hum. Mara are the king of the MAs head devil because you were once altruistic. And I remember that previous life long before your selfish Maura behavior, when you were altruistic. And because of that little bit of altruism, you now are king of the MAs. Well great. Does Mara, the devil Mara, he, you remember that? You're my witness then, but now you say you did all kinds of things for every being who are alive, including humans, animals in hell, heavens, gods, whoever, whatever kinds of beings, you did, fantastic things for them forever. And now you wanna be a Buddha to help them become Buddhas, but wheres your witness of all those things you say you did. So the Buddha then touched the earth. He reached his hand over his knee and he touched mother earth tapped her on the shoulder. And mother earth came out of the earth.
Speaker 2 00:03:47 Although she had a, she upper part of her body did in the, in the way they presented. And she began to recite to Mara. And actually in some versions, she had a whole core of earth goddesses with her in her retina. And they all chanted the, the former life stories of the Buddha Cates, where the Buddha gave his body, gave his life, gave his head. He gave his ears, gave his eyes, gave his blood, gave his bones, gave his family, his wife, his children, his, uh, land, his kingdom, his palace, whatever beings asked. He gave it to them. And also other things that not just the giving, uh, virtue, but all the other virtues he did for all the other beings, he was correct with them and properly ethical with them. And he, he had absorb their injuries on him without ranker, without hatred, without retaliation and revenge.
Speaker 2 00:04:47 And so Mara mother earth gave all that witness. And, uh, so that's how I first thought of surf day. I thought it should very well with Budha, with it, with his love for mother earth and his thing I didn't yet at that time have the great example of chick. Han's wonderful book of his love letter to mother earth <laugh>. And I, hadn't also experienced my own kind of love letter to mother earth, which just happened to me recently in a new way. And I'm gonna tell you a little story just to celebrate the day. Then you can, while I'm talking, you can look at the trees and the sky, you know, it's a nice day. Well, I was reading the flower ornament suture, and I was reading about the body, um, all Bernie sofa who are at a certain S stage, but particularly, I guess the Bura who became viche, who is the cosmic Budha of this sector. And SHA MUN Buddha in that Sutra is, is, uh, one of the many million zillion emanations of by RO, but on the other hand, Shak moon himself, M and a, and millions and zillions. So in a way they're the same, the way one is em, of the other and the way they're equal. And they're all inconceivable the burs. You can't say anything about it. So, uh,
Speaker 2 00:06:15 I was reading this and then in that it was going on to, in grizzly detail, how bud sus will give their bones, their head, their eyeballs, their body, and all this to other beings who asked them for it. And then I sort of realized, as I was reading that such Bo sus would have some issue with the fact that whichever cannibal asked him for his body, that to barbecue him, which he would then give and don't freak out. And don't imitate because such a being who can do that is a being who is, uh,
Speaker 2 00:06:54 Completely lives at a different relationship with the body. They, they adore the body, et cetera, but they know that the body is not the whole of them. So they, they, it's a wonderful part of them, but they, and they love it. It's not that they're against it, but they can also give it away. Cuz they'll have always another body they'll make many bodies. And they know that the mind will always be in a body, in an energy body. And the human G body is very, very precious and valuable incredibly so. And they know that so they don't lightly surrender it, but they can also easily leave it within just here. You have it. Then if you need it type of person, which is not like us, <laugh> not at all, you know, cause we so much identify with and we think our body is our real reality, but, and it is our reality, but an unreal reality, that's the difference.
Speaker 2 00:07:44 Okay. It's less real for them and it's that doesn't make it less wonderful. You know, like you can have an awesome aesthetic experience in a play in a theater, in a film and uh, and be totally into it, even though, you know, it's in some sense, less real than if, uh, Hamlet was running around on the battlements in the flesh. Right? So, uh, so doesn't mean less real doesn't mean less valuable. It's also very, very valuable cause also it's made of the ultimate reality, but I don't wanna go into that world earth day, but gonna go ultimate clear light of the void philosophy. Although I know many of you may like that, But that, that doesn't the fact that even earth, we can then give up earth if giving up earth would save thousand other earth with a million other billions of other trillions of other people on them, we'd be happy to give away and give away earth if someone had for it, but actually
Speaker 2 00:08:43 Our attachment to it at least, you know, but actually here's the thing I'm back to my Eureka moment. And that bud said would have issue with the fact that that cannibal family would only have one barbecue and then they'd have to go look for another, but aside for, to eat, you know, for breakfast the next day, unless he was very fat and they could eat him for three days. So that was frustrating to him because he couldn't stand or she, she, he, she couldn't stand in different lifetimes having, you know, anybody else be hungry. There's also other cannibals who couldn't eat the one little body. So the whole ingenious thing of fabricating a planet, which is a, a living entity that seems inanimate to us in our categories, but actually as a living entity filled teaming with life, always in its history. And, uh, of course temporary, like all constructed things, it deconstructed some stage and just the right distance from a warming sun, a cooling earth, you know, like was there enough water and the atmosphere certain way?
Speaker 2 00:09:56 I mean, quite complicated thing to produce, but she decided I wanna be that I wanna be one of those. And so she worked with all the powers of the universe and um, all the beings who would be living on it also, and that's such a bonus and she made herself into mother earth. So to me that was a big Eureka in that mother earth is not only AGAs she Gaia, you know, in the Greek or per, in Sanskrit like perse, but she is also a body SFA who wants to feed beings and think of the trillion beings, including a, all the animals, if you include them, all the animals, the insects to fish, trillions of beings that she can feed as a body hat, you know, and then in a Budha, I guess you sort of support trillions of about hats also. I mean, countless, I mean, you can't find the number as I found later in the Switzer anyway, just as I've was enjoying that epiphany.
Speaker 2 00:10:59 I get a phone call one week later, my grandson, one of my grandchildren calls me and says, grandpa, me and may is beloved. Uh, we just had a daughter we're so happy and proud and we're calling grandpa, see if you approve of the name. And I was quite surprised. I, my potential had not always asked me about the name or anything. And I said, well, of course I approve it preemptively, but what is it, you know? And just for fun to know, and they said, Gaia, I was so delighted. And, uh, cuz this is the, and now here we are the day of Gaia and it's her Gaia's first birthday. It's only in my month or two ago. And little did I realize that Tinot Holland was way ahead of me as usual. And he wrote a love letter to mother earth and realized she's a great BOAD as well as the goddess Later in the flower, Onna and Sutra in the 10 ONM in the 10 stages Sutra,
Speaker 2 00:12:08 I read how Buda, when they reached for certain ones of the 10 stages, then they like to be reborn and accumulate more merit as <inaudible>, by doing more things for others. They like to be born as gods and goddess because as the gods and goddess, they can help beings more broadly than the single, even the, even a world emperor can do as a human. Although for many lifetime they're born as world emperors, uh, or local and or as just great people, uh, to help others, you know? But, uh, one of the things they like to do is be born as the Brahma, for example, the a, a Brahma God in a particular world that each one has, I God called the Brahma, who himself says, I'm not the creator. Although we all are created this any more than you are in that we all create the world together in the Buddhist view, it isn't one being's responsibility, sole responsibility, and therefore there's no soul omnipotent. Buddha himself is not a soul omnipotent buds. The closest to Omni Buddha is Omni and therefore closest to omnipotent, but even budh is not omnipotent, but it depends on those who need a Budha. Otherwise there wouldn't be any manifestation of Budha, but it would just be clear light, infinite bliss, energy, which is what the universe is made of it. Isn't anybody's BLIS, it's everybody's BLIS.
Speaker 2 00:13:32 Okay. So there we are mother earth earth there.
Speaker 2 00:13:36 Now on this day and at noon, there's gonna be a wonderful meditation of Los EMBA. If you go to www H s.org or Tibet house, us.org and look up programs, you'll find a meditation at noon from this wonderful Russian Mon, uh, and I urge you to do so, which you will really enjoy that meditation. And, uh, also there is a conference in Darella called dialogue for our future where they've had already half of it has gone by, but if you look it up WW dial or just, just, just Google long for our future, and you can get a few sessions if you're on the east coast of the us, it's very late at night or early in the morning, 3:30 AM running through about nine at nine o'clock because of Indian time. And they may play it again afterwards, cuz they're recording as they go. But it's quite wonderful also. So, you know, we, the, the Tibetan world Tibetan culture world, which I also represent in as Tibet house Lama's cultural center of the us, uh, is very gungho about earth today based on Buddha being gungho about all the Buddhi is about mother earth, herself being gungho about her day. What we are thinking every day is her day, of course, but we are thinking of it as her day. And um,
Speaker 2 00:15:04 So you can find out lots of things about how doable keeping below 1.5 degrees integrated in been reversing, getting back to a more normal, more balanced, uh, temperature is gonna be, we can do it if we started 30 years ago, if the oil oligarch, uh, demonic people had not, uh, the Lee Raymonds, the Joe mentions the Charles and David Cokes of this world. If they had L Rick Tillerson's, if they had let us do it, been honest with us and let us do it, we would be well out of the woods by now. And, and we would be not be having these extreme rather events. And you people in middle America whose roof is torn off and grandmother got killed by the last tornado and everybody, you wouldn't have to suffer those things. You know, there are other things we'd be suffering of course, but we wouldn't be suffering.
Speaker 2 00:15:57 There's extreme weather things in this way. This is really a, a punishment and a torture inflicted ament inflicted upon all of us and all the animals and the ex extinguished species and things by these fossil fuel tyrants and dictators, you know, and the fossil fuel is just a technology thing that has enabled people with a particularly high wrong kind of egocentrism, you know, shortsighted eCom, because it's egocentric to wanna be a bud too. And that's a good egocentric. So don't, we're all supposed to be no ego, no, no ego. That's also our false idea. We're supposed to be really good selves and good egos and good persons who say, I love you to the world, to the life, to ourselves, to everyone, but the eye has to be strong to the love, to be strong. So it's all right. To have an ego don't worry about, or don't think of some crazy buts.
Speaker 2 00:16:55 Want me to be a vegetable? No, although actually vegetables are have them too, and they are also quite nice mostly. Okay. So, so, uh, so that's my second story. And since then I've been going around and I will ensure you assure you ensure and as assure you that mother Earth's emanation is a great granddaughter. My second great granddaughter mother, great granddaughter Gaia. So mother earth to show us to lead the way that she intends to continue to support life human, as well as non-human has INED as one of, of the humans as a beautiful girl called Gaia <laugh> and she and her parents thought they thought it up, but actually she suggested to them in their dreams that she be called Gaia, just so people would know who she was. So because of that, that is a symbol and a warrant and a promise that we will succeed in what we many we often when we, I too.
Speaker 2 00:17:58 And we all emotionally sometimes think when, like when Joe mansion won't allow a filibuster when a person like that, just because he has a couple little coal mines, he won't do it, or he's called up and flattered by people who don't actually care for him, big oil Barrons, like Charles Coke or whoever. It may be people from Texas. So, so don't be despaired and I'm telling myself, and I'm telling you, cause we can't easily do it. And they're were some wonderful people in that thing coming from <inaudible> now also we at Tibet house we are going to do, there is one huge thing on mother earth that everybody knows about actually. And those, those in the environmental movement know that it's very related to our situation in the Americas, uh, who are relatively for actually compared to people in the Subara Africa and in, uh, in south south Asia, um, really in day and people on islands in the Polynesia is really Micronesia.
Speaker 2 00:19:03 They're in really, really bad condition compared to us. So we're very, very lucky, but one place in south or in Asia that is really, really important is what is called the third pole. Now, of course we all know the, the north, the, the Arctic ice is gone in the summers now, which is, um, you know, hasn't happened in hundreds of thousands of years and it's pretty gone. And the polar bears are very much needed. They need an on board and a kayak, you know, to get out to their summer food. And, uh, and the Antarctica even bigger than north ice thing, Antarctica is also going down and that'll raise the oceans. That's one of the terrible things. If we don't stop it, but which we will, but if we don't, that's gonna happen, but there's a third pole, what was known as a third pole, and that is the whole Himalaya Massif. And, uh, the vast, uh, goes all the way from Afghanistan, the Hindu Kush, and all down through Indian, north India and Southern part of Tibet. And, uh, then in a way, the Koland is a little bit, one edge of it. The Northeast edge is the Quinland and, um, you know, dividing Tibet, Froman, Turan, or both of which are colonies of China at the moment, but they are separate indigen, uh, areas and, um,
Speaker 2 00:20:32 A ice mass of those vast Himalayas, as you all know, I think the tectonic plate representing the Indian subcontinent in some of Southeast Asia hit the Asian tectonic plate geologically. You know, I don't know how many million years ago, but many and went under it and that's pushes up to Himalaya, pushed up to Himalaya. So they're the youngest mountain mass. That's why they're the highest. And, uh, they, um, they're growing actually they continue to grow because the, somehow the slow thing, they grow at a couple of inches or centimeters every year and they have this huge amount of ice. And that huge amount of ice is what melts in the summer after the monsoons of India and Southeast Asia and Southern China. And, um, and then when there's no rain, not much rain, in other words, in those areas, farmers, and everybody can live cities and farmers. And because the rivers flow from the melt of those glaciers and in the winters, they build up again in the normal course of things. And now they're not doing that. And now they're, they're melting too fast. And so there's, uh, uh, there's this day and their breakout floods and horrible things for, but there's this terrible danger that the livelihoods of couple billion people
Speaker 2 00:21:57 From China all the way to Pakistan all around, you know, you have the young sea, you have the yellow river coming from Tibet, but in plateau you have, and you have the Zi coming from Tibet and other smaller systems connected to that. You have the Mac going down to Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos and, uh, Thailand, and then you have the IATI and in Burma. And, um, and then you get over Brahmaputra and the gangs and Yemen, and then finally the indu complex going into India, east, west India, and Pakistan and west Pakistan. And, uh, and then even there there's AU there's some rivers flowing toward Afghanistan that come from that Massif, the Western part of that, that huge, vast plateau, the roof of the world as it's called. And now we all know that that's huge. So imagine if they'd had no water, six months, 6, 7, 8 months of the year, because monsoons are only a few months, what would they, how would they live during that period?
Speaker 2 00:23:00 It's it is unconceivable, you know, it's means there would be huge million hundreds of millions of climate refugees is what it means and how will that be handled politically and otherwise, you know, hundreds of millions, if not a billion refugees. So everyone knows that, okay, but there's never talked about in the earth. Um, they call it environmental people very much, even my beloved Al gore, he has a few slides about it, but he doesn't make a big fuss it. And the reason that people don't talk about it is that China doesn't want them to talk about it because China is accelerating the melting rate of those glaciers, maybe six fold, maybe three fold. It's hard to make an exact estimate, but all the scientists who have measured glaciers and have gone up and done this and that with instruments, you know, real scientific research and studies, they say between three and six times faster than the generalized global warming would be making them melt.
Speaker 2 00:24:03 And the reason for that is, is deforestation of Eastern Tibet by clear cutting the Primor primorial rainforest of around from 10,000 feet and below in the Eastern lower altitude part of Tibet where the river heads are for the Chinese rivers and clear cutting those forests, which they did for the 20, 30 years to, from underst detriment. Then the failed attempt to do Chinese style agriculture on the high plateau, which created desert areas instead of the grassland, then using the grassland to make wool and things they could sell instead of the Tibetan, no medic thing depended on YX who preserve high altitude step land in brasad, whereas intensive sheep, uh, you know, like nomadism or pastoralism, uh, pulls out roots of plants and creates deserts. And then also, uh, damning of rivers to make electricity from strip mining of different pressures, metals and lithium and uranium. And so on that goes on in, uh, in, especially the Eastern part of Tibet, which is huge. I mean, Tibet, you have to realize is the size of bigger than the Louisiana purchase the us west of the Mississippi and, or, or even the Louisiana purchase, plus all the Spanish territories of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California, which, uh, were not in Louisiana to purchased the whole of the us west of Mississippi, that huge land Tibet. The third pole is that size. The Tibetan plateau is that size Tibetan, a Afghani plateau. So
Speaker 2 00:25:40 The mismanagement of that environment, and in ancient time, the emperors of China, they never tried to colonize it. They realized it was their headquarters. They had legends about the gods being up there, the Indians whose headquarters are up there, they never caught, tried to colonize it. It was too high for them, but also they thought it was the abode of gods and so on. And so, and you can, and there's only 47% of the oxygen that a sea level or, or, you know, 5,000 foot person had, you know, in normal places where people live. So it was always sparsely populated to bed and the Tibetan kept it that way. They had 30% of the population, 20 to 30% were monastic and meaning CEL didn't have children and they kept their population balanced and they didn't have big cities. And, and, uh, they, uh, they thrived there never had a famine or anything, uh, were quite wealthy actually with the no nomadic pastoralism farming combination, mainly pastoralism Ys with a main tool that main helper that they had because the ax, you know, one thing you should know, the AXS, don't bite the grass and pull the root out.
Speaker 2 00:26:51 They have a rough tongue and they lick it and they lick the blade off the root. And, and, and they're Dr. I guess strengthens the root. And so they maintain impeccable green, one of, for grassland at 13,000 feet, way up, almost up at the tree line. They are so such good grazers, you know, or they're not actually called grazers in, in, in agricultural speak. They're called browsers. What they do is they browse the grassland. They don't graze on it. <laugh> like we, you do in bookstores.
Speaker 2 00:27:25 So, okay. So, so, so in other words, in the environmental awareness thing on earth day, we whose mission, we are not necessarily that good environmental. And although I got trained by <inaudible>, I'm a client reality project leader speaker, you know, allowed to give that speech that they do the inconvenient truth speech, actually the convenient truth, the wonderful truth that it's helping us so much, dear algo, really what a, what a great thing it would've been had he properly had his win, narrow win as a president against the oil industry and not been Deron and robbed in flow as he was. And then he being, having written earth in the balance in the nineties and having pushed all through the, uh, Clinton administration to try to get major remediation going about climate change already then 30 years ago, almost 30 years ago. Uh, we've been in a much better place now.
Speaker 2 00:28:24 I, but anyway, he continued with his wonderful teaching who taught five, six, 7 million people around the world, the reality and the convenient and the wonderful truths, the saving truths, you know, really wonderful work he has done and does still does. And, um, anyway, so, but, but, but, but as I say, they can't do it because China doesn't want them to. So there are wonderful ecologists in China scientists. They know that China is shooting itself in the foot by raking the plateau and trying to populate it and colonize it and settle it with, with sort of military business people who just want to rape all the resources. Do you know what I mean? Who are carpet bagging up there? You, you know, cuz it's not really their country and everyone knows that who goes there and whatever they say in international lying geopolitics, you know, they know it's not their land, but they come they're up there to make a profit. So they're gonna cut extra trees. They're going to grow more wool and the land will support. They're gonna do what they're gonna bottle water and sell it. So they're not taking care of the place cuz they don't consider it's theirs really. And they don't really take live there, you know, temporarily, but it's not colonized. That's the whole thing about it's too high, three miles, three kilometers, three kilometers maybe to say three kilometers, high
Speaker 2 00:29:44 Average altitude. So, um,
Speaker 2 00:29:50 We are making a fus and we are not blaming China. We could blame the communist party dictatorship because dictators are the one who, who behave like this. They, they get lose touch with the people they're governing and the land that they govern and they polluted and destroyed and they started to suck well to the top. And that's why they get along just as well with capitalists as communist. They're not really communist, they're just dictators so we could blame them. They're bad policies, but we're not what we're doing is we are not mentioning any nation state, actually one of the big sources of the melting of the sword pole glaciers too fast also is the Indians
Speaker 2 00:30:34 For deforesting, the Southern slopes of the Himalayas too dramatically and allowing too much monsoon to spill over, up into Tibet and wash away things with more rainfall than they used to have and more dampness, you know, molds and whatever, you know, and, and, but, and more important than that for their own industrial coal pollution, creating a fine black dust carbon, et cetera, in the form of fine black coal dust that create it's a terrible blanket of course, of unbreathable and harmful air for their own people in the planes. But when it gets over, when blows over the Helios, it coats the glaciers with this black dust, which then absorb the sun more strongly and create more heat to melt the glaciers faster, for example. So we are blaming different personal individual and commercial practices rather than any agency of any state, because we are not a political lobbying organization.
Speaker 2 00:31:32 We're a cultural organization as a cultural organization. We're concerned that the culture we're seeking to preserve and to promote and to, to help people in the world value the Tibetan special, precious Budha DMA culture, uh, the, the Homeland of that culture, that high plateau, we would not, we are not liking to see it being destroyed. So therefore we are doing special third poll conference within the environmental, you know, uh, uh, catastrophes that are waiting and all over the planet. We're focusing on that one as the home bed, as the Homeland of, of the, you know, not on geopolitical level Homeland on a cultural level of the Tibetan precious Budhist culture, which is really the, the Sanskrit buds culture from ancient India that was lost to India and never quite fully spread to east Asia or south Asia in its fullest dimension mainly only to Tibet on Mongolia.
Speaker 2 00:32:37 Okay. So that's that's so that's, that's uh, that we want people to think about that on earth. They pray for the glaciers of the third pole, as well as the glaciers in Greenland and the Arctic and the glaciers in the Antarctic. You know, of course we all praying for them to survive like the rainforest in the middle and those more wonderful balancing on the top of the earth. They huge weight. They are, you know, huge, balanced weights they are and, um, disrupt the spinning and the gravity field and everything. I'm sure when they fully melt, you know, it would be a catastrophe really. So we don't want that to happen. And we, but we want everyone to join in add to that the third pole, which is the great, uh, uh, Tibet and plateau basically, but just as good a way to refer to it.
Speaker 2 00:33:28 Okay. So that's the thing. And, um, really, we should be clear, you know, for example, Russia is a magnificent country and it's huge right way over in Siberia and all the way goes all the way to the Pacific. And what do they worry if they lose a few Eastern European countries in their former Soviet empire or Zas, which was bigger than the Zas empire in a way because of their post world war II settling down on top of the heads of the Eastern Europeans and there, which, which is what the KGB people are so upset about, you know, and Mr. Putin, especially, you know, but otherwise it's a huge, great country. They don't even, they don't need, you know, Bero and they don't need crane. They don't really need it at all. They have enormous or sources huge, and they themselves have a culture. That's a huge resource and to, and Eastern Orthodox Christianity and, and, uh, Judaism, they have, have had wonderful Jewish people there for thousands of years and, and they, and therefore, but they have been put into a dictator.
Speaker 2 00:34:37 They have not escaped. They almost did in the nineties, they tried to from a dictatorial type of top down authoritarian social structure and they failed to do it. They were undone by the KGB, uh, persistence, the Soviet unions, KGB persisted. That's what, that's what those oligarchs are. They're all KGB people mostly. And, uh, they wouldn't allow the Russians to bring out their and start to make their own wonderful things on the internet or, you know, creative arts or movies or whatever wonderful things the Russians could have been known for by now. No, they turned, they arrested all the creative people who don't like to be boss around. And they, they forced an, if they had left to do only military thing, and then they just pumped oil and they turned it into a Petro state, a Petro dictatorship, that's what they did the KGB in order to keep their dictatorship.
Speaker 2 00:35:33 They imitated the Arabs with their Petro dictatorship states and buying off people freedom by paying their money with the oil money, and then living like cutting their heads off when they say anything wrong. And that's, they turned that brilliant, beautiful Russian culture into that. And, uh, and it's having its, and we're now getting a chance. We, and we could have been confused about that with Oli. GARS rushing out in the west and buying soccer teams and basketball teams and things like that. But now we can see really what that means by the way they are being so completely horrendously war crimes, the war crime of the invasion, not just the war crimes during the invasion, but to war crime. The invasion itself is a war crime. And we have to, we as Americans should face that Cheney Bush to invasion of Iraq, second invasion, not the first one, getting the Iraqi dictator out of the, who had been our ally, getting him out of Kuwait that was justified within the world system because he invaded preemptively and, and unprovoked Kuwait is to get more resource.
Speaker 2 00:36:45 And, but then the second one where we invaded the country, which had not attacked us, they did not attack us on nine 11. They were actually less, uh, you know, fundamentalist religious fanatic than the Saudis are our allies. They, they were more secular, although they were under authoritarian dictatorship, but still women worked. Women were doctors, women taught universities, although they, they were torturing the, the sea Heights and the Kurds, but otherwise the dictator was, but otherwise they were more secular actually and therefore less religious fanatic and it nothing to do with nine 11. They were our allies that we had been helping them. They were mad because we wouldn't let them take Kuwait. But, uh, but uh, still, you know, they were, they were allies actually, they were allies against, they were on, I said turned out, you know? So we did the first unprovoked invasion of somebody, which was, which was a war crime. We have to own up to it. You know, as people we do, we let them get away. They stole the election in Florida in 2000, then they invaded Iraq. And this reverberated destroyed Syria was destroyed because of the massive dislocations of everything. And um, all kind of other horror things happened, you know? So, uh, it was really bad. You know, we have to admit that we also stupidly allowed, uh, the Italians in the French under previous administrations to destroy Libya.
Speaker 2 00:38:14 And then now we see the Russians behaving like that. So we have to not allow authoritarians to take us over. We have to vote right this year. We have to vote out the climate deniers by no means, should we allow, you know, midterm elections, often only half the people vote, but every single progressive person has to vote. I don't care. Leftist or centrist doesn't matter. Every single one has to vote really a hundred percent the same 80 plus million people who voted in the presidential election and squeaked in Biden must vote again. And I think even the ma people will turn out how hundred percent, but there'll be a higher percentage than usual. This will be a much higher percentage because they're stirred up with all the misinformation and all the lies and all the Russian buts. And that's been the, that's been the more successful war that the Russians have engaged in, uh, until Putin foolishly tried to send the military into Kuwait, into, into Ukraine, okay. Where he's lost everything. So we have to pray for him to not take the world down with him by pressing many buttons as he's going down, you know, as his false, false falseness is being exposed, you know, and his ruthlessness and callousness and amorality is being, has been exposed. You know, holy wars, he thinks it, but total war crime.
Speaker 2 00:39:42 So, and that's, this is a man, this is earth tape, but we can't ignore these subjects. You know, act like we are, you know, we are just happy path. The earth, no earth wants us to try to expose and free ourselves from these kind of authoritarian oil monarchs, you know, and dictators, we really do dirty industrialization. Industrialization could remain to some degree it's been useful. There's such a thing as clean industrialization that doesn't use coal and oil and gas that works with electrical power. Maybe hydrogen, maybe fusion, maybe even nuclear is actually not that bad if it's done right. Thorium nuclear, uh, we shouldn't be so precious about it. And, uh, but, but, uh, renewables basically are what we are ready to do, and we're going to do that, but we must also see the opposition and see what it is and try and, and not hate them, but try to relieve them of the burden of destroying life.
Speaker 5 00:40:48 <laugh>,
Speaker 2 00:40:51 That's all prevent them from harming themselves, by wrecking the planet, more wrecking the planet, just for dollar bills, money columns of mathematics in a, in a, in a ledger, you know, no other reason they don't need all that. Whatever they're doing, you know, A billion dollars is enough for anybody even, even millions enough,
Speaker 2 00:41:18 A okay. A few million to be okay, depending on the level of, of inflation. Okay. So that's the, that's the earth. And then here's the thing that finally my final point on, on earth, it comes back to the preliminary point, which is where are we? What are we, or in the famous words of Admiral Stockwell? Where am I, what am I doing here? <laugh> and where we are is we are in the human life form and we are human beings on a wonderful planet, good green ju planet. It's a Juul in the universe. There's billion of them in this galaxy alone, but, but still each one is precious in itself. And the thing is, that's just our temporary form. When we die, we're gonna be some other kind of animal. And we, we don't necessarily have to become back to this planet, cuz there's many other planets, actually many, many, but, and you can, when you have very pure energy, super subtle energy body in a dream like mind in the, between state, after death, in between death and rebirth, you can go light speed, warp 20 warp, a hundred warp a million booms, the speed of thought.
Speaker 2 00:42:40 And because you're not dragging any kind of heavy substance, you're just pure energy.
Speaker 2 00:42:47 And so you can go to other planets, you know, but uh, this one is particularly great and we have loved ones here and we'll tend to come back to this one. If you're an oil shake, if you're an oil Dator, an oil oligarch, you'll still come back to this one. You, you, you will die in your high tech refuge in New Zealand or up in the British Columbia or in Labrador or something or on Greenland. Trump wanted to run away to Greenland. <laugh> had to buy it and, and you can hide up there, but you're gonna die. Even, even you live out your natural lifespan there. And when you reborn, you might not be attracted to whatever female is in your same shelter as a mom. If you're gonna be, if you're lucky a have to be human, or you might be reborn in one of those hard, horrible climate, extreme weather events, stricken places.
Speaker 2 00:43:44 And so you are gonna be stuck here. So one of the key things that doesn't motivate people to really see to it, that we really turn off the filthy, dirty coal mines and the coal factories and et cetera. Uh, and, and the petroleum refineries and things, tar sands really disgusting stuff. What we don't really insist on it is that we are all stuck in this ideology, false religion of sinism. I'm not talking about science, cuz we, he loves the scientists. But the sinism the overarching theory that there's no mind that there's no soul that you don't get reborn that you haven't had previous life. That, and therefore you automatically have the Niana of being anesthetized in a permanent unconsciousness and nothing. This means that you just, you are nothing already and you revert to your natural nothingness is what they promise you. But then just ask one of them the question who discovered that nothingness, you're a scientist.
Speaker 2 00:44:50 You're supposed to go by what you experience, what is empirically findable by you? You're not supposed to have dogmatic theories like high church theories. And since none of you have discovered nothing since nothing we can know by common sense, can't be found <laugh> it. Isn't a blank space. That thing is not a dark space. Space is not nothing. Space is an area. You know, Carl MC rays go in and out of it, micro things are in and out of it. It's a, it's something. Nothing is not something it's nothing. Okay. So it has no spatial dimension. It has no time dimension it isn't there. It's a non word. So you can't go there. Okay. It's as simple as that. And anybody who assures you that any talk of rebirth going to heaven or hell being reborn as a human being reborn as a horse or donkey or an Armadillo or a crocodile or a fish or whatever, it's just a religious super.
Speaker 2 00:45:52 No, uh, they are more reasonable than someone who superstitiously says I'm gonna be nothing when there's no such thing, which it's impossible to therefore be something that isn't ly <laugh> you follow me. You can't be it. There's no boundary between nothing and something. Cuz nothing is not a space. It's not a place. No, there, there, so you'll never get there and you're not there now. And you have a mind and you have a deep, subtle mind, like a core mind, like a spiritual or mental DNA, like a really tiny invisible thing. That's like your sort of core habit. It's a shape. It's a shape of your core habits or something and it's yours and it will go on and on and on. And until you understand it and you understand the world it's in and you in love it and you enjoy it and therefore love everyone and everything in it.
Speaker 2 00:46:49 You will go on having a hard time on and off. Okay? So that's what we are here for. That's the purpose of it. And once we know that's the purpose, and once we know that we will live with the consequences of our behavior in this life, we will continue. There's no dead people, nobody stays dead. Death is just a doorway from one body to another. It's like when you fall asleep at night, you know you, and then you have a dream and then you cease the dream and you wake up. Well, where were you between when you were in a deep sleep before you rose out in the dream and where you were in a deep sleep before you woke up in your ordinary senses, when you were woke, where were you? You weren't nowhere. You were, your body was lying somewhere and your mind was there for, in a dormant state, the sleep state.
Speaker 2 00:47:46 But you, it was still your remind. It was just unconscious. Normally. Although actually you can learn to be conscious. Even you can develop such a subtle self-awareness. You can even learn to sort of be consciously, unconscious. And similarly that's good to, and you can learn to be unconsciously conscious. And that's really good cuz it keeps you resting the rest channel in your conscious being keeps you going when you're conscious, you follow me. You're, you're subtle enough to, to tolerate that ambiguity of being conscious and unconscious and being more conscious of the unconscious part is helpful to you. You can learn to do that. It's too hard and people naturally can do it. You can learn to do it. And it enables you to stay cool and stay calm and stay healthy and enjoy your life more, which you should do. Earth day should not be a time of anger.
Speaker 2 00:48:42 It could be a time of vigorous protests, but believe me, when the, the oil oligarch or the crooked politician who is bribed vote for them, even knowing it's the wrong thing to do for life. The crooked one, you know, uh, even that one, when you are protesting against them and saying, no, no, no, no, Joe, no, Charles, no, no, no, no wrecks. When they say that, but you're doing it in with a smile on your face, in a humorous, it could be loud. You could shout it, but it would be loud, but just not hate. You're not hating them. You're not calling for them to die. You know, you're not, you know, kill. You're not putting up. Hang man pets. You're not, you're not angry. You are vigorous, forceful. You're heart even, but not angry. In fact, you feel more sorry for the evil doer than you do for the victim.
Speaker 2 00:49:38 Although you'll work to protect the victim against the evil doer. But one of the things that gives you energy to protect is you're more sorry for the evil doer because the evil doer is harming themself. When they harm their victim. It's like Putin. Where that guy, he can't walk down the street in Moscow now without huge bunch of bodyguards, ready to beat up anybody who looks crosswise at him, he's completely isolated now he's and he's afraid of his bodyguards. Even he's afraid of him. They might on him at any minute because he's been completely invalidated no more. Mr Q out there with a bear chance, riding a horse. No, he can't. Won't be able to get away with that after killing all people's relatives in Ukraine, just for his own vanity. So he's ruined himself after we have to feel compassion for him, although that compassion would, could, should take the form of stopping him by all necessary means, but not hating him. That's really, maybe you think that's impossible, but it isn't, it's not impossible. You could be vigorously oppose somebody without hating them. You can learn. In fact, you can oppose them much more effectively. Once you hate something, you just go berserk, you know, and you'd lose your judgment and how you're doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2 00:51:03 Everybody knows that now everybody's doing mindfulness. So we are being mindful earth. Okay?
Speaker 2 00:51:10 Okay. Thank you so much. Happy earth day, may we pray and dedicate the merit of talking and listening to ourselves and to each other. And uh, I like to learn from you when I can. And uh, my son brilliantly said the way I really being a teacher is when you know, you're learning from the people you're teaching and you're learning with them. That's the thing. That's the best way. He's so good. And uh, okay. So please, uh, do that have a great day. We dedicate the merit to mother earth that she be saved, that she continue to serve all life in the beautiful way that she does. And even she can go on and be a Budha later. It's okay. It's no rush. And uh, that, that future time is there. The minute she has that determination, it's certain way already there. The illusion of long time is just an illusion. Okay? So, and may everyone become such a Budha? May everyone be a planet for everyone else feed each other and make each other happy and make be equal? All of us one and another. Okay. That's our dedication. Thank you.
Speaker 3 00:52:29 The step episode of the Bob Thurman podcast was originally streamed live on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram from the home of Robert and Nena Thurman in upstate New York To learn more about the Bob Thurman podcast and how to the ongoing work and mission of Tibet house us Menlo, please visit our
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