Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful some good friends 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 Dalai Lama's cultural center in America. All best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 3 00:00:48 This is episode 327, A Mandala side chat with Robert Thurman.
Speaker 4 00:01:19 Hi everybody. Here I am again, and I'm promoting another thing, which is the wonderful dialogue I'm looking forward to having with Ja Dave, where we will discuss the aspect of Warriorship in Buddhism, MAANA Buddhism, and in, in, uh, Sikhism Sikhism, a kind of enlightenment, uh, religion of its own on its own merits without necessarily anything from Buddhism, but of perfectly leading to enlightenment, just like Buddhism. And with, with, with the aspect that after several generations of leadership of gurus after Na Guru Nak, who founded it very bravely in the midst of the Hindu Muslim conflict of those days, uh, uh, after three or four of them had been tortured and destroyed by Islamic rulers. Then finally, one of the gurus, I think Gobin Singh, he decided they had to defend themselves. And there's kind of a theory of that, which, which I, David and I will be drawing on.
Speaker 4 00:02:31 And I wanted to say, because you know, for example, maybe people have come to know that I'm quite excited about Ukraine and I am that way because of my love of democracy and the democratic side and aspect of America. And also because I was thinking about Tibet and the horrible ethnic side, if not genocide by, of the Tibetans, by the Chinese, you through the ideological vehicle of communism, communist dictatorship, but really just a power thing. You know, Chinese, there was one famous Chinese historian who had immigrated to Japan and would be able to speak, speak freely, and he, he had a meeting, I think once with, with Jang Zain during Jin's tenure as the premier, as the head of China after ing. So that would be in the late eighties, early nineties. And, uh, he asked this famous guy whose name I'm not, uh, what was his capsule theory of the history of China <laugh>?
Speaker 4 00:03:43 And he said, Turan, which means eating people <laugh>, meaning that the Chinese empire expanded by devouring minorities and other tribes and other people with other dialects and languages on the boundary. The, you know, so-called taming or civilizing barbarians and turning them into Chinese, synthesizing them. And uh, that's the history is eating people <laugh>. He was, that didn't make him any more popular, of course, but, oh, you know, I realized I didn't have my mic on. I don't know if you got that. Oh God, lemme start again. Okay, well, I'm back. Here's Bob Durman, I'm back again. I had turned off this microphone, so sorry.
Speaker 4 00:04:32 Well, but it worked Anyway, okay, so, so anyway, so what I wanna talk about and what I'm going to talk about, I'm gonna talk about from the basis of the range of the Buddhist satra in Maana Sutra in which the Buddha gives, or he dialogues with actually a Jane bod. He's a Bova who is showing the pluralism sort of integral to Buddhism. Anyway, from the beginning, he dialogues with the Jane, someone who's a member of the Jane religion, but who is a Bodhisattva that is to say, is a recognized person who wants to save all beings by becoming enlightened, uh, and then having the ability to save them all and accept it as a high developer itself by Buddha. And in dialogue with him, he comes up with a theory of, uh, legitimate, ethical, ethically legitimate self-defense. And what ethically legitimate self-defense is, is it, is when, and the, the, the case that is discussed, and Bruno's ethical precepts are always based on specific situations, you know, because every situation is unique in a way.
Speaker 4 00:05:48 It's acknowledging that, and the specific situation is, and the invasion of your country by a power that wants to do you harm and you and your people harm and wants to, uh, you know, assimilate you. And in that case, it is ethically defensible according to the nonviolence code, to defend yourself with violence as surgical as you can make it, if you have the power to do that. That is to say, if the enemy is sort of rationally invading you when they don't really have the ability to subdue you or people, and you can eject them within a reasonable period of time without too much devastation, and, um, then you should eject them because that will minimize the violence of what would happen had they conquered you, and then genocided you, your people. Uh, but when you have done that, you don't counter invade them preemptively.
Speaker 4 00:06:50 You then say, show them that you could, and then you impose a treaty or a, an agreement on them that they mustn't do that ever in the future, and so on and so on. You know, you make your effort to get them to adopt some kind of international agreement. And, uh, so that's, that's the under which the Ukrainian self-defense is legitimate and are arming them to preserve their democracy, their effort at democracy and their overall spirit of doing that, that they had clearly had, however bad people will say they are. Uh, they've tried been trying to do it since 20, almost 10 years now in the East Zone invasion by the Russians, by, by Putin, not really by the Russians, by Putin. So that's it then. Then on the other hand, if you have not got the power to do that, do it because you're just, they are, you're outnumbered.
Speaker 4 00:07:45 You're out armed or whatever it is. You, you're just, it would be a suicide, completely suicide mission then you should not. And therefore, the dilemma when they were invaded genocidally and occupied by China, and he might have foreseen that it would be genocidal in the long run. I believe he did the 13th dilemma did even before it happened. And, uh, then you shouldn't resist violently because this will only make the occupation more violent than it would be otherwise. Cuz you will kill some of the invaders. They'll be more angry and they'll have more, they'll feel more legitimacy in killing your people, exterminating your people. So you shouldn't, that's why even though the combats did try to fight guerrilla war, the Eastern Tibetans, they <inaudible> didn't ask them to. He kind of admires them once they were, did it. And even they helped him to escape once they had their forces running around, not yet completely more or less finished by then, but somewhat there, not yet exterminated.
Speaker 4 00:08:49 And, um, uh, but he never called the whole nation to rise. He never said this, we should do this. He never called them to rise. Even he tried to get along with Mao and the generals that Mao sent to, to, to bed and so on. He tried his best to do so. And uh, finally, uh, he, he couldn't hold it together doing it. His own people were resisting so much he couldn't do that. So, so on this basis, there is a basis for the Ukraine to defend itself, but in that basis, actually considering that they needed the help of NATO to do that, our cells and which includes us, um, when we don't give them enough to really effectively eliminate the invasion quickly, then we are putting it, we are crossing a a a a go into a gray area between, is it not ethical because they won't have the ability to get it done?
Speaker 4 00:09:53 Or was it ethical? Cause they did, they did they have the ability to get it done relatively quickly. They had been semi genocided by the czars. They had been badly just semi genocided by Stalin. And Putin has already shown the kind of genocidal intent upon them. So they have every legitimacy, but they should be quick. So it doesn't go in a gray zone. And our stingy dishing out of, oh, we don't wanna provoke Russia, blah blah, our stingy dishing out of that, just because there's mutual nuclear threat going on, we're not gonna really use them and they're not gonna really use them. If you're realistic, the nuclear threat is kind of an excuse. And so then we're putting them in unethical territory. If we don't give them airplanes, for example, as quickly as we can now that they need them to do, they're counter offensive where they're going on the offense against the places occupied.
Speaker 4 00:10:50 They need airplane, they need air cover, they don't need the fanciest shit, but they need strong air cover. And by withholding that, although some fear that they might attack Russia, the point is that's really we're putting them in a bad and unethical situation because if we leave the Russians era, they will continue to destabilize Iran. I mean, uh, um, stabilize, uh, Ukraine and it will never end. And then it becomes unethical and not nonviolent, but, uh, it's leading toward better non-violence because of NATO having, and, and you can't blame us for that. Those nations on the border of Russia have been exp have experienced being dominated by Russia and they didn't enjoy it. And therefore they, they wanted to join nato. They needed help to defend themselves. And Ukraine is just the latest one that wants that. So that's fine. And Russia should, and then that will liberate the Russian people from this oligarchic CIA dominated forces. So th this li war of liberation that we are backing self-defense has an ethical thing in that it's also liberating, could liberate the Russian people from their suppression. They're living in fear of the KGB dominated government. Okay? So that's what it, that's what it is. Dedicate the merit to SLA Ukraine to quick victory, to nonviolent peace for century, which will begin when this is over. And also then when China realizes they have to go into multi-party system, when Xi Jinping himself hopefully realizes he doesn't wanna go the way of Putin. Let's pray for that.
Speaker 4 00:12:46 Hi, uh, this is gonna be a political, uh, uh, podcast, brief podcast chat by me. It's not a fireside chat, it's a mandala side chat because I'm chatting here in front of my beloved. I call a chakra mandala painting. It's a painting of the powder mandala that is actually used to initiate, but it is not a powder one, it's a painting one. And I had to get it in 1971, uh, uh, when, and, and at that time there was no, this image was not known, it was not visible, it was not a shareable by the chance I had to sign a document, I wouldn't allow it to be copied and all this kind of thing to get the, um, his holiness as monastery to lend the model that they use for making the powder one. Uh, of course they don't put the power on the painting.
Speaker 4 00:13:48 They, they make geometrical, you know, foundational lines first and then they freshly make it each time. But they did have a model, you know, to compare what's the finish? And then they lent this to a painter at the Erma or the upper tantric college. And then he painted this painting for me and I chose this particular set of deities around the painting, uh, which are unusual, put it that way. And then, so I'm doing this in front of this painting, but it is political. And actually I consider Kalala chakra to have a political dimension because kalala chakra puts in the east the Omega city Buddha, which is the miracle performing wisdom Buddha. And um, it's the front face, the front blue black face of Kalala chakra. And, uh, it's a, it is a, it's, it is a blue black colored, um, uh, city. They, the, that, that performs miracles, which is a transportation of the envy of the, of the energy of envy, jealousy.
Speaker 4 00:15:09 And it's green and it's, it's dark green in the colors in many mandals, but not in this mandal. Dark green is in the center actually, uh, uh, of this mandala green, blue, green and blue. So anyway, in front of that, I wanna do some little bit political talking because today I was listening to someone that I would like to be my dear friend whom I admire enormously, who I consider one of the great, um, movie directors, movie creators on, uh, in our generation. You know, um, I think he's not as old as me, but close. And, um, I mean, remarkable, I believe, and I I I've been recently, and I, we've never met personally, I've not shaken his hand personally, but we've, I've shaken his hand online and on phone cuz I've been encouraging him. And I'm thrilled about his wonderful documentary he just made with, with, uh, Joshua Goldstein, the author of a Bright Future, uh, called A Brighter Future, I think his documentary is called.
Speaker 4 00:16:18 And it's about how we environmentalists have to brace ourselves and think critically and overcome our own slogans and realize that the nukes 3.0, 2.0 3.0, nuclear energy 3.0 2.0 is essential to get out of this coal and oil and gas stuff to the renew, to, to other more clean renewables than the nu but the 2.0 3.0 however, are ones that are breeders. And so they don't create a lot of extra polluted stuff, but they themselves become, for 30 years down the line, they become contaminated. Even the metal of them, they're solid metal and they, they don't need this old big cooling and stuff and all this complicated stuff of the, of the awkward 1.0 nuclears. And, uh, but we were brainwashed against nuclear because we associate it with the bomb because we were brainwashed by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1960s. And we think it's because that time that the nuclear was Eisenhower's Adams for peace was the, was the competition for the oil and Rockefeller Foundation.
Speaker 4 00:17:32 Money comes from standard oil, remember? So they, they nixed that. They, they brainwashed us all that new that nuclear power can't be useful. And actually it can and it can be safe. And it is safe. Its overall record is actually quite safe in spite of humans using it possibly badly, which they have done in the past. But even there, the record is, they haven't used it as badly as they've used other kinds of bombs. They dropped a couple of bombs very criminally, in my opinion. They pretend that it's solved the World War, but I don't believe that. And I think it was criminal of Truman to drop it on the civilians. I don't, civilian bombing is a kind of state terrorism I consider, and I'm, I'm not for it. And I, I think we should look calmly and analytically at it and realize it is state terrorism, since terrorism is defined as using violence on a, on a, on an uninvolved people, innocent victims to get at your actual enemy who you wanna fight with.
Speaker 4 00:18:39 So you're, you, you know, you use some innocent civilians who are not the army that you need to wanna confront to terrorize the people who control the army. And so when you bomb civilians, you're trying to influence the generals and the defense secretaries in the country you're attacking and the, and you're, but you're harming innocent people who did not declare war on you. And they can't resist their own people. They are just simple civilians in kimonos. Running around and dropping a bombs on them is really a criminal. I believe in, in the new century, it will be considered criminal, likely the current Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine is criminal.
Speaker 4 00:19:28 So anyway, he is a, I consider him a a an admired person and and a dear friend. And he is a amazing, I watched an amazing interview with a wonderful, uh, Friedman, uh, le led, uh, Lex Friedman, uh, where after he got past the issues of Putin, who he was, I feel deceived by. He doesn't feel that he feels Putin is a friend. And I know you can bond with Russians, <laugh> cause I have a lot of Russian friends and I happen to love the people, but I don't like dictators, I must say. And I, I confess, actually, my wife was annoyed with me because I did like Putin since he was, at least he had a martial arts expertise during the w era when w criminally invaded Iraq. And, uh, I, Putin, I believe was upset about that. And I, and I considered, I've thought of him and, and w meeting in Texas and I sort of preferred Putin at that time cuz I didn't realize what would happen, what he would become, uh, and what he was becoming already at that time. And, uh, then I did, I read a Russian biography of him by Marsha Gessen called The Man With No Face. And when I realized that, read that I, I became more critical of him. And then when he invaded Crimea and then the Don Ba and then now when he's tried to destroy the entire Ukraine, I'm extremely, uh, negative about him. And I feel very compassionate to him because he's causing so much damage to himself, to Russia. Everything he's tried he wanted to do has been the opposite has been achieved and it's gonna get worse.
Speaker 4 00:21:26 Uh, and then, um, so, but this, but what I'm talking about is actually more about Oliver, Oliver Stone because, you know, he, he made documentaries with Castro Putin Bado. He is talked to all the bad guys because like Noam Chomsky, uh, he's so appalled by the American CIA behavior since, uh, since ever, you know, basically since the second World War. Although what I would like to suggest to him and uh, thinking out loud, let's say, or putting it out publicly, is that, you know, that he and Nome both go overboard about our evil. And that's, which is good actually, everybody should go overboard about our evil. If everybody did go overboard about the evil committed by us going back to the Native American genocide that we are built on, and therefore our other genocidal behaviors in other places, and violent and, and imperialists, uh, they, although I don't consider us proper imperialists because we don't colonize places really very effectively.
Speaker 4 00:22:42 Now we have Guantanamo <laugh>, we have a little, some corporation has a banana plantation here and there, you know, uh, we did, we did colonize Hawaii badly, you know, uh, and, and, but that was sort of part that was just the last part of the overall colonization of the whole United States <laugh> at which all the Latin American people also did all the Spanish, English based, French based, Spanish based, the Europeans did, and have colonized all of the Americas. And everyone in the Americas has to realize that. And the indigenous people here have to be compensated in some way. I mean, it's impossible to compensate all the terrible Holocaust that occurred, but they really should be compensated. So I do understand that motive of Oliver and Noam Chomsky and other people who are radically against the US all all over the place. But I think it, they get stuck then in sort of thinking there's, because you know, nobody, it gets too hopeless, doesn't it, to say everybody's really equally evil all over the world.
Speaker 4 00:23:55 Uh, it seems to almost get too hopeless. It's like, it's a political version of the Buddha's first noble truth or friendly, fun fact, which is that the conventional world is inevitably suffering frustrating and imperfect and will, everything will go wrong, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. In other words, it's a version of that. And people are, uh, emotionally hard. That fi they find that difficult, that first truth of a friendly person, noble person, they find it difficult. So then they wanna say, well, maybe the Stalin was better, you know, maybe Pute is, and this and that dictator or China is better. You know, maybe, uh, maybe they need a dictatorship in Venezuela, you know, uh, in Cuba, you know, maybe they saved the soil from Ron Santo by having a dictatorship. I mean, they get to too much glorify equally evil people as our own evil people.
Speaker 4 00:24:59 So anyway, I want to go back to Gandhi. Gandhi who had his own rail politics side, even though he used nonviolence as his weapon, but he had his own rail politic, although perhaps he did succeed in leading a movement that got rid of the British partially. I mean, he was partial one cause of the success, although it was not, wasn't unqualified, it was also the unmanageability after the war and so on. We won't get into it and we'll give him credit. And then he said about the World War II itself, that, and they rise of the fascist dictators, which was really the World War II itself. And you know, these proud boys in America, just a little aside, who are for a new dictatorship in America, a white Christian dictatorship in America and enslave everybody else and not fake, not learn their own genocide here that we have, they, they're ruining our lives subliminally here and our slavery side, you know, and which is like a ethno side, it has a genocide element to it also.
Speaker 4 00:26:13 They don't wanna face that. But what they're doing is they are betraying the sacrifices of their grandparents who fought in the world war against fascist dictators, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo. And they are against it. And that's really ironic and sad for them. And I wish they would wake up about it and realize what America really is. So, uh, and stopped it, you know? And, um, but they haven't, I agree with the critics of America that they haven't stopped it. And, but, but back to Gandhi in the 1938 or something like that, 37, he horrified the English press by saying that Hitler should be resisted nonviolently if people really wanted to get it over with Hitler and Mussolini, et cetera. And that nonviolent resistance would beat them and they'd lose their power and their own countries would rebel against them. And people would be killed facing down troops and tanks without fighting back, but also not cooperating.
Speaker 4 00:27:19 But they wouldn't be maybe as many as or would be killed in the actual violent resistance, which is the second option in his talk, he said. And uh, then the problem with winning by violence, which we did, we out violence, the fascist dictators, he predicted what it was that that type of Nazi person would take over our societies. So the victors would be still controlled by fascists, but then from within. So now we Americans don't, maybe a lot of us don't want to think of our ccia as fascists thick types, but they are, they did recruit Nazis after the war right away. Not only scientists, but also operatives of various kinds. If you know the real story. And they, and they have operated it as Oliver as quick to say, who did film brilliant films in El Salvador and so on. They trained other countries in death squad behavior against socialists and this kind of thing. They were really very misguided. They, they, they have taken over our society and our foreign policy definitely. And the, and the military industrial complex that the general Eisenhower warned us about the cross of iron in his famous cross of iron speech, which is what Oliver and Ch Nokin people are so upset about and I'm upset about it too.
Speaker 4 00:28:50 But the point is, they also took over Russia, they also took over China and they're still there with M six m i six or whatever it's called, or m i seven James Bond sort of thing. And they're still there in France, whatever their sicker day thing is. So the five so-called victors of the World War, you know, to somehow Dugal made friends a co victor, but actually we say they bacon, the Vici government, the French government had capitulated and were behaving like Nazis already, uh, with Hitler cooperating with him, but dig all and the resistance. So we recognized them as cots cuz they suffered a lot. But anyway, these five have been ruining the UN because the five are controlled by Hitler. Like people which are the secret services who can kill and li oh oh seven, they have license to kill in the name of the, the larger nation and do things that the, the, the ethics of the larger nation would not condone.
Speaker 4 00:29:54 And they, and also end up suppressing in, in two out of five of the cases suppressing democracy a hundred percent. So they can't get voted out of power that is in Russia and China. And uh, and then trying to even impose that on the whole world and then argue that in a modern industrial technological society, dictatorship is essential because ca democracy is too chaotic. And this theory that the leftover of the British empire in Singapore, Le one U made into a fake theory about the Chinese and which the Putin is following in the footsteps of Stalin to try to uphold that. The Russians tried to break out in the early nineties and they did for a little while, Gorbachev and then Yeltsin in different ways. And then Yeltsin collapsed and handed it back to the kgb, which is Putin who is the figurehead of that.
Speaker 4 00:30:55 And there's a whole echelon of people behind him, the oligarchs, which is KGB now in the form of oligarchs rather than in the form of spies in the back room. So my point is, that's the enemy. It isn't just America and therefore you don't have to pit pretend that some communist or some socialist is your enemy. It's not is your, is your best friend. Actually the socialists, the proper ones in Scandinavia are very good friends. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, they're relatively good friends. They are, although they have their Nazis among them, uh, they do right? You know, they own right wing. It's like, it's a little bit like that. But, but it doesn't, there hasn't had power in their countries for decades since the war. And so that's our friends. And any dictatorship is never of the proletariat, which is to say of the working people, it's always of the dictatorship because the power makes it for people crazy like that. And then our CIA operates in their critique now and then a kind of little dictatorial behavior. They lie, they get away with it, they invade countries, they do so, and Cheney bush invasion of Iraq and the destabilization of the Middle East is totally part of that. And then Obama failing to hold them to account cuz he was also terrorized probably by them. They probably offered to kill him and his family if he tried to clean up after the bush. Cheney criminal invasion. Aggressive war criminality.
Speaker 4 00:32:34 So I'm just suggesting that we turn our critique in all directions equally and we pick out within the hu the huge nations, we pick out the specific people who are causing the damage. And those will be dictatorial types of fascistic types of people inevitably. And those people we should go against. And they always try to pretend that other people are like the Zelensky Jewish comedian is a Nazi <laugh>. And you know, his, you, his yanukovich was the Nazi, his is a Nazi, the other people are not. He is the Nazi Putin. You know, they have to face that you saw him at a time and he, you see he had a good side. Everybody has a good side and now it's all bad and he's killing millions and threatening to kill millions more. And therefore Biden is not like title. He did say Biden to go a long guy, which has been his history as a senator. He did vote for him. I voted for him too. I didn't want him to run even. But then I did vote for him of course, cuz the other one is nothing but a Russian puppet. He's a Putin's man. You know, Trump paid for by the oligarch because you can pay for Trump to do anything you want.
Speaker 4 00:34:03 He's a money creature and his father was a Nazi.
Speaker 4 00:34:10 So that those people we can point out. So I'm just begging, I want a new documentary from the great eminent beloved, uh, Oliver, uh, that really goes back to Gandhi and then recognizes that within the, the democracy, within the chaos of democracies, there is always another side which gets completely crushed Once you have a dictatorship and there's only one side, and then they have to live at war, they have to live under fear. There's no way not to be afraid because they are dominating their people in a way that their people don't like, including Chinese people. They don't like to be dic dictate dominated by dictators no human being does. They will get into the authoritarian personality and they'll dominate someone under them and they'll gravel to the one above them and act like they love it. But it should to get along. But they don't like it actually.
Speaker 4 00:35:15 So Slavo Ukraine, I'm saying because Ukraine and our standing up for Ukraine, our democracy is standing up for Ukraine is a kind of beginning to get back to Roosevelt. In this case, Eleanor Roosevelt and the human rights charter of the un, which we, our CIA dominated foreign policy and they're all the other four victors of the World War have dominated foreign policies with their security council veto and their huge arms industries selling weapons to everybody and all takers to have wars all with each other as a big value added industry. Although ultimately self-destructive. We, it's we're the, the Ukraine battle is moving beyond that and it's people that nobody thought would be able to withstand one of the big superpower machines did so and given very chin Z's help by us relative to what we could have given to, which would've helped them clear out the incompetent Russian army very fast and get their land back right away if we'd given them proper support.
Speaker 4 00:36:28 And uh, the fake thing about the nuclears is fake. Nobody loses nuclears. And that never will happen in the future. Cannot happen in a way we use with, uh, what radioactive ra uh, radioactive uranium shell casings is the kind of use of nuclear that we did in, we started doing in Iraq, I believe company created by Gingrich and people like that, who are these kind of bad people that are Oliver and Noam Chaska are after they, now those are the ones they wish they were imperialist. They behave imperialistically around their own house and they can be criticized and reform. We can try to reform them and democracy does kind of reform that knocks them down. Roosevelt knocked them all down for decades and had something going for most of the people. Imperfect always is when Eleanor put the right of self-determination in the UN charter for human rights.
Speaker 4 00:37:30 But the way our foreign policy CIA dominated foreign, you know, fascist dominated foreign policy has prevented that from ever being enacted. And therefore, and they even when, when the British Empire had to arm our mentor in imperialism had to liberate countries in Africa, otherwise they insisted in Asia, they insisted that those countries keep the borders that the imperialists had inflicted on them, which, which purposely created a divide and conquer situation where different tribes that had were not stable to be under one another, had to fight for power within a nation state that they hadn't made and hadn't asked for, or they would be not represented in the world. Uh, I know that they, that was enforced even after they were liberated. So it was sort of keeping the imperialist fingers on them and selling them weapons actually on each to use on each other to hold them back. Actually very much a churchian strategy. Uh, which we, which we unfortunately Roosevelt, it was like Woodrow Wilson at the end of World War I. He let the German Kaiser king resign in with an honorable peace. But then the British made it dishonorable and trashed the whole country and the whole economy to which then pumped up the blow back of the next World War, the Hitler and the next World War. And W Wilson got sick and died at the end of that and didn't see through his self-determination of people.
Speaker 4 00:39:07 And, uh, some good friends of mine in our own diplomatic think, oh no, well don't think about Will Wilson self-determination. Oh no, that's so dangerous. No, no, we'll have thousands of nations in the un. Well that would be good then we'd have a chaotic democracy, which would be the un and that's what we should have. That's what we need to have a peaceful democracy will relatively be peaceful because people live with less fear and democracy except for the security services can still terrify them. But if it's one, if there, if worlds government can enforce a world ethic between nations so that nations are not allowed to be unilaterally unethical and immoral and consider that good political science, then chaos is okay then it's like the Dow ditching. You do less from the governments cuz people will be more peaceful naturally. Nobody wants to park missiles in their kitchen.
Speaker 4 00:40:12 So, so this is my appeal for Shalah actually it is, you know, when we, when you a great being who has said, who said in that same interview where they that tried to defend Putin with, with, with not real conviction, they just kept turning away from the subject and how bad America was, which you intend to do. Cause you can't defend him now puts in his going over the line, you know, long back and, uh, so reaching out to him, he wants good in the world. We are all for good. Shambala is a vision that there will be good on this earth. It will be in its few centuries in traditional texts, which I don't believe, I believe it has to be now soon in this century, which I think is what Dal Lama may be saying, but he doesn't even wanna talk about the shambala prophecy and the sort of the Buddhist Armageddon you could say, you could call it.
Speaker 4 00:41:26 And it's not like the rapture of the evangelicals where they think God makes a new earth for them. It's where we cleaned this one up, like the Eastern Orthodox Christians, Russian Christians, Syrian Christians, Serbian Christians. We cleaned this one up and we, we stopped wrecking it and we take care of it and we take care of each other and we can do that now. And we know, know each other's needs. We have computers, we have AI even to help us do it. AI can be an immensely useful tool if we get past this conquer everybody else routine, feeling that the world is our enemy. We have to somehow, and it's dangerous and we're afraid of it. So we have to defend against it or aggress preemptively and or aggress preemptively against it. We have to get past that on the individual level and on the, on the, uh, so, and this doesn't mean we have to accept some Buddhist theory. We have the, the Christians have their own Armageddon. They just have to get a better interpretation of it. Stop thinking that Jesus is gonna come back like Rambo
Speaker 6 00:42:38 <laugh>
Speaker 4 00:42:40 That point is Rambo will become like Jesus is. Rather what has to happen, Sylvester has to become peaceful, willing to let the other have the what they need. You know, loving the other. That means loving each other. That's what we have to have. Okay? So I want, I want a new documentary on the coming of Shambala. And of course I wanna be a major interviewee in that documentary. I do. And I I have a few others in mind from other traditions. Also the more mystical ones. Muslim, they have the Maori. What does it really mean? The Maori or the hidden Imam, what does that really mean? Where is that? Where's Rahman? Allah, the merciful. Certainly he is not behind war. That's not merciful. Neither is Jesus. Neither was Buddha, neither was lazer. So neither are scientific humanists who are generally open-minded humanists and not fanatic. Dogmatic materialists who work for the Pentagon, okay, dedicate the merit of this. May we all attain the vision of the wheel of time and become real of time, fields of time ourselves. And thereby it stole everybody else inequality with us as wheels of time themselves to realize that love and bliss and kindness are the way
Speaker 4 00:44:49 From any one moment, from everyone. Now that's Apocalypse Now. Apocalypse now is not dropping phosphorous bombs in the jungle apocalypse now is being there, caring for everyone. Love everyone. Telling the truth, facing the truth, and loving everyone. No way out. There's no nothing. We have to take care of everything. Thank you very much. Okay, best. Okay, bye.
Speaker 3 00:45:49 The Bob Thurman podcast is produced through Creative Commons, no derivatives license. Please be sure to like, share and repost on your favorite social media platforms. It's brought to you in part to the generous support of the Tibet House US Men membership community, and listeners like you. To learn more about the benefits of House membership, please visit our website at thus org, menlo org. And Bob Thurman, Nick. And thanks for tuning.
