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Contemplation Life Observations Reading

Selected Readings on Mindfulness and Meditation

Selected Readings on Mindfulness and Meditation by Jim Martin

These are a few, of the many excellent titles available that we have found informative and well written on the topic of Buddhism,  Mindfulness and related subjects. This includes both nonfiction and fiction titles.

If you have a favorite book on these subjects  that you would like to recommend please leave the name of the book, details and any thoughts about the title as a comment and it will become part of the list.   If you have read any of the books on the list and wish to comment that is also appreciated.

 

Nonfiction

The Foundations of Buddhism – Rupert Gethin – © 1998 

ISBN 978-0-19-2892223-2 – Oxford University Press

The Foundations of Buddhism (Opus S)  

“Rupert Gethin is Lecturer in Indian Religions in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, and co-director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, at the University of Bristol. He  is the author of The Buddhist Path to Awakening (1992) and is a specialist in Theravada Buddhism.”

“Buddhism is a vast and complex religious and philosophical tradition with a history that stretches back over 2,500 years. In this book, Rupert Gethin investigates the common threads connecting diverse traditions of Buddhist thought and practice: the story of the Buddha, the scriptural tradition of his teachings, the four noble truths, monastic and lay ways of life, karma and rebirth, ethics, meditation and philosophy. While concentrating on the formative phase of Buddhism in India, he also considers the ways in which these foundations have shaped the development of Buddhism beyond India and into the twentieth century.”

 

Mindfulness In Plain English – Bhante Gunaratana – © 2011

ISBN 978-0-86171-906-8 – Wisdom Publications

Mindfulness in Plain English: 20th Anniversary Edition

Bhante Gunaratana is also author of Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness, Beyond Mindfulness in Plain English and the memoir Journey to Mindfulness

“ A Masterpiece.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness In Plain English is said to be “one of the most influential books in the burgeoning field of mindfulness and a timeless classic introduction to meditation.”

Excerpts from Mindfulness In Plain English:

“Within the Judeo-Christian tradition we find two overlapping practices called prayer and contemplation. Prayer is a direct address to a spiritual entity. Contemplation is a prolonged period of conscious thought about a specific topic, usually a religious ideal or scriptural passage. From the standpoint of mental cultivation, both these activities are exercises in concentration.”

“Out of the Hindu tradition comes yogic meditation, which is also purely concentrative.”

“Within the Buddhist tradition concentration is also highly valued. But a new element is added and more highly stressed: the element of awareness. All Buddhist meditation aims at the development of awareness, using concentration as a tool toward that end.”

 

The Heart of Buddhist Meditation – The Buddha’s way of Mindfulness – Nyanaponika Thera

  © 1954, 1962, 1996 – Buddhist Publication Society – This edition published in 2014 by Weiser Books – ISBN 978-1-57863-558-0

The Heart of Buddhist Meditation: The Buddha’s Way of Mindfulness

Excerpt from Foreword, by Sylvia Boorstein, to The Heart of Buddhist Meditation:

“The Heart of Buddhist Meditation was the first serious, didactic Dharma book I read. It was the early nineteen-eighties. My teacher, Jack Kornfield, suggested it as the beginning of formal training to become a Mindfulness teacher. “

“Apart from the meticulous yet accessible writing style with which the Venerable Nyanaponika builds every point, I feel a warmth and friendliness in his tone that makes me feel as if he is talking to me.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn writes: “This is the book that introduced Vipassana and Mindfulness to the West. Its content is timeless — and universal. All teachers of mindfulness-based programs would do well to carefully red and re-read this book…”

 

Full Catastrophe Living – JonKabat-Zinn – Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness 

Revised and updated Edition © 1990, 2013 by Jon Kabat-Zinn – Published in the United States by Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-345-53693-8

Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

“Stress. It can sap our energy, undermine our health, even shorten our lives. It makes us more venerable to anxiety and depression, disconnection and disease. Based on Jon Kapbat-Zinn’s renowed mindfulness-based stress reduction program this classic, groundbreaking work—which gave rise to a whole new field in medicine and psychology-shows you how to use medically proven mind-body approaches derived from meditation and yoga to counteract stress, establish greater balance of body and mind, and stimulate well-being and healing.”

 

Where Ever You Go There You Are – Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life –10th Anniversary Edition

© 1994, 2005 Jon Kabat-Zinn Published by Hackette Books ISBN 0-7668-8070-8

This is a well-written, thoughtful guide and reminder what meditation and mindfulness is all about.  In many ways it is the soul of Full Catastrophe Living. If you are practicing meditation and living mindfully, this book will remind you why. After you read it once, you can just pick it up, open to any page and find something inspiring.

 

Living As If Your Life Depended On It! Twelve Gateways To A Life That Works

© 2000 Cia Rico – ISBN 0-9678-849-1-8 Published by Life Care, Inc

Self help in keeping with Buddhist tradition, meditation and modern psychology. Spiritual and psychological growth.

 

 

Fiction

TheDharmBums coverThe Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac © 1958 — Published by Penguin Books

(See full review here: https://www.almostseventy-one.com/2016/03/28/jack-kerouacs-the-dharma-bums-book-review-by-jim-martin/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Island – A Novel – Aldous Huxley © 1962 – Published by Harper Perennial Modern Classics ISBN 978-0-060156179-5 (pbk)

Island

In this amazingly prophetic novel written in 1962, Aldous Huxley creates the fictional island of Pala in the Pacific, somewhere in Southeast Asia, not far from a neighboring country with a powerful corrupt dictator who has a plan to take over Pala, which has been basically left on its own for 120 years because it didn’t have anything desirable until now, after oil is discovered. A billionaire, oil magnate, who also owns newspapers, has enlisted a reporter, William Farnaby to see if he can get a line on how to get the island government to work with his oil company.

But the leaders of Pala have their own agenda, one that has been nurtured for many generations, over  a hundred years, a utopian society built on science, mainly Buddhist philosophy and Hindu traditions. Science, medicine and psychology are being used in ways that are still not put into practice in major countries in the world today. For example education that teaches children skills to stay healthy mentally and physically. Sex education and practices that help keep population growth under control and preventive medicine, rather than treating illnesses with drugs after they occur. Early psychological testing to help children develop their talents and gifts without succumbing to  antisocial behaviors. Meditation and a form of mindfulness practiced by most of the population.

Will Farnaby, the reporter, gets himself ship wrecked on the island and is taken in by key citizens of Pala. They agree to let him stay for a month while they show him their island utopia, discuss their culture and plans for the future. The novel facilitates the exploring of Pala’s history and goals for the future against the backdrop of a world still recovering from Hitler, fascism, political turmoil, television, consumerism, health issues, poverty and racism.

Buddhist philosophy, begun over 2500 years ago, foreshadows many of today’s scientific principles like evolutionary psychology, modern psychology and how the mind works. Huxley writes, in 1962, about concepts that are just beginning to be discussed today.

jrm

Categories
Contemplation News Poetry Reading

Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums — Review by James R (Jim) Martin

 kerouac HaiI wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading The Dharma Bums. I didn’t remember much about Jack Kerouac’s writing having read On The Road, many back in the day years ago; the experience was stuck in my mind’s dusty archives. I wasn’t the same person who read On The Road back then, I was here now in the present suspecting I might be a Dharma Bum of sorts myself.

The Dharma Bums is a cultural walk-about America in the late 1950’s with the spread of suburbia, a growing middle class with an increasing addiction to television and sameness. It also includes vivid and beautiful representations of natural phenomenon from the desert to the high mountains. The characters that Ray Smith, the narrator of the story, meets in his travels range from intellectuals, artists, poets and beatnik friends, to hobos he meets as he hops fast freight trains up the California Coast or thumbs rides with truck drivers and others while he travels across the country a couple of times. He carries his home on his back and to some extent depends on the good will of those he meets on his path. He meditates in the desert, mountain meadows and the woods. He exchanges what he has learned with his fellow Dharma Bums and gains insight from them and his travels. At times Ray Smith and his Dharma buddies seem like modern-day  bhikkhu (monks), each on the path of enlightenment in their own way.

This is a trip that anyone can enjoy, from the first time Ray Smith, the main character, hops a freight train, headed North up the California coast.  Even though it was written some time ago it feels contemporary and relevant today. One thing I knew as I began reading The Dharma Bums, was that Jack Kerouac knows how to tell a story. I also became happily aware that this book was an adventure entwined with the basis of Mindfulness including the “Four Noble Truths” and the “Eight-fold Path;” a Bodhisattva’s journey looking for nothing, knowing and not knowing.   The two main characters Ray Smith and Japhy Ryder are on a quest for truth that finds them climbing mountains in the high sierras, partying with San Fransisco Bohemians, and others and writing their own poetry.

“…Pray tell us, good buddy, and don’t make it muddy, who played this trick, on Harry and Dick, and why is so mean this Eternal Scene, just what’s the point, of this whole joint? I thought maybe I could find out at last from these Dharma Bums.” — Jack Kerouac — The Dharma Bums

I’d be willing to bet that a lot of people these days may not know much about Jack Kerouac. I wonder if his work is read in high school or college English classes? It should be. Probably banned in Texas or Alabama, like Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye. Kerouac was born in Lowell Massachusetts in 1922, went to public school and ended up with a scholarship to Columbia in New York City where he met Neal Cassady, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs who  turn up in The Dharma Bums. Kerouac died in St. Pete Florida in 1969 at the age of forty-seven.

Those who do remember Jack Kerouac would probably think of the classic “On The Road” that was published in 1957 and made Kerouac one of the most appreciated writers of that time. “On The Road” came to personify what was called the “Beat Generation.” Other books followed including those in what Kerouac included in the “The Duluoz Legend Series” including The Dharma Bums, The Subterraneans, Big Sur, other novels and poetry. But Kerouac’s writing is a lot more than “Beat Generation” tales.

The Dharma Bums was published in 1958, after On the Road.  Written in College Park, a neighborhood in Orlando, Florida. It is a subtle, non-preachy primer, in some ways, on certain concepts found in Buddhism, in particular Zen Buddhism. But written as a novel, in Kerouac’s rhythmic, descriptive and first person conversational storytelling style, these notions come up naturally. Words, sentences and paragraphs loose their individual functions as they create a new actuality, moving, nudging and seducing the reader into the strokes and colors of  the author’s word paintings.

            “But I had my own little bangtail ideas and they had nothing to do with the ‘lunatic’ part of this. I wanted to get me a full pack complete with everything necessary to sleep, shelter, eat, cook, in fact a regular kitchen and bedroom right on my back, and go off somewhere and find perfect solitude and look into the perfect emptiness of my mind and be completely neutral from any and all ideas. I intended to pray, too, as my only activity, pray for all living creatures; I saw it was the only decent activity left in the world. To be in some riverbottom somewhere, or in a desert, or in mountains, or in some hut in Mexico or shack in Adirondack, and rest and be kind, and do nothing else, practice what the Chinese call ‘do-nothing.” I didn’t want to have anything to do, really, either with Japhy’s ideas about society (I figured it would be better just to avoid it altogether, walk around it) or with any of Alvah’s ideas about grasping after life as much as you can because of its sweet sadness and because you would be dead some day.”      — Jack Kerouac The Dharma Bums

Ray Smith’s journey moves along spontaneously and as fast paced as Jack Kerouac’s prose. This timeless story is hard to put down with a bonus if you are interested in Dharma, mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy; you will find many moments in the book with which to relate. Beyond the philosophy you will find a artfully crafted novel that is engaging and classic, as a spiritual journey to find self or perhaps no self. Jack Kerouac, intentionally or not created his own Buddha book of “sutras” and left them with us.

The Dharma Bums – Jack Kerouac – 1957 – Penguin Books – 244 pages

The Dharma Bums

The Dharma Bums

 

Review by James R (Jim) Martin

Books by James R Martin

Documentary Directing and Storytelling: How to Direct Documentaries and More!

Listen Learn Share: How & Why Listening, Learning and Sharing can Transform Your Life Experience In Practical Ways

Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.

Actuality Interviewing and Listening: How to conduct successful interviews for nonfiction storytelling, actuality documentaries and other disciplines … (Documentary and Nonfiction Storytelling)

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Contemplation Life News Photography Uncategorized

Pullman Case Contemplation and Time Travel by Jim Martin

Smelling like old paper, film negatives and musty storage, a cloud of old memories slowly filled the air as I opened the venerable Pullman suitcase. Old family photographs, and other pictures I took, some a half a century ago, waited with negatives stored in protective sleeves. There were people, places and faces, including my own, stuck in time. The difficult part was being there in that moment again, retaking the picture or being in the photograph in that place and that time.8J4A0419Acamp

Is it possible to smell the heather and feel the morning breeze gently drifting off the English hills in the Lake District, all those years ago? The actual event can’t be relived, but the mind makes magic sometimes. The photograph acts as a visual reminder, conjuring up bits of experience from the archives in the mind, like an artist creating a painting. Wellington boots seen through a tent flap, “two bob” said the woman wearing the boots and  collecting the camping fees. This and other memories stored in the same picture.

A black and white picture, taken on a sunny day, of a friend and I standing next to a sports car I owned. The friend and the car are remembered. The city street we’re standing on looks familiar. What was the name of that street? Why were we there in suits and ties? Does the mind have a librarian checking the stacks for this event? It may take a while, but sometimes, a day or two later, the librarian pops up with the information. Events, places, and people in memory are abstract, subjective thoughts lost in context, perspective and time.8J4A03812ndmg

The object and the people in a photograph may bring back memories for some time after the picture was taken. How long the memory replays depends on how significant the event and how much attention it was given. Human imagination only needs a few clues to create what feels like a mountain breeze, the smell of a rose or a loved one’s touch. But everything the mind and body experiences in a lifetime is not remembered. In addition what is remembered is a subjective interpretation of the person or event, and so is the photograph.

No dates and places written on the backs of most photos. Still every picture has an inherent date and place in the past, my past and other people’s pasts even if it can’t be fully visited; reflections of a time and place that only exists there on the paper. The face on the paper is not my face anymore. The beautiful woman in the picture no longer looks or is the same. These things only existed for that photographic moment.8J4A0378TOM&...

I used to think that “I” was the sum of my experiences and memories. But this cannot be. The past is like those old photographs, moments frozen in time that do not exist beyond the shutter’s opening and closing. Here in the present, there is no past, no current me that remains from those pictures; every second this mind and body are changing. The body and mind in the picture no longer exist. Each memory is only a silent sketch, faded a bit more each day. The mind is like that old Pullman suitcase, stuffed full of folders with pictures, some in better shape than others, but all moments frozen in time. However, the mind, like the case may be opened occasionally for time travel to see the past, to imagine and perhaps explore those fleeting moments.

8J4A0389Wen

Written by James R (Jim) Martin, Author, Documentary Filmmaker, Photographer and student of  Mindfulness.

Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.

 

Categories
Contemplation Film

With One Voice – Awaken To The Beauty That Unites Us All – Review by Jim Martin

With One Voice explores the world of mysticism and it’s role in spirituality and religion. The documentary is a quest to learn from mystics, representing major religions, about their own spiritual journey and what knowledge they have gained. In the words of Father Keating in the film, “We are all mystics seeking to solve the mysteries of existence.”

The filmmakers who created With One Voice have produced a documentary that is not an external point-of-view of mysticism. Even though, it does use a narrator, Peter Coyote, it also makes extensive  first person interviews.  The unique quality of this story is that its point-of-view, while still subjective, is from the inside looking out.  Viewing the documentary brings the audience into the world of mystic spirituality, religion and to some extent exposes the viewer to the notion of inner peace.

Many people like to say that they are “spiritual.” rather than religious.  But what does that really mean? What is spirituality?  Where does spirituality begin and religion end? How do spirituality, religion and mysticism relate to each other? In a subtle way the answers to many of these questions are examined in this beautifully shot and edited documentary with original music by Michael Josephs.

The film is divided into eight areas:

To read entire review and view trailer go to: J R Martin Media Documentary Reviews

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Contemplation Life News

The Buddhist Notion of Not Self and Modern Psychology by J R Martin

Wheel of Life
Wheel of Life

Is the Buddhist notion of “not self” a philosophy of life supported by modern psychological practice and scientific research?  Does self exist? The Buddhist interpretation of no self may sound nihilistic, but according to Buddhist thinking it is not.

The Buddha’s argument that there is no self has merit. There are only passing, sometimes random, feelings and thoughts. Any notion of self is rooted in past thoughts. Clinging to self is living in the past, like trying to drive a car forward by only looking in the rear view mirror. If there is no self, past, present and future are the products of conscious thinking.

According to Buddhist thought there is a construct of five aggregates that make up human existence, each area constantly changing, but together they appear to have continuity that is mistaken for a self. The five aggregates or “skandhas” are Consciousness (subjective awareness), Form (body), Feeling, Perception and Mental Formations.

In The Foundations of Buddhism, Rupert Gethin writes about considering self as “causal connectedness.” There are twelve progressing links in the chain of “dependent arising,” each “conditions” the next link,” bringing about the whole of suffering. Each link “conditions” the rising of the next link. “…the concern is to show that physical and mental events occur in various relationships to each other.” – Gethin pg. 140-1

According to Buddha, there are only two things in life; there is only suffering (duhkha), or the cessation of suffering. He asks is suffering the self? This would seem to be the same as asking is “life” the self? In an exchange with the monks, who were his disciples, the Buddha challenges them, saying that you will not find self in the five aggregates of physical or mental events that define human existence. Looking at each of the five aggregates (skandhas), he submits that, everything happening in these five areas is temporary or impermanent. Things that are impermanent are considered as suffering (duhkha). Therefore they cannot be self.

Examining the five aggregates the Buddha, in his first discourse, asks the monks if the happenings in these areas are permanent or impermanent? He asks is pain the self? They reply, “no it is not.” Pain is impermanent. The Buddha asks, is it correct to consider something that will change as “this is mine, I am this, this my self?” The monks agree it is not. The Buddha concludes then, that we must say, “This is not mine, I am not this, this is not myself.” There is no self because it cannot be found anywhere within the five aggregates that define human life.

The underlying message here to the monks in a modern context is that they should stop “clinging or “grasping” these experiences in the five aggregates, as they do not need to own these experiences. This is not their identity. The Buddha was a teacher, and in a possibly therapeutic way, counseling the monks, who were obsessing or clinging to all their experiences as their identity, in fear that they would not attain enlightenment.

A modern therapist might ask a patient questions that actually parallel the five aggregates. For example:

“Is the feeling of pain you suffered as a child at the hands of other children, who you are?”

“No that pain isn’t who I am. Not me.”

“Is the resentment you feel toward your friend who you are?”

“I might feel resentful, but that’s not me.”

“What then is the point of clinging or holding on to these things?”

Using different language, not holding on to things that are impermanent because they are basis for suffering is a concept that seems to be a major part of modern psychological therapy. Buddhist teaching of no self allows the individual to summarily divorce traumatic experience, to stop “clinging” to pain and “grasping” suffering, leading to a cessation of suffering.

To Buddhists the five aggregates are all of existence. Experiences that happen in the aggregates are not you therefore there is no self. It should be noted however, since the Buddha apparently only said that the self was not found in the five aggregates, that he might not have been saying that it did not exist at all. There is a movement around the Buddha’s thinking that acknowledges no self,  but at the same time, recognizes universal consciousness. Meditation brings us into contact with our true collective self.

© 2015 James R Martin

Sources:

Robert Wright — Buddhism and Modern Psychology – All Video lectures, Weeks 1-3.

Rupert Gethin –The Foundations of Buddhism –Chapter 6

Bikkhu Bodhi — lectures on the eightfold path and meditation (lectures 7 and 8: http://www.buddhanet.net/audio-lectures.htm)

 

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People

Never Ending Tribalism

Personally I mourn the loss of life in Paris, Beirut, in the sky over Sinai, and everywhere else,  to violence. These acts, murder and war diminish the human spirit. Every time something like this happens it dulls human consciousness and we lapse into the debilitating grayness of wrong thinking.

America does not need ISIS or any other foreign group to commit acts of terror here. We do it to ourselves. It is Americans who have killed people in theaters and innocent children at school shootings. Homegrown terrorism. Armed to the teeth we shoot each other every day in random acts of violence and anger.

When I look around each day I can’t help but be grateful for my life. Grateful I was born in America where I have had a good life full of opportunity. I acknowledge that America is not perfect, we are an experiment in progress. There are those within our own country who would use fear to manipulate us for their own goals during the fog of war. The battle cries and tribal drumbeat rally the masses into a frenzy of revenge against the uncivilized barbarians. Isn’t this the same drumbeat to which the barbarians are marching?

I have been in the military and believe in self-defense. But I also believe that human evolution holds something for us beyond our current stone-age reactionary minds. As a species, we can’t evolve unless we take risks to go beyond this never-ending cycle of tribalism that clearly seems to be leading humanity to extinction.

j r martin

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Film News

American Experience: Walt Disney — Review by Jim Martin

American-Experience-Walt-Disney-to-Premiere-on-PBS

The PBS – American Experience: Walt Disney documentary provides an uncensored, well researched, exploration of Walt Disney, the man, his work, and his passion for achieving goals.  The 221 minute documentary looks into Walt Disney’s contributions to the art of film, his strengths and weaknesses.  The film examines Disney’s great insight into American culture and at other times his opaque insensitivity to historical, political and social issues facing Americans. Walt Disney was an artist and an entrepreneur, greatly aided in his goals by Roy Disney, his brother, who complemented Walt’s obsessive personality with practical nuance.

American Experience: Walt Disney informs and entertains.   It is a great biography of Disney and the development of animated feature films. From a historical filmmaking point of view the documentary is a treasure trove of information, enhanced by the unlimited access given American Experience, to the Disney historical archives. There are photographs, and documentary footage of Walt Disney though out his life. Disney seemed to have someone there taking pictures or shooting activities all the time. The film’s narrative structure is greatly enhanced by this visual actuality of these events. Interviews with those people who knew Walt Disney also help tell the story. There is a linear chronology of Walt Disney’s life contrasted with events around him. Clips from classic Disney films are included throughout the documentary.Disney cover

Walt Disney’s early attempts at creating short cartoons for distribution ultimately lead to Mickey Mouse; demonstrating Disney’s innovation including the first use of audio for an animated short. These early scenes in the documentary may be of particular interest to aspiring filmmakers as well as Disney fans.

One of the most interesting aspects of the documentary is Walt Disney’s idea to create a feature-length animated film that was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Because of Disney’s determination to create a perfect, artistic film that transcended the notion that animationsnowwhite was only for cartoons, Snow White took five years to make and greatly exceeded its original budget. When it was finally released it was a huge national and international success. It achieved all that Disney intended, except winning an Oscar for Best Film.  It did win an Oscar for innovation which didn’t really meet Disney’s expectations.

American Experience: Walt Disney is set up in two parts that total four hours. It is well-edited and does not lag or get redundant. In fact there seems to be a pick-up of pace in the last hour to cover  Disney Land creation, it’s success, the beginnings of Epcot, Disney World in Florida and Walt’s untimely death at age 65 from Lung Cancer. This is a biographical film about Walt Disney; however, it might have included more about his brother and alter ego Roy Disney. This is not to say Roy’s important role in Walt Disney’s life is ignored. It’s that Roy seems to always be in the shadows making things happen and trying to rein in his brother. It would have been interesting to know more about Roy and how he accomplished these things. Perhaps Roy Disney is another story.

The documentary does not gloss over Walt Disney’s problems with his employees, unions, his obsession with communists everywhere, or his insensitivity to minorities and racial stereotypes like those seen in Song of the South and other Disney films, television programs and other endeavors. In many ways it seems from watching the documentary that Walt Disney mirrored the cultural biases of his generation.

 American Experience: Walt Disney does what an excellent biographical documentary should do. It explores reality, in this case the life of Walt Disney, with the goal of understanding who he was as a person and what he created during his lifetime. The successes, the failures and personality traits of a creative human being in the context of the world they lived in.

 American Experience: Walt Disney aired on PBS in mid September 2015. It is available on Apple TV, PBS online and on DVD from PBS and Amazon.

Review by James R (Jim) Martin – Documentary Filmmaker and Author

Create Documentary Films, Videos and Multimedia: A Comprehensive Guide to Using Documentary Storytelling Techniques for Film, Video, the Internet and Digital Media Projects.

Trailer

 

DVD

American Experience: Walt Disney

Review also appears on jrmartinmedia.com

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Contemplation Life News

Our Stories as Defense Sytems

Self-Care, Mindfulness & The Mind/Body Connection

for Helping Professionals

Mini Retreat & Support Group for MSWs, Coaches, Educators & Helping Professionals

For more information use link below.

Self-Care, Mindfulness & The Mind-Body Connection for Helping Professionals(1)

 

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Observations Politics Spirituality

Religious Liberty is the Separation of Church and State

Kim Davis, jailed for Contempt, has been released.  She and some other “Christians” believe their religious liberty is being curtailed because they must obey laws of which they say their religion doesn’t approve. Interesting to note this is their personal interpretation of their sect’s belief, not necessarily written anywhere.

The notion of “Religious Liberty” is that, we are all free from any religion imposing its beliefs on us as individuals, or on our government. According to the Constitution, we are free to believe in what ever religion, or no religion, we wish to choose.  We just can’t expect, or try to force anyone else to believe in our religion. There is no attempt on the part of the government or anyone else, to force Christians to change their beliefs. It is quite the opposite.

The law, upheld by the Supreme Court, says that same-sex marriage is legal. Government officials must issue same-sex couples a marriage license.  It is legal, and everyone has a right to choose whomever they wish to marry. Under the law, no person has the right  to prevent anyone from being married to whomever they choose. No one is asking Christianity to marry same-sex couples in their churches. It wasn’t so long ago that interracial marriage was not allowed in many states.  Certain Christian religions claimed that was against their teachings. Many Christians also believed in slavery and cited the Bible as the reason.

The laws of the United States say that we are all created equal.  No one can be discriminated against for any reason. If you are a government official or clerk you must follow the law. Refusing to follow the law and then forcing others to refuse is a crime.   Government employees, elected or hired, do not work for God. He does not pay their salary.  They work for the people of that State and/or the country. The state and God are separate employers. If a person’s personal beliefs prevent them from doing their job, and upholding the law, they should resign from holding public office.

The Constitution of the United States does not adhere to any religion. It is a set of  principles and laws on which the country is founded. Neither the national government or any individual state or municipality may adopt religious beliefs into its laws. No state elected official or employee can impose his or her religious preferences on how they will perform their jobs. The Constitution does not infringe on anyone’s religion.

This country has been brainwashed by the Christian right-wing to the extent that many people have forgotten that this country is founded and built on the principle of  separation of church and state.  Any church, any state. The founders of the United States made a choice to exclude religion from a role in government. It appears some Christians would like to create a religious state like Iran or Saudi Arabia.

The Christian Right has been imposing their beliefs on the entire country, in an organized fashion since the 1930’s. To name a few things, there have been movements to have the Bible read in the classrooms of public schools.  Christian prayers in public schools.  Under President Eisenhower Christian groups got “In God We Trust” on to US currency and had “God” inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance.  Presidents and politicians have been pressured into ending every speech with the words, “God Bless America.”  Congress has prayer meetings.   The founding fathers of this country never had a “Prayer Meeting” before they wrote the Constitution.

Judging by how they behave, Congress probably needs more prayer, but it is not part of the law that they do so.

Written by J R Martin – Documentary Filmmaker

LINKS

National Memo Story

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News Observations Politics

Donald Trump Show – Spin, Frame, False Equivalency

trump
Illustration Donald Honkey

Donald Trump, as he conducts his wrestling show run for the Presidency of the United States, is entertaining to many people. In a perverse way politics and Trump have become a comedy reality show. Watching Trump’s altercation with Univision reporter Jorge Ramos on August 25, 2015, may have given the public a brief glimpse into the narcissistic, pathological  mind of Mr. Trump, not so obviously seen in public up until now.

Jorge Ramos knew he would need to ask his question and hold his ground because Trump had refused to talk to him previously. Trump did not answer the question being asked, instead he showed disdain for the reporter dismissing Ramos in a demeaning fashion. Trump then had his bodyguards physically manhandle and push the reporter out of the room. Outside one of the bodyguards can be heard telling Ramos, an American citizen, to go back to Mexico. Other reporters in the room asked Trump why he wouldn’t answer Ramos’s question and had Mr. Ramos removed. Trump quickly tried to paint Ramos, a respected, veteran reporter, as out-of-order and crazy.

 

(This video showing Trump telling is people to throw the reporter out etc has been removed from YouTube.)

Trump appears to be a natural at “Framing” arguments, “Spin,” and “False Equivalency” posturing. First he frames his argument or answer to any question on his own terms. This often includes a “False Equivalency” comparison. In a pathological moment, he then believes what he spins is true.

One of the bogus arguments in defense of Trump’s behavior at this press conference is to compare his actions with the reporter, to being appropriate and not like Bernie Sanders’ reaction to the “Black Lives Matter” protesters that confronted Sanders at a rally. Since Trump has publicly stated that he would never be like Bernie Sanders and give up the stage to protesters it is likely Trump over reacted to Ramos to prove, once again, how strong and tough he is. The only thing Trump needed afterward, was to present Ramos as an unreasonable interloper.

But the situations were totally different. This is a false equivalency frame. Ramos was not a protester; he is a serious, credentialed Univision reporter, asking a question, at a news conference. Trump’s current animosity to Univision, he’s suing them for not running his Beauty Pageant show, also played a part. After Trump had Ramos removed from the room, he was asked why by other reporters. Trump’s response was to immediately spin that Ramos was “screaming,” and out-of-order. The video of the confrontation shows something else.   Ramos did not have a microphone, so he may have been speaking louder than normal to be heard, not screaming. Screaming implies, emotional hysteria, a spin word to make Ramos appear irrational or angry, and the belligerent, annoyed Trump as rational. Trump’s reaction to reporters after Ramos was ejected was pathological lying, not just spinning.

Photo: Univision reporter Jorge Ramos (L) is escorted from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s news conference before his “Make America Great Again Rally” at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, Tuesday, August 25, 2015. REUTERS/Ben Brewer
Photo: Univision reporter Jorge Ramos (L) is escorted from Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s news conference before his “Make America Great Again Rally” at the Grand River Center in Dubuque, Iowa, Tuesday, August 25, 2015. REUTERS/Ben Brewer

As far as Bernie Sanders and the protestors are concerned, Sanders appears to actually share the concerns of the protesters. He has been active in all sorts of civil rights activities his entire political career. Instead of creating a confrontation with protesters he simply gave them a chance to speak their minds. This was not a sign of weakness; it was a sign of strength, good will, judgement and experience. In his confrontation with Jorge Ramos Trump has, as he did with Megan Kelly, demonstrated once again his own insecurity and pathological nature.

The Republican establishment would like Donald Trump to self-destruct or go away because he bluntly campaigns on all the “dog whistle” rhetoric the Republicans have been using to manipulate voters. The majority of these issues are fear, race, religious or ethnic based concerns. Trump attacks and scapegoats immigrants unfiltered at the same time as he advocates hedge fund brokers paying their fare share of taxes. He has plugged in to all the gripes Americans have both left and right. If the Republicans outright dump him he could run as a third-party candidate. His support would come from all the, mainly white, voters who feel disenfranchised based on all the right-wing propaganda they have been fed by Republicans.  But the right-wing, along with Fox News, has mounted a campaign against Trump. Democrats don’t want to help them too much at this point since they believe they have a strong candidate in Hillary Clinton or someone else, and that Americans wouldn’t really vote for  Donald Trump.

It is possible that the best-case scenario for Trump to actually become President would be to run as a third-party candidate and pull his majority from both parties. Moderate Republicans and Democrats either don’t vote or protest vote for Trump. Libertarians, New Regan Democrats, NRA supporters, Christian Fundamentalist, Anti Abortion, Tea Party and White Supremacist form the base of the third-party. At this point support comes in from Koch Brothers groups hoping to partner somehow with Trump. Trump campaigns on issues that are real or imagined, with grandiose solutions that are pure fantasy, like building a nineteen hundred mile wall along the border with Mexico and getting them to pay for it.

Thinking Donald Trump is only entertainment and that he really doesn’t “have a chance,” if he becomes the candidate, should be reconsidered. Going back over the years in other countries, there have been unlikely leaders who emerge on issues scapegoating minorities or perceived groups like immigrants. We think that here in the United States we have too many checks and balances for anything like a dictator to emerge. Many of these checks and balances have been or are being eroded by the far right. The right of all citizens to vote, separation of church and state, and women’s rights are among the many being curtailed by factions of the Republican Party.

The steps that any administration would need to take to deport eleven million immigrants would necessitate totalitarian policies. It would promote American pogroms against groups that are suspected of being or harboring immigrants. Documented immigrants, recent American Citizens, Latin, Asian, Black and Middle Eastern looking people would be harassed. The disorder that results could lead to martial law.

Donald Trump knows how to entertain and play a part. His act is brash, pushy, egotistical, tell-it-like-he thinks-it-is, and faux entrepreneur. But those qualities are also those of a narcissistic psychopathic bully. These traits were clearly demonstrated during the Jorge Ramos confrontation if you watch Trump’s  posture, face and listen to is voice during the exchange.   Proceed with caution.

James R Martin, Documentary Filmmaker.