“To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.” – The Matrix
If you want to understand why there is so much negative/harmful sexual expression in society you need to understand sexuality as being a fundamental and natural expression of our creative life-force (energy), and that mode of creative expression has been culturally repressed, suppressed, and shamed to everyone’s detriment for hundreds of years. This sexual energy within people is like a gently simmering pot of water – if you put a heavy lid on it, pressure will steadily build up to the point that the pressure can no longer be contained and there is a sudden, uncontrolled outburst of steam. This can take the form of sexual harassment, sexual exploitation of women, excessive use of pornography, child sexual abuse, some instances of rape, etc. Only when a person’s needs for sexual expression are not allowed a healthy social outlet do they take on a “dark” (self-serving), frustrated, or desperate expression. That which you suppress becomes your “shadow” and it is the shadow-self that causes harm to self and others.
Masturbation is not a long-term solution (especially for men, who are much more root/sacral chakra centered in their self-expression than women, who are more heart-centered) because sexuality is ultimately a universal impulse of creation expressed through spiritual union (holistic reunion). Masturbation may release some of that pent up sacral energy for a time, but that is a very limited form of sexual expression that does not provide the emotional, psychological, and spiritual bonding rewards that are deeply subconscious yet powerful needs we all have as individually-incomplete energy beings.
Although people are responsible for their actions to the extent they actually have self-awareness and self-control to make a choice outside of habit or impulse, society is overwhelmingly to blame for the huge suppression of sexual expression that has placed people in a sexual “pressure cooker”, through unnatural conservative values, legal prohibitions, and a lack of empowering education regarding the spiritual meaning and non-mechanical aspects and dynamics of sexuality. Society is also worthy of blame to the extent it has failed to empower people with the knowledge, wisdom, and techniques required for genuine self-awareness and self-discipline. Furthermore, corporations of various kinds have largely hijacked our views about sexuality, corrupting them and constantly triggering lust to favor their profit motives.
While we are seeing love-based “sex positive” values begin to get a foothold in our collective culture, this is not enough. Cultural and legal hindrances to sexual expression must be withdrawn, corporations must be held to task for corrupting sexual values, people need to be better educated about the greater nature and meaning surrounding sexual behavior, and safe social outlets for such expression should be encouraged. Such actions “just make sense” when you simply acknowledge and appreciate human nature for what it is and understand social dynamics from a systems theory perspective. In this area, as in most others in which we have collective problems, what is needed most is a controlled decompression of tensions, so that peace, harmony, and love can be restored to prominence.
October 29, 2017
October 9, 2017
Lightbearer's Creed
Darkness may gather but I shall not fear, for my purpose is clear. My destiny is to be a beacon of Light in a world of shadows, recognizing that my flame, having grown into a spiritual fire, does not fear turbulent winds, for winds now only fan the flames.
From this day forth, I am dead to my past and alive within my future, always present in the moment, perceiving, loving, serving, protecting, and honoring Life. I will do everything possible to minimize the harm I cause other Life, deliberate in my efforts to serve the greater good. It is not my place to judge the nature of other beings, only to understand and respond righteously, with virtue and compassion — never with arrogance or malice.
I am an emissary of Loving-Light: a watchful guardian and guide,
a benevolent peacemaker and healer, a humble arbiter of wisdom and harmony. I offer myself in loving service to the welfare of all beings, recognizing it as my own. I enjoin myself to be a lightbearer, striving always to exhibit the qualities of Wisdom, Love, Generosity, Diligence, Fortitude, Integrity, Equanimity, Humility, Self-Restraint, Selfless-Service, Skillfulness, Prudence, and Heroic Courage.
a benevolent peacemaker and healer, a humble arbiter of wisdom and harmony. I offer myself in loving service to the welfare of all beings, recognizing it as my own. I enjoin myself to be a lightbearer, striving always to exhibit the qualities of Wisdom, Love, Generosity, Diligence, Fortitude, Integrity, Equanimity, Humility, Self-Restraint, Selfless-Service, Skillfulness, Prudence, and Heroic Courage.
I vow to promote and preserve a just and enlightened community, with grace and honor — remembering that to do so requires I remain mentally, ethically, and physically fit to serve effectively, always prepared and willing to live up to the physical and moral demands of any situation. I will always be mindful of the needs of my community and strive to fulfill them.
Today my vigil begins and it shall only end with my death.
— Matthew Lee Morgan
[CC-BY-NC-ND License]
April 13, 2017
Morality, Society, and the Return to Simplicity
Let us consider the problem of societal complexity through the lens of technology for a moment. Technology is indifferent to the ideas of good and evil. A tool of technology does not decide the manner in which it is used; only the wielder of the tool can decide whether it is used for good or evil purposes. However, one of the problems with the idea of "good and evil" is that it requires a subjective moral judgement as to what is "good" and what is "evil." When it comes to any subjective determination, different cultures, subcultures, and individuals will never fully agree on specific issues or criteria. This the place in which complexity arises in social life. Additionally, "the road to hell is (often) paved with good intentions," in which good natured people with genuinely good intentions can still cause serious harm because they simply could not grasp or foresee the consequences of their efforts. For example, as Elon Musk and others have warned their contemporaries working on General Artificial Intelligence (AI), although their intentions are generally well-meaning, the outcomes of their work cannot be comfortably predicted, and one reasonably possible outcome of their work is the extinction of the entire human race through the accidental or intentional whims of AI. Such is why collective intelligence, and the simplicity that supports it, is so critical to the wellbeing of us all.
In certain societies we may do well (or not) at using cultural values and moral principles to inform our decision-making by using the terms "beneficial" and "harmful" instead, while erring on the side of more freedom and less restrictions on individual liberty. However, even this approach requires an active use of the skill of discernment, and people (each having their own conscience) will never entirely agree on specifics. I say "skill of discernment" because it truly requires the skillful use of mindfulness, intuition, and critical thinking not distorted by ego-desires or fleeting emotions. The most viable approach in ensuring a group of people can interact harmoniously and with stability (and use technology wisely), with maximum freedom and least harm to one another possible, is to use the simplest, most general set of values and moral principles possible.
With a simple moral code of ethical conduct (incorporating individual rights and responsibilities) agreed to by all participants, it falls on individuals educated to effectively use the skills of discernment to modulate their own personal behavior to, primarily, minimize harm to other life while, secondarily, maximizing their own happiness. And, when a person causes another harm, intentionally or unintentionally, and the parties are unable to make amends and resolve the issue themselves, it would fall on the entire group's (family's, community's, city's, or state's) "collective intelligence" to determine on a case-by-case basis what the most beneficial way would be to handle the transgression. There is no need for complex legal frameworks and dedicated "experts" to make this work, and, in fact, such things are generally a hindrance to the application of collective wisdom. It is more beneficial to all if the collective group alone, not an individual or small group of people, is entrusted with the authority and power to enforce on individuals the group's decision of how to resolve a matter. Wider circles of social structures (e.g. states, cities) would defer decision-making on specific issues or situations to more local social structures (e.g. communities and families), only stepping in when the more local social unit was unable to collectively resolve the matter on their own. Law and order is best maintained, effective, and agreeable to people when its implementation is genuinely democratic and, as importantly, built from the bottom-up, rather top-down in which centralized authorities assume a corrupt control over all levels of society.
Unfortunately, the "old-world" social systems of most industrialized nations, buried under mountains of legal language not even experts can fully grasp, corruption that manipulates this complexity, over-centralized forms of power structures, and toxic methods of enforcement, have become so burdensome, confusing, and counterproductive at maintaining social cohesion and harmony, these systems have been causing for more harm than benefit for their peoples. What is needed is a fundamental reset and shift in our way of thinking, such that all complexity, corruption, and harmful methods of enforcing double-standards are stripped from the systems used to maintain social order. The People collectively yearn to return to simplicity in all areas of public life, in which common sense, compassionate wisdom, logical reasoning, and evidence have genuine influence on how our collective values and principles are applied to specific issues and situations.
With compassion and evidence guiding us, we could use collective intelligence, at all levels, and the skills of discernment at the level of individual conscience to make much wiser decisions about the use of technology and addressing moral transgressions than our current set of representatives, who are generally corrupt, unqualified, sociopathic, or otherwise manipulated by egocentric forces, are capable of. To make this shift happen peacefully will require us all to have the courage to conquer our fears, transcend our petty or egotistical beliefs, let go of ideologies that no longer serve us, and learn to trust again in simplicity and the essential goodness of one another. A peaceful transition will require carefully building up new socioeconomic models of living from within the old, gradually replacing the old ways without directly opposing them. We must learn to let be, in simplicity, what we wish to see, and let go of all complexity. This is a tall order, I know, but history shows us that it can be done – that it must be done.
In certain societies we may do well (or not) at using cultural values and moral principles to inform our decision-making by using the terms "beneficial" and "harmful" instead, while erring on the side of more freedom and less restrictions on individual liberty. However, even this approach requires an active use of the skill of discernment, and people (each having their own conscience) will never entirely agree on specifics. I say "skill of discernment" because it truly requires the skillful use of mindfulness, intuition, and critical thinking not distorted by ego-desires or fleeting emotions. The most viable approach in ensuring a group of people can interact harmoniously and with stability (and use technology wisely), with maximum freedom and least harm to one another possible, is to use the simplest, most general set of values and moral principles possible.
With a simple moral code of ethical conduct (incorporating individual rights and responsibilities) agreed to by all participants, it falls on individuals educated to effectively use the skills of discernment to modulate their own personal behavior to, primarily, minimize harm to other life while, secondarily, maximizing their own happiness. And, when a person causes another harm, intentionally or unintentionally, and the parties are unable to make amends and resolve the issue themselves, it would fall on the entire group's (family's, community's, city's, or state's) "collective intelligence" to determine on a case-by-case basis what the most beneficial way would be to handle the transgression. There is no need for complex legal frameworks and dedicated "experts" to make this work, and, in fact, such things are generally a hindrance to the application of collective wisdom. It is more beneficial to all if the collective group alone, not an individual or small group of people, is entrusted with the authority and power to enforce on individuals the group's decision of how to resolve a matter. Wider circles of social structures (e.g. states, cities) would defer decision-making on specific issues or situations to more local social structures (e.g. communities and families), only stepping in when the more local social unit was unable to collectively resolve the matter on their own. Law and order is best maintained, effective, and agreeable to people when its implementation is genuinely democratic and, as importantly, built from the bottom-up, rather top-down in which centralized authorities assume a corrupt control over all levels of society.
Unfortunately, the "old-world" social systems of most industrialized nations, buried under mountains of legal language not even experts can fully grasp, corruption that manipulates this complexity, over-centralized forms of power structures, and toxic methods of enforcement, have become so burdensome, confusing, and counterproductive at maintaining social cohesion and harmony, these systems have been causing for more harm than benefit for their peoples. What is needed is a fundamental reset and shift in our way of thinking, such that all complexity, corruption, and harmful methods of enforcing double-standards are stripped from the systems used to maintain social order. The People collectively yearn to return to simplicity in all areas of public life, in which common sense, compassionate wisdom, logical reasoning, and evidence have genuine influence on how our collective values and principles are applied to specific issues and situations.
With compassion and evidence guiding us, we could use collective intelligence, at all levels, and the skills of discernment at the level of individual conscience to make much wiser decisions about the use of technology and addressing moral transgressions than our current set of representatives, who are generally corrupt, unqualified, sociopathic, or otherwise manipulated by egocentric forces, are capable of. To make this shift happen peacefully will require us all to have the courage to conquer our fears, transcend our petty or egotistical beliefs, let go of ideologies that no longer serve us, and learn to trust again in simplicity and the essential goodness of one another. A peaceful transition will require carefully building up new socioeconomic models of living from within the old, gradually replacing the old ways without directly opposing them. We must learn to let be, in simplicity, what we wish to see, and let go of all complexity. This is a tall order, I know, but history shows us that it can be done – that it must be done.
March 28, 2017
Transcending the Cultural Entanglements of Death
One lesson regarding life has repeatedly impressed itself upon me lately: the chains of entanglements society deliberately imposes upon us from birth and increasingly ensnares us in throughout our lives are systemic manifestations of "ego" and "death." These snares of ego-dominated society rob us of our life energy and freedom to live in peace, joy, and harmony.
From birth we are told who we are and what we are supposed to be and do as a person. We are given a name we did not choose for ourself before we were even born; a government we literally were incapable of consenting to being ruled by prints out a fancy piece of paper and generates a random number locking in and imposing that false ego-identity for the rest of our life; we go through childhood being bombarded by other people's ideas about what we should believe and how we should behave, robbing us of our own identity; public education gives us a sanitized, spoon-fed notion of what the world is like, suffocates our creativity and imagination, denies us the knowledge of how to think critically, and robs us of our conscience; as we go about our lives, our mistakes follow and haunt us because society tracks and labels everything you do, judges you for it, and never allows you to live beyond it once you learn from it and make amends (our mistakes are supposed to guide us, not imprison us); and, as adults, the need for money enslaves us into committing our invaluably precious time to corporate machinations that are destroying the planet and our fellow human beings, robbing us of our life-force and destabilizing our families and communities in the process.
Life and death are a dancing pair of dualities; they do indeed need one another. Yet, what we see in the delusional abstract layer of conceptualization humanity has imposed on its self is grossly out of balance with the ground layer of physical reality, dangerously favoring egotistical falsehoods and insatiable desires to a degree that threatens the totality of Life on this planet, and continues to cause immense and unnecessary suffering upon billions of souls. Our collective ego has become completely out of control, behaving like a mental parasite on a global scale. Whenever a duality is so out of balance, it is inevitably subject to a self-instigated correction that restores balance – this is karma (cause-and-effect within a dynamic system). In this case, a karmic correction will mean a mass-extinction of the human race.
(Transhumanism and the "technology singularity," which will inevitably lead to humanity becoming a Borg-like hive mind in which individuality is destroyed, are an unattainable mirage due to the systemic failures and societal decay exponentially increasing in parallel with technological advancement. We do not have the maturity and wisdom as a species to reach this evolutionary threshold without destroying ourselves one way or the other. Besides do we really want to lose our individuality and the creative power of diversity in the process of collective integration?)
The extreme manifestations of our collective ego, such as global capitalism (built upon a sociopathic ponzi banking scheme writ large), xenophobic nationalism, and ego-driven populist individualism are a "clear and present danger" to the People of the world, and the life-support systems of Earth which we all depend upon to sustain us. As I have increasingly urged myself, and urge all of you here and now to consider, we must have the courage and determination to dissolve the societally imposed entanglements that currently siphon our individual life-force into systems that are destroying humanity and the Earth. We must withdraw our consent to be subjects of corrupt socioeconomic systems. We must let go of all entanglements that no longer serve our best interests. We must relinquish our attachments to ideas that misguide as from seeing the "truth of what is." We must redirect our life-force, or precious time, to constructing a new and novel socioeconomic paradigm that is life-affirming and sustainable.
The infinite growth paradigm of our global culture has crashed into the finite limits of our world. No matter how hard we try, we will only serve to compound the problem (and accelerate our own destruction) if we continue to rely on and feed into the old socioeconomic order. It cannot be saved; it must be allowed to die conscientiously and in deliberate fashion, or we will all die with it. Only by collectively walking in balance and wisdom, built on a solid ground of life-sustaining values and systems, can we safely proceed in our technological advancements and noble ego-drive to explore and understand the universe, without destroying ourselves in the process.
From birth we are told who we are and what we are supposed to be and do as a person. We are given a name we did not choose for ourself before we were even born; a government we literally were incapable of consenting to being ruled by prints out a fancy piece of paper and generates a random number locking in and imposing that false ego-identity for the rest of our life; we go through childhood being bombarded by other people's ideas about what we should believe and how we should behave, robbing us of our own identity; public education gives us a sanitized, spoon-fed notion of what the world is like, suffocates our creativity and imagination, denies us the knowledge of how to think critically, and robs us of our conscience; as we go about our lives, our mistakes follow and haunt us because society tracks and labels everything you do, judges you for it, and never allows you to live beyond it once you learn from it and make amends (our mistakes are supposed to guide us, not imprison us); and, as adults, the need for money enslaves us into committing our invaluably precious time to corporate machinations that are destroying the planet and our fellow human beings, robbing us of our life-force and destabilizing our families and communities in the process.
Life and death are a dancing pair of dualities; they do indeed need one another. Yet, what we see in the delusional abstract layer of conceptualization humanity has imposed on its self is grossly out of balance with the ground layer of physical reality, dangerously favoring egotistical falsehoods and insatiable desires to a degree that threatens the totality of Life on this planet, and continues to cause immense and unnecessary suffering upon billions of souls. Our collective ego has become completely out of control, behaving like a mental parasite on a global scale. Whenever a duality is so out of balance, it is inevitably subject to a self-instigated correction that restores balance – this is karma (cause-and-effect within a dynamic system). In this case, a karmic correction will mean a mass-extinction of the human race.
(Transhumanism and the "technology singularity," which will inevitably lead to humanity becoming a Borg-like hive mind in which individuality is destroyed, are an unattainable mirage due to the systemic failures and societal decay exponentially increasing in parallel with technological advancement. We do not have the maturity and wisdom as a species to reach this evolutionary threshold without destroying ourselves one way or the other. Besides do we really want to lose our individuality and the creative power of diversity in the process of collective integration?)
The extreme manifestations of our collective ego, such as global capitalism (built upon a sociopathic ponzi banking scheme writ large), xenophobic nationalism, and ego-driven populist individualism are a "clear and present danger" to the People of the world, and the life-support systems of Earth which we all depend upon to sustain us. As I have increasingly urged myself, and urge all of you here and now to consider, we must have the courage and determination to dissolve the societally imposed entanglements that currently siphon our individual life-force into systems that are destroying humanity and the Earth. We must withdraw our consent to be subjects of corrupt socioeconomic systems. We must let go of all entanglements that no longer serve our best interests. We must relinquish our attachments to ideas that misguide as from seeing the "truth of what is." We must redirect our life-force, or precious time, to constructing a new and novel socioeconomic paradigm that is life-affirming and sustainable.
The infinite growth paradigm of our global culture has crashed into the finite limits of our world. No matter how hard we try, we will only serve to compound the problem (and accelerate our own destruction) if we continue to rely on and feed into the old socioeconomic order. It cannot be saved; it must be allowed to die conscientiously and in deliberate fashion, or we will all die with it. Only by collectively walking in balance and wisdom, built on a solid ground of life-sustaining values and systems, can we safely proceed in our technological advancements and noble ego-drive to explore and understand the universe, without destroying ourselves in the process.
March 6, 2017
On the "Interbeing" of the Universe
I was reading the Heart Sutra with commentary by Thich Nhat Hanh earlier this morning. A theme throughout the sutra and commentary is the understanding of “emptiness” and “interbeing,” that all things are empty of a distinct self-nature and are no other than the composite aggregates of all other things. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form is understood, in one sense, in that the supposed duality of the perceiver and the perceived, in fact, constitute the non-dual whole of “perception.” For example, the eye and the sight constitute the process or experience of “seeing.” In truth, there is no distinction between the seer and the seen, merely an awareness of seeing.
This is why quantum mechanics and Einstein’s physics of Relativity are perfectly compatible with Buddhist metaphysics. In quantum mechanics, it is understood that the perceiver (“observer”) and the thing observed constitute an “entangled,” codependent, co-arising reality. With Einstein’s Relativity, it is understood that space-time is one interwoven fabric in which each observer perceives a different shape to space and rate of the passage of time that is dependent upon their relative position and motion within that fabric. The fabric of space-time is literally interwoven out of the infinite many threads of quantum entanglement that constitute the awareness, “silent witness,” “buddha-nature” that pervades the entire Universe.
Thus, it becomes clear that the entire Universe, space-time itself by definition, IS fundamentally a “dream fabric” of “empty” awareness ("shunyata"). In truly understanding “interbeing” we can not only recognize the compatibility of modern physics with Buddhist metaphysics, but more universally, we can understand nirvana lies in the direct realization that the essence of our true self is “no-self” – we all are One interwoven fabric of Cosmic Consciousness.
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