The Zen-Tantric Wing of the Republican Party versus one tiny dancer (utter defeat of Trump) +^

[Disbasing Zen Stories]

Toxic Zen Story #30: The Zen-Tantric Wing of the Republican Party versus one tiny dancer (4th attempt to repeal Obamacare update: Justice Roberts once and Senator McCain twice, now the SCOTUS again, and oh yeah, Trump loses POTUS bigtime, and misses the mark overthrowing the Constitution).

________________________________________________________________


Bear with me on this story, it is relevant.

Back in 2000 I was a men's division district leader in the SGI. In our infinite wisdom, my women's division co-leader and I instituted an all-out campaign to disassociate temple members in the territory encompassing our district, with some notable successes. The unexpected effect of this cause was that large numbers of powerful youth division leaders appeared out of nowhere, or just stood up from the local area. Ultimately, the result of this was that our formerly moribund district blossomed and eventually split into four district meetings, all of which are currently thriving. This is actual proof of the effects of Soka Spirit and Courageous Heart activity.

One of those young women's division leaders who showed up was a young and physically perfect ballerina from the East Coast, to join the city's professional ballet troupe. She was as wonderful inside as she was outside, perfectly kind, perfectly poised, perfectly friendly and encouraging to everyone around her: an example of the kind of noblesse oblige that you rarely see associated with someone of such profound physical and mental talents, and with such astonishing beauty. She was a natural, to become a great youth leader of the SGI.

It is a little-known fact that professional ballet dancers (and dancers generally) are injured at twice the rate of players in professional sports (although the cranium is mostly spared). Every ballet dancer has a collection of injuries they are constantly nursing, some small and nagging, some career-threatening. Although most professional dance organizations have some kind of physical therapy available, most of them are extremely light on health plans, if they have one at all. Most professional dancers are terribly underpaid as well, so if they have health problems, they have to ... well ... suffer in silence, because to show any weakness in practice or performance is to lose out in the struggle for the advancement of your career. They typically have several teaching jobs on the side to get by, in the same way that classical musicians and other artists do: they take students and foster new artists.

In her early twenties, our ballerina developed an extremely aggressive breast cancer. Everyone was very supportive, and I encouraged her with the story of my ex-wife who had developed an aggressive breast cancer (many lymph nodes involved), and who went through aggressive chemotherapy, surgery and breast reconstruction while never stopping her exercise routine and running, with the result that she was still a survivor 25 years later. Our ballerina went back to the East coast, did the same and returned to her ballet troupe, looking as perfect as ever. She went on to be one of the soloists, doing important roles and teaching many students. She also dabbled in Jazz dance, Blues dance, and danced and acted in a professional stage musical.

Later, her cancer came back, she fought it back and danced again. It came back again as fourth stage cancer (metastasized), but she went into remission once more and danced soli again. Through it all, it was hard to tell when she was sick. In the same way dancers show perfect poise when they are suffering the most, she danced through her life without complaint. A dancer's dancer. Her struggles with health insurance must have been profound, as her cancer came back again and again, but you never heard about it from her.

She also excelled in the SGI, rising to be a young women's chapter leader, raising many young women and leading in activities involving dance, such as the Rock The Era youth activity in Long Beach, California a couple of years ago. After that activity she found a post as an assistant leader of a dance troupe in the South, where she could pursue her choreography.

Our chapter had a little party before her departure: she was in top physical form and I have never seen such a perfect physical specimen of a human being. I envisioned her future: director, choreographer, carving out her niche in the dancing world and making her mark, married and raising some beautiful and perfect little dancers of her own.

To understand the great Buddhas (such as our ballerina) requires faith in the Lotus Sutra, because the jewel of Buddha wisdom can only be purchased at the price of faith in the Lotus Sutra.

What are the characteristics and virtues of a Buddha? The characteristics of a Buddha are the characteristics of a Bodhisattva, who leads herself and others to the enlightenment of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha's highest teaching. The virtues of a Buddha are three, called san-toku in Japanese:

http://www.sgilibrary.org/search_dict.php?id=2392

... The benevolent functions of sovereign, teacher, and
... parent a Buddha is said to possess. The virtue of
... sovereign is the power to protect all living beings, the
... virtue of teacher is the wisdom to instruct and lead
... them to enlightenment, and the virtue of parent is the
... compassion to nurture and support them. Nichiren (1222-
... 1282) interpreted the following passage of the "Simile
... and Parable" (third) chapter of the Lotus Sutra as
... expressing the three virtues: "Now this threefold world
... is all my domain [the virtue of sovereign], and the
... living beings in it are all my children [the virtue of
... parent]. Now this place is beset by many pains and
... trials. I am the only person who can rescue and protect
... others [the virtue of teacher]." In several of his
... writings, Nichiren described his role or mission as the
... votary of the Lotus Sutra in terms of these three
... virtues. The first line of his treatise The Opening of
... the Eyes reads, "There are three categories of people
... that all human beings should respect. They are the
... sovereign, the teacher, and the parent" (220). Near the
... conclusion of the same work, he states, "I, Nichiren, am
... sovereign, teacher, and father and mother to all the
... people of Japan" (287). Because these three virtues are
... considered the virtues of a Buddha, the above passages
... are seen as an indication that Nichiren intended The
... Opening of the Eyes as a declaration of his role as the
... Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law who expounds and
... spreads the teaching that can lead all people to
... Buddhahood.

The Buddhas exemplify the causality of the Law, and never, ever do anything by accident or luck: it is all cause and effect.

The greatest weapon of a Bodhisattva is their vulnerable and easily-crushed humanity, which is the very heart of the compassion of a Buddha. This is because of the profoundly evil causes created by those who do the crushing, who commit the great evil act of conspiring to do harm to one who practices the Lotus Sutra: a "votary" of the Lotus Sutra. These profoundly evil causes incur enormous and swift karmic retribution on those participating in the conspiracy to subjugate and crush the votary of the Lotus Sutra. From these effects, permanent change comes to society.

Think of that old man in his World War II Japanese prison cell, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, being martyred by a government of Zen-Shinto terrorists out to dominate and wreak havoc and genocide upon the world. He dies nobly, not bowing to evil, and soon after his death a terrible whirlwind is reaped by those in the conspiracy to crush his spirit and steal his few remaining years from him. Their Zen-Shinto dreams of world domination are thoroughly reduced to the ashes of a total and abject, dishonorable defeat. The Western military (personified by General MacArthur) that crushed the tormentors of Mr. Makiguchi and freed the votaries of the Lotus Sutra to spread that Soka Gakkai practice to what is now one in six families in Japan ... was identified by his disciple and fellow prisoner Josei Toda as a Shoten Zenjin, or Buddhist god or deity. However, Buddhism is not Shinto, the Buddhist gods are not superior, but are simply functions of the life of a Buddha, in this case Mr. Makiguchi and Mr. Toda (who also suffered from prison losing much of his health), nonsubstantiably functioning after the death of Mr. Makiguchi to fulfill his mentor's intent to free the nation and establish the freedom of religion allowing the Soka Gakkai to spread. The highway to world peace that was his life was paved over the dominion of his enemies with its foundations constructed from the wreckage of their corrupted dreams.

This is the Buddhist way. A single Bodhisattva can change the world, which functions as their life (sovereign for the people) to fulfill their noble intent (teacher and parent to the people).

The last time I saw our ballerina she had a different hairdo style, and I hugged her and asked if everything was OK, "Just fine," she said.

Later I saw one of the young women she fostered on the street and she talked about her, noting that she had been bald when she saw her (the new hairdo was a wig, unbelievably thick-headed of me not to perceive that, but perhaps she wanted it that way.)

Then in early Summer, I got an email for some daimoku tosos (Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo chanting sessions) for our ballerina's health: she had gone back East to get treatment and it was serious. And then one Monday afternoon, while I was chanting and thought about her, I had that bright pure feeling inside that you get when you chant a lot of daimoku. I found out later that was when she passed away.

She died at the age of 33 in June at her family home in Washington, D.C., surrounded by loving friends and family. People chanted for her and with her right up to the end. After she passed away, her aunt rearranged the body, and marvelled at her lightness. When she unwrapped the sheet from her feet, she saw that her dancer's feet were perfectly pointed. She had died "en pointe."

Like I said, the Buddha's wisdom (perceiving the truth) is purchased at the price of faith in the Lotus Sutra. So you have to have faith to believe the rest of this story.

As she suffered and died over the first half of this year in Washington D.C., change came to that city. Ten days after she lay down her perfect head and died breaking all of the hearts of those who loved her, against all odds and to the utter disbelief of all the pundits: the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, John Roberts somehow found his heart and saved the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) from certain death.

I thought about this, and if Gingrich and the Republicans had not destroyed the earlier version of the ACA (Hillarycare), she might have received just enough and better care to survive, to have a different outcome. Now, that's a conjecture, but it is no conjecture to realize that all of her underpaid and undercared-for dancing community all over the country, all those tiny dancers of hers would in two years get the healthcare they had always richly deserved, for the beauty they bring to our society. She had deserved better, and now they would get what she had deserved and had to fight for.

And then I thought, that will only happen if President Obama is re-elected and a Congress is elected that will properly fund the ACA. This means that those men with all the money and power behind the Republican Party simply have no idea what they are up against. During this period they had selected and coalesced behind what everyone agreed was their least favorite candidate, Mitt Romney, who had vowed to eradicate Obamacare on his first day in office.

I watched as they prepared for their convention in a hurricane, losing the one day that held the tribute to the military, while Romney's acceptance speech was rewritten a half-dozen times, somehow forgetting to add in the missing tribute to the military (scratch one loyal GOP faction). Then he picked Paul Ryan as V.P.: the chief architect of the destruction of Social Security -> private accounts, Medicare -> vouchers and Medicaid -> sent to the states (scratch the other loyal GOP faction, seniors). Then Romney himself replaced his wonderful 1/2 hour film with Clint and the chair. He laughed in support of Clint backstage, and his loyalty was rewarded with Clint stating that anyone that was dumb enough to pick him to give such an introduction deserved what they got. Romney's loyal support of his V.P. pick was rewarded by Paul Ryan parading up and down his campaign bus referring to Romney as "Stench":

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81618.html

In quick succession came the drop in the polls, the recriminations of right wing pundits Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh who said Romney needed to get tough, the attack on the embassies, the "Shoot first, aim later" speeches as the Americans were dying, then the 47% video, and a full chorus of recriminations from all the right wing pundits:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81419.html

Then came the big swings in the polls and of course, no one knows what comes next. Having a scientific bent, however, I can speak of the "maximum likelihood" of where this trend line appears to be leading, and what it means.

Mitt Romney is by all accounts, a truly wonderful person, holding aside the effects of his policies on the middle class, the minorities and the 47% (which includes the arts community and the dancers who are the treasures, of our treasured ballerina.) He and all of GOP appear to be doing their utmost to fulfill the living and dying wishes ... of one tiny dancer.

Our ballerina is two in appearance, but one in essence (Nini-funi):

Both a small Bodhisattva, but also a great Buddha (Sovereign, Teacher and Parent).

Both a dancer's dancer tragically dying en pointe at 33, but also like the Washington Redskins' running back Alfred Morris (#46) rushing through the line to drive the football over the line unstoppably for a game-winning touchdown as the game clock runs down to zero.

They simply don't have a chance against her.

>>>> addendum on November 8th, 2017:

Battered by Trump, Obamacare triumphs at the polls
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/08/obamacare-boost-at-the-polls-244696

By Rachana Pradhan

11/08/2017 12:57 PM EST

... Obamacare made a comeback in Tuesday's elections, its
... strongest show of support since President Donald Trump was
... elected and the GOP spent months on a futile effort to
... repeal it.
...
... In the governor's race in Virginia and a ballot initiative
... in Maine, the Affordable Care Act buoyed Democrats, a
... remarkable reversal from how Trump and congressional
... Republicans won elections excoriating the "failed" and
... "doomed" law.
...
... A remarkable 4 out of 10 Virginians in an early exit poll
... said health care was their top issue in a race that saw
... Democrat Ralph Northam, the current lieutenant governor,
... handily defeat Republican Ed Gillespie to become Virginia's
... next governor. And in Maine, voters in a landslide backed
... Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which their governor had
... vetoed on five separate occasions.
...
... As Democrats now look to the 2018 midterms that will decide
... control of the House, Senate and key governorships across
... the country, they can begin to more confidently embrace the
... law that's covering 20 million Americans and that emerged
... politically stronger after surviving months of concentrated
... Republican repeal attacks.
...
... "We have an opportunity to send a very clear signal to
... anyone who is spending time and money opposing the ACA,"
... said Jonathan Schleifer of the Fairness Project, which
... poured funding into the Maine ballot measure campaign and
... is trying to boost lookalike Medicaid initiatives in states
... such as Utah and Idaho. "What is not unique to Maine is the
... support for ACA [and] the enthusiasm for expanding
... coverage. I think Maine is a great bellwether for the rest
... of the country."
...
... Yet even in Maine, the timetable for accepting new Medicaid
... enrollees remains in doubt after Gov. Paul LePage said he
... will not implement expansion until the state legislature
... figures out how to cover the state's costs. LePage, who was
... elected in 2010 and is term-limited next year, spearheaded
... the opposition campaign to the ballot measure.
...
... Northam's victory also gives Virginia Democrats their best
... chance since 2014 of expanding Medicaid, a move that would
... cover roughly 400,000 people. The party also made enormous
... gains in the state's House of Delegates, which has long
... been controlled by Republicans. Outgoing Democratic Gov.
... Terry McAuliffe tried repeatedly to expand, but never won
... over state lawmakers.
...
... Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center
... for Politics, said there is "no question" that Medicaid
... expansion is back on the table in Virginia. "He's got an
... enormous mandate," he said of Northam. "The Republicans are
... as shell-shocked in this state as Democrats were a year ago."
...
... Tuesday's results came after recent polling has
... demonstrated that Obamacare is more popular than ever and
... Republican plans to dismantle it were met with fierce
... resistance across the country. But it's easy to overstate
... its revival; the country is still deeply divided on the
... health law. Fifty-two percent of voters held a favorable
... view of the Affordable Care Act in August and 39 percent
... still had an unfavorable opinion, according to a Kaiser
... Family Foundation tracking poll. Other polls have shown the
... gap to be narrower.
...
... Activists are already trying to get Medicaid expansion
... measures on the ballot for 2018 in other GOP-led states,
... including Idaho and Utah. Both of those states are far more
... conservative than Maine; the health law remains
... controversial and state legislators have resisted calls to
... adopt Medicaid expansion, one of its core pieces.
...
... But the ballot route is not possible in all of the 18
... states that continue to shun expansion of Medicaid, which
... broadens eligibility to low-income adults with incomes up
... to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, or roughly
... $16,600 for an individual.
...
... Statewide ballot initiatives and referendums initiated by
... citizens aren't allowed under state law in Texas, where
... more than 1 million people would qualify for expanded
... Medicaid but it has virtually no chance of gaining momentum
... under Gov. Greg Abbott's deeply conservative administration
... and the GOP legislature. Ballot campaigns aren't allowed in
... Kansas, where the Republican-controlled legislature passed
... an expansion bill only to see it vetoed by Gov. Sam
... Brownback.
...
... Renuka Rayasam contributed to this report.

And, now, even the Republicans are rendered speechless at the image of our twirling ballerina, now pushing against the relativistic limits of rotational velocity, glowing and shooting off brilliant rays in all directions.

>>>> Addendum on August 28, 2020:

A Word Not Uttered by Republican Officials at the Convention: Obamacare
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/upshot/republican-convention-obamacare.html

By Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz

... In 2012, right in the middle of his convention speech, Mitt
... Romney declared the repeal of Obamacare a crucial priority.
... It was part of his five-part plan for a "better future."
...
... "We must rein in the skyrocketing cost of health care by
... repealing and replacing Obamacare," he said.
...
... Four years later, there was little doubt that Donald J.
... Trump would also mention the health law: "We will repeal
... and replace disastrous Obamacare!" he declared to roaring
... applause.
...
... This week, Mr. Trump didn't mention Obamacare at all in his
... convention speech. The word that rallied Republican voters
... for nearly a decade has barely been uttered. It came up
... precisely once during the convention, during a speech by
... Natalie Harp, a cancer survivor who is not an elected
... official.
...
... In the 2012 and 2016 G.O.P. conventions, repealing
... Obamacare was a central, almost obligatory part of every
... political speech, a goal shared by every candidate, a
... priority of almost every Republican voter.
...
... The term Obamacare, originally conceived by Republicans to
... diminish its popularity, has been used less often among
... Democratic politicians, though President Obama himself
... ultimately embraced it.
...
... Republicans used the term Obamacare 23 times in 2012 and 13
... times in 2016, during the prime-time evening hours
... (transcripts show no mentions of the Affordable Care Act at
... the 2012, 2016 or 2020 conventions). Speakers usually
... referred to it in calls for repeal. This year, there were
... no calls for repeal, just a claim from Ms. Harp that the
... Affordable Care Act caused expensive insurance premiums.
...
... The 2010 health care law expanded health coverage, barred
... insurers from discriminating against patients with
... pre-existing health conditions and made numerous other
... changes to the way health care is delivered and financed.
... The desire to upend it has not abated much among Republican
... voters.
...
... "Nothing has changed in general about how the Republican
... base feels about the Affordable Care Act: They still oppose
... it," said Mollyann Brodie, an executive vice president at
... the Kaiser Family Foundation, who manages the health
... research firm's survey operation.
...
... But in previous conventions, Republican politicians saw a
... potential path to deliver Obamacare repeal: Take control of
... Washington. When Ted Cruz, a few months from winning his
... Texas Senate seat, asked the crowd at the 2012 convention,
... "Can we repeal Obamacare?" he got a resounding "yes" in
... response.
...
... "Nothing has changed in general about how the Republican
... base feels about the Affordable Care Act: They still oppose
... it," said Mollyann Brodie, an executive vice president at
... the Kaiser Family Foundation, who manages the health
... research firm's survey operation.
...
... But in previous conventions, Republican politicians saw a
... potential path to deliver Obamacare repeal: Take control of
... Washington. When Ted Cruz, a few months from winning his
... Texas Senate seat, asked the crowd at the 2012 convention,
... "Can we repeal Obamacare?" he got a resounding "yes" in
... response.
...
... The answer in 2020, however, is most likely no: Republicans
... tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act after
... gaining control of the White House in 2017 (they already
... controlled the House and the Senate). Their proposed
... replacement bill was deeply unpopular. And they lost
... control of the House in 2018 after a campaign in which
... Democrats hammered their health care record.
...
... "It would make no sense to argue over spilled milk," said
... Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist and president of the
... consulting firm Cavalry, who came up with the "repeal and
... replace" slogan. "It's pretty well documented that they
... took a run at it, came one vote short of repealing
... Obamacare, and then pretty quickly turned the page."
...
... Democrats seem happy to continue talking about the
... Affordable Care Act. The law was never as popular among
... their voters as it was unpopular among Republicans. Polls
... show overall approval ratings have inched up slowly in
... recent years, ever since Democrats fended off repeal
... efforts. And a pending lawsuit before the Supreme Court,
... supported by the Trump administration, could wipe the law
... off the books, increasing the urgency to defend it.
...
... At the Democratic convention this month, there were seven
... mentions of the "Affordable Care Act," a shortened version
... of the bill's official name, compared with two in 2012 and
... six in 2016. The Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, used his
... speech to warn that, in a Trump administration, "the
... assault on the Affordable Care Act will continue until it's
... destroyed."
...
... In using the term, he made a bit of history: He is the
... first Democratic presidential nominee to mention the
... Affordable Care Act in a convention speech.
...
... "Obamacare" did get mentioned once at the Democratic
... convention — in a video about the long friendship between
... Mr. Biden and John McCain, the senator and former
... Republican presidential nominee, who died two years ago.
...
... After his widow, Cindy McCain, lamented the loss of
... bipartisan leadership, the narrator recalled that "it was
... Joe's friend who saved Obamacare by crossing the aisle."

Our beloved ballerina is twirling faster and faster, an entangled shock wave is starting to form and grow in its coherency ...

>>>> Addendum on November 23, 2020:

First off, our twirling ballerina just drilled a hole into Trump's crazed brain, and the slow leak of his POTUS defeat at the polls is deflating his demon. Should be thoroughly deflated by January 20, 2020, the day he enters the New York City District Attorney's legal spotlight.

Also, it does not look like whatever they do in the SCOTUS case, that it will effect the current status of the ACA in a big way, but only time will tell (sometime around Summer, after the Trump pandemic has subsided):

Key Justices Signal Support for Affordable Care Act

At a Supreme Court argument on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh suggested that striking down one provision would not doom the balance of the law.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/supreme-court-obamacare-aca.html

By Adam Liptak

Published Nov. 10, 2020
Updated Nov. 13, 2020

... WASHINGTON — At least five Supreme Court justices,
... including two members of its conservative majority,
... indicated on Tuesday that they would reject attempts by
... Republicans and the Trump administration to kill the
... Affordable Care Act.
...
... It was not clear whether the court would strike down a
... provision of the act that initially required most Americans
... to obtain insurance or pay a penalty, a requirement that
... was rendered toothless in 2017 after Congress zeroed out
... the penalty. But the bulk of the sprawling 2010 health care
... law, President Barack Obama's defining domestic legacy,
... appeared likely to survive its latest encounter with the
... court.
...
... Both Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M.
... Kavanaugh said striking down the so-called individual
... mandate did not require the rest of the law to be struck
... down as well.
...
... "Congress left the rest of the law intact when it lowered
... the penalty to zero," Chief Justice Roberts said.
...
... Justice Kavanaugh made a similar point. "It does seem
... fairly clear that the proper remedy would be to sever the
... mandate provision and leave the rest of the act in place —
... the provisions regarding pre-existing conditions and the
... rest," he said.
...
... The court's three-member liberal wing — Justices Stephen G.
... Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — also indicated
... their support for the law. That suggested there were at
... least five votes to uphold almost all of it.

>>>> Addendum on January 1, 2021:

The grand finale, and Trump's biggest campaign rally ended in a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, but not towards the White House, towards the Capitol Building. The upshot was: utter chaos temporarily, with no change to history. Kind of like his presidency will be viewed, in the long term.

Our ballerina has now driven Trump off his rocker with her buzzing around his head doing pirouettes, and thus converting Trump into a wanted man, an important person of interest. Finally, someone really, really wants him!

____ Background for Toxic Zen Stories _____________

___________________________________________________


The answers to these difficult questions lie with the basic structure of the Republican Party.


. Sweeping Generalization:

. Republicans Love Principles, but Despise Humanity.


From the Democrats.Org website:

. In 1844, the [Democratic-Republican] National Convention
. simplified the Party's name to the Democratic Party.

From www.bartleby.com/65/re/RepublcnP.html:

. The name [Republican] reappeared in the 1850s, when the
. present-day Republican party was founded. At that time
. the crucial issue of the extension of slavery into the
. territories split the Democratic party and the Whig
. party, and opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
. organized the new Republican party. Jackson, Mich., is
. called the birthplace of the party (July 6, 1854) and
. Joseph Medill is credited with having suggested its name,
. but these distinctions are also claimed for other places
. and other men.
.
. By 1855 the new party was well launched in the North.
. Anti-slavery Whigs such as William Seward and Thurlow
. Weed were dominant in the new grouping, but elements of
. the Know-Nothing movement, together with the Free-Soil
. party, abolitionists, and anti-Nebraska Democrats also
. supplied strength. The party's national organization was
. perfected at Pittsburgh in Feb., 1856, and its first
. presidential candidate, John C. Frémont, made a
. creditable showing against victorious James Buchanan. The
. party opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and
. the extension of slavery, denounced the Supreme Court's
. decision in the Dred Scott Case, and favored the
. admission of Kansas as a free state.
.
. Generally belligerent toward the South, the Republicans
. were regarded by Southerners with mingled hatred and fear
. as sectional tension increased. They were successful in
. the elections of 1858 and passed over their better-known
. leaders to nominate Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The party
. platform in 1860 included planks calling for a high
. protective tariff, free homesteads, and a
. transcontinental railroad; these were bids for support
. among Westerners, farmers, and eastern manufacturing
. interests.
.
. Lincoln's victory over Stephen A. Douglas, John C.
. Breckinridge, and John Bell was the signal for the
. secession of the Southern states, and the Civil War
. followed. Union military failures early in the war and
. conservative opposition to such measures as the
. Emancipation Proclamation caused the party to lose ground
. in the Congressional elections of 1862. But despite
. mutterings against his leadership, Lincoln, renominated
. on the Union (Republican) ticket in 1864, defeated Gen.
. George B. McClellan.
.
. Although a separate ticket headed by the radical Frémont
. withdrew before the election in 1864, the cleavage within
. the party between radicals and moderates widened as the
. war progressed. Radicals such as Benjamin F. Wade, Henry
. W. Davis, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Edwin M.
. Stanton advocated a punitive policy for the South, while
. Lincoln and the moderates were inclined to leniency. The
. division was made complete when, after Lincoln's
. assassination, his successor, Andrew Johnson, adopted a
. moderate program of Reconstruction. Johnson, a Jacksonian
. Democrat from Tennessee, had been added to the ticket in
. 1864 to strengthen the idea of a Union party. Ultimately
. his policies and attempts to implement them antagonized
. his supporters among the moderate Republicans and paved
. the way for the triumph of the radicals in the
. congressional elections of 1866. The height of radical
. power was reached in 1868 with the impeachment of
. Johnson, which was defeated by only a one-vote margin.
.
. The nomination of the war hero Ulysses S. Grant assured
. Republican success over the Democrats led by Horatio
. Seymour in the presidential election of 1868. The
. radicals were supreme under Grant, but their excesses and
. the open scandals of the administration created a new
. schism, leading to the formation of the Liberal
. Republican party. Its candidate, Horace Greeley, although
. supported by the Democrats, was not popular enough to
. defeat Grant in 1872, and corruption became even more
. widespread.

From the Reconstruction era of the reign of Radical Republicans to now, there have been many shifts in the Republican Party.

The Party of Lincoln has now, for many elections in a row, effectively created a pattern of election victory by denying the voting rights of African-Americans as their basic strategy. This seems wildly paradoxical.

Looking back in history to the period after the Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln and replacement of Johnson in favor of Grant, one could easily make the declarative statement of position of the Republican Party platform:

. "The only thing wrong with Radical Reconstruction
. ... was that it didn't go deep enough and last
. long enough to finish the job."

Those basic principles have gradually shifted from Reconstruction time, to the complete embrace of Southern political movements embodying racial oppression, which were formerly the province of the Democratic Party under Lyndon Johnson before he passed the heroic Civil Rights legislation with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Those Southern political movements range from the extreme views of former Klan members (who are not at all blind to racial differences) to those of the Christian Coalition (who are fairly blind to racial differences).

Hence, the rise and subsequent fall of Trent Lott as Senate Majority Leader, and the failure of Patrick Buchanan's attempted independent run for President, which did not create a new movement, or even a tectonic shift in Party direction. And the movement of Lee Atwater and his disciple Karl Rove had played itself out by 2008, nearly destroying the Party of Lincoln that betrayed its founder.

Those events could be viewed as the unseen hand of of the founder, which still is alive in the Republican Party: SOME principles have been unnacceptable to the Republican Party membership.

But now with the Tea Party resurgence in response to the election of the nation's first Black President (and the Birthers, the Deathers and generally the enemies of Roosevelt's social policies), Lincoln the moderate is now truly dead for the Republican Party.

Although the principles of Republicanism have shifted over the last 150 years, the absolute focus on Party Loyalty has not. This has been the major defining element of the Republican Party: Loyalty to the principles which are held by the Republican leadership.

So, how can this be? Loyalty to principles that have so drastically shifted over time?

The answer is that the shifts are always small or are larger under a powerful leader. Given enough time, small shifts can undermine mountainous canons and forge entirely new ones, which are held with the same fervency and loyalty, as that which was directed towards the previous canons, which are now unrecognizable to the faithful.

All of this comes from personal loyalty to the party leaders.

Those are traditionally the only persons who can change the canons of the Republican Party acceptably. So, after Ronald Reagan, Republican fiscal conservatism included embracing huge deficits wholeheartedly.

Indeed, after Reagan, if a Republican did not embrace large deficits as fiscal conservatism, this was treasonous towards the memory of Ronald Reagan, and called him into question. Which is basically why George W. Bush beat John McCain in the 2000 Republican Primary.

John McCain clung to the fiscal policy of the pre-Reagan Republican Party, which made him a traitor to Reagan. George W. Bush was loyal, and so he won.

And once John McCain turned tail on his own beliefs and supported Bush in the 2004 convention speech to the Party faithful, he was salvageable politically, but had sold his maverick soul. The McCain of 2000 was truly dead. And dead men may vote in Chicago, but they cannot win the Presidency.

But then the Tea Party arose after Obama's attempt to resuscitate the economy after being handed a near-depression. The Teat Party was upset with the Keynesian solution, suddenly regaining their 'religion' on deficit spending. This overturned the leadership of the part for the first time in over a century, and created an entirely new situation for the party.

In another example of how things were before the Tea Party, Reagan established the standard of appropriate retaliation, when in October 23, 1983, 241 Marines in Beirut, Lebanon were killed by a single truck bomb. This was a spectacular catastrophe engineered by the White House, who wanted a visible (and unprotected) presence in the large barracks there. The bombing was ostensibly done by a Hezbollah offshoot, the Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement, which was backed by Iran and Syria.

Reagan, impotently preserving Arab relations, did not retaliate in Lebanon and TWO DAYS LATER attacked Grenada (October 25, 1983), whose communist regime, supported by Cuba, on an isolated and tiny island constituted an imminent threat to some American medical students. America kicked ass !!! This provided a much needed tough-guy role for Reagan after getting the marines murdered in Beirut.

Rumsfeld WAS unfortunately paying attention. From 60 Minutes:

. The top counter-terrorism advisor, [Richard] Clarke was
. briefing the highest government officials, including
. President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
. in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
.
. "Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq....We all
. said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan," recounts
. Clarke, "and Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good
. targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets
. in Iraq.' I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets
. in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with [the
. September 11 attacks].'"

Clarke was not in unity with the Zen-Tantric Republican group mind. But then, of course, he might have correctly viewed the invasion of Iraq as far more dangerous and costly than the invasion of Grenada.

Which is NOT how the NeoCons were viewing it, trapped as they were in the Reagan group-think of 20 years before. THIS IS THE ROOT OF THEIR MISTAKE AND IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

[It also explains why no one in the White House could see 9/11 coming from the source of that other Zen-Tantric believer in Al Qaeda: see "Toxic Zen Story #22.8: Green Dragon Zen and Physical Zen in the Palestinian struggle, from Yasser Arafat to Usama Bin Ladin: Suicide Bombing."]

So ... working hand-in-hand with their Zen-Tantric brothers in Al Qaeda, who had superceded Saddam Hussein as the most powerful agents of that shared evil in the Middle East ... the NeoCons have:

. 1. Removed Bin Laden's biggest competitor, Saddam Hussein.
. 2. Let Bin Laden and Zawahari slip through into Pakistan.
. 3. Tied down the American armed forces in an endless
. struggle in Iraq.
. 4. So that they could not be used to get Bin Laden, because
. even though we knew where he was, it would take an
. Iraq-sized invasion to get him, and we could only do the
. one in Iraq FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE.

That is some astonishing kind of unity of minds, a real group mind-meld.

The result of that kind of foolishness was the political setbacks for the Republicans in 2006-8, opening the opportunity for Obama's virtual destruction of Bin Ladin's Al Qaeda by the simple use of the tools that George W. Bush already had on hand: CIA-style intelligence, drone attacks and the use of Special Forces.

There is a term for this particular kind of crazy and suicidal unity, in Japanese. It is called "wagoso", which is the absolute and unquestioning unity of believers that closely follows the minds of the priests in support of the temple of their sect.

It is this "wagoso" that allowed the Japanese government to gain the unwavering support of an entire country to support the Pacific War under Imperial Way Buddhism and Imperial State Zen.

They did it by simply approaching the local priests and forcing them to accept the Shinto Talisman to be placed in the Temple altars and family shrines, etc.

Only two Buddhists in all of Japan completely resisted this effort by the Imperial State Zen to distort Buddhism into a war machine, they were Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and Josei Toda of the Soka Gakkai.

Interestingly, George H.W. Bush, was friendly to the Soka Gakkai and the follower of Josei Toda, President Daisaku Ikeda, when the older Bush was President of the United States. His son, George W. Bush, also sent some nice messages to the SGI.

No family is all bad, or all good. So there is still a possible redemption for the Republican Party, if they can cling to their highest original principles and reverse the course of their mistaken leaders and their gradual accretions that have undermined the good principles of their founders. This is what Lincoln called, "Listening to the better angels of their[our] nature."

Until that time, we cannot expect the Republican Party, as a group, to rationally weigh the evidence. As individuals, Republicans are like any Americans, generally very wonderful people. Tea Party to the contrary.



>>>> addendum on November 4th 2008, election day:

Barack Obama's Difficulties Become An Asset,
And A Liability To John McCain.
--------------------------------------------

Because of Obama's 'alien-ness' problem, being pitched first by the Clinton campaign and after that by the McCain campaign ... His campaign would not allow him to be seen or photographed in connection with anything weird (slander of the Lotus Sutra), such as Buddha statues on his desk (like John Kerry), or walking hand-in-hand with the Dalai Lama (both John McCain and Lindsay Graham both did), or in a Buddhist Temple receiving money from a priest (Al Gore).

No matter how hard they campaigned, nothing broke their way (Gore, Kerry, McCain). They made one mistake after another, wrong action and wrong inaction.

Good Heavens: the choice of Sarah Palin. People will endlessly ask over the years, what could have possessed him? It was like he was a different person. Not the John McCain we know, the 'happy warrior'. The hero of the Hanoi Hilton, crusading against torture, and in the end, giving into pressure ON TORTURE.



>>>> addendum on the May 2012 finale of the primaries of the 2012 election:

The Republican Field boils down to Mitt Romney
----------------------------------------------

What a rollercoaster it's been, huh? If only Huckabee had run, but with his arms permanently locked in a manlove embrace with his favorite supporter, Zen-man Chuck Norris, he could not make a move and survive it. Now, he's irrelevant.

Zen-man Norris was a big supporter of George H.W. Bush's 2000 fatal campaign, and a great friend of the dying Lee Atwater. Everyone getting pulled into the same black hole, you'd think they'd wise up.

Romney could have been a wise selection, because the Mormons keep their distance from slanderous Buddhists (Zen, Tantric, Tibetan, Nembutsu, Hinayana), and anyone like that who generates weird vibes.

But Romney did not seem to possess enough corruption to raise the blood of the Republican Tea Party Right: he did not satisfy that red-meat taste they've developed for Christian Zen types (with martial arts kick-ass skills like those of Chuck Norris or the special forces guys they enshrine on the altar and worship).

Romney did not seem to subscribe to Christian Zen, but the Mormons have been able to morph their religion when politically necessary (bans on multiple marriages, acceptance of other races). Maybe they will adapt to the red state fascination with the Zen martial arts, too. Black-belted mormon missionaries, anyone?

Romney's last potent contender was Gingrich, the last and strongest of the Not-Romneys. And he had a history of being involved with kinky new-age stuff that had generated those explosive results in his family and professional life, leaving a trail of bombed-out personal relationships. But he also possessed that red-meat life-corruption craved by the Tea Party and the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Presidential nominee Gingrich was not to be, however, he was Romney-boated in Iowa and buried just before the election in a sea of false TV ads. Romney raised his hands to protest his involvement in those ads and said, "Not me!", similar to the job losses due to his vulture capital outfit Bain.

Finally the forlorn hope of the religious red states was Rick Santorum. Seemed like a nice guy in that sweater-vest, someone you could have a beer with, but as dumb as a post ... oh, wait ... wasn't there another Republican guy like that, just recently? Started a war in Iraq?

In spite of all these possible choices, Mitt was the man selected to take out Barack Obama. In the process of defeating his adversaries, he had become toxified, but you hadn't seen too many Zen men in his supporters and crew, they were mostly out "helping" his adversaries (Chuck Norris campaigned for Newt Gingrich). That has apparently guaranteed his much maligned rise to the nomination.


>>>> addendum on October 2nd, 2012 (Before the first Presidential Debate):


The Republican Tea Party Right Finally Focuses All of Their Hatred Against
the Middle Class, the Minorities and the 47 Percent (effectively, the SGI)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bear with me on this story, it is relevant.

Back in 2000 I was a men's division district leader in the SGI. In our infinite wisdom, my women's division co-leader and I instituted an all-out campaign to disassociate temple members in the territory encompassing our district, with some notable successes. The unexpected effect of this cause was that large numbers of powerful youth division leaders appeared out of nowhere, or just stood up from the local area. Ultimately, the result of this was that our formerly moribund district blossomed and eventually split into four district meetings, all of which are currently thriving. This is actual proof of the effects of Soka Spirit and Courageous Heart activity.

One of those young women's division leaders who showed up was a young and physically perfect ballerina from the East Coast, to join the city's professional ballet troupe. She was as wonderful inside as she was outside, perfectly kind, perfectly poised, perfectly friendly and encouraging to everyone around her: an example of the kind of noblesse oblige that you rarely see associated with someone of such profound physical and mental talents, and with such astonishing beauty. She was a natural, to become a great youth leader of the SGI.

It is a little-known fact that professional ballet dancers (and dancers generally) are injured at twice the rate of players in professional sports (although the cranium is mostly spared). Every ballet dancer has a collection of injuries they are constantly nursing, some small and nagging, some career-threatening. Although most professional dance organizations have some kind of physical therapy available, most of them are extremely light on health plans, if they have one at all. Most professional dancers are terribly underpaid as well, so if they have health problems, they have to ... well ... suffer in silence, because to show any weakness in practice or performance is to lose out in the struggle for the advancement of your career. They typically have several teaching jobs on the side to get by, in the same way that classical musicians and other artists do: they take students and foster new artists.

In her early twenties, our ballerina developed an extremely aggressive breast cancer. Everyone was very supportive, and I encouraged her with the story of my ex-wife who had developed an aggressive breast cancer (many lymph nodes involved), and who went through aggressive chemotherapy, surgery and breast reconstruction while never stopping her exercise routine and running, with the result that she was still a survivor 25 years later. Our ballerina went back to the East coast, did the same and returned to her ballet troupe, looking as perfect as ever. She went on to be one of the soloists, doing important roles and teaching many students. She also dabbled in Jazz dance, Blues dance, and danced and acted in a professional stage musical.

Later, her cancer came back, she fought it back and danced again. It came back again as fourth stage cancer (metastasized), but she went into remission once more and danced soli again. Through it all, it was hard to tell when she was sick. In the same way dancers show perfect poise when they are suffering the most, she danced through her life without complaint. A dancer's dancer. Her struggles with health insurance must have been profound, as her cancer came back again and again, but you never heard about it from her.

She also excelled in the SGI, rising to be a young women's chapter leader, raising many young women and leading in activities involving dance, such as the Rock The Era youth activity in Long Beach, California a couple of years ago. After that activity she found a post as an assistant leader of a dance troupe in the South, where she could pursue her choreography.

Our chapter had a little party before her departure: she was in top physical form and I have never seen such a perfect physical specimen of a human being. I envisioned her future: director, choreographer, carving out her niche in the dancing world and making her mark, married and raising some beautiful and perfect little dancers of her own.

To understand the great Buddhas (such as our ballerina) requires faith in the Lotus Sutra, because the jewel of Buddha wisdom can only be purchased at the price of faith in the Lotus Sutra.

What are the characteristics and virtues of a Buddha? The characteristics of a Buddha are the characteristics of a Bodhisattva, who leads herself and others to the enlightenment of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha's highest teaching. The virtues of a Buddha are three, called san-toku in Japanese:

http://www.sgilibrary.org/search_dict.php?id=2392

... The benevolent functions of sovereign, teacher, and
... parent a Buddha is said to possess. The virtue of
... sovereign is the power to protect all living beings, the
... virtue of teacher is the wisdom to instruct and lead
... them to enlightenment, and the virtue of parent is the
... compassion to nurture and support them. Nichiren (1222-
... 1282) interpreted the following passage of the "Simile
... and Parable" (third) chapter of the Lotus Sutra as
... expressing the three virtues: "Now this threefold world
... is all my domain [the virtue of sovereign], and the
... living beings in it are all my children [the virtue of
... parent]. Now this place is beset by many pains and
... trials. I am the only person who can rescue and protect
... others [the virtue of teacher]." In several of his
... writings, Nichiren described his role or mission as the
... votary of the Lotus Sutra in terms of these three
... virtues. The first line of his treatise The Opening of
... the Eyes reads, "There are three categories of people
... that all human beings should respect. They are the
... sovereign, the teacher, and the parent" (220). Near the
... conclusion of the same work, he states, "I, Nichiren, am
... sovereign, teacher, and father and mother to all the
... people of Japan" (287). Because these three virtues are
... considered the virtues of a Buddha, the above passages
... are seen as an indication that Nichiren intended The
... Opening of the Eyes as a declaration of his role as the
... Buddha of the Latter Day of the Law who expounds and
... spreads the teaching that can lead all people to
... Buddhahood.

The Buddhas exemplify the causality of the Law, and never, ever do anything by accident or luck: it is all cause and effect.

The greatest weapon of a Bodhisattva is their vulnerable and easily-crushed humanity, which is the very heart of the compassion of a Buddha. This is because of the profoundly evil causes created by those who do the crushing, who commit the great evil act of conspiring to do harm to one who practices the Lotus Sutra: a "votary" of the Lotus Sutra. These profoundly evil causes incur enormous and swift karmic retribution on those participating in the conspiracy to subjugate and crush the votary of the Lotus Sutra. From these effects, permanent change comes to society.

Think of that old man in his World War II Japanese prison cell, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, being martyred by a government of Zen-Shinto terrorists out to dominate and wreak havoc and genocide upon the world. He dies nobly, not bowing to evil, and soon after his death a terrible whirlwind is reaped by those in the conspiracy to crush his spirit and steal his few remaining years from him. Their Zen-Shinto dreams of world domination are thoroughly reduced to the ashes of a total and abject, dishonorable defeat. The Western military (personified by General MacArthur) that crushed the tormentors of Mr. Makiguchi and freed the votaries of the Lotus Sutra to spread that Soka Gakkai practice to what is now one in six families in Japan ... was identified by his disciple and fellow prisoner Josei Toda as a Shoten Zenjin, or Buddhist god or deity. However, Buddhism is not Shinto, the Buddhist gods are not superior, but are simply functions of the life of a Buddha, in this case Mr. Makiguchi and Mr. Toda (who also suffered from prison losing much of his health), nonsubstantiably functioning after the death of Mr. Makiguchi to fulfill his intent to free the nation and establish the freedom of religion allowing the Soka Gakkai to spread. The highway to world peace that was his life was paved over the dominion of his enemies with its foundations constructed from the wreckage of their corrupted dreams.

This is the Buddhist way. A single Bodhisattva can change the world, which functions as their life (sovereign for the people) to fulfill their noble intent (teacher and parent to the people).

The last time I saw our ballerina she had a different hairdo style, and I hugged her and asked if everything was OK, "Just fine," she said.

Later I saw one of the young women she fostered on the street and she talked about her, noting that she had been bald when she saw her (the new hairdo was a wig, unbelievably thick-headed of me not to perceive that, but perhaps she wanted it that way.)

Then in early Summer, I got an email for some daimoku tosos (Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo chanting sessions) for our ballerina's health: she had gone back East to get treatment and it was serious. And then one Monday afternoon, while I was chanting and thought about her, I had that bright pure feeling inside that you get when you chant a lot of daimoku. I found out later that was when she passed away.

She died at the age of 33 in June at her family home in Washington, D.C., surrounded by loving friends and family. People chanted for her and with her right up to the end. After she passed away, her aunt rearranged the body, and marvelled at her lightness. When she unwrapped the sheet from her feet, she saw that her dancer's feet were perfectly pointed. She had died "en pointe."

Like I said, the Buddha's wisdom (perceiving the truth) is purchased at the price of faith in the Lotus Sutra. So you have to have faith to believe the rest of this story.

As she suffered and died over the first half of this year in Washington D.C., change came to that city. Ten days after she lay down her perfect head and died breaking all of the hearts of those who loved her, against all odds and to the utter disbelief of all the pundits: the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, John Roberts somehow found his heart and saved the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) from certain death.

I thought about this, and if Gingrich and the Republicans had not destroyed the earlier version of the ACA (Hillarycare), she might have received just enough and better care to survive, to have a different outcome. Now, that's a conjecture, but it is no conjecture to realize that all of her underpaid and undercared-for dancing community all over the country, all those tiny dancers of hers would in two years get the healthcare they had always richly deserved, for the beauty they bring to our society. She had deserved better, and now they would get what she had deserved and had to fight for.

And then I thought, that will only happen if President Obama is re-elected and a Congress is elected that will properly fund the ACA. This means that those men with all the money and power behind the Republican Party simply have no idea what they are up against. During this period they had selected and coalesced behind what everyone agreed was their least favorite candidate, Mitt Romney, who had vowed to eradicate Obamacare on his first day in office.

I watched as they prepared for their convention in a hurricane, losing the one day that held the tribute to the military, while Romney's acceptance speech was rewritten a half-dozen times, somehow forgetting to add in the missing tribute to the military (scratch one loyal GOP faction). Then he picked Paul Ryan as V.P.: the chief architect of the destruction of Social Security -> private accounts, Medicare -> vouchers and Medicaid -> sent to the states (scratch the other loyal GOP faction, seniors). Then Romney himself replaced his wonderful 1/2 hour film with Clint and the chair. He laughed in support of Clint backstage, and his loyalty was rewarded with Clint stating that anyone that was dumb enough to pick him to give such an introduction deserved what they got. Romney's loyal support of his V.P. pick was rewarded by Paul Ryan parading up and down his campaign bus referring to Romney as "Stench":

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81618.html

In quick succession came the drop in the polls, the recriminations of right wing pundits Laura Ingraham and Rush Limbaugh who said Romney needed to get tough, the attack on the embassies, the "Shoot first, aim later" speeches as the Americans were dying, then the 47% video, and a full chorus of recriminations from all the right wing pundits:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81419.html

Then came the big swings in the polls and of course, no one knows what comes next. Having a scientific bent, however, I can speak of the "maximum likelihood" of where this trend line appears to be leading, and what it means.

Mitt Romney is by all accounts, a truly wonderful person, holding aside the effects of his policies on the middle class, the minorities and the 47% (which includes the arts community and the dancers who are the treasures, of our treasured ballerina.) He and all of GOP appear to be doing their utmost to fulfill the living and dying wishes ... of one tiny dancer.

Our ballerina is two in appearance, but one in essence (Nini-funi):

Both a small Bodhisattva, but also a great Buddha (Sovereign, Teacher and Parent).

Both a dancer's dancer tragically dying en pointe at 33, but also like the Washington Redskins' running back Alfred Morris (#46) rushing through the line to drive the football over the line unstoppably for a game-winning touchdown as the game clock runs down to zero.

They simply don't have a chance against her.


>>>> addendum on November 11th, 2012 (The Sunday after the election):


I spent a few months on the phone bank for the Democrats calling swing states (Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado and Nevada) using their micro-targeting dialer.

It was amazing: I would call Republican women and almost always they were voting for Obama, or their husbands would pick up and arrogantly refuse to let me talk to them. I knew they would vote for the President anyway.

I participated because of our ballerina: I could not let her intent fail to materialize. I had to do whatever I could to preserve the ACA for her dancers.

It was loud in the room with the other callers, so I would put my other hand over my cell-phone to make it quieter (and to cover my quiet daimoku in between calls.)

When the President misfired in the first debate, I worried but never lost hope: a large number of volunteers arrived in the days after that failure, and they stayed to the end. Obama rebounded in the last two debates: Bengazi's "acts of terror" Rose Garden redux and Romnesia.

As yet another hurricane disrupted Romney's momentum in the last week, accompanied by motown corporate rebuttals of his off-shoring charges, Obama looked Presidential and we doubled down to make up the lost popular vote from the hurricane states. And then it was over when Ohio was called before midnight, Eastern time. All that worry was unnecessary, it was never really a close contest.

I felt profoundly good in that way that you do, when you have accomplished something difficult for someone who cannot do it for herself. I felt this in spite of the clear knowledge that the causes for this had already been made and guaranteed by someone else's sacrifice. A truly fine person, a person of real quality, who would never allow grinding reality to interfere with her discharge of her responsibility as sovereign, teacher and parent to her troupe.


>>>> addendum on September 18th, 2013:


And the GOP are still trying to defund and destroy the Affordable Care Act.

Every time they smash themselves against her impregnable will, by shutting down the Government of the United States, defaulting on the National Debt or sequestration of bleeding government services all they accomplish is further division in their own ranks and further decline in their poll ratings and support from their base.

Just recently they have alienated AIPAC on Syria, Big Agriculture on the Farm Bill, Wall Street and Big Business on the debt ceiling, government shut down and sequestration ... and the beat goes on.

Is their any affection for the GOP left from their dwindling base?

You can be sure that they will diminish it with continued kamikaze attacks on the ACA, which is nothing less than the indestructible will of one tiny dancer.


>>>> addendum on December 15th, 2014:


Due to the 2nd midterm electorate turning against Obama, now the GOP is strongly in control of Congress.

Now the attacks on the ACA will be unabashed and total. The President's approval rating is at its ebb. He will likely be impeached.

How can one tiny dancer stand up to all of this? We will see. It is literally the Winter of Our Discontent.


>>>> addendum on July 1st, 2015:


. More Than 60 Percent Support
. Supreme Court's Obamacare Ruling
.
. Independents largely agree with the decision as well.
.
. By Colby Bermel

http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/62-percent-support-scotus-obamacare-ruling-20150701

. July 1, 2015 Almost two-thirds of Americans agree with
. the Supreme Court's ruling upholding a major part of the
. Affordable Care Act, according to a poll released
. Wednesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
.
. The numbers are split largely along party lines, with 82
. percent of Democrats supporting the decision and 62
. percent of Republicans opposing it. Additionally, 61
. percent of independents said they approve of the ruling.
.
. Overall, 62 percent of Americans supported the King v.
. Burwell decision, with 32 percent opposed.
.
. In a 6-3 vote, the Court said that the government can
. continue providing tax-credit subsidies to individuals
. seeking health insurance from federal exchanges, as well
. as state exchanges.
.
. In the court of public opinion, Americans have mixed
. views on Obamacare. The Kaiser poll found that 43 percent
. of people have a favorable opinion of the law, compared
. to 40 percent unfavorable. The most recent
. RealClearPolitics average, though, shows a 51.4-percent
. disapproval rating.
.
. The sentiment was similar after the Court's first ruling
. on the Affordable Care Act three years ago, in which the
. justices upheld the law's individual mandate. Unfavorable
. opinion, according to Kaiser a month after the NFIB v.
. Sebelius decision in June 2012, was at 44 percent, while
. RealClearPolitics logged disapproval at just below 50
. percent.


>>>> addendum on March 5th 1st, 2016:

Well.

With the pure and absolute disaster that has befallen the Republican Party, headed for a Trump coronation, or an open convention and the splits that will follow that...

It seems amazing that the victory seems in hand for Hillary Clinton, the only candidate who desires to improve and not remove Obamacare. She has an insurmountable lead over Bernie Sanders, who wants single payer, and can defeat all of the Republicans hated Obamacare.

The only thing that can stop her is the Attorney General with that email investigation.

I wonder which way that will go? [I feel certain of the result.]

And with a fleet and lithe Jeté Entrelacé, our tiny dancer eludes their grasp!

>>>> addendum on December 2nd, 2016:

Well, well!

Hillary was Comeyed by the FBI Director and lost in the final week.

Now it would seem that nothing stands in the way of uprooting our tiny dancer's legacy of health care for artists like her.

Will there be peripeteia (reversal of fortune)? Or will it turn out that she died for the Phantom City of Obama's Presidency, that will fade in the morning sun?

Only time will tell the story.

>>>> addendum on August 30th, 2017:

One tiny dancer is causing the Republican Party to eat itself alive: Jeté Entrelacé!, Jeté!

"They seek him here,
they seek him there,
they seek him everywhere!

Is he in heaven?
Is he in hell?
That demned, elusive, Pimpernel!"

It seems utterly inexplicable to me that while HOLDING LITERALLY ALL THE CARDS OF POWER, the Republicans cannot seem to defeat such an extremely vulnerable program as the ACA, which would fulfill their dream of taking down Barack Obama's legacy. President Trump is beside himself and frothing madly.

No one on the other side of the aisle is gloating, they simply cannot believe what has happened and they don't want to do anything to wreck it.

From the Washington Post:

Republicans' failure to 'repeal and replace' Obamacare may cost them at the ballot box

By Mike DeBonis and Amber Phillips July 29 at 11:15 AM

... The Republican Party's seven-year quest to undo the
... Affordable Care Act culminated Friday in a humiliating
... failure to pass an unpopular bill, sparking questions about
... how steep the costs will be for its congressional majorities.
...
... While lawmakers have not completely abandoned the effort,
... they are now confronting the consequences of their flop.
... Not only has it left the GOP in a precarious position
... heading into next year's midterm elections, but it also has
... placed enormous pressure on the party to pass an ambitious
... and complex overhaul of federal taxes.
...
... Strategists argued for months that Republicans risked more
... by not acting and alienating their conservative base than
... by passing an unpopular repeal bill that could turn off
... swing voters. They now live in the worst of both worlds —
... with nothing to show for seven years of campaign promises,
... even though dozens of vulnerable lawmakers cast votes that
... could leave them exposed to attacks from Democrats.
...
... "This is an epic failure by congressional Republicans,"
... said Tim Phillips, president of the conservative Koch
... network group Americans for Prosperity. "But it's time to
... pivot to tax reform. There's no time to pout."
...
... In the moments after the bare-bones repeal bill failed
... early Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch
... McConnell (R-Ky.) said it was "time to move on." But there
... seemed to be little stomach afterward among Republicans on
... Capitol Hill for acknowledging outright failure on their
... top campaign promise.

For myself, my heart continued to hope, but my head told me that elections have consequences, and the failure of the Bernie Bros and their pals in the "Never Hillary!" camp to come out on election day had doomed Barack Obama's legacy. I simply could not hope that things would have gone this far, without a repeal of Obamacare.

This profoundly improbable chain of events cannot possibly continue, can it?

Silently: Jeté Entrelacé!, Jeté!

>>>> addendum on September 26th, 2017:

Well, well, WELL!

Now Obamacare has been saved once, by what the Repblicans call and insane Chief Justice Roberts and twice, by the crazy maverick Senator John McCain. Truly improbable!

In an interview on 60 Minutes, Senator McCain said that the reason he killed the unwinding of the ACA, WAS NOT that Trump had called him not-a-hero for being captured during the Vietnam War, oh no!

However, that couldn't have made that vote very much harder, d'ya think?

From the Washington Post:

Senate GOP abandons latest effort to unwind the Affordable Care Act

By Juliet Eilperin and Sean Sullivan September 26 at 3:53 PM

... Senate Republicans decided Tuesday not to hold a vote on
... unwinding the Affordable Care Act, preserving the landmark
... 2010 law for the foreseeable future even as they suggested
... they may withhold crucial funding for it.
...
... The move leaves the GOP — once again — short of fulfilling
... a signature promise, which some Republicans worried could
... inspire a backlash among their base heading into the 2018
... midterm elections.
...
... Several senators said they instead plan to move onto other
... issues now that the party's latest proposal, authored by
... Republican Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy
... (La.), had failed to garner sufficient support
...
... "Where we go from here is tax reform," Senate Majority
... Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters after holding
... a closed-door policy lunch with members of his caucus.

What's next? Who knows?!

She was an angel, as all the YWD in the SGI are angels without wings: they may not be able to fly, but they are certainly fly!

How can history be driven by the suffering of one extremely wonderful person? It's because the suffering of a sincere Bodhisattva of the earth, a true princess of Myoho, is the fulcrum whereby the long, long lever of the Law can lift the weight of the world.

>>>> addendum on November 8th, 2017:

Battered by Trump, Obamacare triumphs at the polls
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/08/obamacare-boost-at-the-polls-244696

By Rachana Pradhan

11/08/2017 12:57 PM EST

... Obamacare made a comeback in Tuesday's elections, its
... strongest show of support since President Donald Trump was
... elected and the GOP spent months on a futile effort to
... repeal it.
...
... In the governor's race in Virginia and a ballot initiative
... in Maine, the Affordable Care Act buoyed Democrats, a
... remarkable reversal from how Trump and congressional
... Republicans won elections excoriating the "failed" and
... "doomed" law.
...
... A remarkable 4 out of 10 Virginians in an early exit poll
... said health care was their top issue in a race that saw
... Democrat Ralph Northam, the current lieutenant governor,
... handily defeat Republican Ed Gillespie to become Virginia's
... next governor. And in Maine, voters in a landslide backed
... Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which their governor had
... vetoed on five separate occasions.
...
... As Democrats now look to the 2018 midterms that will decide
... control of the House, Senate and key governorships across
... the country, they can begin to more confidently embrace the
... law that's covering 20 million Americans and that emerged
... politically stronger after surviving months of concentrated
... Republican repeal attacks.
...
... "We have an opportunity to send a very clear signal to
... anyone who is spending time and money opposing the ACA,"
... said Jonathan Schleifer of the Fairness Project, which
... poured funding into the Maine ballot measure campaign and
... is trying to boost lookalike Medicaid initiatives in states
... such as Utah and Idaho. "What is not unique to Maine is the
... support for ACA [and] the enthusiasm for expanding
... coverage. I think Maine is a great bellwether for the rest
... of the country."
...
... Yet even in Maine, the timetable for accepting new Medicaid
... enrollees remains in doubt after Gov. Paul LePage said he
... will not implement expansion until the state legislature
... figures out how to cover the state's costs. LePage, who was
... elected in 2010 and is term-limited next year, spearheaded
... the opposition campaign to the ballot measure.
...
... Northam's victory also gives Virginia Democrats their best
... chance since 2014 of expanding Medicaid, a move that would
... cover roughly 400,000 people. The party also made enormous
... gains in the state's House of Delegates, which has long
... been controlled by Republicans. Outgoing Democratic Gov.
... Terry McAuliffe tried repeatedly to expand, but never won
... over state lawmakers.
...
... Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center
... for Politics, said there is "no question" that Medicaid
... expansion is back on the table in Virginia. "He's got an
... enormous mandate," he said of Northam. "The Republicans are
... as shell-shocked in this state as Democrats were a year ago."
...
... Tuesday's results came after recent polling has
... demonstrated that Obamacare is more popular than ever and
... Republican plans to dismantle it were met with fierce
... resistance across the country. But it's easy to overstate
... its revival; the country is still deeply divided on the
... health law. Fifty-two percent of voters held a favorable
... view of the Affordable Care Act in August and 39 percent
... still had an unfavorable opinion, according to a Kaiser
... Family Foundation tracking poll. Other polls have shown the
... gap to be narrower.
...
... Activists are already trying to get Medicaid expansion
... measures on the ballot for 2018 in other GOP-led states,
... including Idaho and Utah. Both of those states are far more
... conservative than Maine; the health law remains
... controversial and state legislators have resisted calls to
... adopt Medicaid expansion, one of its core pieces.
...
... But the ballot route is not possible in all of the 18
... states that continue to shun expansion of Medicaid, which
... broadens eligibility to low-income adults with incomes up
... to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, or roughly
... $16,600 for an individual.
...
... Statewide ballot initiatives and referendums initiated by
... citizens aren't allowed under state law in Texas, where
... more than 1 million people would qualify for expanded
... Medicaid but it has virtually no chance of gaining momentum
... under Gov. Greg Abbott's deeply conservative administration
... and the GOP legislature. Ballot campaigns aren't allowed in
... Kansas, where the Republican-controlled legislature passed
... an expansion bill only to see it vetoed by Gov. Sam
... Brownback.
...
... Renuka Rayasam contributed to this report.

And, now, even the Republicans are rendered speechless at the image of our twirling ballerina, now pushing against the relativistic limits of rotational velocity, glowing and shooting off brilliant rays in all directions.

>>>> Addendum on August 28, 2020:

A Word Not Uttered by Republican Officials at the Convention: Obamacare
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/upshot/republican-convention-obamacare.html

By Sarah Kliff and Margot Sanger-Katz

... In 2012, right in the middle of his convention speech, Mitt
... Romney declared the repeal of Obamacare a crucial priority.
... It was part of his five-part plan for a "better future."
...
... "We must rein in the skyrocketing cost of health care by
... repealing and replacing Obamacare," he said.
...
... Four years later, there was little doubt that Donald J.
... Trump would also mention the health law: "We will repeal
... and replace disastrous Obamacare!" he declared to roaring
... applause.
...
... This week, Mr. Trump didn't mention Obamacare at all in his
... convention speech. The word that rallied Republican voters
... for nearly a decade has barely been uttered. It came up
... precisely once during the convention, during a speech by
... Natalie Harp, a cancer survivor who is not an elected
... official.
...
... In the 2012 and 2016 G.O.P. conventions, repealing
... Obamacare was a central, almost obligatory part of every
... political speech, a goal shared by every candidate, a
... priority of almost every Republican voter.
...
... The term Obamacare, originally conceived by Republicans to
... diminish its popularity, has been used less often among
... Democratic politicians, though President Obama himself
... ultimately embraced it.
...
... Republicans used the term Obamacare 23 times in 2012 and 13
... times in 2016, during the prime-time evening hours
... (transcripts show no mentions of the Affordable Care Act at
... the 2012, 2016 or 2020 conventions). Speakers usually
... referred to it in calls for repeal. This year, there were
... no calls for repeal, just a claim from Ms. Harp that the
... Affordable Care Act caused expensive insurance premiums.
...
... The 2010 health care law expanded health coverage, barred
... insurers from discriminating against patients with
... pre-existing health conditions and made numerous other
... changes to the way health care is delivered and financed.
... The desire to upend it has not abated much among Republican
... voters.
...
... "Nothing has changed in general about how the Republican
... base feels about the Affordable Care Act: They still oppose
... it," said Mollyann Brodie, an executive vice president at
... the Kaiser Family Foundation, who manages the health
... research firm's survey operation.
...
... But in previous conventions, Republican politicians saw a
... potential path to deliver Obamacare repeal: Take control of
... Washington. When Ted Cruz, a few months from winning his
... Texas Senate seat, asked the crowd at the 2012 convention,
... "Can we repeal Obamacare?" he got a resounding "yes" in
... response.
...
... "Nothing has changed in general about how the Republican
... base feels about the Affordable Care Act: They still oppose
... it," said Mollyann Brodie, an executive vice president at
... the Kaiser Family Foundation, who manages the health
... research firm's survey operation.
...
... But in previous conventions, Republican politicians saw a
... potential path to deliver Obamacare repeal: Take control of
... Washington. When Ted Cruz, a few months from winning his
... Texas Senate seat, asked the crowd at the 2012 convention,
... "Can we repeal Obamacare?" he got a resounding "yes" in
... response.
...
... The answer in 2020, however, is most likely no: Republicans
... tried and failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act after
... gaining control of the White House in 2017 (they already
... controlled the House and the Senate). Their proposed
... replacement bill was deeply unpopular. And they lost
... control of the House in 2018 after a campaign in which
... Democrats hammered their health care record.
...
... "It would make no sense to argue over spilled milk," said
... Josh Holmes, a Republican strategist and president of the
... consulting firm Cavalry, who came up with the "repeal and
... replace" slogan. "It's pretty well documented that they
... took a run at it, came one vote short of repealing
... Obamacare, and then pretty quickly turned the page."
...
... Democrats seem happy to continue talking about the
... Affordable Care Act. The law was never as popular among
... their voters as it was unpopular among Republicans. Polls
... show overall approval ratings have inched up slowly in
... recent years, ever since Democrats fended off repeal
... efforts. And a pending lawsuit before the Supreme Court,
... supported by the Trump administration, could wipe the law
... off the books, increasing the urgency to defend it.
...
... At the Democratic convention this month, there were seven
... mentions of the "Affordable Care Act," a shortened version
... of the bill's official name, compared with two in 2012 and
... six in 2016. The Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, used his
... speech to warn that, in a Trump administration, "the
... assault on the Affordable Care Act will continue until it's
... destroyed."
...
... In using the term, he made a bit of history: He is the
... first Democratic presidential nominee to mention the
... Affordable Care Act in a convention speech.
...
... "Obamacare" did get mentioned once at the Democratic
... convention — in a video about the long friendship between
... Mr. Biden and John McCain, the senator and former
... Republican presidential nominee, who died two years ago.
...
... After his widow, Cindy McCain, lamented the loss of
... bipartisan leadership, the narrator recalled that "it was
... Joe's friend who saved Obamacare by crossing the aisle."

Our beloved ballerina is twirling faster and faster, an entangled shock wave is starting to form and grow in its coherency ...

>>>> Addendum on November 23, 2020:

First off, our twirling ballerina just drilled a hole into Trump's crazed brain, and the slow leak of his POTUS defeat at the polls is deflating his demon. Should be thoroughly deflated by January 20, 2020, the day he enters the New York City District Attorney's legal spotlight.

Also, it does not look like whatever they do in the SCOTUS case, that it will effect the current status of the ACA in a big way, but only time will tell (sometime around Summer, after the Trump pandemic has subsided):

Key Justices Signal Support for Affordable Care Act

At a Supreme Court argument on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh suggested that striking down one provision would not doom the balance of the law.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/supreme-court-obamacare-aca.html

By Adam Liptak

Published Nov. 10, 2020
Updated Nov. 13, 2020

... WASHINGTON — At least five Supreme Court justices,
... including two members of its conservative majority,
... indicated on Tuesday that they would reject attempts by
... Republicans and the Trump administration to kill the
... Affordable Care Act.
...
... It was not clear whether the court would strike down a
... provision of the act that initially required most Americans
... to obtain insurance or pay a penalty, a requirement that
... was rendered toothless in 2017 after Congress zeroed out
... the penalty. But the bulk of the sprawling 2010 health care
... law, President Barack Obama's defining domestic legacy,
... appeared likely to survive its latest encounter with the
... court.
...
... Both Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M.
... Kavanaugh said striking down the so-called individual
... mandate did not require the rest of the law to be struck
... down as well.
...
... "Congress left the rest of the law intact when it lowered
... the penalty to zero," Chief Justice Roberts said.
...
... Justice Kavanaugh made a similar point. "It does seem
... fairly clear that the proper remedy would be to sever the
... mandate provision and leave the rest of the act in place —
... the provisions regarding pre-existing conditions and the
... rest," he said.
...
... The court's three-member liberal wing — Justices Stephen G.
... Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — also indicated
... their support for the law. That suggested there were at
... least five votes to uphold almost all of it.

>>>> Addendum on February 17, 2021:

The grand finale, and Trump's biggest campaign rally ended in a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, but not towards the White House, towards the Capitol Building. The upshot was: utter chaos temporarily, with no change to history. Kind of like his presidency will be viewed, in the long term.

Our ballerina has now driven Trump off his rocker with her buzzing around his head doing pirouettes, and thus converting Trump into a wanted man, an important person of interest. Finally, someone really, really wants him!

>>>> Addendum on June 17, 2021:


The Supreme Court shut down an attack on Obamacare in the most dismissive way possible

Buh-bye.
By Ian Millhiser Jun 17, 2021, 11:50am EDT

... For the third time since the Affordable Care Act became law
... in 2010, the Supreme Court rejected a call for it to
... sabotage that law — this time, in an unusually dismissive
... opinion.
...
... The Court's brief decision in California v. Texas, issued
... Thursday, ultimately concludes that the plaintiffs trying
... to undo the law had no business being in court in the first
... place.
...
... The case was brought by a bloc of Republican state
... officials, as well as two individuals who object to
... Obamacare. Their case centered on the law's individual
... mandate: As originally drafted, the Affordable Care Act
... required most Americans to either obtain health insurance
... or pay higher taxes, and the Supreme Court famously upheld
... this so-called "individual mandate" in NFIB v. Sebelius
... (2012) as a valid exercise of Congress's power to levy taxes.
...
... In 2017, however, Congress amended Obamacare to zero out
... this tax. So, under current law, most Americans must either
... obtain health insurance or pay zero dollars. The Texas
... plaintiffs didn't just claim that this zeroed-out tax is
... unconstitutional (on the theory that a zero dollar tax
... can't be an exercise of Congress's taxing power), they
... claimed that the entire law must be declared invalid if the
... zero dollar tax is stuck down.
...
... It was an audacious ask of the Supreme Court — requesting
... the justices strike down the entire law despite only
... claiming that a single provision of Obamacare is
... unconstitutional. Especially since the provision that the
... plaintiffs challenged literally does nothing at all.
...
... The Court didn't even reach the question of whether or not
... the ex-mandate is constitutional. In a 7-2 ruling written
... by liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, the Court ruled that no
... one is allowed to bring suit to challenge a provision of
... law that does nothing. Four Republican appointees — Chief
... Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett
... Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — joined Breyer's opinion.
... Suits about nothing are not allowed
...
... The idea that no one can challenge a legal provision that
... does nothing isn't especially controversial — or, at least,
... it wasn't controversial before numerous high-ranking
... Republicans rallied behind the Texas litigation. As the
... Supreme Court held in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife
... (1992), no one may file a federal lawsuit challenging a law
... unless they have suffered an "injury in fact" that is
... "fairly traceable" to the law that they are challenging.
...
... Yet that didn't stop 18 Republican state attorneys general
... from bringing this futile effort to kill Obamacare. In the
... end, they lost because of a simple fact: NO ONE IS INJURED
... BY A LAW THAT REQUIRES THEM TO PAY ZERO DOLLARS.
...
... As Breyer writes, "the IRS can no longer seek a penalty
... from those who fail to comply" with the requirement to buy
... insurance. Thus, "there is no possible Government action
... that is causally connected to the plaintiffs' injury."
...
... Really, there's no need to say much more about this
... lawsuit. It was an absurd case brought under a risible
... legal theory that was widely mocked even by many outspoken
... opponents of Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal's editorial
... board labeled this lawsuit the "Texas Obamacare Blunder."
... Yuval Levin, a prominent conservative policy wonk, wrote in
... the National Review that the Texas lawsuit "doesn't even
... merit being called silly. It's ridiculous."
...
... And now the lawsuit is dead. As it turns out, even in a 6-3
... conservative Supreme Court, there are some arguments that
... are too laughable to be taken seriously.

And now our tiny dancer takes her bow on the forehead of the former President and defendent in a series of updoming state and federal trials.

____ Epilog _______________________________________

The Buddha's highest teachings were the purpose of the Buddha's advent on this earth.

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to drain people's compassion with discussions of the emptiness and meaninglessness of life which is just a void.

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people to live in such a narrow and momentary way, that there would be no context for self-examination and conscience.

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to possess people's minds with such illogic as to befuddle their ability to choose correctly between what is good and what is evil.

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people how to commit atrocities and genocide, in the exploration of their "infinite possibilities", or "new states of being".

The Buddha did not appear on this earth to teach people how to maim and kill with their hands efficiently, quietly, loudly, with increased terror inflicted, or to maximize their subjugation to control the public sentiments for political ends.

These are all profoundly evil distortions of the Buddha's true teachings, which introduce infinities in the variables holding good and evil, removing all shades of gray in the propositional calculus of value.

Simply stated, the Buddha made his advent on this earth with the purpose of teaching the compassionate way of the bodhisattva, which is at the heart of the true entity of all phenomena, which is the eternal Buddha at one with the eternal Law. Which is how to navigate the sea of sufferings of birth, aging, sickness and death. He originally set out on his path, because of his observation of the sufferings of common people and wanting to understand the source of those sufferings (enlightened wisdom) and how to transform those sufferings into unshakable happiness (enlightened action).

When you embrace the void and acausality, your initial intention to explore Being and essence doesn't matter ... the result is always the same: chaos and misery, and utter ruination and emptiness to you, your family, and your country.

But things don't have to be that way ...
___________________________________________________

Nichiren Daishonin writes (Encouragement to a Sick Person, WND p. 78):

. "During the Former and Middle Days of the Law, the
. five impurities began to appear, and in the Latter
. Day, they are rampant. They give rise to the great
. waves of a gale, which not only beat against the
. shore, but strike each other. The impurity of
. thought has been such that, as the Former and
. Middle Days of the Law gradually passed, people
. transmitted insignificant erroneous teachings
. while destroying the unfathomable correct
. teaching. It therefore appears that more people
. have fallen into the evil paths because of errors
. with respect to Buddhism than because of secular
. misdeeds."

Because Bodhidharma discarded the Buddha's highest teaching (the Lotus Sutra), and due to his lazy nature turned to shortcuts to enlightenment, he came to the distorted view that life is acausal and empty, that the true entity is the void.

This erroneous view really comes from a misunderstanding of the Sutra of Immeasurable Meanings, where the True Entity is described by negation (the only way it can be): "... neither square, nor round, neither short, nor long, ..."

The description of the True Entity is logically voidal, but the True Entity itself is not. Bodhidharma was simply confused, due to the slander of negligence (laziness), and false confidence. The truth of life is that at the heart of the True Entity is the compassion of a bodhisattva for others.

Non-substantiality does not mean empty. Life has value. Humans are respectworthy. There is a purpose to everything. And every cause has an effect, so we are responsible for our thoughts, words and deeds. Zen is acausal. Zen is the greatest poison, which compares to the even greater medicine of the Lotus Sutra.

Suffice it to say: the purpose of Zen in the world is to corrupt and undermine everything that is not based upon the truth and the true teaching. All religions, disciplines, institutions and organizations which are undermined by Zen will eventually fall after glaring revelation of their worst defects, sooner rather than later.

If there is some good in your family, locality, society and culture, or country that you would like to retain, then cease the Zen, and begin to apply the medicine of the Lotus Sutra to heal the Zen wound in your life.

"Zen is the work of devilish minds." - Nichiren

-Chas.

. a prescription for the poisoned ones:
.
. The only antidote for the toxic effects of Zen in your life ...
.
. be that from Zen meditation, or the variant forms: physical
. Zen in the martial arts, Qigong, Acupuncture, Falun Gong,
. Copenhagen Convention of Quantum Mechanics, EST,
. Landmark Education, Nazism, Bushido, the Jesuits,
. Al Qaeda, or merely from having the distorted view that life
. is acausal, and that the true entity of all phenomena
. is the void ...
.
. with the effects of the loss of loved ones, detachment,
. isolation or various forms of emptiness in your life ...
.
. is the Lotus Sutra: chant Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo
. at least 3 times, twice a day, for the rest of your life,
. in at least a whisper ...
.
. and if you can, chant abundantly in a resonant voice !!!
.
. The full 28 Chapters of the Lotus Sutra,
. Nichiren Daishonin's Gosho volumes I and II,
. the Record of the Orally Transmitted Teachings
. (Gosho Zenshu, including the Ongi Kuden) and the
. SGI Dictionary of Buddhism are located at:
.
http://www.nichirenlibrary.org/en/
.
. To find an SGI Community Center:
.
http://www.sgi-usa.org/sgilocations/
__________________________________

LS Chap. 16 .....

All harbor thoughts of yearning
and in their minds thirst to gaze at me.
When living beings have become truly faithful,
honest and upright, gentle in intent,
single-mindedly desiring to see the Buddha
not hesitating even if it costs them their lives,
then I and the assembly of monks
appear together on Holy Eagle Peak.
At that time I tell the living beings
that I am always here, never entering extinction,
but that because of the power of an expedient means
at times I appear to be extinct, at other times not,
and that if there are living beings in other lands
who are reverent and sincere in their wish to believe,
then among them too
I will preach the unsurpassed Law.