We are the world
25 July 2008
The ACC workshop on the ‘Role of Media and Civil Society in building Informed Citizenry to fight Corruption’ was held this Wednesday. This dynamic initiative shone a conscious light on a loose web of concern for social justice and public propriety that constitutes a kind of nascent, invisible force.
It is a fact that we are never going to achieve either a Utopian Golden Age or a completely Dark Age. Since we cannot abandon life and try to create a new one, let us work with it. Democracy and our current realities demand that from society.
GNH, the spine of all we do, reinforces our traditional values in a progressive vision. Values embodied in culture are not simply practiced as an adjunct. If we do not put the two of them together pretty soon, we’re going to lose both. In recent political developments, issues like political funding, abolition of sitting fees, Driver’s allowance, funding for local elections were traded between the NA and NC.
Our parliamentarians served a very thin gruel in term of striding the high moral horse back and forth. Public opinion has now solidified to a cynical perspective towards “Thobthangs and Thoblams” while this sordid saga of ‘morality of convenience’ highlighted the need to make our parliamentarians more accountable. The media and the civil society now look at the Supreme Court and the Constitution to safeguard the public interest.
Most times, our civil societies are struggling alone to help victims cope in a state of perennial emergency. Without a collective response, issues are getting geometrically worse such as teenage violence, substance abuse, stray dog problem et al.
Tackling corruption must be played out in simple human terms which is the source of corruption. How can you go to work and create mega-projects, advertise consumerist products or built dog pounds and then go to a monastery or join a charity to articulate your values? This is a sorry excuse for not translating values in terms of the pattern of life.
Informed by our values, the media will cover stories that shock the reader—not with anger but with honest inspiration. We would like to ask questions rather than provide answers or edicts. It takes the form of probing so we can find our way together and “co-create.” While most urban youngsters have seen Baywatch, how many of them can name three social activists?
Only by working together and informed by sane values can substantial and meaningful information flow from the rest of society to affect positive changes. The world we live in is the world we “co-create.”
The problem of communication in Buddhist terminology is called duality. This is the tremendously thick wall built between us like animals in a zoo. In the present context, collective needs have coincided with individual means to create a tremendous space for positive creativity. The rise of the print media and Internet as a tool for political and social organizing is only beginning to rewrite some of the power balances or imbalances.
The structure of the future depends on us individually.
We have arrived in an age where we do not have to specifically accept everything wrong but to understand the causes of it and try to do something creative about it.
In offices and streets, it’s not so much the colours, chairs and hectic pace which depress us but the faces of people moving like ants, in and out, in and out, each with their own depression. As Chogum Trungpa Rinpoche said – “let us begin to create a body of people moving about carrying a collective light.”
By Phuntsok Rabten
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By the topic “we are the world”,it means a lot.As mentioned by Albert Einstein “The world we have created is a product of our thinking;it can not be changed without changing our thinking” & Lord Buddha has mentioned, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought; mind is everything; how we think we become”.Whatever we thin and do, we should always think on the positive side and work towards benefit of all sentient beings.We are immersed in the occean of suffering in six realms and we need to work towards transcending these realms and vortex of likes & dislikes,yes & no,good & bad,heaven & hell i.e duality aspect.
In the world we live in we always condition,condition and finally we suffer from the result of conditioning.