Vol. 11. January 9, 2021
The Washington Post summarized the events of January 6, 2021 in a memorable headline: Pro-Trump Mob Storms Capitol.
The rioters disrupted congressional lawmakers who were mulling over the counting of Electoral College votes.
The violence left five people dead and a nation in shock.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), echoing FDR, called it a second day in American history which will live in infamy.
But Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL.) got to the heart of the matter. He questioned, “Are we going to feed the beast of ignorance (and) lie to the American people? We saw that beast here today, roaming these halls, and we won’t welcome it back.”
The insanity of ignorant humanity is not confined to the selfish desires of a president who cannot accept defeat, nor to the mob of thugs he incited and invited to the desecrate the sacred halls of Congress. Its present in all of us.
A crazy quilt of dark impulses lurks within the human heart. It’s part of what we are.
It’s the part that flees from wisdom, and feasts on ignorance.
Ignorance is Enlightenment Reversed. But do not be mistaken. In highest truth, there is no difference between Ignorance and Enlightenment. Both abide in Universal Oneness.
Call it what you want — God, the Dharmakaya, Allah, Emptiness, the Absolute — but names are arbitrary conceptions of the One.
The One is available at any time, free of charge, no money down, through meditation.
Whoever obtains a direct realization of the Buddha Mind, thereby understanding the real form and real appearance of things, experiences the One.
Oneness
As long as we think we will be enlightened by our own efforts, instead of Universal Oneness, we are lost in whimsical thoughts.
Mind and Form are One. Absolute Reality is the Grand Oneness.
One means one, not two. Reality is one, not two.
To impose duality on Universal Oneness causes unnecessary suffering for yourself and others. Stop the insanity!
Let Universal Oneness be. Then a happiness will wash over you. A happiness not caused by your own effort. But a happiness that has always been there. A happiness with no beginning and no end. A bliss of knowing that our lives are dreams from which the dreamer awakes.
If we fail to see that all things exist as One, we go on dreaming.
Buddhas wake up from the dream.
Buddhas enter the Halls of Nirvana.
Dreamers enter the Halls of Congress.
But in the end, both Halls are One.
The Buddha Times 
Thank you for this teaching. Jim Finley, a modern day mystic that I follow has a great story about oneness he retold in either, _Thomas Merton’s Path to the Palace of Nowhere_ or _Meister Eckhart’s Living Wisdom: Indestructible Joy and the Path of Letting Go_. The story, poorly retold from my memory, goes something like this:
A meditation teacher asked his students to breath while counting breathes up to 10 as a practice. In addition, the Teacher asked students to start over at one if their minds wander while counting. After a few months or years of this, one student came to the teacher and said, I cannot get past 3 or 4 most times I meditate, what am I doing wrong? The Teacher responded that all there really is is One and Oneness so you are doing fine!
Elsewhere, he said,
The “Christian mystics use the terms contemplation and mystical union with God to refer not to visions and other similar experiences, but rather to a life-transforming realization of oneness with God.”― James Finley, Christian Meditation
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