Haiti. Earthquake. Huge suffering beyond imagination. I sent money. I continue to send prayers
What causes earthquakes? The scientists say one thing, having to do with tectonic plates and magma. But the scientific worldview is a Western construct based on Cartesian thought (in other words, the ideas of Rene Descartes).
Good ol' Rene destroyed the wisdom of the ancestors, that We Are One. Instead, he replaced it with "modern" thought that everything is separate. Nature is no longer considered our very life itself, but an object to analyze and utilize. Individual separate from community. And the individual, Rene, chopped up into a bunch of different categories — mind apart from spirit apart from body. The body divided into a multitude of systems — nervous, skeletal, digestive, etc.
"Okay," you might be thinking, "You know a fancy word or two. But what does this have to do with Haiti and earthquakes?"
I'm getting to that. Let's take a look at some of the words of wise people in history. Over 700 years ago, Nichiren Daishonin studied extensively and wrote major works about, in part, what causes earthquakes. His point of view has little relation to the scientific worldview based on Cartesian thought that just about everyone nowadays accepts as "reality."
Nichiren Daishonin's words resonate with the Andean cosmovision when he writes, "Life at each moment encompasses the body and mind and the self and environment of all sentient beings ... as well as all insentient beings ... including plants, sky, earth, and even the minutest particles of dust. Life at each moment permeates the entire realm of phenomena and is revealed in all phenomena."
"Cool," you might be thinking, "But what does this have to do with earthquakes?" Patience, my friend. I'm getting to that. I promise.
Okay, we have the idea that We Are One. One Life. Now, this Life is cause and effect. Everything is connected. What we human beings do affects the earth, the Pachamama. How did this wisdom of our ancestors, that We Are One Life, get so lost and distorted?
According to Peter Kropotkin in Mutual Aid (read this book for free online!), all of our ancestors lived with the wisdom of the mystic law, that We Are One. But that wisdom started to get distorted and lost as some people started setting themselves above others in the community. These folks who put themselves higher than the rest were the merchants and the warriors. Today we call these groups the military industrial complex.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Before the Age of Reason the answer to earthquakes and other natural disasters was usually human sacrifice. If there's an earthquake then throw a virgin in a volcano. Crop harvest, assassinate the king to restore the balance of the cosmos.
Is that what you want to go back to?
Dave
2 - roger nowosielski
And don't forget the Incas culture of sacrifice.
3 - Heloise
Lynette I was just talking about this with someone who thinks like me. And we said just suppose we are about to witness another sinking of Atlantis? We don'e know how it sunk, when or where. But I spent two years on a Yahoo group that explored it. I actually had recall dreams about the sinking. And so did many others. It was fascinating.
Also the 2012 Hopi prophecies and my study of astrology tell me that when there is a planetary lineup that is coming in 2012 it means earthquakes and volcanoes like we've never seen before. I mean China has not recovered from theirs yet.
It will not be the end of the world but the planetary lineup won't go away quietly especially as it involves some of the outer planets. They move slowly and grind against each other like the plates in a fault.
I think we could witness a modern-day Atlantis in the Caribbean. I think there is a Nostradamus predict about it too.
I never heard of the guy you cite. But I have studied mysticism. It means that there is a supernatural force that ties us all together simply. Or "from the one come the many." Is the quote I recall.
Keep thinking.
Remember the "Insiders" don't think, react or live like those who don't have the knowledge brought over from Atlantis to Egypt.
4 - Jordan Richardson
Looking like a fool with your pants on the ground...
5 - STM
Heloise: "And we said just suppose we are about to witness another sinking of Atlantis?"
Nor do we know whether it actually existed.
6 - Ruvy
Funny how only Heloise and the author is willing to look at all this from a point of view that differs from the scientists who think they know it all - and who don't.
Only closed-minded fools would ignore some possible source of knowledge that would explain the hell the Haitians are suffering in now.
7 - Jordan Richardson
Does that mean, Ruvy, that we also must consider the fact that they suffered in Haiti because of a "pact with the devil?" Or perhaps a herd of unicorns was racing around in the earth's core and caused the earthquake? Oooh, oooh - maybe it was James Cameron! What about Namazu, a giant catfish that some Japanese people believe causes earthquakes?
By all means, let's consider every crackpot "theory" behind this tragedy lest we be considered closed-minded or foolish.
8 - Irene Wagner
Job is a very old book, and the first chapter doesn't take long to read.
9 - Irene Wagner
Job suffered because he was good.
10 - STM
Or a butterfly landing on a flower in Tasmania, which sets off a whole chain reaction of events that leads to the earthquake in Haiti.
Or perhaps the snake spirit, disturbed and awakenening in fury ...
The more plausible reason: Haiti sits on a known fault line that runs through the Caribbean from Port-au-Prince to Kingston.
It's known as the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone.
Most earthquakes happen in areas where there is a known fault line, or in a zone surrounding a known fault.
Add in some poor construction practices and voila, you have the answer.
I don't doubt that we are all one on this planet; but I do doubt that any of these things getting out of kilter causes killer quakes.
None of this explains Haiti's poverty, either. There's a simple explanation for that: greed, and no genuine rule of law.
11 - Irene Wagner
Seismologists (Aussies!) take the butterfly effect seriously.
12 - El Bicho
"saying that when the leaders of the land go against the mystic law of life, then there are disasters and calamities"
And just when exactly was there a time when the leaders of the land did not do this? Or is this just a guess on Daishonin's part?
13 - STM
Until they prove it, I remain sceptical.
So far, they haven't been able top prove it.
14 - Irene Wagner
This is from an article by Donald Turcotte of Cornell University's Department of Geological Sciences.
"But most geological structures are complex and appear to defy mathematical analyses. Yet in the complexity there is an order. Complex geological structures generally obey fractal statistics. Examples include topography, distributions of earthquakes and faults, and mineral deposits. An unresolved question is whether the fractal order is simply the result of scale invariance or the result of governing equations that yield deterministic chaos."
Scientists know why that the faults are there, and that they occur with a fascinating regularity that cannot be accounted for by deterministic models that we understand right now.
It's not just seemingly chaotic trends in nature that follow this strange pattern--its human behavior, too.
Let me find a link about the cotton prices.
I don't really have any comment about Daishonin. He has as much of an explanation as to the WHEN's of earthquakes as Daishonin does--and the scientists would admit it, too.
15 - Irene Wagner
Here's the article on human behavior and fractals. Just do a find on "cotton market" or "astonishing pattern."
No one really has reality all figured out.
16 - Cindy
Lynette,
There are things you suggest that I doubt I could ever be convinced of. And then there are other things, your connections through history that are intriguing and may help me move forward in my thinking. And then there are things that are both simple and profound that I agree with like:
We Are One. One Life. Now, this Life is cause and effect. Everything is connected. What we human beings do affects the earth, the Pachamama*. How did this wisdom of our ancestors, that We Are One Life, get so lost and distorted?
I hope you write more.
*I can go along with this if the meaning is mother earth/mother world, but notif it is representative of the spirit who causes earthquakes.
17 - Linda McHenry
Long before life existed on earth, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters were taking place. (But, there was no one around to label them as such.)
If anything, today's "natural disasters" are quite mild to the ones that fashioned the earth billions of years ago. An earthquake today is merely a sign that earth has yet not done with her transformation.
Nichiren Daishonin's belief that humans can control natural disasters with a common mind-set seems impossible to me. Where was that mind-set when earth was first hurled into its orbit and began to cool, and errupt in ways man cannot even begin to phathom?
The disasters humans cause are not of rock and stone, but of oppression and prejudice, poverty and hopelessness. Let's not blame the people for Haiti's horrific ordeal, because it comes to close to blaming the Haitian's populace for bringing this onto themselves.
Haiti's children, especially, will be forever scared mentally, physically and spiritually from this event. Their transformation will most likely take place amid "eruptions" and "disasters" of their own making, but how can we blame the children, or their grieving parents, or aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters for what changes will take place in their mind-set twenty years down the road?
Haitians are part of our world-wide family and in need of a brother's love and suppport. They are dying from lack of the simplest of needs, water, food, medical help, and shelter, not to mention our sympathy and our willingness to help, not our meager attempt to validate death in its ugliest forms.
18 - Mark Rogow
Difficult to believe and difficult to understand. Now if you could just shed your attachment to SGI, you would be a true daughter of the Buddha.
Mark
19 - Lynette Yetter
Hello everyone. Thank you for taking the time to read my first blogcritics article and to post your comments. The other day I wrote a long informative response, but it did not post. I am still figuring out this technology... So, this is sort of a "test" post...
20 - Cindy
I try to either write in a word program or, minimally, copy what I am about to post before I hit the 'post comment' button.
Comments are sometimes like socks here. And there is some sort of law that operates when you've taken a lot of time on a comment and it is detailed--that is the one that is surely a goner.
21 - Lynette Yetter
Okay. The "test" worked. Now, who can help me put in links? There are those cool links that Irene Wagner put in her comments. How did you do that, Irene? I'm on a Mac and using Safari. Does that make a difference? (I think the URLs I cited were the reason my post wouldn't post...)
22 - Cindy
Lynette,
It is html code that is simple and works no matter what your equipment/software. Here is a page that tells you how to make a link.
23 - Lynette Yetter
Hello again, everyone!
Thanks for the tip, Cindy! :) I LOVE your "socks" analogy!
The post that wouldn't post had a number of URLs in it. After it got rejected, I found in the "comment policy" that all URLs should be in the form of links. But, I don't see how to make a link, here. (I am using Safari on a Mac) Any suggestions?
Also, I just noticed in the instructions to me as a new writer on blogcritics, that I should post an ASIN of an Amazon product with each article. [Edited]
The style sheet says I should put the Titles in italics. But, here in Safari, the italics disappear ...
Any suggestions, other blogcritic writers who use Mac and Safari?
24 - Christopher Rose
Lynette, you have to put ASINs in articles, not in comments...
If you have any general questions, contact the person who signed you up. If you have article specific questions, ask the editors via the email you have for them.
Christopher Rose
Blogcritics Comments Editor
25 - Lynette Yetter
Thank you, Christopher!