another life taken by the DEA

a young man, only 24 years old, hung himself today in the spokane county jail after being arrested for smuggling pounds of marijuana into the U.S. by helicopter - arranged by the DEA! entrapment sickens me...

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008806775_websuicide03m.html


Pot smuggling suspect hangs self in Spokane Jail
By The Associated Press
SPOKANE — Police say a Canadian man accused of smuggling marijuana by helicopter hanged himself in the Spokane County Jail.
The 24-year-old from Revelstoke, B.C., Samuel Jackson Lindsay-Brown, was alone in the cell where he was found Friday hanging by a bedsheet from a light fixture. Sgt. Joe Peterson told The Spokesman-Review police are investigating the death.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice says Lindsay-Brown had been charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.
He was arrested Feb. 23 unloading 350 pounds of BC bud from a helicopter in a remote spot in the Colville National Forest. The delivery had been arranged by undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agents.

perception is speculative

the belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of "physical reality" indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. it follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final. we must always be ready to change these notions - that is to say, the axiomatic basis of physics - in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most perfect way logically.
- einstein

observe life for what it is

so much fear and desire come from that commitment to "i am" - to being somebody. eventually they take us to anxiety and despair; life seems much more difficult and painful than it really is.
but when we just observe life for what it is, then it’s all right: the delights, the beauty, the pleasures are just that.
-ajahn sumedho, "seeing the way"

wisdom

to attain knowledge, add things every day. to attain wisdom, remove things every day.
-tao te ching

the internet

seen on the slog today...

change

it is extremely important to investigate the causes or origins of suffering. one must begin that process by appreciating the impermanent, transient nature of our existence. all things, events and phenomena are dynamic, changing every moment, nothing remains static. meditating on one's blood circulation could serve to reinforce this idea: the blood is constantly flowing, it never stands still...
- his holiness the dalai lama

our reactions to our feelings

from contact comes feeling. from feeling comes reaction. this is what keeps us in the cycle of birth and death. our reactions to our feelings our are passport to rebirth.
- ayya khema, "being nobody, going nowhere"

let your love flow outward

let your love flow outward through the universe,
to its height, its depth, its broad extent
a limitless love, without hatred or enmity.
then as you stand or walk, sit or lie,
as long as you are awake, strive for this with a one-pointed mind;
your life will bring heaven to earth.
- sutta nipata

incredibly sad...

but life is beautiful.
here, from within my heart, i make the vow to shun all evil - to achieve the good. from deep within my heart i seek my refuge.
-buddha

what are you grateful for in this moment?

that very seeing does not see
itself at all.
how can something that cannot see itself
see another?
-nagarjuna

commitmentphobia

this sounds too familiar...

Fear of commitment
from wikipedia
Fear of commitment in popular literature refers to avoidance of long-term partnership and/or marriage but it is often much more pervasive. In 1987 the term commitment phobia was coined by Steven Carter in his book Men who can't love.
In romantic relationships, the paradox is that the commitmentphobic craves what he/she fears most: love and connection. This leads to a confusing and destructive pattern of seduction and rejection that is generally experienced by the love object as emotionally devastating. Though generally attributed exclusively to males, it is well-documented that commitmentphobia is not gender-specific.
While this behavior has been documented for some time, the word commitmentphobia (no space, no hyphen) was actually coined in the 1987 New York Times Bestseller Men who can't love by Steven A. Carter and Julie Sokol (M.Evans & Co. Publishing). Interestingly, in 1987, legendary New York publisher George de Kay (Body Language, Aerobics, Open Marriage, Atkins New Diet Revolution, etc.) resisted printing the word commitmentphobia on the original book jacket, fearing it sounded "too scientific and off-putting." Within one year, the phrase commitmentphobia had become popular American jargon and the sub-title of the book was changed to include the phrase "commitmentphobic."
Commitment phobia is rooted in fear -- fear of lost options or fear of making poor decisions. The commitment phobic mind sees decisions as permanent. It symbolizes being caged or trapped. Commitment phobics actually take commitment very seriously, which is why the decision to commit can be so hard for them. "A rolling stone gathers no moss" is the appropriate proverb for this subclass of individuals. And like the proverb, commitment phobia is a double edged sword -- on the one hand you avoid obligations, ties, and commitments yet at the same time the commitment phobic may secretly crave the lives of those who committed and the growth that those roots produced. But when push comes to shove, the CPs' fear usually wins out -- commitment phobics desire freedom above all else and sometimes, alternatively, they desire fantasy over reality and yet in other cases, they desire both.
Commitment phobia is largely unrecognized as a real disabling fear. It is sometimes thought to be associated with fear of death, fear of intimacy, etc. But most CPs usually show signs of commitment fears across many domains of life. Sometimes it is so pervasive that that it interferes in their ability to make simple every day decisions and on the larger scale, of managing and maintaining their life. CPs are prone to self-destructive behavior and escapism as a way to assuage their anxiety. Carter and Sokol refer to both active and passive commitment phobics but usually CPs have elements of both active and passive CP behaviors (some may have stronger preferences). In terms of personality types, commitment phobics are usually enneagram types 7s, 6s or 4s, which are types that tend to engage in push-pull behaviors (7s tend to be more "active" phobics while 4's tend to be more "passive"). Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's is a classic example of a 7w6 active commitment phobic. Cameron Diaz (enneatype 7w6) recently admitted that she has commitment phobia, most likely of active variety.
"As a commitment-phobic individual, people often laugh at my only goal in life -- to get a dog. I have wanted a dog for at least 15 years and every New Years I tell myself, this is the year. 15 years and waiting... But like an ice-berg, the desire to have a dog is just the tip of the berg; where most of the hurt and anxiety manifests is in my one on one personal relationships. Each time I hope that this one will be different; That I won't run away. When forced to make a choice I almost freeze in panic. I have thoughts in my mind but I can't speak -- the only thing I can think of is how to get away from this source of anxiety. I may break things off or say something to get the other person mad (and therefore not interested in a commitment). I feel like a crab without a shell when cornered. And I can't stop feeling like that."

dr. ecstasy

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/magazine/30ECSTASY.html?ex=1264827600&en=edb29c075c8aceed&ei=5090
great article on alexander shulgin. excerpt:
It was an acquaintance of Shulgin's named Humphry Osmond, a British psychiatrist and researcher into the effects of mescaline and LSD, who coined the word ''psychedelic'' in the late 1950's for a class of drugs that significantly alter one's perception of reality. Derived from Greek, the term translates as ''mind manifesting'' and is preferred by those who believe in the curative power of such chemicals. Skeptics tend to call them hallucinogens.
Shulgin is in the former camp. There's a story he likes to tell about the past 100 years: ''At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only two psychedelic compounds known to Western science: cannabis and mescaline. A little over 50 years later -- with LSD, psilocybin, psilocin, TMA, several compounds based on DMT and various other isomers -- the number was up to almost 20. By 2000, there were well over 200. So you see, the growth is exponential.'' When I asked him whether that meant that by 2050 we'll be up to 2,000, he smiled and said, ''The way it's building up now, we may have well over that number.''
The point is clear enough: the continuing explosion in options for chemical mind-manifestation is as natural as the passage of time. But what Shulgin's narrative leaves out is the fact that most of this supposedly inexorable diversification took place in a lab in his backyard. For 40 years, working in plain sight of the law and publishing his results, Shulgin has been a one-man psychopharmacological research sector. (Timothy Leary called him one of the century's most important scientists.) By Shulgin's own count, he has created nearly 200 psychedelic compounds, among them stimulants, depressants, aphrodisiacs, ''empathogens,'' convulsants, drugs that alter hearing, drugs that slow one's sense of time, drugs that speed it up, drugs that trigger violent outbursts, drugs that deaden emotion -- in short, a veritable lexicon of tactile and emotional experience. And in 1976, Shulgin fished an obscure chemical called MDMA out of the depths of the chemical literature and introduced it to the wider world, where it came to be known as Ecstasy.
In the small subculture that truly believes in better living through chemistry, Shulgin's oeuvre has made him an icon and a hero: part pioneer, part holy man, part connoisseur. As his supporters point out, his work places him in an old, and in many cultures venerable, tradition. Whether it's West African iboga ceremonies or Navajo peyote rituals, 60's LSD culture or the age-old cultivation of cannabis nearly everywhere on the planet it can grow, the pursuit and celebration of chemically-induced alternate realms of consciousness goes back beyond the dawn of recorded history and has proved impossible to fully suppress. Shulgin sees nothing strange about devoting his life to it. What's strange to him is that so few others see fit to do the same thing.

scarred but smarter

are you kidding me with that? i can't do it anymore. trapped in delusions, i'm waking up.

removing barriers

the only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. to the degree we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confidant and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes.
-pema chodron