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Today's Daily Dharma:

When Things Fall Apart
Pema Chodron

Bodhidharma brought Zen Buddhism from India to China. He was well known for being fierce and uncompromising. There is a story about how he kept nodding off during meditation, so he cut off his eyelids. When he threw them on the ground, they turned into a tea plant, and then he realized he could drink the tea to stay awake! He was uncompromising in that he wanted to know what was true, and he wasn't going to take anybody else's word for it. His big discovery was that by looking into our own heart, we find the awakened Buddha, the completely unclouded experience of how things really are.

Ok, guess I could drink tea instead of coffee. . .

Meanwhile, over at Common Dreams, in a reprint from TomDispatch, there's Hope Dies Last by Studs Terkel:

Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up. That's what Jessie de la Cruz meant when she said, "I feel there's gonna be a change, but we're the ones gonna do it, not the government. With us, there's a saying, ‘La esperanza muere última. Hope dies last.' You can't lose hope. If you lose hope, you lose everything."

She, a retired farm worker, was recounting the days before Cesar Chavez and his stoop-labor colleagues founded the United Farm Workers (UFW). It was a metaphor for much of the twentieth century.

As we enter the new millennium, hope appears to be an American attribute that has vanished for many, no matter what their class or condition in life. The official word has never been more arrogantly imposed. Passivity, in the face of such a bold, unabashed show of power from above, appears to be the order of the day. But it ain't necessarily so.

Or, you know, apparently the right-wingers are dogpiling on Tom Tomorrow for this here comic strip.

I almost envy them in their ignorance.

I hear that it's bliss.