[Buddha-l] Impermanence

[Jim Peavler]

On Mar 5, 2008, at 11:49 AM, jkirk wrote:

>
> Right now I'm embroiled in a resistance effort in my state to stop  
> them from
> allowing 2 nuclear enterprises to pollute this state even more than  
> it is
> already polluted. This requires attending to the future, so to  
> speak, but
> the motive or intention is to spare the population and the  
> environment from
> more radioactive consequences affecting especially pregnant women and
> children. With the way things are escalating, little time for  
> meditating on
> impermanence.
>
> Radioactive contamination is indeed impermanent, but on a vaster  
> scale than
> other samsaric aspects. But HHDL's thought is comforting.
> Joanna K.

I appreciate the sentiments here, but would point out that nuclear  
power is very likely one of the safest sources of power we have  
available to us in quantity right now. We may be fearing the wrong  
things. We are getting some idea finally that even old carbon dioxide  
(in enough quantity) may be threatening the whole earth. Many people  
fear nuclear waste to the point that, rather than allowing it to be  
moved and buried where is will be out of our concern for a few  
million years at least, they allow it to be buried in stainless-steel  
tubes at the bottom of heavy-water swimming pools right near their  
own home towns. Also, few people seem to know that coal ash contains  
high concentrations of radio active material that is more dangerous  
(even in tiny amounts) than that that comes out of modern reactors--  
and we dispose of it in open landfills where it is free to leach into  
our water and blow into our wind so we can drink it and suck it into  
our lungs!

I would rather live next door to a nuclear reactor than to a coal- 
fired plant or downwind from a landfill. But what I meditate on has  
little to do with either.

We all know that we are supposed to be careful about what we pray for  
in case our prayers are answered. I would add that we should be  
careful what we fear because we are very likely to be fearing the  
wrong things while being destroyed by things we haven't realized yet.

Buddhist content: I try to meditate on some inexplicable thing such  
as emptiness or death. Or what is the difference between emptiness an  
death? Damned if I know.

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Jim Peavler
jmp at peavler.org


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