Sicco Rood

From a Buddhist perspective, I could keep this short and sweet, and regurgitate the words that “righteous anger” is part of the “three poisons” in Buddhism — greed, hatred, and ignorance —end of conversation.

I think Halloween is a wonderful opportunity to loosen up on one's identity, which at times may act rather fixed.

The news has been filled with hatred and killing since we, “the number one bad animal”, as some have called our species jokingly and affectionately, first started walking the earth. Whether killing is related to ideology turned fundamentalist, an, “unwavering attachment to a set of irreducible beliefs”, or to put it another way, an unquestioned insistence on a particular worldview or rigid adherence to an exceptionalist way of viewing the world.

A group of us recently participated in an “Urban Plunge”, where we slept the night in a homeless shelter. We stood in the food line, ate and talked with Spokane’s homeless.

Once a month, on the third Friday at 8 p.m., a group of people in Spokane use the downtown triangle to meditate or pray. Many cities in the world have started similar recurring “meditation flash mobs”.