CrankyBuddhist   the learning never ends …

Nechung Puja with Lama Lobsang Palden
Tuesday morning, 8:45-11:00
1741 W. Columbia Avenue, Chicago, IL 60626
ELECTION DAY PUJA: Tuesday, November 4, 8:45-11 AM
Please note that this practice will include an outdoor fire puja and will last at least 2 hours.
Everyone welcome

Dorje Drakden

Lama Lobsang will perform a Nechung (Dorje Drakden) Puja, which includes a tea offering, a fire puja, and prayers to the wrathful protectors Mahakala and Yamantaka. The traditional purposes of these ceremonies include clearing negative obstacles and cutting through negative emotions to reveal the truth. We will perform these pujas while holding the intention that Barack Obama will be elected president, visualizing not only the deities but also the future President Obama. If you would like to contribute something to the practice, please bring a traditional offering of black tea, alcohol, or natural incense (sage, juniper, cedar, sweetgrass). Donations are welcome.

Your Voting Information
Chicago citizens, look up your voter registration status and view the full list of Chicago polling places at the Board of Election Commissioners for the City of Chicago’s website.

Democracy Now! Report on Electronic Voting Machine Malfunctions
Just days away from the election, the battle is on for voting rights. Early voters across the country are reporting long lines and problems with electronic voting machines. Republicans, meanwhile, continue to file lawsuits that could stop thousands from voting. DN! spoke to Harvey Wasserman of Free Press and Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog on October 29. To read, listen to, or watch the whole story click here.

Video the Vote 2008
Video the Vote is a national initiative to protect voting rights by monitoring the electoral process. They are asking citizens to document election problems as they occur. They will distribute their footage to the mainstream media and online to make sure the full story of Election Day gets told.

CNN Voter Hotline
If you have a problem voting or see a problem, call the CNN Voter Hotline at 1-877-GOCNN08 (1-877-462-6608); CNN will report on some of the calls.

Free Video Download of Slacker Uprising
Michael Moore’s new documentary about the youth vote, Slacker Uprising, is available for free on his website.

A Zen Master looks at Same-Gender Marriage
Robert Aitken Roshi, a widely respected American Zen teacher, applies the classic Buddhist teaching of the Four Immeasurables: loving kindness, compassion, joy in the attainment of others, and equanimity, in an argument for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Read his blog entry here.

Barack Obama
All things Barack Obama

This information was received via email from the Buddhists for Obama group affiliated with www.barackobama.com

I can vouch for Bill Clinton’s statement. I have met people who have given up a year or more of their everyday lives to work full time on Obama’s campaign. He has persuaded me to make phone calls for him, knock on doors for him, and send emails to my base. I’m not only giving him my time, I’m giving it to him for free.

Obama has networked the country like no other presidential candidate before him, on either side of the fence. He has brought people together to make his election possible. If he can create this amazing network before becoming president, what are the possibilities after he becomes president?

For the last six months, but more so in the last six weeks, I’ve had the feeling that there is a revolution going on in our country.

People have been comparing Barack Obama’s run for president to those of JFK and Bobby Kennedy. But I get the feeling, inside me, that this is more like The Revolution of 1776 that created and developed our country. That we are making a break from someone who would be king and moving towards creating the country that we all want to live in, the one we envisioned when we think of dreaming of America.

The other clue is the anxiety level of seemingly every individual in the country at this time. When was the last time that there were this many people involved in an election? You can stop anyone on the street and they are up to date with the latest in political news. Everyone wants the election to be over, so they can finally relax, so they can possibly celebrate, so they can get to work.

My day, which used to be owned by a web site with even more importance to me than this one, has turned to reading twitter posts, Huffington Post, the Washington Post and the New York Times, among others. I follow @BarackObama on twitter. I watch every one of Obama’s stump speeches if I find out that they are happening ahead of time. And when I don’t, I watch them on the BarackObamadotcom channel on YouTube. I read every story, I make my “Neighbor to Neighbor” phone calls to other voters, I keep my personal base up to date. I am not the only one in the country that is acting this way. Even Whoopi said, while on The View, that she wishes the election would be over. It is creating so much anxiety.

A few months ago, when the primaries were sorted out I suggested to everyone that they rent the HBO series John Adams from Netflix. I’m recommending it even more this week.

There’s a revolution going on, and we’re right in the middle of it.

We live in a bubble, here in Berkeley. There are Obama/Biden signs all over town. I have yet to see one for the other guy, although I’m sure they exist, just not on my usual routes from here to there. The only potential McCain voter I know is the guy who lives downstairs. He tells me I should feel ok about it since 98% of his friends are voting for Obama. But that’s as far as our conversation goes, because, you know, talking about politics isn’t polite. pfft.

I ran into aother neighbor yesterday out on the street. She had her Obama t-shirt on. Yesterday was the last day for voter registration in California, so we made sure that each other was registered. She had just come from the Berkeley Obama Campaign office where she had gotten another bumper sticker. “That place is a zoo,” she said. Yep. It is. The Berkeley campaign office always seems to be packed to the rafters with phone bankers, data entry folks, and people who just want to do stuff.

Here in Berkeley the town is full of people who want to do what they can. People are driving to Nevada on the weekends. I went a few weekends ago. People are phone banking, making calls primarily to Nevada but to other states as well, having phone banking parties, and prior to yesterday, registration drives. It’s like we can’t do enough to get Obama elected. But doing anything here in town locally is just preaching to the choir.

I was having a hard time dealing with the crowds at the campaign office, so I decided to work from home instead. I’ve been emailing my own personal ‘base’, letting them all know what I’ve been up to and what they can do too. I’ve also begun phone banking, using the nifty ‘Neighbor to Neighbor’ program on the campaign site.

The other day I called a man in Ohio, who seemed happy enough that I called, but was flumoxed on who to vote for. He was a fencesitter in the truest sence of the word. One day he was for McCain, the next for Obama. I asked him if he had any issues on which he’d like to have more information. Like, you know, maybe I could clear some things up for him. He rattled off the litany of the economy, the war, healthcare, and any number of others. He truly wanted to know where Obama stood on everything. When I took a moment to think, he interjected, “See, you can’t tell me either!” I said I was taking a moment to mentally sort through the list he had just given me and was trying to figure out where to begin. I asked him if he knew about Obama’s web site, and he replied “No, where is it?” I gave him the information on how to find the site and how to find the information he was looking for. He was happy as a clam.

On another call to Ohio, a woman was suspicious because she had never heard Barack talk about his father. She wanted to vote for him, but thought this might be an issue. So I told her everything I knew about him, and reassured her that yes, Obama has spoken about his father from time to time, and even wrote a book about his relationship with him. She seemed much happier and also welcomed the URL of the web site.

It’s hard to feel like I am making a difference while sitting in a bubble where everyone else is thinking the same way that I am. But I know that each small thing that I do matters.