Eric Arnow link page

Eric Arnow has his own web site now. For years I've been putting his letters from Asia here. From now on they'll go on his site, the Bumble Buddhist which also now has all the previous ones from cuke and photos more. - dc

10-01-05
Subject: Off to Burma

Dear friends:

I am in an internet cafe in Chiang Mai, my home base here in Thailand. In a couple of hours I will be on a plane to Rangoon (or Yangon) for a short plane ride to a place still far removed given its short distance. Rangoon is closer to Chiang Mai than much of Thailand, but because of the lack of communication, I will be out of touch for two months.

I plan to spend two months at a forest monastery a 6 hour (by Thai standards) bus ride from Rangoon. It might well take longer. This should be a real adventure.  I was thinking back to over 30 years ago, when I went to live at Tassajara Zen Monastery for two years, from 1972-74.

After graduating from college, I was in a real quandary because I saw the country going in such a terrible direction that I didn't want to be part of it. I told a cousin that if it is a dog eat dog world, I didn't want to have to eat the flesh of dogs.

So there I was in the forest monastery, and while there, we had an energy crisis, a war in the Middle East, not to mention the ongoing disaster in Vietnam, and a thoroughly corrupt Presidency go down in flames, as Nixon was deserted by his own gang of thieves. Nixon himself said the country had grown "ungovernable". That is the reason he lost support. Watergate was kid stuff compared to the war crimes against Cambodia and Vietnam, and his probable role in JKF's assassination.  But the true crimes are never prosecuted. At least not as of this writing.  If we ever have a really independent Truth Commission, it will make the Revolution in France look like small potatoes.Consider:

When was the last time CNN reported on the $2.3 Trillion missing from Pentagon expenditures? When will FOX report on the CIA/Bush drug dealing? Or interview Lee Hamilton, a Democratic Congressman who investigated Iran Contra, who years later said they had the evidence to impeach Reagan. Hamilton was put onto the 911 Commission, so you can bet they left a lot of highly incriminating evidence out (not even mentioning the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, which was not hit by anything.)

A friend just told me that PG&E is raising natural gas rates 71%.

Mike Ruppert, <http://www.fromthewilderness.com>www.fromthewilderness.com  has dissected 911 as an inside job perpetrated in response to a major energy crisis that the oligarchs who actually govern America saw coming down the pike. Hence their plan to capture Middle East oil supplies and infrastructure in Afghanistan and Iraq. Two years ago, he predicted a major natural gas shortfall in two years.

At the time a company called Chesapeake Energy was trading at $14 a share. Natural gas prices have tripled in the last two years, and the stock is now trading at $38, having doubled in the last six months. Likewise, Valero, the gas station company stock has also tripled in the last year. Ruppert was right about natural gas, too.

Expect a repeat of the 70's economically, only probably more intense. Gold now, as then is also hitting multi year highs. Some people are predicting that the Bush era is in melt down. Maybe so.

I sometimes joke that when I went to Tassajara to do a sit (as in meditation) in, my prayers were answered with the removal of Nixon from office. May we all be similarly rewarded.

I just don't understand though why I knew his Presidency would be such a disaster when hardly anybody else did. I told Santa Rosa TV 22 on election eve 2000 that if he were President, the country would get burned.   It think it is because I read "The Unauthorized Biography of George Bush", the father that is. It is on the net. Author is Webster Tarpley, who recently wrote a book entitled, Synthetic Terror. Also well worth a read so you can understand how the real world works.

As for the criticism that I am running away, I fully accept responsibility. Before going to Asia, I did a one day seminar on Confucius, who asserted that sometimes, things go so far awry, that, in his words, the "prudent man" withdraws and conserves energy, waiting for conditions to change as they inevitably do.

So off I go, not having a specific idea as to whether I will return to America thereafter, or continue to stay here. I will be out of touch for two months, until December. I will write back then. I think this will be quite an adventure. There is a meditation on loving kindness that I will leave you with.

May you be safe and protected from harm from others or causing harm to yourself

May you be happy and peaceful of mind
May you be strong and healthy of body
May you go through life easily.
 

Kind regards,

Eric