Watching Out For The Neighbours

03 Nov 2011 1 Comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , ,

Assos - CephaloniaWe are all waiting, with bated breath, to see what will happen next in the unbelievable story of Greece and the Eurozone. I have been guilty of becoming frustrated with the zig-zag path that their politicians are taking, and there are more turns yet to come.

But having watched Joanna Lumley travelling around Greece, it is clear, and I have witnessed it myself in Cephalonia, that the ordinary Greek citizens are not solely responsible for the mess in which they find themselves.

They are a friendly, welcoming and cultured people. Their civilisation and history have left a wonderful legacy in all facets of modern life. The arts, science, politics and medicine were all hugely advanced by the ancient Greeks, and we have much to thank them for.

So whilst it is easy to feel anger towards Greece as a whole, for the way that it is currently deepening the world monetary crisis, that anger must be tempered towards the Greek people themselves. We must use wisdom, courage and compassion in our response to these luckless citizens, who are on a roller-coaster ride to a destination to which they have no personal choice.

Watching the program tonight, I relived the idyllic days of wonderful weather, sights and sounds, and the warm welcome I felt from the locals of Trapazaki and Argostoli the capital of the island. These people deserve our thoughts and prayers in their time of trouble, and maybe we should all make an effort to help by thinking about visiting their beleaguered land and supporting their tourist economy.

Economic Karma

17 Sep 2011 Leave a comment

by Anupadin in Buddhism Tags: , , ,

Broken EuroI don’t know about you, but all this talk of world wide economic strife is starting to get me really worried. We know all about the stringent cuts that the government are pushing through here in the UK. The problem is that we all know we have to do something to reduce our deficit, but there seems to be a growing sense of, that’s fine, just as long as it’s not me that has to reduce my own standard of living.

I don’t want to pick on one country in particular, but Greece is seeing more immediate result of all the irresponsible causes they have made through many preceding years. Their situation appears hopeless, not helped, in my opinion, by loans from the rest of the economic union. Now, either Greece is going to get on with sorting it’s economy out and be beholding to the likes of Germany and France for decades to come. Or they are going to default on the loans, plunging the whole world into an even worse economic situation.

Don’t get me wrong, we are all guilty of spending more than we could afford, not just recently, but for years, all egged on by the ‘buy now, pay later’ society. It just seems that Greece, Portugal, Ireland and even Italy seem to have got themselves in deeper than the rest, but that’s fairly academic.

Just as we are all connected through the universe, our economies are all connected too. Like a set of dominos, if one country falls, there is a pretty good chance that they will all fall, and that will affect every single one of us. That’s how universal economic karma works.

Karma doesn’t only work at the personal level, it works at all levels. The causes we all make, in this case regarding our spending and banking practices, will and are causing effects that we are all feeling. And because we have been making short-sighted crazy causes for years, we can expect to see damaging effects for a long time to come.