March 8 | What to Do, continued By Pat Bishop What to do in the face of this worldwide disregard of life itself?   Well, we've seen how religion is used as "The Great Excuse" for every horrifying desecration we are witnessing. It's spinning out of control: materialism at any cost; lying; cruelty; stealing; hatred; torture; fascism. It's deafening, it's loud, it's crude, it's ignorant, it's sociopathic, it's homicidal. It's ego run rampant and insane.  Greed knows no limit or fulfillment.   Do you know of any religion that goes for that kind of stuff? Of course not. So, it is not religion.   Many of us learned faith early on in life that we could recognize in our viscera, our hearts, it becoming our modus operandi to not harm, choose love, and protect life. Real religion doesn't advertise. It's something inside that moves us without thought of strong-arming anyone to believe the way we do. Spirituality has a natural dignity that accommodates and reasons and forgives.   I'm a practicing Buddhist who is not religious. Nobody knows about it and those who live with me but don't talk about spirituality much. I'm as confused as the next person, but I attempt to experience greater realities through simple discipline so that I may discover my heart every day I do this by stretching and challenging my all-too-human tendencies.   One practice is called Tonglen, Sending and Taking. Like today, I breathed in Bush's heaviness and sadness, and sent him the gold of well-being. Hey, if he's happy and content, maybe he won't kill anymore, maybe he and his friends will lose interest. I start with one person and expand that until everyone in the world is touched by it.   Energy is energy, and since we're all connected (believe you me, we are in fact) we affect and effect one another profoundly. Goodness is sound stuff. It is thoroughly sane and tough and will be there to carry on once these seemingly human underworlders are tied up and bagged. By who, you ask? By the weight of their own confusion they'll destroy themselves. Have no doubt.   So whatever it is you do, whether it's prayer or ritual, it's a way of taking care of yourself and loved ones. Discipline's a good thing that can bring about freedom and youth and suppleness, the ability to have fun and love, and keep us from being grabby and mean most of the time. Kinda like combing your hair every day. Worth a try.     When I speak of personal discipline it is meant as a means to target and create effective passion, or, effective action. It's a means of being so in the present that you can see the wider spectrum and probabilities being born.   There is relaxed awareness and there is hyper awareness. Being all too familiar with the latter, some self-regulation is an absolute necessity when you care so damn much about what's happening around us.  It's imperative that the big picture remains in view. Otherwise, I think I'd choke on my own grief and give up.   Mercury's retrograde is like breathing in, otherwise we couldn't breathe out. Yeah, baby, we'd stop breathing. So what? It only goes against what we believe to be effective. We could go to the other extreme like some folks whose self-care is stultifyingly boring. Pull-up-the-anchor-I'm-aboard and fuck you. Old Mr. Death chases them with his scythe whooshing right behind. Absolutely useless. Dried branches scratching against the window or maybe glass harmonicas. They never know intimacy or risk or passion or walking through fire for love.   So, do we choose non-involvement or coolness . . . or are we so passionate we regulate ourselves to wage protection and love with swords so sharp only one swoop of the blade does the job at the right time in precisely the right moment? No waste. No need for anesthetic.   Aim that passion baby, feel and be involved in all of it, put your ass on the line, communicate and risk, be willing to be a fool, and breathe out your fire.