Glossory of Terms Used

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The Beginners mind describes a way of perceiving a thing or an event purely as it is, without pre-judgments, expectations, or emotional attachments. The beginner's mind is open to all possibilities. It's a way of thinking outside the box. It's a way of viewing something as if seeing it for the very first time. He who is in the beginner's mind, as much as possible, steps outside of his/her conditioning.

This is the way Einstein and other scientists have been able to imagine things, concepts, and ideas that the rest of the world had never seen before. When a theory proved false, they simply set it aside and move on. A classic story of a beginners mind was demonstrated many years ago by the scientists in the research laboratories of General Electric.

Whenever a new researcher would join the GE staff, his first assignment would be to figure out how to frost a light bulb on the inside. As you Probably know, the original light bulbs were simply clear glass globes with no light-diffusing coating on them. In those says, everyone knew it was impossible to frost a light bulb on the inside.

Each new researcher would work for a couple of months on this impossible task, and then, one day, the other researchers would gather together around him and tell the new guy he'd been the sucker for a long-standing joke. This went on for several years until one new researcher successfully frosted a light bulb on the inside. Why did he succeed where other's failed? Primarily because he viewed the challenge from the beginner's mind. He didn't "already know" that it was impossible.

Buddha Gift:

A Buddha Gift is a gift in disguise. We simply do not have enough information to know the long-term outcome of our experiences. If you look at everything that feels uncomfortable and ask, "Where is the blessing in this?" you’ll be amazed at what the result will be. Most people are too busy crying and complaining to see the gifts in their painful experiences, and so, they often miss them.

When something occurs in your life that you'd prefer not to experience, look for a gift within that incident; look for a blessing in disguise. That blessing is called a Buddha gift.

Buttons -- Pushing Your Buttons:

When we get upset as a result of what someone says or does, or as a result of your own behavior, we call that "having our buttons pushed."

Here's the ultimate answer to: "How can I prevent people and events from pushing my buttons." Get rid of the buttons! In many cases, this will be the eventual result for those of you who use the practices and techniques offered in this book. Some buttons will disappear rather quickly, others may take some time.

ce, bce, ad, and bc:

CE stands for "Common Era." It is a relatively new term that is now frequently used instead of AD as a date reference in non Christian writings.

AD is an abbreviation for "Anno Domini" in Latin or "the year of the Lord" in English.

BCE stands for "Before the common era." BCE is also a relatively new term that is now frequently used instead of BC as a date reference in non Christian writings.

BC is an abbreviation for "Before Christ

Reference: http://www.religioustolerance.org/ce.htm

Context:

See the section titled: What is a Context?

Efficiency:

Producing the highest quality goods (or services) at the lowest possible cost, while using the least amount of labor, energy and natural resources in their creation, maintenance, and eventual disposition as trash. (Or their eventual conversion into raw materials for future products)

Ego-atheist:

Ego-atheists are quite different from humanistic atheists who are usually very caring and very loving.

To the ego-atheist, everyone else is expendable and will, whenever necessary, be used or sacrificed for personal gain and then discarded with the same thoughtlessness applied to discarding cigarette butts and with the same callousness with which they are presently murdering for money the last three-percent of our virgin redwood forests.

For the ego-atheists, might makes right. Wealth and power rule. For a look at the beliefs held by the worshipers of the Great God Money, see the list below:

The Sacred, Ego-Atheist Doctrine
of
The Church of Cheezus Dollars.

The typical villain in a James-Bond-type book or film exhibits certain character traits. Like dogs bark and cats meow, villains also express their own predictable behavior patterns. Below is a not-so-subtle, poke-fun-at-em description of those behaviors. Unfortunately, we also, at times, see some of these character traits in real life ego-atheists.

(A) Self-interest as Prima Donna.

(B) The only criteria for judging actions is "THE-BOTTOM-LINE.”
What is the physical result? -- Did I get what I want?

(C)    Acts of war'ship to the deity, The-Great-God-Money" are
          rewarded, not in some pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by kind of way,
          but in the “prove-it-to-me,” “show-it-to-me” tradition of:
        "Lie another lie and kiss my thigh all the way to the bank."

(D) All the invisible hocus-pocus that the old, "religious fools" call
“spirit" has been neatly thrown away.

(E) There is absolutely no consequence or responsibility for
any actions -- unless the doer gets caught in the act.

(F)    The long-term effects of one’s actions upon the Earthly
           environment and upon future generations are completely
            irrelevant.

(G) As war’shippers of The Great God Money, they even have
their own Golden Rule: “He who holds the gold, rules.”

Futile Gesturing:

Taking an action that, if you are honest with yourself, you know will not get you the result you want, but taking that action anyway. It's often an excuse for failure or a way to avoid admitting failure. It's another way of saying, "I'll try."

(The) Great-God-Money:

That powerful, mysterious, magical, non-physical aspect of money which (along with its presence or absence) dominates and dictates the behavior of most human beings.

Here and Now:

Being here and now is being totally focused on what one is experiencing in the present moment. Being here and now is living in "no time." Being here and now contains both the past, the present, and the future.

For example: An artist drawing a picture who is completely here and now in his/her creation process while using skills and techniques learned in the past in order to create a work of art that will only be completed some time in the future. The skills learned, the memories of the past and the vision of the future are focused on being in this moment right here right now.

No matter where you go, you are always here, and no matter what the clock says, the time is always now. If your consciousness is anywhere else, you miss experiencing life as it is unfolding.

Here and now is you point of power. It is where and when you re-create your life. You are doing that in every waking moment anyway, so why not create your future by intention rather than by default.

Hypothesis:

An unproven theory, a best guess, speculation, supposition, about the reality of something. Temporarily accepted as a possible explanation for presently available evidence. When conclusive evidence is not available, a hypothesis is often used as a temporary tool for examining existing evidence and/or for finding additional evidence that supports or refutes the theory.

I Am:

The sacred essence of self; the "God" within; the unspeakable name of "God".

Parallax:

The apparent change in something due to viewing it from a slightly different position or perspective.

Projection:

Transferring undesirable aspects of self onto someone or something else. Seeing attributes in someone else that you can't or won't see in yourself.

Spirituality:

See: Religion / Spirituality

Symptom:

A symptom is a circumstance, event or condition that accompanies something else and indicates its existence or occurrence. It's a sign; it's an indication, it's the indicator of something in addition to and other than itself.

For Example, what appears to be a problem in our lives is often not really the problem, but rather it's a symptom of something that lies hidden somewhere else. The following old anecdote illustrates this:

On a dark night, a drunk was found by a friendly neighbor wandering around looking at the ground under a street light. When asked what he was doing, the drunk replied, "I dropped my house keys and I'm looking for them."

The neighbor joined the hunt, but after an intensive search the keys remained lost. The helper stopped looking, turned to the drunk and said, "Your keys ought to be easy to find, right here under the street light, but they're not here. Can you remember more precisely where you were standing when you dropped them?"

"Yup." said the drunk as he pointed to a dark area in front of a nearby house, "I sure can. I was over there in my front yard."

The neighbor was taken aback. He looked intensely at the drunk and asked, "If you dropped your keys over there, why are you looking here?"

The drunk looked back at his neighbor and replied, " I'm looking here because the light's much brighter here."

One of the symptoms related our drunken friend's problem of lost keys was that he couldn't see the ground under his feet, so he fixed that symptoms by looking where it was light. In searching under the street light, what do you suppose his chances were of finding the lost keys.

We can take this concept into our own lives and ask, "Are we looking in the right places to find our answers, to find solutions to our problems, to find the path to our goals?"

Scapegoat:

Someone or something used as a projection target for the unwanted situation, condition, or aspects of one's self. Someone on whom to place the blame.

Win-Win:

To function in a manner that creates only winners or neutral, unaffected third parties while also being positive or neutral to our environment and to the future of humanity.

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