Rev. Danny Fisher

Please sign the below petition from Avaaz.org to U.S. government leaders:

Cluster munitions kill children and other civilians long after wars are over–and this week, we have a chance to ban them. 109 countries are in the final stages of negotiation on a cluster bomb ban — but some are trying to water down the treaty with loopholes, exceptions, and delays.

Our information is that the delegations obstructing a strong treaty in the last few days include the UK, France, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Canada, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland…

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Cluster munitions have no place in a civilised world. I am writing to urge that your government negotiate and adopt a treaty to ban cluster bombs with no exceptions, no delays and no loopholes, and provide all necessary assistance to affected communities and victims.

Please do not waste this opportunity to ban cluster bombs and make history in Dublin.

Add your name to the petition here.

More bad news from Burma, courtesy of the Associated Press:

Myanmar’s military regime on Tuesday extended the house arrest of democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, refusing to bow to international pressure of the sort that persuaded the generals to let in foreign help for cyclone victims.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who has been detained for more than 12 of the past 18 years, had her detention extended by one year, said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Her detention has long been the symbol of the regime’s heavy-handed intolerance of democratic opposition to its rule, and there is a worldwide campaign lobbying for her release.

President Bush said he was “deeply troubled” by the extension of Suu Kyi’s house arrest but stressed that the U.S. would continue to provide aid for Myanmar’s cyclone survivors.

British Foreign Secretary David Milliband said he was “was saddened, if not surprised,” by the decision to keep her detained.

“While our immediate focus is on relieving the suffering caused by the recent cyclone, restoration of democracy in Burma is still vital for that country’s long-term future,” Milliband said.

[...]

[Suu Kyi's] National League for Democracy party is the country’s largest legal opposition group, and it retains the loyalty of millions of citizens despite two decades of repression.

The party won the most seats in 1990 elections, but the military refused to convene parliament. Instead, it harassed and arrested members of the party, setting a pattern that still stands.

Tuesday was the anniversary of the abortive election victory, and about 200 members attended a ceremony at the party headquarters.

Standing in front of the dilapidated building, about 30 supporters held a banner calling for Suu Kyi’s release and chanted: “Aung San Suu Kyi. Release her immediately.”

They also observed a minute of silence for those killed by Cyclone Nargis and for “democracy heroes” while plainclothes police videotaped and photographed the participants.

Police later hauled away about 20 party members who were protesting Suu Kyi’s detention. Witnesses saw riot police shove the protesters into a truck as they were marching from the party headquarters toward Suu Kyi’s home.

The intersection on the street to Suu Kyi’s house, always barricaded, was more closely guarded than usual Tuesday. The barricades were pushed aside to let some Home Ministry officials go to her house Tuesday afternoon to deliver the order extending her detention.

In the first week after the cyclone, Suu Kyi lived in virtual darkness after the storm blew part of the roof off her house, according to one of her neighbors.

The neighbor, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid government harassment, said electricity lines to Suu Kyi’s dilapidated lakeside bungalow were snapped by the cyclone, and he could see candles burning at night in her house.

Suu Kyi’s latest period of detention started in May 2003 after a motorcade in which she was traveling was attacked by a pro-government mob. An unknown number of her followers, perhaps several dozen, were killed in the attack, which was regarded by some diplomats and specialists following Myanmar affairs as a botched assassination attempt.

She has appeared in public only once in the past five years — she was allowed to stand at the open gate of her compound during last September’s pro-democracy protests in Yangon. Only a few hundred demonstrators who were allowed to march down her street got a glimpse of her.

I’ll join the rest of my colleagues in the Buddhoblogosphere by linking to this article in today’s New York Times about how the use of mindfulness meditation in psychotherapy is “gaining ground.”

For years, psychotherapists have worked to relieve suffering by reframing the content of patients’ thoughts, directly altering behavior or helping people gain insight into the subconscious sources of their despair and anxiety. The promise of mindfulness meditation is that it can help patients endure flash floods of emotion during the therapeutic process — and ultimately alter reactions to daily experience at a level that words cannot reach. “The interest in this has just taken off,” said Zindel Segal, a psychologist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, where the above group therapy session was taped. “And I think a big part of it is that more and more therapists are practicing some form of contemplation themselves and want to bring that into therapy.”

At workshops and conferences across the country, students, counselors and psychologists in private practice throng lectures on mindfulness. The National Institutes of Health is financing more than 50 studies testing mindfulness techniques, up from 3 in 2000, to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.

Some proponents say Buddha’s arrival in psychotherapy signals a broader opening in the culture at large — a way to access deeper healing, a hidden path revealed.

Yet so far, the evidence that mindfulness meditation helps relieve psychiatric symptoms is thin, and in some cases, it may make people worse, some studies suggest. Many researchers now worry that the enthusiasm for Buddhist practice will run so far ahead of the science that this promising psychological tool could turn into another fad.

Read the full piece here.

Visit http://www.burmaitcantwait.org.