Re Eniad on tribe Ho'oponopono: Is there a way to reconcile justice and respect?

Answer : balance and justice are the same thing. Please note that on a larger scale, authentic modern democracy is a definite form of reconciling justice and respect, and for mutual education. In this the works of John Locke and Thomas Paine are crucial as a basis for effective communication.

Cultural context:
"Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono" is a Hawaiian phrase meaning: "The life (sovereignty) of the land is perpetuated in (by) righteousness," and is the state motto of Hawaii.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ua_M..._i_ka_Pono

Keywords : ho'oponopono, questions of "rights and responsibilities", John Locke and Thomas Paine, Harvard Law School Negotiation Project, social identity negotiation and social frameworks, cultural bridge development and "bridge persons", Iroquois Confederacy and sustainable environmental democracy, HH the Dalai Lama, Guru Sakyamuni Buddha, Wallace Black Elk, Marilyn Ferguson and the Aquarian Conspiracy.


Mahalo nui loa ( thanks very much ) for accepting me into this tribe some weeks back. First post.

These are very articulate questions, responses, and considerations concerning ho'oponopono.

I have very strong interest in humanitarian principles as expressed in law and negotiation, whether informal and personal, or legalistic and international. In this I mainly follow John Locke and related luminaries, like Thomas Paine.

Locke emphasized that social contracts and relations are not received as fixed definitions, and that education is crucially important in human society. I view ho'oponopono and all negotiations work as essentially a forum for mutual education on rights and responsibilities, both on the levels of the individual and the group.

While living in Manoa ( above Waikiki from late 1992 - early 1996 ) I came across a book on Ho'oponopono.

I immediately recognized it as being essentially parallel to a classical technique used in renunciate Buddhist communities from the very beginning : mutual reconciliation in public in a full community circle, by iterations. This is mentioned in several contexts, and for example by the Vietnamese Mahayana ( Universal Service ) Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh ( whom I do not follow, although we are "related" in that I am a Mahayana Buddhist spiritual doctor through East Asian tantric lineage ).

Some Native American groups have a similar system, for example the Lakota Sioux. The basic idea for the original democratic system of this country was researched by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine among the Iroquois Confederacy.

I do a "great deal" of "social identity negotiation" ( online ) and "social psychology". It is very unfortunate that in my twenties and thirties I really did not understand much at all about my fellow human beings and mostly misread them. The universe was most kind and sent me an amazingly helpful and patient woman ( who did some Master's level work in psychology and anthropology, for example at U Hawaii Manoa ), and finally I figured out how to understand and deal with people, individually and in groups.

It turns out that people can become very very complicated in their internal states and their relations with others, and in enmeshing themselves in karma on different levels, in messing themselves up. However, it also turns out that people are actually very very easy to understand :

I had missed the basics altogether. I thought people basically wanted self-respect and mutual respect and co-operation for "win-win" outcomes, and that over time people come to recognize that sloppiness and immaturity and dishonesty and aggression etc. do not work long term.

Actually, what most people want most of the time is a short cut to a merely personal win. They don't typically want to do anything like win win negotiation ( e.g. Harvard Law School Negotiation Project / "Getting To To Yes" ) or yoga sadhana or Buddhist universal ethics or sustainable environmental democracy. ( My faves. )

The Roman Marcus Aurelius said that "the purpose of Life is not to join with the majority, but to escape the ranks of the insane." I strongly agree. At the same time, we ( relatively few ) who actually give a damn about humanity, the planet, wisdom culture or whatever have a great burden of responsibility based on having more consciousness, more understanding of the law of Cause and Effect.

It is necessary to try to co-operate with others. It is always crucial to know or find out who you are dealing with, and to have serious back up in dicey situations. As time goes on, I try to help more and more people, to build bridges between individuals and groups. Having both the formally received responsibilities of a Lakota Pipe Carrier ( through Wallace Black Elk at a sweat lodge in north Oahu ) and individual vajrayana guru licensing, I am certainly a "bridge person", and core tribe for a few people like Marilyn Ferguson.

When the Dalai Lama came to Hawaii in about 1994, I represented him to the woman speaker of the Hawaii state legislature, and this was what led to his speaking before that government body. I also wrote an article about the visit that reached ten thousand people, and gave some classical Buddhist teaching.

The important thing to note about the Dalai Lama visit to Hawaii was that he wasn't there to ( only ) deliver a message. The Dalai Lama focused more on LISTENING to panel speakers than to talking or putting forward a specific approach. To him, real and reciprocal communication IS the approach, and he always focuses on understanding other people.

This is core to my work in dealing with people and situations and multicultural work. The first and most important thing is to listen. I first heard this teaching from a shaman with a Master's in Social Psychology back in 1983 or so. I said to him "I don't understand people. I don't know how to talk to them or deal with them. What am I supposed to do?"

He said, "Well, the answer to this is very simple: the first and most important thing to do is to listen. Just listen."

Over a period of years I learned that in terms of social engagement, or even in "simply" working with oneself. this was what it all came down to. The other stuff, the magics and the communications technology and program management methodology and the different kinds of psychological skills development, are all good, but they are not so central. What we're doing most of the time, in any context, is simply dealing with people situations, and the only way to gain real understanding or a balanced outcome is to listen, listen, listen, and listen some more. It's not sufficient, but it provides a sound working basis for all the other tool-based approaches.

What I have seen in many contexts, with many kinds of people from throughout the world, is that individuals or groups typically assume a kind of ( limiting ) framework, and expect that others will operate under that framework. But it is not so. No personal or cultural or political or religious framework is a "given". Everything, absolutely everything is up for negotiation. Except for karma.

In yogic and Buddhist science, we say that "Dharma ( authentic spiritual discipline) eliminates karma." As one of my many personal teachers from Asia( Yogi Bhajan ) once said: "Dharrrrmaaahhh heeeleeemeeenates deeee kaaarrrmmmaaaa."

I agree. I'm all about the dharma and the karma. Basically, what I try to tell people comes down to something very simple:
"If dharma is not your karma, then karma will be your dharma." The idea is to be more conscious, more responsible, more free, and more effective. It's quite a bit of work on all levels, but in the long term there really is no alternative. No good alternative anyway. Either you're going for freedom and responsibility and co-operation, or you're not. Either you're going to take a more universal approach to things, one that works with the Law of the Universe, or you're not. We all get to make this choice, over and over again.

For my part, I have wholly rejected the totalitarian systems of "law", whether Fascist, Communist, Medieval Catholic, Islamic, or whatever. I have as my personal and spiritual dharma committed to sustainable environmental democracy, as represented in the human rights treaties of the United Nations and the 1992 Rio Earth Summit NGO treaties.

Law is what we lose under totalitarian systems of religion, politics, and culture. Right now, the Buddhists of Tibet, China, and Burma are losing very badly under totalitarian rule of different kinds. So, this is very much a dominating issue for all Buddhists, particularly in that many or most claim to follow the Mahayana Buddhist path of Universal Service. For ALL Our Relations.

Yes, it's good and necessary to talk things over. However, talk in general is not enough, it is never enough. Not even talk by the Dalai Lama or high-level negotiations in the United Nations.

Same for mantra. I did ten thousand hours of mantra. It's good, but it's not enough. No one thing by itself is "enough".

So we have to ask ourselves and each other : what is good, and what to we have to bring to the table, and how are we going to get to win-win outcomes while blocking worst case scenarios?

My straightforward answer is this "Forty nine percent Dalai Lama and Fifty One Percent Bruce Lee!" In other words, peaceful warriorship. Humanitarian commitment with a well-practiced pair of samurai blades. Humility and caution and reason and co-operation and a ferocious refusal to lose to evil. And strategy strategy and more strategy.

I am a Protector of the Law. I have to be willing to do what is reasonable and necessary to ensure the common good. To be good enough, to develop the wisdom, the compassion, and power to help move things towards good outcomes. In the broader sense, this is mainly pedagogical work, teaching others what I can to help them develop freedom and responsibility and co-operation. This is human values teaching and human effectiveness training, showing people what really matters to provide the motivation, and giving them the skills to work with and through situations.

A lot of skills are necessary. I personally rely strongly on "Getting To Yes" from the Harvard Law School Negotiation Project. That is the basic reference and offering I make here at this time.

Working with people is in general very very difficult. But as the Dalai Lama tells people, "We are all connected through the human spirit."

It is in this sense that we have to recognize that consciousnesss work is inherently transformative on both social and spiritual levels. That these kinds of work are, in a most fundamental sense, one and the same. This is a primary teaching from Guru Sakyamuni Buddha, and remains true and even more important in this present time. We Buddhists call it Mahayana dharma.

Some of the spirit of this original Mahayana teaching and practice is captured in the following Hawaiian phrase

"Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono o hava'ii."
"Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono o hava'ii."
"Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka pono o hava'ii."

"Oh people of Hawaii, the Life of the Land is preserved in rightness of intention and conduct."

So, from my standpoint, the core ho'oponopono is about what we classical Sanskrit-based teachers call dharma, or integrity and commitment, about righteousness in that specific sense.

As well as listening. So with this, I have demonstrated some *actual* connection to the topic: basically, I teach this kind of stuff. I have to: I am a Mahayana spiritual doctor, and this is the kind of approach people need to work together.

I seek first to understand, and then to be understood. To disengage from fighting to the extent possible, and to fight with everything I have as situation ethics require. Rights and responsibilities must be upheld, and in some cases enforced. Rights and responsibilities must be balanced, and this requires ongoing negotiation. This in turn requires that people become educated in basic principles and models of negotiation, evidence, reasoning, communication, ethics, and co-operation. The alternative is a downward spiral into conflict, pain, destruction, bondage and oppression, and sheer hell.

To work on big issues requires a practical and strategic mindset, not just basic ethics. Guru Sakyamuni Buddha was not a pacifist, nor Albert Einstein, and neither is the Dalai Lama. Peace and co-operation are always the priority, and these must be defended as necessary. The approach these teachers of humanity always take is to lead through education on key universal principles. I can offer you nothing better. There is nothing better. It is evident.

With this, I build another bridge of understanding and awareness, based on the principle of balance and a whole systems perspective, karma and dharma. To you and to as many as I can. For All Our Relations.

"As five fingered humans we are all the same. In beauty it is finished."

Best, with apologies for a short post concerning primary topics.

K T
Regional outreach for the International Green Party Movement and Rio Earth Summit ( 1992 )
Pipe Carrier of the Lakota Sioux
Vajrayana Buddhist spiritual doctor

"Our past is not our potential.
With all the stubborn teachers and healers of history who have called us to our higher selves, we can re-choose, to awaken.
Awakening brings its own responsibilities, chosen by each of us, unique to each of us.
But whatever you may have thought about yourself and however long you may have thought it, you are not just you.
You are a seed, a silent promise, you are the conspiracy."
Marilyn Ferguson, the Aquarian Conspiracy.

"These are the times that try men's souls. . . Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value."

—Thomas Paine, 23 December 1776