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It’s easy to harm something else when you think that it is separate from what you are. In the actual tree of life, we are all connected… all one.
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[A frisky squirrel eating one of many acorns.]
Wisely plumping up for winter. Photo by Thomas Peace 2014
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My Blog primarily consists of close-up nature photos (that I've taken locally) combined with original holistic-truth oriented prose and/or poetry involving mindfulness/awareness. I love nature and I love understanding the whole (not merely the parts and the details). I'm a retired teacher of the multiply handicapped.
I have a number of interesting hobbies, such as fossil collecting, sport-kite flying, 3D and 2D close-up photography, holography, and pets. Most of all, I am into holistic self-awareness, spontaneous insight, unconventional observation/direct perception, mindfulness, meditation, world peace, non-fragmentation, population control, vegetarianism, and green energy.
To follow my unique Blog of "Nature Photos and Mindfulness Sayings" and for RSS feeds to my new posts, please access at: tom8pie.com (On my regular Blog posting pages, for additional information and to follow, simply click on the "tack icon" at the upper right corner... or, on my profile page, you can click on the "Thomas Peace" icon.)
Stay mindful, understanding, and caring!...
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
Synchronicity works in mysterious ways…!
On the radio the other night they were discussing the old “five men on the tram line” morality test…
“A tram is coming. There are five men working on the line oblivious to the approaching tram. By chance, you are standing at the points, and at the flick of the switch, can send the tram down another line, on which there is only one workman. Do you flick the switch? Saving the five, but killing the one.”
Apparently, most deemed sane by scientific consensus, would flick the switch.
When they changed the question:
“Rather than standing at the points, you are on a bridge. A stranger is walking towards you. You realise that by pushing the stranger off the bridge to his death, you would cause the tram to stop. Do you push the stranger off the bridge to save the five?”
Apparently not…
There is something deeply embedded, which needs only a personal connection, however fleeting and brief in the act of throwing the stranger from the bridge, to change our perception of consequence, moral culpability and our willingness to cause harm… (even if saving five others would result from our actions…)
Making that (no matter how brief) personal connection with nature may indeed be the key… 😉
A lot of this connection thing is neglected in schools… unfortunately in favor of almost exclusive emphasis on the three Rs. However, not only do we need to be connected with nature… we need to be connected within ourselves. Each one – for the most part – thinks that “he” or “she” is some center apart from (and controlling) the thoughts and images. However, each is those thoughts and images… not something apart from them. To have right relationship (with everything), you must absolutely have right relationship within yourself; and you can’t have right relationship within yourself if your consciousness consists of false conflict and erroneous separation (within and “as” itself).
If the instrument (that is looking) is full of needless conflict and friction… then what it sees will be (a product of) friction and conflict… no matter how much “connection” it claims to perceive.