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From a World of Madness to a World of Sanity: Guides for Action

by George R. Marshall

190 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0265; ISBN 1-55369-452-X; US$24.95, C$24.95, EUR17.50, £12.50

The positive actions people are taking to create a better world that act as positive models for all of us. Is it possible for us to establish a Sane Society? Is each of the following a realistic goal or an oxymoron: Inspiring Education, Honest Communication, Compassionate Community, Humanistic Economics, Moral Politics, Ethical business, and Enlightened Military?

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About the book      About the author      Table of Contents and Sample excerpts      Catalogue info

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About the Book Is it possible for us to establish a Sane Society? Is each of the following a realistic goal or an oxymoron: Inspiring Education, Honest Communication, Compassionate Community, Humanistic Economics, Moral Politics, Ethical Business, and Enlightened Military. The introduction to the book quotes as follows: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has. - MARGARET MEAD (1901-1978), AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST We rely so much on each other and are so interconnected that without a sense of universal responsibility, a feeling of universal brotherhood and sisterhood, and an understanding that we really are part of one big human family, we cannot hope to overcome human suffering, let alone bring about peace and happiness. - TENZIN GYATSO, THE FOURTEENTH DALAI LAMA OF TIBET In part, this book is a survey of the positive news in the world. There are so many good people doing good things. The more we know about this side of things the more we empower each other and ourselves to deny programs, policies, and actions that are dishonest, uncaring, and evil. As an early reviewer noted: This book provides a real service because it pulls together innovative thinking and approaches addressing many of the world's problems. One should read this book if one has concerns for the state and future of the world and wishes to obtain guidance as to how to get involved. Personal experiences and examples are used to highlight points being made. Is it possible for us to establish a sane world? This book says emphatically YES! And to quote and ancient Chinese proverb: The people who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. Whether we are retelling history or reporting the daily news our culture seems to focus on the bad news - the wars and tragedies. Does our psychology condemn us to a fascination with destruction and disaster? The children of the world, who will inherit what is left, deserve a good earth. I, personally, have no faith in space stations as an alternative to living on the earth. We should focus on cleaning up the mess we have here. That mess includes the pollution in our minds and hearts as well as the pollution all around us. With open minds that can hold a very broad vision and with the development of world law and equitable economic and social situations, we just might survive and thrive. A brief note on the organization of the book: I have kept the chapters short and have appended, at times, fairly lengthy references and footnotes. Whenever possible I have also appended websites where readers can acquire even more information in depth. This three-tiered approach allows readers to determine where they wish to explore. Review I had only started with the book, but even with just starting to go though it, I felt this was a book I wanted to recommend. I have now finished the book and I wanted to give you a short review and recommend that you go and purchase a copy. This book is non-fiction and consists of nine chapters. It makes literal use of the Buddhism and Shambhala philosophies and teachings. Basically the Shambhala teaching is that basic human nature can help solve personal problems and even the world's problems! How to wake up and appreciate every moment of our lives. How difficulties and obstacles do not have to defeat us. It has been a long time since I read a book that has impacted me like this. Probably since I was in High School! It is very thought provoking and I have found that my mindset must be almost all in networking, every chapter I read reminded me of my philosophies that I have for my business. This is not a book that you should just sit down, read and put on the shelf. This is a book that I will be using as a daily part of my personal growth for probably the rest of the year. At the end of every chapter are references and footnotes and most of these lead to more information on the web. You know how important I think personal growth is for you to achieve success in your business. This is a book I recommend you to go and purchase and to use for your own personal growth reading. This one book is basically all you will need for a year if you use the book for further study. It is not that the book will take a year to read, for it is less then 200 pages. But it is what I am going to use for my "study" book by further digging into depth by using the footnotes and reference pages. I am excited about this! As I mentioned, I do a lot of reading, but this book MADE me want to go beyond just reading it. I am going to take each chapter now that I have read the book, and study the areas I want to explore even further. I love so many parts of this book, but I will leave you with the introduction to Chapter 3 - Clear Communication. "The point is you have to work. And that's why the propaganda system is so successful. Very few people are going to have the time or the energy or the commitment to carry out the constant battle that's required to get outside of the MacNeil/Lehrer or Dan Rather or somebody like that. The easy thing to do you know - you come home from work, you're tired, you've had a busy day, you're not going to spend the evening carrying on a research project, so you turn on the tube and say its probably right, or you look at the headlines in the paper and then you watch the sports or something. That's basically the way the system of indoctrination works. Sure the other stuff is there, but you're going to have to work to find it." from NOAM CHOMSKY, MANUFACTURING CONSENT:NOAM CHOMSKY AND THE MEDIA Peggy Hendricks, Associate of QuickPros and Life Force International

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About the Author Between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four, the author worked as a newspaper delivery boy, a farm hand, a truck driver, a draftsman, a shoe salesman, an insurance underwriter, a teaching assistant and researcher, a producer of children's records and a ski instructor. Dr. Marshall was the chairman and Founder of Clear Picture Corporation (http://www.clearpicture.com/) until retirement in 2001. George received his Ph.D. in Psychology from New York University and has held professorships in departments of psychology, management and computer science in various universities in Canada and the United states. He authored three books (all published by Prentice-Hall) on the application of information technology to problem analysis and communication and a book of children's poetry entitled This Bus is Stuffed to the Brim. George has been a student of Tibetan Buddhism for three decades. He was born in London, England, lived for many years in the United States and currently makes his home in Nova Scotia. His two married children, both visual artists, and their spouses and one grandchild live in Holland. Continuing passions including Shambhala/Buddhism, people, writing, music, art, skiing, sailing, golf, and absorbing projects executed with a creative team of people. He is currently working on another book of a more personal nature and exploring the establishment of an art gallery on a country property in Nova Scotia. Click here to contact the author, GEORGE MARSHALL

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Table of Contents and Sample Excerpts

From a World of Madness to a World of
Sanity: Guides for Action
Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter 1: Creating a Sane Society: The Shambhala Principles
Chapter 2: Inspiring Education
Chapter 3: Clear Communication
Chapter 4: Compassionate Community
Chapter 5: Humanistic Economics
Chapter 6: Moral Politics
Chapter 7: Ethical Business
Chapter 8: Enlightened Military
Chapter 9: Future Prospects
Index

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has.
- MARGARET MEAD (1901-1978),
  AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST

We rely so much on each other and are so interconnected that without a sense of universal responsibility, a feeling of universal brotherhood and sisterhood, and an understanding that we really are part of one big human family, we cannot hope to overcome human suffering, let alone bring about peace and happiness.
- TENZIN GYATSO,THE FOURTEENTH
  DALAI LAMA OF TIBET

    In part, this book is a survey of the positive news in the world. There are so many good people doing good things. The more we know about this side of things the more we empower each other and ourselves to deny programs, policies, and actions that are dishonest, uncaring, and evil.
    I feel that the main news media are doing the world a great disservice. Instead of reporting a selection of news that helps establish a balanced view of the world, they are convincing us that the world is going to hell in a handbasket. One of my tasks in writing this book is to provide the reader with resources that are focused on positive news, whether in print, visual media, or via the Internet.
    I asked my daughter, Dana Marshall, a professional art photographer living in Holland, how current photography misses the mark and fails to capture the positive news.
    Her reply:

It is not that current photography misses the mark so much as there are not many photographers concentrating on the positive side of life. I actually don't know of any documentary photographers who are focused on the positive news. It seems that "art" photography has a tendency to see the beauty and that "journalistic" photography looks at the pain and suffering.

    Whether we are retelling history or reporting the daily news our culture seems to focus on the bad news-the wars and tragedies. Does our psychology condemn us to a fascination with destruction and disaster?

We normally think of history as one catastrophe after another, war followed by war, outrage by outrage-almost as if history were nothing more than all the narratives of human pain, assembled in sequence. And surely this is, often enough, an adequate description. But history is also the narratives of grace, the recounting of those blessed and inexplicable moments when someone did something for someone else, saved a life, bestowed a gift, gave something, beyond what was required by circumstances.

    The above is the first part of the introduction to Thomas Cahill's book series, Hinges of History. These books are wonderful-"captivating . . . persuasive . . . poetic,"-and provide a positive view of our past and our inheritance. Thus far, Cahill has published two of the seven volumes planned:
1. The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels, and
2. How the Irish Saved Civilization: the Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe.

    Cahill's introduction concludes:

In this series, the Hinges of History, I mean to recall the story of the Western world as the story of the great gift-givers, those who entrusted to our keeping one or another of the singular treasures that make up the patrimony of the West. This is also the story of the evolution of Western sensibility, a narration of how we became the people that we are and why we think and feel the way we do. And it is, finally, a recounting of those essential moments when everything was at stake, when the mighty stream that became Western history was in ultimate danger and might have divided into a hundred useless tributaries or frozen in death or evaporated altogether. But the great gift-givers, arriving in the moment of crisis, provided for transition, for transformation, and even transfiguration, leaving us a world more varied and complex, more awesome and delightful, more beautiful and strong than the one they had found (Emphasis added).

    The news we record becomes our history. For example, the New York Times maintains an extensive library of past news stories; that library is used extensively for historical research.
    In contrast to Cahill's histories, the primary news media focus on the bad news. Ken Einhorn, a news-manager with CBS in New York, informed me that they do consider broadcasting positive news, but are not convinced that positive news would command an audience.
    Happily, the work of Randy Cassingham, publisher of two positive newsletters on the Internet, speaks to the contrary. In less than two years, Randy built up an audience of 32,000 subscribers in 106 countries for his HeroicStories that, he says, "proves that people are interested in 'good news' if it's presented well." His column This is True has been around seven years and has 156,000 readers in 192 countries, covering human foibles in a light-hearted fashion. Together, Cassingham says, the two publications cover 'news on the less-depressing side of life' (http://www.thisistrue.com and http://www.HeroicStories.com)
    The audience for the CBS or CNN news is undoubtedly much larger, but judging from the results of an informal survey, the main news media are overestimating their audience. Everyone I spoke to is increasingly put off by the emphasis on mayhem in the main news media and has stopped watching the news, except very selectively: I look at the sports scores or the business news and then turn it off.

Another "Hinge of History"

    Regardless of one's religious beliefs or affiliation, the teachings of Buddhism and Shambhala can add another positive dimension to one's understanding of world events and how they may be influenced. In this book, I make liberal use of references to these philosophies and teachings to illustrate or confirm important points. Chapter 1 provides the background and explanation for this approach.

Not long before his death, the great historian Arnold Toynbee was asked to name what he considered to be the most significant event or phenomenon of the 20th century. It was not one of the great world wars, nuclear fission, television, or the computer. It was, he said, "the coming of Buddhism to the West."
- UTNE READER, MARCH/APRIL 1993
Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dog-mas and theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity.
- ALBERT EINSTEIN
What's important about the Shambhala initiative is that it goes beyond any religion, makes practices for exploring one's own mind and sanity available to all and, further, establishes the means to create a sane society-thus moving beyond individual salvation.
- BROTHER WAYNE TEASDALE,
  A TRUSTEE OF THE PARLIAMENT OF WORLD RELIGIONS

    I believe that the introduction of Shambhala Buddhism into the Western world-as presented by Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche and his son, Mipham Rinpoche-will be experienced as another great gift, another "Hinge of History," "another awesome and delightful transfiguration leaving us a world more beautiful and strong."

"The purpose of Shambhala is to establish a sane society."
- CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA, RINPOCHE

    Some would say that establishing a sane society is an impossible task. My response, to quote an ancient Chinese proverb, is as follows:

The people who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it.

    The children of the world, who will inherit what is left, deserve a good earth. I, personally, have no faith in space stations as an alternative to living on the earth. We should focus on cleaning up the mess we have here. That mess includes the pollution in our minds and hearts as well as the pollution all around us.
    With open minds that can hold a very broad vision and with the development of world law and equitable economic and social situations, we just might survive and thrive.
    A brief note on the organization of the book: I have kept the chapters short and have appended, at times, fairly lengthy references and footnotes. Whenever possible I have also appended websites where readers can acquire even more information in depth. This three-tiered approach allows readers to determine where they wish to explore. In some cases a referenced website may no longer exist. I encourage the reader to use search engines to find others. I have found http://www.google.com to be very helpful.
    Further, there are some major areas of human activity that are not covered in this book, including the sciences, the arts and health services. I did not cover sciences and arts because the book would have been far too fat and these areas require extensive research. I left out health services because there is such a wealth of information and guidance available on traditional and alternative health and medical options-sometimes confusing but nevertheless available.
    To keep me focused, I have relied on the knowledge and kindness of colleagues, associates and friends. Many people contributed to the contents of this book. I have named as many as I can recall and apologize if I have left anybody out. I have shamelessly used other people's ideas and words but have attempted to give credit, where credit is due, as accurately as possible. Errors that may have occurred are my responsibility completely.

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Catalogue Information

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