On Wed, 10 Mar 2004, Joel Aufrecht wrote:
>
> My question is: (ask the buddhist) someone stole the bicycle light
> from my bicycle, which I discovered this morning.  How do I stop
> feeling pissed off and violated?

There are certainly a number of ways of going about this.

You are a very intellegent person, so perhaps you want to take this as
a great opportunity to see how your mind works and explore this
feeling. Some questiosn you might ask yourself, is "if this feeling is
a real thing, then it should have a color, a shape, a location, or
other identifying marks, what are these? Is this feeling a single
feeling or does it have parts, and if it has parts what are they?"
Actually try to answer the question, and watch what your mind does.

Another method is comparison.
-If one was following the news, one might have noted that in the fall
of 2000 the election was stolen in the United States, losing a bike
light is nothing to be upset about compared to having your rightful
leader cheated out of office.
-Or how about the massive theft of taxes from the American taxpayer,
to finance a campaign of demoralizing, bombing, beating, raping,
killing, and stealing from the Iraqui people. Losing a bike light is
nothing compared to losing 79-Billion dollars, or your life, liberty,
and/or pursiut of happiness.

Contemplation of impermanence.
-At one point or another, you will lose everything that you have ever
owned. This is true of all people. Your life is short, and precious.
You will die, why waste your precious life away wishing harm on others
who will also die in due course?
-Nothing lasts forever. Even the greatest mountains are slowly ground
into sand by the weather, leaving nothing in their place. That bike
light too will break, buying a new one means that it'll be longer
before you have to replace your bike light again.

Compassion.
-If someone was willing to steal a bike light things must be quite bad
for them. Usually if someone could afford it they'd just buy one
right? So if someone stole your bike light, perhaps they are already
suffering more than you are.

If you were the type of person who was interested in faith, devotion,
or perhaps just turning the tables on your habitual patterns you might
recite the "four immeasurables", with this loss in your mind.
{
  May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.
  May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.
  May we never be separated from the great happiness devoid of
      suffering.
  May we dwell in the great equanimity, free from passion, aggression
      and prejudice.
}
You could even replace the "all beings" and "we" with "the person who
stole my bike light". And watch what happens after you say that about
a dozen times slowly. (repeat as needed ;)

There are lots more I'm sure.

> I was thinking of putting the recharger (without which the light
> won't last long) outside near the bicycle, with a note and some
> money.  I feel like this is going through the motions of not being
> possessive but really I'm still pissed.
>
I wouldn't put out the recharger or money, I think that's just rubbing
it in. If you wanted to write a note, I would suggest politely
explaining that you can not find your bike light, and ask if anyone
can help you find it. Be sure not to accuse anyone of stealing, that
just makes things harder to sort out. Keep it simple, don't get
dramatic. Be happy and thankful if someone returns it.


How's that for an answer?

-Nathan

===

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 22:17:36 +0100
From: Joel Aufrecht <joel>
To: Nathan <nathan>
Subject: Re: Greetings

> How's that for an answer?

It exceeded all expectations.  Would you do me the honor of posting it
on my blog to share?  I will endeavor to do as many steps as I can.

>
> -Nathan
>

... One major problem appears to be that the government wrote this EUR 156M/month anticipated revenue into its budget already. That is why those road-building projects are on hold and those 70,000 jobs are "endangered". Yes, that's right. Someone let a contract for a complex, highly-distributed system, of a sort which did not exist anywhere before, with a non-trusted, indeed partially non-trustworthy, user group numbering in the millions, that would cost of the order of a billion euros and ~450 technical-person-years to develop, which was to be in full revenue service inside a calendar year from development start date. And then apparently allowed the whole [German] road-construction industry to become dependent on that anticipated revenue, as well as part of the railways.

What Congress did in 1954, in an attempt to stimulate investment in manufacturing, was to “accelerate” the depreciation process for new construction. ... In the first few years after a shopping center was built, the depreciation deductions were so large that the mall was almost certainly losing money, at least on paper—which brought with it enormous tax benefits ....

Suddenly it was possible to make much more money investing in things like shopping centers than buying stocks, so money poured into real-estate investment companies.