This page is long and negative aspects. You may want to visit other pages before this page. It may offend some group of people. Sorry for that. I wrote with an hope that it may help some group of people to realize something and help make our world to be a better place. There is a number of teaching styles, right? Some people will get/realize something when being taught nicely with nice words with rational words. Some people are not like that. They are full of ego. Let's begin. (Sometimes the historical Buddha used harsh words to teach too.)

We live in a great country. The way of living here is great. These are what we believe or some group of people make us believe and we are so proud. We have many nicer houses than many other countries have as I knew, heard, and saw through media (by some group of people put them in media.) And then ('01) I heard a news that a mother (Andrea Yates) killed her own 4 children one by one in her own nice house.

Another case recently (7'02), Alex, 13 years old, and Derek, 14 were found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of their father, who was beaten to death with a baseball bat while he slept in his own house then the house was set on fire to cover up the crime. It's not first-degree murder because the jury believe those boys didn't kill their father by themselves but let the killer into the house. Chavis, a friend of their father, also was alleged to have had a sexual relationship with the younger brother. He has admitted picking up the boys, washing their clothes and hiding them for a day before turning them over to authorities. I don't know how many cases like this one did happen in the US.
Back to 1996, Lyle and Erik Menendez (from a rich family) were convicted of first-degree murder on March 20, 1996, for the shotgun killings of their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. They are serving life prison terms without the possibility of parole. Their defence was they were sexual molested by their father.
From www.lectlaw.com of Lyle Menendez' Retrial Opening Statement:
This activity was a grave family secret that they were carrying around with them. And it was that fear of that family secret, and how much Mr. and Mrs. Menendez would do to protect that secret, that caused this terrible thing. It was then when Mrs. Menendez had said they'd ruined the family. After all the other events of that week and of that day that Lyle Menendez freaked out, he panicked, he ran up the stairs where Erik was, said it's happening, they're going to kill us. And that's when they went and frantically loaded the shotguns and came back into the room. Then a number of shots began from those 2 shotguns.

Another case that is still on trial. Oregon city girls: In Jan'02, 13-year-old Ashley Pond vanished on the way to school. Then just 2 months later, one of her friend, also her classmate, Miranda Gaddis, was missing after she left for school too. I saw the later girl on TV too. She was giving a TV interviews about her missing friend. Gaddis was scheduled to perform a dance solo at a benefit for Pond that was to take place only days after she herself disappeared. Both are cute girls, live in the same apartment complex and belong to the same dance team (like cheerleader) at a school. Police and FBI couldn't do anything much until around 6 months later. A guy called the police and told the police that his father had confessed to raping and killing the 2 girls. He called the police because his girlfriend just told him she was raped by his father, Ward Weaver, a 39-year-old single father of five. Then police found Gaddis' body stored in a shed and Pond was soon also discovered inside a barrel that was buried under a recently poured cement slab in the back yard of Weaver's house. Weaver's daughter attends the same school as the two missing girls and is even a member of the dance team. Weaver also said Pond has lived at his home on several different occasions over the last few years and was even informally accused of molesting Pond last year. (Also, dad of Weaver is on death row for killing a pair of young runaways in 1981. The bodies were found under a freshly poured concrete slab behind his home, Weaver's Dad's home.) Also Pond's dad is in a jail because of abusing Pond. What kind of this true story?

Make me think of one of American best movies "American Beauty" (1999). Kevin Spacey won an Academy Award as Best Actor. He played as a middle-aged, middle-American everyman, who lusts for his daughter's friend. The committee gave him the award from this kind of role.
People don't know how dangerous it is to use this kind of story for entertainment. Don't some group of people have never learnt a history that preoccupation of sexual enjoyment can cause disaster of a civilization? I think 99% of American movie has to have sexual scenes.
There was a comedy movie recently ('02), the family of main actor was incestuous (his dad, mother, and sister). How can they use this kind of behavior to entertain people?
I just saw another comedy show yesterday (Sat. 9-28-02) in TV on a regular channel NBC5. They put different animals like big snake, different bugs on almost-naked women (Those women are models wearing bikinis) including putting a big bug in a model's mouth too. "It's sexy. It's sexy" as they said and then took photographs of those models. Were they going to have those model have sex with animals or put those animals in models' pussies? I thought in my mind. How can they use this kind of behavior to entertain people like children and adults?
Then just a few days later (Mon.9-30-02) on another regular channel CH2. There was a scene that a main actor told a main actress (his secretary) to put her both hands on the desk and bend her body and read a letter on the table. As she was doing what he told her, the man spanked her bottom. This scene came from a movie that is about 2 people having this sexual relationship of this kind, sadism. This scene was the starting point of their relationship of this kind. How could they show this on TV?
We should stay away. They shouldn't show these on TV. I know the scenes like these make many people feel EXCITED, RIGHT? But it's not good. As the Buddha taught 2500 years ago, click the sign
How can I escape? They (things/images that make my mind low) are all around me.

Another huge case: child sexual abuse in the Catholic churches all over the US ( Jan'02).
"Hundreds have contacted lawyers with allegations they were abused by priests as children, or have filed civil suits against priests, bishops, and Cardinal Law."
From another news report: "the Diocese of Providence has agreed to pay $13.5 million to settle lawsuits filed by 36 people who said they were sexually abused by clergy in various parishes over many years in the nation's most Catholic state." From another report: "The Catholic Church has paid more than $40 million in settlements to alleged victims in the Boston Archdiocese alone," And more ...

Do you remember Mary Kay Letourneau, a 35 year-old look-pretty married woman (with 4 children) who having sex with a 13 year-old boy, one of her students in 1996? (Now Mary and the student have 2 children.) She came from a rich family. What I want to share is her father was a former congressman who was also a presidential candidate of the United States of America. Also her father had two children with a student at the college where he was teaching. I just knew but was not surprised much. A reason is that even the present President of the United States George W Bush used to have drinking problem. The problem was so much that really affected his wife and his family. Or the previous President Bill Clinton have had a young woman give him oral sex in his office in White House, which was big news of the year.

So ...? I never before heard stories like these above on earth. What happen to this country?
On a Sunday, there were live broadcasts of 2 missing children (on one day) in the area I live. And also there still are many missing children on the list in police stations. These gave me some answers of why I didn't see much of children playing outside on nice yards of their parents' nice houses. Some groups of people in the US are so materialistic.
And the most recent biggest disaster of the country (9/11/01): We believed (or some groups of people made us believe) that we have the most powerful army in the world but then a group of just around 19 people with just cutting tools (taking our airplane with some knowledge of flying from our schools) destroyed the monetary symbol and killed thousands of people of our country, the country that (we believed ,or some groups of people made us believe) has the most hi-tech, sophisticated equipment and organization like FBI, CIA and other intelligence agencies. So what does it mean? Just want you to think carefully.
Someone might say Osama bin Laden mastered minds of those hijackers. What about some groups of people have been mastering minds of a huge number of people by using media to manipulate public opinions and others? They just show some sides of the truth of something but not the whole truth.
I just saw a TV program (Sep'02). TV reporters went to a country and interviewed some people. There was a lady asking American government to come into the country and wash out the government of her country. Are the TV program trying to manipulate our thoughts?
Made me think of the Oklahoma City bombing. An American, Timothy McVeigh, carried out the bombing, which occurred on April 19,1995 and killed 167 people, including 19 children. The target was the American Federal Building. Also I think it's not difficult to find an American giving interview against his own country like that.

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Some (or many) of nice/beautiful things that we see or hear everyday, especially through media, are kinds of big delusion being created by some group of people, especially materialistic people who most probably are carried with knowledge and money, who are so dominated by money and social standing, who are under delusion and full of ego. Use your wisdom to break through delusion to see the truth behind it. Is it really good or beautiful as you hear or see?

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"Our lives are run by corporation." (I just heard this from somewhere. I can't remember.)
We are the ones who create the corporation but then it's running our lives. You can't be yourself because your life are run by the corporation. You work for it. People create corporation with understanding that it will help them to be happier. But after you create it, you attach to it; so that is a (new) problem-- You won't be free. And then things you create most probably are never perfect; so you're gonna face new problems.
Many people never see/know/experience/realize the PERFECTION of things as they are; so they keep creating/searching new things. After creating those thing, they attach to what they created and most probably face new problems.
( However, I can say "There is no perfection in the world." This "perfection" is another interpretation of word "perfection" in some understandings of some people.)
"Attachment (to delusion) is the root problem."

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I saw many ads and many people in media like TV, newspapers, or billboard keeping luring people to buy their products. For example, I just saw an ad having a slogan "Silent is weird" from a big communication company. That can hurt meditation. It's pointing people at a wrong way. It made me think of our children. How many ads they see in each day during the way going to school, see in TV, magazine, Internet, newspaper, and so on. How many times we have opportunities to explain or clarify what it say in those ads to our children or our teenagers? How much did those inappropriate ads shape behavior of our children?

Many ads, not all, give information in one side to make people think those goods is really good. For example, about Internet, those big companies use every marketing strategies like using children as actors or any kind of marketing strategy to make us feel that we have to have it for ourselves or for the ones we love. There are a lot of things in Internet that are real bad for our children, teenagers, or even adults. There are many bad sides about Internet. They don't say it. And this became the right way of doing business.( I mean not telling a number of truths that cause problem.) We are not suppose to let them do these but it became a right way of advertisement already.

Many things, if not all, are not perfect. But some of those high educational and wealthy people, who are most possibly carried away with their wealth and their knowledge, are keeping creating new things, new technology and show only good sides of what they made in order to make them richer. It should not be surprised that the more we create new things, the more problem we have because those thing that they created are never perfect. New technology can make you have more convenient but also it can make you have more problems. At this moment, I'm thinking of a spider trapped by its own webs

Hundreds or thousands years ago, we don't have to have things that we have right now. But now you feel suffering if you don't have them. You feel worried about them. You may even feel you can't live without those kinds of technology. Technology is like impurity to your mind. (Do you think it can be a truth?) It made you far away from yourself. It made you have to depend on it or addicted to it.
We never try to solve the problem at its root, which lies within us everyone. Surely, I didn't refuse that new technology is solution for many problems but I have to tell you that it's temporary solution. For example, you have an old computer. You think it's slow so you buy a new computer with speed of 1GHz. Yes, it's fast. When you started using it, you feel it's fast, you like it. Then a few month later, you most probably feel frustrated because of its speed again. Don't you agree? You can apply this truth to many technology around you right now.
Technology is just short-term solution. Please not to be occupied with it too much. Spend some time to look into yourself and see what is the true cause of all of your sufferings.

I'm gonna show you a small example of the truths that are hidden in ads of car. Again, I didn't mean that car is not good. I would like to share you a way to see things with a number of truths that are ignored and cause problems.

You may think car is good. What's about how to have a car? You have to sacrifice your money, which is hard to earn. You may have to be in debt. Even some people steal a car or steal money to possess a nice car. Even after you have money enough, you still have problem to find a right place or a right people to buy a car fairly. If you are not careful of buying, you're gonna have many problems coming after you. Even after you can find a right place or right person to buy a perfect car for yourself (in fact, it's not perfect car, those people starting from manufacturers down to sellman just making you think that car is perfect.), you have to pay for many details for maintenance or fixing it all over its life, you have to pay for insurance, gas, and so on. Many problems come with a car. When fixing car, you may have a headache again to find a good or honest mechanic or else you're gonna have more problems. If your car was stolen, it's gonna make you even more suffering. Or you have an car accident. Or even your love ones died in car accidents. You may be really surprised at the number of people dying in car accidents in each year.
What's about how to make a car? They have to destroy a lot of non-replaceable natural resources. Gas too. They have to destroy environment, causing environment unbalanced, to have gas to feed car. When the natural resources are not in balance, they may lead to natural disaster like flood or bad weather or anything that even we don't know now. Also, smoke that comes out of car is being a serious problem of some cities. It hurts health of many people, especially children.
What's about garbage that result from car production? There are many kind of garbage from car manufacturer, including toxic chemical.
ALL ads. are trying to put only the idea of having their cars as a excellent decision. Not a company is truly sincere to you and societies by telling the truths about what we are gonna lose to have the car. You may think it's impossible to show that kind of truth. Yes, I most probably agree. But who or what did make it impossible?And also who or what did make it impossible or very difficult not to have a car?

A spider was trapped by its own webs

And this is just a very small example of a product of technology. What is about Internet? Those Internet related companies use a huge amount of money to create the good images of it without caring about negative consequences.
However, I don't want to blame any specific things. Technology is technology. For me, technology is a kind of nature too. There is nothing that is not nature. If we don't try to ignore the truths, technology won't cause many problems to us.

Use technology to live with nature happily, not to destroy the nature for your own happiness or destroy ways of living of some groups of people.

And also I don't want to blame any specific group of people. Everyone just want to be happy. A billionaire or a beggar, well educated or poor literate people, they just want happiness so they did what they think it's gonna make them find happiness.

I prefer to say that we all are victims of delusion.

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Entertainment can entertain us BUT it doesn't mean it's good for us.
"Joke can teach hate." From an ad on TV by a celebrity.
What do you think of your behavior of watching TV or a movie? The behavior that you want to watch a TV program or a movie that can show you something MORE REAL. This is an example of how TV or movie affects your mind. As you see now, reality television shows such as survivor are popular. (However, your mind will change again.)

Watching TV or movie makes you forget your problems temporarily. You have to remind yourself that it is a short-term solution, not true solution for you to depend on. I mention this because many people see actor or actress as if he/she is a god/goddess. Those actors/actress became models of many people.

TELEVISION: It can make thousands of thousands images from one real thing to occur at the same time all over the world. Don't you think it's scary? If you know how much it can affect your mind, I think you will be scared.
Now we realize how much effect a movie have on children so we have the system to grade movie for them. (I'm not sure if we have a scientific proof about that effect.) I think it would be great if we have a grading system for adults.
In simile, it may be like your skin exposed to the sun in summer. You have to be really careful when your mind is exposed to not good programs or not good ads. They can shape who you are without your notice.
"I've been guilty of misusing TV. It is a dangerous medium and is misused all the time." Oprah Winfrey
[ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/284931.stm ]

At the historical Buddha time, there was an actor asking about lifes after death of actors. Click here to read the story.

From above story, it will be helpful to an actor and to the world if the actor is careful about what role he or she choose to play and has right view.

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Many ads from many companies are trying to lure people in many ways without caring about consequences. Many people are in debt because of those things. Many people did illegal things because they want things seen in all over media for themselves or for their love ones to make themselves or their love ones happy or to be accepted by their friends or their love ones. When some people can't find the right way to get it, they get it by illegal ways.
When there is a new invention or a new product that some group of people think it can make money, they will create good images of that product through all over media. Try to say or show good sides of their product. They won't try to talk about negative side or possible negative consequences to people.

Again I don't want to blame any specific group of people, if I can. What I want to deliver here is not to be under delusion of technology. We are not supposed to be so proud when there is a discovery of new technology. We have to have consciousness enough to see the truths that can cause problems. Don't ignore them.
Also, those big companies are supposed to show all necessary facts or truths in order that a consumer has all right information to make right decision on buying products or using services that fit his or her own unique conditions. You (those management people of those big companies) need to do it. For example, an ad say faster is better. You (management people of those big companies) should know faster is not always better and should show why being faster is not always better.
Those management people, who most probably have high education, should have more responsibility in their minds.

For anyone who has a lot of money and want to help people not to be lured. You can use the same tools (Hi-Tech, Media, etc.) that caused people to be away from the truth to bring people back to the truth.
For an example:You can help people by having the other ads showing the negative side of those products. I think it's easy to find the negative sides. This will help people having right information before they decide to buy or not to buy, or ask themselves if it's worth to sacrifice their money to buy or take a risk of doing illegal things to have those. Surprisingly, I just saw ads from thetruth.com. They are about showing the truth of smoking cigarette. They do it by exposing the truth about tobacco so that people can have all of the information necessary to make up their minds for themselves. Also there were 2 ads by Jack-in-the-box. One mocked Internet-related ads and wireless communication ads. The other one mocked tobacco companies. It can be fun to show the (whole) truth!

What I want is to help both victim and victimizer because we all are victims of DELUSION.
When victim realize the truths, they won't be lured by bad ads. And when victimizer realize the truths, they won't behave in inappropriate ways of luring people by hiding the bad sides or possible negative consequences. We don't need to change anything immediately. I know it can really hurt many people. It can be like a long-term plan in your mind if you want to see the better future. (Not teenagers commit suicide, not children abused by their own parents, not mass-killing in school, not a lot of child pornography in Internet, not several death penalties and so on.)

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What do you think? It will be great if you can share with me.

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