Student Loans

Note: I wrote the following a couple of days ago. I mentioned to my wife what I had written and she (in her normal Zen way) let me know that I was taking sides, and that really there are good arguments for both sides. Of course she was right. Students will have to pay less which will make them happier (I guess), and banks will get smaller (which may make them more manageable in times like these). In any case, life is too complex to be certain about the effect of any action (dependent origination in Buddhism).

Uncle Sam (US) is now taking over student loans from banks. They will be still making a profit, and will put that profit into supporting community colleges and other educational institutions. And they will never raise loan rates when interest rates go up, like the banks do.

The article in the UT newspaper claimed this was a win-win situation for both US and the students... and the public at large.

The apparent brilliance of this act raised a number of questions in my mind. If Uncle Sam can run the student loan business more efficiently than banks, then could they also run most other businesses more efficiently as well? Clothing, home improvement stores, toys, art, oil drilling. What is their track record?

I assume that the banks will need less workers now that they aren't doing student loans. Will these workers now be hired by Uncle Sam? I assume too that the banks will not need bailing out again, given that one of their income sources has been curtailed.

If US is not able to actually run this loan business more efficiently then we must assume that they are (or will be) subsidizing it, especially when interest rates rise and loan rates do not. Is this still going to be a win-win-win situation?

Who are these brilliant business people who have shunned bank CEO wages to work for US? What do they know that people being paid 100x as much do not know?

There is an implication, as well, that banks have been "screwing" students with high interest rates. This message is bothersome to me, especially as we start to believe that banks and all other institutions that make a profit are in essence taking advantage of their clientele. The banking industry has provided the possibility for education for millions of kids. They have done countless good and should not be labeled a thief.

I suspect that, in the end, this program will cost the taxpayers untold dollars.

Can the US really charge less and still turn a profit? Can I jump over the moon?

The Blackboard

When I was in grammar school, I was slow to get my stuff together to go home and the janitor (they were called that then) would come in and with a sponge and a bucket of water would wash the blackboard. All the muck from the day would be gone, including all the chalk dust (except at the corners). Poof... just like that!

The Buddhists used to think of night as the beginning of the next day. And when we are born our minds are blank. As we live, our minds become repositories for all our numerous experiences. Loves come in and out and cements those experiences.

Then, at the end, we don't want to go home, so we take our time. Before we know it, the funny old janitor comes in and washes the blackboard. Our day's toil is now a clean slate.

Our tears for such a beautiful one ready us for another day... and another life.

Experience

I read something today about experiencing life fully. It talked abut jumping into water and not thinking about oneself or the water... only swimming. This appears to be so contrary to "education." That is, education defined as thinking about one does.

I'm reminded about a man called Slim in Garibaldi Oregon (I expect that he is long gone). Every night he'd go to the tavern and drink. Every morning he'd be at the dock to meet the fisherman coming back with catches. I would watch him for hours cleaning the fish and throwing their remains to the seagulls.

Is this what the zen teachers are talking about when they say to experience whatever you are doing fully? Is zen training a process of uneducating? I understand in ancient times most people were peasant farmers who were involved with farming. Were they doing what the Zen masters preached?

One of my art teachers told me about teaching in a mental institution. He said that at first the patients had lots of fun, but then they started thinking about what they were doing and they started getting so disturbed that they had to stop offering the art classes.

If what I'm saying (that education keeps us from experiencing things fully) has any truth then why do we do it? And how could schools be changed so that students would be more capable of experiencing life fully rather than less? Ideas?

Two irrelevant ideas

or are they? I recently experienced a situation where people were at odds with each other. Not unusual, I guess, on Earth... but this time they really loved one another... and yet didn't want to be with the each other. It was sad. Life is so short and when we can't let go of our "positions" long enough to be with someone we love... that is even sadder.

And then there is my girl friend from 50 years ago who stopped being my Facebook friend because she suspected I had become a Republican. My claims to being a libertarian must have just made things worse. If I was only friends with libertarians I'd be spending all my time infront of a mirror. So I didn't look her up after traveling 2000 miles to where she lives (no, that wasn't the reason for my trip).

And then death roars its ugly head... not once, but five times in four weeks. And with my contemporaries. When we die, we are reduced to a few grains of sand. How can that be? The priest said the other evening that when we are born our minds are blank, and then when we die we return to that state. The next day he said that when we sit zazen, we are facing death. I did not understand that when he said it, but tonight, sitting, I realized that when we focus on our breath we return to that state where there is no garbage in our noodle... and then we notice when she (the garbage) raises her ugly head, and we smile, and thank her for coming, and tell her she can leave now by the same door she entered.

He asked if I have time to mourn. I said yes, logically finding no reason why I didn't have time. But I really felt uneasy saying yes, because maybe I wasn't ready to mourn. I mentioned that my mom would say that when we mourn, we mourn our own death. Maybe, "do you have time to mourn" meant "do you have mourning time" or "are you going to allow yourself to mourn." We have time for lots of things that we don't do. Don't we?

Hope Diamond

a.k.a. Haystack rock, the most beautiful rock in the world.

Burial at Sea

We watched and wiped tears as his ashes merged with the foaming sea. I was astonished how this bigger-than-life individual could so quickly become a few grains of sand. My sis reminded me that the influence he had on so many individuals was far greater than his meager physical remains.

Burial at Land

A small vessel containing his ashes was placed in a hole in the ground. Some of us moved a little dirt into the hole. Some couldn't participate, perhaps feeling that they weren't ready to say "goodbye."