Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see!

Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see! So the old saying goes.
2008
Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, Ronald Cotton, and Erin Torneo from ~
http://www.soros.org/initiatives/usprograms/focus/justice/programs/justice_fellows/grantees/thompson_2008
Over 200 people in the U.S. have had their convictions overturned by DNA evidence. Three-quarters of these cases involved mistaken eyewitness testimony, making it the leading cause of wrongful conviction. Picking Cotton: A True Story, by Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino (with Erin Torneo), will illuminate the problems with eyewitness testimony through Thompson-Cannino and Cotton's own story.
Thompson-Cannino has become an outspoken opponent of the death penalty, frequently addressing the need for judicial reform. After a brutal rape she suffered as a 22-year-old college student, Thompson-Cannino gave eyewitness testimony that sent Ronald Cotton to prison not once, but twice, for crimes he did not commit. Together, they successfully lobbied state legislators to change compensation laws for the wrongly convicted in North Carolina. Thompson-Cannino is now a member of the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission, the advisory committee for Active Voices, the Constitution Project, and Mothers for Justice. Her op-eds have appeared in the New York Times, the Durham-Herald Sun, and the Tallahassee Democrat.
Ronald Cotton was arrested in 1984 and wrongfully convicted of first-degree rape, sexual offense, and breaking and entering, and sentenced to life in prison plus 54 years. Cotton won a new trial in 1987, only to be charged and convicted of a second rape, resulting in two life sentences. Largely through his persistence in proclaiming his innocence and the development of sophisticated DNA tests, Cotton was exonerated in 1995, after serving nearly eleven years. With Thompson-Cannino, he has spoken at various venues including Washington and Lee University, University of Nevada Las Vegas, Georgetown Law School, the Chicago Museum for Contemporary Photography’s Innocence Exhibit, and the Community March for Justice for Troy Anthony Davis in Savannah, Georgia.
Erin Torneo’s work has appeared in various publications including the Kyoto Journal, SEED, Cosmopolitan, Variety’s V-Life, the Independent, and indiewire. In 2007, she was awarded a nonfiction fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Picking Cotton will be her second book.
The gift of Forgiveness
Jennifer said two years after Ronald Cotton was released She felt she needed to see him, and some how let him know how terrible she felt for having him convicted for a crime he never committed. The burden of knowing she had robbed this innocent man of 11 years of his life in insurmountable. She went over all of the possible scenarios of how he would react but never imagined in her wildest Dreams what really happened when they actually met. He forgave her, that’s right he forgave her, this wonderful man would have been justified by any one to hate her for his entire life but he forgave her. Since that time they have become very close friends, working together on many different projects as well as with an author Erin Torneo, to tell there story.
I had the opportunity to here about this wonderful and moving story on the Dian Rehms show on NPR the best unbiased radio on the air. So once again teaching me the wisdom in the old saying “Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see!”
Just Something to think about.

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Just something to think about

Peace Satori
Charles Lyon

life can be be a real presant, if you let it.

The present moment is all you will ever have so why not live there?
In the modern world of mass communication and cell phones I find it interesting how people have transferred the preoccupation of society with some where else, to even the cell phone.

I see students in a group all together instead of talking to each other in the group , some will be instant messaging some one not there, others on the phone talking to some one else instead of interacting with who is in front of them right now.

Most of my life I have been a people watcher at a younger age some of the time in judgment of all I see in recent years it has shifted to not in judgment of what I see as much as the desire to understand the dynamics of the human species.

From this place I find that all people are basically good and want the same things, but there unconsciousness brings them allot of misery. Since we are all more alike then different the more I can understand you the more I can understand myself.

In seeing and understanding your motivations I can see and more fully my motivations. Years ago when I was working for a personal development company one of the concepts I was introduced to is the fact that we are all blind to our dysfunctional behaviors.

Manley because the dysfunctional behaviors’ are habitual, mechanical and participated in unconsciously, like Pavlov’s Dog some one pushes the button and we react instantly. We get a complement we feel up or good, we get criticized and we feel down or get up set instantly and automatically, just like a machine.

When we gather with people we have known instead of being present in the here and now we talk about things that happened in the past with them, remembering joys, follies, stupid things we did, and so on.

You could truly say every ones favorite place is SOME WHERE ELSE, other then where we are right now.

At work we are always some were else thinking about bills or our kids, or what we will do that night or what we will do on the weekend, or thinking about how some one upset us going over it again and again and again.

Leaving us board at work hating what we are doing now and wanting to be some where else. Most people hate there Job, with the most common complaints being boredom, and monotints’ work turning what we do to make a living in to miserable experience.

I know most of my life I have hated what I did for a living all of it. Then I got a job that I truly loved, and because of circumstances that at the time seamed beyond my reach left it.

And I suffered for years longing to be doing that job again even hating the fact that I ever had it. Because every thing else sucked in comparison.

Now I know that it wasn’t the job but how I participated in the job that made it so fun and fulfilling.

The job was as a facilitator of workshops and processes with people one on one. The job required my complete undivided attention in the here and now.

When I am present in the here and now even the most boring job as perceived before can be fulfilling enjoyable and even fun. The secrete is to give it my undivided attention, to fully be here right now, in what ever I am doing right now, with out resistance of any kind.

From this place even weighting for a doctors appointment can be enjoyable. Did you ever think about it, that there will never be a time in your life that is not right now, and you will never be any where that is not right here. Here and now it all there is and all there will ever be.

There in not any dreamed of wonderful, fulfilling, and exciting event that will not happen and be experienced right here and right now. There will never be any thing you can do that is not right here and right now.

And we still persist to think of dream of long for “some where else” other then right her and right now.

So end the suffering by allowing your self to just be present here right now.

Enjoy what you do by excepting what ever you are dealing with and give it your undivided attention, right here right Now.

And transform your boring monotones job in to something that is fulfilling enjoyable and even fun.

Just something to think about.

The True Mind verses The Egoic Mind.

The true Mind.

The true mind is part of us from the every first moment of life and could be called the observer, it is always conscious 24/7 taking in every thing, the observer is intensely curious and interested in every thing, It has no judgments of any thing just the desire to understand.

The true mind isn’t afraid of any thing but instead lives in the realm of Unconditional Love and peace. The true mind lives in the ever present and even when it is involved with the future in is in the “present future Now”. If it is involved with the past it is in the present Past Now.

Time and space has no meaning to the true mind what ever it focuses on it is present moment now no matter where or when it is. This is why remote Viewing is possible.

The true mind is always at peace in every situation and loves unconditionally all of life with out any separation.

The Observer is not attached to any thing of form, including the body of the self. The observer could be in a massive car accident and see the body broken and bleeding and it would find the whole thing extremely interesting, but neither good or bad.

The observer cannot be deceived because it lives in the realm of all that is and is aware of its connection to all that is. It is aware of all the functions of the body every cell, every system, It is also aware of the collective intelligence of the universe and can answer any question about any thing.

It is pure intelligence.

The true mind doesn’t have a struggle for control it enjoys observing the egoic mind and will relinquish control to the egoic mind just because it enjoys observing the weird and distorted places it can go. When ever you are observing any thing in the present moment with out Judgment you are in the true mind. Like factious on your breath notice how it feels as your lungs fill with air and then as it leaves your lungs, this exercise can only be experienced by the true mind, which is stillness.

The Egoic Mind.

The egoic mind is always unconscious, it is always in the realm of Illusion. It is the source of all insanity, people who are completely insane are living in the consciousness of the egoic mind all the time. The ego is never in the present moment of here and now, but always in the futures or the past.

Fear lives in the egoic mind, and can only be experienced in the egoic mind. The egoic mind attaches it's self to every thing in the physical world and thinks it is every thing in the physical world.

Every attachment we have to every thing in the physical world weather it is our body, our home, our friends, our family, or our possessions.
Every attachment we have to our emotions is also the ego, pain becomes our pain, sadness becomes our sadness, depression becomes our depression, guilt becomes our guilt, shame becomes our shame. and don't try to remove them the ego will rebel it wants to keep them all.

It feels a sense of loss when every any thing in the physical or emotional world leaves. It is devastated when it loses any thing because it identifies with every thing in the physical world.

To the egoic mind outward things are an extension of it's self, and if our car is wrecked it feels a loss of perceived self. The egoic mind wants to always be in control and feels threatened when ever we are not in its realm.

To move consciousness in the present moment is experienced as death to the egoic mind so it will fight it always and forever.


The egoic mind is where conditioned unconscious responses comes from like Pavlov’s Dog it salivates every time the bell rings and never knows why.

Like a recorded program of a computer all it needs is to be started and it will go on auto pilot and your are not aware of how it works and why.

Often not even aware the conditioned program is even running, it must have you unconscious in order to remain. That’s why we are all blind to our dysfunctional behavior, for as soon as you are aware it is running you have the power to stop the program.

It is constantly working to reinforce its every Illusion as being the truth. The Egoic mind is incapable of telling the truth and it is constantly in promotion the unconscious, of fear it loves and feeds on Unconsciousness’ attached to fear.

When it gives you bad advice that doesn’t work it will give you the exact same advice again and tell you that you just didn’t try hard enough or something else to disguise its absurdness.

Its favorite mask is smoke and mirrors, constantly recapitulating the same absurd and useless message, but with a new and pretty package but in side it’s still just a broken worthless thought form.

It never worked even once, but it tells you that you still need to by a brand new, worthless model because it will work better then the last one, and when you do it’s just the old piece of shit with a fresh coat of paint.

If you fight the Ego it will always win. The only way to overcome the ego is through quiet observation with out a need to change a thing.

In the present moment just observe it like it was a child that just wants to be loved and understood. This will over come all of the egoic influence to live in the present moment with out any resistance or desire to be any were then where you are now.
Excepting and embracing and loving what is. In this realm you will make it your friend and it will never again be able to create illusion again.

A profound process to allow you to move in to the true mind is the Work by Byron Katie.