careful with all that nothingness/emptiness stuff, Micko. i can just imagine poor PB&J, looking like a dog that's just been shown a card trick...

but back to Reg: "Assigning value to the immaterial is a way to relieve yourself of responsibility for yourself."

absolutely not, at all. it's all about personal responsibility; taking inventory of oneself on a daily and continual basis, keeping an open mind, being of assistance wherever possible. promptly admitting our mistakes. sowing good seeds wherever one goes. doing the internal work necessary to be able to see the other as they are - our common spirit nature in merely another bodily container (love your enemy, as one guy put it) - and thereby expand one's ability to behave from a place of compassion and understanding. instead of waiting for a savior daddy to return, be love now (only two behavioral response choices in every situation: love, or non-love). everything we do has some ripple, some effect. become the change you want to see in the world; that's the only thing you ultimately have any control over. the immaterial can help with all this, if you value it enough to ask genuinely and listen carefully. as that exiled Tibetan riot-inciter said, "selfishness of the mind is the enemy." so use the heart to override the ego, and all shall be well. there's plenty of work to do, but all is well right now; we just can't see it cause we're trapped in the illusion (maya). luckily, a transcendable state - if we commit to and follow through with the daily work. much easier to argue, point fingers and bomb people, though, innit. and Buddha wept...

man, i could go on for days. enough already!