Some Photos From Today's Hike

The top photo is a junco taking a short bath in a pool of water in the rock. Also got a couple great pictures of a deer munching some leaves. The squirrel was pretty neat too. Be sure to click on the images to see the large versions.

An oppurtunity

I'm passing on an oppurtunity to participate in the million mani project. If any of my readers wishes to participate, just say "Om mani padme hum" as many times as you care to. (Even once.) Then post the number you've recited (and the recitations can be silent) to the comments section, and I'll pass along the total numbers, so that we all may benefit! This mantra is the mantra of Chenrezi, the boddhisattva of compassion, and is the most popular mantra in Tibet. It embodies the aspiration to free all beings from suffering. The deadline is June 15.



Message from: Linda Jordan KSC-NH coordinator

Dear friends,

In an exciting development, KTC Monastery is sponsoring this year's
Saka Dawa million mani project. Several of the affiliated centers
have contacted us to let us know they are participating, and I am
hoping to hear from the others, either for our weekly progress update
or on June 15, when we tally up our total for the whole month.

Our tradition is to send a progress report each Sunday during Saka
Dawa. Students affiliated with a particular center will report their
numbers to that center, and the center will forward the total to us.
Students not affiliated with a center are welcome to email us
directly. We have every hope of being inundated with emails!

For details and background, please visit our website at
www.nhkagyu.org . In brief, everyone is encouraged to recite the
mantra of Chenrezi, om mani peme hung, as many times as possible
between now and the end of Saka Dawa, June 15. We will put all our
numbers together on June 15 and hope to reach a total of a million.
Mantras may be done as part of formal practice as well as during any
ordinary activity, with or without mindfulness. They may be counted
with traditional prayer beads, by timing your recitation (especially
useful when driving), or using any other method you can think of.

Mantra recitation is very beneficial at any time, but especially
during the holy month of Saka Dawa, when the effects of all our
actions are magnified, and our Dharma practice earns extra merit.

Each participant is said to earn the full merit of the entire
community recitation, no matter how large or small the individual
contribution. So even if you only have time to do a few mani's,
please don't be shy about reporting them.

We look forward to hearing from you.

"Let us trust the mantra, let us allow the body to attend to its work
and the mind to its reflections leading to result, but at the same
time let us recite the mantra om mani peme hung, without even being
attentive. We will purify many karmic veils and finally attain
awakening." Kalu Rinpoche teaching at Samye Ling, Scotland, 1983

"Perseverance will allow one to achieve supreme enlightenment."
--Ornament of Mahayana Sutra

Loch Ness

Loch Ness Article


Is this convincing? Not really, but fun to watch anyway!

Mother cardinal

A cool image of Jesus

I found this cool picture of Jesus done in the style of Tibetan thangkas. I can't attribute it properly since I found it on a cached webpage via a Google search. I couldn't find the image on the webpage itself.

I think it's important to be teachable and see the wisdom in all traditions. I found myself drifting into a bit of sectarian closed-mindedness the other day, while reading Thich Nhat Hanh, and being dismissive of it since he's a Zen Buddhist and not a Tibetan Buddhist. But the more I reflected on what he had to say, the more I found it to be true. Moreover, once I saw the truth of his words, it actually gave me a lot of peace, calm and equanimity.

In short, and somewhat subconsciously, after studying the four thoughts that turn the mind to the dharma, I came to the conclusion that all aspects of human experience are suffering. It was almost like I didn't give myself permission to enjoy things, because I "knew" that they were tainted by suffering. In fact, Buddha taught that pure experience is possible. It is possible to attain the cessation of suffering. Now I had known this, but phrased this way, it seemed to me that all of my experiences would be suffering up until the attainment of enlightenment, at which point the suffering would cease. Thich Nhat Hanh very simply said that everything is not suffering and asked the reader to please enjoy the sunset and other experiences. I think that pure experiences are possible for ordinary people, and that the closer we get to Buddhahood, the more we progress down the path, the more often those pure experiences will manifest.

An eye-opening article

I can't believe the following article. It boggles my mind.
Too much time online

Cardinal and grackle

Goldfinch!

I snapped these pictures in my backyard earlier today.

Cool article

This is a great article which I received in my inbox right after writing the previous post about science's relation to Buddhism.

Article

Mysterious Consciousness

[Forgive the sententious tone of the following post. I take myself too seriously sometimes.]

A sense of permanent unchanging entities is a deep subconscious bias that, I'm pretty sure, all humans have. There is an inherent idea that situations are stable, and when, through the natural force of impermanence, situations transform and dissolve, we often have a sense of regret and suffering. This occurs at all levels from trivial to profound. An alcoholic suffers from the idea that the alcoholic buzz is a state that can be perpetuated ad infinitum, and we suffer when a loved one dies because our concept of their perpetuity is shattered. So what is the root of this bias toward perceiving things as permanent and unchanging? According to one level, that's the whole origin of this world of samsara that we wander in. The mistaken perception of an unchanging "I" starts the whole thing in motion, and soon we are surrounded in a cloud of karmic illusion. Yet, on another level, there ought to be a more scientific explanation of why we have this strong sense of self. An appealing explanation a la Dawkins is that a sense of self is extremely useful when it comes to passing along genes. After all, we are the progeny of those who have successfully passed on their genes, implying those genes probably select for traits which best assist those genes in being passed along further. Thus, it's good to have a sense of self that one cherishes and defends, so that one's genes survive. So at one level, a deep and basic component of our behavior is simply a side effect of an iterative mathematical process.
I believe these two explanations are completely consistent myself, and I even think that the laws of physics themselves may be products of our karma. The universe appears a certain way to us as a function of our collective karma, and that includes the laws of physics. But why, if there is a more conventional explanation, should one believe the Buddhist explanation at all? To me the bare fact of our experienced consciousness is so mysterious that it cries out for something besides the conventional laws of physics. Also, the gene explanation, like any scientific explanation, only goes so far. The laws of deduction are inherently limited. A chain of implications is only a bridge between two unknowns, but doesn't tell you how to deduce the truth of the fundamental ingredients. Furthermore, the idea of elementary causation can only go so far. To say that one thing causes another is a huge simplification, since in any event a number of causes and conditions come in to play. It's more like the entire universe at any given moment is what causes the next moment, although even this is not right since quantum theory implies that physics is only deterministic at a probabilistic level. (And also, relativity says that there's no such thing as having one instant of time across the entire universe.) Thus scientific explanation is inherently limited, but still valid within its scope.

Tweaking my site

Hi all. As you can see I'm tweaking my site's design. I wanted something more soothing than the harsh white on black that I had previously. Since it will show up differently depending on your computer, please let me know about readability issues. Is this easier to read? More pleasant. Can I change anything to make it better? (Well obviously I can, but are there specific suggestions?)

A Comparison [Poem]

In the morning, I cling desperately to sleep,
but am propelled, against my will, into wakefulness.
Images of forceful separation manifesting in my dream.

When my time has come, I cling desperately to this life,
but am propelled, against my will, across the threshold,
into the unknown.

A spin of the prayer wheel

HO!
Mesmerised by the sheer variety of perceptions,
which are like the illusory reflections
of the moon in water,
Beings wander endlessly astray
in samsara's vicious cycle.
In order that they may find comfort and ease
in the all -pervading luminosity
of the true nature of their minds,
I generate the immeasurable love,
compassion, joy and equanimity
of the awakened mind,
the heart of bodhicitta.

nyingma buddhism - jikmé lingpa - 18th century

I spun the prayer wheel at worldprayers.org, and this prayer came up. I rather like it.

An old poem I wrote

I discovered this poem while cleaning out my desk. I wrote it while in grad school some years ago. In fact I discovered quite a few poems, even some early drafts of poems I had rewritten extensively. Anyway here it is. (I've refrained from editing it, even though I think it needs editing.


Twenty billion discoveries and dismissals of a single fact, discovered.
Though facts are like clouds, uncountable,
Are weakly collected in these words.
If you ask Why? many times the question can always be repeated.

We fly slower than light through time.
Our minds wade through increasing entropy.
Movie frames that increase in information.

They fly faster than light backward through our time.
Their energy is the impetus for our creation
As we are for their's.

Or: time sits in Time.
The universe begins and shoots backwards as well as forwards.
As soon at it was created, it always was.

Buddhism and Vegetarianism

I was asked the following question:

Why aren't those Tibetan Buddhists who eat meat concerned about the issue of participating in the death of a sentient being?

They are concerned, but the thought is that eating meat from an animal that has already been killed is not nearly as bad as killing it yourself. Thus it is strictly forbidden to kill an animal yourself, or to directly cause an animal to be killed. For example, by pointing to a lobster and asking that they cook it for you. Of course, by buying meat and supporting the system that continues to kill beings, you are accumulating negative karma. The practical reality is, though, that the amount that Buddhists are contributing to the maintenance of the current world system of food distribution is vanishingly small. If the situation were different, for example if a monk is trapped on an island with a small handful of other people, and the monk encourages the others to kill animals for him to eat, that would be a highly nonvirtuous act.

I asked Lama Inge this very question, and she said don't delude yourself into thinking that being a vegetarian is a pristine virtuous state. Consider all of the insects and other animals that are killed during farming, and consider the mistreatment of the farm workers, often in third world countries. Basically, we do what we can. If we are able to make a change to save the lives of some sentient beings, we do it, but if it is beyond our capability at this point, rather than throwing in the towel, we simply do our best. Many people have severe physical difficulties with vegetarianism. Not everybody's body is equipped to handle it. The Dalai Lama himself has been advised by his doctors that he has to eat some meat, otherwise he gets jaundice. What he said is that we should celebrate and have joy for those of us who can maintain a vegetarian diet. Think "Good for them! I'm glad they can do it!"

Personally, I try to be as vegetarian as possible, but am open to eating meat if circumstances merit. I recall a specific instance when I was visiting someone's house, and they offered me some food, I think it was chicken, and I ate it because I felt it was better to be polite and harmonious with the people around me. I don't feel that my eating it contributed in any substantial way to the harming of sentient beings since the animal was already dead.

My weekend with the Lamas

More lama dancing, including, one night, lama line dancing! I also snapped a shot of this bee fly which seemed very attracted to me as I was watching the festivities.

I took refuge again, this time with Lama Norlha Rinpoche. My dharma name is Dondrup Gawa, which means Joyfully Accomplishing Aims. That's a good name I think!

Lama Dancing

Here's a couple snapshots of today's lama dancing ceremony. These are traditional after three year retreats, and help to pacify negative karma attached to a region, as well as the negative karma of the participants and the observers. As Lama Norlha Rinpoche explains, the region where we live has a lot of residual negative karma left over from the civil war, and he wanted to help heal this by bringing this dancing ceremony to us. Very cool.

The KTC Retreatants

I snapped this picture of the retreatants chanting today. Lama Norlha Rinpoche is seated at the little wooden table.

The Lamas are Coming!

At the KTC monastery run by Lama Norlha Rinpoche in upstate NY, they have been having a series of three-year retreats. The sixth three year retreat has just opened up, and the graduating monastics are now touring various places, spreading the good karma. We're very blessed that they're visiting here. I was part of the party meeting them yesterday. They were driving an old tourbus, which had a faded picture of Marilyn Monroe or someone similar looking on the back of the bus. The bus was creeping along the highway, because the engine was not in good shape. Lama Norlha wanted to stop at a grocery store to buy supplies, so we led them to a Walmart Supercenter. (Not anyone's first choice, but the bus couldn't park elsewhere, and the monastics didn't seem to mind.) So then the bus pulled over, and a wide variety of monastics exited the bus. They were all wearing the gold and maroon robes, some were young, some were elderly. Most were caucasian, although there were a couple of chinese. Then this whole crew went into Walmart, grabbed a cart, and just started piling in all sorts of random things. It was really quite a site to see. People were surprisingly polite. Only a few people stared. As we were checking out, the check-out woman took a liking to us, telling us about how there was some cult in Kentucky that killed little children, but that she would set the other employees straight about us! Lama Jamdron pointed out that Buddhists don't like to kill bugs, do say nothing of murdering people! Anyway, they piled back in the bus and we led them up to the land where this week's festivities will be up in the mountains. Luckily the bus made it. I got to talking with several of the retreatants. They all have distinct personalities, but they're all very sweet and nice people.

An excerpt from the Diamond Cutter (Prajnaparamita) Sutra

As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space
an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble
a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning
view all created things like this.

-Shakyamuni Buddha

A friend of mine posted a poem on her blog that brought this to mind.

Of ants and disciples

I've been thinking, as I progress along the Buddhist path, about how I must have done something right in a former life to be in the spot I am today, and oh how wonderful I am for that. I was a student of my current lama in a previous life, my imagination has told me. I'm big and important, even if it's not obvious in this life, so the mental narrative goes. I have been building up this view for quite a while. Then, suddenly, I remembered a story about Kalu Rinpoche. Once when he was younger he blessed many ants. Then many years later, he realized that many of the students that had come to him were actually reincarnations of the ants he had blessed! How quaint, I was thinking, when I first heard the story, but I finally realized my story may be similar. I could have been an ant in a previous life which an infinitely kind person blessed. Not so much to be prideful about anymore, although there remains a lot to be grateful for. :)

Hiking photos

Here are some photos from today's hike. The trailhead is actually 3 hours away, so we drove there last night. I slept under the stars while my hiking partner slept in the car. The park is in a very remote area, and the light pollution was minimal. It was very cool. We saw several large hawks, but I wasn't able to snap their picture.

I had the following thought while hiking: "Every experience is a mixture of pleasure and pain."

A spider!

Took a picture of this spider on the wall of our den. It's probably about half an inch long, to give a sense of scale. It's been patrolling the walls of our den for about a week now, usually hanging out by the ceiling. I feel bad because I don't think there's that much in here for it to eat.

A neat Padmasambhava quote

I read this passage last night, and it made me smile.

Though you are born as a human being, you are not beyond suffering. To begin with, before birth there is the suffering of being inside your mother's womb,where it is like being thrown into an abyss when your mother is lifting; like being squashed between cliffs when your mother is full of food; like fluttering in the wind when your mother is standing up; like being suppressed by a mountain when your mother is lying down; like being strangled when taking birth; like being thrown into a heap of thorns when laid down; and like a bird being carried off by a hawk when your mother takes you up again.

-Padmasambhava, quoted in "The Lotus Born, the Life Story of Padmasambhava"

Parallels between A.A. and Buddhism

I've been trying to really integrate my Buddhist beliefs into the A.A. program. Superficially, it's difficult, mainly because there's no creator deity in Buddhism, and the A.A. literature has the concept of God throughout it. I'm learning that it can be done, though. I'm leading someone through the steps right now, and as I do so, I plan on redoing the steps myself. Already, with step 3, I'm making progress, I think. Step 3 says that we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. After searching on the internet for a Buddhist interpretation of this step, I came across an article which mentioned that the Buddhist concept of taking refuge is probably the clearest parallel to the third step. A Buddhist practitioner takes refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma (sacred teachings), and the Sangha (community of spiritually enlightened beings). This essentially means that one places one's trust in them. While I had paid lip service to taking refuge before, having drawn this tight connection with the third step, I feel like I actually get it at a much deeper level now. In connection with this is the A.A. phrase "Let go and let God." A Buddhist view on this might be simply "Let go." We need to get our egos, and sense of self, out of the way. In a Buddhist interpretation, once could say that there are billions of enlightened beings out there doing their best to help all sentient beings. My contribution based on ignorance is not helping. However, if I let go of my sense of self, I can actually gain access to the primordial wisdom that comes with the path to Buddhahood. This is not essentially different from saying "God's will be done." The essential point is to remove one's ego and self-cherishing from the picture.

I attend a Big Book (the A.A. manual) study on Thursdays, and this past Thursday we were reading the following passage (p.62).

Selfishness--self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate...So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid.

Note the emphasis on entirely getting rid of self!

Here is a parallel excerpt from The Torch of the Definitive Meaning by Jamgon Kongtrul.

The root of suffering in this world is the accumulation of negative karma. The root of negative karma is the disturbing emotions. The root of the disturbing emotions is the ignorance that cherishes a self.

Again we see the same point: the root of our suffering is the ignorance that cherishes a self. Note also that the Big Book says that our troubles arise out of ourselves. That's karma! It's uncanny how deep the parallels run when one looks at it in the right way!

Cherokee Purification Prayer

A friend of mine emailed me this prayer, and it's really cool!

" Great Spirit (U-ne-qua), whose voice I hear in the wind,
Whose breath gives life to all the world. Hear me;
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple
sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made and my ears sharp to hear
your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things you have taught my people.
Help me to remain calm and strong in the face of all that comes towards me.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
Help me seek pure thoughts and act with the intention of helping others.
Help me find compassion without empathy overwhelming me.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest
enemy MYSELF.
Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without
shame

More photos from the same hike

The lizard is a southern fence lizard, for those who are interested.

Here are some photos from my hike today

The picture where you see a trail and, on either side, blackened earth, is a photo of the charring caused by what must have been a recent brush fire. I was at this same spot 2 and a half weeks ago, and the fire had not yet occurred. Some blackening could be seen at the base of the trees, but it seems like the fire wasn't severe enough to really damage the trees.

Howard Zinn lecture

I went to a wonderful talk by Howard Zinn this evening. He's a wonderfully gifted speaker. He made a very clear case for exiting Iraq as soon as possible. The U.S. occupation is causing more violence to occur. It is an irritant, and even though we can't predict what will happen when we leave, our absence means the removal of one more obstacle on their journey toward a more normal and safer society. He pointed out that we, in this country, have a very limited sort of freedom of speech, where people are indeed allowed to say what they want. I can get up on a soapbox and talk to 50 people, but Procter and Gamble, who made the soap box, can talk to millions of people. Freedom of speech is also about quantity, and it is the large corporations that have the voice. One other thing from his lecture that really hit home for me was his blanket statement that war is never justified. I wholeheartedly agree. War, at least in his definition, always involves the indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent people. During WWII, the good war, 50 million people were killed. Was this justifiable? The holocaust may never have happened, if there were no war, because the war generated widespread madness on both sides. On the German side, there was the madness of the holocaust. On our side there was the madness of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By engaging in war, the cycle perpetuates. If we can refrain from war, and get at the root of the problem, the cycle can end. Although it seems unlikely, fantastic, and utopian, it is possible if we try. If we don't try, it is clearly impossible. Anyway, he said it much more eloquently and thoroughly than I can.

Side note: I got him to sign a copy of my book "The Southern Mystique." :)

Shakyamuni Buddha Quotes

I was surfing around online when I found a collection of
Buddha quotes.
Here are some of my favorites:

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.

The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two.

You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.

Ladybug

Today's Sunrise

Some "weeds" from my yard

I love these tiny flowers. Around here they're one of the first harbingers of spring. Some people, who prefer a lawn which lacks biodiversity, consider them weeds. What are they thinking? Notice the ant in the second picture, which will give an idea of scale!

Note: The pictures are more impressive if you click on them for larger versions.

Look at this beautiful picture my new camera took of an ant on my bathroom floor!

I've always wanted to take pictures like this, and now I can. Life is beautiful. Thanks to my wife for scouting out the camera for me.

A better goldfinch picture

I've been fooling around with my camera, and snapped the above goldfinch picture, which is a vast improvement over the previous one, and is a vastly huge improvement over the smudge that my other camera would produce. This is a female goldfinch. The males have brighter yellow patches at this time of year. (During the summer the males are very yellow, while the females remain drab.)

Another hike

Here's a couple of pictures from a recent hike. In addition, we saw a very large garter snake, and some strange burrowing beetles. I tried taking a picture, but my camera isn't good enough to capture them well. I did look them up in my insect guide, but to no avail.

I just recently bought a new camera which has 10X optical zoom and 7.2 megapixels. Expect the image quality of my posts to go up. In fact, here are a couple of pictures I've taken from my den:

Two photos from a recent hike

This was an interesting hike. The day started out kind of cold, dark and miserable, but ended up being sunny, bright and summery. The trail went up onto a ridge and there were some awesome views of the surrounding tree-covered hills. It also wandered through an interesting little valley. At one point, I wandered off the trail to a hilltop where I meditated for a while. Very peaceful. My camera is not very good, so the pictures I took did not do justice to the beauty. Several times I would look at the trees against the blue sky on a neighboring ridge and it would look very beautiful. That's what I was trying to capture in the second picture above, although it doesn't come through as strongly as it does in person. The other picture is of some flowers that appear to have been planted along the trail. I don't know who would have done that in this remote location, but their efforts are appreciated!(As usual, click on the photos for a larger view.)

A poem I wrote a long time ago

Ranges

The Himalayas are young and Zen,
Though Appalachia is not, and riddled.
Appalachia recounts:

I don't have appreciable mass
Nor have I contrivable mirth
I am a considerable match
An intolerable myth
of history in destruction.

---------------

This poem, like most poems I wrote in this period of my life, is essentially a dialogue between my unconscious and the dictates of form. As a result, I can't say I know fully what it means, although it seems like I was having some issues with the aging process. When I wrote the poem, the phrase "An intolerable myth" rang like a bell in my consciousness after I had penned the previous three lines. In any event, I've always liked this poem, so I am sharing it. :)

A couple pics from my hike

The boulder in the top photo is probably about the size of two pickup trucks, just to give a sense of scale. The white column in the bottom photo is actually a frozen waterfall. (It was melting when I took the photo. Outside temperature was about 50 degrees at the time.)

More on death and impermanence

This past Saturday I went hiking, and on my way to the trailhead, I passed several signs which said "Jesus is coming. RU ready?" I think it would be better to rephrase it as "Death is coming. Are you ready?" Assuming you believe that Jesus is coming and will render judgment, causing some to suffer eternal damnation and some to enjoy eternal bliss, the fact is that you are far more likely to die before that happens than not. As far as I inderstand it, once you die, there is no way to make further spiritual progress in the Christian tradition. Hence you should live every day like it's your last. When death inevitably and unexpectedly comes, you're either ready or not. In the Buddhist tradition, we also use death as a spur to practice. Unlike in Christianity, after death, one still has the oppurtunity to practice in one's next life, but the problem is that if we don't live our lives virtuously, we will end up in a body with a lot of suffering (like hell, only with a very long, but finite extent), and will find it very difficult to get back to a body where we can practice spiritually. Thus we should live each day as though it were our last, practicing virtue, else when we die we end up suffering for eons before we finally get the chance to practice again.

Free will redux

The more I think about it, the more I don't like the way the previous argument is framed. One problem is that consciousness is not explicitly defined, and it's implicit that consciousness should be the `decision maker.' However, I feel this is wrong. When I meditate, thoughts just bubble up. I didn't explicitly cause them to happen. They happen spontaneously, and often I will have followed a long train of associations before I'm even aware of doing so. So I strongly feel that the origination of conceptual thought is not conscious. Similarly, I've been in many situations where I feel like a decision was made at the unconscious level before I became consciously aware of it. I think one should really refer to three distinct agents or processes in the brain:

1) the thought generator
2) the decision maker
3) the awareness

This third one seems to be the really special one. But anyway, the workings of the thought generator and the decision maker are not totally accessible to the awareness. Thus it seems that if free will operates, it operates at a level inaccessible to our awareness, at least in normal conscious states. The awareness perhaps can be thought of as a highly flexible tool that we evolved which can help focus our data intake which then gets fed into the subconscious thought generator and decision maker. But it feels like it's more than that. Like our awareness almost has an independent existence which we identify with our sense of self. That subjective experience is rather mysterious. In any event, the awareness can be focused on many things, and during meditation, we turn it back on the mind itself and try to uncover more of the normallt unconscious processes. I'm not an experienced meditator (I've only been meditating regularly for about a year), but my conjecture is that through meditation and diligent training of the awareness, one is able to reach the nonconceptual underlying our usual consciousness. Perhaps this means that through meditation we get to a place where we really have free will, not an unconscious decision process which the awareness perceives as free will, unless it looks deeply enough.

Getting back to Searle's argument, this leaves the question of why the "mysterious" subjective experience of the awareness has evolved. In this case, the argument hangs on whether the awareness agent in the brain could have evolved without there being personal subjective experience. If so, then one needs an explanation for why personal subjective experience evolved. If it is a natural byproduct of the awareness agent (which I visualize like a lamp or a flashlight that shines in different directions), then no further explanation is needed. But now Searle's argument seems to lead in a different direction. If the personal subjective experience part of awareness evolved separately, what evolutionary role does it play? As I have argued above, actual decisions (free or not) are normally outside the purview of our awareness, so it seems to play no role. Perhaps, and I say this hesitantly, this is a sign that there is something deeper about our awareness which is outside the standard scientific conception. In Buddhism, we believe that our mindstreams give rise to our bodies and to the world around us through the arising of afflicted emotions and concepts, and our karma. The mindstream is fundamental, the world around us more like a dream or an illusion. The above analysis is consistent with this, I think. It still requires investigation, the main question being can an awareness agent, which serves to select sensory input to feed to the unconscious decision maker, evolve in an animal brain without giving rise to personal subjective experience?

Free Will?

When I was growing up, I came to the conclusion, heavily influenced by various things I read, that the universe was effectively deterministic, and that therefore free will is an illusion. A thought experiment by Douglas Hofstader made the case even more convincing to me. "If you really have free will," says one person to another, "are you free to choose to kill me right now?" On one level you might say he is free to kill the questioner, but on the other hand, it's pretty convincing that since he is strongly predisposed not to kill him, that in fact, it is beyond the realm of possibility, and not a possible choice. An interesting wrinkle in the debate just came to my attention in an essay of John R. Searle, where he says the following:


Well, what's wrong with epiphenomenalism [the idea that conscioussness is not causally relevant]? As we come to understand better how the brain works, it may turn out to be true. In the present state of our knowledge, the main objection to accepting epiphenomenalism is that it goes against everything we know about evolution. The processes of conscious rationality are such an important part of our lives, and above all such a biologically expensive part of our lives, that it would be unlike anything we know in evolution if a phenotype of this magnitude played no functional role at all in the life and survival of the organism. In humans and higher animals an enormous biological price is paid for conscious decision making, including everything from how the young are raised to the amount of blood flowing to the brain. To suppose this plays no role in inclusive fitness is not like supposing the human appendix plays no role. It would be more like supposing that vision or digestion played no evolutionary role.


I find this argument simultaneously compelling and suspect. Clearly the brain evolved to "make decisions," but the question is whether there are genuine choices (the decision might turn out differently under the same conditions) or whether the decision is algorithmically determined. Now Searle would probably say, then why is there consciousness? The brain could do all that without being conscious, more like a computer. Well I know many computer scientists would argue that consciousness is an "emergent phenomenon" that just happens when the brain gets too complex. It's not that the brain evolved to have consciousness, it evolved to make decisions, and this has the accidental byproduct of producing consciousness. However, I can't say I like that formulation, because it doesn't really explain what consciousness is, or how it emerges from complexity. So Searle's argument may carry some force. If consciousness doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with brain complexity, then the consciousness must have evolved to have some survival value, and the only way that would seem to make sense is if it actually was able to influence the body. I.e. we have free will.

Medicine Buddha Mantra Card

I made this image of the Medicine Buddha mantra, which goes around the perimeter starting with "TAD." The seed syllable "HUNG" is the big blue symbol in the center. As part of a Medicine Buddha ceremony, one typically visualizes the seed syllable hung at the heart of the medicine buddha, with the mantra circling around it, radiating light to all sentient beings, purifying their obscurations and removing their sickness. One would typically chant the mantra "Tayata om bekhandze bekhandze maha bekhandze radzaya samungate soha" 21 times or more while doing this. Anyway, I made this and I figured I'd put it out on the web in case anyone can benefit from it. Feel free to reproduce the image. I also have a high resolution version which I can email to anyone who wants it.

Valentine's Day?

A friend of mine was lamenting to me today that he doesn't expect to receive any Valentines this year. (This may sound strange, but it actually makes sense in context, although, out of privacy concerns, I won't reveal that context.) In any event, this brought back some major memories for me. When I was in grade school, I never got any Valentines either. One time, one kid's mother made her give valentines to everyone, but she ripped mine open before she gave it to me and scrawled "I hate you" across it. Ugh. I was never popular in grade school, and I never could understand why. My best guess is that the other students couldn't understand my motivations or behavior, which somehow alienated them, and caused them to lash out, in what they felt was retaliation. In fact, I notice that to this day. Sometimes I'll be talking, making what I feel to be very serious and interesting points, and the eyes of the person listening will start to glaze over and I'll get the impression that they find what I have to say tedious and boring. I know people who I find very hard to deal with, and when they talk it bores me to tears, but seeing myself in the same way some people see me is hard for me to internalize. I guess when you're dealing with the world, it's a fact that some people will like you and some people won't. Some people will like what you have to say, and others won't. The fact that some people find me boring is quite different from being universally reviled, which, coming full circle, is basically the way I felt in grade school. At the current stage of my life, I've migrated to a situation where I'm not the odd man out. I fit in very well in my profession, which is known for idiosyncrasy, and I fit in well in my sangha too, which again, consists of beautifully idiosyncratic people.

May all beings have happiness and the sources of happiness.
May they be free from suffering and the sources of suffering.
May they not be separated from the great happiness that is free from suffering.
May they dwell in equanimity, free from attachment, aggression, and prejudice.

Clinging is a major problem

I haven't posted in a while, but I'd like to relate a breakthrough idea that I had today. It's not original, just me finally seeing some more pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fall into place. When we meditate, at least in many versions, we try to eliminate discursive thought from our mind stream. When thoughts arise, we train ourselves to recognize them, and then go back to the state of natural awareness. Doing this over and over, the spaces between the thoughts gradually lengthen, and I even had the experience of falling into nonconceptual awareness in the middle of the day as I was walking down the street the other day. Experienced meditators, I have heard, experience this state quite often during the day while not on the mat. My mentor in the Dharma Path program explained that it is very hard to let go of all conceptual thought because we've been clinging to these thoughts, which are essentially delusions or obscurations, for countless lifetimes. Our mind is simply in the habit of doing so, and it takes a lot of practice to undo it. In fact, it's quite remarkable how much progress it's possible to make, considering this. I can only think that I must have had practice in previous lifetimes as well.

I've also been reading a lot about death and impermanence. Basically, the Buddhist view is that you should contemplate death in depth now, so that when it actually happens, you won't be frightened or disturbed. (It will also be a spur to practice when you realize that death can come at any moment.) Part of what I've been reading is advice on what to do around a dying person. You're not supposed to cry, or grab onto the person, because that will create an emotional disturbance in them, and even induce them to cling to their body. If they have an attitude of clinging as they die, they will be reborn within the present state of existence (the world of suffering, samsara) and may even have a lower rebirth (i.e. more suffering), because the emotional disturbance will steer them that way. The best way is to let them leave their body calmly and peacefully. When Buddha himself left his body, he had eliminated all attachments, including attachments to his body. Thus he had achieved the state of not being reborn in samsara (complete nirvana).

An image from CNN.com

This gentleman biked to work 6 miles in some very cold weather (I believe in Minnesota). I have gotten ice crystals in my beard on occasion, but this picture is something else.