My BDay Today

Hi all. Today's my birthday. I'm now 33 years old. Or is it 34? I'm pretty sure it's 33. Anyway, if you want to do something on my behalf for my birthday, how about rescuing some small animals? An easy thing to do would be to go to a bait or pet shop and buy some crickets and release them into the wild, or buy some bait fish and release them into a river. (Be sure you're matching the animal with an appropriate habitat. Don't release non-native fish species please!) The merit you accumulate from saving lives like this is vast, and it has the added benefit that you are training yourself to be kind to others.

Climate Catastrophe!?

Read this story. Scary, scary.

A poem

Orange and soft
Orangensaft
Idiom idiot idiolect idolatry izzitme
what am I trying to say,
scrawled
am I trying to stay sprawled
What is the difference between time and apes
Are apes like grapes, spherical, angelical, purple and perpendicular monstrosities of the idiolect idiot running water streaming careening and eating but I don't know why how them me you are we in this sentence together or what?
That's what I like a tense stream a careening tense stream a scream a word a feeling a new sentence into jail like that like house like me like you like the world spinning around a turd a turtle a tesseract a new amphibious encyclopedia spurning the vortex neutrinos nor eating the intense turgid meerkat like entities sprawled on the floor eating mice and singing aloud as though this were their last time on earth or perhaps the last time in the universe or the big crunch big bang bathsheeba beersheeba bear cat eat my hat no don't do that because it tastes like rat or maybe it doesn't these things are never clear to me though I pretend like the thoughts make sense careening sprawled on the dining room floor, naked as Alan Ginsburg Greenspan says though I am unsure of his intent, sprawled halfway between naked and illustrious and the words will flow a tense feeling in my heart but where did that go. Why is it gone? How come it's not there any more. It felt so good, but then I began editing the words. I began controlling the thoughts. I began channeling the flow, and gadzooks, it all petered... out...

The A.A. Promises

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through.

We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.

We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others.

That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.

We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.

Self-seeking will slip away.

Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.

We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.



Are these extravagant promises? We think not.

They are being fulfilled among us - sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

They will always materialize if we work for them.

-Alcoholics Anonymous p83-84

An op-ed that makes the point well

Op-ed: Know thine enemy

Four things to contemplate

1. We have a great and rare opportunity to do good in the world, to practice a spiritual path, and to uncover our true spontaneous wondrous nature. This opportunity is easily lost, however. It can be lost through death, which comes like a thief in the night, or simply through inaction and distraction. To appreciate the rarity of our opportunity, think about how many life forms there are on the planet. Almost none of them have the cognitive ability to follow a spiritual path, and many of them are relegated to vast suffering and hellish experiences. Think of all the poor lobsters boiled alive in pots. None of them has had the opportunity to practice that we have. Think of all the people in the world who don't have the freedom to practice as they wish. For example, people who must work all day without stop and people living in countries with brutal governments. From this perspective, the number of people who can practice a spiritual path are as rare as a star in daytime.


2. Everything is impermanent. That which comes together must dissolve. In fact, the only two certainties in life are that we will die, and that we don't know when. Since we know that our time is limited, what better time to start practicing a spiritual path than right now!

3. Virtuous actions leads to happiness whereas negative actions (for example the 7 deadly sins) leads to suffering. This is the principle of karma.

4. The objects and people of the world cannot be relied upon for lasting happiness. Thus, if we wish to find lasting happiness, we need to look elsewhere.

On Doubt (Sogyal Rinpoche)

Doubts demand from us a real skillfulness in dealing with them, and I notice how few people have any idea how to pursue doubts or to use them. Isn't it ironic that in a civilization that so worships the power of deflation and doubt, hardly anyone has the courage to deflate the claims of doubt itself, to do as one Hindu master said: turn the dogs of doubt on doubt itself, to unmask cynicism and to uncover the fear, despair, hopelessness, and tired conditioning it springs from? Then doubt would no longer be an obstacle, but a door to realization, and whenever doubt appeared in the mind, a seeker would welcome it as a means of going deeper into the truth.

Traveling again

I'm going up to Ithaca, New York next week to see the Dalai Lama, and after that I'm heading down to Kagyu Thubten Chöling Monastery for a two day retreat. It's going to be awesome. :)

Buddhism on YouTube!?

A musical rendition of the Heart Sutra. (Prajnaparamita Hrdaya)

A talk by Sogyal Rinpoche

A talk by Tsem Tulku Rinpoche.

A Quote by Shantideva

Whatever joy there is in this world
All comes from desiring others to be happy,
And whatever suffering there is in this world
All comes from desiring myself to be happy.

Autobigraphy in 5 chapters (Portia Nelson)

I came across the following poem, which struck a real chord with me, while reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche. (An amazing book, by the way.)


1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost...I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in...it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

Bad dream

Last night, for the first time in about 10 years, I had a nightmare which woke me up and left me terrified. I'm not really sure why the dream occurred when it did. I was in a room, there were some alien greys on the stairs and bunch of people in the room. I felt no threat from these aliens, and I asked "Are these 'visitors?'" and the response was "no," although someone mentioned that "Jesus was a visitor." I got the distinct impression that "visitors" were a subset of the alien greys, a particularly powerful and dangerous subset. Then I dreamed I was in my bed, and I was being pulled up. I continuously recited the Buddhist refuge prayer as an antidote: "I take refuge in the Buddha, dharma and Sangha. By the virtuous merit that I collect, may I be attain Buddhahood, to benefit all sentient beings." My legs were being pulled upward, but my torso was staying in place. Then I dreamt I woke up, and I saw a tiny figure fleeing down the hall. I felt like I had the upper hand now, and I chased it. Then it became a rather menacing alien head which fell down the stairs where I chased it. I kicked it, and then picked it up, feeling like it was dead and defeated. I went outside, where there were some people in the parking lot. I showed them the alien head, and one of the people put it on top of her head as a joke. I began to get worried that it still had power, so I suggested we destroy it. I suggested we cut it up with scissors, but then I realized it had them under its control now, because they attacked me, although not in a particularly violent way. Then I woke up, terrified. Lying in my bed, I felt scared to open my eyes in case there was an alien there. As I was lying there, I came to the conclusion that this alien was an actual creature, perhaps not corporeal, with whom I had some kind of karmic debt. Like a good bodhisattva, I made the aspiration that the suffering I was experiencing be sufficient for all sentient beings. But then I became so frightened at that prospect, I started arguing with myself and part of my mind said "I was just joking." Anyway, it's pretty anticlimactic from there. I did eventually fall asleep.

The alien grey was always a very disturbing image to me, and I've had some nightmares before involving them, though as I mentioned this was many years ago. When I was really young, I had a dream about a giant glowing skeleton which scared me in exactly the same way. I think this skeleton and the grey are the same archetype in my unconscious mind. As for the question of why? What does it mean? What does the grey represent? I don't really know. It's a very powerful symbol in my mind, and I have some guesses, but I don't really know. Before I went to bed, I had been thinking about this alien symbol (not frightened at all) and I was wondering why I had found it so disturbing in the past. I thought it was something I could ask Lama Norlha Rinpoche. Then, lo and behold, I had a dream about it. Makes you think.

Meditation methods

There are many, many types of meditation. One major distinction is between calm, abiding meditation ( shinay or shamatha), and analytic meditation ( vipassana or insight meditation). Once one practices shinay for a while, one's mind is clear and stable enough to engage in insight meditation. The root is shinay, and I'd like to describe a few basic shinay techniques for the possible benefit of my readers.

The first type is called shinay with a focus. First sit in meditation posture if you can, or sit in a chair with your back upright and straight otherwise. You can have your hands rest on your knees, or in your lap, often with the right hand cradled in the left. Choose an object of your focus. For example, it can be a candle flame or a sacred image. Now keep your attention loosely on that object. Whenever you find your mind has wandered, bring it gently back to the object. Although this seems easy, it's not, because the mind very easily wanders away. The meditation trains us to be mindful. Whenever we notice our focus has been lost, we give our mind something concrete to do: bring it back to the focus. Do this or some form of shinay for at least 20 minutes a day. If you just do it sporadically, it will help on the day you do it, but will have no lasting effect. It would be like attempting to boil water by turning the burner on for a few minutes every few days.

The second type of meditation is called shinay without a focus. Sit in meditation posture as before, the only difference being that your eyes are half-open (as opposed to fully open.) They can be closed if you want. Now the idea is to let your mind rest in emptiness without conceptualization. Whenever you notice that you are thinking, let go of the thoughts and bring the mind back to a state of emptiness. This meditation also trains the mind in minfdulness, it trains us to be aware of our thoughts. When we see that we have a thought, that's the important point. Then we let it go, don't follow after it, don't let it carry us away in a dense conceptual web. Just let it go and repeat. Although experienced meditators can let their minds rest without distraction in a natural state of empty awareness for hours and days, beginners like us will find that thought arise almost continuously. Over time the gaps between thoughts will lengthen, however.

The third type of meditation lies somewhere in between the first two. Here you focus on the breath. Whenever your attention wanders, and you notice it has wandered, you gently bring it back to the breath. You can count breaths, say up to 10, and keep repeating. You can also internally say the mantra OM AH HUNG synchronized with the breath, so that when you breathe in you think "OM", when you pause ever-so-slightly before breathing out you think "AH" and when you breathe out you think "HUNG." One of my favorite meditations is to combine this focus on the breath with a meditation on compassion (bodhicitta). When you breathe in, imagine that all the afflictions and suffering of sentient beings are drawn in to your nose in the form of black smoke. It collects at you heart center, where it is transformed into white light, which you then breathe out, purifying all sentient beings of their sufferings.

I am grateful to Lama Norlha Rinpoche for teaching me these methods, and giving me permission to teach them to others. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask.

Codex Seraphinianus

I found out about this amazing book, Codex Seraphinianus, while reading a collection of articles by Douglas Hofstadter. It purports (or does it?) to be an encyclopedia of another civilization or world, written in another language that is indecipherable to us. Most of the images are delightful containing all sorts of playful modifications of form from what we're used. Hofstadter compares it to music. I've included some of my favorite pictures here although I would definitely recommend finding it and looking at it yourself. When one browses the internet, the standard refrain is that large university libraries have it, and indeed, that's where I got my copy.

The first image is from the "botany" chapter. Who says plants have to be connected, or only have one root? The second image is from the "physics" chapter indicating a contraption for some physical experiment that presumably makes sense in their physics. The third image is really funny is all I have to say, and so is the fourth, an entry on one of the various tribes that inhabit this other world.

More philosophy of mind

Beckett, in a comment below, asks: "What if it is true that our rational decision-making thought process is actually a fantasy ; a running commentary to justify decisions already made (a concept supported by some evidence, according to a NY Times article)."

I think this is probably largely true. The way I see it at the moment, the decision making process occurs largely unconsciously, as does the thought generating process. But, who is coming up with that running commentary, and more to the point in my mind, who is experiencing the running commentary? As far as I see, it is our awareness that experiences the results of our unconscious thought processes. However, I don't think that our actions are completely determined by our unconscious mind in this way. What would the point be of our awareness if it were powerless? I think that we can affect the way our unconscious mind works through our awareness, but it is subtle and it takes time.

Mount Timpanogos Photos Part 3

First photo: Emerald Lake, fed by a year-round snow field.
Second photo: Tibetan prayer flags someone had hung on the little structure at the peak. Very cool!
Third and Fourth Photos: A lone mountain goat that was wandering around very close to the summit.

Mount Timpanogos Photos Part 2

The first image captures some mountain goats high on a rock wall. The third photo is a view of the top.

Click on pics for more resolution.

Mount Timpanogos Photos Part 1

I hiked to the top of Mt. Timpanogos about an hour south of Salt Lake. It's definitely among the top hikes I've ever been on, if not the top one. It ranks among the hikes I've done in the high Sierra in California.

Be sure to click on the photos for a larger view.

Salt Lake City

I took a little (1.5 hour) hike from my hotel room up the side of an adjacent foothill this morning. It was hot, but the air is so dry that it didn't feel too bad, especially with a hat. The temperature is actually about the same (95 degrees) as back home, but it feels infinitely better here. I snapped this picture when I reached the highest point I could get to in time. I had a talk to present at 1pm, so I didn't have the luxury of climbing all day, even though it looked like I was about 20 minutes from the peak. Alas. The surrounding countryside is stunningly beautiful.

If you lived in Nebraska, you'd see this all the time!