Things being a little slow here I thought I would re-publish a piece from my Integral Liberties blog... It comes up from time to time when I think of Sri Aurobindo. Like I wrote in the first essay on this blog, I cannot relate well to the man at all except for the fact that he was mightily overtaken by the Spirit while in prison and on trial for his life. It is a common syndrome, the jail house conversion. I recall he sat through his trial in something of an ecstatic, non-dual trance. I cannot say I knew personally anyone who could make the same claim. Michael, who's story I tell below, sat through his in a trance but it was not of the sort where the consciousness is overwhelmed in the ineffable apprehension of cosmic wholeness. Michael's was induced to overcome some of the side effects of his conversion and to set him up...but to all of that soon enough. Killing The Beast, I believe, was the name of the thread that Jana (Jaguar here on Open Source) started some months ago on one of the many forums that help civilians in Integral Province stay in touch. If I correctly recall I posted something and then was still drafting another, the one found below, when the direction of the thread changed; it went tangent or was jacked by chatters and dribbled out toward entropic stasis and the AADD diffusion that often characterizes the provisional forums. So I let this piece hibernate in some virtual closet. About two years ago I hauled it back out, shot it up with a little adrenaline, tidied the style and added a bit or two, found it suitable again for public consumption and hung it on the board at Integral Visioning. Now I'm nailing it to this page: So we wonder at The Beast. I've been an artist too long so I tend to forget, I no longer remember to wonder each morning at The Beast. But today might be the time to be conscious again in this manner to see what we are trying to kill here and what we would be well advised to keep of The Beast. For 18 years, doing work as a p.i., I tried to keep people from going to jail, or to get them out of jail, or to keep them off the gurney that rolls down the concourse to the Needle. The Beast roams at large in that concourse and breathes in, breathes out through that slight steel tube. My client Michael was on his way there once. Michael talked to the wall for a month, maybe more, after he turned himself in. He was a sweet young man, quiet and dutiful, with a wife and a baby a week away. He had a job and a car. The Beast rode in that car because he put the two young women in the trunk and took them out east of Albuquerque and killed one with his knife and the tire iron, but the other, with 17 stab wounds and two skull fractures got away. Michael's wife helped him turn himself in and he didn't talk to anyone except The Virgin who apparently finds a residence in the wall of many an institution. The Beast slept in the bunk while Michael no doubt spilled his life to Our Lady of the Psych Ward Wall and he probably talked of cars, his car, his mother's car when he was young and Mom let her brother sodomize her son in the back seat on their way into town. Cars; it will be a long time until Michael rides in one for he will probably live out his life somewhere near the concourse where The Beast lives and breathes. The Beast breathed enormous doses of stelazine and thorazine into Michael while he was standing trial so that he wouldn't get distracted into a chat with Our Lady of the Court House Floor because that would make him look insane and someone incompetent of committing a capital crime. And though he wasn't competent and wasn't guilty in the capital definition, the State liked The Beast's breath because it made Michael look sane enough and sociopathic enough (Google "stelazine stare") for a jury to want to kill him. And it worked. But we got him free of Death Row and his mother was touched with the work we did to save her baby, Michael, the good little boy she beat up on a few too many times. There was another guy who was talking in those days to Our Lady of the Cell Block Wall. They called him Weepie. Weepie and a man with the last name Chavez killed Joe A. in the Cell Block 3 (Maximum Security) exercise yard where The Beast was working out while the two stabbed Joe A. 47 times before the guards got him free of his handcuffs. Weepie needed that kill for some inside credibility and I think that when Ricky issued the contract on Joe A. he picked Weepie as a favor. Ricky looked out after his people that way. Weepie needed someone like Ricky to front for him because Weepie was the skinniest guy in the joint, he had that wretched name because he still had his tear-drop tat from his juvie days, and worst of all he looked just like Olive Oyle. Chavez had wanted to kill Joe A. on his own and he didn't want to be in trial with Weepie because Weepie was just Weepie and that was a bad drug on the Chavez image especially now that Weepie had religion and was enjoying long and fruitful exchanges with Our Lady of the Protective Custodial Wall. The Beast was all round that morning while Chavez was telling me this. I was working for the widow of Joe A. in her civil rights and wrongful death suit against the State of New Mexico. Chavez, whose business with the A. Family had been successfully concluded, hoped she could loot the State for all she could carry away. And, indeed, she made out alright because it wasn't hard to prove that the Warden knew and the Captain of the Shift knew and the Lieutenant for Cell Block 3 knew, and the Assistant Warden for Security knew and even the New Mexico State Secretary of Corrections knew that Joe A. was going to be killed if he went into the exercise yard that morning and they did nothing at all, nothing, to stop it. The Beast had been busy all around. Ricky was already on Death Row the morning they killed Joe A.; sent there for having killed that other Cell Block 3 prisoner from Las Cruces and the new guard with one week's tenure, both at the same time, both of them in the middle of Cell Block 3 where no two prisoners were to be out of their segregated cells at the same time. (Ricky was a wizard.) At his sentencing to The Needle, Ricky looked the new guard's mother in the eye and apologized for killing her son, but the kid had, in effect, committed suicide when he tried to stop Ricky from doing what he needed to do which was to kill the guy from Las Cruces. Ricky laughed when he told me this, but then he said he meant it and he genuinely felt sorry for her, sitting there in court looking like just another sorry assed Anglo woman with the thinnest kind of blood and the weakest sort of will. Quite often when I went into that prison to chase the facts around I would have them bring Ricky in from Death Row so the two of us could kick back in the legal interview room, Ricky would drink the Coca Cola I brought him while I told him why I was there and then he could pass the word on his way back to his cell that it was alright to talk with me. It was like a courtesy call. Ricky and I were hanging there one morning when into the adjacent room the guards ushered a fat, middle aged, red faced White guy who was doing life for a couple of psychopathic motivated murders. He had spent almost his entire sentence in protective custody because he was "mental," a freak, and as such wasn't tolerated well in such close confines. But some months before, due to overcrowding, the administration had farmed him out to a county jail in an end- of-the-world kind of hamlet called Estancia. He behaved himself so well there the Sheriff made him the office dispatcher on the night shift. Three nights before we saw him there in the next room, the fat man had walked away from the dispatcher's desk and caught a ride to Albuquerque . The night after that he hired a cab to take him to a restaurant and on their arrival had killed the cabby and had been hauled down by some bystanders and witnesses when he tried to run. He was back in custody within 10 minutes and back in prison almost as soon. When the guards brought him in to see his lawyer, Ricky's blood went up. He forgot I was in the room, forgot perhaps how to talk. His focus froze on the Fat Man and we sat there for almost five minutes without words. I said nothing, just listened to Ricky breathe because the Fat psychopath was a loose cannon, loose on Ricky's watch and he wanted the Fat Man dead because Ricky had more power in that prison than the warden and a responsibility to keep it orderly. Ricky was not a psychopath, he was a warrior from a cultural substrate with alternative values, and perspectives, and economies that generally ran totally counter to the norm. His sentence to The Needle was commuted to Life the same time Michael's was, along with five others. We cleaned up that day; it was on a Thanksgiving. The County Sheriff who used the Fat Man as a dispatcher lost his job the next election, it was no big surprise. A few months later he and I were sitting around a vacant jury room in the court house in a town called Los Lunes. It was a criminal trial. I was working for the defense and he was a witness for the prosecution. He asked if I had heard what had happened that morning in Santa Fe. No, I had not because I'd been away from home for a couple of days. So he told me the story of a man named Andy who had been charged with first degree murder. Andy's lawyer, a few weeks prior, had pled him to the lesser charge of second degree, and the previous day the judge sentenced him to seven years in prison with the obligation to pay the former wife of the man he killed $100,000 restitution to make up for the child support she would no longer receive. Early that morning Andy went to the former wife's mobile home and shot her dead. He then went to the court house to take the judge hostage while he made his break for god knows where. But the judge was late in coming to work and that screwed Andy's plan. He tried to run and a deputy sheriff, a Santa Clara Pueblo Indian named Naranjo, brother of a friend of mine, shot him down. Naranjo put a pistol full of bullets into Andy in the lobby of the Santa Fe County Court House where The Beast was all around. I thought, as I listened to this story, of how I had less than six months before sat at Andy's kitchen table and talked with his wife and son and him about how the man he killed, the uncle of his son's wife, had been threatening his son, threatening Andy too. One day the word was out that the uncle-in-law and another family member were going to make good on the threat that night. The son went out looking for the pair. Andy, out of his mind with worry, went out to find the three of them. He confronted the uncle in the drive way of the mobile home where his former wife lived. Andy thought the man was reaching for a weapon that was said to be always close at hand. Andy pulled a pistol, shot twice, hit once and drove away. The Uncle walked across the driveway, sat down on the steps to the former wife's front door and bled to death with The Beast lounging there beside him. Andy was a shy, pleasant, worried, round little middle class lath and plaster contractor who had an acute brain disorder triggered by fermented barley. They found out about that one too late and the judge would not let it be admitted into evidence at the sentencing where The Beast was watching from the back row. The next night I left Los Lunas and headed south to a mountain town with a cowboy dealer who had hired me to help his lawyer make 24 ounces of cocaine, thirteen pounds of marijuana, two and a half gallons of crystal meth, a couple blocks of hash, and 1,200 tabs of LSD legally disappear because to all involved the FBI had obviously lied on the sworn affidavit for the search warrant, an act that should make those pharmaceuticals inadmissible as evidence. After I had spent several days finding witnesses to the fed's big lie, the cowboy came around and told me that the next day he had a meeting with Another Busted Dealer and they were going to be talking snitches and rats. But the two men didn't know each other, or each others friends, or each others enemies, or anyone's real name and neither knew where the other one stood on the issues of a high-rolling cattleman dealer who always got busted but never was charged, or the guy who got his product wholesale along the border in guns-for-drug deals and who had been busted a few weeks before and might have been the one who had rolled over on them. When the feds searched the house of the gun runner they found an original Yoko Ono piece hanging above the couch. It had once been stolen in a burglary at the Dakota Hotel and god knows The Beast hung there. The gun runner told the cowboy and me that he had always thought the piece was a copy. We'd had our meeting with this man on foot along a dirt road that ran through the hills, his call. And we had every reason to believe that he had a second who wasn't all that far away with a rifle because things can turn funny-shaped suddenly when strangers are talking snitches and rats. That was why the cowboy asked me to be in place to take up his slack if the meeting went sour with the Other Busted Dealer. I was the first one at the 7-11 parking lot, site of the rendezvous. The cowboy had rented for my driving pleasure and general transport a Lincoln Town Car and this was where I was topping off the tank. The Other Busted Dealer and his side-kick showed up next. I knew them for their Jeep CJ and their ski clothes, the two guys I was going to start shooting at, if and when... They went inside and I went in behind them. One bought a candy bar and the other one jerky. I paid for the gas and bought a newspaper to cover my pistol that lay between me and The Beast in the passenger seat. The Cowboy showed up last in his pickup and the Other Busted Dealer, quick like, climbed in beside him and off they drove. I slipped the Lincoln out onto the highway behind them just ahead of the sidekick in the Jeep. The trick was to stay three cars back and still make all the same lights. They drove into the hills on a winding road and pulled into the back lot of a time-share complex. I drove past, around a hairpin switchback and pulled to a stop on the wrong side of the road right above the pickup and watched the animated conversation through its rear window. I had time then to take what seemed like a leisurely inventory of my life to that date and I found that I could not have been more pleased with where I had been, where I sat now and who I was. Robert Service once wrote: "The world's a jolly good joke to him, and now is the time to laugh, " so I did. And I found a familiar heat rising up my spine, radiating into the viscera, infusing my heart with delicious longing, doubling my lung capacity, forcing into my throat; if I had then anything to say it probably would have been spoken in a language that no one else had ever heard either. When it reached my ears all the white noise within miles became harmonized notes in the perfect overture to this highly localized little celebration. And then I saw all into eternity turn crisp and glowing, and despite the vividness of shape and color, eradicate all boundaries and all frontiers, and fuse with me into an indivisible totality; shipped straight back to the non-dual again...in a clumsy Lincoln Town Car with only a newspaper, a pistol, and The Beast. Everything seemed straight between the Cowboy and the Other Busted Dealer who got out of the pickup and strolled across the lot to a time share. I drove down past the driveway just before the Cowboy pulled onto the road to show him I was still around and still on the clock. I don't suppose given all the events that The Beast was too disappointed...there was after all a little commonality with the Sri.

Join us this week as we speak with Dr. Peter Grossenbacher, director of the Consciousness Laboratory at Naropa University, about the difference between Eastern and Western modes of inquiry, sensory awareness practice, and of the importance of contemplative education. Peter ties together the Eastern and Western schools of thought by pointing out that they are both loosely interested in the empirical, or what is observable. He also explains the sensory awareness practice that he guides students through, and in our first guided practice here on Buddhist Geeks, leads us through a few minutes of sensory awareness practice. We finish our discussion with Peter touching briefly on the role of "contemplative education," or in an education that is attempting to bring together conceptual and non-conceptual modes of learning. This is part 2 of a two-part series. Listen to Part 1, The Consciousness Laboratory.

An open-access e-journal published by Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education in Pondicherry (Puducherry), India, AntiMatters addresses issues in science and the humanities from non-materialistic perspectives. Contents Prelude to the Fifth Issue An introduction to radical constructivism Ernst von Glasersfeld Facts and the self from a constructivist point of view Ernst von Glasersfeld Learning as a constructive activity Ernst von Glasersfeld Evolution of consciousness according to Jean Gebser Ulrich J Mohrhoff Evolution vs. naturalism: why they are like oil and water Alvin Plantinga A comment on Alvin Plantinga, “Evolution vs. naturalism” Ulrich J Mohrhoff Following the bread crumbs to the end of ultimate meaning Avraham Allan Cohen The scientific exploration of consciousness: towards an adequate epistemology Willis Harman The atheist delusion: answering Richard Dawkins Greg Taylor Synchronicity: the key to destiny Frank Joseph Review of What A Coincidence! – The Wow! factor in synchronicity and what it means in everyday life by Susan M. Watkins Review of The Scalpel and the Soul: Encounters with Surgery, the Supernatural, and the Healing Power of Hope by Alan J. Hamilton Review of Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion by Stuart A. Kauffman Review of Living on Purpose: Meaning, Intention, and Value by Graham Dunstan Martin Excerpts from 21 Days into the Afterlife by Piero Calvi-Parisetti Excerpts from Gateway to the Dao-Field: Essays for the Awakening Educator by Avraham A Cohen The Spiritual Evolution of Society: Excerpts from The Human Cycle by Sri Aurobindo

Join us this week as we speak with Dr. Peter Grossenbacher, director of the Consciousness Laboratory at Naropa University, about his research on meditation and contemplative spirituality. Along with finding out about the specific work that Dr. Grossenbacher is engaged in in the Consciousness Lab, listen in as we ask we ask such questions as: Can awareness be defined through empirical methods? And if so, what methods might those be? And finally, can the emphasis on objectivity found in much of mainstream science be applied to subjective research? This is part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to part 2 (airing next week).

An interesting article appeared on The Buddhist Channel today.  The link is below.  There are related articles on the websites referred to at the end of this article too.  The "third nature" - I like that.

Buddhism and Homosexuality - Singapore -- Homosexuality is the tendency to be sexually attracted to persons of the same rather than the opposite gender. According to the ancient Indian understanding, homosexuals were thought of simply as being 'the third nature' (tritiya prakti), ...  [The Buddhist Channel]

B. Alan Wallace joins to us to compare and contrast two fantastic dream practices. One comes from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, going all the way back to India, with the yogi Naropa. This practice, called Dream Yoga, is a type of insight practice which utilizes the dream state in order to wake up. The other practice, called Lucid Dreaming, comes out of the pioneering research of Dr. Stephen LaBerge. Lucid dreaming breaks down the same goals that Dream Yoga aspires to, but into smaller and more attainable goals. It is also firmly grounded in the scientific method. Listen in to hear Dr. Wallace, who is authorized to teach both of these methods, discuss the similarities and differences in these two different approaches.

Nineteen sixty-three was the year that Martin Luther King, Jr. preached his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington. It was also the year that I was born. Although just an infant, I imbibed something of that utopian spirit of the 1960s and this has shaped so many of my adult choices. I didn't actually hear that sermon until I was around twelve, but it was one more confirmation of my utopian mindset. "I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together" This paragraph is based on a Biblical passage, which is one of the most utopian in the whole canon. I was raised on the Bible and inspired by passages like this one. However, it may be that this message is not the dominant theme in the Bible. There is plenty of pessimism and, what seem to me, backward ideas in it as well. It seems my life has been about journeying from pessimism towards utopianism. My father, also a preacher, was a classic hell-fire and brimstone Pentecostal. No utopian heaven on earth for him. He preached against liberals, feminists, and peaceniks. In short, he preached against everything I have become. And that, as they say, is a story in itself. Breaking with Pessimism After graduating from high school in 1981, I attended a Pentecostal college, and it was there I first began to think outside the pessimistic viewpoint I had inherited. The first break came over a matter of doctrine that might seem minor to folks outside Pentecostalism, but it made a world of difference to me in that context. The standard doctrine said that Jesus was going to "rapture" all real Christians from earth, leaving most humans behind to face the "Great Tribulation." The horrors of Armageddon, massive earthquakes, plagues, and fiery comets would be rained down on sinners for seven years. I came to believe that God wouldn't deprive the earth of his best servants during earth's darkest hours. I believed that Christians would face the Antichrist and be used by God to resist evil's power. This deviation set me apart as a heretic and a radical. After all, to Pentecostals, being a Christian was about saving souls and going to heaven. The earth was a hopeless cause. I had begun a long journey of rejecting a deeply ingrained world-hatred. I didn't return to college for another seven years. Reaching for Love and Community Before I left college, I did manage to meet and fall in love with my wife, Teresa. She seemed intrigued by my "radicalism" in contrast to most of the other students and teachers. One of my few campus radical buddies was her good friend and that made it easier for her to accept me. We became good friends while touring with the college choir, and eventually a romance blossomed. We married in November of 1982, and began a search for whatever utopia we could find together. I was still finding inspiration in the Bible and this time it was found in Acts 4:32: "Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common." Four years later, we moved to Evanston, IL to become part of a Christian community, Reba Place Fellowship, which utilized a common treasury. Just before that move, love came into my life in its purest form. My daughter Melissa was born on October 10, 1985. My father once said to me that he never felt truly experienced pure love until my little sister was born. I now knew what that meant. Even though I have always felt like fathering was challenging, I still see in my children -- my son was born three years later -- the truest legacy I will ever create. No job or masterpiece I could craft will have the same impact or meaning as my children. Fatherhood Let me digress about fatherhood a bit. My own father, as may be obvious by now, was an angry and unhappy person and abusive towards his wife and children. We led a double life, with Dad preaching Jesus and salvation in church, but giving us pain and unhappiness in the home. Although I had an instant bond with my daughter, when my son, Christopher, was born, it was harder to feel that same affection. I can't recall my father ever expressing genuine love for me. I have worked through that resistance, but my father's patterns of short-tempered lashing out still lurk in my subconscious. Once we settled in to the Reba Place community, I began to work at healing the pain and suffering of my childhood. After one of my angry explosions was aimed directly at my lovely little girl, I had no choice but to get into therapy. I was diagnosed with depression and began an eight-year pursuit of emotional healing. There were two breakthroughs in therapy. First of all, I reconnected with my "inner child" in a very intense therapy session. I know that this idea is much scoffed at, and the session did not start out with that goal. We were revisiting a pivotal childhood experience of abuse. As we worked through memories, it became clear that a part of myself had been deeply damaged and unable to cope with that experience. It was only as I embraced that abused child part of myself that I began to heal from all that pain. The second breakthrough was more mundane. I had been placed on anti- depressants as far back as 1987, but they all had fairly limited effects. Not long afterwards, Prozac was released, but I didn't take it until much later. When I finally did so, it worked its famous magic on me. Within a few months all my depressive thoughts subsided and I knew that I was fully cured. This is not the typical case, of course, but I have been symptom-free for over seven years. I do not know how much a factor the "inner child" breakthrough was in the success of the medication. My guess is that they reinforced each other. Departing Reba, Embracing Quakerism My life at Reba Place came to an end a couple of years later. My new emotional health gave me a new freedom in religious matters, and for all its good things, Reba Place was still holding on to traditions and ideas that began to feel constrictive. My journey towards utopia was about to take a new turn. Reba Place was part of the Mennonite Church, a biblically based peace church. I was drawn there as much by pacifism as by the communal lifestyle. I began to go through serious questioning of the Bible and Christian doctrines, including doubts about Jesus' divinity and resurrection, the nature of God, and the authority of the Bible. I was still a pacifist and religious, but I needed to find a new community that could accommodate someone given to heretical ideas about religion. I found that community in another utopian sect, the Religious Society of Friends, commonly called "Quakers." While they started out with a biblicism similar to the Mennonites, modernism and unorthodox ideas became much more accepted among one branch of Quakers about a hundred years ago. Many Quakers had been involved in the struggle for the abolition of slavery, but this experience undermined the traditional culture of Quakerism as world-shunning sect. They shifted from a vision of communal perfection to one of social service and activism. This new focus brought Quakers into contact with unorthodox ideas about the Bible and Christianity. Quakers had already undergone some splits over doctrine, but the faction that embraced modern activism and theology has become today one of the most theologically diverse religious bodies in the USA. I located the closest Quaker meeting to my home and began attending just over four and a half years ago [this was written in 2001]. Among Quakers I have found a community that I believe will be my spiritual home for the rest of my life. They are far from perfect, but part of my healing has been accepting imperfection both in myself and in others. Still Longing for Utopia A. J. Muste, the pacifist founder of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, once remarked that his demonstrations against war were not only about changing the world, they were also intended to keep the world from changing him. That resonates with how I regard my utopian spirit. While I have been changed many times in many ways, those changes have been aimed at purifying the utopian impulse. The 1960s still stand out for me as a period of history when lots of people discovered a vision of a better world. They failed to realize it completely, but I believe the world is better for that vision having dawned in the lives it did. As for where my utopian impulse will take me next, that's something of a mystery to me, as it has been all along. I know that one of my real gifts is writing and there is so much to be written about the details of utopian visions. I have had a couple of articles published and really hope one day to write a longer book on my experience and philosophy.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, an esteemed teacher in the Bon Buddhist tradition of Tibet, joins us again to continue describing the importance of dream yoga as part of the larger system of the 6 yogas of Naropa. Rinpoche guides us through the three different kinds of dreams that we can have, including samsaric dreams, dreams of clarity, and clear light dreams. He also discusses the importance of dream practice, for those that have a naturally tendency toward being active in their dreams, comments on the methodology of lucid dreaming, that Western dream research Stephen LaBerge has created, and explains the importance of dream yoga in relationship to the process of death and the bardo. This is part 2 of a two-part series. Listen to part 1, Sleep as a Spiritual Journey.

“Look to your experience in dreams to know how you will fare in death. Look to your experience of sleep to discover whether or not you are truly awake." - Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, an esteemed teacher in the Bon Buddhist tradition of Tibet, joins us to discuss the importance of sleep in relation to the spiritual path. Since we spend nearly a third of our lives asleep, the focus on sleep and dream practice becomes of utmost important for those practitioners that want to make the best of the time they have. Listen in to find out more about the Bon tradition, the dissolution of the sense of self during sleep, and the way that dream practices can contribute to greater awareness during both sleep and death. This is part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to part 2, The Yogas of Dream and Sleep.

A video creation I found on youtube sets a lecture by Alan Watts upon a background of ambient music, along with a visual image of Watts.  There are many uploaded videos of Watts on youtube.  What interests me about this one is the visual image - Watts has been (crudely) animated.  The video's description states: "Alan Watts, master philosopher brought to life with modern technology."

After I got over the creepiness of the video, I began to wonder what Alan Watts would think of being resurrected through technology.  I'm not very familiar with his philosophy, but I do know he has explored the idea of the past and history to some extent - the whole notion that "the tail does not wag the dog," or that the past does not need to determine our future.  Yet, we watch videos and listen to audio clips made in the past... on the one hand they are past events, preserved.  On the other hand, when played by us in our own time, they take on a quality of being present, or they are present events.

This video contains the lecture given by Watts, but I feel its new form (a youtube video) changes it in a way that makes it possible for it to be seen as something else. What that something is, I am not sure.  Kitschy laughs?  A creative expression of Watts' philosophy?

I'm interested to see what others think about it.

Here is the link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgqWzM7ckTk

-s-

[Herewith are my last journal entries, mostly verbatim instead of summarized, as I have been wont to do before.]

27 June 2008

Spent last night tossing, turning & hunting a little mouse that was munching on the pop-tart I’d gotten myself for the morning. [The rest of the story: I was mortified that it kept making noise, thinking it was keeping the other guys up. Nope, it turns out, just me. The cheeky little bastard had kept quiet and still when I picked up my bike helmet (which had the pop tart in it) to see if it was under there, not thinking to look inside. Eventually, carrying the helmet out of my room to put it out of reach, the little pest dropped out through a vent and ran for it.]

And just as I was getting ready to go, I saw I had a flat–and I’d managed to leave my tire irons behind somehow!

But I’m in good spirits now. A hostel staffer gave me his tire irons and I fixed the flat handily. The bead jack worked perfectly too.

So I’m at a KOA campsite in Pescadero with a restaurant where I await a huge salad with salmon. [Ed. note: these "campsites" are so loaded with luxury they might as well call them "split-log hotels." I have nothing against travelers enjoying those amenities, but why call them "campsites?"] Tempting to go with the burger & fries option as I’m starved but some vegetable matter does sound appealing.

I also seem to have mislaid my sharpener–I may be forced to return to a pen! Oh, wait, there it is in my pocket. [95% of all my stress in life is summed up right there.]

The Internet at the hostel was unusably bad. Satellite, so impossibly slow, and the interface seemed to be 100% web-based and actively evil. When I tried to load up Skype, the machine seemed to be trying to bring up Hotmail (?!).

Oh, and again with the headwind today! Not nearly as annoying on the trike, but still I can even verify it now, lots of tall grasses, pointed directly at me. Sheesh.

[Herewith are my last journal entries, mostly verbatim instead of summarized, as I have been wont to do before.]

26 June

Back on the road again! It took two false starts, but I did 50+ miles today and climbed over 3000 feet! The worst of it was King’s Mountain Road. Much of that twisty torture was spent in bottom gear, grinding away at 3 mph or less. It literally would have been faster to walk–but probably not pushing 80 lbs. or so of trike and gear.

Drivers were uniformly courteous, even friendly. At one point I waved at a van as I was piling along some ascent, and I could see only the passenger’s hand–throwing horns. Implicit message: I rock! That’s right, I do. You betta respect.

After the hell (in effort only) of King’s Mountain, I ran into a motorcyclist who persuaded me to just take Highway 1 instead of Stage Road, as the guy in the bike shop had suggested when I was starting my day. Unfortunately the motorbike guy also held forth on the “problem” presented by Mexicans, Chinese, and other immigrants. He claimed to be a liberal at one point–I wonder how that change happens. I tried to listen for his needs, which was enough for me to keep my cool externally but not much else. [Upon reflection, that encounter was about as creepy as any I had in the whole trip.]

Tunitas Creek Drive was a whole different adventure. Bike Shop Guy had suggested it as safe, and it even looked [on the map] to be a fun descent. Motorcycle Guy didn’t like the various blind turns, which were many, but I wanted a more direct route, so off I went.

I thik BSG forgot to consider my trike’s lacking the Big Shock Absorbers [standing on the pedals]. The road surface looked like an airfield that had taken heavy bombardment. I could go fast on the seemingly random repaired stretches but soon had to hit the brakes. I poured water on them during a break–it sizzled right off, they were so hot.

Tunitas did turn tamer after a while, letting on to houses and organic farms. I slowed down and stopped for a cute cat, but it fled my weird machine.

Anyway, I got to Highway 1, now more south than I had originally planned, and struck out for Pigeon Point. BSG had warned me off part of it, concerned that the berm was inadequate for a trike. It ws fine, though. I find I need less room with the trike, as my control of the tracking is much more precise–seeing where the wheels are is much easier. I don’t feel the need for a lot of allowance for weaving, since a bump against one tire affects my course but little.

The last few miles were a bit of fatigue-torture, but eventually the lighthouse popped into view. And they had beds available!

Not only that, i had a great evening’s conversation and got to share a hot tub (against California tradition, in swim suits) with a couple of touring bikers from Berkeley: C– and S–. It was more good conversation, and a stunning view of the fog-covered ocean with the lighthouse beam playing through it.

My apologies for yet another “quick update,” I actually have a few pages in my paper journal to transcribe yet.

My journey ended in something of a hurry as Amtrak had seats available for 24 July or 16 August, and I wanted to get back sooner rather than later. A 40-hour train trip and 3-hour bus ride (with 1 hour of sleep altogether), I was back in Vancouver. I saw the most incredibly exciting roller-derby game Saturday night (great hitting, refs all over the players like white on rice, super-deft skating, and sudden death overtime!), have rested up, and am feeling excited about life. Today begins my networking for a new job and first thing in the morning I saw an article about a restorative justice initiative right in this neighbourhood! A good sign.

Now to fix my laptop, which I managed to lobotomize on my first day here.

Melvin McLeod, Editor-in-Chief of the Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma magazines, concludes his conversation with us, this time discussing the inevitable tensions that arise in Buddhist media. These tensions center primarily around going deep vs. spreading wide. Listen in to hear how these magazines find the middle ground between condemning Buddhism to the irrelevant on the one hand (too much depth) and selling out on the other (too much breadth). Also at the end Melvin shares the specific ways that their publications are looking to integrate new media technologies into their projects. Exciting times! This is part 2 of a two-part series. Listen to part 1, Peering Under the Hood of Buddhist Media.

Melvin McLeod, Editor-in-Chief of the Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma magazines, concludes his conversation with us, this time discussing the inevitable tensions that arise in Buddhist media. These tensions center primarily around going deep vs. spreading wide. Listen in to hear how these magazines find the middle ground between condemning Buddhism to the irrelevant on the one hand (too much depth) and selling out on the other (too much breadth). Also at the end Melvin shares the specific ways that their publications are looking to integrate new media technologies into their projects. Exciting times! This is part 2 of a two-part series. Listen to part 1, Peering Under the Hood of Buddhist Media.

"Buddhism offers the most profound critique or criticism of life imaginable in it's analysis of the role of ego, and of the nature of samsara, as well as in its basic doctrine of emptiness. There could hardly be a more profound critique of life then to say that neither your nor it exists." - Melvin McLeod Melvin McLeod, Editor-in-Chief of the Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma magazines, joins us to share his perspective on the differences and similarities that Buddhist media sources have with more traditional media. Listen in to find out more about the philosophical underpinnings of a publication that has at it's heart a commitment to the teachings of non-ego. This is part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to part 2, The Inevitable Tension: Going Deep vs. Spreading Wide.

"Buddhism offers the most profound critique or criticism of life imaginable in it's analysis of the role of ego, and of the nature of samsara, as well as in its basic doctrine of emptiness. There could hardly be a more profound critique of life then to say that neither your nor it exists." - Melvin McLeod Melvin McLeod, Editor-in-Chief of the Shambhala Sun and Buddhadharma magazines, joins us to share his perspective on the differences and similarities that Buddhist media sources have with more traditional media. Listen in to find out more about the philosophical underpinnings of a publication that has at it's heart a commitment to the teachings of non-ego. This is part 1 of a two-part series. Listen to part 2, The Inevitable Tension: Going Deep vs. Spreading Wide (airing next week).

In his new book The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, Donald Rothberg sets out ten basic principles for socially engaged spiritual life. He shared these with us this last weekend. (I believe he co-wrote these ten with a partner, but her name escapes me). Resisting the urge to make my own comments, I wanted to offer them for your own consideration and contemplation, with a few words that Rothberg added during the retreat:

1) Establishing Your Own Ethical Guidelines on the personal, relational, and collective levels.
2) Mindfulness practice both on the cushion and off- honest relationship to what is happening in the moment.
3) Clarifying motivation/ Setting intentions
4) Opening to pain and suffering (ie unpleasant, uncomfortable, unsatisfactory conditions), first on the cushion and then off.
5) Balancing the care of self and of other (note: the traditional pali word for "equanimity" is UPEKA- meaning balance)
6) Open mindedness "Not knowing and keeping going"
7) Interdependence/Interbeing the honest contemplation and eventual understanding of our integral relationship to the people around us, our environment, and the whole world.
8) Transforming anger (and the negative emotions) these emotions are our strength as well as poisons. how do we transform them into skillful action? (hating anger is not so wise, wha?)
9) Acting from a place of equanimity
10) Deep commitment to action without attachment to outcome (as one Sri Lankan (?) activist said: "What we need is a five hundred year plan for social reform!")

I want to thank everyone at DIY for supporting me in my retreat with Donald Rothberg last week. Special thanks to Rachel Lewis and Brian Williams, to Westcoast Dharma, and to Donald Rothberg himself for coming to town to share his work on meditation and social action.
The weekend was rather intense for me, and I suspect for others. Apparently Westcoast Dharma retreats are usually conducted in silence, but this one (fittingly) required that we act and interact in sometimes very exposing ways. I found that being amidst a community that I did not know, I was more challenged by having to do the work than I would have expected (after all, I am supposed to be a mahayana buddhist, seeking the enlightenment of al beings, as well as a Shambhala warrior, brave enough to step up to the chalenge). The first practice where we were asked to work in pairs I opted out, out of fear and discomfort. But eventually I realized that this is the work we are really talking about when we discuss Buddhist social engagement! I find the loneliness of meditation rather easy compared to the personal exposure of social engagement, but if we want to bring our practice from the cushion to the world (as many of us really want to do) we will need to learn to be honest with each other just as we need to learn to be honest with ourselves when we sit in meditation. Maybe that is the first and only step when it comes down to it. The Bodhisattva is not always nice, but she or he is always, always genuine.
I think the root of Buddhist social engagement (meditation in action, as it has been called) is bringing the discoveries we make on the cushion into our daily lives. Rothberg asked us at the beginnning of the retreat how will we enact the wisdom we discover through practicing the Dharma, on a personal, social, and organizatiional level? These three levels go hand in hand (in hand), as it turns out, and though I have heard the news before, I believe it has finally hit home that this his how we do it. For real! When I think of social activism, I usually think of something outside of my personal quest for happiness and wisdom. There are the actions I take upon myself to improve my own life- meditation, self-care, education, friendships- and then there are the social actions I strive to realize- public action, social commentary, philosophical discourse, political choices. Rothberg, like may others, rejects a difference between these words, and insists that the only way to bring real change on the larger level is to start with the changes we enact within our own hearts and minds. 
This is not to say that we should only sit in meditation or strive for our own enlightenment before we dare give anyone a helping hand or good advice. I don't believe there is anything to stop a practitioner from being as socally active as they feel the can. If we are going to wait until we have everything right, we will be waiting a long long long long long time. At the same time, it seems as though Buddhist social action is not simply proclaiming the five precepts or the eightfold path from the rooftops, or demanding that our governments and society conform to the ideals of virture that we as Buddhists have come to appreciate. It is no secret that we see many dedicated social activists who will act out of grasping or violence in their search for peace and justice. Not to mention the questionable ways in which we (and I do mean WE) can sometimes treat our own selves and our loved-ones when the stress of trying to change the world for the better gets to us. To be the change we want to see is absolutely critical to social action, and to do so with an appreciation of how difficult that can and will be for everyone involved is what makes us Buddhist. (remember the first noble truth ... not the "first noble maybe"). Forgiveness of ourselves and others for not being completely liberated yet seems like a skillful first step to the whole scenerio.
Rothberg began with comments about the individual path of Buddhist practice, and the suggestion that if we look closely we may find that our meditation tends toward getting what we want for ourselves. Even when we engage in social action, don't we al get diverted from the thought "what is best for our world?", and succomb to the battle for getting what we want? I have seen myself begin many a battle with the thought, "I want justice for z, y, or x!", and end up with "I want those in power to do it MY way!" Though my intentions may have started off strong, something goes wrong along the way. Anyone else ever experience this?
In the west we are super-priviledged human beings. We hardly realize it, most of the time, but when we are practicing away, worried about our romantic disappointments, middleclass discontent, and fear for our children and neighborhoods, we are forgeting the 3/4 of the world who won't eat tonight; Who are living in constant danger of being disappeared, having their families destroyed, dying from disease that could easily be cured were they to have even half of the luxury that we in Canada and the USA enjoy. This is not meant to be a guilt trip or accusation. It is the way we live and the way the human mind works. there is no demand for us to reject or refuse to enjoy the privlidges that we are so blessed with! Indeed, in my own experience, this is a foolish pursuit. HH the 17th Karmapa once refered to western practitioners as people who "live like Gods". We have the power to change the world in our actions, and the power to feed and heal millions, or to destroy them, in the simple activities of our daily lives. Keeping that in mind is important, no?
It would be hard not to go one for hours regarding the experiences of this retreat, but I wanted to share the following considerations, which I have been contemplating this week, guided by Rothberg's own trinity of individual, social, and collective engagement and practice:
1) We always start with the self, as usual. What is my own practice really doing for me? What am I aspiring to? What am I practicing and how do I see that benefiting my own peace, happiness, wisdom, and liberation? Am I stronger, or weaker? Am I more at peace, or more needy, more annoyed, more deluded? I have practiced the Bodhisattva ideal in very wrong ways over the years, trying to drown out my own desires with the repetition of phrases about all sentient beings and on and on. But when push comes to shove, each of us are guided by our own desire for happiness and freedom from pain. So, what about that? Those Bodhisattva teachings that guide us to regard the well-being of all beings actually stem from the claim (or, if you are luckier and more skilled that I, the realization) that it is in seeking the hainess of others we gain happiness ourselves. So, what does that really mean? HH the Dalai Lama says that the bodhisattva (who vows not to attain perfect liberation until all beings everywhere are enlightened) is actually one of the most selfish of beings, but also the smartest, because she or he gains greater liberation from suffering by attnding to the needs of others. That in contrast to my own experience of self-sacrifice and self-denial, supposedly for the benefit of others. If you don't enjoy your life, chances are no one else will either! Hmmm, eh?
There is also the practical aspect of individual practice to be considered. If you wish to benefit others, you will need great resources yourself. Burn-out in social workers of any variety comes from pushing ourselves to far for our own good. If we get involved with Big Ideas, and strive to realize them, without taking the steps that allow us to be striong enough, we will end up with resentment and exhaustion. Never condemn yourself for practicing peace, stability, and above all, joy and love, for yourself first. This is the only way any of us will ever find the strength to do it for real, you know?
2) Bringing the practice to your social circle. Your community. Making changes ona national or world scale is important, yes, but how do we treat our own friends and loved ones? Just as walking meditation is a bridge between sitting still and meditating in every moment of our lives, practice with regards your family and community is important. Can we think of ways to act in our community with the same sort of strength and wisdom that we act with ourselves on the cushion? Giving people space to express themselves. Being honest in expressing ourselves to them. Practicing some sort of integrity of communication and action with the people around us. Just as individuals make the world- deluded or wise, ignorant or awake- we are most directly effective within the community that surrounds us. use that as a starting point, and see what comes of it.
3) Seeking to bring it to the greater realm. We do a lot more than vote as members of a democratic nation. Many of us are directly involved in groups who seek to change the systems we guide our country and our world by. Bringing some stability of mind and wisdom into those interactions also matters very deeply. What are our collective modes of being? (Rothberg brough up the Irish tradition of "keening"- when the women of a particular community gather and wail loudly at the passing of a member of their community. what do we have that resembles this? what do we do together? how could we develop more and wiser ways of public mourning and celebration?) The workings of organizations that seek top change the world is also a direct and important part of the practice. Laerning ways to be with each other, to hear each other, and to resolve difficult situations within an organization means more to the world than the ideald that organization might display to the public.

Finally, there was much discussion about expectations and results, and I think it is a lesson for us all. Being able to act with energy and persistence, without attachment to the way we hope to see it fruit, is the most important bit of the game. Not the easiest part of the path, on any of the levels, and yet perhaps the most important no matter which direction you come from. Because acting in the hopes of getting what you want, whether it be for yourself, your friends, or for the world, is part of what leads us all to more stress. Can we learn to act with as much wisdom and compassion as we can, and yet not be attached to it turning out the way we want it? What if we through a revolution, and nobody came? Would it still be worth the effort?

I feel I'm fading, but I hope that I will hear some comments about this topic. How do you expand your Buddhist practice, no matter what it might be, into social and political action? What are the most important aspects of it for you?