Further adventures of an aspiring (but tired) Bodhisattva

Gosh, but I’m tired. It seems that I never quite get enough sleep these days, and there’s always one child or another who is going to wake me up long before I’m ready. I found breakfast this morning rather trying. I really just wanted some peace and quiet. Still, there are some days when I’m more rested and robust.

Seems my wife had never heard the exclamation "struth" until I let rip with it today.

One lovely thing today was having my friend Steve Wade round for dinner. I made pizza, and in-between lots of interruptions from the kids we did some catching up. It was great to talk to another adult besides Shrijnana. Doesn’t happen often enough these days.

Seems the theme on my blog is broken. Don’t know why, and I’m not sure can fix it tonight.

And now for a quick round-up of my activities and interests:

My writing is going well. I was despairing about the Air element of my book on the Six Elements — Air is the element I find hardest to write about — but it’s been slowly coming together. One key thing was printing the chapter out, which gave me a much clearer sense of some restructuring that needed to be done. Somehow there are things I miss when I’m staring at a screen. The chapter is almost finished, and I think I like it (sometimes it’s hard to tell). I find it a good sign when I enjoy reading my own writing.
Kristof has a good piece on the frightening instabilities in Pakistan, and he offers some ways that the US could help matters there by standing up for its own (best) values:
- "If we want to stabilize Pakistan, we should take two steps. First is to cut tariffs on manufactured imports from Pakistan. That would boost the country’s economy, raise employment and create good will. Cutting tariffs is perhaps the most effective step we could take to stabilize this country and fight extremism.
- "Second, we should redirect our aid from subsidies to the Pakistani military to support for a major education initiative. A bill in the Senate backed by the Democrat John Kerry and the Republican Richard Lugar would support Pakistani schools, among other nonmilitary projects, and would be an excellent step forward."
- He concludes with this great one-liner: "Why can’t we show the same faith in education as hard-line Muslim fundamentalists?"
Pogue has a good piece on how the cell-phone industry in the US rips us off.
The BBC has an article saying that a detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years. Two years ago I wrote about how a mouse-brain had been simulated on a computer.
The trailer for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland keeps appearing on the web, only to be pulled. It’s odd why a film studio should devote legal resources to prevent people publicizing their films, but there you are. Anyway, watch this while you can.
As someone who makes a substantial slice of his living from selling CDs and MP3s, I agreed with everything in Why I Hope the Free Brigade Got It Wrong by Jonathan Fields. The "Free Brigade" is underpinned by a lot of naive wishful thinking about how creative people can make a living.
Lastly, we had a great discussion about the "not-self" doctrine in my prison Dharma class yesterday. It was a very practical discussion in many ways, focusing on actual experiences we can have of non-identification with having a self. An example? When we’re in the flow. Think of a basketball player who’s "in the zone" — with no sense of "here I am, and here’s the ball, and there are the opposing players and I need to beat them." Instead there’s a wordless, non-self flow of mental and physical energy that doesn’t think in terms of opposed selves. Compare that to the player who is very self-conscious and conscious of the opposing players and of having to defeat them; he/she is hindered by fear and second-guessing. I know which I’d rather be like in my daily life.

2 Responses to “Further adventures of an aspiring (but tired) Bodhisattva”

Nagapriya says:

July 25, 2009 at 4:31 am

Just caught up with your blog. My you are prolific. A book on the six elements seems very interesting. I had thought Kamalashila was writing one on this theme. Do you know anything about that? I guess you have seen Ngakpa Chogyam’s ‘Rainbow of Liberated Energy’ which I enjoyed quite a few years ago. The bodhisattva’s work is never done, it seems. Very good luck with your current project – I shall have to try and keep up somehow!

Best wishes
Nagapriya
- bodhipaksa says:
  
  July 25, 2009 at 4:49 am
  
  I know that Kamalashila is writing a book on the six elements, but I’m not sure what his angle is — whether it’s about the elements themselves, or whether it’s a practical manual to learning the meditation practice, or something else. My own is more of an extended reflection on the elements, following the schema of the meditation practice without seeking to teach it. In essence I want the experience of reading the book to be a kind of meditation in its own right.
  
  I haven’t actually come across Ngakpa Chogyam’s book, but I’ll check it out. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a “look inside the book” feature on Amazon, so I can’t tell whether it would be useful or not. The fact that it’s Tantric puts me off a little, because the tantric take on the six elements strikes me as being very different from the Buddha’s. But there might still be useful material there. Interesting that it has the word “rainbow” in the title, because I’ve just been writing about rainbows as part of the exploration of the Air element (looking at various metaphors where Air phenomena are used to convey impermanence and insubstantiality). Anyway, it seems I can pick up a copy for 60c on Amazon, so I should just get a copy and see!