A Basic Bliss

Great grief

2008-08-03T19:57:00.001-06:00

To be beneficial we must develop all 4 of the foundations to compassion. clipped from www.ncf.netUnbearable CompassionVen. Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

Whitaker's Autopoiesis and Enactment

2008-08-03T17:49:00.001-06:00

see also his page on Francisco Varela: http://www.enolagaia.com/Varela.html clipped from www.enolagaia.com The Biology of Cognition Autopoietic Theory Enactive Cognitive Science The Theories of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela THE OBSERVER WEB: Autopoiesis and Enactionrought to You By: Dr. Randall

Good intentions?!

2007-12-11T00:21:00.001-07:00

*reprise* Good intentions ... stuff with which to pave the road to hell. Imagine for a moment that the notion of impartial, unbiased, objective, "scientific" inquiry is not entirely empty. Now imagine: if we have this attitude on one hand, what do we have on the other? My point is simply this: our adversarial, materialistic, reductionist legalism appears to moot all consideration of intention

Too simple to understand (a thought in the moment)

2007-10-20T13:34:00.000-06:00

It comes down to this: not only what we do, but how we do it. Ultimately, "why" becomes the point. (Which is another way of saying that in the end our actual motive manifests ... it comes to be ... it creates karma.) The number of "errancy modes" is beyond estimation. Either our motive is some variation of "for the good of all sentient beings" or it's in error. Necessarily. Inexorably. Like

hfx_ben: Actual mysticism - 1 of a continuing series

2007-03-10T21:37:00.000-07:00

hfx_ben: Actual mysticism - 1 of a continuing series I finally had my say: Okay fine, I'll say it: the 1 thing I've been witholding from everyone, everywhere, everybody, all this time, is just that I've been training to be a shaman since I had my vision at age 5.That's why the unconventional life-style and personal history ... from having a scholarship to Banff School of Fine Arts to dropping

"Compliance in the face of threats" - CBC Radio | The Current

2007-02-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

In the February 21 episode of CBC Radio's "The Current" there was an item about harassment of opinions that were anything other than hard-line, the persecution of whatever might be painted as "liberal". One spokesperson who in effect defended thugism by minimizing it and rationalizing it had a lot to say about "respect" and the need for "speaking softly". It's the classic bully-boy tactic. "If

Theory Pages: Shared Subjective Experience Theory

2006-08-09T19:10:00.001-06:00

Theory Pages: Shared Subjective Experience Theory I just posted a comment to this blog: I wish I could give this the time I'd like to; my only connectivity is from a scavenged WiFi link and it's down more time than it's up."The need to apparently share subjective experience is a driving force in human beings."This morning I heard Cory Doctorow (of boing.boing fame) on radio. He said something

Lame excuses VS working hypotheses

2006-06-26T11:45:00.000-06:00

Pondering how Ted Honderich is arguable the world's premiere philosopher of determinism, I wondered on how sophistry ("excuses") so frequently has a sour, caustic, bitter tone to it. Perhaps because the individual is a) dreading being exposed as a coward, and b) in denial concerning having actually and really made a choice. We can produce explanations. We can, otherwise, produce rationalizations

2003-09-01T14:30:00.000-06:00

On the subject of The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions and its "Declaration of the Religions for a Global Ethic." Hans Kung; Explanatory Remarks Concerning a "Declaration of the Religions for a Global Ethic" Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions "Towards A Global Ethic" ... "Urban Dharma" has a document by that name There are excerpts here, and this is a

2003-08-30T12:26:00.000-06:00

Updated information on the Open Retreat with The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche Dzogchen and Egolessness: Gaining Confidence in Liberation. December 1-7, 2003 Santa Sabina Retreat Center, San Rafael, CA Please join The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche for a week of engaging talks, powerful meditation instruction, and songs of enlightenment from the Kagyu and Dzogchen traditions. This year, Rinpoche

2003-08-27T21:15:00.000-06:00

"May all beings be empowered to discover their unique path to ending suffering. May all being discover that path through serving others."

2003-08-27T19:21:00.000-06:00

"The koan arises naturally, in daily life." I have apparently been alone in wanting my daily life to have the quality of life that one finds in a monastic setting. At least, alone recently, since this notion comes to me not from speculation but, rather, from experience: once through Roman Catholicism (in a "formation house", where individuals considering the priesthood lived together in

2003-08-26T18:33:00.000-06:00

Why is 30 years more potent than 25? A couple of weeks ago I had a profound insight into my PTSD, but didn't get it quite right: it turns out that I taint moments of success /not/ because I have come to believe myself unworthy, but rather (and, friends, incredible as it might seem, this next detail explains away my writer's block!), because that "success" was actually negative ... retrograde ...

2003-03-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

"Nasiriyah Turns Into 'Nightmare' for Marines (washingtonpost.com)" In the land of the ark, in the desert, one might even learn the meaning of such basics as food, and water. In war, we learn death. Or we do not learn, and so pass that lesson on to generations not yet born. May we learn from this day's dead children.

2003-03-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

washingtonpost.com - News Front Duality of Wrath; Complexity and the Collapsing Monolith- Wet sheep on a foggy hillside after the hail storm, fresh out of the mud, accompanied by a cell-phone in a plastic bag and whoever was on the other end of the line. http://mozdawg.blogspot.com/

2003-03-23T20:12:00.000-07:00

I've been entirely pre-occupied with correspondence and blogging at "Beyond Greed". It's about democracy, which has precious little to do with benevolent tyranny or "might makes right".

2003-02-26T15:26:00.000-07:00

Full Stop Due to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (read: the Dell LatitudeXPi 166MHz laptop I got from my last contract 5 years ago gave up the ghost when I tried to re-install Win95 *sigh*) I no longer have connectivity ... raw deal after 3 decades of CMC (read: no box and no connection = no development). But being on disability sucks in any number of ways, and this isn't the worst

2003-02-18T19:57:00.000-07:00

A step into the past brought me to a scratch document I created three years ago, during the A16 WB/IMF protests in Washington DC. Yet another step brought me to 1995 with my "Green Futures Foundation" project. In another direction, and I find myslef looking at Society for the Study of Process Philosophies (and Anne Pomeroy's paper on Process Ontology and The Critique of Capitalism), and Richard K

2003-02-18T08:46:00.000-07:00

I should write something for each of these, but I'm low energy right now (if I get any more depressed I'm going to be in deep trouble) * openDemocracy and Democratic Underground * News for a Synergic Earth, in association with Community of Minds and Future Positive * These seems to be by a group of friends: "Working Together"; Sustainable CommUnity | WinWin Wolrd | Creating Learning

2003-02-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Squaring the Circle: justice and "rules" Discussing strategy and tactic with an eye to the World Summit on Sustainable Development this past August in Johannesburg, my correspondent pinned me with a one line message, and I tried to say something about the role of community at large: "I'm afraid I'm still back with Thrasymachus and Plato, and wondering in what sense we can say that justice

2003-02-10T20:14:00.000-07:00

A friend just pointed me to this, from Channel 4 - "Between Iraq and a Hard Place" ... it aired last month but is now online. "If you were to spend 26 million dollars every day since the birth of Christ, you'd have spent less than the Americans have spent on "defence" since the end of the Second World War.

2003-01-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

I was feeling very ragged yesterday, and happened to encounter an amazing artist, by which I mean not just someone who happens to "do" art, but also someone who happens to "be" whatever that is. Via's homepage is brilliant, as is the catalog of her gallery.

2003-01-01T03:22:00.000-07:00

... with Dylan on FM; must be New Year's AM. Listen to Roy's Oldies on CBC Radio. And maybe peek my NewCiv log while you're at it. Portland Pattern Wiki RecentChanges ... Jay on AWPD writes, "Most people get up in the morning and live their lives on a mostly unconscious level. They act as they have been taught to act, without ever questioning their indoctrination. I call this "living in

2002-12-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Some folks are talking my language! Nearly 30 years ago I realized my cohort in uniform didn't really give two hoots about the fact that Pinochet and his neo-fascists were overthrowing the elected government of Chile with our help ... we "special breed of cats" had the secure delusion of fighting to make the world safe for democracy, but part of that comfort was the impunity of not looking at

2002-12-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

Work vs. Holding a job; becoming courtiers to psychopaths Over a decade ago I finished my last big job: one of the products was a MIL-SPEC quality document set for a system that would land aircraft in a white-out blizzard if need be; three volumes ... one of them 750 pages ... hundreds of illustrations and figures, many hundreds of complex tables. What I'm proud of is the fact that the project

Good intentions?!

2002-12-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

Good intentions ... stuff with which to pave the road to hell. Imagine for a moment that the notion of impartial, unbiased, objective, "scientific" inquiry is not entirely empty. Now imagine: if we have this attitude on one hand, what do we have on the other? My point is simply this: our adversarial, materialistic, reductionist legalism appears to moot all consideration of intention and motive.

2002-12-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

"Peaceful Future or ''War Without End''?" reads in part: "There are growing numbers of people who "believe that as people living in the United States it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government, in our names." (from the peace group Not in Our Name's pledge of resistance). I just read a report that the Pentagon is making preperations to deploy anti-personnel mines in

2002-12-10T17:54:00.000-07:00

I spent part of this evening rereading Darkness and Scattered Light; Speculations on the future, a 1978 work by William Irwin Thompson. At this point in my life I'm wrestling through the last onionskin layers of my PTSD and so, encountering enantiodromeia again I came to appreciate how what I've described as "spiking my own guns" was actually withdrawing from effective action based on the (fairly

2002-12-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

Every year around this time I'm haunted by the murder of 14 female students in what has become known as the "Montreal Massacre". My pre-occupation with this was such that, three years ago, on the way back from the commemorative vigil, contemplating the pacivity of the male peers who left the murderer to do his will without protest (I was imagining how they would have abandoned me to act alone had

2002-12-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

Come September by Arundhati Roy is just one item of note on the Vietnam Vets Against War site. It reads in part: "Quite often these days, I find myself being described as a "social activist." Those who agree with my views, call me "courageous." Those who don't, call me all kinds of rude names, which I won't repeat. I am not a social activist, neither am I particularly courageous . . . So

2002-08-16T23:18:00.000-06:00

BBC - WOMAD 2002 - audio and video clips WOMAD homepage What's it all about?! I just realized that I've spent all these years shilly-shallying about social justice methods and tactics knowing all along that it was simply a matter of emotional integrity. I mean that the whole of the epistemological project hinges on valence ... light fight or flight, but having to do with desire and aversion.

2002-08-08T19:03:00.000-06:00

Towards a Reclamation of Substantive Liberalism John Rudisill The George Washington University 1. Introduction Somewhere along the way, it seems, liberalism has gotten a bit off track. The central preoccupation of this paper is the defense of a specific, substantive and historically precedented conception of liberalism against three predominant criticisms that have been made against it.

2002-07-31T20:42:00.000-06:00

It's about bliss, right? And so what business have I getting bummed out and depressed. Well, I guess it's about being whoever we really happen to be, and I happent to be someone who's put it on the line without the absolute precision it takes to act impecibably ... so it's cost me a few times, and it's cost me for real, and taking stock of this is something like breath-taking. Long story short,

2002-07-16T10:44:00.000-06:00

The International Simultaneous Policy Organisation ... I've seen an increasing number of group projects like this. People are looking for alternatives! The tree arguments underpining this specific project are fairly representative: - that politics - regardless of the party in power - has effectively been paralysed into a market and corporate-friendly position from which it cannot escape, and in

2002-06-18T06:58:00.000-06:00

Rejection, expectation, and solidarity I can understand why those who think peaceful tactics a waste of time might, in the spirit of solidarity with those who feel otherwise, would choose not to trash gas-guzzling SUVs or grease-pushing chain restaurants. And I can understand why those who feel that deeply dignified and restrained moral indignation communicates more powerfully than rashly

2002-06-06T17:52:00.000-06:00

Democratic Underground Concerning "ugly tactics"; the moral authority of resentment a letter as yet unsent Rummaging around some libertarian sites after finding a right wing site that declared public education to be a left-wing conspiracy (by weaking values it would open the way for satanic behaviour, you see) I was remembering Christ's very harsh language when chastising the social and

2002-06-03T18:19:00.000-06:00

In connection with a page on "Only Integrity is Going to Count" from the Buckminster Fuller Institute, I'll quote from the preface to a text on design science cleverly entitled "A Fuller Explanation": "When R. Buckminster Fuller recalled his days as a schoolboy in Milton, Massachusetts, he related how his mathematics teacher would introduce two-dimensional surfaces by placing lines of zero

2002-05-30T13:47:00.000-06:00

Mindful Engagement* The book I've read more often than any other is probably William Irwin Thompson's Darkness and Scattered Light which begins, To take a step into the future we need to shift our weight to the opposite foot; to think about the future we also need to shift the emphasis to the opposite hemisphere of the brain. The way for a technological society to take a step into the future is

2002-05-28T09:40:00.000-06:00

How sad ... the Indymedia service falls flat yet again ... *sigh* [Support your local IMC! The kidz got it back up within less than 24 hours] Here's what I psoted on the Ontario page: Canadian NGOS mark ten years after the Rio Earth Summit with a major event: People and the Planet: Changing Values for a Sustainable Future. This meeting will be held from June 5th to 9th, 2002 at Queen’s

2002-05-25T13:04:00.000-06:00

Stable Sanity Lead up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development; the environmental timeline Over the last forty years, the scientific warnings have continued to grow in severity and urgency, but progress on making change has remained painstakingly slow. And new international challenges--terrorist attacks, military responses, and mounting tensions around the world--threaten to derail any

2002-05-24T20:23:00.000-06:00

Deception and self-delusion came up big in the final part of the Kenneth Hammond Lectures, Sustainable Development: Mandate or Mantra?. (The lectures are available as a book, and the CBC Ideas program RealAudio as well, at least for a little while.) David Lavigne is the science advisor for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, and he gave a talk entitled “Ecological Footprints, Doublespeak,

2002-05-22T20:59:00.000-06:00

Rabble-rousers in cahoots - rabble.ca The other day I sent a letter to a couple of friends pointing to Canada's standing in the world in terms of competitiveness and quality of life, and wondered what was going on during that period that made anyone think we needed to wrench our social and economic priorities around (see below). As a snap-shot of how things are _after_ the adjustments (

2002-05-22T12:18:00.000-06:00

Perverse Dogmatism In an essay on Local Agenda 21- The U.N. Plan for Your Community (this comes from Chapter 18 of the UN's Agenda 21), this dogmatically driven writer includes the following: To many well-meaning people Agenda 21 sounds good. This U.N. document, drafted for the purpose of creating "sustainable societies" and saving the earth from environmental catastrophes, has been welcomed

2002-05-21T22:10:00.000-06:00

My first post to my NewsLog at NewCiv: NonViolence Web Issues - Conscience and the State As the first in my NewCiv NewsLog, here's something I wrote tonight, for my local peace mail list. Elad Lahav is a Sargeant in the Isaeli army who refused to do service in the occupied Palestinian territoty, and I had just gotton home from listening to a talk he had given.. Individuality in the

2002-05-19T21:07:00.000-06:00

Whether we refer to it as a product of alienation or use the slightly more guilt-tripping phrase "inauthentic presence".the state of mind that comes from living according to nothing more than a conveniently plausible fiction is perverse. The lucidly cynical pessimism of the elite may be more immedately galling, but (memories of collaboration between Patrician and Plebien?) it operates at a

2002-05-12T22:31:00.000-06:00

The epistemological basis of history has to be clear: no description is empty of anticipated consequences, and especially not those written subsequent to them. The dualism that immediately comes to play, either in anticipation of consequences or subsequently, is what distorts and perversifies the situation; absent that distortion, "things unfold as they should" with their inherent workability

2002-05-04T18:56:00.000-06:00

(Within hours of my 48th birthday) Re-assessing kensho Leaf slumps; snow slides. That final snowflake ... the last, it was. But heaviest?

2002-04-23T21:19:00.000-06:00

FWIW, here's what I've been trying to get at lately: "Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self -activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their

2002-04-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

"When what is said is not what is meant, what is done is not what needs to be done, and what needs to be done is left undone." *Having read Bhutan's consitution as well as a whole stack of internal government documents, including the exhaustive two part report "Bhutan 2020: Vision for Peace, Prosperity, and Happiness" from Planning Commission, Royal Goverment of Bhutan, I couldn't help feeling

2002-04-01T21:46:00.000-07:00

After checking with the folks in Italy (the translation of stories from Palestine has been put to sleep for the night) I read a few more stories. Imagine a situation where a medical facility is evacuated at gunpoint after being fired upon (EU reps were inside at the time), the facility is dynamited, and to top it off one of the doctors is used as a human shield (again at gunpoint) for enterring

2002-04-01T19:36:00.000-07:00

When I pondered the sadly misplaced confidence of someone who relies on bottom-dealing tactics to manufacture consensus, what came to mind was the near-servile fear of those throwing bottles from behind me when I confronted the riot police on the stairs of Rue des Chapels. Why were they hanging so far back while I was there, six or seven steps up, cussing out the cops looking down from the top?

2002-03-31T23:18:00.000-07:00

It may be true that it's the workers who have the most to gain from fulfilling the boureoisie's democratic revolution and pushing it through as a project of emancipation, but it's also true that everyone gains. Not only the downtrodden and oppressed; even the wealthy gain since. in recovering their connection with the rest of humanity. they would re-establish the ground of dignity. But even more

2002-03-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

Having added my bit to a thread at rabble.ca (babble: $36000 per month ... How Sweet It Is!), I came away oddly thunderstruck by one fellow's reply that made $500K/year seem so entirely reasonable. One person, earning half a million dollars a year? I've often thought it a lot of money, but it's never seemed so completely ludicrous before. How can one person's self-image sustain the

2002-03-26T20:59:00.000-07:00

Funny how something new can develop from a small change in habitual patterns. Tonight I saw a good long movie on the ''tree-sit'' movement on the West Coast ... Julia Butterfly, kneeling to press her face to the earth after, what 20 months up in her tree ... police forcing tear gas under the eye-lids of young non-violent demonstrators ... creeks clogged with fine silt ... Gypsy, days before he

2002-03-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

* Re-reading this old piece,Hurting and Confused, I though back through the forest of motives and am moved to believe that confounding pleasure and happiness is the epistemological error. What has escaped me all these years is hidden behind the Protestant Work Ethic's dogmatic requirement that gratification must be put off, delayed indefinitely, if it is considered at all. The opposite of this

2002-03-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

* With someone for whom the word "karma" has a resonance, the idea that how something is done affects the results is not outrageous, or even strange, and so consideration of process and means is only sensible. This isn't always the case. For the materialist who has not truly realized the implication of dialectics (Marx supposedly said that he would rather an intelligent idealist than a stupid

2002-03-25T12:30:00.000-07:00

Reading David Loy's West against the Rest? Buddhist Response to "The Clash of Civilizations" and recalling the essays where he showed how our conceptualization of civil society affected the ways we acted on our values, as well as those values themselves, I tried once more to arrive at a statement of how I see the "emancipation project" of Marxism bound up the "enlightenment project" of Buddhism.

2002-03-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

intelligenza affettiva 1 ... yes, it's in Italian. I know, but I couldn't find any equivalent in English. What I'm working on just now is this: if we rationalize our moment by moment activities by using a reduced frame of reference, such as the bottom line of a ledger or spreadsheet, we experience vastly facilitated communications. That is, we find ourselves working efficiently, and that's a

2002-03-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

Reminded of a workshop last year on the subject of working conditions in developing countries and the impact of neo-liberal globalization, I remembered the vision I had of men of colour labouring in work camps while the women and children were being fed into a sausage machine. Did we overthrow the monarchy for their excesses and oppression in order to be oppressed by an indlugent bourgeoisie?

2002-03-18T10:13:00.000-07:00

I would weave, but I have no loom, and no wool. I would garden, but I have no tools, no seed, and no land. I would make a piece of cloisonee, but I have neither metal nor enamel, and no kiln in which to fire the work. I would play music, but I've too often played alone. I would create a painting, but I have no canvas ... not even paper. I could buy some paper, but that would take at least five of

2002-03-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

Reading a commentary on the plite of the Palestinian people and finding Gaza described as a gulag, that formal style of systematic oppression brings to mind not only prison, concentration camps, and slave labour but the whole infrastructure of apartheid (which, you should know, means "seperate development"). I find myself wondering if it's time to develop my notion of globalization as moving

2002-03-15T13:50:00.000-07:00

_A Sliver of Freedom_ It's hard to raise the question of determinism in a way that doesn't let it seem academic and abstract and apart from daily concerns. And yet it's actually the fabric of those very daily concerns that makes the matter not only relevant but pressing, as pressing as the concerns themselves. The too often dreadful and deadening humdrum that is life in modernity, a blizzard of

2002-03-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

By what fire do we warm ourselves? In the moment, when there's no distraction operating, when there's no grand plan sweeping us along, to what do we look to indicate the next source of momentary comfort from the emptiness and confusion? It occurs to me that coping with a passive aggressive strategy meets the needs of the moment adequately, without even a slight opportunity to escape from the

2002-03-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

* Aligning With Purpose's Our Future page typifies what makes me grow very quiet and introspective from a sense of strained solidarity. "With the decline of corporate control over thought and information, we have entered a new era of exploration and discovery. During this time, many of our old assumptions are being challenged and replaced with more rational conclusions." Rational?! ... I wish I

2002-03-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

Unless a person is going to argue in favour of a total, complete, absolute and mechanistic determinism, there has to be admitted something very much like agency and free-will, if only of the "within limits and contraints" type. Which leads flowingly to the other flavour of dangerous non-sense, which is the foul notion that we are as though angels or gods or greatly empowered demons who know no

2002-03-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

This is not a movie, and so there really is no "blue pill / red pill" choice to make. And yet something very much like that is unfolding every instant: moment by moment, individuals are choosing to adopt easy explanations in order not to tangle with the problem that has arisen, and so the next moment they are a bit more deadened and a bit less responsive than the moment before. If there's no