I heard something on the radio about jazz musicians. Jazz musicians heads turn off when they play - the analysis/thinky part virtually turns off and they just sort of flow out with music. Have you noticed that jazz musicians close their eyes a lot? Eyes are very judgmental things - you know. Covering the eye-balls with the eye-lids I betcha works out pretty well for opening up with some sort of flow.

I have paintings on my desk and on my wall. My on-the-wall the painting is a group of rabbits huddled around a crouching kid who is focused on touching a rabbit group-member who is wearing sunglasses. He has to crouch so as not to be emblazoned by the dragon breath of another hopper who is hopping through a hula-hoop suspended from some unseen ceiling by a bow-tied string. With unshakable determination he focuses on the success of touching the weird one. I’m not being cryptic - that is the title of the painting - “I want to touch the weird one”. In a world where the status-quo is rabbits constantly blowing fire and jumping through hoops, a rabbit with sunglasses stands out as something finally worth getting interested in.

The painting on my desk, the off the wall painting, so to speak, is a of jazz musician gazing out of his world with tired and respectful eyes. I’m guessing at all this by the way. I guess that he is a jazz musician because of the patterns flowing through the air around him - even though there aren’t any instruments. There seems to be the movement of jazz there.

Jazz ain’t dead

I am working hard these days writing web applications. You do know that I am a programmer, right? Maybe you don’t know that it is not my tendency to work hard. You’ll see that so far there is not much reference of computers and programming and web applications on this blog. I am now immersed in all things Internet. I didn’t grow up in this world - I was 17 when I first used what was then a fairly obscure Internet. So I’m kind of an old man in this particular technology world. The whole day is busy with work now. As a result, I’m not day-dreaming so much - I seem to be more practical than before. Indeed immersing myself into work is very down to earth, actually. Many good spiritual teachers have said that work can be a very good practice - not necessarily something to avoid. Why do I say, ‘Not necessarily’? This reveals some old attitude of mine: Sometimes work can become the whole game - progressing, increasing, creating. You can live for work - let it define who you think you are. I have felt a lick of that living-working myself now that I have actually spent a day or a few days focused and creating. But I’ll tell you - its not necessary to live for anything - living just happens all the time. Haven’t you noticed?

That’s an important point. Living happens spontaneously. Not understanding that Living happens leads to some of us not wanting to retire because of an idea that retirees become complacent and and lose all their reason for for living. One is sure that one will just fall apart. So, here, a person “lives to work”. Or it might be better to shove this horse under the cart - and say he “works to live”.

But living just happens - there is no work. When we live to work, something is really being ignored - some basic quality of breathing and communicating and adapting. Hearts beat, suns set, pain increases and decreases. You and me - we are in this world and it is just happening like that, haven’t you noticed?

But life accommodates all of this. Everything is like this - art, science, spirituality, work, wives, children, the good, the bad and the ugly. All of these things are life spontaneously. They are each a grain of sand in life.

Life is jazz.

Typing on a keyboard. First a letter, then a word, sentence, paragraph web post. It goes like this:
Big Bang, Immaculate Creation (your choice), hydrogen, helium, etc, suns, nitrogen, planets, life, humans, Americans, Chris Young, Beesucker, typing on a keyboard, a letter, a word, a sentence. I hope you enjoyed it.

“I Want to Touch the Weird one” by Stephen J. Yazzi
“Yellow Hatted Salute” by Claudia

It’s been a long time coming - there’s still much work to do, but now you see it! Clouds sky and lotus . . . what do you think? Well, you can’t tell me because comments aren’t working yet - or search - or the links. This is my first major design work and I’m pretty happy. Anyway, stay tuned - I have stuff to say again! Take care, all of you.

This was quite a surprise! You know, dogs and bears are closely related. Many times us humans can’t get along with members of our own species. Looks like the dogs and bears are showing us up!

link

Mantra protects the mind, however, if it is known but not applied, it becomes like the soldier’s Kevlar vest left in a foxhole. The bullets of delusion rip through the unprotected mind. Fortunately, when one realizes the emptiness of mind - there is no destruction, and so no need for protection.

Segue

Seung Sahn talked about primary point. Imagine a classic scale, with two trays. When both trays are empty, the arrow points to 0. This primary point is Zen, but what if you put some weight on this mind-scale? Well, 5 pounds of weight makes the needle point to 5 - is this a problem? No - what’s important is that when the weight is lifted, the needle immediately moves back to 0. 0 is Zen, Zen is clear mind - clear like space, not blank, or vacuous - but open, ready for anything.

So we say, ‘happy comes - happy. Happy goes - no happy’ but when coming and going disappears, this is called primary point.

This is a very important point.

Ah, Authentic Personality has become my neglected child. Are there digital cobwebs forming over these articles as more and more time vanishes in the storm of my scattered attention? Sometimes my house can get so ugly, so cluttered that I would like to sell it rather than clean it up. What if no one wants to buy this old house though? I think, “maybe I’ll just burn it down”. Of course I am speaking poetically, I have never really thought about burning down any building, however, the digital equivalent would be to pull the plug on this blog.

I have thrown away letters, you know - old letters from once overwhelmingly refreshing girlfriends. I’ve even thrown away year books - this feeling of disgust with the clutter of who I have been rises up - some awkwardness and embarrassment of having lived in a certain way - I think, “maybe I’ll just burn it down”. In the end I’ll not miss anything, this clutter - i can become new - just be like a self-made Burning Phoenix - HA! Imagine that, a suicidal Phoenix, defined only by what has been destroyed before.

Don’t fret, I’ve already decided not to burn it - I will let it be. Previous words here are only an outreach - I’m trying to connect with your own thoughts, friend. Have you felt this way? What have you burned up before? What previous annihilating movement defines you today? I, personally, can no longer be embarrassed for the dust I leave behind - like the green spring trees embarrassed by their old, brown, autumn leaves.

Good and lasting happiness to all.

Chris

Chris Young
died sometime
before now

He wasn’t an asshole

Coming, Going, no Hindrance

Incidently, my friend Nathan Goldwater died last night around 2:00 am. I wasn’t real close to him in High School, so I don’t know a lot about him. I do know that he was always full of energy and upbeat despite having a weak body. His brother said he died without fear. That’s about as good as a fellow can do.

So, in memory of Nathan Goldwater, let it be said that he was no asshole.

My best wishes to family and friends and to anyone else that could use some good wishes.

I’ve been going to Emaho since 2001, where ZaChoeje Rinpche is the spiritual director. It is wonderful to be able to share some of his teachings with you all. Also, get on the list now and help us sell Rinpoche’s new book, The Backdoor to Enlightenment.

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Nightmare Faces

Let’s look at a rose. In your mind imagine a rose. What is the difference between the rose that you are imagining and a real rose? At some point, you saw a rose and then at that time you created an image in your mind. Now you can remember it. The question here is what is the difference between these two roses? Further - have you ever known a real rose? Will you admit that there is a difference between a real rose and your idea of a rose? They are not the same objects are they? So you have an idea of a rose - it is red, it has a stem, leaves, a certain smell. You can finger this mind rose - but you will have to use a mind finger - on a mind body, one could assume. Red mind rose, red real rose? Is a real rose red? Does it exist that way?

Rinpoche said recently that in order to really know a rose, you would have to know all of it. Do you know a rose - a real rose? The rose is part of the universe - it belongs in the universe - and to know all of the rose - you would have to know all it’s infinate causes and effects - this means to know a rose you’re gonna have to know the whole Universe - isn’t that right? Now what about your rose image - can your mind encompass that infinite space? Perhaps. So what is the difference between your Universe and the real Universe?

How can we know reality? Is the only reality we have access to in the world of ideas? If ideas stop - does reality stop?

Have you ever seen a real rose? The rose you have known has been known through your senses - electrical representations forming an image in your mind - eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind - but outside of that electrical signal, what contact have you had with a real rose? Is there a difference between your idea of the Universe and how the Universe actually exists? Hmmmm? And how can we know the actual Universe. Well this points to something called before knowing.

Knowing is to know that knowing is not to know.

Or something like that. But to know reality, you can not stay in the world of ideas - to perceive your essence, you will have to go to a world that is beyond ideation - as it is called in the Buddhist books.

I think all of our thoughts, and karma, are connected to this reality. Rinpoche said that our situations are reflections - there is a connection - infact, the reality seems to be the source - the very reason there could even be a reflection of being human - or a rock, or whatever. Reality is the source. But we get hung up on the reflection - on this body ,on this experience - me, my, mine - we get cought up in our ideas - and lose touch with reality. Who of us knows reality? Shift your mind towards this reality. The essential point in buddhism is just a change of focus - from object to subject - from solid object to elusive subject - meaning - what am I? This question is already Buddha. Where does the question come from? It is connected to what is real - suchness.

Follow the question to the root. Then find the root of everything - one reality - one root - before thinking. Des Cart said, “i think, therefore I am”, but if you aren’t thinking . . . then what?

I grew up reading Vonnegut’s books - he had an honesty and a warmth that I connected with - and he acknowledged freely all the trouble and suffering that people go through - where everybody else seemed to repress such notions and chastise those who maintain such views.

I heard that recently when addressing a graduating class he said that it would be his last public address. A few weeks later he fell down, hit his head and died from brain injuries.

Hi Ho!

He said at this address that the purpose of life is to ‘fart around’. Imagine that.

God bless you Mr. Vonnegut, may your warmth spread throughout the world of the confused and the suffering people - let us all in on the big joke.

So it goes . . .

15 quotes

Meditation does not belong to any religion,
and meditation is not a belief.
It is a pure science of the inner.
It is learning to be silent, learning to be watchful, learning to be a
witness, learning that you are not the mind, but something beyond –
the consciousness.

Osho

www.deeshan.com

All you musicians ready to go solo??

Move over Cheryl Crow, KT Tunstall has arrived.

Hello everyone that is still hanging on despite my neglect to this blog. I have a new job. Conditions have coalesed in such a way that I am now not working at Big Brothers Big Sisters and am instead working at Integrum, in Chandler Arizona. There are a lot of things I am getting used to here.

Integrum has tightly knitted itself with Agile Programming Methodologies, which means, from my perspective, that they have turned the heat up - the environment is very dynamic and productive. I actually wrote quite a bit of code in the last 4 days - more than a month at Big Brothers Big Sisters. We work in pairs: two programmers, one laptop. So things aren’t really done in isolation - the Gollum-like programmer who doesn’t talk to human being’s and melds completely with his computer in a borgesque mutation of machine and man, is not really compatible with the agile methods - it is too social a thing for much dampness. Working with these guys is very different than my traditional setup - working alone in an office. Very challenging. Very good.

The people here are friendly. However, everyone gets ribbed and teased. Which points out to me that I can be rather sensitive - defensive, at times. But its cool because we all work in a room together - everyone is teasing everyone -no one is singled out. I’ve been in situations where things get cliquish and I have ended up on the outside of that circle - sometimes, when things got really mean, they would put glass in my pudding! I rather suspect that I was being over-sensitive, though. Because truthfully the programmers never put anything in my pudding - I didn’t even ever eat pudding, so there never was much danger. I guess on a personality level, “not taking anything personally” seems to be in order. And learning to dish it. I have to stock up on ‘your mom’ jokes. Please leave me some comments on that.

Probably the most difficult adjustment for me will be arriving on time at work every morning at 8:45. This will be the first job I have that has had that kind of schedule. Well, actually, I’ve had lots of jobs that have that schedule, I think it is more that I have not adhered to said schedule. Here at Integrum there is a stand-up meeting every morning at 8:45. That is actually really helpful - it means i have to be in at that time - to contribute and to receive direction.

I have to adjust to new tools. I have always worked on Windows, but at this job everyone works on Macintosh laptops. So now I am slowed down a bit just moving around and finding the things I need. However, after just a few days I am really enjoying playing with Macintosh - its definitely a fun toy - especially after being somewhat cloistered under the warm-embracing hug of Microsoft for too long. What I notice is that the experience seems to be ‘closer to the user’. It’s hard to explain, but the way everything is presented and organized just feels very flowing. I guess I miss the backspace button. On MacBook you have a delete button so you have to eradicate things from the right-side, as opposed to the left-side on windows.

Then there is the obvious - I am getting used to Ruby on Rails - I have enjoyed playing with it up till now - and have been more productive - but at this job everything is running at a full factor of efficiency above what I have achieved in my 11 years of being in the software writing industry. I have a lot to learn about this type of development and the opportunity to learn is omnipresent here - it’s really fun, and it is very challenging. I am surrounded by some really high class developers in an agile environment, and it is just what I needed.

Are you sure?

In 1985, the meditation team made a video of monks drying cold, wet sheets with body heat. They also documented monks spending a winter night on a rocky ledge 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The sleep-out took place in February on the night of the winter full moon when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks promptly fell asleep on the rocky ledge, They did not huddle together and the video shows no evidence of shivering. They slept until dawn then walked back to their monastery.

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