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.

Read More . . .

Here’s another view of the mandelbrot:

Bodhicitta is the mind which seeks enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, through all sentient beings. By making others the very basis for the spiritual path, we eliminate all obstacles to our practice.

Russelji said:

It does not matter what anyone thinks of me, but it does matter what I “feel” about them. As long as I judge or have a pre-conception of anyone, then I am perceiving through the eyes of the ego, which always carries with it an agenda and thus separation.

May all beings be happy and have the causes for happiness.

Read his post

Bob Thurman talks about how Nirvana can not be ’somewhere else’ - if it was a place seperate from the world it would become a ‘relative phenomenon’ - relative to the world. The truth is that we are existing already in Nirvana. The Buddha said that Nirvana is peace. We can take this to the conclusion that things, as they are, are peace. This helps to balance out the mistaken idea that peace is some sort of separation from our day to day lives.

Since we habitually experience this peace, this vast, beginnningless, endless, eternal, blissful, totally sufficient peace, we misunderstand it as a struggle, stress, frustrating, not perfect, needing something. You know - something is bothersome about it. That’s why Buddha tells us we’re deluded.

Listen to Bob . . .

What Thomas Freidman said in 1972 about Richard Nixon’s new War on Drugs:

“The path you propose of more police, more jails, use of the military in foreign countries, harsh penalties for drug users, and a whole panoply of repressive measures can only make a bad situation worse. The drug war cannot be won by those tactics without undermining the human liberty and individual freedom that you and I cherish.”

All you Libertarians out there, never lose heart.

Wanting personal liberty should not be a platform for an American political party. Government of the people, by the people, for the people is embedded in our individual hearts, every one of us human beings on the earth possess a wish to be free. That mutual wish is why we can work togehter, play together, build together and dream together. Why is this fundamental human desire, the desire that is the founding tenet of our country, not expressed through our large groups of power? Also, end the tyranny of stop lights!

Link to article

I had Birkenstocks in high school. I was that guy. And I was sure that those people on the other side of the political spectrum were trying to control my life. And then I went to Boulder and got rid of my Birkenstocks immediately, because everyone else had them and I realized that these people over here want to control my life too. I guess that defines my political philosophy. If anybody’s telling me what I should do, then you’ve got to really convince me that it’s worth doing. -Matt Stone

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Dan talks about how we anticipate life events making us happy but that in reality, it is our view of what happens to us - our attitudes that bring on happy feelings. This is important and is the reason Buddhism’s fruit can be harvested. Happiness comes from within.

We synthesize happiness, but we think happiness is a thing to be found

So what are you doing to make yourself happy?

The great source of both misery and disorders of human life seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Some of those situations may no doubt deserve to be prefered to others but none of them can deserve to be pursued with that passionate ardor which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice, or to corrupt the future tranquility of our minds either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice - Adam Smith

Robert Thurman is very cool. He is a Buddhist Scholar and I think he was the first westerner to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan Gelug Tradition. His first three podcasts seem to be about the Lam Rim Chen Mo - “The Great Treatise on the Gradual Path to Enlightenment”. This text is foundational to the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and helps the pratitioner determine a correct path and direction in practicing the Buddha’s Dharma. There are litterally thousands of volumes of Buddhist Scriptures (sutras and shastras) - it would be impossible, I think, to read them all in one lifetime. The great pundit and pratitioner, Lama Tsong Khapa compiled the Lam Rim from all of the available sutras and commentaries and put them in order, i.e. step 1, step 2, step 3 . . . Buddha. So here is Thurman’s Podcasts regarding this great volume - the Lam Rim. I hope you can all take some time to listen.

Link to podcast

Update: Look at the comments for a translation from CJ.

A representative of this organization, www.buddha-land.com, recently contacted me to use the Medicine Buddha drawing on this website in some handouts to be distributed at the construction of a Medicine Buddha Mandala. I visited their site, which is in French. I used Google’s translation service to tranlate this text by Lama Guendune Rinpoche. It is said that when reading texts like this on emptiness, most people will want to run away in fear, but the fortunate ones will feel instant releif, as if coming home. I follow it with a bad translation of my own. Please, do not take either of these as authoratative. Here’s the original French version. Any French-like-people out there who can translate this more properly?

There is Nothing to Make for the Research of Happiness:

by LAMA Guendune Rinpoché

Happiness is not with much effort and will but resides there, very close, in the relaxation and the abandonment.

Worry you, it does not have nothing there to make.

All that rises in the spirit does not have any importance because no reality has.

Does not attach you to it. Do not judge yourself.

Let the play be done all alone, to rise and to fall down, without anything to change, and very disappears and starts again unceasingly.

Only this research of happiness prevents us from seeing it.

It is as a rainbow which one continues without never catching up with it. Because there does not exist, that it always was there and accompanies you at every moment.

Do not believe in the reality of the good or bad experiments; they are like rainbows.

To want to seize the imperceptible one, one becomes exhausted in vain. Since one slackens this seizure space is there, open, hospital and comfortable.

Then profit. All is with you, already. Do not seek any more.

Will not seek in the inextricable jungle the elephant which is quietly at the house.

Nothing to make.

Nothing to force

Nothing to want.

And all is done all alone.

om mani padme hum

And my tranlation of the bad translation:

There is Nothing to Get from Looking for Happiness

by LAMA Guendune Rinpoché

Happiness is not found through great effort. It resides within, very close, in relaxation and abandonment.

If you worry, it can not be found

All that rises in the mind does not have any importance, because it has no reality.

Do not attach to the mind. Do not judge.

Let the play of mind be done alone, rising and ceasing, without anything to change; dissapearing, it starts again unceasingly.

Only searching for happiness prevents you from seeing it.

It is a rainbow, which one follows without ever catching up to it. Because it does not exist, it always was there and accompanies you at every moment.

Do not believe in the reality of the good or bad judgements; they are like rainbows.

To want to see that which is imperceptible, one becomes exhausted in vain. When one releases this grasping, space is there, open, hospitable and comfortable.

There is attainment. Happiness is with you, already. Do not seek any more.

Do not seek in the jungle the elephant which is quietly at the house.

Nothing to make.

Nothing to force

Nothing to want.

And all is done all alone.

om mani padme hum

Okay, that last post was decidedly dreary. Here’s some kittens with subtitles to lighten things up.

I’m hoping that writing can relax me at times like these. What times are these? You might expect a diatribe about the world situation, maybe work is getting me down. But I’m afraid that doesn’t scratch the surface – or rather it only scratches the surface. Times like these are linked to inner neurosis – a recurring theme. A good friend of mine told me that at times like these – such inexplicable bouts of mental freezing – that I should report to the outside world – “My head hurts”. Though, my head does not hurt physically, maybe people could grasp that better than the truth – the truth is, I don’t know what is wrong and therefore I do not know how to fix it.

So writing is kind of nice because it goes on and on – it kills time, so to speak. Those in our Sangha at Emaho have been expressly admonished by our great Guru, ZaChoeje Rinpoche to not kill time. We should not kill time – we should instead face the facts, face our situation – not fight it as in some sort of warlike grappling, nor should we run away. Or run ‘avay’, as Rinpoche’s particular accent presents it. But it is okay for me to kill this time from Rinpche’s point of view – that is for certain. He does not hold expectations of his students. I would think he would be reluctant to call any of us students, in fact. So I will indulge here in some time killing – to the detriment of my poor mind.

This blog, Authentic Personality, has become a “Buddhist” blog. I did not intend for that to happen. I intended initially for it to be something like Reality Carnival – a mish mash of many interesting things that I find on the Internet. As I continue on in my slight Internet addiction (only slight because I don’t jones for the Internet when I am on retreat or camping or making love), I feel more and more exhausted. So much information – so much one can learn, so much exposure to people’s ideas. I used to kill time by watching television. I used to watch TV all day long. My father wasn’t around much but never-the-less I would sometimes get grounded for something – like not cleaning my room or whatever. I would be grounded but of course no one was around so there wasn’t much getting in the way of me breaking the rules. TV was my thing – I would watch it when I wasn’t supposed to and I would record the show’s audio so that I could listen to it again in bed that same night. I would listen to ‘I Love Lucy’, the same episode, several times in a day. Out of that experience would swell this wretched feeling of a life wasted, or at least a day wasted. I would feel almost dead. As I got older I would stay up into the wee hours of the morning watching more and more TV. I would feel dead if I wasn’t being entertained, so I just flipped the channels incessantly. Have you ever forgotten what TV show you were watching during a commercial? The commercial is half way over and you are thinking – ‘what the hell am I watching?’ Then: “Oh, of course, ‘I Dream of Jeanie’ ”. Well that feeling is starting to creep up as I watch the Internet – I can read about quantum physics and meme replication and autism cures and the way meditation is helping the elderly enjoy life again, but the feeling of a life wasted goes along with it, right there along with it.

Now if you read this blog, you know that I am a Buddhist – not like a card carrying member – but my language is Dharmic – I think in terms of impermanence, emptiness, and freedom from ignorance. It is definitely not Buddhist to be thinking of a life as either worthwhile or not worthwhile, so all of this thinking is outside of the scope of what I know is correct – I should be able to just sort of see these types of thinking, label them as such – ‘this is thinking’, and move on. But now it is difficult – now – in the last few days it has been very difficult to even make eye contact with other human beings. I’ll give you an example:

I decided to go to the grocery store and buy some soda. I bought a 12 pack of diet Pepsi and a 12 pack of diet coke, because a friend of mine only drinks diet coke. I of course, like diet Pepsi. I like diet Coke too, however, so this seemed like a great thing to do. I also bought a single, glazed donut. At the checkout, the old lady there scanned each item and told me that my total was $12 and change. I thought, ‘holy cow, I didn’t know soda was so much money’. Tanya, my wife, has been doing the shopping lately so it took me a second to come to my senses. In the parking lot I checked the receipt and found that I had saved 12 cents on the donut – 12 times! I was charged $4 for a dozen donuts instead of 33 cents for the one I had purchased. So, I decided to take the receipt back in and get my money back. I walked back in the store passing one of the old greeters. I was really besieged at that moment by feelings of guilt, which I might go into more detail in a moment, but who knows what the future will bring? That guilt was accompanied by a feeling of real dread and exhaustion in my body and so I just stood there with my receipt in hand, staring at the old lady clerk who had pushed the wrong buttons. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face her. It was very busy – long lines – and I didn’t want to explain to her that she had made a mistake – I found the whole situation entirely embarrassing. I felt embarrassed for all of us – as human beings – I felt embarrassed to be standing in a grocery store, my stomach churning from that donut. I turned around and started to walk out but I saw the greeter again – the old man who says hello to everyone to give them a sense that there are human beings occupying the store and probably to make shop lifters nervous. I couldn’t bear the idea of walking past him again – I didn’t want him to see me wasting my time and being so embarrassed. So I walked to the other end of the store to exit and threw out my receipt – to eliminate the chance of me getting that money back and feeling the embarrassment of being human all over again.

I’ve been very reluctant to write like this since I started the blog. I really want to help people. I really want to get some things on here that are helpful to other people, but I don’t feel like anyone will trust that if I myself am still messed up. I hope that people can believe that they are intrinsically okay – that they have this great Buddha Nature that makes them entirely worthy of the air they breathe – before you all open your mouths you are already worthy of this life. But who can believe that? Who doesn’t feel undermined by their own neurosis? I don’t know. When my friends are down they will usually say, ‘I have done such a bad thing’ or ‘I am not good enough’ or something. That is how I am feeling now and so I am giving myself the same words I give them, ‘give me an example of someone who has their shit together – really tell me of someone who has achieved happiness in their life’ Well for me, there is Rinpoche. He seems happy. He seems always happy. But that happiness makes me feel infinitely far away when I am overwhelmed. I feel like a monster of distress compared to his brightness. Other times, however, I feel that we are both just here – like two rocks on a lonely path staring eternally at the stars and clouds. That is a much more appropriate feeling.

Dharma, I say, has saved my life. Dharma is why I haven’t fouled up completely. But I am seeing that there is that possibility still – of fouling up completely.

STOP

No. What is being fouled up? What does completely mean? I guess I mean I see the possibility of losing my ground once again. I have lost so much confidence over the last few years – confidence in just being able to do a day to day effort. My mind turns to glue and sounds like a broken record. I think of creative ways of killing myself – these ideas come up as cartoons of self-inflicted violence. I am not suicidal – but who knows what would happen if the images persisted long enough. Divine images of Chenrezig have been replaced by comically absurd visions of my head popping off my neck and shooting into the stratosphere! This is not a ‘wholesome object of meditation’, I don’t think.

I’ve been working hard on a side job lately – doing web development. I have officially dropped the ball on that – in 4 days time. All you have to do, it seems, is not make contact with the team for 4 days and you have officially dropped the ball. So now I am impotent – unable to accomplish what I set out to do. Perhaps there is a way to pick things back up, but I am really shaken. It’s said that schizophrenics (which I am not, I do not think) are hurt very badly with every psychotic break. Their symptoms comes to such a crescendo that they lose total touch with reality that they sort of slide permanantly towards greater degrees of mental sickness – so it is inadvisable, for instance, to play with getting off of the medications to see if one can make a run at the world without that ‘crutch’. So when I hit this wall it comes as a real dilemma – it feels like every time I go through this mess I permanantly lose more confidence. It is entropy. It is atrophy.

Why do I seek so desperately to identify with mental sickness? In one of my teeny angst journals I remember being upset that I couldn’t fully commit to being insane. Why is this? Why do I want so desperately to be freed from having to take responsibility for my actions? Well, that’s wrong. I do take responsibility, what I want to be freed from is actually having to perform anything, of actually having to do anything at all! Since I was in high school I have wanted to be allowed to be crazy – to be bent. I wonder if that is because I am already bent and I need some help. I feel like I need some sort of help.

Everyone freaks out. I think that is true. That is what I am told when I reveal my problems to others – ‘everyone freaks out’. What can I say in the face of that? I am at a loss.

And I can’t go on just typing and typing here. It will come to nothing – I need to get back to the grindstone and stop ruminating. If you have read this far, thank you for indulging me in reading this. It’s not clever, it’s not funny, but it is what is rolling around in my head; so on that level it is such – it is as it is. Chris is freaked. Thank you very much. Oh, and lest you be worried, this is officially freak out #6984. I am pretty good at unfreaking. I have turned over enough new leaves to fill an autumn. My head just hurts a little.