Kindness Begins at Home

After a visit to the Birmingham Buddhist Centre in Moseley, I started mulling over the power of Metta. Metta is a term used in Buddhism for loving kindness.  I’ve long held the opinion that the application of the precepts starts at home, the point that was reiterated to us last night was that this is true of Metta. This may sound selfish, but we were asked if you can’t show loving kindness to yourself, how can you truly show it to others? At what point does the display of Metta become a quest for acceptance and approval?

I think that’s a very strong point and overlooking this can risk undermining the whole of your Dharma practise. But I also think that this idea of Metta to the self can be taken further. We so often see a diet or abstention from certain foods or drinks as an imposition, exercise risks becoming a chore.  But if we see these things in the terms of Metta then we can change the terms of the whole train of thought. So exercise becomes the chance to perform an act of Metta for ourselves. That act of abstinence, picking a Tuna salad rather than something less healthy.  This isn’t an act of self denial, it’s an act of loving kindness towards yourself.

Exploring Free Software

For some time now, I’ve been a user of Ubuntu GNU/Linux.  Truth be told, I’ve been using Free Software for a number of years now in various roles.  This year, Free Software has spent the longest time on my desktop PC.  GNU/Linux has been my Operating System of choice for over 12 months and counting.

At present I’m watching the to and fro in the Ubuntu world with various issues and in response have installed Debian 7.0 (Wheezy) on my laptop.  The fact that I can do this is wonderful, it’s certainly not something I could just turn around and do with a proprietary system.  I am, so far, liking Gnome 3.4 and have only had to resort to proprietary software once, for a WiFi network driver.

I’ve installed Debian in Virtualbox virtual machines before now, I run a small virtual test network of such machines.  It’s like having a “software dojo”, somewhere you can go to train and experiment.  Even better, you can do it with the full unrestricted programs, this is something I would never be able to do in such a way without the Free Software tools I use.

So I’m trying to push towards a more fully Free Software environment.  The change finally started when I reread “Free as in Freedom”.  It’s a biography of Richard M.Stallman and it made me much more interested in the question of ethics and software use. I’d like to explore the ethics of software use a little more in future and bring a Taoist / Buddhist flavour to my explorations. It also made me wonder how far I could go while avoiding using non-free software.  So far, I have only 1 small non-free driver, though how I will work around this is a good question.

I am also taking the chance to begin to reimplement my Sitquietly GNU/Linux meditation software in pure C code.  I have various reasons for wanting to learn C and this seems the best way.  In any event, I have a few changes I’ve wanted to make to the program and this is my chance.  Now I just need to think about source hosting!

Being Wrong

Wow, another long break.  But it’s better to post when you have something to say, rather than just post for the sake of it.  A week or so ago, a friend of mine got into a discussion in Secondlife.  The other person in the discussion was not having any of her point of view at all. This person was someone she knew, a definite intellectual and geek.

That started the problem, as she rapidly ran into a refusal to accept that any other viewpoint but his might be valid.  What could have been a discussion turned into an intellectual exercise in proving that only his viewpoint was right. Now, with geeks these arguments happen and you need only review comment threads on geek news sites to see them.  But what I think these exercises in intellectual point scoring miss, is that there is usually greater quality in being open to other view points. I honestly believe that there is far greater quality in accepting that you could be wrong and learning from that experience.

There’s a lot to be said from the notion that we learn more from failure than we do from success. This needs us to have the humility to accept that we’re wrong, then try to learn, even if it hurts. If we have the mentality of always being right, when such an opportunity for growth comes, we’re not able to take it. I have to say that I find that quite tragic, that an obsession with being right can actually cost us the chance to learn and grow.

I’d like to draw on my own experience here to try and give an example of what I mean.  When creating in Secondlife, if something you’re making doesn’t turn out right, don’t berate yourself for making a mistake, keep hold of it.  Many’s the time that I’ve made a piece of work that I was sure was a mistake. Then, one day, it turned out that the “mistake” was almost what I was looking for in another project, it just needed a little work. The lesson I drew from this is don’t be afraid to make your mistakes, you never know when the things you learn or create from being wrong will turn out to be just what you needed.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. – Mahatma Gandhi.

If someone can prove me wrong and show me my mistake in any thought or action, I shall gladly change. I seek the truth, which never harmed anyone: the harm is to persist in one’s own self-deception and ignorance. – Marcus Aurelius.