A Quiet Watercourse

It’s been a while since I posted here, but make no mistake, I’m still here.

During a Buddhist meeting in Second Life last weekend, there was a mention of levels of attainment and such things.  Later, I fell to thinking.  The whole thing with the notion of “levels of attainment” has its place, but at what point does it become a hinderance?

I know of martial arts instructors who don’t offer grading or belts because these things have been seen to cause elitism and attitude among students.  I can see the same risk with levels of attainment, but also they are something for us to cling to.

There are stories in Zen that illustrate this when a person in a humble position demonstrates greater knowledge and insight than the “worthies” in the upper reaches of the hierarchy.  So, in order to reach the truth, shall we let go of levels and hierarchies?  Do we recognise that the highest level is no level?

We need to be honest, are we doing this for an acknowledgment of an instructor/mentor, or for the rewards of the process?

Is this an ego trip or are you here for real?

I’ve been reading the coverage of the US election via BBC News and as I have a break at work, I’ll take the time to dash out a few thoughts.

First up, it’s damn good to see.  My emotional response is to punch the air, finally, a chance for a change of direction. 

In balance to that, I harbour a concern that the opponents of change may wind up trying to turn debates into a race issue in order to avoid facing up to the very real threats and challenges that we will face over the coming years.  We cannot avoid facing these and we must do so honestly and with all the cards on the table.

A comment on a BBC News reporter’s Blog caught my eye.

“When the sun rises over Arizona, many will shake their heads and fear for the future”

If you’re one of those people, and you’re reading this, I’m going to try and reach out to you and show you that your fears are unfounded.  I’m going to leave you a Chinese story, that of The Crying Princess:

(attribution: http://taoism.net/living/2006/200604.htm)

—————-

Spring was Princess Li’s favorite season. She loved the blooming flowers in her garden and would spend hours walking there, taking in the colors and savoring the fragrance.

Today, something was wrong. Instead of enjoying herself, she sat alone and seemed unhappy. Mei, her handmaiden and companion since childhood, grew concerned and decided to approach her: “Princess, forgive me for intruding. Are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m fine, Mei. I am just thinking about my… engagement.” Her father the Duke announced in the morning that Princess Li was to be wedded to the King of Jin in a few months.

“I heard the announcement as well. The Duke said it was very auspicious and a great cause for celebration.”

“For others, perhaps, but not for me. I have never met King Jin and I have no idea what he is like. I love my life here with my flowers and have no wish to leave…. Oh, how I dread the wedding!”

The sudden intensity of Princess Li’s emotions surprised Mei. “Have you told your father that you do not wish to marry him?”

“No. Jin is a powerful kingdom. Our alliance with them, cemented by marriage, is something that will make us much stronger and more secure. It is my duty to do it. I cannot avoid it.”

“What will you do then, Princess?”

“The only thing I can - put it out of my mind as much as possible.”

Time passed. As the wedding drew closer, Princess Li became increasingly anxious. When the date finally came, she refused to come out of her room. This caused quite a commotion. “Unacceptable!” The Duke was displeased. “Mei, you are the only one she listens to. Go talk some sense into her. Quickly!”

Mei entered the inner chambers to discover the princess crying her eyes out. “Princess, what are you doing? Everyone is waiting for you.”

“I don’t care! I won’t marry him!”

Mei noticed that the princess had soaked her clothes in tears, so evidently she had been crying for quite some time. “Princess, did you not tell me yourself that this is something you cannot avoid?”

“You don’t understand! I really, really don’t want to go to the Jin Palace! I want to stay here!”

Mei took a deep breath. She knew how to get through to the princess, but even her ability and patience would be taxed to the limit this time. “Princess, you know as well as I do that everything has been set in motion. We cannot put it off any more than we can push back the waves of the ocean.”

The princess snapped back and Mei responded with her soothing voice. After several hours of this, the princess grew too tired to continue. She allowed herself to be led to the royal carriage. Finally, the wedding party was able to get underway. To the princess, the rest of the wedding went by like a blur.

After an initial period of adjustment, Princess Li grew accustomed to life in the Jin Palace. The King treated her well and kept her in luxuries she had never experienced before. The royal bed in particular was a marvel. When the princess slept on it, she felt as if she was floating on air. Moreover, every meal at the Jin Palace was spectacular. The princess had never tasted so many delicacies, cooked in so many different ways.

Spring arrived again. Princess Li was delighted to discover beautiful flowers blooming in the royal gardens of the Jin Palace. She wasted no time at all summoning Mei to her side, so they could go exploring together.

“You seem to be in high spirits, Princess.”

“I am! I cannot wait to walk amongst the flowers.”

“How strange! Can this be the same person who really, really didn’t want to be here?”

“Please don’t remind me,” Princess Li blushed. “I still cannot believe how foolish I was. It’s so wonderful here, I cannot understand why I was so afraid.”

Many years ago, I came across this little gem of a saying in the William Gibson novel “Neuromancer”.

I’ve been thinking more about it in the last few days, events have made it quite relevant, haven’t they?  I’ve been reminded of it in Secondlife recently, though I suspect that the people involved don’t entirely realise that they’ve been teaching me.

Moreover, I’m seeing the need for this saying in the crisis round the world.  If we’d measured twice, we’d have realised that this is the end of the way things have been.  We cannot carry on in the same manner for much longer and expect to survive long term.  I’ve seen this called The Long Emergency, that’s pretty much right on the mark.

• We cannot build a future on debt and commodity bubbles.
• We cannot build a future on grandiose consumption and unlimited growth.
• We cannot build a future in which most of the wealth is put in the hands of a few, while the majority suffer.
• We cannot build a future in which the resources of the world are exploited by only a few nations, in an unsustainable way.

We must build a future based on compassion, both for others and for ourselves, it the only way we can survive and prosper.  To quote Bill Adama “It’s not enough to survive, we have to deserve to survive.”. 

We’ll only get one chance to make the cut, let’s try and get it right.

OK, time to return to the virtual world of Secondlife.  I’ve been quietly exploring this world for a while now, and have found that it has a large number of VERY creative people in here.

You may have heard of the Burning Man festival?  They do something quite similar in Secondlife, called Burning Life.

I missed last year’s, and as it’s that time again, I took a wander.

The landing area was quite packed with people, so I moved away and examined a few exhibits.  As a builder myself, I’ve come away with a few ideas which I aim to play with.

I took a few images while at the event, to see one of them in a larger size, just click on them.

This fellow caught my eye at first, as I walked round he followed me and the effect of blinking, made the eye  very disconcerting.

I know the scripts that go behind this and could have built something similar myself, that didn’t make any less unnerving!

I found this one next, a very shiny and animated piece, it put me in mind of an ornamental clock, it glowed and the movement was well thought out.

The spider caught my eye with a VERY intricately detailed clockwork mechanism, plus the key on its rear it makes me wish that the Linux client had an easier time making videos.  Static pictures really don’t do these pieces justice, animation like this takes some real planning!

Finally, I came across an alien adbuction scene and just had to try it out for a laugh…

All of this goes to show what I’ve believed for sometime now, Secondlife is not a video game.  I like to make the example that if the usual intenet shooters and virtual areas are like applications, then Secondlife is more like an underlying operating system, with the content built by, and for, those who use it

And I really must work out how to get some videos on here.

I’m not an economist, but the recent turmoil in global financial markets really does get my back up.  The whole thing is run for the benefit of a few people, now it’s going wrong, they seem to be walking away with huge bonuses rather than serious consequences.

We’ve been running the entire western world on a ridiculous premise for years, the idea that growth is king and that it can keep happening.  Yeah, right.

We have a limited planet, with finite resources and space, growth is ultimately limited, with no way round that.  Eventually it must end.  To pretend otherwise is to live in complete denial of the real, to allow our illusions and wishful thinking to rule, something the Buddha and Lao Tzu warned about millennia ago.

We need to focus on finding a sustainable way of living, one that won’t wreck the planet and our lives.

I’ve been watching what’s going on in South Ossetia and Georgia.  Firstly with a sense of foreboding and then with a feeling of disbelief.

Let me sum up my understanding of what happened….  Georgia tried to retake a pro-Russian breakaway region by military force, Russia stepped in and Georgia got a kicking.  The west is not happy because we have an investment in Georgia, namely a BP oil pipeline.

Now a few thoughts, what the hell were the Georgians thinking by using force?  If the South Ossetians are that pro Russian, then the army is the last thing you need to use, by what I’ve read they dislike Georgia even more now and who can blame them?!

As far as the West goes, well, we’ve rampaged round the world dispensing democracy at gunpoint for too long.  The bottom line is that our way of running things is unsustainable, in trying to desperately keep the old failing system going we’re going to wreck half the world.  Our inability to recognise the simple truth that we need to change will wreck our own countries as well in short order.

Maybe we should put our own houses in order a little first.  We need to find a new, sustainable way of living and we should recognise have little to no moral high ground left to preach to anyone from.

It’s time for change.

Well, after about 3 and a half months of vegetarianism, I’m eating meat again.  I tried, but it didn’t work this time.

After a period of stress and also the creeping of several aches and pains, I’ve been forced to conclude that Vegetarianism isn’t for me at this point in my life, so I have to put my health first and back off.

It was an enormously valuable experience and if you can make it work then you have my respect, I just couldn’t crack it this time, though I got a lot further than my previous two attempts.

At the moment I’m eating meat once per day, which is plenty.  This provoked a quick moment of thought.  From a Taoist/Chinese Medical perspective what is the advice for a diet?

Well, after some looking, I found that they recommend meat as only 1/10th of the diet  and eliminating all processed food (as far as you can).

I’ve linked to a couple of very interesting sites below:

Taoist Arts - Medicine and Diet

Seahorse Arts - The Chang Ming diet

I’ve been watching the Peak Oil debate for a little while now.  It seems to me that we’re in quite a bit of trouble, most of which is caused by our almost complete state of denial.

Planet Earth is finite, we only have so much of it.  This means that there is a definite upper limit to every resource to be found on our world, in fact the oil production figures are now declining for many oil producers.

There’s a lot of noise about alternative energy sources, which ignores the fact that they’re just not going to cover our energy requirements as they stand.  This would seem to mandate an enormous efficiency drive on our part (not just in terms of fuel) and a large change in the way we live our lives.

I personally think this will take the form of more local services and walkable / cyclable communites with much greater use of public transport.  The days of the private motor car may well be numbered, oddly enough, nobody seems to want to see that.

Anyway, I found this very enlightening (and worrying) 80 minute film on Google video, it’s called “A Crude Awakening” and it’s a very good summary of the problem.

Click here for the video.

I don’t usually like to do overly long posts, it’s a personal preference.  So when I saw this picture on a forum and it pretty much summed up the way I feel about the whole Afghanistan & Iraq situation, I felt I had to share it.

In Taoist / Zen art, a large part of the pictures is the empty space, it’s the blank areas that give the rest meaning.

To my mind, this video is firmly in that vein, though granted they probably weren’t thinking that when they made it. Just one guy and some sand and I have to say this is one of the best things I’ve ever seen on the web.