Category Archives: Buddhism - Page 4

The Importance of Withdrawal

Posted by on November 23, 2010 2 comments

I invested in an Amazon Kindle a few weeks ago, it’s certainly been a good choice and I have rediscovered the pleasure of reading through it.  It allows me to carry a large library of books with me, and the screen is every bit as good as they claim it to be.  I can recommend the Free Software ebook manager called “Calibre” for use with it, as it allows easy conversion of ebooks between all sorts of formats.  It also allows the downloading of RSS feeds and will collate these feeds into a book for you.  I consider this to be a killer feature, absolutely brilliant!

I’ve started reading my feeds on the Kindle and have discovered that it makes reading them much easier than on a computer screen.  I pondered why, aside from the better Kindle screen, this should be.  Then I realised that it’s the fact that the Kindle does one thing, and one thing only, it reads books.  As someone who owns a smartphone with various communications options on it and has numerous little programs that can chime in and demand attention on his PC, I have been finding it very difficult to focus.  Not only to read but to write and to create.

This chimed in with something that the tutor said at the Buddhist Vihara last week; the necessity of withdrawal, of shutting out the world and getting some time and space to focus.  We withdraw to create a place that is sacred and spiritual and that is peaceful, that is not of the everyday world.  Yet, what is the place we go when we read; when we really engage with a good book, is that place entirely of this world?  I realised that this is why Kindle makes it easier to read, there are no interruptions and no possibility of such things.  If I read on my phone, I can be texted, IMed, Facebook messaged, emailed, or (looks shocked) …. phoned!  Throw in all the little toy apps that you can get and what chance is there of any peace?

It seems to me that these things take the control of our time away from us, it seems that we are interrupted at a whim and a response is demanded there and then.  But where is the control in that?  There are our devices, our tools, yet we seem to jump to their tune.  This makes time away even more vital than it ever has been and it it makes me question whether all of the advances in our communications abilities are necessarily for the better.

As a self confessed geek, this is a strange place to be it seems.  Am I taking an anti technology stance here?  No.  I am advocating a measure of moderation and also a realization that we don’t need to be plugged in all the time.  I started reading my news and my blogs on a daily ebook rather than as they come in, and if anything it improved matters.  By taking these things and making a specific time and place for them, it seems to unchoke everything else.

Second Life and Reaching Out

Posted by on November 10, 2010 No comments

I’m not too sure about the title of this one, but I really can’t think of a better one.

On Sunday evening, I was at a Buddhist Dharma talk at the Kannoji Sim in Second Life.  The speaker was a Zen monk, and our subject was virtual worlds and the Sangha.  It’s an interesting subject and it allows me to touch on something that I have been saying privately for some time.  I really do believe that Second Life has a great deal to offer people who want to reach out and investigate things before approaching them in the physical world.

Attending a virtual Buddhist meeting, as I did, is a perfect example.  I’ve been attending these meetings for some time now and have participated in more than one such group in Second Life, I have to say it has been a rewarding experience.  These groups give you a way to easily connect with like minded individuals from across the globe and can lead towards taking the steps toward such groups in the real world.

It could be said that you can do this via forums and IRC, but I believe that the extra capabilities of the Second Life platform add a great deal to this experience and strengthen it beyond the other mediums.  The talk was given using voice, and at one point over 20 avatars were present, in addition to text chat and a voice connection the speaker could have used slides on an inworld board or could have used inworld video if required.

I have seen the use of inworld slides and video and they are every bit as effective as in the real world, the 3d world of Second Life adds something to their use that I don’t get from Youtube, Flickr or other software.

It does sometimes seem, what with one issue or another, that Second Life isn’t worth the effort or is going downhill.  I beg to differ, Second Life allows these things to be done comparatively safely and with minimal cost and effort.  For those of us who are housebound, or simply without enough time to make a real world trip, I think that groups like this in Second Life do plenty of good and make Second Life and other such systems (e.g. OpenSim) well worth the time and effort.

Skepticism and the truth – a couple of quotes

Posted by on October 28, 2010 1 comment

I’ve very briefly mentioned my disillusionment with Skepticism before, but I found a quote with re-reading Dracula that I think expresses part of how I feel about the whole thing.

“He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let the little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck.  We get the small truth first.  Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.” (Van Helsing speaking to Dr Seward)

I also see this as a warning not to hold an idea in contempt prior to investigating it.  I am beginning to suspect that Skepticism may be used to either inflate the ego or as a form of faith.  In any event, I personally feel that it can be an impediment to seeing.  I said last time that we often see our prejudices and thoughts about the world, not the world itself.  I should added that we can often see our skepticism instead of the world.  But I’m not the only one whose thought wandered in this direction:

“It is really quite amazing by what margins competent but conservative scientists and engineers can miss the mark, when they start with the preconceived idea that what they are investigating is impossible.  When this happens, the most well-informed men become blinded by their prejudices and are unable to see what lies directly ahead of them.” – Arthur C. Clarke, 1963

On that note I’ll log off as it is rather late here!

Too cool to lose your illusions?

Posted by on October 21, 2010 4 comments

I’m going to try going back to stream of consciousness for a while.  It’s how I started writing many moons ago and my recent experiments with scheduled posts didn’t feel right.  Besides, the writing style didn’t feel like me anymore.

I dug into the depths of my CD collection tonight and put a few things on that I haven’t heard for quite some time, having all my physical CDs as mp3s in Rhythmbox makes this sort of thing very easy.  We all have CDs like this, things that we think we’re too cool to listen to anymore, and  it’s that sort of thing that I’d like to chat about tonight.

What is it about some of our older music that makes it uncool for us to listen to it?  Something in the arrangement, or the musicianship maybe?  Is the CD cover tacky, or do the lyrics grate?  I’m wagering it’s none of the above, after all, there are no doubt fans of the band who will happily listen to it all with no complaints, so maybe the problem is closer to home.  Not in the CD player, or the ears, but smack between the ears.  The problem is in our minds.

One of the things that was said to me on Sunday at the Peace Pagoda was that we make our own suffering.  This is very true and results in us missing out on a lot of things, as we react to our own illusions and preconceptions about the world rather than the world itself.  This brings me back to the music, why is that some music is uncool to listen to?  Maybe because our preconceptions, our grasping at the desire to be seen to be cool and up to date, drag us away from things we previously enjoyed?  Maybe they prevent us from finding things that we would enjoy, maybe they get between us and actually seeing and living?  After all, why should a rap artist (for example) not enjoy classical music, there’s no rule anywhere, but I wonder how many would admit it if they did.

That’s my guess anyway, what do you think?

An afternoon out

Posted by on October 19, 2010 No comments

On Sunday I paid a local Theravada temple in Birmingham a visit.  My practise has been done virtually till now and I felt it was time to take the next step.  The lady I was talking to was cheerful, energetic and happy and helpful and was at pains to explain impermanence and the view that Buddhism is psychology.  As a trained psychiatric nurse, she could get right behind this and I hope I get the chance to talk to her in more depth about it.

I listened and took this chance to reboot my understanding, it’s so good to come to things with a beginners mind again.  We get so wrapped up in knowing this and that, with how much we know and understand, we wrap our understanding round us like armour.  No wonder we get upset when it’s challenged.

It’s this sort of thing that moved me away from the local skeptical community, I was all ready to start going to meetings, but on closer inspection and reading of blogs it all started to taste a bit sour.  I started to get the distinct feeling that the point is to be seen to be right, I felt that I saw a lot of ego and little desire to understand.  There was no empathy.  One day I’ll expand on this in more depth, but not right now.

So, I had a nice afternoon and also got to try a Tibetan Prayer Wheel for the first time.  Let’s see where this new chapter leads…..

Is the Grass Greener?

Posted by on October 8, 2010 No comments

A friend made a comment to me today, a colleague was retiring and she felt that it would be nice to be able to retire early.  One thing that came up in the conversation was that rather than compare oneself to those who have it better than you, it can be better for your mental state to remind yourself of those who have it worse.  I understand and agree, technically, with this idea.  But I also feel, looking back that there is a further point to be explored here.

The Buddha makes the point that everyone faces problems in our lives, that even someone who seems much better off than us still has their share of problems.  We can look around us and see the rich, powerful and famous, they seem almost mythical figures, shrouded in glamour.  Yet, one can be bound to the wheel of Samsara with chains of gold as well as chains of iron.

Let’s consider this, celebrities have the above plusses but these things have their downsides.  The price of fame is papparazzi and stalkers, the inability to ever fade into the crowd again.  The price of power is having to wield it and be held responsible for the consequences of using it.  But fortune, who could argue against having millions? Lao Tzu does, arguing that the accumulating of riches makes you a target for thieves, thus bringing it’s own risks

So, I contend that things are far from as simple as they first seem, once you look a little closer the grass on the other side of the fence is often far from greener.

A good quote on Mindfulness

Posted by on October 6, 2010 2 comments

I heard this remark tonight from my instructor regarding the practise of mindfulness, the class was talking about it in relation to Taijiquan.

“We’re Human Beings, not Human Doings”

This is actually a very good quote, and I’d like to say a little more about this subject.  I’ve said before and I will always maintain, that it’s very difficult to penetrate Taoist philosophy deeply without at least some Tai Chi practise.  The (often) not so simple act of playing with the principles physically enables an intuitive view, not an intellectual one, that is a great help.  This also helps a lot with Buddhism.

As we attempted to move each other around, it became more apparent that the act of attempting to do something blocks mindfulness.  In fact in attempting to influence, force, or otherwise get at a result from our actions, we can lose our grasp on the thread of things and we fail.  Even the intent seemed to cause me to lose the thread of what I was doing, all very strange and quite unnerving.

It became clear to me tonight that a large part of mindfulness involves getting your mind out of the way.  So, mindlessness?  No…

The trick seemed to be to be present, but unattached to an outcome in a relaxed way, don’t try to force it.  It reminded me of some of my best meditation sittings, I didn’t focus, I just got out of my own way and let it happen.

There, I can’t explain it very well.  But hey I’ll let it be, and who knows, maybe this can be used as a start?