I checked Slashdot earlier today and found that Richard M Stallman is under fire for comments regarding Steve Jobs.  The exact comment is posted below and a short Google will provide enough commentary via a variety of websites and comment section flame wars to keep you reading for quite some time.  I’ve italicised the controversial section.

“Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.

As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, “I’m not glad he’s dead, but I’m glad he’s gone.” Nobody deserves to have to die – not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs’ malign influence on people’s computing.

Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.”

Click here for the original

Let me be frank, I value my freedom and as such I run Linux as my main desktop O/S.  I can see where RMS is coming from with regards to the whole “computer as a jail” idea, it harks back to the bad old days when when parts of the internet were walled off and proprietary, for example Compuserve.  I have not bought an Apple device for some years, after buying MacOS X for my blueberry iBook and then quickly  having support dropped by just about everyone, when 10.1 arrived.  This left me facing a bill of over £100 to carry on using the machine, even though I was already a paying customer and the software wasn’t technically out of support!  I seethed, then installed Yellow Dog Linux, gave Apple two fingers, and never looked back.

I should disclose that I have an iPhone but only as my company provides and requires it, their standard is Apple phones and that’s it, my own mobile is an Android device.  So what do I see?  To my eyes, iTunes is well designed, iTunesU certainly seems interesting, but the content is available elsewhere on the open Internet.  Also, while Apple are accused of restrictive DRM, I can play my iTunes purchases on OpenSuSE Linux with no problems.  I am however looking for an alternative to Amazon / iTunes.

Anyway, back on topic.  While I can empathise with where RMS stands, I see his comments as badly timed and frankly, there was no need to say it like that.  Though I will observe that in his next two sentences RMS does separate the man from his legacy, or as the Christians say “love the sinner, hate the sin”.

Steve Jobs went too early, it wasn’t a nice way to go (is there one?) and at this moment in time our thoughts should be with his family and friends.  A civil discussion of his legacy as regards our freedom can wait for another day.  I’ll air my own views in due course, but not yet.

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!

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?

I just posted a new essay I’ve been working on, inspired by the phrase “Cafeteria Chistianity”.

I’ve always believed that we can’t take ancient texts at face value, but must look beyond them using them as signposts to the truth, not literal truth themselves.  To make this mistake is to not see the wood for the trees, or to use a wonderful phrase I picked up from the brilliant Alan Watts, to eat the menu not the meal.

Anyway, without further ado you can find my new essay “Cafeteria religion” in the sidebar, or just click here.

I was wandering the web looking through green sites, peak oil sites and other things and I came across a couple of quotes which I like:

“Of all the qualities in your being, that which is most god-like is creativity” – Pir Ilayat Vilayat Khan

I too think that our creativity is our greatest asset, it’s what makes us both the most brilliant and the most dangerous of animals.

I’ve talked about my views on the finger pointing at the moon before, but this was a nice surprise.  I’ve been reading “The Religion of The Samurai”, a treatise on Zen written in 1913 by by Kaiten Nukariya.
There is a section on why scripture is no more than waste paper, which echoes my sentiments, though I personally feel that this sentiment extends far beyond the Buddhist scriptures to all religious scriptures regardless of creed or canon:  They’re a nice place to start, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

This quote is from the beginning of Chapter 3:

“Zen is based on the highest spiritual plane attained by Shakya Muni himself. It can only be realized by one who has attained the same plane. To describe it in full by means of words is beyond the power even of Gotama himself. It is for this reason that the author of Lankavatara-sutra insists that Shakya Muni spoke no word through his long career of forty-nine years as a religious teacher, and that of Mahaprajñaparamita-sutra also express the same opinion. The Scripture is no more nor less than the finger pointing to the moon of Buddhahood. When we recognize the moon and enjoy its benign beauty, the finger is of no use. As the finger has no brightness whatever, so the Scripture has no holiness whatever. The Scripture is religious currency representing spiritual wealth. It does not matter whether money be gold, or sea-shells, or cows. It is a mere substitute. What it stands for is of paramount importance. Away with your stone-knife! Do not watch the stake against which a running hare once struck its head and died. Do not wait for another hare. Another may not come for ever. Do not cut the side of the boat out of which you dropped your sword to mark where it sunk. The boat is ever moving on. The Canon is the window through which we observe the grand scenery of spiritual nature. To hold communion directly with it we must get out of the window. It is a mere stray fly that is always buzzing within it, struggling to get out. Those who spend most of their lives in the study of the Scriptures, arguing and explaining with hair-splitting reasonings, and attain no higher plane in spirituality, are religious flies good for nothing but their buzzing about the nonsensical technicalities. It is on this account that Rin-zai declared:  ‘The twelve divisions of the Buddhist Canon are nothing better than waste paper.’”

This sentiment is why I have little time for religious debates or the technicalities of scripture, stop arguing over trifles in books of dubious authorship, we know we need to progress spiritually … so get on with it!

The Religion of The Samurai is available for download here.

I was reading about the new legislation in the Queen’s speech today. It seems that we need to have a new law passed for everything, further invasions of our privacy and our rights eroded.

It’s amazing what they can push through, mention the word Terrorist since 9/11 and you can wave through almost any measure you want, consider the new National DNA database, there are people on there who haven’t been convicted of a crime!

It’s almost as if we’re considered suspect simply by default, though Lao Tzu does have advice for us on this one:

“The highest rulers, people do not know they have them
The next level, people love them and praise them
The next level, people fear them
The next level, people despise them
If the rulers’ trust is insufficient
Have no trust in them

Proceeding calmly, valuing their words
Task accomplished, matter settled
The people all say, “We did it naturally”“

This is illuminating as it suggests a position far removed from the one we currently see in public figures. Lao Tzu suggests a more humble approach, indeed I’ve recently read comments by people saying that our leaders need to take a moment and remember who they really work for. The lack of trust they have in us is unsettling, the need to remember that somewhere in all the rules and cameras and the surveillance the spirit of the society that they’re trying to protect will get lost.

They are so attached to the idea of defending Britain and it’s people from every imagined aggressor that the country will be stifled by the grip they’ll have on it; the people will eventually be injured both in spirit and prospects, maybe even physically by the very measures and officers supposed to protect them.

I personally think they’re taken the exact wrong approach, the threat of terror needs to be tackled on a community level, it’s not a matter of arresting people it’s preventing them becoming extremists in the first place. I remember a point made by Robert M. Pirsig that when someone is deemed insane they’ve possibly subscribed to a view of the world that has higher quality for them than everyone else’s. I think the best view to take with those who would destroy our society is to reach out to them and show them the higher quality in our society.

Imagine a way forward that doesn’t involve more expenditure for the military industrial complex and security services. I wish it would catch on, I can’t see much of a future in mistrust and fear.

It’s interesting to watch the approach of some folk to technology. There seems to me to be a view that technology is the enemy, there is a negative view of tech. Speaking as an IT guy, I couldn’t disagree more. When dealing with recalcitrant, misbehaving tech, the key is to remember that it’s nothing personal. Getting all wound up won’t help, sometimes it can be like opening a stubborn lock, you have to know how to jiggle it, I’ve started to think that it might be an ego issue on the operator’s part. I include myself in that, of course.

I always try to bear in mind that computers and technology are as much a part of Tao as everything else.

To misquote Pirsig, “Tao rests as easily at the heart of cyberspace as it does in the heart of a forest. To think otherwise is to demean Tao”

I’ve suffered from a bit of writers block for the last few days.  I finally remembered a quote from Bono in the book “Bono on Bono”; “Why don’t you write about that?”, good question, I thought.  Here we go….

It’s interesting to actually look at writers block, it’s not the first time I’ve suffered it, but it’s the first time I’ve looked at it like this.  It’s a pain in the neck for sure, but I think it’s also a wake up call to go and take a break for a while and recharge, so it’s nature can change a lot depending on how you look at it.

So many things are like this, the veneer we drop on the world according to our tastes and cultural background can blind us to the possibilities and in some cases make things a lot more difficult than they need to be.  If we’re not very careful we can do ourselves in.  The fun starts when you realise it’s optional, and you are the final arbiter and authority of how the world looks, it’s all in the eye of the beholder.

Whaddya know?  It worked, kudos to you Bono……

I came across this quote on the subject of violence and non-violence, I’d never thought of it like this before being focussed more on the physical side, I thought I’d share this quote as I found it very insightful.

“What is violence and what is non-violence? We can’t make a clear
demarcation between violence and non-violence on a superficial basis, since
it is related with motivation. Out of sincere motivation, certain
verbal actions, as well as physical actions, may look more wrathful, more
violent, harsher, but in essence, because these activities come out of a
sincere motivation of compassion, or sense of caring, they are
essentially non-violent. On the other hand, with negative motivation, try to
cheat, trying to exploit, trying to deceive, and using nice
words-although with a big artificial smile and with a gift- might look like a
friendly gesture, but because of the motivation, it is the worst kind of
violence. So I feel that in certain cases violence can be said to be a
manifestation or expression of compassion. Nevertheless, non-violence is
the basic expression of compassion, therefore, the concepts of
non-violence and compassion are very, very close.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama