Reclusland » prayer

“Digital Dharma”

Ian — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:51:44 +0000

I know things have been quiet here for a while. My apologies, it’s been a busy holiday season here in Reclusland. And while I am still a bit short on the “regularly scheduled” programming I did want to take a moment and do some good-hearted shilling for some kind people who recently got in touch with me through my contact form.

They are working to put together a film about the work of a man named E. Gene Smith, a man of Mormon background who spent a good portion of his life working to save holy Tibetan Buddhist texts from destruction by digitizing them. As I am a big fan of the concurrence of the digital and the spiritual, I applaud the work of Mr. Smith, and the people putting together this documentary of his life and work, and I wish them much success in their endeavor!

From their press release:
“This feature-length documentary uncovers Smith’s 50-year journey with renowned scholars, lamas and laypeople as they struggle to find, preserve and digitize more than 20,000 volumes of ancient Tibetan text. Crossing multiple borders – geographic, political and philosophical – Digital Dharma is an epic story of a cultural rescue and how one man’s mission became the catalyst for an international movement to provide free access to the story of a people and share their wisdom with the world.”

“Across India, the Himalayas and throughout the U.S., (director Dafna) Yachin and her crew followed Smith over the past five years. His untimely death last December underscores the importance of completing the film for this year’s festival market and heightening awareness of Smith’s mission and organization, the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center.”

These good people have a substantial goal to meet raising funds for the production of this important documentary. More info can be found on their Kickstarter page. Please check it out, and chip in if you can (they’re running low on time, so please do so soon)!

More info available on their main site.

(I, for one, find myself in a bit of TOTAL AWE at the thought of 20,000 sacred texts in digital format, infinitely sharable and reproducible. Let’s hope there’s some digital archives out there making sure to include these priceless treasures in their vaults…)

On the work of good, and evil…

Ian — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 03:38:19 +0000

Everything is good. Life bubbles up as goodness and mixes with allthatis.

While mixing, certain things are misunderstood, certain things seem to be blocked, and certain things are abandoned before they are resolved back into the goodness from which they come and which they carry within them.

There is not a weakness in this misunderstanding, in this blockage, nor in this abandonment. Or, if there is a weakness, it is a weakness we all share.

But after a certain amount of time, these things that are misunderstood, blocked, and abandoned start to hurt. They both are pain and cause pain. To say that this is evil is to say that your hand should not burn when it is placed into the fire.

But how to respond to the pain, either our own or others? We can become numb, or we can seek momentary pleasure (wait, same thing…)

Or we can give into the pain, and allow it to express itself through us, amplify it so that it’s voice is even more easy to hear. And it is here that we appear evil. But we are not evil, we are just in pain. Because we are misunderstood, blocked, and abandoned.

There is no evil. There is only ignorance, and the pain it gives rise to, and our identification with that pain, and our expression of that identification. All else is always already good.

What else can we do? Rest in this, and let (it) go. It might hurt to pass the pain, a piece of spiritual kidney stone built up from the blockage, but don’t let that dissuade you.

God is love, because love is always open. Alwaysopen, isGod, may peacebewithus…

Hello…Goodbye

Ian — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 14:15:36 +0000

Tomorrow morning I’m leaving for a week-long retreat, returning home August 2. Then I’ll be up in Seattle for a wedding until August 12 and will be returning for another wedding here in Oregon the following weekend. Seems everybody’s shacking up these days. I’m getting to be “that age”, I guess….

In any case, I’ll very likely be incommunicado until after August 13. Just a heads up so as not to give the impression I’m simply being unresponsive for that long. I do have a bundle of posts lined up and ready to go though, wouldn’t want to deny the world a daily dose of Reclusland goodness! So stay tuned and stay entertained, kiddies, in what I can only hope is a good a nourishing way.

There’s something lovely in the air today, an inspiration of sorts…

Ian — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:51:39 +0000

The more you try to see something, the less clearly you can see it. Only when you are relaxed can you see things as they are. Those who don’t try to look for anything, see more. – Sayadaw U Tejaniya

…you must realize that in this life it will be impossible to continue in this work [of contemplation] with the same intensity all the time. Sickness, afflictions of body and mind, and countless other necessities of nature will often leave you indisposed and keep you from its heights. Yet, at the same time, I counsel you to remain at it always either in earnest or, as it were, playfully. What I mean is that through desire you can remain with it even when other things intervene. – Anonymous, “The Cloud of Unknowing”

Don’t seek, don’t search, don’t ask, don’t knock, don’t demand–relax. If you relax, it comes. If you relax, it is there. If you relax, you start vibrating with it. – Osho

“The aim of life is to live and to live means to be aware – joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.” – Henry Miller

58. Tui / The Joyous, Lake

THE JUDGMENT
THE JOYOUS. Success.
Perseverance is favorable

The joyous mood is infectious and therefore brings success. But joy must be
based on steadfastness if it is not to degenerate into uncontrolled mirth.
Truth and strength must dwell in the heart, while gentleness reveals itself in
social intercourse. In this way one assumes the right attitude toward God and
man and achieves something. Under certain conditions, intimidation
without gentleness may achieve something momentarily, but not for all
time. When, on the other hand, the hearts of men are won by friendliness,
they are led to take all hardships upon themselves willingly, and if need be
will not shun death itself, so great is the power of joy over men.

The Heights of Heaven and The Depths of Earth

Ian — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 00:45:17 +0000

->
CHANGING LINE: Hexagram Thirty-Six/Line Six

Six at the top means:
Not light but darkness.
First he climbed up to heaven,
Then plunged into the depths of the earth.

Here the climax of the darkening is reached. The dark power at first held so high a place that it could wound all who were on the side of good and of the light. But in the end it perishes of its own darkness, for evil must itself fall at the very moment when it has wholly overcome the good, and thus consumed the energy to which it owed its duration.

From the Hua Hu Ching

Ian — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:21:58 +0000

The world is full
of half-enlightened masters.
Overly clever, too “sensitive” to
live in the real world, they
surround themselves with selfish
pleasures and bestow their grandiose
teachings upon the unwary.

Prematurely publicizing themselves, intent
upon reaching some spiritual climax, they
constantly sacrifice the truth
and deviate from the Tao.
What they really offer the world
is their own confusion.

The true master understands that
enlightenment is not the end,
but the means. Realizing that
virtue is her goal, she accepts
the long and often arduous cultivation
that is necessary to attain it.

She doesn’t scheme to become a leader,
but quietly shoulders whatever
responsibilities fall to her.
Unattached to her accomplishments,
taking credit for nothing at all,
she guides the whole world by guiding
the individuals who come to her.

She shares her divine energy with
her students, encouraging them,
creating trials to strengthen them,
scolding them to awaken them,
directing the streams of their lives
toward the infinite ocean of the Tao.

If you aspire to this sort of mastery,
then root yourself in the Tao. Relinquish
your negative habits and attitudes.
Strengthen your sincerity.
Live in the real world, and extend
your virtue to it without discrimination
in the daily round.

Be the truest father or mother,
the truest brother or sister,
the truest friend, and the truest disciple.

Humbly respect and serve your teacher,
and dedicate your entire being
unwaveringly to self-cultivation.
Then you will surely achieve self-mastery
and be able to help others in doing the same.

Baobabs and the Ocean

Ian — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:27:49 +0000

The Malian Boy & The Shiny Seed from Kitanoo on Vimeo.

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Winter into Spring

Ian — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 02:01:59 +0000

A best-of of the past several months, presented in the order they were taken, in the hopes of creating a story (of sorts…)

Hail! To the Elements, the Ancestors, and the Harmony!

Ian — Thu, 13 May 2010 14:15:13 +0000

Fun and Games, Over and Over (may they be fully reborn)

Ian — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:23:13 +0000

The broad strategy is to visually represent a computer program in such a way that, when one looks at the visual representation, one’s visual system naturally responds by carrying out the computation and generating a perception that encodes the appropriate output to the computation. That is, there would be a special kind of image that amounts to “visual software,” software our “visual hardware” (or brain) computes, and computes in such a way that the output can be “read off” the elicited perception.

Ideally, we would be able to glance at a complex visual stimulus—the program with inputs—and our visual system would automatically and effortlessly generate a perception that would inform us of the ouput of the computation. Visual stimuli like this would not only amount to a novel and useful visual notation, but would actually trick our visual systems into doing our work for us.

Lord of the Dance

Ian — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:27:07 +0000

I danced in the morning when the world was begun
I danced in the Moon & the Stars & the Sun
I came down from Heaven & I danced on Earth
At Bethlehem I had my birth: