Acknowledging our part

On a recent (silent) retreat I was on, there were two rules regarding disrupting others:

1. Take great care that your actions do not disturb others
2. Pay no attention if others are performing disturbing actions

I like this approach because Rule #2 points toward an important realization: We play a role in our own disturbance. Yeah, someone might be making noise, but we have to choose to be upset by it.

I have noticed that the people who have the most difficulty following Rule #1 also have the most difficulty following Rule #2.

It reminds me also of a phrase that is sometimes said during qi-gong practice: "What others think of me is not my business."

Read that carefully. It is not just saying "Words cannot hurt me" or "Don't worry about what other people think." It is saying that such concerns are not my business. If I am occupying my mind with what you think of me, I am at fault! I am choosing to be concerned.

Learning to recognize the part that we play in what upsets us is an important part of taking responsibility for our actions. It's a lifelong process to do this skillfully. But it is so critically important. You have only to look around you to see the disastrous effects of people thinking that everything is someone else's fault.

Someone once asked the Dalai Lama how he responded when he found out that someone had lied to him. He said he first looked for ways that he might have influenced that to happen. For instance, he knows he is a very candid person who might accidentally tell someone else what a person said to him. Because of this personality trait, he accepts that people will sometimes lie to him, and doesn't get too upset (except to be concerned for their well-being; lying has poor consequences). How about that for taking responsibility for our place in the world?

Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu

At the time of the Buddha Shakyamuni (2,500 years ago), the monk and nun lineages were established to safeguard and continue the teachings and practices leading toward awakening. Due to external circumstances, the women's line was eventually broken, meaning that all the nuns died before another was fully ordained. Buddhism is meant to spread "from warm hand to warm hand," so this was a serious loss.

There are plenty of Buddhist nuns today, but it has traditionally been claimed that because the line was broken, they are not fully ordained. They do not enjoy the rank or respect of the monks because they cannot claim an unbroken line back to the Tathagaatha (Buddha).

Today, a joyful note came from Ayya Tathaaloka, abbess of Dhammadharini Vihara, announcing that a big change has come about (in her words, "a significant breakthough" and "an unprecedented event"):

Twenty-five years ago, a conference was held to investigate the possiblity of reestablishing the full ordination for women in the traditions in which it had lapsed. Further research was called for, and has been done. A few months ago, members of the Tibetan traditions, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, assembled to review this research. A decision was reached that the research supported the reestablishment of full ordination, with several means to do so possible.

[Emphasis mine]. I find this very inspiring. Who says religions can't change, even those that are older than monotheism?

In order to share the research with the International Buddhist Community and the reasons for going ahead with this major decision, as well as to decide the method preferred together as an International Sangha, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has supported the calling of an International Congress of Eminent Buddhist Monastics and scholars from around the world. This gathering has been scheduled to be held in Hamburg, Germany, in July, 2007.

If you would like more information on this Congress, or to attend, there is a website which went live on August 26th, 2006: http://www.congress-on-buddhist-women.org.

Note that Ayya Tathaaloka will be participating in this event, along with many other members of the Noble Sangha.

Truly inspiring.

Views versus truth

I am old enough now that a noticeable number of "facts" I learned in school are no longer considered correct due to the advancement of science. For instance, one system of nomenclature was being taught when I took high school biology, but by the time I got to college, schools were teaching a different type of cladistics. Similarly, I have been amused to read that our solar system now has only eight planets -- Pluto no longer fits the definition.

These examples point toward what is going in the process of science-- or any truth-seeking inquiry, actually.

First of all, it is important to point out that no matter how we choose to classify planets or life forms, reality has not changed one whit. The body called Pluto still exists out there in space, and has all the properties that we have measured about it, such as its mass, chemical composition, orbital dynamics, temperature, etc. (Actually, even things like "temperature" are just other categories). And altering our categorization of animal species does not change the qualities of a cheetah (nor does the cheetah care).

One aspect of what is commonly called "science" is really just classification: how we divide up the Universe into groups in order to bring some order to the vast quantity of phenomena and objects we observe. Biologists are beginning to discover that some (all?) of this classification is itself biologically rooted: we are designed to perceive boundaries in certain ways through our eyes, ears, skin, etc based on the structure of our nervous system. For example, we have touch nerves specific to pain, heat, pressure, etc, so these are natural ways for us to divide up the field of touch sensations. Similarly, our eyes see edges and colors in certain ways that make it convenient for us to perceive objects. We break up sound in certain ways due to the structure of our ears, and our languages exploit that natural way of hearing to produce meaningful variations in tone.

Western philosophy does not consider the mind to be a sense organ, but many Eastern views do. The eyes have forms as their object, the ears have sounds as their object, the nose has scents as its object, the tongue has tastes as its object, the body has touch sensations as its object.... and the mind has ideas as its object. There are natural ways that our minds divide and classify ideas and viewpoints.

This is clear when you think about it. If it were not true that I hear sounds in a fundamentally similar way as you, how could language have ever been invented? If I perceived light and motion fundmentally differently from you, how could we ever agree that a tree is what is standing before us? Similarly, because our minds work basically the same way, I can understand your train of thought, and I can agree that "tree" is a reasonable concept to use.

The classification aspect of science is a product of the mental sense organ. We seek to find a more and more refined view of what we observe around us using all of our senses.

But this is not reality. Our views are not reality, no matter how refined they are. As noted at the beginning, Pluto and cheetahs are what they are regardless of what we call them or even how we measure them.

And so we can see the difference between the surface and the deeper aspects of science. Mere classification is a surface aspect of science. Dividing the world into groups and the rules between them is necessary for our understanding, but it is only the tool, only the product of our mental sense. Just as seeing is the natural product of having eyes, classification and differentiation occur naturally, simply because we have a mind.

The deeper aspect of inquiry is to experience reality directly. Science was in fact born with such a deep intention. At the time that science was emerging as a practice, alternative ways of probing experience were not directed toward reality, toward truth. Science purposefully took up the nobler aims of the human spirit-- free inquiry into what is really happening, rather than received wisdom about it. And that spirit is still alive in science... but only sometimes.

Science has begun to become enamored with sense pleasure-- pleasure of the mental sense organ, that is. Pleasure in classfication, division, theorizing-- i.e., getting wrapped up in ideas rather than reality. Doing science for the gratification of the mental sense organ is no different than doing things for the gratification of one of the other five sense organs. Some people live for their bellies or their visual stimulation; some scientists just do mental masturbation.

Deep inquiry into truth can occur in science. This happens when we remember our humility before the vastness and wonder of Nature, when we see ourselves as just one more part of the Universe-- essential and miniscule at the same time. When we remember that things really just are as they are, and we are here to witness that, to touch that, to explore that. To explore everything!

[And yes, there are other methods of inquiry that also point toward truth. Science has no monopoly, nor is all science of this truth-seeking nature.]

Changing our classification systems in science is normal. We may find that we have fewer/more planets than we used to, or fewer/more species on Earth, simply by drawing lines differently. We must refine our views in order to advance in understanding. And these lines aren't so different from lines that create such categories as "atoms" and "magnetic fields" either.

But we mustn't forget that all of this categorization could be reaching for the nobler purpose of discovering truth. And truth is never an idea. The real question is, What is this Universe? Not, How can we describe this Universe?

Neither pushing nor standing still

Here is something I wrote to a friend about the transition I am in:

I have the sense of neither being in control, nor NOT being in control. And so I choose to step where I am compelled to step.

It reminds me of this:

I crossed the river by neither pushing forward nor standing still. When I pushed forward, I was whirled about, and when I stood still, I sank.

A stitch in time may not save nine

Today I went to get my stitches out, 10 days after my final round of gum replacement surgery. I was pleased that the recovery seemed to have gone very quickly, with little pain and swelling.

But they said I had actually healed too quickly. Apparently, there are several layers of gum tissue that get cut, and if the bottom one heals very quickly, it can pull away from the ones on the surface. They really need to be stuck together for everything to work.

So I got more stitches! They used heavier-gauge thread so they won't dissolve for a while. It wasn't quite what I was expecting would happen! But supposedly I can get them out in another 10 days.

I'll try to heal more slowly, I guess...

Corporate personhood

Is a corporation a person? There are many approaches to responding.

In the most literal legal terms, yes. Treating companies as people is a very old practice, older than the United States. It wasn't decided arbitrarily, and it wasn't forced upon us by powerful global giants like Wal-Mart. It actually makes sense. But instead of the legal perspective, let's take a scientific one.

I can imagine our cells arguing about whether a human being really qualifies as a genuine cell.

These are simply different levels of organization: Cells, whole animals, corporations/countries/societies. They have similarities as collective entities, but also critical differences.

Some people say that a corporation is made up of humans, and hence the true responsibility lies with the humans, whose collective actions somehow bring about the corporation's actions. But I think this is too simple. It ignores the fact that a genuinely new level of organization has been created. The idea of "corporate personhood" at least acknowledges this reality.

In terms of individual atoms, there is no such thing as a "metal." That is a collective phenomenon. So is ferromagnetism -- iron atoms will individually antialign with an applied magnetic field, not align like a chunk of iron will.

Groups of people do not behave like individual people. On this basis, some people are tempted into calling corporations "sociopaths," but that is really not accurate either.

Corporations are just corporations. They should be treated as the whole entities that they are (not broken into their human components), but neither should we expect this entity to behave like an individual human.

That's the challenge: What is this collective thing? How does it work? Where are its buttons and levers, and how can we push and pull them to bring about beneficial results for us? This has been the project of corporate law for centuries.

And it is, after all, exactly what our cells are doing to us.

Picture, picture, on the wall

Digital picture frames are an intriguing idea that has never quite caught on. They are screens that show digital images as one would in a photo frame, with the added feature of rotating through a set of them so the experience is dynamic. It's an interesting idea for a coffee table or hallway.

The problem? These things are expensive, like $250-$400. For a glorified picture frame?

But here is a capital idea: Convert an old notebook computer panel into a digital picture frame, with DIY instructions.

Forging new connections

In a well-timed post on WorldChanging, Alex Steffen notes that security and sustainability are related.

Steffen claims, as many have, that the War on Terrorism abounds with misdirected energy.

We, especially those of us in the U.S., have been kept in a panic state for the last five years, told constantly that not only is terrorism an immediate threat to ourselves and the ones we love, but that it is a danger to our very civilization. The result has been both that terrorists have been more successful in spreading terror and that authoritarian politicians have taken the opportunity to reduce government transparency and citizen oversight and erode protections for human rights and democratic process.

It also hasn't made us one lick safer, since, while we've been freaking out, fighting an unjustified war and pouring money into the terrorism porkbarrel, we've essentially ignored very big, well-documented threats, from the climate crisis to the weakening of the global public health system and the rise of epidemic disease to the destruction of New Orleans.

Then it gets interesting:

[M]uch of what is insecure in our societies is also what is unsustainable about them.

Let me be even more blunt: sustainability is a national security priority. Perhaps the national security priority. If scientists are correct, far more people have already lost their lives from the direct and indirect effects of climate change than terrorism. The health effects of sprawl, car accidents, chemical spills, environmentally-influenced cancers: all of these things are probably bigger threats to the lives of average Americans than terrorism. Certainly preventable disease, unneccessary hunger, solvable poverty and environmental degredation already cause far more death and suffering in the world than any terrorists ever could.

I hope as we work to respond to the problems of the world that we will avoid too much bickering about what is really the worst threat, what is really causing the most damage, etc. Groups of people have fallen into this trap also: Arguing about who is the "most oppressed" (women? gays? blacks? Jews?). It's a waste of time.

But still, bringing to light connections that people might not have seen between the challenges we face-- such as climate change and terrorism-- can be valuable. For instance, it can allow the formation of new coalitions. One interesting thing about environmental stewardship is that it can unite political liberals (who may be nonreligious) with religious groups (who may be politically conservative).

Let's forge creative responses to terrorism. Instead of building higher walls and bigger guns-- truly dull-witted responses that have a proven track record of failure-- how about getting greener, refusing to be cowed, and daring to do something different? For instance, consider passive survivability: green buildings are actually safer.

Do we have the courage to change? It will be harder than hunkering down, but so much more rewarding, like all truly difficult things are.

An odd path to simplification

Due to the terrorist situation, we're placing further restrictions on what people can bring onto planes. So I was reading through the new regulations issued in the US today (no shampoo, water bottles, etc). One thing they specifically noted was that people should "simplify" and "declutter" their carry-on luggage to make searching simpler.

There are a lot of ways to view this, but how about seeing it as an opportunity? Here is a way that we might start to realize that we don't really need half the stuff we are lugging around with us. It really is possible to fly for 3 hours (or even 12) without 10 little doo-dads for entertainment, tons of food and drinks, and a flotilla of personal care items.

We just don't NEED all the crap.

It's kind of oddball way for people to start simplifying, but maybe, just maybe, it will work for some people.

The periodic table

I admit to being a bit puzzled by the "hip furniture design" movement, although I can see the need for inexpensive, functional furniture that is made using responsible materials.

For instance, check out this "periodic table" -- one possible design of the Factum Cube at Art Meets Matter. As they say, "it's only a table periodically."

Small world

OK, here's a weird connection:

The wife of a guy I knew in grad school (we played in the band together) turns out to be the sister of the daughter-in-law of one of my mom's friends.

Dismantling the web

I have been watching a yellow spider out my window at work. Not sure what kind, but maybe one of these. For a few days, she had an impressive 4-foot-diameter web strung between the branches of a liquid amber tree.

She sat sedately in the middle of the net, a bright spot among the green foliage. Occasionally she would venture out along a radius to mend a section torn by a passing leaf or jutting twig. I was amazed that the structure generally survived even strong gusts of wind.

A few days ago, the spider suddenly became active, scurrying up and down the threads. I thought she had caught something big, but couldn't see the victim. Then I thought she was rebuilding a large section-- perhaps it had finally torn more substantially and needed major repairs.

But no. She was dismantling the web.

It was as well-planned as the building of a web. She raced along particular threads, severing them at their anchor points only after she had devoured the strands branching from them. Yes, she was eating the web. After all, if she got no gain from it, there would be no reason to dismantle it-- she could just leave and move on. But by taking in the material used to create this web, she fills her body with the potential to make the next one.

I watched as the structure was broken down over about 15-20 minutes. I noticed that some optimization was at work: She did not, in the end, take down every last thread. She did perhaps 90%, then vanished off into the leaves to find a new place to set up. Evidently the energy gained from cleaning up every last bit would not have been worth the effort.

Nature, it seems, does not tie up all the loose ends.

How did she know that this was the morning to tear down the web here and go set it up there? How did she know when it was no longer worth cleaning up the remaining threads? Now that she has moved on, does she ever think about the old location and the grand web she had there?