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Spending entire New Year's extended weekend trying to learn the new operations system so I can use new IdeaPad Lenovo Z580 laptop…poring through each word of Windows 8 for Dummies and making innumerable mouse clicks to follow through the lessons. Now I know what kind of lifestyle the medieval scribes had.
Set up a nice picture on my desktop background, found it on my other computer:
This is a somewhat fanciful buddhist shrine set up for some art exhibition, but incorporates the essentials of a vajrayana style shrine.
So far I’m only at chapter 8 but actually understanding what I’m reading. I notice the author incorporates a lot of old techniques from past Windows systems that are now part of the desktop portion of W8; a lot of stuff I should have learned before but glossed over.
All this coffee-enhanced effort is the more necessary since I will soon have to use W8 on a new computer system at work, so I want to hit the ground running as they say. I have read a lot of negative things about W8 online, and so when I asked our computer guru his opinion, I was surprised when he said he really liked it. So I will reserve judgment until I finish the learning process and start using it everyday.
Wish me luck.
Far be it from me to drop names, but I did run into Carlos Casteneda while hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains in the late 70's...apparently we both liked to go there through the years and this time we just happened to meet. I knew what CC looked like, having attended his UCSB lecture around 1970, surrounded as he was by stern-looking local Chicano activists trying to bask in his glory. That was such a joke considering how anti-political the Don Juan teachings are. Campus political activists hated mystics and gurus who diverted people's attention away from supposed horrible social conditions to meditate on their navel and realize inner peace. And this was exactly what CC really represented to most hippies.
On this occasion in the morning I had driven up to Mulholland Drive and parked my pickup near Fireroad 25, which was my favorite jumping off place. I had come especially to practice some of Don Juan's teachings, believing them valid in those days. More specifically, I had come to try to "stop the world", which in real terms means stopping the mind, from a meditative point of view. I found myself a secluded spot off the main road and sat down for hours staring off to the east, down at Sullivan Canyon and the ridge beyond. At a certain point I seemed to achieve a certain stillness of mind combined with a sharp focusing of the view in front of me, (with a little chemical help I must admit, well, let us say, a BIG chemical help), and by the late afternoon, I got up and starting walking back in the direction of Mulholland Drive. At this point I met Carlos Castenada, accompanied by a young blonde woman, probably Kylie, one of the 4 or 5 gringa "witches" that formed the inner circle around CC from this time to his death in 1998. I recognized him right away, from the lecture, but did not show that I did. I recall how he joked in Santa Barbara how people thought he should have "long mystical feet", but being a short Peruvian with equally short feet, this was his way of kidding himself, which put people off their guard. "Anyone who makes a joke at their own expense cannot be a big liar" etc.
Anyway, I just nodded and maybe said hi and tried to walk by, being by this time worn out, dehydrated and hungry, but Carlos started talking to me. He claimed he wanted to know where the fireroad went. I really didn't know at that time, except that if you took it south and veered left you would end up, after following a narrow ridge, at Will Rogers State Park. But I knew you could take it to the right and arrive around Eagle Rock, a midpoint in the Santa Monica trail system, and from there you could find your way down to Sunset Blvd. near the ocean. So I just summerized all this by saying, "It goes to the ocean."
But then Carlos started arguing no, no, no that can't be true, and kept arguing and arguing. I just stared at him in surprise. I really didn't care. At this point I recalled an episode in one of CC's books where his supposed teacher Don Juan just looks at him and says something like, "You know I can't stand the sight of you." And CC starts whining until DJ pretends to take it back. Now I could understand this event quite well, as I was beginning to feel quite annoyed. But I did not say much, and walked away, feeling sorry for someone so cunningly obnoxious.
Since I had a buddhist teacher at that point, I was less likely to fall under his spell. Apparently CC started conducting classes at a Santa Monica bookstore around this time. It is a good thing I did not hear of it and feel tempted to participate. As it turned out in the succeeding years, during this teaching period Castenda created a classic cult consciousness among his students. Amy Wallace's The Sorceror's Apprentice is a must for an insight into the sick group psychology of those years. Geuter's Filming Castenda adds more data.
The positive result of this odd encounter was that I determined to find out once and for all where the fireroad went. So another weekend day I hiked south on Fireroad 25, veered right, and kept going down along some newly developed housing, and finally ended up at Sunset Dr. exactly at the Self Realization Fellowship lake/temple founded by Yogi Yogananda. This mystical place is only a stone's throw from the ocean. So I felt justified by my answer to Castenada after all. By this time it was near dusk and I had to call my brother to drive all the way from the San Fernando Valley to Pacific Palisades to pick me up and take me back to Mulholland Dr. so I could retreive my vehicle.
I became interested in buddhism during my college years at UC Santa Barbara. During that hippie era, I lived in Isla Vista, next to campus, which was one of the hotbeds of the radical/anarchist movement as well as being a psychedelic New Age hippie haven. The local psychic would read your palm at the coffee house and the nude beach was only a short walk away.
I was on the SDS hit list because in my newspaper column I poked fun at their leader's efforts to whip up the crowd to close down the university. When there were no riots in the streets there was quite an interest in Eastern spirituality, but there were no organized groups except for the Yogi Maharishi's organization, which actually bought one of the larger apartment buildings for a year. They used to burn incense sticks taped to the swimming pool fence and Hindu chanting could be heard as you walked through the courtyard. This was rather humorous to me as the football team lived there the year before, drinking beer and listening to rock and roll.
I also was invited to a Religious Studies class one day by the professor at which the head honchos of Nichiren Shoshu (the so-called buddhist guys who chant for Cadillacs) were supposed to give an explanation of their beliefs. But instead they went right into their heavy-handed conversion rap. Since the lackadaisical RS students did not raise any serious questions, I took it upon myself to argue with the Nichirens about their obnoxious brainwashing techniques as well as expose their political ultra-nationalism in Japan, which was not well known here, and was informed by the chain-smoking Japanese leader that I was going to hell....I considered this a victory. Also later their group did not catch on locally, which did not bother me a bit.
I attended a few discussions about Zen led by a libertarian grad student, (who proposed the strange idea that beer was preferable to pot,) but found the sitting posture nearly impossible, so badly out of shape I was, both physically and mentally. I would sit in a corner of my apartment living room but get embarrassed when my girlfriend walked by and stared at me. I really had no idea what I was trying to do, I have to admit. This is what happens when you don't have a meditation instructor. But through my reading of Eastern spirituality vs. Western philosophy I determined that the buddhist path was more grounded in practical experience and I wanted to try that out myself. I really wanted to know what enlightenment was and thought I could find out pretty soon.
A few years later Chogyam Trungpa gave a talk at a house in Santa Barbara, but I heard about it a week too late. After all, why would anyone living in the Isla Vista god realm bother to drive a few miles to Santa Barbara, where real working people lived?? I had recently read his book Born in Tibet so I had some idea of who he was. I later went to this house and met some of his students and there seemed something genuine about them. In fact a guy I knew who came with me, a New Age charlatan of the worst sort, declared that the vibes in the house were definitely bumming him out and he was leaving and not coming back. This impressed me, because if Trungpa Rinpoche's vibes got to this nut case then Rinpoche must be a great teacher. I became determined to hook up with his group in LA when I returned there.
Subsequently, I joined the Los Angeles Dharmadhatu, and took the opportunity to attend Trungpa Rinpoche's seminars in Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, and later in Berkeley/Santa Cruz. I also lived one year in Boulder to be close to the source and another year in Denver for the same reason. I returned to LA and kept in touch with Trungpa's students.
I also became registered as a religious volunteer with the state corrections system. At first one of the Zen students and I used to make the long haul to the prison once in a while. This was in response to a request by the chaplain who said some of his guys were interested in Buddhism and wanted to meet with any Buddhist group on the outside. We were so ignorant we did not realize we could not enter the prison wearing blue jeans, as that is the standard prisoner issue, and in case of a riot the guards want to know who to shoot. So we had to drive over to the local mall and buy other clothes and change into them before we were allowed into the prison. As my companion was female I was suddenly stuck by the avid attention her words and presence received compared to mine, but upon reflection I realized we could convert the whole prison yard to the buddhadharma or any other religion if we brought in enough women volunteers to talk to the guys. One day driving home I made the comment, "It seems we are all in prison, not just the cons at the joint, but all of us imprison ourselves somehow with our ego."
Later I carried a big bag full of zafus (meditation cushions) to the prison twice a month to a meditation group I started there. The prisoners were quite sincere and were grateful someone on the outside cared enough to meet with them. Some of them had access to a great number of buddhist books donated to and purchased by the prison library. Therefore some of the guys there were better read in buddhism than I was, and this made the discussion groups very lively. I kept this group going by myself for about three years.
I propose buddhism and meditation are certainly compatible with Republican politics, but I will admit I am in the minority about this. I think some sort of contemplative practice is at the heart of every religion, and such practice does not have a political label or bias. I believe we should not be content to believe in the faith created by the founder of whatever our religion is, but actively attempt to practice the contemplative techniques these founders used to reach their insights into spirituality. Only then can we truly think for ourselves, and become what we really are.
The old trusty rusty air compressor, leaking oil by appearances, ready and willing to serve until further notice.
We are setting off on that grand journey called by our ancient ancestors "the blog." These ancestors lived at least 5 to 10 years ago, a millennium by modern standards. These brave souls actually wrote their thoughts down in that new medium called the Internet and lived to tell about it. Some had axes to grind, some wanted to communicate with their fellow beings, others just wanted to splash their diary across the universe, since it was now possible.
So as the saying goes, if they can do it, so can I.
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