What this country needs is not any particular leader, what it needs is a way to inject political action into the lifestyles of modern Americans. I think people would be more interested in politics if they felt conversations on facebook, myspace, youtube, or this site actually influenced politics and their politicians directly. It is easy to feel like these discussions are just "preaching to the choir," or "arguments that go nowhere."
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Oh this is fucking hilarious! I totally pissed off everyone in the buddhist discussion group with my last post I put in my journal. I am a spiritual troll.

AlanChapman

"‘As the state of fully awakenedness transcends all dualism, it must also be composed of the dualities. Thus being ignorant of the fully awakened state is actually part of the fully awakened state.’

Please – how is something beyond duality composed of duality? How is ignorance equated with being ‘awake’?
"

Look, have you ever sat down and made a shopping list, and then gone to the grocery store only to realize you left it at home. You can't remember any of the items on the list, but for some reason when you walk down the isle you pick them up anyway. Now tell me, were you ignorant or did you remember all of the items you had to buy? At any given moment you had no recall of anything yet somehow at the end of your trip, your cart had everything you needed in it. This is the nature of the duality of ignorance and non-ignorance. In the same way, the entire universe is our grocery store and each item is a star in the sky.

My newly immigrated friends and I were talking about it this morning over coffee as the weather oscillated from drizzle to sun, to cloudy, to breezy, to hot, to cold. Portland is really cozy. It is a city of nooks, Marc said. There are all these little independent coffee shops, bars, and art galleries. It seems Portlanders spend much of the rainy, chilly winter drinking local beer and good coffee in a vast array of random, small independently owned bars and coffee shops.

After a long night of art gallery openings, and dancing to Indian club music we wondered out to the "Bipartisan Cafe," a coffee shop covered with historic political propaganda, and portraits of various historic American political figures.They had a life sized cut-out of Obama and served a coffee brew called "The McCain Blend," coffee from Panama. Apparently McCain was born on a military base in Panama.

Another thing that is really popular is second run theaters that sell beer and pizza. For about six bucks you can watch an art film, or a movie that has been out for a month or two and eat pizza and beer (for an additional fee). We saw a strange movie, "My Winnipeg" made by a guy trying to understand his hometown Winnipeg, and his childhood, and his crazy mother. He sees himself and the darkness in his life tied intimately with the many local institutions that were destroyed in the name of progress by eager city planners. While I can't encourage you to watch it, it did leave an impression on me. I think if I'm ever up north I'd check out the town. It is, well, at least from his perspective, morbid and strangely intriguing.

The movie, and the city of Portland both share a resistance to the modern, mega-chain saturation of our country. Funny how Capitalism has finally brought us the same crushing uniformity of cultural establishments in so much of this country that the quasi-Communist USSR achieved so quickly by authoritarian decree. Even stranger that so many of the people in this country don't seem to mind. If our government mandated that we could only have square tables, and made the construction of round ones illegal people would riot in the streets. But when the only coffee shop available in a 30 mile radius is Sarbucks people embrace their Frappuccino (tm) with glee.

But while I feel a strong connection to the ideals and aesthetics of the people of Portland it is by no means a utopia. In many ways it reminds me a lot of my home town Tacoma Park, and some areas of Washington DC. The climate is similar to Maryland, although while it does get a lot of rain, the humidity is not as bad. But, like Maryland the trees and surrounding landscape have that wonderful lush greenness that Colorado lacks.

I want share with you an exert from a discussion I'm having on a different site:

vjhorn

...there seem to be at least two different approaches to awakening. One metaphor I like to describing these two different approaches goes something like this: One person (this would be more like me) is standing at the edge of a cliff looking down at the sea below. They jump off the cliff and go sailing toward the water. Let's call the water arhantship, though I suppose it could be a lesser degree of awakening as well such as stream-entry. Then after they get out of the water, they start climbing back up the cliff, slowly and deliberately exploring all the interesting territory of the cliff as they go back up. The cliff can be seen as all of the other dimensions of awakening, that perhaps aren't directly, though are certainly indirectly, related to the path. This could include concentration states (jhanas), the siddhis, subtle energies, lucid dreaming, other altered states of consciousness, disowned shadow material, even perhaps personal development technologies.

This person's approach was to go straight for awakening and then re-engage with the vast territory of the mind's potential after dissolving the center point (or at least having some fundamental understanding of emptiness). The next person who is standing on the side of the cliff, chooses instead to climb down the cliff, exploring all of the various facets of the cliff on the way down. They reach the bottom of cliff, and slide into the water. I need not go into all the specific here, but think of the Tibetan tradition as it's generally practiced, and you might get an idea of this person's path. The Rinzai Zen tradition is perhaps a good example of the opposite path, as it's fairly intense & fast (from what I hear) but then has a very systematic training for post-enlightenment. "

Interesting perspective Vjhorn. Coming from the Tibetan perspective I would hesitate to make a distinction between the cliff and the water below. To me it seems that the Tibetan path starts with the premise of the inseparability between nirvana and samsara, the cliff and the river. We weave that into our practice so deeply that eventually it becomes a type of blindness. Rather then settling for the river or the cliff we are forced to pass through this duality to complete awakening.

The interesting thing I have found while practicing this is that the completely awakened state is actually fully present at all moments. What people seem to forget is that part of the fully awakened state is the dualism of ignorance. We are always partially ignorant and partially aware of the transcendent state. As the state of fully awakenedness transcends all dualism, it must also be composed of the dualities. Thus being ignorant of the fully awakened state is actually part of the fully awakened state.

In addition, part of enlightenment is not being enlightened until the correct moment. The Tibetan tradition takes a vow to postpone enlightenment until all beings are enlightened. I think this is a little simplistic. What would be more appropriate is to vow to follow the Tao to become enlightened. When we learn to follow the Tao, or natural path to enlightenment, all beings will naturally become enlightened because everything is fundamentally connected.

In so much as we fail to follow the Tao, we will sow the seeds of Karma of the next existence. And in this way actually still follow the Tao. After all, if the entire universe spontaneously dematerialized into Buddha fields, things would be pretty dull. And so the universe flows into being, constantly changing, constantly becoming more subtly beautiful, more robust, like a 14 billion year old Pino Noir. Life is good. Drink it. Be happy.

So this is the life I'm considering leading for a month:

• 4:00
  a.m. Rise



• 4:15
  Chanting, Zazen (meditation)


• 6:30
  Breakfast


• 8:15
  Samu (work practice)


• 12:00
  pm Lunch


• 2:00
  Samu


• 4:30
  Hot Pools or Showers



• 5:15
  Dinner


• 6:30
  Zazen


• 8:30
  pm Kaichin (end of day)

Have I utterly lost my mind? And then, every other week, the rise time switches to 3AM! There is something that calls me to this place. Some kind of longing for a way by which you carve your awareness out of a piece of stone. My attraction to it reminds me of the way I stared down Grad School before it started. That one first semester was the only semester I have ever in my entire life received straight As.

In some ways it is exactly the same. Physicists do not have a great appreciation for doing something for the sake of being transformed by it. They are always concerned with results. But the process you go through is so much more valuable then any piece of text, or fame or fortune one gets from the time. I do not think many of my professors understood this.

So I'll be headed to Portland on the 28th of July. I'll be headed up north to Seattle later in August. If your in that area respond! I'll come visit and sleep on your couch (if its not taken by another bum). I'll also have a friend traveling with me as well from the 9th to the 20th as well. He's really cool. Names Gerald. A very gentle person. I'll still be in the area until September 11.

Our coop is throwing a full moon feast tonight, and it is also a fair well party for me. All are invited. I'm leaving the co-op the 28th of this month, next Saturday. I'm off to Maryland, and then to Oregon, and Washington. Then to Hawaii. I'll be back in Colorado in January 2009.

So many, many friends of mine are intersted in starting an eco-village. However, a large majority of you don't know eachother. So my idea: start an echo village social network thingie! Lets all meet and talk about it, or at least get to know eachother. Are our vissions compatable? Perhaps there might emerge two groups of people with diffenent vissions and two echo villages will form. Who knows? But I feel we must use the powers of the intrernets to begin communicating about this. Otherwise the fruit will die on the vine.

What service should we use? Here are some ideas:

ning.com lets you make your own social network
A live journal community
A yahoo group

What do you all think? Ideally it would be neat if there was something that let you hook up all these social network thingies so that we could use our personal favoriate method of internet groking and still talk to eathother. I'm not sure if this exists.

As my life at Masala, my co-op is in its final hour, I find myself anxious about my travels and fearful of the process of moving out. A group of traveling musicians and singer songwriters has descended on our house and I have wallowed with them and done very little.

My new friend Frank turned me on to Keith Olbermann. For those of you who live in a TV-less world or who are politically ignorant, check him out. He eats neo-cons for breakfast. For example you might check out the video aptly named Keith Olbermann Neuters Bill O'Reilly. He is my new hero, the bad cop to Obama's good cop.

However, dear readers, I will leave you with another video that someone mailed me. It has convinced me to vote Republican.

Colorado High Country. Thankfully I will be somewhere similar each weekend until I leave this lovely state.

Find a piece of artwork that represents where you'd most like to be, right now. Post in your LJ with the header, 'I wish I was here'. Invite others to do the same, should they choose.

Lets be del.icio.us friends. I'm MagicianOfChange.

So I can't really smoke weed much anymore. It makes me kind crazy, but in interesting ways. Something I will do infrequently, perhaps. However, I did take some nice pictures on 420 day.

Here we go! Things are kinda hectic right now:

Next Wednesday night, I fly into San Diego.

At this point, I have no idea who the hell will be there. I was in contact with Eric but he has dropped off the face of the earth. Anyone in San Diego up for a good time Wednesday night? If I still cat get in touch with anyone, I'll head towards Escondido where elfgirlmccue aparently dwells but I thought she was in Santa Cruz, or go directly to LA, and hook up with tylerism (someone I have solid contact with thank god), I want to hunt boju down too. He has a store front where he sells horror props, dead bodies etc, so I plan on just barging in at some point. I plan on leaving LA Sunday or Monday, or Tuesday depending on what the hell happens with San Diego. palomarsquirl and Laura get in on Saturday and I'd like to see them in Escondido or wherever they are flying into. And physicsneard is MIA. All of this has some conflicts and something is going to give. Arg. We'll just have to see what happens.

Ok I admit it, this first leg is in near-total chaos. It may never recover. This brings us to Sunday March 29 or Monday march 30. However, I know meri_sefket is in Oakland and I can crash at her place for a few days. I'll head down to Santa Cruz at some point. There the Santa Cruz mojo kicks in. I feel much better about that. There's frozenbears, situationnormal, and cresal who may be coming home for spring break. And I shall hunt down Mighty of funkmode.com in San Francisco for some crazy hip-hop dancing action. Anyone interested in joining?

In retrospect, the whole trip is chaos right now but at least Northern California is closer together, and I have some familiarity with the area. Anyway, I do know I'll leave from Oakland on the 10th of April. Contact me now! Lets reconvene for a roaming college reunion of sorts!

For those of you who are living in a dark cave away from current events, this speech could be the most important one of the election, perhaps the decade.



For those of you who aren't familiar with Obama's preacher's video mentioned in his speech, this is what he is referring to:
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Hey all, this little ditty just sort of came together. Enjoy!

( Preramble )

I hate Rubik’s cubes. I can never solve them because I always get one side or another in order and then I get stuck. How do you progress to a higher state of order when it obviously involves tearing apart the side that you’ve built up so nicely? The answer is, of course, you must tear it down, and then rebuild it, but do so in an intelligent way so that when you return you are in a more ordered state then previously. This process is repeated over and over again. The cube’s order must be destroyed and rebuilt over and over again. Each time returning to a slightly higher state of order.

( CAUTION! Buddhist metaphors at work )

This came to me at an open-mike night a few hours ago:

The greatest challenge in life is to become what you think you are not, and to become what you fear you are.

Well things seem to be on the mend, but I've caught a cold in the meantime. But I've abandoned a bad Van Dam movie with my folks for Seven Samurai and Old Fashioneds made with marmalade. (Its actually quite tasty or maybe I'm just sick)

Someone said that the loneliest place is when you are in your lovers arms. Could this be because when we are in a room alone there is at least the hope that a warm embrace and moist lips will quench our loneliness? But when we feel their tender skin, gaze into their soft eyes, and still the loneliness pervades, we know deep down that we are still alone.

Why is it that I feel more alone in my mother's house then any other place on earth? We have a good relationship. I love her dearly, but I don't feel lonely when I spend time with my father. Perhaps, it is just that she is lonely. And it is though her that I feel the loneliness in myself.

It is most notable when we are alone together driving in a car to eat dinner at someone's hose that neither of us wants to eat at. The waning light of another meaningless day fades through fog on lush pastures and a distant ocean, barely visible through atmosphere. Or maybe its most noticeable when I sit at night alone in my room staring at a glowing liquid crystal display. Words appearing on the screen, one by one, with a click-click-click, over the ever-present sounds of frogs, crickets, and the slow distant roll of the ocean.

I seem to have a habit of hurting the ones I love most dearly. They always get upset at me. Sometimes they shout; other times they are silent. Once their pain fades they always appear to be better off. Nevertheless, they have a habit of deserting me. Is Karma when your life begins to feel like a broken record? What does it mater? Ether way, I'll still be alone.

Someone who might run for Congress in the San Jose district. He wants to start a new type of Congressional ethic. I think everyone should hear this idea. Very powerful. Exactly what is needed.