WillowBear's t.net Blog

hopelessness and ego

WillowBear — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 04:07:42 GMT

*I find tribe.net painfully clumsy. I included a LiveJournal module ... it hasn't updated since early December. And here I am stripping the HTML out of a well-formatted post, because tribe.net uses a system that would have been stupid-lame in 1998. All in all, tribe.net is an insult to the users. It pisses me off. Always. Everytime. They don't deserve to make money.* I've been thinking more and more on how it's almost impossible to connect with people who are ego-centered materialists. It's straight-up borg shit. A post by a LiveJournal friend included something that got me keyboarding: "at times i wonder if my lack of anger at people's stupidity is laziness, or acceptance." Interesting synchronicity I was thinking about how years ago there really was an alternative to live in a communal situation. I mean, of various sorts. And now, there really isn't. Not realistically ... practically. I was trying to grapple through to the root of that. Got tangled, as usual, with the usual "the world is becoming Matrix" and "folk are becoming allergic to others, suffering their presence only in the spirit of commercial or ego-centered transaction". "it's easier to expend energy on tearing people down rather than facing challenges yourself, or hell, having the courage to believe in yourself." resonates. Thing about a narcissistic life-style (which can arise as a given, almost by accident of history) is that it doesn't recommend any solution or alternative. It is not, except in a deep Zen sense, self-exploding. Quite the opposite: self-involvement increases alienation which supports a world-view that's based on a sense of entitlement, where others become opportunity for exploitation. In a deep sense catastrophe really does offer a moment of opportunity ... I'm not the only one to note that real spirit work isn't likely to be taken up by someone who isn't feeling a deep compelling need ... but that opportunity isn't immediately obvious. "The gateless gate" ... you can't even approach it because it isn't visible, but when you see the reality of it you quite possibly find that you've already crossed through, if only by having tripped on fallen on your face. Is why I keep punching out warnings that consummer-life is BluePill ... because it operates that way: if I construct a materialistic lifestyle, the more I invest of myself in it, the more I forgo for it, the more it monopolizes my consciousness, the more it feels vaguely heroic and principled and virtuous to persist in it. "if my lack of anger at people's stupidity is laziness, or acceptance." Good question. Truly. It might be a sort of sloth. Could well be. In basic Zen training I got a real good handle on "the builder of the house of ego" ... we're brilliant at explicating things in a way that flatter our self-image. It might be a sort of hopelessness ... no point going through the wall of flame if one is convinced that there's nothing on the other side. I fall back on self-interest: if I don't respond then I become increasingly deadened, and opportunities to respond don't rise to front of mind, so I become increasingly deadened, and I feel compelled less often. Not that I'm saying that those compelling moments are virtuous ... more than likely with me that they're 9 parts frustration and 1 part disgust at others' blithe destruction of themselves and their surround ... but they're still the raw stuff of vigour, of energetic creativity, and those are foundational to loving-kindness. So: keep the home fires burning! *Sings: "This little light o'mine ... I'm gonna let it shine!"*

I'm missing you ..

WillowBear — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 06:34:03 GMT

.... and I really mean that. But I don't just mean "I miss you", I mean "I've been missing you". See ... I'm finding my voice in other places. I came here to find my tribe, to find my voice. It's been sometimes good, and you know I've made connections here, but ... this place is too often just a pain in the butt. And that's not good. That salts my wounds. FaceBook works far better ... I dunno ... kinda cold for me. (And I'm an aulde-dawg techie!) LiveJournal ... http://hfx-ben.livejournal.com ... it just works better. But hey, fact of it is: I'm finding my voice. A 23 year writer's block! So that's a good thing, yaa? *beam* But I'm finding it elsewhere. And I miss you. Happy New Year? *X-posted from http://vibewise.wordpress.com* Behind my talk of "sophistry" and "plausible deniability" is the primordiality of what cab be only called and what must be called "evil". At this stage I talk about Matrix and BluePill, not vampires and such-like antique imagery. My reason for shifting is simple and single: through my previous work on psychopathy (see my "Fallen Angels" [1], dating from 1996; I recommend "Without Conscience" [2] [now at google books!], by UBC's Dr. Robert Hare, and M. Scott Peck's "People of the Lie" [3] [Amazon]) I confirmed an early anticipation: focusing on the pathology is likely to have one en-thralled. (I say "likely" because it's evidently not inevitable, for e.g. Eric Fromm, so many fine books; academically I suggest "Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" [4] [Amazon]) So ... in the midst of marketing bottled water while neo-liberals monopolize water rights ... while we're still clear-cutting ... while species and ancient languages are dying off ... while the water rises ... I rant against "yuppies' kidz". An, elsewhere, I caution that karma is inexorable. But just now heh ... the (omnipresent) ad-link in my gmail quizzed, "You think you're liberal?" ... and this is what it pointed at (BTW: neo-conservatives are paradigmatically judgmental and punitive): ---- Greed - http://www.g-r-e-e-d.com/GREED.htm We are a punitive society. We use the death penalty and routinely issue long prison terms for drug offenses. Three-strike policies can mean a life sentence for a petty crime. We make a lot of moral talk about pedophilia, drug use, teen pregnancy and welfare dependency. But nobody talks about the epidemic of cheating. David Callahan, in his book The Cheating Culture, says everybody’s doing it: job applicants, brokers, golfers, reporters, taxpayers, lawyers, insurance payers, employees, athletes, salesmen, students. A cheating culture has emerged. Cheating has always occurred, but Callahan traces a marked increase since 1970s. He says it’s connected to the free market ethic. It jumped after President Reagan was elected ..." ---- BTW: Scott Peck wrote another book, this one related on another vector. In "Death of Civility" he talks about those who see every social exchange in terms of commercial transaction ... those who are en-thralled, but not by evil ... those who eat BluePill out of bowls every day. [1] http://bentrem.sycks.net/fallen_angels.html [2] http://books.google.ca/books?id=c8hZ4dTrBc4C&dq=%22without+conscience [3] http://www.amazon.com/People-Lie-Hope-Healing-Human/dp/0684848597 [4] http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Human-Destructiveness-Erich-Fromm/dp/080501604X

Too simple to understand (a thought in the moment)

WillowBear — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 21:43:05 GMT

*x-posted from <a href="http://hfx-ben.livejournal.com">my LJ</a>* It comes down to this: not only what we do, but how we do it. Ultimately, "why" becomes the point. (Which is another way of saying that in the end our actual motive manifests ... it comes to be ... it creates karma.) The number of "errancy modes" is beyond estimation. Either our motive is some variation of "for the good of all sentient beings" or it's in error. Necessarily. Inexorably. Like physics. You can fly, for a while, in any number of ways, but you will come down at some point. Gain, or resentment ... passion or aggression ... both entail solidifying concepts, and that puts a spin on things that works out badly because it's out of synch with ?what? ... heh ... the ultimate nature of reality. If I humble myself and act as a modestly self-interested drone then, well, I end up empowering and enabling the worst oligarch. My web of denial and willful ignorance fosters the worst lies and shelters the worst psychopaths. If, otherwise, I act more assertively and drive for my own fortune and wealth with all the creativity that ambition gives rise to ... well, what then? Prajna is our very natural intuition concerning what's not "right" ... it can be honed and tuned and nurtured, or it can be muted and dumbed down. When I act deceptively, or act as though unaware of some deception, I detune myself. And more: I encourage others to become as though objects. And in the end my activity obstructs those with the best of intentions. Step by step, day in and day out, I make myself into an agent of entropy. How can I expect any sense of well-being from that? That mode of being is simply unwholesome; it creates conditions quite opposite to "profound relaxation". It's bodhicitta or it's dis-ease ... there is no way of escaping reality. <blockquote><blockquote> Do not choose a coward's explanation That hides behind the cause and the effect. -- Leonard Cohen</blockquote>*thanks to <a href="http://barrygraham.livejournal.com/">LJUser BarryGraham"</a> for the quote*</blockquote>

A day ... yes, definitely a day.

WillowBear — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:51:22 GMT

*HeyYa, Ganika! Here's a sacred tortoise pic for you!* I got in touch with Kevin, the fellow who co-ordinates the Edmonton Drummer Meetup ... made a page up from a newspaper story about him and the local scene: http://bentrem.sycks.net/kevin/ Found some Invitations sitting since Sep06!! OMG! *Waves at Ganika and the kidz in Godizus* Wrote a longish item in the very newly formed WorldDrumNet tribe (see below) ... ... know what? Not everything in the world is sweetness and love. Phenomenal world is never other than brilliantly glorious, but the light and love delusion, well, that just plays us as suckers. Thinking that way got me to post something in my LJ: http://hfx-ben.livejournal.com/801716.html And I posted a few pics, including this new avatar. *points at avatar* Sooo, like that. _{*}__ KC: ==== Rhythm of life In the drum circle, your inner beat finds its voice, bringing therapeutic release and sheer joy ... that kinda says it. Sorta kinda. Drum spirit ... the way of the drum ... it's something to be lived, not just taken off the shelf once a month the way folk and their once a week on Sundays wind-up "god". Something I wrote kev earlier today ... The way I figure it, drum circle is about following the vibe ... "the Tao" some DIY Buddhists would call it, ever so clever with the wuhrdz. I can relax and connect ... hearing/feeling the strands others are putting out. Or I can use them like stuff, to cue my own vibe. When I hear/feel others' strands, tune in, I have the option of contributing, nurturing, cooperating ... When I just cue my own stuff, just clue into my own vibe, I usually find myself wishing hoping pulling others to come along with me. ... collaborating and nurturing others strands, I find myself playing stuff I wudda never played if I had taken off on my own. See, it really is like Indra's net ... t's a go around / come around sorta cosmos ... like fractals with their dynamical balance, feed-back/feed-forward ... biological ... I find that people stop it from going around ... ... so it doesn't come around, and I lose. It's in my interest to have heart-rhythm felt by everyone, everywhere, all the time, everyplace. It's in my interest to have drum-spirit and circle-attitude daily, mundane, like baked bread. It's in all our interests that folk get with it. Some talk about Tao ... ... some watch their breats, and bob their heads to the rhythm of life itself. luv ya WillowBear

In a crunch, without a phone ...

WillowBear — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:39:43 GMT

... writing offline, thinking through what I'd say to my most reliable friend if I could get in touch with him. ============================== How ya doin' fella?! I was just looking at my situation ... I managed to find 10 days housing right quick and have a good 1bdrm lined up for the end of the month ... but things are looking dire short term. What came to mind was how a while back you said something like "Oh, Ben, you won't end up on the street". It sounded a little too neat to me and now I'm wondering if you in fact had something in mind. Cuz fact is I'm running out of resources ... just that, resources. Everyone /sez/ it comes down to positive attitude but here I am with plenty of that (such a glorious Milarepa Day we had yesterday! and such a glorious day it is today!) but I don't see how that is going to pan out. In fact it comes to things like space and transportation and funds and communications, and I have no phone, about $100 money for incidentals (if that), and I've used up most of the driving friends I have. And space, boy ... one friend just moved into a bachelor out of his gramma's house, and another friend just had a friend come into town ... those were two prospects I had been kind of holding in reserve. I've already stayed at 3 homes ... Know what? This is the toughest spot I've been in ... I've been saying it's a slippery slope, and here I am desperately close to the cliff. I hope you get this ... even a sit-down coffee would be a comfort ... I'll try to hook up with you by payphone. cya ben -- See clearly. Know what is. Act with confidence. ============================== What to do? Simple: stay positive, supplicate to stay connected with the local deities, and huh huh huh keep in mind that clinging to apparent phenomenon is merely "unborn dharmakaya". (I picked that one up just yesterday. *font color="purple">grin*

A long tale of woe

WillowBear — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 17:55:19 GMT

The most recent post from my http://hfx_ben.livejournal.com LiveJournal: =============================== How nasty are "nice" yuppies? I just got email from the woman, my cousin, who owns this house. Because last night I was "under the influence and hectoring" she has ordered me out of the house by this weekend. Last night I celebrated Tibetan New Year by reading my text of Gesar of Ling ... I had two shots of rum over the coarse of the evening ... at midnight I sang the Shambhala Anthem under my breath then went out in the backyard and played it on my recorder ... quietly. That, from the woman who scolded me for putting a stack of newspapers into the newspaper rack beside the couch (she wanted them left out ... they were 2 feet away from the coffee table they'd been sitting on) is unacceptable behaviour. Bourgeois yuppies are insane ... they're dangerous. And I'm homeless. Again. shit, ehh? IMNSHO there is no greater sin than undercutting someone's self-esteem. Addend'uh: Vitriol? Bombast? What I'm saying is that we ignore little things 'cause they're little, and we suffer big things 'cause they're too big to resist. Bottom line: our denials and aversions and deceptions set us up to be victimized and manipulated. =============================== Previously, also from http://hfx_ben.livejournal.com ==== It looks like I am actually a fundamentalist ... sorta Fundamental: actions and events have their effect even when folk think they can sweep them under the carpet or use words to distort them. The alienation I've felt all my life has a real basis: I cannot trust the people around me nor rely on their affection because they are dedicated to the fictions they have constructed. They feel uneasy with me because I am not loyal to those fictions. Because I place my trust in actuality and truth ("glorious phenomenal world") I am seen by them as a traitor, as disloyal and dangerous ... in the end, as an enemy. None of this is new to me but I've never understood it as well as I do now. The woman who so kindly allowed me to move in here ignored all the good I've done , with her son and with the hosue (When she left he was spending all his time out with his crack-head friends or in his cellar room, keeping a vampire's schedule but now he's got a decent tech job with Dell. And I'm no neat freak but the house is clean ... it's sensibly tidy, rathter than the cluttered mess I came into when she went on her long voyage.) ... she has to mock and belittle me because what I've done I've managed to do by calling a spade a spade ... and that frightens her, it antagonises her. She has not faced up to things in the past (either making them less than they were or blowing them out of proportion) and she doesn't face things now (saying that it's not worth making a fuss about little things, and that there's no point to making things into a big deal). But bottom line: I was unable to bottle it up. (I /should/ be able to digest the shit, I /should/ be able to work through things ... but I'm tired, harassed, worn, poor, aching ... and I didn't manage to digest it /all/.) and when I lost my temper a lot of stuff came out at once ... too much. So I could be pointed at and declared "not nice". So the shit and abuse he hands out so routinely, that's ok. (He fried steak in sauce on Tuesday ... it's Sunday ... the frypan is sitting on the stove /still/.) Her sleazy cheap-shot put downs ... that's ok. But my refusing to live in a situation of walking on egg shells, always on thin ice, daily life in a mine-field ... nope ... that's not ok. So I'm better off in a couple of ways: I've basically confirmed and verified my "fundamental beliefs". And I see even more clearly how folk deserve solidarity and sympathy and compassion. And I see how I'm not hooked on resentment and revenge. But I'm facing homelessness and poverty. Wow ... <hr width="65%"> Update ... a funny detail: since she got back from her long voyage the kitchen table has been more or less covered with various things ... week-old phone messages, mail, brochures, newspapers. I brought it up a few days back, saying how I didn't feel comfortable messing with other people's stuff. In a deniably snotty voice she answered something like, "Well, if it's like that then I guess I'll have to do housekeeping everyday." Nothing about considering other people, nothing about not leaving things dragging, nothing like that at all ... just a bulshit cheap-shot. Just now I went down to the kitchen to get a cuppa and Lo! Behold! The space at the head of the table where I had once upon a time enjoyed my breakfast in the morning sun was cleared ... clean. She had had her breakfast there, but when she left she left it uncluttered. What's the dynamic? a) she's made a gesture to acknowledge that I wasn't full of shit, or b) she's being better than good in order to show I had no complaint. Hard to know, ehh?

t.net? Unresponsive

WillowBear — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 22:49:53 GMT

I write about Katriina, I write poetry, I write about the mind-phuck we call "modernism", I write about community (and lack of) ... silence. Yaa yaa yaa, "too busy" ... I know ... I watch people ... I know people from every generation ... I know university professors and street people and musicians and construction workers ... "too busy" yaa yaa yaa. A real handy set of excuses, that's what "modernism" is about ... excuses and distractions. And you're the "cultural creatives" ... spooky, nae? p.s. met 2 or 3 really sterling individuals at the band's premiere last night ... and the 3 or 4 regulars at the drum-circle are /totally/ sterling ... and there were a couple of really sterling individuals at the late-night camp-fire jam last night ... good folk are out there ... in an ocean of superficial glib bla-blah. Truly: everything we need is at hand, except communications. What happened in New Orleans is paradigmatic of that.

7 days to homelessness

WillowBear — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 22:21:44 GMT

BTW I've been working 10, 12, 14 hours a day on the "Katrina / NOLA Intel Wiki": http://wiki.nola-intel.org/index.php?title=Main_Page And also maintaining my own list of contacts and resources: http://hfx-ben.livejournal.com/587881.html =-=-=-=-=-=-= I had the good fortune of meeting a kindred spirit yesterday evening ... the lack of such has made my year here a real desert. He's a father of 4 (18 years he and his wife have been together) ... a musician / home studio stype who has suppoarted them and himself doing construction. His whole life has been around community and alternatives to consummer capitalism. The single big difference between him and I is that he has suffered the indignities far more stoically ... partly, no doubt, becauee he has family to maintain ... partly, for sure, because he has had the benefit of a supportive partner. His experience with those who are in "positions of responsibility and influence" has been, like mine, scaldingly unpleasant. He agreed with me that (I call it "vending machine culture") folk don't respond unless they are manipulated, or conned, or seduced, or bought off ... unless their buttons are pushed. I made myself vulnerable ... I put myself on the line ... again and again. I guess that makes me a sucker. 7 days and counting ... because I dared to try a) by buying the djembe, to try and create income by busking, and b) by buying PC after PC, to try and create income through "Participatory Delibeeration" ... because I dared to try rather than sit back and accumulate cash and ignore what's going on. I dare to create opportunites for collaboration ... and that marks me as deserving abuse, in vending machine culture. 7 days and counting ... because the really villainous are active and energetic and creative, while the "nice" and the "good" are passive. "It's an ill wind that blows no good" ... has anyone you know benefitted from authentic human kindness recently? All I see is folk waiting to be pushed and conned and seduced and begged ... a very sad state of affairs. ================ In context of yesterday evenings long talk about community (the "transformative power of empathy and solidarity, of affection and love) I listened to an interview with a school cook ... he was getting kidz to eat really good food; he discribed his technique and it was just plain manipulative ... deceptive and misleading. Ok fine, all for a good cause, but not lucid and cleat and honest and authentic, not discourse ... far from it: straight up it was like benevolent dictatorship. Soooo, even the good needs to have a con involved? No wonder my life has been a catastrophy: I have vowed not to encourage attitudes of subjugation ... so I must lose. Such a catastrophe.

lame ... lame, lame, lame

WillowBear — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 23:40:20 GMT

t.net's refresh on my New Orleans resource list has been /worthless/. http://www.livejournal.com/users/hfx_ben/587881.html I stay up all night, and t.net doesn't even refresh the RSS feed I produce. Lame Wiki: http://wiki.nola-intel.org/index.php/Main_Page *shakes head*

New Orleans / Katrina - forums and resources

WillowBear — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 17:41:12 GMT

http://hfx-ben.livejournal.com/587881.html

yawn

WillowBear — Tue, 30 Aug 2005 05:36:01 GMT

see above http://hfx_ben.livejournal.com

A Lost Hat Found

WillowBear — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 06:45:04 GMT

Wed, August 10, 2005 - 12:14 AM I lost my hat approaching the corner's lights, swirling it up through the brisking air under the cloud-studded northern sky. In the moment I disconnected from what had brought me so far, homeward bound the last chequered sidewalk's squares with an ever brisker pace and my cane twirling from the crook of my arm to hooked at my neck (as though seeking a sensitive place to peck), it fell. My toque fell, not my bird-headed cane. My cane didn't fall. If it had fallen then this would be entitled "Fallen Cane Broken" or "Broken Cane Fixed" or somesuch. It has fallen before, my cane has, but not on this occasion. On this occasion it was my tocque. My brown toque, the loose-ribbed, suitable for warm weather toque. Ma tucque. It found me awaiting my cane's birded head at the end of its serpentine south-eastern flight, clearly seen at a distance in the night's shadowed dark. Who flew the masculine, who but the man knew the fallen moment's sweet delight? Bernard D. Tremblay 02:25 Wed. 10AUG05 Whyte & 99th

Lack of fulfillment and the collapse of self-actualization

WillowBear — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 04:34:23 GMT

* With respect ... I know that some of those who've practiced realize that "self-actualization" cannot collapse since it is not conditional ... but, with more conventional use of language ... * I have banked my life on a form of communal activity. More: I've banked my life on a form of communal living. And, at 51, I recognize myself as having failed. A comment I shared with a friend here earlier got me thinking ... what informs in a wholesome way? (By that I mean what does more than just contribute to the fiction of "The Daily Me".) And what inspires and uplifts as it informs and edifies? That came to mind as I finished reading a small set of online articles. Typical of these is "A Sociologist Looks at Spiritual Growth in America" (at www.thesecularspirit.com/text/91socloo.html), which includes this: "The new-age personal growth technologies address this problem. Since the need is great and the pace of change is rapid, these experiments show a wide variety of quality. Some are half-baked, some are ingenious but have significant pieces missing, and some approach maturity. We are learning that there are many valid methods for growth. We are learning that talking is not enough to do the job; we also need movement, touch, silence, music."I am no way cynical. I am a practitioner and, truth be told, grew up with notions of shamanism. I consider myself a practical spiritualist. But when I read that, and the article it came from, and other articles like it, my eyes glaze over and I'm left thinking, "So what?!" But, in fact, really and actually, I know precisely "so what". In-filled by such despirited scholasticism, the very great majority of "spiritual" projects result in the deadening of spirit. That's what I've experienced, over the years. As Buddhism has grown as a market, as a commodity, I've seen (not as a result, but as a symptom) a shriveling of the spirit that leads to creatively inspired activity. Sort of the way the apparently vital anti-globalization movement didn't really energize the emancipation project that presses for social justice. As the social utility of aspirational values is realized by way of trappings and externals the dynamics that feed the real thing die off ... too popular, too glib, too superficial ... the medicine that heals so much sits on a shelf, as an artifact, or on a pointless shrine, a sterile symbol. It's about vitality ... about self-actualization ... about realization, and clarity, and response-ability ... it's about everything you're looking for and hungering for. But what does that mean, to people who eat plastic food rather than wholesome ruffage when their bodies are full of chemical pollution? When we suspend materialistic utilitarianism our natural appetites for knowledge and happiness and wisdom up-well and the sanity that results opens the door to bliss. It can't be faked ... the results come from the true behaviour ... it's not mechanics (or, more precisely, it isn't /just/ mechanics), it's karma. And so it goes: the symptoms of the disease perpetuate the disease and transmit it through the population. How poignant ... how sad ... lonely people being shoddy towards other lonely people ... the tragedy of the commons writ small. May all beings realize the root of true happiness and be free from suffering!

A night filled with nightmares

WillowBear — Thu, 04 Aug 2005 16:54:40 GMT

Hour after hour ... I woke up soaked in sweat and shaking ... home-invasion scenarios with entired bands of sneering punks ridiculing and mocking, street assaults with gangs of thugs ... on and on. The landlord tells me I should speak politely to Byron to quell the conflict, that I should be reasonable. I've been reasonable dozens of times with Byron; the conflict started because I was reasonable and polite with him at 2:30AM when I suggested that maybe he and the other housemate and I could discuss loud conversations in the hall way in the middle of night ... but none of that works, cuz punks and thugs see "reasonable" as a flag, a banner, a signal that there's a potential victim in the area. And the landlord types? They're the root cause of society's ills: "nice" people who want to benefit from corruption, from hypocricy, from supporting the psychopaths and their bully-boy followers. I knew that in highschool, in the late 60s ... but I chopped my hair and joined the Canadian Army anyhow, thinking that our invention (UN peace-keeping) would do some good: I would be interdicting villains. HeyHo ... "nice" people have twisted everything ... so I've been trying not to lose my mind while coping with the fact that 95% of the people around me are dishonest and corrupt, wilfully ignorant. The only way to cope with that is through community ... no individual can cope with that ... I'm losing my mind. Actually I think that ship has sailed: I see in the fabric of my daily life certain absences. (I have never ever screwed up my finances the way I'm screwed now ... not only spent the security deposit I need to get out of this dump but also blew grocery money; I'm not doing what need be done and I'm doing what I shouldn't do.) No individual should be called upon to do it all. No individual should be called upon to do too much. I've been doing my bit for at least 30 years. Now I'm raving ... nightmares ... getting closer to the gutter ... and I'm going to have to cope with even more resentment. I now realize simply something I've understood forever: it still matters even when folk don't care. It doesn't make any difference how little you care, or how little you do ... it still matters. Information is changes that matter; systems operate through communications, waves of information that are passed along. Because you so often act in so many different ways as though it doesn't matter (i.e. you don't react or act at all) communications falter, information isn't propagated, and the system slips into collapse. And no degree of "nice" will help. At least I understand my nightmares ... cuz I deal with folk, I engage folk, I sit and talk with folk and share their coffee and their sandwiches and their stories ... so I don't hate black thugs or indian gangs or white-trash, though I fear their violence and I ache from their abuse ... I understand because I've spent hours every day and weeks every month and months every year for decades drilling down through the propaganda. And that matters, even when "nice" folk don't care.

Would you adopt this aulde dawg? [updated ... sadly]

WillowBear — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 21:16:18 GMT

Setup: this morning, feeling relatively decent about most everything, I did something like an "examination of conscience" (Yes, I was raised RC ... but I think there are lots of similarities between the Christian notions there and those that operate in the Vajrayana monastic tradition. FWIW.) and what I came up with, again, was the notion that I was just a good deal more "foot loose" than I wanted to be. Ok, so I have in fact lead my life in a way that maximized my capacity to respond without impediment. (Sure, the three times I had the chance to clamber aboard a tall ship I stayed ashore on account of financial commitments ... but those commitments would have been jettisoned for any project that was dharmic or more communal ... less "Wee! Adventure for meeee!") But that doesn't mean setting up to live in a vacuum amongst self-serving solipsistic narcissists. Anyhow, so this afternoon I trucked over to my coffee joint pondering my fate as a vendor of something nobody wanted ... as though one-eyed in a kingdom of the blind. Could there be a dharmic modality that I had simply over-looked? Was my "politics" just a way of shrugging off the urban solitude that has so appalled me? Thinking thusly I picked up the local free paper, browsed the articles and reviews, checked the "Musicians Wanted" and "Artist to Artist" sections (Oooh! They're looking for extras with "facial hair" to be in a western!!) and in the "Shared Accomodations" section (super-slim as ever) I came upon this: "Roomates needed: community Dharma house. Phone xxx-xxxx". No kidding. *beam* It'd be easy to say that communal living has been my #1 concentration dating back to the late 60s. (At 14 I hooked up with some local hippies ... the finest kinda folk. Remember: only very few people actually had even the slightest sense of hippie ethos and of those the vast majority were just superficial hedonists, bless their hearts. The folk I encountered were true avatars ... not faultless, but well oriented to the common good.) My stint in the armed forces and the resulting politicization made it painfully clear to me that geo-politics was rooted in individuals' actualities: a disco culture wouldn't give rise to social justice, and punk culture would do perhaps less harm but hardly more good. In the late 70s I was fortunate enough to encounter the dharma, and fortunate enough to be in a community where sangha was manifest in the form of a practice residence ... folk from different backgrounds and with different lifestyles sharing a house. (Incredibly, two of the core members were known to me as members of that late-60s bus experience!) So for the second time I experienced really enlightened self-interest ... small businesses, good food, whosesome schedule, music and art ... all o' that. Really the only time I haven't been oriented towards community living was when I did the "back to the land" thing ... my partner and I, five kids, three cats, two dogs, a horse, a pony, two goats, six pigs (not my idea), a big old house on the side of a huge hill with a view of the Bras D'Or Lakes ... apple trees, running brook ... almost heaven. Except for the solitude. Dang. And after the 80s? Formal dharma practice and training ... some hi-tech employment, some contract work, three years at university ... wey wey too foot-loose. A decade of more or less sterile activity (except for the mobilization for global justice, the anti-globalization movement, which was rich and energetic and painful). Full circle? More than 35 years after the hippie bus I'm back in this city, looking to support communal living ... "Roomates needed: community Dharma house." .... sure sounds good to me! *beam* ============================= *sigh* Well, so much for that. There's probably a sum total of 1 Buddhist school that would be a definite non-fit ... and this new place is run by that one. "New Kadam" because they want to be purer than pure, rejecting even HH the Dalai Lama's proscriptions. I mean really, they're to the right of HHDL's Gelug?! *sigh* Such is life in a world that's drifting to the right as yuppies kidz increase the sophistication of their "fun". Dang. I'm so very disappointed ... been waiting for something like this for years. Yet again the right has stolen a march on "progressives". *sigh*

Wildness and other sources of inspiration

WillowBear — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 23:34:15 GMT

The virtues: Meek, perky, inscrutable, and outrageous! :-) In partial reply to adrienne's posting http://vancouver.tribe.net/listing/6dce1614-d14f-4cfe-bbb4-543a796eff46 Here's the tangka of mahasiddha Tilopa used on the cover of my teacher's most recent book, "Wild Awakenings".

1 day in the life of an aulde busker

WillowBear — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 21:39:33 GMT

*Saturday I busked for the first time in nearly two years ... before that busking was part of my daily life since '78 ... I was reminded of how good things can be. Here's a little piece I wrote about yesterday, the 2nd Sunday drum circle.* Sooooo yesterday afternoon I trudged to the park with my djembe, my dumbek, two recorders (one soprano and one alto), and a back-pack full of stuff (including my laptop and two little battery operated speakers). Consequence? After having waited over an hour, one guy showed up ... and in the end we had 5 drumming ... a 3 hour session ... At one point when Dylan and I were on our own this well-dressed fellow came over and quite assertively asked if he could borrow one of our dumbeks. We were both of us more than willing, but curious. Turns out there had been a Lebanese wedding and the whole assembly had come to the park for photos. Dylan and I got to drum for a wedding reception! How fine is /that/?!! Gawd it's so good to be in group ... and so challenging to not slip into the paternalism of all accepting father ... one of the fellows reacted so lucidly and energetically and positively to one of my ummmmmm challenges that, after I generalized what we had clashed over, we ended up all of us having a good long guffaw about human nature. Again: how fine is /that/?! Walking around later I encountered a young tabla player ... from Sri Lanka. He said he and his band-mates were going to mess around at an open stage that night ... a nice invitation, of sorts ... so I entered the moment and headed over there. A pretty nice evening. But the danged place (an up-scale quasi-Irish pub) charged $4 for a half-pint of beer. Thank gawd the best man at the wedding reception had spotted me three 5s, so I came away from the weekend with $15 in hand. Woa! To have a good weekend /and/ be in the black? How can it be much finer?! I invested in drums ... in instruments ... in the laptop and speakers ... time and money ... again and again and again ... and when others connect, things grow and blossom and give fruit ... positive all the way. It's really so simple!

Pictures from Rainbow Family Gathering 2005

WillowBear — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 05:26:32 GMT

Photo Album: http://conservatory.com/rainbow2005/index.html

A query to my t.net friends:

WillowBear — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 22:50:18 GMT

Check my work here: since I've been 5 I have pursued a single goal ... to reach some understanding concerning authenticity and community. In short, I understood shamanism before having heard of it. (And this is the first time I've allowed myself to say so.) In the 70s and 80s I watched as my peers and cohort ?what, sold out? pursued material affluence. And I rationalized it, thinking "When the time comes at least they will have the resources to support wholesome projects." As a statement of fact I think what I said was accurate. As a prediction of behavour ... well, the future is always open-ended, so I can't say. But here's what I wonder about: you know the "Nero fiddled while Rome burned" thing ... well, I see generations of yuppies and yuppies' kidz fiddling around ... rave, dance, music, drugs, lights ... entertainment ... distraction. What happens to the planet if citizens do only what flatters their ego? Short answer: folk like me starve. *If you ignore "follow your bliss" for the sake of "pursuit of happiness" you smother the life-energy of democracy itself ... psychopaths, like con-men, thrive because of individuals' moral failings.*

Chemical Brothers

WillowBear — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 10:49:45 GMT

Pay attention or go away, ok? I'm not gonna supplicate the yuppy lingo of "mindfulness" ... Thai is there. Pay attention ... is that too much to ask? Oh, you think "pay attention" means becoming merely a more sensitive narcissist?! Yaa ... like I said ... Chemical Brothers ... pay attention.

On integrity; a reply to an LJ friend's comment

WillowBear — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 20:58:57 GMT

He wrote, "There's a lot of inequality, and I have a feeling that things may be leading to a leveling of sorts. What do I want? I just want to be happy. And part of that is knowing the truth about the world." And part of my reply was this: "Sure ... and the root of unhappiness is false beliefs and misunderstanding. But what if our community is based on the idea of "putting up" in the sense of denial ("Hypocrisy" is such a harsh word.), not in the sense of tolerance. (We're hardly a time marked by toleration!) What I noticed as a kid is that folk say things were one way in one situation and another way in a different situation. I learned in cog-psych that this "discourse variance" can be unconcious. What I beleive is that it likewise can be conscious ... which gives rise to cognitive dissonance, and nobody likes that ... so the two "tenable" positions are unconcious hypocrisy ("two faced", or "speaking with a split tongue" and "not being at one with oneself") or integrity."

Absolutely mindboggling panoramic picture of Nemiah!!

WillowBear — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 22:12:19 GMT

I discovered this after posting about Xeni Gwet'in ... http://xenigwetin.com/panoramic.jpg is a 360 something like the image I've included here

A gentle blast from the past

WillowBear — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 20:55:12 GMT

In my old "faculty" account I just found an old snippet from a song I worked on with a tracker named "Zool" ... the song eventually became "Big Questions". http://is.dal.ca/~canid/moonlanding.mp3

Slave Lake

WillowBear — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 08:05:53 GMT

Davis' teepee. Hippie Daze. right

tribe.net software

WillowBear — Sun, 26 Jun 2005 20:16:35 GMT

I have to login everytime I come here. Everytime. And the URLs are wonky, depending on which message I'm replying to. And the LJ RSS feed hasn't updated for 3 days. Not 75 minutes. Three days. (I'd put in emphasis but apparently this form doesn't like HTML.) Nothing sucks like success, ehh? *sigh*