Open Buddha

Democracy and Associations

2018-09-15T14:26:00-07:00

The Atlantic has an article in this next month’s issue, “Americans Aren’t Practicing Democracy Anymore,” that hits on some points on the degeneration or degregadation of democratic habits in the United States. This article states:

To almost every challenge in their lives, Americans applied a common solution. They voluntarily bound themselves together, adopting written rules, electing officers, and making decisions by majority vote. […] By the latter half of the 19th century, more and more of these associations mirrored the federal government in form: Local chapters elected representatives to state-level gatherings, which sent delegates to national assemblies.

The article goes on to state that is the lack of involvement of the current generations of Americans in these sort of institutions, to the habit of democrating (as it were) in our own day-to-day lives, that is contributing to the challenges currently facing the republic.

While the article is interesting, the thought that came to me immediately was, “I wonder if the decline in fraternal orders plays a role in this?” As people reading this may, or may not, be aware, at least a quarter of the male population of the United States was a member of a fraternal order during their height, which went up to the Great Depression and World War II. People commonly will think of the Freemasons in this light but there were massive numbers of other orders, not all of which were male only. The Odd Fellows, Woodsmen, Grange, and so forth come to mind. Part of the reason for involvement by people was to be, well, fraternal, and to associate with others in their free time. This is the era before television and, largely, before radio came to dominate as a form of mass media. The other common reason is that many fraternal orders provided insurance and sick pay to their members. I remember discovering an old Odd Fellows chalkboard in the basement of the hall, still covered in tallies of a particular week or month and who was getting sick pay. Back before sick days, health insurance, and life insurance were paid for by employers or associated with your work, many people were out of luck if they were sick and couldn’t earn. The fraternal orders helped fill that gap until the New Deal and things like social security stepped in.

The thing about almost all fraternal orders is that they are run democratically, as the quote from The Atlantic mentions. A local lodge forms from like-minded individuals, they receive a charter from the order to form a lodge, and then they rent space and elect officers from their membership. These officers have assigned roles and, in turn, send a representative to a regional or even state/province level body. In many instances, those bodies then send an elected representative to a national and, occasionally, international body. It is elections up and down and lodges are normally run following “Robert’s Rules of Order” or similar parliamentary procedures. As preparation for civic life by adults, I think it was probably quite helpful and definitely reinforced the idea of democratic institutions, voting in general, and the election of peers. Another thing that it taught, and I know this from experience having been a junior officer in several fraternal orders during my life, is that the role and its responsibilities are core, not the person in the role. Any officer role in a lodge or grand lodge, regardless of whether elected or appointed (as elected officers often appoint junior assistants or people like secretaries), has its duties. If a person is elected to the role, they have to fulfill the duties to the best of their ability. Sometimes (often?) people are put in roles for which they have little prepatory experience or, perhaps, natural affinity or ability. They still have to do the role and they either step up to the challenges or just muddle along, depending on the person. While people may quietly campaign for a role (though that is often disallowed explicitly), people are expected to work through a series of roles in a fraternal order during the course of their involvement. You may wind up with a mousy introvert as the head of your lodge. So be it!

I think about that kind of experience, going on over generations, and how I expect it impacted the outlook of people in other civic associations or institutions, whether it is your local neighborhood association, a labor union, or the parent teacher association.

Lodges went into decline in the period of prosperity and expansion following the second world war, for a variety of reasons on which people have written entire books (see “Bowling Alone” cited in the article for one, well known, example). The article in The Atlantic makes me think that we may have lost more than we understood at the time with their decline, along with a general raising of the isolation and alienation in society over the last few decades. Many friends of mine, especially when I was involved in the order, lamented their decline or the fact that many, if not most, members were senior citizens (and much of this was 20 years ago). The loss that they focused on was the loss for the orders and the fear that they would just continue to whither and eventually disappear, to be a footnote in a history book of the “weird shit people used to do in centuries past.” The Atlantic article’s argument is that the impact is much higher than that. That these orders (and all of the other associations) were much of the glue that held our society together. (This is not to fail to acknowledge the problematic place some orders have had with gender or minority membership during their heyday. It was not all rosy.)

While I do wish that there was a resurgence in various voluntary associations as formal entities (and not just fraternal orders), I also don’t see that happening without some new visions, popularily embraced, of them and their role in society.

Redlining and Kit Houses

2018-09-13T22:21:00-07:00

I was listening to the new 99% Invisible podcast, The House that Came in the Mail, which is on the kit homes of Sears and Roebuck from 1908 until the 1940’s. This is a topic that I’m actually pretty interested in and, if you don’t know it, 99pi (as it is called) is one of the best podcasts out there for nerds.

I have an arts and crafts bungalow, originally two bedrooms, in Oakland, California. It has been stated, though I’ve never verified, by at least one contractor that it is probably a kit home, though I doubt it is a Sears and Roebuck model. There is at least one 90% identical home within a block of me, clearly built on the same plans and then modified over the nearly 100 years since then.

Another aspect of my neighborhood is that it was a redlined area (or is that an area within the redline?). My neighborhood of North Oakland is one where Black Americans were allowed by banks to get a mortgage. Something that shamefully too few white folks like myself know about is that one of the mechanisms of institutional racism used to control where minorities lived was the practice of redlining.

I live in the “D4” region of the map below (click on it for a high resolution image), which is a 1937 Oakland and Berkeley “residential security map” created by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. Red regions on the map are where mainstream financial institutions would be willing to lend money to minorities to live, especially Black Americans. This curtailed their ability to live in “white” neighborhoods before the practices were outlawed in only the 1970’s. (See “The Racist Housing Policy That Made Your Neighborhood” in The Atlantic.)

The 99pi podcast is about the kit homes that Sears and Roebuck, and later others, sold by mail order. In their example of these homes, a sealed boxcar would be shipped to the purchaser, who had selected the home from a catalog. A local foundation would be prepared and the boxcar would contain all of the parts of the home from the framing to the siding, doors, and interior components. Part of why Sears quit selling these homes is that they also acted as a non-standard mortgage lender to their customers for them eventually. This allowed them to lend money to their own customers on easy terms to then buy the homes. During the Great Depression, Sears wound up forclosing on defaulting loans, causing them to take homes away from their own customers. Needless to say, this is a practice that both damaged their business but also generated ill will.

I knew about the homes but I didn’t know that Sears had engaged in the lending aspect of it. One little tidbit that was mentioned briefly in the podcast was much more pertinent to me and that was that Sears did not respect redlining rules set up by various groups. According to 99pi, they were willing to lend to anyone, including minorities. This bypassed, I assume largely accidentally, the institutional attempts to force minorities to not purchase homes in “white” areas. I suspect that it also caused more kit homes to be built in redlined districts as well, as I know the terms of the lends to minorities in these areas were often pretty bad.

I wonder if anyone has done a study of the effect that this lending by Sears to purchasers of their kit houses on minority home ownership and location. It is strange and (again) probably non-intentional antidote to instituional racism that had just slipped past my notice somehow.

Moons of Barsk Review

2018-09-11T21:20:00-07:00

I finished reading “The Moons of Barsk” a few weeks ago and wanted to put a review of it up for folks. This is the new book by the linguist, Lawrence M. Schoen and a sequel to his “Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard from a few years ago.

In complete transparency, I was given a review copy of Moons but I was such a huge fan of his first book that I had been actively waiting for more from him. Barsk: The Elephants’ Graveyard was an amazing book and a breath of fresh air in how it was full of ideas that hadn’t been rehashed to death as genre tropes (and even the ideas in it that were common enough tropes were handled in interesting ways). Moons continues on this vein and does not displease, though I do think it suffers a bit from being a “middle novel” in what I assume is a trilogy. It continues the story of the first book in new ways but does not, ultimately, tie the threads of story up completely but sets things up for continuance and conclusion later.

The basic setup of the series is a kind of Island of Dr. Moreau writ large and on a galactic scale. There is a federation and the denizens of this federation are different races of humanoid or uplifted animals. I do not wish to spoil the first book for readers so I cannot go into any history that is revealed but things are explained to a fair degree in the first novel. The main characters of both books are Fants, which are distinct but similar species of upright, humanoid elephants. They are despised and viewed with disgust by the rest of the federation for their horrid (it seems) appearance to others and have long ago but exiled to a single world, out of sight. The first book deals with the possibility of pogroms and genocidal plots against the Fants by others and revelations about the history of the Federation, in general, and the facts in particular.

In Moons, we pick up a few years after Graveyard, with the protagonist, Jorl, of the first book having grown a bit older and, possibly, a little wiser, but much of the emphasis in Moons is on Pizlo, who was a young child in Graveyard. He’ now an adolescent attempting to find a place in the world and with his abilities. He’s much more the focus of this book than Jorl (in my opinion) though Jorl is still a viewpoint character. In some ways, I find Jorl largely uninteresting. As a special sort of speaker, those members of the Federation who can recall the minds of the dead and communicate with them, he’s in most ways too powerful to be interesting. Pizlo is also a speaker and a pre-cognitive, but he’s young and deeply conflicted about his role in the universe and in fact society. Pizlo is a genetic outcast, meant to have been exposed and die at birth, because of the circumstances of his conception. As such, all members of fant society, with the exception of his mother, Jorl and, Jorl’s immediate family, pretend that Pizlo is invisible. If a confrontation is forced, it escalates. This is a radically alienating thing to a young man, growing up hated and unwanted, but knowing (due to the voices in his head that may just be his abilities) that he has some sort of role to play.

Where the first novel focused on the potential for violence and destruction towards the Fant from others, the second one has an exploration of violence from within Fant society, the kind of violence that clothes itself in necessity and “for the good of society.” Jorl and Pizlo both explore questions of Fant history and future in a universe that hates and despises them. What would members of Fant society do to protect it, from outsiders but also from other Fant who find out too much about Fant history and potentially secret activities of some to protect the denizens of Barsk, their planet of exile?

Overall, it was a fun read. I did not find it quite as engaging as Graveyard but I put much of that down to the first book having a high degree of uniqueness and being so unexpected. Moons is not badly written but I very much want to read the next book to see where it all winds up, assuming that this is a trilogy. The ideas of Graveyard continue to build and be developed, as do the characters, and the world expands in scope and depth as well. What will an adult Pizlo be like as he comes into his prime? Will Jorl ever figure out his own longterm place in helping the Fant, even from themselves? I look forward to finding out.

My Father

2018-04-02T19:50:00-07:00

Grandpa, Dad, and Grandma

I was talking about my dad earlier today. This would be my late father, as it were, since he’s been dead for 12 years now.

My father wasn’t a good man. In many ways, he wasn’t necessarily a bad man, at least later in life, but he was problematic even then. When he was young, he was very clearly a bad man or at least one that behaved very badly at times. No, I’d just say he was a bad man. He treated people extremely poorly, especially my mother, apparently had a hair trigger, and was violent at times (and threatened violence at other times).

My parents divorced when I was young. I’m not sure how old I was because it was before I remember but I suspect, without asking my mother, that it was before I was even a year old. My parents would have been around 20 then and my dad physically and emotionally abused my mom. I was only told about it later in life but, as a child visiting him, he could be a little intimidating. That said, I should be clear that he never was abusive towards me for the values of the time. By that I mean he threatened corporal punishment (though actually only followed through once or twice ever) but we had that in schools when I was growing up so that wasn’t unusual. He treated women badly in front of me, did a lot of drugs and drank, and generally had a good time as a “party” kind of guy.

Dad was a working class guy. When I was a kid, he was a shipwelder. His father was a mechanic and a teamster and others in his family were mechanics, carpenters, and the like. His values and ethics were those of a working class guy born in the 1950s. His dad had beat on people too, including his wives, I am told. Like me, my dad wound up with a bad back injury, though his happened in his mid to late 20s. I think this caused a pretty significant reevaluation of his priorities. He told me, on a few occasions when I was an adult, that he’d been a bruiser, a fighter, in bars and otherwise, when he’d been young but he realized after his injury that “the worst he could do to another guy was break his arm or something and the worst they could do to him was paralyze him.” So he stopped fighting for the most part and, as he grew older, seemed to develop a bit more emotional maturity. I wouldn’t say that he ever turned into a well rounded, emotionally even, human being in many ways but I do think he became a lot better, personally and socially, as he aged. Of course, after the injury, he also changed careers to growing and selling weed. He once complained to me that the worst part of being a drug dealer (even if just of weed) was the crazy and random people that he had to deal with. He didn’t mind selling to people he knew. “Who doesn’t like getting high?” seemed to be what he thought. He only got nervous with strangers because there was always a chance that they’d rob you, beat you, or just turn out to be cops. As he aged further, he mostly seemed to like to grow plants, puttering around, and less and less liked to be on the selling side. By the time I was out of college, he was out of that, having finally been busted, convicted of a felony, but managing to avoid more than a month or so of jail time.

He spent the last 20 years or so of his life just kind of puttering around and getting by. Because of his back injury, which happened on the job in the shipyards, he was on disability (in fact, he made selling weed a self-employed business because he couldn’t work reliably in a straight job). He had to count his pennies, manage his pain from the injury, and fill the hours. I’ve contemplated this life as one of, to me, wasted opportunities. Dad never did much that I could see. He read a lot of books and even got a college degree after his disability, but never wrote down any of his thoughts or even the crazy shit he’d relate over a meal sometimes from his years of partying and dealing drugs. It would have been quite a memoir of the 70s and 80s, really.

So, my dad is a counterexample of a life. He’s an example, especially in his youth, of toxic masculinity. He hit women. He got into fights. He was racist, to a “mild” degree, and clearly homophobic. He had time to think and contemplate but never seemed to do so in the end. Eventually, he was killed by a longterm illness, realistically rooted in the lifestyle of his youth, and he died in his early 50s. As a man in the second half of his 40s now, it is hard to know what positive lessons there are to be gleaned from my father’s life. He mostly serves as a counterexample and, in dark moments, as a feared natural course of my own life because I think I have a personality or disposition that is naturally close to that of his. I’m terribly glad that he was mostly a distant figure for much of my own childhood, including more than six years of zero contact as a teen, because if he’d been present, I might have unquestionably imbibed of his thoughts, beliefs, and manner of engaging in the world. At times, I still fear that I did and do.

In the end, I think he was a weak man at the core. I loved him and do still love him, problematic and fucked up figure that he is and was. He was my father. That said, I’d never want to be him. He wasn’t a role model to be followed except as a counterexample of how not to interface with the world, especially other people. He could be funny and charming but there was something (an anger or rage?) in him that wasn’t always that far away.

I wish I could say these things to him and talk about it with him. It might not go well but it would still be a conversation. When he died, I wasn’t even 35 yet. I didn’t have the voice to say these things or probably the willingness to be direct with him. With his relatively young death, it is a conversation forever cut short, which is disappointing as I begin going through my own middle age as a man.

Review of More Than Happiness

2018-02-08T12:00:00-08:00

I’m both the target audience directly and also not so much it for this book at the same time. I’m highly interested and involved with Buddhism and also a reader of Classical Philosophy, especially Stoicism. The latter has been an ongoing interest for a number of years now. The only reason that I’m not the exact audience is that this is a fairly introductory work.

“More than Happiness” by Antonia Macaro presents an introduction to Buddhist thought, in the form one finds it within the Pali Canon as presented by Richard Gombrich and other UK Buddhist scholars or practitioners, and then it compares and contrasts it against Stoic thought, largely as presented in the surviving material from the Roman Stoics like Seneca and Epictetus. Macaro looks at the commonalities in the approaches to life, views of the world and human virtue, and practices (such as various meditative techniques) between these two schools of thought. This is all done at a fairly high level so it is a series of short chapters as follows:

Setting the Scene
Dukkha Happens: We Suffer
Maladies of the Soul: Why We Suffer
How to Be Saved 1: Nirvana
How to Be Saved 2: Living in Accordance with Nature
More Than Happiness
Removing the Dust from Our Eyes
The Sage and the Buddha: Models for Living
Spiritual Practice: Beyond Theory
Meditations for a Better Life

I found myself basically enjoying the book but being dissatisfied at the same time. Macaro would dig a bit into thing, such as suffering or models for living, have a somewhat intelligent overview and discussion, but then move on when it got interesting from my point of view. Fundamentally, this is an introductory work. If you’re already familiar with the basis of Buddhist thought, such as the Four Noble Truths, Impermanence, etc. and you’ve read even a bit of Seneca or Epictetus, you’ll be nodding along as he touches on things but you’re not going to learn anything new.

The me of twelve or so years ago would probably have thought this was somewhat eye opening in how it showed some commonalities in thought, as well as differences, but I’ve done a lot of reading and reflecting since that time. If you want a point by point overview of the book. I suggest this review over on modernstoicism.com where Gregory Sadler digs in a bit. Otherwise, I think this would be a good book to give to your friends who have some interest in both topics or philosophy and Buddhism but not a lot of grounding in either of these. If they’ve read a bit in either, they might find it a bit too introductory though.

Review of Bandwidth

2018-01-30T17:46:00-08:00

“Bandwidth” by Eliot Peper is his second science fiction novel. A follow up, of sorts, to 2016’s “Cumulus.” “Cumulus” even gets a one sentence mention early in the book, implying that they may exist in a shared universe. “Bandwidth” follows the story of Dag, a lobbyist (no, stay with me, don’t go!) on the path to…redemption? See, Dag has spent his adult life helping the movers and shakers, the captains of industry and the megacorporations, get their agendas enlivened and supported in the world. Frankly, it looks like, even in Dag’s reflection, to have mostly been a shitshow of exactly the kinds of things we fear that lobbyists do. For example, helping energy tycoons not only get access to cheap oil but to then also profit from rising sea levels and fires by getting their inland real estate empires approved. That said, it is clear that not everything that Dag has worked on has been horrible but it has all been a sort of realpolitik.

The book opens with a near death (by gunfire) experience by Dag and an encounter with something that forces him to question both what he’s doing with himself and also the nature of what is going on around him. Dag goes investigating to understand. One of the things that I enjoyed about this section is that it plays on expectations. We expect Dag to eventually solve his mystery, and he does, but then we find that the mystery neither has simple answers nor does it end there. “Bandwidth,” at a number of points, avoids taking the easy genre or thematic “outs” that are available and subverts or questions our expectations (and Dag’s). Is he an amoral power climber out for himself? Is he a somewhat broken man who has tried and failed to move on? Can anyone be as simple as one of these answers (or any other simple answer)? Peper manages to inject a fair amount of self-reflection and moral complexity into his characters. This is true not only for Dag but even for some of the “villains” of the book. Even the worst tycoon in this book is not simply a caricature but is given some evidence of personal complexity it.

The story is, itself, relatively well written as far as the plot goes. I wasn’t blown away by the overall arc but I was not let down by it either. Where I did feel the book shines is in the characterization of Dag, as our protagonist, and the questioning he goes through as events unfold around him. I found myself strongly identifying with a lot of the murky waters he finds himself in and his wonder of what it says about himself, the people to which he finds himself connected with, or even those he opposes. Peper does not have Dag offer easy answers either. It seems, in many ways, that the best we can do is simply…the best that we can do. Dag finds a certain amount of joy and peace in the book but no easy answers or solutions as well. It is this part of the book that I enjoyed the most as it seemed to me the most real, and certainly moreso than many science fiction novels that I read, which often have rather flat characterizations.

I also appreciated the the novel moves to center stage real world issues that we’re all living through right now: global warming, climate refugees, the subversion of democracy. In that regard, the world felt very real though, I must say, somewhat optimistic (even with half of California being a burned husk in it) since it is supposed to be an unknown number of decades in the future. As a technologist and hacker, I would have liked more detail in some of the technical issues or aspects raised in the book but I recognize that these can often detract from overall story.

I definitely recommend this book and I think it shows significant growth for Peper as an author from “Cumulus,” as much as I really enjoyed that book at well.

Note: I was given a pre-release copy of this book for the purposes of review. I am not so shallow that it destroys my ability to review the book, I hope.

Re-merging the Blogs

2018-01-26T23:25:00-08:00

Looking back at my blogs, I haven’t done much at all with them over the last five years except a handful of posts. Recently, I merged all of the content that had forked off in 2012 to makehacklearn.org back over to this site. The only thing worse that one blog that you never update is having two of them. So, anyone digging through the archives is likely to see some content from the last few years (what little there is) that mentions that site or this site in the context of being a different place. That’s simply an artifact of the reunification. I figured that I should post something here to clarify that.

I do have some ideas about posting more longform material here. We’ll see if they materialize into the plane of gross appearances.

Turing Machine Build

2015-07-09T20:00:00-07:00

The other day I was doing some reading on Alan Turing and his classic paper, On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem, describing what he called “the universal computing machine” and was eventually was known as a “Turing Machine.” This is all basic computer science stuff for most folks though I bet most people I know haven’t read his paper, just hearing about it over the years like I have.

It turns out that a fellow named “Mike Davey” actually built an anachronistic looking Turing Machine a few years ago to try to match the basic design in the paper.

He posted a video of his machine, which makes use of basic electronics, a Parallax Propeller chip, a roll of film, a dry erase marker, a buffer, and some stepper motors to write out and erase ones and zeroes, moving the tape of film lead back and forth. He uses a simple camera as the reading head to read the results back and you’re even able to write programs as text files on an SD card and load them onto the device.

While not a terribly useful device, in an of itself, it seems to be a fun hacking project and something that took quite a bit of thought and building in a practical way.

LittleRP Build

2014-10-05T14:00:00-07:00

I’ve spent a good part of this weekend working on finishing my build of a LittleRP resin 3D printer. There was a kickstarter for kits and assembled printers from its creator but he’s also been on IRC in #dlp3dprinting on Freenode for quite a while. The design is CC-licensed right now, not true open source, but he’s been sharing his bill of materials and plans for the lasercut and 3d printed parts with anyone who wants to build one. I assembled parts mostly in August but then had to go to three security conferences and a week long trip away for work in the course of six weeks so I got derailed from assembly. In the meantime, he’s started documenting things a bit for assembly so the wait was probably a good thing. This is probably about $400 or $500 in parts plus an HD projector that costs $300-400 (I got it for the low end because a refurbished one was fine).

You can see a gallery of sample prints from the creator, which are of a much finer level of detail (and much smaller) than what you get from FDM printers like your printrbots or mendels. Another guy who has finished building his using the same process as me is Shane Graber and he’s got a pretty good gallery of his machine and sample prints on Flickr.

My plan, other than just having an interest in playing with this technology, is to use the printer for tabletop RPG and other gaming pieces or parts. The level of detail is so high for the small sizes of the prints that games are a great application of this, assuming one is into game playing and design.

TrustyCon Videos Available

2014-03-06T18:00:00-08:00

TrustyCon 2014 (maybe the only one ever) happened the other week as a competitor to the RSA convention because of perceived RSA collaboration with the NSA and all of the kerfuffle around the NSA and surveillance this last year. As they say on their site, “We welcome all security researchers, practitioners and citizens who are interested in discussing the technical, legal and ethical underpinnings of a stronger social contract between users and technology.”

The event sold out quickly so I was unable to attend. Helpfully, it was livestreamed, making it available to everyone and the resulting video was put up on youtube. Unfortunately, this video is one, ginormous, seven hour video. I don’t know about you but I like my viewing in smaller chunks. I also tend to listen to talks and presentations, especially when there is no strong visual component, by saving the audio portion of it to my huffduffer account and listening to the resulting feed as a podcast.

I took it on myself to do a quick and dirty slice and dice on the seven plus hour video. It isn’t perfect (I’m a program manager, not a video editor!) but it works. I’ve uploaded the resulting videos to my youtube channel in order to not destroy any servers I own. You can find the playlist of them all here but I’ve also included the videos embedded below.

Additionally, I extracted the audio from each of these files and put an audio collection up on the Internet Archive, for people like me who just want to listen to them.

Short Update

2013-12-04T22:51:00-08:00

A short update of a list of things I’ve been doing lately…

Drones aka multi-rotor copters

I built a tricopter with my Kang’s help (a friend of mine from Mozilla and formerly a teammate on secass). I managed to almost make it fly before I crapped it out. I’m still trying to debug why it likes to flip over instead of fly but, hey, I learned how to assemble a copter from scratch, flash open source firmware on my speed controllers, and find something useful to do with my craptastic soldering skills. It is fun. I also have a hexacopter, which is quite a beast when it flies and the kind of thing that makes you involtunarily take a step back when you turn it on. I’m going to be re-building an old quadcopter when I get the gumption to bother.

##3D Printers

I’m still working on 3D printers. My Printrbot Jr. has been modified a bit with more to come. For such a cheap little machine, it is a pretty good workhorse. I’ve got at least two other printers (a small Delta style and the foldarap from early this year) partially assembled and waiting to be finished. I don’t really need more than one working printer so the motivation is always a little lacking but I work on them slowly. The process of building printers several times is what finally teached me how the mechanical and electrical parts work. With one of my buddies, Atom, from Ace Monster Toys, there is a plan to do a simple through-hole solder 3D printer controller as an all in one unit but done cheaply for under $50. That ought to be interesting.

Bitcoin Mining

While I’ve had friends doing it for a while, on a lark I picked up a couple of ASIC-based bitcoin miners as dedicated hardware a while ago. I managed to get them, along with buying a few bitcoins directly, before the massive recent increase in prices. I look on it as an experiment and one that I don’t take very seriously. “Never gamble money you can’t afford to lose” is a good motto. If I lost everything that I put in, I would call it a lesson learned but so far I’m actually looking to break even on the cost of the gear in about two months (including the costs of power). My main complaint with it so far is that the miners are in my home office because they need decent network connectivity and I also work in there. It is kind of like working next to a pair of hairdryers that you never turn off (on a plus note, I’m not cold). I’ve had to find various places for doing my videoconferencing as the noise can be a bit burdensome. I’m quite interested in where bitcoin may wind up going but I really don’t have any expectations.

Tabletop Role-Playing Games

The short explanation is always “You remember Dungeons and Dragons? Well, it is like that except we don’t play D&D.” Right now there is a renaissance of independent role-playing games going on (for most of a decade now but really kicked up further by things like kickstarter). I was in an RPG group that met once a month, then twice a month, and now we have a weekly pickup game with people who feel like playing along with two Sundays a month of regular sessions. The weekly games have been used as an opportunity for us to play one or two-off games that are either interesting concept pieces or just intriguing without any kind of commitment to regular play. I and two of the cohort have plotted out an extended scenario/game, using the very simple Lady Blackbird rules as a basis, involving the shift from Pulp Era Heroes (think “The Shadow”) to Golden Age Superheroes (think “Superman”). We’re going to do some design work on this and playtest it with our group before releasing it under some kinf of Creative Commons license.

Beyond all of this, I’m on the board once again of my local hackerspace, the aforementioned Ace Monster Toys, and it continues to thrive. I may also be going to Japan for a week or two in March on matters Buddhist related but nothing has been set in stone as of yet. My work is still focused on being a program manager for security over at Mozilla (though I largely focus on Firefox efforts).

Boing Boing Ingenuity was great

2013-08-19T14:00:00-07:00

I managed to go to Boing Boing: Ingenuity this weekend. This was a one day hackathon followed by “vaudeville for geeks” set of presentations and performances yesterday. I actually missed the hackathon on the first day because I wound up having my birthday BBQ for my 42nd birthday (which is today) on Saturday and I’m kind of a crappy coder anyway. This was an invitation event but a free one (sponsored by Ford but it was a low-key sponsorship). I wasn’t sure what to expect before I arrived.

Yesterday’s event was very cool but also very odd, in a way. I kept trying to figure out the demographics of the group there (as one does…) because it was this mix of hackerspace people that I knew, makers, inventors, artists of various sorts, and happy mutants of the cacophony society sort. I ran into fellow hackerspace founders, including the BioCurious folks, embedded systems programers (who were also musicians), authors, designers, and artists.

The events included presentations by designers, musical performances, talks about SETI, a mentalist, the founding of BioCurious and a variety of other things.

I would say that I most enjoyed two particular presentations.

One was near the beginning and that was Chris Noessel presenting on user interfaces in science fiction (specifically movies) drawing from his work for Make It So, the book he co-wrote on the topic and documented on his website for it. Chris is a friend of a friend and I last saw him debating over beer after the most recent Batman movie about how certain things made no sense (!!) in the movie. I’ve heard him mention his work on science fiction but hadn’t actually seen any of it so it was cool (and pretty amusing) to see him present.

The last session of the day is the other that I really enjoyed. This was by Mythbusters’ Adam Savage (and now tested.com on being a maker. A couple of the anecdoates in it I’d heard before, probably when he spoke at Defcon, but I enjoyed his voice over of his ten rules for success. I find these rather inspirational even if I’ve never managed to follow all of them!

Photo by Kent K. Barnes / kentkb

They are:

Get good at something.

Really good. Get good at as many things as you can. Being good at one thing makes it easier to get good at other things.
Getting good at stuff takes practice.

Lots and lots of practice.
Get OBSESSED.

Everyone at the top of their field is obsessed with what they’re doing.
Doing something well and thoroughly is its OWN reward.
Show and Tell.

If you do something well and you’re happy with it, for FSM’s sake, tell EVERYONE.
If you want something, ASK.

If something piques your interest, tell someone. If you want to learn something, ask someone, like your BOSS. As an employer, I can tell you, people who want to learn new skills are people I want to keep employed.
Have GOALS.

Make up goals. Set goals. Regularly assess where you are and where you want to be in terms of them. This is a kind of prayer that works, and works well. Allow for the fact that things will NEVER turn out like you think they will, and you must be prepared to end up miles from where you intended.
Be nice. To EVERYONE.

Life is way too short to be an asshole. If you are an asshole, apologize.
FAIL.

You will fail. It’s one of our jobs in life. Keep failing. When you fail, admit it. When you don’t, don’t get cocky. ‘Cause you’re just about to fail again.
WORK YOUR ASS OFF.

Work like your life depends on it…

As someone who spends a lot of his life at a hackerspace, thinking about hackerspaces, and actually trying to make things (and my professional life in kind of a related context), this was both useful and a lot of fun. I think younger makers, especially, could really learn a lot by following these rules.

I’m not sure if Boing Boing: Ingenuity was a one-off event or the eventual building to more events but I’m very glad that I was invited to attend and got to experience it. I think that there are only a few places in the world where you could get this particular mix of mutants together and it was cool to be a part of it.

Retiring Blog

2013-07-06T14:00:00-07:00

I’ve not blogged much here for quite a while. Years really. I lost a lot of my blogging mojo when I was sick for many months in 2008-2009 and actually came close to dying. After that, I had a long period of recovery, failed doctoral programs, and work founding hackerspaces.

I’ve been less enamored with blogging about spirituality for quite some time. Today, I changed my twitter username from openbuddha to makehacklearn. I’ve had a secondary blog for geek stuff at makehacklearn.org for a while now.

I’m going to be shifting what blogging I do to the new site and probably only posting about spirituality on pagandharma.org when so inclined. It has been a good run but I’m going to do other things and blogging about spirituality is not one of them for now. For my hackerish blogging and geeky stuff like gaming, I’ll continue to post at whim to makehacklearn.org. That is my home now.

Moving Blogging Here

2013-07-06T14:00:00-07:00

I just announced over on openbuddha.com that I’m effectively closing that blog. I’ve also changed my twitter username from openbuddha to makehacklearn as part of doing so. I’m moving my blog focus here to blog about more hackerish things, which have been more my public interest for some time and less about talking in public about spirituality, which was effectively the focus of the site. I figured that I’d mention it here as well since I did change twitter usernames. I still figure that my blogging will be somewhat irregular!

Cal's Dreambox

2013-06-19T23:00:00-07:00

A few weeks ago, it was announced that there was now a 3D printing vending machine over at UC, Berkeley (aka “Cal”) now. This is the creation of Dreambox, some startup or somesuch doing 3D printing vending machines. Without a lot of data, I sent my trusty minion (I mean “friend”), Zed Lopez, over to take a look at it for me. He took a few photos with his phone and I put them up as a flickr set.

As you can see, the Dreambox basically consists of a Replicator 1 from Makerbot Industries (I mean Stratasys) in a box that dumps prints into the drawers beneath it. Dreambox has put up a video which helpfully shows their process:

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While I’m happy to see more exposure to 3D printing for the public, this whole thing seems like a bit of a bad idea. Printers like this that print in plastic are notoriously finicky things, with prints often coming out badly if conditions aren’t right or if the printer is simply not maintained and cleaned well. I don’t know how an unattended Replicator 1 sitting in a box is going to do well with printing materials on a reliably basis. I certainly wouldn’t want to own this Dreambox and have to maintain it on a regular basis.

There is some hope that the machine will be upgraded or better though. I got a note from Dreambox this morning (where I had made an account) mentioning that the whole machine was going offline at the end of this week while they upgraded it. I assume they are going to make some changes to make it more reliably, maybe upgrading the printer to a new model.

If anyone makes any prints on this machine, I’d love to hear more about how the process was for you as a normal user.

Weird Records from 3D Printers and Laser Cutters

2013-05-23T23:00:00-07:00

Warning: This post is rather heavy with the use of Flash to show videos. Sorry!

I’ve seen a bit of weirdness involving records, of all things, lately. Records, specifically Vinyl Records, are a pretty obsolete technology at this point. Yes, I’m well aware of the undying love for the “superior” sound quality of vinyl from a certain subset of bibliophiles. These people adore their record collections until the end of time. The rest of us, like my wife, have long given up on vinyl and moved, first, to compact discts (if not tapes) and then to mp3 files and our iPod-like devices. This moves record technology for most people, especially the young, into the same realm as wind up gramaphones or rotary telephones and HAM radio: old technology loved by a view but looked upon oddly by the rest.

Now, in spite of this (or maybe because of this), people are doing some weird things with record technology right now as artists. I wanted to share a few instances that I have come across, two from the same person. I came upon all of these within the last two weeks so they kind of stuck in my mind.

First, we have ice records. Cue video:

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A band, the Shout Out Louds, sent out ten kits to people that have a silicone negative image of a single from their recent (unreleased at the time, I believe) album. This came with instructions to pour enclosed distilled water on it, freeze it for six hours, and pop and ice record from the mold to then play. You can view the results above.

Next is Amanda Ghassaei’s attempts to play with record technology as an artist. First, she used some high end printers to 3D print a record. She details this (at great length) on a post on instructables on this. She figured out a method to convert an mp3 music file into a grooved shape thaat would play on a traditional record player. This was then printed on a high end printer, though I suspect that a well tuned hobbyist printer might work well enough. She mentions that it has a sampling rate of only 11kHz and 5-6bit resolution, which makes it sound a bit like an ancient Edison era recording. The video below gives an example of the result:

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Amanda has more recently gone on to try the same trick using a laser cutter, resulting in a wood record etched by the laser. She wrote another instructable describing this process. You can also watch her video about it below to hear the wood one:

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She’s actually done this with acrylic using the laser as well and I think that it sounds a bit better than the wood one:

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All of that said, the audio on all of these is horrible. I actually think the ice record sounds the best. What I’ve found the most interesting about this is the intersection of an obsolete and very analog technology, the record player and the records, with interesting art and even cutting edge tools like a laser cutter or a 3D printer. Technically, the ice record could have been made 50 years ago (I don’t think making a silcone negative is likely a difficult technical challenge) but this marriage of art and technology is fascinating.

People often ask me, “What do you make with a 3D printer?” The joke, of course, is the answer, “Parts for more 3D printers” (thought it is often true). That said, the ability to quickly prototype, especially to prototype from an artistic vision created within a computer, is really cool for art. Amanda wrote a script in Processing, an open source language used by artists a lot and often used with arduinos, to do the conversions for her to turn the music files into a three dimensional construct that she could then print or cut. What other art do people have locked inside of them that they can use these tools to express?

Visiting Metrix

2013-04-30T12:00:00-07:00

Last week I was up in my old home of Seattle for a few days to see family and friends (my daughter just turned 17).

While there, I dropped by Metrix Create:Space on and off as I was staying a 10 minute walk away and the owner, Matt, is a friend of mine. I talk to Matt on IRC fairly often and have been monitoring 3D printing developments at Metrix through him and watching their flickr feed. Since I had the time, I came to the weekly 3D printing night to meet folks working on projects at Metrix.

Johann Rocholl has been the primary moving force in the current interest in Delta printers within the reprap community. He has a tumblr with many pictures of his work and maintains a github repo for development. Terence Tam also does a lot of work at Metrix with his OpenBeam aluminum extrusion, which is a 15 mm profie extrusion that is open source and used by a lot of folks for building 3D printers. There is also Mattew Wilson, who has developed the Brainwave all in one printer control board (which is very nice), working out of Metrix.

They have quite a critical mass of people doing fun things with 3D printers and open source.

You can see the “OpenBeam Kossel Pro” that Terence and Matt have been developing:

Johann was also working on his “Mini Kossel” (which also uses OpenBeam), which is his attempt to build a portable Delta printer that can travel easily and maybe even be battery powered:

From talking to folks, I expect that there will be announcements at Maker Faire in Redwood City in a few weeks and Delta printers, among others, will make a heavy appearance there.

It was nice to see folks actively working on printers and advancing the technology associated it.

I haven’t posted much about my printer projects in the last few months as I’ve been making incremental progress. My Rostock Mini is largely stalled out due to lack of desire to deal with some design issues on it (though I may pick it up again soon) but I have a Hadron Ordbot that is completed except for mounting the heated build platform and splicing some wires. I’ve tested all of the electronics and motion but haven’t printed with it yet. The Foldarap has been waiting for the last six weeks or so for me to mount its printing bed and carriage but I hope to have it on the Ace Monster Toys table at Maker Faire in three weeks.

current state of my Foldarap

my Hadron Ordbot

One thing that I’ve been doing is co-hosting an ongoing 3D printing meetup every other Wednesday night at Ace Monster Toys. People have been showing up to work on printers, discuss issues around them, and generally show off their work. I’m actively working on creating a bill of materials to self-source parts to do a workshop series where 10 people (hopefully) build a Printrbot Jr. clone at AMT. The real issue there is trying to get the cost of the materials as near a $250 price point as possible (and it may not be possible to get below $300 really). Electronics from Printrbot are $129 retail, the hotend is $59, and, realistically, we need four stepper motors for roughly $15 each plus all the screws, rods, etc. It is the combination of the electronics, hotend, and motors that is kind of hard to move without just completely replacing them with someone else’s parts.

Atom Bomb at AMT is actively discussing the development of a new “all in one” 3D controller board with built in stepper controllers that do 1/16 motion. We’re hoping to publish a specification and have PCBs made for this, even if we don’t use this for the 3D printing workshop. The end-goal is to have a solid board with a total cost for the bill of materials around $40, which is half or a third of the common cost for RAMPS and other 3D controllers. I expect we’ll have more news on this in a few weeks or a month.

I’m hoping to have more announcements in the future but all of this means that I’ll probably be assembling a Jr. (or a variant) soon because I’m going to need to know it backwards and forwards to teach a class on it and I may wind up making a bit of a variant later.

Zen Druids

2013-04-13T19:55:00-07:00

This is a cross post from my new post over at pagandharma.org called, “Zen Druids.” Since it is topically relevant here on my overtly mostly Buddhist site, I thought I’d put it here for you as well. Please keep discussion over on pagandharma.org though to contain it to one place.

James Foster and I were discussing the possibility of Zen Druids today in email. This was the idea of the intersection of the immediacy and focus on presence and mindfulness of Zen practice (among other aspects) with the idea of a sacred or holy nature as present in Druidry, as well as the focus on hearth culture, celebrating the seasons of the year, and other aspects of Druidry as a modern, Neopagan practice.

In part, this came up because I recently joined Ár nDraíocht Féin, A Druid Fellowship (which is popularly known as the “ADF”). I did this in large part because of the work going on at the Solitary Druid Fellowship. This group within the ADF is working with individuals to craft their own rituals and work with a practice as solitary practitioners. Druidry was a path in which I was not involved during my Neopagan years, though the Druidry of the ADF and my own practice within Asatru and as a Wiccan were not far apart, really. As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been a member for a few years of the Shinto shrine in Granite Falls, Washington. I visit it when I’m up in the Seattle area, which is a few times a year to see my daughter and old friends. One of the things that I really appreciated when I visited Japan in 2007 was the extent to which their Buddhism was not wholly distinct from the common Shinto practice and you would commonly see nature oriented shrines and altars to the Kami even in nominally Buddhist places. The recognition of our place in a larger world, the natural world (to compare it against our created world, in a way) was very much present. One of the things that I’ve found really lacking in Buddhist practice where I am is any real recognition that the natural world is important, valuable, or that we are part of its webs of interconnection. For many Buddhists, we could be living in concrete boxes without any outdoors and it would make no difference to their practice or the relationship with the world. For these Buddhists, the Dharma really is a world denying faith and practice as so many people think of Buddhism. While I’m not an outdoorsman by any stretch, I do enjoy being part of the world and observing it and interacting with it (cue my hundreds of flower photos on flickr).

As I’ve made clear in other posts, I’m still very much culturally a pagan and my attitude towards the natural world plays a part of it. I’ve been surprised that this is the case at various points over the years. I thought when I became a Buddhist practitioner that I would leave that all behind but it turned out that the pagan (well, Neopagan) way of doing things and interacting with the world and spirituality doesn’t go away easily. I find that elements of pagan culture call to me much more than the way that the Dharma is popularly interpreted in the West. Buddhism in North America smells as much of Protestant Christianity or a need to get away from anything smacking of religion as two of its strongest elements. I don’t have a need to incorporate either of those into what I do or practice. This feeling is much of what led to this blog even existing.

So…Zen Druidry. This discussion was of a more personal nature for James and me, since we’re Zen practitioners (and he is, in fact, my primary teacher within Zen). How to take what we value from the Dharma and incorporate it in what we value in Neopaganism, specifically in the ideals of modern Druidism… This is an interesting idea and kind of a thought experiment at this point though I suspect that he and I may go further with it.

We tried to come up with what the Dharma, mostly Zen but not just Zen, has to teach Druids and other Neopagans:

Disciplined, well tried, and well organized methods of meditation (shamatha, vipasyana, mixed, esoteric)
A focus on practice retreats, alone and with others
Methods of teacher/student interaction for insight (koan interviews and the koan curriculum)
Well-developed underlying philosophical/metaphysical structure that supports awakening
A focus on the goal of awakening to the nature of the world but also on the Bodhisattva Vow, which makes the goal of awakening to be for the good of ALL beings, and which focuses on helping others on the path.

What does paganism have to offer to Zen folks that they might be missing?

A different view of community/grove/sangha
A western approach to engaging with nature (important in Japanese Zen moreso than anywhere else)
An established lexicon for "translating" and understanding the aforementioned philosophy/metaphysics
A freedom to change/play/innovate with methods and ways of practice or teaching (less rigidity)
Less of a dogmatic attachment to history and 2,600 years of ongoing tradition leading often to ossification
Ties to Western cultural roots instead of visions of Asian exoticism and "orientalism" (as a way of making Asia into an "other")

One of the nice things about practicing from the Neopagan (and especially Druid) side of things, is that pagans realize people are putting things together and making up things as they go. They work out new things, inspired by tradition (or romantic ideals of tradition) and keep “what works.” Everyone involved with Neopaganism knows that people are making it up and folks are largely fine with it. There is no mystical Druid College off on the Emerald Isle to come offer oversight here. If an organization or grove does things in a way you don’t like, you can always leave or make a schism without that much of a problem. Buddhists, especially in the West, are often very conservative in approach and practice. There is little room for trying new things, making stuff up, and jettisoning things that don’t work well here. Instead, we become scholars of the Pali Canon and engage in Talmudic interpretation of what the Buddha said. There is a place for such things (and knowledge of history and traditions never hurts anyone!) but it can often feel quite stifling and rigid.

Right now, I’m very tempted to find a way to explain common “calm abiding” (shamatha) and “insight” (vipassana) practices in Druidic (or even larger Neopagan) terminology and combine teaching those and doing some celebratory and other rites into something similar to a short Buddhist retreat. Wouldn’t it be interesting for both pagans and open Dharma practitioners to come to a three or four day practice retreat near the woods or the ocean where we combined sitting meditation, instruction in some koan practice, hiking and nature walks with observation, and some actual celebration of being alive in this world and of the world around us. It sounds, to me, to be a lot more fulfilling than either a number of the Dharma practice retreats I’ve been on (sit…walk…sit…walk…eat…clean…sit…walk…) or just hanging out dancing around a maypole while having a campout. Both of these are caricatures but I do think there is a place where the union of the techniques and views of the Dharma could enhance the experience and views of Druidry and other forms of Neopaganism (and vice versa). I think that the Druids are likely to allow space for this kind of thing to be tried without being too against it. I fear that the Buddhist groups would be far less open to such ideas.

Does this sound interesting to you? I’m sure that Steve and the Zen Odinists would be open to this sort of thing (though they are on the other side of the planet from me).

A New and Quicker Format

2013-03-08T11:45:00-08:00

Biting off more than I can chew...

I haven’t been posting as much here or any of my other blogs as of late. This is the perenial generic blog complaint of “I know that I haven’t been posting much…”

Well, it is true. I have reflected on this the last few years and compared it to the first few years I was blogging (well, up until late 2008, really), and I realize that most of the energy that I put into it really has been subsumed by things like twitter and other forms of online interaction. If you have only so many words in a week that you want to type and you work for a tech company where most of your interaction with people is through text in bugs, online chat, and so forth, it really is more trouble to write.

I have recently been inspired by my friend, Jonathan, and his blog. Jonathan doesn’t do a lot of long form posts, what I once considered the main justification for blogging, but he managing to post some of a medium form length at least a couple of times a week on average. That seems to be a good ballpark these days. That is kind of the tumblrification of blogging. Short, one page, posts that are too long for twitter or the like. Like Jonathan, I prefer to own my own content and host it in a place under my control (not tumblr), so I will continue to host it here (and on makehacklearn or Pagan Dharma).

I serve this blog via Github Pages and I’m using prose.io now to try to do quick and simple writing. I’m going to try to commit myself to posting at least two things a week here, even if they are short bits. We’ll see how I do. I still have a couple of book reviews to get up as well.

Words on my Grandfather

2013-01-29T14:30:00-08:00

My Grandparents

This morning, my maternal grandfather, Ethan Beals, died. To my recollection, he was 85 years old, growing up during the Great Depression. He had been suffering from Parkinson’s these last few years and have collapsed suddenly about a year ago. Since that time, he’s been in a care facility and started to dramatically deteriorate mentally and physically in the last six months. His passing is not unexpected but is definitely a bit of a shock.

I have had an unusual relationship with my grandparents. I was their only grandchild until my brother was born when I was nine and he and I were the only grandchildren until my other cousins were born another eight or so years later. For the entirety of my early childhood, I was the only child in the family and one of two until I was practically an adult. My youngest uncle is only nine years older than me, the same distance is between us as is between me and my brother.

In the 1980’s and into the 1990’s, I lived with my grandparents in Seattle. I had moved away to Utah at age nine and come back to Seattle at fourteen, briefly. I somehow managed to convince them to let me stay, instead of returning to Utah with my mother and brother, as I was in high school already. Later, I again somehow convinced them to allow me to skip my senior year of high school and go to college. They loved and supported me during the entirety of this, wanting me to get an education and be happy, and giving me a home. I didn’t always get along with them and was a rather difficult teen and young man at times, but they still gave me a home.

Ethan was there when I didn’t really have a father in my life until I was an adult. Grandpa was overwhelmingly the positive male influence in my life, a strong and stoic fellow, though not terribly communicative or without his issues. He was definitely stubborn but had a wonderful sense of humor if you could see it (I still remember him sitting there and laughing at a string of “funny” numbers). He was an electrical engineer at Boeing for more than 30 years. Under his influence, I built my first computer and became unafraid to poke at things or try to understand technology. He believed in education and hard work.

Ethan was a deeply religious man and a longstanding member of the Nazarene Church, a form of Methodism. He and I did not share the same faith and while I know this concerned him, my grandmother, and probably much of our family, he and I never had any intense or disagreeable arguments or fights centered on faith or, really, at all. I always assumed, because we never spoke about it, that he was disappointed in my choices but that he and my grandmother still loved me (which she tells me whenever we speak). As someone who has walked an odd spiritual path to my Buddhism, I appreciated the love even with the disagreement on faith and never felt judged by them.

Ethan was married to my grandmother, Mae-Sallee, for more than 50 years. They raised two sons by birth, another son by adoption, my mother, and, to a great extent, me, in the course of this time. As an example of a man living an upright and moral life, I don’t think I could ask for one finer.

I miss you, grandpa. Godspeed.

Foldarap Adventures

2013-01-19T21:30:00-08:00

When last I wrote, I said that I was building a Rostock Mini 3D printer. That is still true but I hit a few snags. The creator, who did a lot of cool work making a parameterized design for it, never quite published his extruder design. That means that I’ve been trying to figure out how I was going to get the business end of the printer extruding plastic. I’ve been looking at v3 of the Airtripper Bowden Extruder but had to order a bunch of parts for it. (As an aside, while I do everything in metric to maintain compatibility with the worldwide making community, it is a real pain to get metric screws of all sizes in any number so I have to order them and wait wait wait…) This combined with needing to replace the carbon pieces that I was using for arms meant that I was a little stalled out on the Rostock Mini.

Foldarap by Emmanuel Gilloz

So, like any dumb hacker, I decided to work on another printer instead. I guess I’ve caught the reprap bug. I decided to make a FoldaRap. Emmanuel Gilloz, a French hacker, came up with his own RepRap design that uses 20 mm extruded aluminum (which is cheap) that can be folded up and put into a padded case. This makes it a both affordable design but one that can easily be taken to hackerspaces, conferences, or other events. Since I’ve had to lug my Up! Plus to Ace Monster Toys three or four times in the foot well of my car, this is a real plus.

Foldarap in Suitcase by Emmanuel Gilloz

Building this, the most difficult part has been sourcing the materials. Emmanuel is in France and they have a different convenient supply chain in Europe. He published his build of materials but I had to do my best to make some adjustments (and find yet more metric screws). The two biggest issues were the source of the aluminum extrusion and the fact that he used some RepRap Huxley components, including a Huxley hotend.

With the Huxley components, that meant that he used a 140 mm square aluminum heating bed. Since Prusa Mendels are the most common RepRaps that I see here in the US, I either had to order overseas for the bed or cut my own. I actually found an individual making them, removing the necessicity to cut my own plate and then tap it for screw holes for mounting.

Most American builders are using hotends from Makergear or J-Head hotends (which are out of stock for my size plastic except for Chinese copies). I didn’t feel inclined to deal with yet another custom extruder system (see Rostock Mini issues at beginning of post) so I wound up getting the Huxley extruder that Emmanuel recommended, minus a few unnecessary parts.

The extrusion of choice here in the US is MiSumi 2020. It costs $3 for a 300 mm long piece, which means for about $30 plus cheap shipping (in California even), I can have regular, solid aluminum pieces. As a bonus, Misumi will cut to length in half millimeter increments so the pieces arrive ready to go.

All of my materials arrived about a week ago except for my Huxley hotend and my aluminum (with the exception of my control electronics). I used my existing printer to start making pieces per the FoldaRap design and immediately hit a snag: my plastic wouldn’t fit on my extrusion. (No, that isn’t a euphemism.) I asked Emmanuel about it on the RapRap forums and he was very responsive to questions. Initially, it seemed that my Up! wasn’t printing with enough precision to fit the gap between my extrusion but, pulling out my calipers and then looking at Emmanuel’s designs, I found that his design had a 1.5 mm gap where my extrusion was (roughly) 2 mm thick:

not 2 mm!

Luckily for me, open source wins! Emmanuel has the source for the FoldaRap up on github. Like many hackers, he does all of his 3D design in Sketchup (because it is free and easy to use, I assume). I’ve never done much with it but I’ve seen it used at AMT quite a bit by a few of our members. A quick download of it and the github source and I had parts to stare at. I then spent an hour givining myself a crash course in how to alter metric parts in Sketchup, expanding the gap in the above picture by half a millimeter on four pieces that needed to fit with a plastic ‘T’ connector. Exporting it out to STL format, I started a test print and went to dinner with my wife. On returning home, I tried it out and it worked!

If Emmanuel wants it, I’ll submit a patch to Github with the Misumi specific changes to the four files. I made a separate sketchup file with just those four pieces in it. That might be my first submitted patch on github if I do so.

I’m now printing out the other three pieces (two of them are three hour prints each) so I can begin the actual process of assembling the FoldaRap over this three day weekend. Given the missing electronics and general slackitude, I don’t expect that I’ll finish it this weekend (hmm…I’m missing my power supply as well, come to think of it) but I do expect progress. I’ll then get back to my pesky Rostock Mini. I expect that the FoldaRap build will go quite a bit more quickly as Emmanuel’s build documentation is quite thorough with both pictures and video of the various stages.

Building a Rostock Mini

2012-12-31T16:00:00-08:00

I haven’t posted in a while here, largely because I haven’t finished any interesting projects lately. The one thing that I’ve been building recently is a delta printer. This is a slightly different design than the standard for a reprap printer.

Johann, up in Seattle, has been playing with these during the last eight months or so. He published an initial design on Thingiverse, which led to a lot of people getting excited and working on the project. (In fact, there is a very active Google Group for it, right now.)

You can see his original version doing a print below:

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For those familiar with reprap printers, this is a very different model for moving the printing head.

Brian Evans in Colorado came up with a variant, called the Rostock Mini (or here. Originally, it was meant to be a more desktop sized version of the Rostock, as they can get quite large. In the process of making it, Brian created an OpenSCAD version of it that is parameterized, so you can create an arbitrarily sized version. It turns out, it isn’t really that desktop sized but it more convenient.

Right now, I have an Up! Plus printer, which is a closed source Chinese printer. It is pretty reliable but you can’t do fairly standard things, within the open source reprap community, like tweaking the slicer settings or temperatures. While I’ve enjoyed using it, I’ve found it frustrating enough that I wanted to build a new reprap printer. Seeing Brian’s design, I decided to start on a Rostock Mini a couple of months ago. It took a while for me to get parts printed, then I had to track down all of the various metric screws, bolts, etc., as well as electronics for it and steppers. If there is a complaint that I have about making reprap printers, it is that by the time you source all of the parts from various places, it winds up being at least 30% more expensive than you expect and you often sit around waiting for a single piece that you’re missing. In fact, at this moment, I’m still waiting to track down pieces for my Bowden extruder, needing just one or two of several screws which are sold in bags of 50 or 100 for $10.

That said, I made significant progress on putting everything together the other day, as you can see below. I printed out most of my plastic components in a colorful purple PLA plastic. I found some cast off pieces of smoking acrylic at Ace Monster Toys (they were corners left over from a larger project) and cut them on our lasercutter, along with some cork for dampening motor vibration. This weekend, I got the basic frame assembled except for the extruder platform and the three carriages where it mounts to the frame.

You can see my whole photo set for the build so far over on Flickr.

The next steps are to get the extruder platform built and the hot end mounted, then connecting belts to motors, and mounting electronics. Finally, I’ll have to get the Bowden extruder mounted to it and connected.

I figure it might take me another month to get it built as I’m not in a rush but it looks pretty good so far and I’m looking forward to seeing how well it prints.

Pagandharma is up again

2012-12-12T11:45:00-08:00

I had a brief project in 2011 called “Pagan Dharma” that was up on pagandharma.org. I wound up feeling uninspired to write much at the time and my co-author got busy with her graduate work and other things, like health, so eventually I took the site down.

Yesterday, I put the site back up and I’ve retrieved the old content from the Internet Archive. I added two things as well:

Reinvention? - basically saying why I put the site back up.
What’s the point of a Pagan Dharma, Part One - the first in a multi-part series of turgid prose from my point of view about the idea of Pagan Dharma.

Some of my readers here may be inclined to read such things. Since I don’t actually know who my “base” is anymore, it is hard to say but there it is.

Catherine is going to write some more as well, I expect, based on our communications and there is the potential for another suprise guest author in this next month if he finds the spare time to write some things up.

Another Side of Sasaki

2012-11-27T14:30:00-08:00

Since I did the post yesterday mentioning the current allegations (which I expect are true) of sexual abuse/predation/who the hell knows by Kyozan Joshu Sasaki towards female students, I thought it might be interesting to present some of the other views of him, as popularily presented. This shows a bit of why there is so much of a storm over this and of his historical role in American Zen over the last 50 years.

This is not an an endorsement of Sasaki (or a defense). As I clearly said yesterday, I cannot think of a single circumstance where sexual relations between a student and teacher are appropriate, let alone teachers grabbing people and molesting them, as is alleged by some. This is just to show that there is definitely another side and that Sasaki has had a profoundly positive effect on at least some people and their practice.

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Shinzen Young on three things he got from Sasaki

Shinzen Young states above that he learned three things from Sasaki after Shinzen came back from Japan and studied with him:

Not to suppress his sense of self.
The paradigm of impermanence in terms of expansion and contraction, which is core to Shinzen’s work now.
The “direct vibe” of working with a teacher who has realized this or the “zap of the flow of nothingness” during teacher/student interviews and the need to incorporate it away from the interview.

I suspect that female students may have gotten a different “zap” in interviews but this raises interesting questions. I’ve met Shinzen Young (at Buddhist Geeks 2011) and spent a little time with him and his students. He strikes me as the “real deal” and the #2 point above is a core part of Shinzen’s teaching. What does it mean when a seemingly excellent teacher has gotten so much of his practice and inspiration from another teacher who turns out to, potentially, be so problematic? Does it invalidate anything or does it validate that the teachers are just containers or tranmitters of something? I’m not sure.

Then there is Leonard Cohen on Sasaki:

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Unlike Shinzen Young, Cohen doesn’t have much to directly say here about what he learned from Sasaki but it is clear, here and elsewhere, that he felt a deep afinity for what Sasaki taught, enough that Cohen stayed on Mt. Baldy for years, ordaining as a monk. Cohen speaks more about it in this video as well, part of a biographical film on Sasaki that features others speaking as well.

All of this makes Sasaki so much more problematic to me than Eido Shimano, of whom I had never heard anyone speak so highly. What is this man’s legacy likely to wind up being?

The Old Woman Burns the Hermitage

2012-11-26T14:10:00-08:00

Oh, the exciting world of Zen. Another month, another sexual scandal. Lately, I’ve become rather exhausted with the idea of discussing these. It turns out that Zen teachers and students are much the same as everyone else. I gather this is horribly disillusioning to many but I just see it as confirmation that people are “just folks” and Zen isn’t something special, not matter how magical some people try to make it.

If you really look at the number of people involved in these troubles versus the number of actual students and teachers out there, we wind up discussing the foibles of less than a dozen Zen teachers. If you then remove ones that are the common human failings of addiction (alcohol) and infidelity, you come down to a few (two that I can think of) potential sexual predators and a number of others being stupid about the power dynamics of teacher/student involvements. It is all rather tawdry but, for the most part, rather mundane, I’m afraid to say.

The reason why the new scandal is so interesting to folks is because of the overall position of the teacher in question and the multi-decade history (perhaps still ongoing) of the problems. The teacher in question is Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, who runs the Mount Baldy Zen Center. He’s rather well known because he isn’t far from Los Angeles, has been teaching in the U.S. for 50 years this year, and has been rather influential in American Zen, at least by perceived importance and longevity. He’s 105 (!!) this year, which makes the fact that of this being a sexual scandal all the more weird/odd/unsettling. One normally thinks of this as something younger men go about doing, not the guy who’s 25 years older than my own grandfather.

An acquaintance of mine (and a Zen priest), Eshu Martin, came forward with the allegations in a post on Sweeping Zen (which I must resist calling “Seeping Zen” at this point). Sweeping Zen has taken it upon itself, for better or worse, to be the “go to” place for Zen scandals in the last year or two (to the point where I’ve become rather tired of the site). In his post, “Everybody Knows” (nice Leonard Cohen reference there), Rev. Martin states:

Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the founder and Abbot of Rinzai-ji is now 105 years old, and he has engaged in many forms of inappropriate sexual relationship with those who have come to him as students since his arrival here more than 50 years ago. His career of misconduct has run the gamut from frequent and repeated non-consensual groping of female students during interview, to sexually coercive after hours “tea” meetings, to affairs and sexual interference in the marriages and relationships of his students. Many individuals that have confronted Sasaki and Rinzai-ji about this behaviour have been alienated and eventually excommunicated, or have resigned in frustration when nothing changed; or worst of all, have simply fallen silent and capitulated. For decades, Joshu Roshi’s behaviour has been ignored, hushed up, downplayed, justified, and defended by the monks and students that remain loyal to him.

He then states that everyone in the sangha there for any length of time, specifically attendants, fellow priests, etc., have known about this behavior and have even, especially in recent decades, enabled it as Sasaki became older and more frail. When confronted, the leadership has failed to address the situation or even really act on it, he alleges. This is all very reminiscent of Eido Shimano and his scandal as the leader of the Zen Studies Society though one gets the sense that Sasaki is a bit less of a predator (except for his complete abuse of his position and the inherent power dynamic) than the rather overtly predatory behavior alleged to have been practiced by Shimano.

What are we to do here, assuming this is true (and I have no reason to doubt that it is)? Yet another high figure of American Zen turns out, tragically, to be a frisky old goat that abuses woman whom he is supposed to be teaching, not groping? Is Zen morally bankrupt or unable to teach basic ethics, as some are stating? I don’t think so. I think this is another, rather horrid, example of group think, the enacting of power, and the overwhelming power of sexuality for human beings (and perhaps the basis of power in a group of primates). Given the abuses that have occurred in other forms of Buddhism (I can think of Vajrayana and Theravadan incidents, just off the top of my head) and the same kinds of problems in Christian Churches, Marxist organizations, etc., this all turns out to be very ordinary.

This is not to say or imply that it is acceptable. It is not. As far as I’m concerned, there is no appropriate sexual relationship between any Zen teacher and any student. The power dynamics and the muddledness of relations that sexuality brings in makes it entirely outside acceptability. I rather like the Code of Conduct for the Boundless Way Zen Sangha here:

Our practice is one of intimacy. It can be warmhearted and close. And relationships between teachers and students, as with therapeutic relationships, usually involve powerful psychic conditions including projection, transference and counter-transference, among others. In addition there are the complexities found within the power differential that exists between a teacher and a student. With these various circumstances it is tempting to cross a line from spiritual intimacy to sexual intimacy. And whatever the merits of sexual intimacy, this type of relationship tends to confuse the other aspects of intimate relationship necessary for a successful teacher and student relationship.

Again, sexuality is a natural part of life and as a non-celibate sangha, sexual intimacy is going to be a cherished part of our shared lives. However, those who teach have additional responsibilities and our covenant includes several commitments regarding sexual behavior.

No priest, senior Dharma teacher or transmitted teacher who is married or in a committed relationship should engage in sexual activities with any person outside of their stated commitment.

Any priest, senior Dharma teacher or transmitted teacher who finds a romantic relationship beginning with a member of the sangha should inform the EAR Committee of this relationship and seek guidance as to the most healthful way to proceed.

If the people involved are in a teacher-student relationship, a choice must be made between either pursuing that personal relationship or continuing the teacher-student relationship, but not both. The EAR Committee should help in this decision-making process. A resolution should be achieved with as little delay and as much openness and transparency as humanly possible.

They, wisely, understand that, well, shit happens and people fall in love and/or feel sexual attraction. They also recognize that it is completely inappropriate for a student/teacher relationship.

I think we need, at the very least, three things:

The adoption of a code of conduct by all Zen sanghas (and social reinforcement that this is necessary)
The establishment of an independent body (or affiliation with an existing one) that can act as a clearing house for reports of abuse. This body should not be composed of the priests/monks/ordained sangha of Zen organizations. It should not have ties to any power structure that might be jeopardized by reports of abuse.
The actual involvement of police and legal authorities, including civil suits as well as criminal ones, in resolving the crimes that have occurred and may occur in the future.

What finally caused the Roman Catholic Church to, poorly, begin to try to figure out how to deal with decades of sexual abuse by a number of priests? It wasn’t internal discussions and policies, which appear to have mostly focused on how to protect the Church as a whole (which wound up also shielding the priests). It was Johnny Law. Legal cases suing the various diocese and the criminal cases against both the individual priests and those that shielded them, allowing the problems to continue. Zen organizations will quit turning a blind eye to abuse, unfortunately, when they are forced to do so. Again, I don’t think this is an inherently “Zen” issue but something which all organizations or groups with an inside and an outside can have happen. Structures of authority, of people getting invested in leaders, etc. all allow for this. When people at Mt Baldy or the Zen Studies Society (and other places) realize that the organization can lose its property, go bankrupt, or be destroyed and their boards and senior members could be personally liable and potentially go to jail…that’s when these issues will be systematically addressed. In other words, we have a legal system, use it.

As a last point, I am reminded of a koan that I know from my own training, being part of both Zen Master Seung Sahn’s collection of koans and also part of the Japanese Rinzai tradition. This koan involves an old priest, a young maid, and sexuality. I’m going to close with it.

The Old Woman Burns the Hermitage

It is said that if you practice hard for ten years you will attain something. So, as is customary among many Buddhist laypeople, an old woman in China once supported a monk for ten years. She provided him with food and clothing, and allowed him to live in a hermitage that she provided. For his part, the monk only practiced very, very hard, and did not have to concern himself with anything else.

After ten years, however, there was still no news from the monk. “What did he attain?’’ she wondered. “I must test this monk.” So one afternoon, the woman summoned her sixteen- year-old daughter, who was considered one of the most beautiful girls in the village. Her mother asked her to put on makeup, her best perfume, and clothing made of the finest materials. Then she gave her daughter instructions for testing the monk, loaded her up with plenty of fine food and clothing, and sent her off to the hermitage. The woman’s daughter was very excited about the plan!

When she arrived at the hermitage, she bowed to the monk and said, “You have been here for ten years, so my mother made this special food and clothing for you.”

“Oh, thank you very much,” the monk replied. “Your mother is a great Bodhisattva for supporting me like this for so long.”

Just then, the girl strongly embraced the monk, kissed him, and said, “How do you feel now?”

“Rotten log on cold rocks. No warmth in winter.”

Releasing him, the girl bowed deeply and said, “You are certainly a great monk!” She returned home, full of happiness and admiration, to report the incident to her mother. “Mother, Mother! This monk’s center is very strong, his mind is not moving! He must have attained something!”

“It doesn’t matter if his center is very strong, or if his mind cannot be moved, or if he is a wonderful monk. What I want to know is, what did he say?” “Oh, his words were also wonderful, Mother. He said, ‘Rotten log on cold rocks. No warmth in winter.”’

“What!?” the old woman shouted. Fuming, she grabbed a big stick, ran to the hermitage and mercilessly beat the monk, shouting, “Go away! Get out of here! I’ve spent ten years helping a demon!” Then she burned the hermitage to the ground.

So, is it time to burn the hermitage to the ground, folks?

Feast of the Mighty

2012-11-03T12:48:00-07:00

Last night I went to a neopagan ritual locally in Oakland. For the non-pagans out there who somehow missed out on Halloween symbolism (or who aren’t Americans), Halloween commonly has associations with the dead, largely through Catholicism. The neopagans, of a general sort as well as the Celtic types, associate Samhain, October 31 these days, with the Dead, and consider it the time to honor the dead and when the “veil between the worlds” (of the living and dead) is the thinnest. Here in California, we also have Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, celebrated on All Saints Day, November 1, which is drawn from Mexican traditions (we have a lot of Hispanic folks, dontchaknow).

In my house, we put up a Day of the Dead altar every year. We’ve been doing this since we lived in Seattle. On it, we put our dead friends and family, those lost to us over the years, and, strangely, the altar only grows over time as we age. This year, we added my wife’s father and her aunt, both lost to us by illness.

Because of this and other life events, we’ve been somewhat contemplative (moreso?) of death this year. I heard about the local ritual, called the “Feast of the Mighty,” through Facebook and/or local friends. Most of my extended community is still composed of Neopagans, magicians, and occult folks, as well as hackerspace types. The ritual was, not surprisingly, a feast, held at a local hall. The description from the organizers was as follows:

Feast of the Mighty: A Celtic Samhain Feast with the Gods, Ancestors and Mighty Ones

Presented by the Coru Cathubodua, a priesthood dedicated to the Morrigan.

Come join us at the turning of the year to celebrate the great Celtic feast of Samhain! Share a Celtic-style feast of ancient foods as we dine with the Otherworldly host. Raise a glass in honor of your Ancestors, Gods and those who are to come after us. Join in the tale as the myths of the mighty heroes of old are brought to life to inspire our lives. Lend your spirit as we renew the Sovereignty of the land at the turning of the year.

An ancient period-style Celtic feast will be laid out in three courses, providing the structure for the evening’s ritual. We have selected recipes for the feast that closely match the kinds of foods our ancestors would have eaten, relying as much as possible on fresh, local and seasonal ingredients, with an eye to what would have been available to the ancients.

Ritual Details:

The Samhain ritual will be enacted in three parts: the first dedicated to the Ancestors, the second to the Gods and the Fey, and the third dedicated to the Descendents, those who will come after us. We will open the Otherworld gateway and invite the Mighty Ones to join us in feast and celebration as we enact the ancient stories of their heroic deeds: Brave warriors who ventured out to meet the host of the Sidhe on the haunted eve of Samhain. The Morrigan’s gift of prophecy and blessing for the mighty Dagda, on the eve of Samhain, when the Tuatha De Danaan prepared to fight for the sovereignty of Ireland. And the untold story of our own generation’s heroes, and those to come after us.

An altar will be set up where you are welcome to place pictures and mementos of your own Ancestors and beloved Dead, and places will be set at the tables where we may feed them.

We attended and it was… interesting. Rebecca added to the altar when we arrived. I found the ritual activities moving but also very familiar. I spent a lot of time at various points over the years in the kind of social and ritual environment in which this ritual took place. The delineating of sacred space, the calling of the ancestors, the reciting of old tales, and the seeking of light from the dead, ritually, as well as the act of eating and drinking with and in remembrance of the dead were all familiar and moving as well. This is the kind of ritual that I don’t see within the Buddhist communities I function within. While most of my Buddhist activities are done as a solitary, without a local community but a more distributed one, even those that do have a local community really don’t seem to do things of this sort. This aspect of community and celebratory religion really is missing from most forms of Western Buddhism, whether Zen or otherwise. It does bring home elements of what I lost when I explicitly turned my back on sixteen or so years of being a Neopagan. Once upon a time, I helped lead a kindred that did exactl this sort of ritual, though in a more Germanic vein. It does tend to seem very familiar (moreso than the Catholicism of my youth, even). That said, I’m as theistically challenged as ever so I’m probably not going to become a Morrigan worshipper.

It was a good way to remember our dead and the fact that they are never really gone from us, even though they are no longer with us in other ways.

In the Footsteps of Wonhyo

2012-09-24T14:40:00-07:00

The other day, I heard about a new kickstarter, In the Footsteps of Wonhyo, when my own teacher backed it. As the kickstarter page explains:

This documentary explores the ancient Korean monastic way of life in the mountains through the eyes of a Western pilgrim travelling across South Korea. Besides introducing the audience to the beauty of Korean nature, and the wisdom and simplicity of Korean Zen Buddhism, the film will encourage the creation of an official Buddhist pilgrimage trail covering 500 km. When this documentary is made, and when the route is established in the future, it will help thousands to increase their wisdom and compassion, control their karma (habitual patterns) as well as provide economic growth to rural Korea along the path.

The narrator, a retired Canadian writer and Buddhist, follows in the footsteps of a beloved 7th Century Korean Buddhist saint Wonhyo who, according to popular tradition, found enlightenment in a cave near the western seaboard after walking across the Korean peninsula. The narrator discusses with meditation masters in the mountain monasteries Wonhyo’s teachings on oneness and reconciliation and asks questions such as: “How do you overcome suffering and achieve happiness?”, “Can one attain enlightenment in the cities, or does one have to go to the mountains?” and “What spiritual advice would you give to people watching this documentary?”.

In and of itself, this looks to be an interesting project. As a general rule, I try to back Buddhist focused kickstart projects that actually look interesting or likely to educate or otherwise do some good. As a practitioner drawing heavily from the Korean Buddhist traditions, this project is actually pretty near and dear to my heart.

The project is more interesting than just the film, though, since this is the second time that the makers have done this pilgrimage. If you go over to their site at inthefootstepsofwonhyo.com, you can see that the film is an outgrowth of a previous pilgrimage, done last Fall as part of the “Wonhyo Pilgrimage Project.” Four of these fellows (the same people involved in the current filming work, I believe) hiked accross Korea, staying at temples and local places along the way. If you dig through their site, scrolling back through the older pages, you can see the entries for the two weeks of their trip, which ended at Wonhyo’s cave. It makes for some interesting reading and I think it adds quite a bit of context to the current filming. (They also have a flickr stream of images from last Fall as well.)

As an aside, in the course of going through this, I found this new (to me) story of Wonhyo and an encounter with the Bodhisattva of Compassion, usually known in the West as “Kwan Yin” from the Chinese. David Mason explains how Wonhyo messed up in being compassionate and taking what was given to him when encountering a stranger on his way to the temple. These kinds of stories remind me of the old European tales of travellers encountering gods and failing (or succeeding) in offering hospitality to them with all of the attendent repercussions.

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I think that this is a worthy project to back if you are a Buddhist or even just interested in this sort of thing. This is an example of the kind of thing that I think crowdsourcing excels at: a small project doing something interesting and not even looking for a lot of funding. Please consider backing In the Footsteps of Wonhyo.

OMFG Closed Source 3D Printers

2012-09-20T11:40:00-07:00

Bre Pettis

Wow. I posted about the new Makerbot Industries Replicator 2 yesterday. I’m still, site unseen except for the videos, impressed by the design and taking things to a prosumer level but Bre and MI have apparently confirmed that the software and (it seems?) the hardware are both closed source, at least according to Josef Prusa, and people are having an Internet style freakout.

Since the first Makerbot machine, the Cupcake, and all subsequent ones, were iterations off of designs from the RepRap community. RepRap is pretty much the epitomy of an open source community in both hardware and software. Earlier versions of the Makerbot software, ReplicatorG, just wrapped up existing open source RepRap software components. There has always been some tension between Makerbot Industries as a company selling itself and its ideas to the public (and investors) and the open source roots of their work but they have handled it fairly well until now. Bre and others there have been involved publicly in various open hardware events. MI released their designs for printers to the community, making them available in repositories and on Thingiverse, their site for hosting designs. This has led to quit a few knockoffs and a few outright clones, such as the Tangibot that had a failed kickstarter and was simply a direct, Chinese manufactured, clone of the existing MI Replicator. People have wondered if MI was going to continue to be an open source company in the face of threats like Tangibot, especially with having taken VC money in the last year.

Because of this history and the reactions of many open source folks to commercialization of FOSS work, people often seem to have an ambivalent relationship to Makerbot Industries. I’ve been one of them, having felt burned by the way they abandoned support of existing product lines almost immediately on shipping new versions, which is not what you expect from a commercial company with customers. At my hackerspace, this has made us unwilling to rely on MI for our printers, causing us to look at and use various alternatives (and to not replace our aging Cupcakes with newer MI designs).

Today, the shitstorm has landed (more of a shitnami as I write this). Josef Prusa, of “Prusa Mendel” fame, claims that he’s called MI and exchanged email with Bre Pettis and that it is confirmed that the new Replicator 2 and Makerware, their new software, are closed source. I’m not sure if this understanding is actually true or if it is that the software is closed source (it has a spiffy giant EULA) with open source components and the Replicator 2 reference designs will be open sourced once they’ve actually shipping in a month or two. The latter is what they did with previous designs, not making them available until after they ship. Regardless of the final picture on this, the RepRep and 3D printing community is freaking out today.

The comment thread on Josef’s post is pretty epic (and his “Occupy Thingiverse” post on Thingiverse.com) and now there are a series of Google+ proclamations and responses (see 1, 2, and 3) as people start freaking out about the not-very-recently-changed Thingiverse EULA since Thingiverse is operated by MI. Josef’s post and the controversy have also made Slashdot and Reddit today with people making various proposals for moving the hosting of designs off of Thingiverse.

This ought to get interesting but I do hope people calm down. Even if MI and Bre have decided to go closed source, it doesn’t necessarily really affect the RepRap (or larger 3D printing community), given that 3D printing has been dominated by fairly large, closed source, corporate entities for decades. People can continue to iterate on designs and improve things. Personally, as much as I wish that it was open source, having an affordable (under $3,000) 3D printer that is reliable and usable by non-geeks will raise the bar for the larger community. It gives people a target to beat and to do so with open source. I do think people are up to the challenge and I look forward to seeing their work.

Update: Bre has posted an official reponse to the kerfuffle.

New Makerbot Printer

2012-09-19T13:40:00-07:00

Wow, today is an unexpected news day for 3D printing. Over at Ace Monster Toys, we’ve had a number of 3D printers, either in the space (Makerbot Cupcakes, part of a Prusa Mendel, and a Printrbot LC) but have always found them a bit of a pain in the ass, frankly. By and large, they haven’t lived up to the hype, mostly because of maintenance issues which make them a bit unreliable for the kind of day in and day out printing by random folks that you expect to have in a hackerspace.

We’ve been talking about getting an Up printer for a while. The downside of the Up printer is that it isn’t open source. It is a Chinese made printer using the ideas from the RepRap community but using closed source software. It isn’t a tinkerer’s device. A lot of people who have 3D printers have them as a project in and of themselves, which makes them fun to work on (I guess). If you just want to make a 3D file and print it, you’re less interested in the printer as its own project and just having it work. By a number of accounts of friends at professional prototyping shops and research groups, the Up just works. It feels bad since it betrays the open source ethos.

Because of all of this, we’ve gone back and forth on this. I still expect that we’re likely to get an Up at AMT, based on price and reliability. The wrinkle today is that Makerbot Industries, who was the first company to really comercialize RepRap hobbyist technology has finally created a printer that they consider a “prosumer” device, the Replicator 2. They announced it today in a live press event and their website has now been updated to reflect the new products.

My issues in the past with Makerbot Industries is that they tend to orphan users of their devices and have an annual or less update cycle. So, if you buy your new shiny printer kit from them, build it and are working with it, Makerbot Industries tends to end support a few months after you bought it in order to suddenly unveil their new printer. They don’t do legacy support, except within the community (not their staff), which really sucks. When I owned one of their Cupcake printers, I felt really burned by this. I know, for example, that Hacker Dojo in Mountain View just ordered a Replicator printer, which was the new hotness less than six months ago at Maker Faire, just a week or so ago. Suddenly, their printer is now old news and probably won’t be supported in six months.

So, this is the downside of a quickly iterating hardware startup.

The upside of quick iteration is that the state of the art seems to really improve quickly, which is the case today. The Replicator 2. It has a 0.1 mm layer height on the parts it prints out, which is damn good out of the box. I’ve seen other printers do this or better but not without a massive amount of tweaking and playing with them. This printer has gone from ye olde lasercut plywood, the standard for almost all, to a metal framed, factory assembled printer.

Features that they are listing are:

1.2 L x 6.1 W x 6 H in(12.75 in diagonal) buid area (which is huge)
100-micron layer resolution
Wear-resistant, oil-infused bronze bearings
Black powder-coated steel frame
Optimized for PLA (which is a nicer material in the long run)
New software (Makerware) which seems to be compiled code and optimized for use by normal humans (downside is that they are using a new file format…)

I’m actually excited by this device, which is unusual for my jaded self at this point. My main, personal, goal with a 3D printer is to design and print cool things. I’m actually quite tired of the ongoing “build and maintain a 3D printer from scratch or a kit” type projects. I just want to print stuff. This new Replicator 2, along with the current Up Plus and the upcoming Up Mini, is one of the few things out there to fulfill this goal.

The one downside is that Makerbot Industries’ prices keep going up. The Cupcake was something like $900 or $1,000 as a kit and the common price point is from there to about $1,400. This new device is $2,200, basically. That isn’t cheap, which means people really need to think about whether they want or need this device. It is definitely worth considering though.

Update: I see Wired magazine has a big piece up now. Make Magazine has a mini review up as well.

Making Clocks

2012-09-13T14:40:00-07:00

Today, a batch of Ardunino compatible nixie tub boards arrived from China. I heard about these a week ago on Professor Craven’s blog and immediately ordered four of them for myself. For those that don’t know what a Nixie Tube is, Wikipedia has the answers. As it says:

A Nixie tube is an electronic device for displaying numerals or other information. The glass tube contains a wire-mesh anode and multiple cathodes, shaped like numerals or other symbols. Applying power to one cathode surrounds it with an orange glow discharge. The tube is filled with a gas at low pressure, usually mostly neon and often a little mercury or argon, in a Penning mixture.

Basically, Nixie tubes were used before LED displays were invented to do alphanumeric displays on equipment, especially in the various militaries of the world. The numeric only ones, such as what people use for clocks, have the numbers 0 through 9 individually outlined, one on top of the other, with each one lit in turn as needed. If you’ve watched old 1960s science fiction movies, you’ve undoubtedly seen a Nixie tub display on a computer or piece of “high tech” equipment.

Professor Craven put a little video up yesterday of his tubes plugged into a board:

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I have a flickr photo set of one of the boards as received.

Like Professor Craven, I plan on using them for a clock of sorts. More specifically, I plan on making a meditation timer for shits and grins. The idea is that I will laser cut a box at Ace Monster Toys to hold the hardware. I’ll put an arduino and the Nixie tube boards in it, with two or more of the tubes poking out, as a display. I’ll probably use two to signify minutes. I’m then thinking of adding two solenoids that go out the sides, underneath to small metal bars or rods and a few buttons. The idea is that you can set a series of times on the clock, like a sitting period and then a walking period for meditation (or a series of these as pairs) via the buttons. When each period ends, the solenoids will fire a series of times (like two or three or one, depending on what just ended or if we’re completely done), which will strike the metal bars, triggering a chime.

This is similar to the “Zen Alarm Clock” that has been around forever but a bit less new agey and more…something.

This seems both appropriately hackerish or geeky and appropriately Buddhist, in some sense.

Mini Quadcopter fun at AMT

2012-09-13T12:00:00-07:00

Tim O'Brien's mini-quadcopter

Last night, we had our new semi-regular small open house at Ace Monster Toys. One of our members, Mark, had recently met another fellow, Tim O’Brien, and invited him to come by. While playing with a tiny toy (indoor) quadcopter that I picked up this week, Tim showed his scratch built mini-quadcopter. I gather from what he said (and what I see on his site), that he’s been building and creating quads for couple of years now. Most of the ones that you see are much larger, roughly 18 inches or so across and actually kind of awe inspiring if you turn them on in an enclosed space (which I don’t recommend). Some of us have been interested in mini or micro-quads because we’d like to be able to play with them inside of places like AMT or our homes and not just take our big flying lawnmowers to the park to fly. The fact that Tim had hacked a relatively nice one together of just that size made it rather fun to see and it was a nice coincidence that he showed up and brought it. Tim has a post on what I assume is a previous iteration of the same design, in which he built his own platform for it for a class.

I took a brief phone video of him flying his in the space (pardon my shaking cam hands) that gives a sense of the size of his quadcopter:

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Since AMT has one member who regularly flies quads and something like four or five of us that have been building them but never really flown them, having someone with a few years of experience, including building from scratch, would be nice. (My big quad is fully built but completely uncalibrated for flight, for example, and Tim offered to help me calibrate it quickly.) I’ve asked Tim to come do a short presentation or introduction to quadcopters for some evening. We’re going to figure out schedules so he can come to AMT for an hour or so some evening and talk about his work.

Gateless Gate Artwork Series

2012-08-29T11:30:00-07:00

I just came across this the other day. A artist named “Mark Morse” is doing a series of images of the entire Gateless Gate koan collection and putting them up online at gatelessgate.com. Mark admits to the meditative side of working with the collection being a mystery but is inspired by the stories and the imagery in them. He’s going to do an image of each koan with one new drawing added every week. He’s also been narrating them and adding them to his Youtube channel as well.

Here is an example of his images. This is for “Case 2: Hyakujo’s Fox.”

Mark told me over e-mail that he’ll eventually have an Etsy store set up so people can buy his images but his main priority right now is just making the images, which is taking all of his free time.

I really encourage people to go check out his site, especially Zen practitioners.

Outline of a Social Meditation Application

2012-08-15T16:12:00-07:00

This is an outline of a social meditation application that I’ve been considering this morning as a brainstorming thing. The idea is to help those of us isolated without a local sangha with which we sit to sit together (in time) online. Potentially, there is also some support for gamification and peer support by treating it as a kind of social media. Think of Fitocracy for meditation.

This would be a website and an associtated mobile application. I’ll probably use the “sitnow.org” domain for this.

The following is just my initial notes during my thinking between security meetings at work.

Whether to do this as an iOS (and possibly Android app) or just website application with facebook app extension/integration? I think people will want an application on their phones directly though. The website seems necessary though as at central gathering point for profiles, etc. on the web.

Features / Functionality Brainstorm

User makes account via website or mobile app.
- Gives Twitter and Facebook permissions explicitly, if wanted.
- Sets their timezone and location (location optional)
User enters friends from e-mail address, Twitter, Facebook, or site accounts friend them and prompt them to potentially make account on system.
- Friends must opt in and make account on system to receive messages beyond “join us” email when friend enters their e-mail address.
Users form arbritrary group(s) with selected friends (aka “My Buddhist Geeks conference friends” and “My Zen Sangha” as two example groups).
Users can be members of an unlimited number of groups.
Users can send messages to groups, individual friends on site, or all friends on site.
Users can set up meditation session with specific group, an individual friend, multiple friends, or invite all friends.
- select friends or group for meditation session
- set time and date of session (derived from GMT so people all see their local time)
- session can be a one-off individual sesions or reoccuring (day of week? dates?)
- set length of session in minutes
- application messages session start reminder to all sessions members a user selected minutes before session start.
To join session, user connects to app and joins session before it starts or as it is going.
- track time in session once it starts or is joined (meditation timer with countdown)
- send message to subscribed session attendees when session is finished
- optional tweet, facebook post, or app site post for completed session (“I just completed an online meditation session with my crew.”)
- record attended sessions for running total of sessions attended, dates, total minutes for each user.
Allow users to expose total sessions attended, total minutes sat as part of profile (or not)

If any of you reading this have additional thoughts, additions, criticisms, ideas, and so forth, please feel free to leave comments or otherwise contact me.

The Collected Works of Korean Buddhism

2012-08-13T23:22:00-07:00

I just saw word on the H-Buddhism list of what is, to me, a monumental event. Well known scholar and translator Robert Buswell announced that the release of “The Collected Works of Korean Buddhism,” translated by a team of individuals. Not only are these volumes available in English now but they can be downloaded as PDF files from their home page.

Dr. Buswell’s announcement is as follows:

It gives us great pleasure to announce the release of the English Edition of The Collected Works of Korean Buddhism. This edition, completed in July 2012, consists of thirteen volumes of English translations of selected texts from the Hanguk Bulgyo Jeonseo 韓國佛教全書. The thirteen volumes of this anthology collect the whole panoply of Korean Buddhist writing from the Three Kingdoms period (ca. 57 C.E.‒668) through the Joseon dynasty (1392‒1910). These writings include commentaries on scriptures as well as philosophical and disciplinary texts by the most influential scholiasts of the tradition; the writings of its most esteemed Seon adepts; indigenous collections of Seon gongan cases, discourses, and verse; travelogues and historical materials; and important epigraphical compositions.

It is our hope that The Collected Works of Korean Buddhism will ensure that the writings of Korean Buddhist masters will assume their rightful place in the developing English canon of Buddhist materials and will enter the mainstream of academic discourse in Buddhist Studies in the West. Korea’s Buddhist authors are as deserving of careful attention and study as their counterparts in Indian, Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese Buddhism. This first comprehensive collection of Korean Buddhist writings should bring these authors the attention and sustained engagement they deserve among Western scholars, students, and practitioners of Buddhism.

Since the project was funded by a grant that only covered the publication of a limited number of paper copies of the texts, the texts are also being released in PDF format.

Participating translators: Juhn Ahn, Robert Buswell, Michael Finch, Jung-geun Kim, Charles Muller, John Jorgensen, Richard McBride, Jin Y. Park, Young-eui Park, Patrick Uhlmann, Sem Vermeersch, Matthew Wegehaupt, and Roderick Whitfield.

For a the full table of contents of the thirteen volumes, and download link, please see:

http://www.acmuller.net/kor-bud/collected_works.html

This is so overwhelming that I really am at a loss of what to say. As a Seon practitioner, that is “Korean Zen,” who doesn’t speak or read Korean or Classical Chinese, I’ve felt the painful lack of English language materials to study in support of my practice when compared to Japanese Zen, Tibetan Vajrayana, or various other, more common, forms of Buddhism here in America. The Chinul volume, alone, is 478 pages and there are two volumes of gongan (koan) collections totaling 1,000 pages. This is not even looking at all of the other materials in these volumes that are freely available.

The only way that this could be better would be if these scholars had released this material into the Public Domain or even under a Creative Commons license so those of us working with it in the future would freely make use of it as source material in our own work (or like my own teaching at the Prajna Institute). All of the texts are “copyright 2012 by the Compilation Committee of Korean Buddhist Thought, Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism.” This means that while people can download these translations, which is wonderful, they cannot be used by anyone in any other form or re-published as part of a liturgy or study guide, for example.

In spite of this limitation, this is such a gift that I can only offer a reverent hapchang and bow to Dr. Buswell and all of the other participating scholars as well as the Chogye Order for publishing this work.

Thoughts on Buddhist Geeks 2012

2012-08-12T14:22:00-07:00

Another Buddhist Geeks conference has now come and gone. As I write this, I am sitting in the Denver airport waiting to fly onwards to a trip for my work.

This was the second of the (hopefully) annual Buddhist Geeks conferences that grew out of the Buddhist Geeks podcast over the last five years or so. Last year, we met in Rosemead, California, which is just outside of Los Angeles, at the University of the West. This year, it was held at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, which is also where Buddhist Geeks has been based as an endeavor. As I recall, the hope for next year is that it will occur in San Francisco, California, which would be rather convenient for me.

This year seemed a bit more ambitious than last year’s event. Last year, it felt like the conference was bootstrapping itself into existence. A place was found to hold it through the network of Buddhist practitioners, scholars, and acquaintances in the Los Angeles Area, as the University of the West is a wonderful Buddhist university. The speakers were drawn from people that Vince, as the primary organizer, knew personally and had often interviewed for the podcast. It was all very fresh and unhindered or constrained since it was the very first event.

This year, much of the formula from the first conference was duplicated but you could see some sense of trying to refine or modify it. The events were pretty much divided into three types: loosely themed collections of talks, panels on a theme, and a few keynotes given by noted individuals to bracket the other two types. There also seems to have been an attempt to expand on the people invited as speakers, to broaden it to include a few well-known figures, who also acted to draw in people who didn’t attend the first event. The opening keynote was done by Surya Das and the closing one was done by Stephen Batchelor, both noted authors, practitioners, and teachers, who had not attended last year.

In addition to the format of sessions above, the conference also continued to have “un-conference” style sessions in the theme of Foo Camp and similar endeavors. On the first full day, there were two, back to back, 40 minute sessions where people could break up in eight or so groups, depending on interest, to discuss themes that people had put up on a board as topics of conversation. On the final day, there was one longer 60 minute session of the same. These sessions had foci all over the map. One of the ones that I attended focused on monasticism as a technology and whether it could be divorced from its religious context and used as a tool for another way of forming community and living. The organizer was and is involved in the Art Monastery in Italy where a group of artists live together in a monastic community, keeping hours and such, in an older Christian monastery that they purchased.

Much of the overall focus of Buddhist Geeks 2012, just as it was in 2011, is how we are working with, developing, and adapting this thing which is “Buddhism” or “the Dharma” in the West in our rather interpenetrated and now highly mediated world of the 21st century. There is also a certain subtext of “The boomers are aging and will gradually be leaving us. What will be being doing with their legacy now that the Dharma is established?” As a whole, it is really about finding a form of Buddhism (or even BuddhismS) that will work for us in the “West” (as meaningless as that term really is) in the coming generations or centuries. What do we do with the legacy that we have inherited and, at least partially, seen established?

This also involves one of the overarching themes of my own “Open Buddhism” ideas which is that we are a community composed of people trained (or partially trained) in many different forms of Buddhism, often mixing and matching pieces from what are distinct traditions in their homelands. This is an “Aloha Amigo” problem as an old friend of mine was known to say.

It must be pointed out, and it is a fair thing to wonder about, that the crowd at the conference was overwhelmingly composed of Americans of Western European descent (aka whitey) and with little visible involvement by any sort of minority, whether it be ethnic or sexual. I expect my friend at the Angry Asian Buddhist blog would have more than a few, quite justifiable, words about whitewashing and the possible marginalization of Buddhism as it lives in the Asian American communities. (In fact, as I write this, I see there is a new post up on this very issue.) This is still a nut that I haven’t seen anyone make a very successful attempt to crack. The fact that tickets to the conference cost a few hundred dollars plus airfare (or other transport) to Boulder and a motel room or the like means that people of some means were the basis for attendees. This isn’t a criticism of the conference per se but we must be clear that this winnows the potential types of individuals who will attend an event like this on top of the fact that every speaker invited to speak was white except for one (though not all male). This was ameliorated a little by the fact that, for the first time, the event was live streamed to anyone who signed up for free. I expect that the recordings of the sessions will be available for free as well, just as they were last year. This opens up access a bit, even if not for in person attendance.

I was asked by a teacher of mine if I felt that the event was “worth it” when all was said and done. I found the conference to be inspiring overall. There were definitely a number of calls for action in the discussions of “DIY Buddhism” and an overall encouragement for people to take the initiative to be the change that they want to see (to use an old catchphrase). Don’t passively wait for people to address the problems that exist in how the Buddhadharma is expressed in America but take the initiative to do something about it. I also enjoyed the chance to meet, talk, and network with others who share my interests, as someone who is a Buddhist but also very much a geek. I saw a number of friends from last year and made a number of new ones. I also saw a few people from my own local community in the Bay Area (there were at least two other “Open Sangha” attendees there). I think that the event is worth attending.

Ken McLeod, a wonderful teacher, also spoke to the fact that nothing else likes this conference exists. In fact, outside of a few well known Buddhist sects or churches having internal conferences, I cannot think of any other Buddhist conferences held in America that are focused on practitioners. This means that Buddhist Geeks serves a rather unique role as a conference and one that we’ve needed for at least the last 15 years according to Ken.

Update: Nathan from the Art Monastery corrected me in that they don’t all do the hours there and do not actually own the monastery at this point.

Going to Buddhist Geeks 2012

2012-08-08T11:30:00-07:00

Tomorrow I am flying to Denver and going from there to Boulder, San Francisco of the Rockies, in order to attend the Buddhist Geeks 2012 conference. Last year, I attended the first Buddhist Geeks conference in Rosemead, California, just outside of Los Angeles (see here and here). I had an excellent time meeting a number of people that I only really knew online and reconnecting to a few others that I had encountered at various points.

last year's geek squad

This year marks a big change in venue, moving halfway across the country. Buddhist Geeks, as a podcast, originally started in Boulder and some of the organizers have been associated with Naropa University there, so it makes sense to do it locally to them. I will say that it is nowhere near as convenient to go to Boulder, which requires a flight to Denver and then an hour shuttle ride, as it is to go to Los Angeles but then I’m biased because I do live in Northern California.

This year they have some very interesting keynote speakers lined up, as well as interesting sessions. You can see the schedule if you’re interested in knowing more. I’m especially interested in D.I.Y. Buddhism: What’s New Now?, which is a roundtable with Ken McLeod, Stephen Batchelor, Kelly Sosan Bearer, and Hokai Sobol as well as Creativity Without Grasping with Martine Batchelor. It is interesting that we have a mix of business and tech people, such as the Kiva.org CEO, as well as Buddhist authors and teachers.

For those that wish they could go but cannot, Buddhist Geeks will also be doing free streaming video of the sessions. You just need to sign up and you can watch them conveniently at home in real time with the events.

I was originally going with my primary teacher but circumstances did not allow him to come after all. Instead, one of my oldest friends will be going with me (since I had to do something with that ticket!), which I expect will be especially interesting for her as a Buddhist and seeker of some many years who didn’t go last year.

I will be taking notes when possible and also a few snapshots, so you should expect to see more here on the blog on Friday and Saturday as things progress (or Sunday…). Following the conference, I’m actually directly going on a work trip to London to meet up with the Mozilla Security Assurance team so this will be a fairly big trip overall. Interestingly, the one other fellow on my team with the same job title (Security Program Manager) as me is also a Zen practitioner of some years. I expect we’ll be discussing the Buddhist Geeks conference a bit.

Notes from a Hackerspace Panel

2012-07-28T22:30:00-07:00

Drawing by Suzanne Forbes

I attended a panel today at Defcon 20 titled, “Connected Chaos: Evolving the DCG/Hackspace Communication Landscape.” I’m not sure what I expected it to be but it wound up being a panel of some East Coast and Southern hackerspace folks talking about what had and hadn’t worked in running a hackerspace, based on their hard won experience over the last few years. It was none of the normal West Coast folks, which made it a bit more interesting to me. Much of it jived with my own experience as a hackerspace founder so I thought that I’d share some of my loose notes.

If all of the members of the panel introduced themselves, I didn’t hear it. According to Defon scheduling, they were blakdayz, anarchy angel, anch, Dave Marcus, Nick Farr. I think some of those may be pseudonyms but you never know.

Notes

Definition: “Hackerspace: A physical space where hackers gather to hack things together.”

In other words, no need to get fancy and argue about what the word means.

There are six common traps for hackerspaces:

“We don’t do that here”
Clubhouse/Partying
Leader-with-a-vision
Single-point-of-failure
Tasmanian Devil Trap
OMG Moneyz

Some details of what these mean:

“We don’t do that here” - Hackerspaces should be working outside their comfort zone. Don’t limit what people do just because people haven’t done it before. Software geeks should try some electronics or making things, etc.

“Clubhouse/Partying” - This is when hanging out becomes primary over actually hacking on things. This is a really common problem. This takes it from a hackerspace to just a bunch of geeks hanging out and isn’t very inviting to new folks (nor constructive).

“Leader-with-a-vision” - A strong founder with a vision starts the space and it becomes trapped by this leader’s vision. New people and new ideas are essential over time as things adjust and change. The founder should eventually step aside completely to just become another member.

“Single-point-of-failure” - Key leaders or admins are points of failure. If there are no backups or replacements for folks then the group can be limited by the loss of a person to the group. You should be finding and training your replacement if you are in charge of something. This is a variation of “Dave got hit by a bus” as a problem.

“Tasmanian Devil Trap” - If you’re not learning, teaching, hacking, or figuring out a problem, you shouldn’t be there. People should not spend all of their time talking or arguing about a person or thing, circling around and around. That person or thing should go and let people hack. Otherwise known as “Drama.”

“OMG Moneyz” - This is a hyperfocus on ways to make money for the space, to pay bills or otherwise. It can become a perennial distraciton. The solution to money issues is to attract more people and your money problems go away (because new people support the space, join, pay dues, etc.). Come up with classes, activities, and so forth to get people to show up and want to do things as a community.

Second commentor (whomever it was) said “Hackers are inherently lazy. You have to motivate people to want to do stuff.”

Dave said “Consistency.” You need to be consistent in the space. Have regular classes, a consistent schedule of classes or events. If you don’t have this, it becomes a clubhouse very quickly. He saw this happen at his hackerspace. He also says “Location, location, location.” Pick the right place for your space. This cannot be over emphasized. He also says that the financial model is very important for the space.

Another commenter says that there needs to be space to work. Don’t fill up the space with junk. Don’t become the final drop off point for other people’s crap. He related coming to the space one day to find racks and servers piled up to the ceiling, all useless. WTF are you supposed to do with useless junk? People want to bring stuff but it can’t sit around hoping for a project.

If you do have a big pile of junk, take it apart. You might learn something when you do. Pull out the useful parts and pieces, keep those, and get rid of the rest.

Dave also says that he thinks a good hackerspace starts more projects than they finish and that’s ok. People should be encouraged to be creative as long as the debris doesn’t take over the space. Better to create than to not do anything at all.

“You want to teach something? Get up and teach it.”

“What people do in the space sets the tone for the space and its future.”

There was advice, in response to an audience question on dealing with the press and local community - a few things that work well:

Write Press Releases - reporters are lazy/overworked. Write press releases for them and they’ll often run with them. Make friends with the local journalists and editors. They are in your community.
Get excited about projects at other hackerspaces - if you see cool things, reach out, tweet about them, blog about them, etc. Make connections with these spaces and support them and they will support you.
Reach out to people at cons (like Defcon, I guess, meh.).
Consistency in media/Internet publication: lots of tweeting, blogging, etc. on a regular basis. Don’t go dark. Put information out there and make your presence known.
Get other allied groups to meet in your space - 2600 groups, Linux User Groups, etc. Give them space to meet and bring people in. They may join your community and are natural interest groups.
Participate in your local community, not just in technical ways. Help with a soup kitchen, clothing drives, things like that. Interact with non-geeks.

That’s it for the notes. Maybe they’ll be useful to someone!

Black Hat and Defcon Fun

2012-07-28T15:33:00-07:00

I’ve spent the last few days at the Black Hat and Defcon security conventions in Las Vegas. I attend these every year for my work on the security team at Mozilla. This year, somehow, I seem to have wound up as one of the responsible adults, instead of an attendee, so I helped our group of 14 or so get tickets, hotel rooms, and so forth.

The talks this year have been fairly hit or miss but that is true every year. For all of the chatter about it, Black Hat is only a two day conference, so the amount of things presented there is often quite limited. Defcon, for all of its pretensions of being the “hacker” convention as a counter to Black Hat being the “professional” one, contains much of the same people, is three days long instead of two, and often has more interesting talks.

It is clear that phone hacking is still a big area of focus for people. As in recent years, there have been a lot of talks that look at hacking Android and iOS devices in various ways. Anyone who follows security news will have heard that Apple actually officially sent a presenter to speak on iOS for the first time ever (though I wasn’t in that talk) and there have been a number of other presentations on iOS. The focus at Defcon so far has been more on hacking Android from what I’ve seen. Various people looking at malware on Android and ways to pwn the system. I attended a somewhat interesting talk on folks aborting the Java portion of an Android phone’s system (which is where Android, itself, lives) and running a Linux distro, Inferno, on top of the stub of a system that instantiates Android. Very clunky but interesting in a geeky sort of way. I also just attended a talk on setting up a decent ad-hoc mesh network using transparent proxies running on Android systems (leaving aside the man-in-the-middle possibilities there). That one actually showed a lot of promise for networks during crises or disasters. I attended two similar talks last year and this one shows a lot more promise and robust design that those earlier presentations. You can actually see the slides and paper on Github, along with other code related to the project.

The two things that I’ve had the most fun with so far were not directly related to my Mozilla work in any way.

Yesterday, [Chris Anderson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Anderson_(writer) of Wired Magazine and DIYDrones did a nice overview of the current state of the hobby drone market, what’s going on, and discussed the business model and direction of 3D Robotics, the open source hardware company he founded to support what initially started as a hobby for him. He commented that economists always ask him about his business model as if it was something horribly complex or obtuse when, as he says, a 17th century fishmonger could understand it. They sell things (drone electronics and parts) for more than they cost. He said that the sweet spot for them is selling at 2.6 times the cost of the bill of materials. This leaves them enough space to sell at a margin as wholesalers to retailers and for the retailers to then do be able to do the same without trying to go crazy making things expensive. Because they have a huge DIYDrones community, they can do open source developments where they iterate quickly on improvements to the electronics (even making whole new platforms) and get them to market. The most successful and active of their community members can even get equity in 3D Robotics in return for their work on projects, making it a “win win” situation for everyone.

This morning, Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing and writing fame, did a follow-up to his Chaos Communications Conference 28 talk on the “The Coming War on General Purpose Computing.” This talk was “Beyond the War on General Purpose Computing: What’s Inside the Box?” This talk focused on the after events of that war, assuming that we win it and general purpose computing doesn’t go away. In it, he discusses his actual support (surprisingly) of the “Trusted Platform Module” in computing but with a twist. He focused on how it could be used to provide freedom for users by allowing them to both select and know what software (including operating systems) are running on their own machines, given people a potential for longterm control and security in the face of malware, root kits, and hostile governments or corporations. He proposed this as a tought experiment to try to kickstart a conversation that could eventually lead to solutions implementing his ideas or, he happily admitted, those of smarter and more skilled people in this space. He spoke about the weird union of Hayek and Marx in trusting the knowledge and ability of those at the edge, with boots on the ground, over centralized authority and control. I expect a transcript and video of this talk will be up soon but he’s also doing a version of it at the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco this coming Tuesday.

With both Chris and Cory, I got a chance to go to the lengthy Q&A session after their talks and to talk to them a bit about their thinking, as well as hearing them discuss the kind of stuff that doesn’t really make it into a public presentation in front of a thousand or more people. In both instances, I’m reminded of what genuinely approachable and nice guys both of them are. I’ve interacted with both of them on and off before, mostly because of my involvement in my hackerspace or (in Cory’s case) because I’m a science fiction geek. I’ve always found both of them to be the kind of guys that you could ask honest and real questions of and get genuinely thoughtful responses. That’s always cool to find.

I also managed to give Cory and Ace Monster Toys sticker and snap a shot of him with it as well, which makes the hacker fanboy in me happy.

Update from August 5: Cory has done his talk a second time, at the Long Now Foundation in San Francisco. He has put his slides up and you can listen to the audio of the Long Now version of his talk.

Interview on Technoccult

2012-07-26T15:30:00-07:00

Klint Finley of Technoccult interviewed me last week and posted the interview on his site yesterday. You can read it there but I thought I would post it here as well for my regular readers. Klint has many other items on his site worth perusing, especially his last post on hypothetical Batman reboot, which I enjoyed.

Technoccult Interview: Open Source Buddhism with Al Jigong Billings

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Klint Finley

Many Technoccult readers have probably seen Hermetic.com. Maybe you even got your first taste of Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare or Hakim Bey there. What you might not know is that the site’s founder, Al Jigong Billings has given up the site to focus on what he calls “Open Source Buddhism.” I recently talked with Al about what Open Source Buddhism is, how it differs from other contemporary the Pragmatic Dharma movement and the secular mindfulness movement, and how he gravitated from Neopaganism to Buddhism.

Klint Finley: I know readers can check out your blog post explaining what you mean by “Open Source Buddhism,” but can you give us a quick “elevator pitch” for the idea?

Al Billings: Yes, I can do that. The basic idea is that if you are not part of a traditionally Buddhist culture or one in which Buddhism plays a role, you are not part of an inherited complex of ideas surrounding what is or is not “Buddhism” or the “Dharma.” This leaves those of us, in the “West,” for example, in a bit of a quandary. What is Buddhsm? What is the Dharma? What is essential to it? What is optional? What does Buddhism in the 21st century here in America look like if you haven’t inherited it as part of your culture?

My proposal, or really just an idea or thought experiment, is that we embrace aspects of the open source ethos, as exhibited in software projects like Linux or Firefox, in how we approach the Dharma. We don’t need to model ourselves or the Dharma as we practice it necessarily on how Japanese, Chinese, Tibetans, Thai or anyone else does it within their context. That evolved there over hundreds and thousands of years. While many folks make themselves, to some extent, into faux Tibetans, dressing in Tibetan robes, taking Tibetan names, adopting elements of Tibetan culture (to pick on one group as an example), this is not really adapting the Dharma to our situation. I propose that people collaboratively receive teachings and techniques and even texts and recombine or use them as makes sense, as a kind of skillful means, even if it means going across different Buddhist cultures or even traditional kinds of Buddhism or lineages of it that often seem incompatible in ways. The end result is a Dharma that works in our culture (hopefully).

How and when did you become a Buddhist? I originally knew you as the webmaster of hermetic.com, and I think that’s how a lot of Technoccult readers will know you as well. But you gave that site over to another curator. Did you give that up to focus on Buddhism?

I was a practicing Neopagan, of various sorts, from age 18 until around age 34 or 35. In many ways, I consider myself culturally pagan still and think of myself as a “Pagan Buddhist” just as there are “Jewish Buddhists” out there. During the first part of this last decade (after the year 2,000) I grew more and more interested in Buddhism. I’d had an intellectual interest since college but had not pursued it.

I got involved with a number of other magicians online who also happened to have connections to the Dharma, such as Jason Miller. When I started attending some Tibetan Vajrayana events, I found a certain resonance in it and took refuge at the Sakya Monastery in Seattle. This was in 2002.

At that time, I was a leader of an Astrum Sophiae/Aurum Solis group with friends and had been helping run a lodge for years. I just found that my interests were not as strongly pulled in that direction. I had also been in the Ordo Templi Orientis for a number of years, mostly socially, which is where I met my wife.

I’ve never been much of a theist, having a hard time maintaining the suspension of disbelief necessary to see deities as lived, objective entities.

Vajrayana was, in many ways, a way of bridging my Neopagan/Occult background to move into the Dharma. With my online magician friends who were also Buddhists, I found a small community to explore this.

Eventually, I just decided that I was going to make an explicit break with my past affiliations. I quit my lodge, which still exists and is run by a friend, and quit the OTO. I am on actually fairly good terms with members of the OTO leadership, who I consider to be, by and large, wonderful and sincere people. I also realized after a while that hermetic.com needed a real owner to update and maintain it, maybe even improve it. John Bell, who took it over, and I knew each other through the old BBS scene back in the day and wound up reconnecting. I wanted to give the site to someone largely unaffiliated with any organizations in order to maintain its neutrality.

Is Vajrayana the main sect of Buddhism that you practice? (I’m not sure how else to phrase that.)

No. I was initially involved with Tibetan Vajrayana but one of the primary aspects of Vajrayana is the Guru/Disciple relationship. This is core to Tantra. Additionally, Tantra is complex in both practical and philosophical ways. I wound up bouncing around between a number of Seattle area groups, where I lived at the time, for a few years but there were almost no groups with resident teachers or training programs.

Because of this, I could not really find a teacher with which to work directly. I felt that I had a “taste” of tantra but no real training in it and books cannot really supply this. I went as far afield as doing week long retreats in Wisconsin with a teacher and group there and in New Hampshire with Namkhai Norbu’s Dzogchen Community, accompanied by Jason Miller. I even did a short retreat with John Reynolds, who has contacts in both the Occult and Dharma communities.

Eventually, I found a teacher who had a similar background to mine but his practice was largely based on a Japanese form of Vajrayana, Tendai. We began working together in 2006 and I’ve been with him ever sinse. In that time, through an evolution of our practice and working with others, we both wound up in the sphere of Korean Zen (or Seon), where we both were ordained as priests.

My practice at this point is largely focused on Korean Zen though I have influences from all over and do maintain some of my tantric practices.

It seems a lot of occultists, especially chaos magicians, end up being very involved with various types of Buddhism (Joel Biraco is one of the most notable examples). Why do you think that is?

I’m not familiar with his situation so I can only speak about the folks I know and my impressions of their (and my) situation. Buddhism is not a unified landscape. There are many different groups, lineages, temples, etc out there. More than most people realize, probably. There is a healthy ethnically based community composed of Asian immigrants and their descendants, which supports the traditional Buddhism of their ancestral homes (sort of like Catholics and the Irish at one point).

Then there are the various communities, like the Vipassana centers and many Zen centers, which are mostly composed of White American converts with little traditional presence.

I think many magicians and pagans are attracted to ritual, energy work, visualization and the like. The “smells and bells” end of things. Because of this, I think and have seen a lot of people get involved with Vajrayana in its Tibetan form, which is common enough in decent sized cities. If that doesn’t work, they move on (and this applies more broadly than just pagan or magician types). I think those of us with a pagan or occult background are used to sampling the waters in places and changing what we do a lot. Staying with one tradition and having a deep connection strikes me as much rarer for that group, as a whole.

I know what you mean about occultists sampling a lot of waters, though it does seem to me that most people end up “settling down” eventually. Buddhism seems to be a common thing to “settle into.”

As to why… well, I think people are looking for a certain depth or feel a certain lack in their practice or connection to the world. I know that I became a Buddhist because the Four Noble Truths, the fundamental teaching, resonated with my experience. I felt there was a certain dissatisfied basis to my experience of the world, that something was missing, even in a Matrix-like way, if you want to be cute. Neopaganism wasn’t really addressing this and occultism and magic, as well as the groups within these camps, didn’t really do so either.

How is this related, if at all, to the “hardcore” or “pragmatic” Dharma movement?

That is an interesting question. I think that they are cousins in a way though they may wind up being the same thing in the end. It is hard to say.

The emphasis in the Pragmatic Dharma movement, as I think they like to be called now, is on awakening as a lived experience possible in this lifetime, not in future lives and so forth as is often taught. To that end, they are willing to use “whatever works” as far as methods. In that sense, I would say it is compatible. In another sense, they tend to model themselves very explicitly on just one model, the one that comes from Theravadan Buddhism. So their methods focus on the maps and techniques from a certain subsegment of that school (and this is not a criticism).

That also sounds like a particularly tantric approach – enlightenment within our lifetime – and that might not need to be the goal of everyone in Open Source Buddhism?

I think that if you aren’t driven to achieve awakening, which I prefer over “enlightenment,” in this lifetime, you are in many ways just wasting your time. Being focused on some kind of “achievement” in some other lifetime misses the very here and now approach that the Dharma offers. It is about lived experience, right now, not some future reward. That said, the Pragmatic Dharma folks seem to be very goal oriented.

What do you think of the secular teaching of meditation and mindfulness in a scientific or clinic context, as opposed to cultural or sacred, context?

I think it is a great idea. The techniques are useful in a number of contexts and I do not think that the techniques, in and of themselves, are Buddhist. They are simply techniques that work with people regardless of cultural content. If they can be used to help people who are suffering or to promote awareness, they should be taught. There are experimental programs to teach such things to troubled youth or even elementary school age children in my area and I think that is wonderful. They aren’t the Dharma but they are useful.

Do you think there are any dangers inherent in exploring these sorts of techniques? I recently linked to an article on a study that found that finding the right style of meditation for an individual is important for maintaining practice, and someone left a comment suggesting that there might be dangers in pushing these techniques in a materialist context – that someone could end up stuck in the Dark Night of the Soul, for example, without any knowledge of what was happening to them.

I saw the same article on different meditation techniques and found it interesting. As to dangers, there clearly are dangers in these techniques as a whole.

One thing I wonder about is whether people are ending up in these sorts of states, in these sorts of experiences, anyway, whether they’re meditating daily or not.

There are a number of separate issues here. I’ll go through them briefly.

Meditative techniques bring up a lot of things that are often buried. In our culture, we’re trained, in many ways, to not be terribly still and reflective. We bounce from thing to thing without dwelling deeply on what is going on. There are quite a few people who will get very distraught or anxious if they have nothing to do or nothing to distract them. Most of us know people like this. They need people around, or TV, or games or they don’t know what to do. When these people are forced to be still and sit and do nothing with their minds, just paying attention but nothing else directed, it can be very anxiety making. All the stuff they are ignoring or hiding from in their minds or lives, well, there it is, bubbling up as they sit.

It is very common on longer (or even some shorter) retreats for someone to have issues. They are often mild. People have crying jags, overcome with emotion, that sort of thing. Every now and then, people have much worse reactions. This was actually something that came up a bit in discussion at the Buddhist Geeks conference last Summer.

Now, in the secular techniques, these same things could probably happen. They aren’t terribly different, just having a different setting or context. It is important that people, especially if they are a bit unsteady, to have others to help them, to act as guides or support, for when this kind of thing may happen.

I generally wouldn’t tell people to “go read a book and do these things without ever talking to anyone.” It might be fine. In fact, it will probably be fine. If it gets too intense, people would back off on their own normally.

The thing is that, in the end, you have to find a way through that. You can’t run away from your mind after all and all of that intensity is in there somewhere. You can’t bottle it up forever. So, secular or Buddhist, that doesn’t make much difference. In both cases, you’ll usually have a community and a teacher or guide, a sangha.

That’s sort of what I was getting at – even if you’re not taking up mindfulness or meditation or whatever, you’re going to end up being confronted by, for lack of a better word, psychological ugliness at some point in your life and you’re going to need to find a way through it.

Absolutely.

**I’m a secular meditator (and “ex-occultist”) myself. I sit daily. I honestly don’t know much about “real” Zen Buddhism (and of course there are lots of different types of Zen Buddhism), but to my limited understanding there’s not a lot else to Zen practice other than, well, zen. In other words – how dangerous could zazen be as a secular practice?

Or, put another way, what are secular meditators missing out on that a “religious” Zen Buddhist is getting?**

Well… it can have the same problems and not all Zen is zazen, to be pedantic perhaps.

If you sit, say in zazen, and you are still. You are aware, hopefully, and paying attention. That’s zazen in a nutshell. Many people will have a reaction to that if they aren’t comfortable with what they aren’t acknowledging. My retreat experience these days is mostly with people doing sitting meditation and koan (or kong-an) work. Kong-an work is a different sort of frustrating.

As to what secular meditators are missing, it is a difference in goals. The goal (and I don’t care for that word) of Buddhist practice is the realization of Buddhahood or, to be less cute, to wake up. The goal of secular meditation is, usually, to deal with pain and stress. These are not unrelated but one is a bit broader than the other and I think you know which I would think of as the broad one.

Sitting to deal with stress. That’s very good. I think most people could really use that. I think that can act as a bridge to going “Now what? What’s the point of all of this?”

This is leaving aside that there are probably a half dozen “other” meditative techniques as well (or actually many more).

So Open Source Buddhism still deals very much with awakening, while secular mindfullness is focused more on day to day goals like managing pain and stress and improving concentration.

Yes, I think so. My idea of Open Source Buddhism as a kind of proposal or thought experiment is still, at the end of the day, the Buddhadharma. It is rooted in the Buddha’s teachings. The problem of the dissatisfactory nature of human experience, the cause of this problem, and the ways of solving it.

The Tibetans have a useful teaching that I learned from Namkhai Norbu in his popular Dzogchen book but which I’ve heard repeated elsewhere. I believe it is a Tibetan Nyingma school teaching. It is about “base, path, and fruit” or “view, meditation, result” (they are the same thing). The key here is that the view or mindset of practice combined with the techniques of practice (or the path) produce its result or fruit. In other words, you can use the exact same methods are someone else but if you go into this usage with a different mindset or worldview, you will not achieve the same results.

To use the mountain analogy, you will have started your climb at the base of different mountains, even if you climb the same way, using ropes, picks, etc. to get to the top. I think this is an important teaching to keep in mind when talking to people of different schools of thought that use very similar, and probably universal, techniques of practice.

So in this view someone probably wouldn’t “accidentally” achieve awakening through practice?

You can’t rule anything out. I think that people have an innate capacity for awakening and it isn’t trapped in a straightjacket with the label, “Buddhadharma” on it. People can awaken in spite of techniques, using techniques, or with no techniques. Can everyone do that? Probably not.

There is a common teaching in China, which you find a version of in Japan and in Korea. It is rediscovered time and again. The Tibetans teach it as well. This is the idea that we don’t “make” or “create” or “achieve” awakening. We really are liberated beings already. You don’t create the capacity for it. The analogies are made to clouds obscuring the sun or mirrors being polished so they can be clearly used but, at the end of the day, awakening is inherent in all of us and we are simply looking for ways to perceive what is right in front of us.

If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break

2012-07-15T14:22:00-07:00

If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break: Field Notes from a Zen Life is a new book by Rev. James Ishmael Ford that comes out in September. I was lucky enough to be given a review copy of this book, which I have been looking forward to reading.

Rev. Ford (also known as “James Myoun Ford”) is one of the guiding teachers and masters of Boundless Way Zen, a Zen organization that brings together Soto Zen and Korean Sŏn in several sanghas on the East Coast of North America. He is also a well known Unitarian Universalist minister and author of the Monkey Mind blog. He is the presiding minister at the First Unitarian Church of Providence, Rhode Island. Rev. Ford often writes on issues of social justice and draws on Zen teachings for his Unitarian sermons (and Unitarian teachings for his Zen sermons!). I’ve interacted with him online for several years and have found him to be one of the consistently sane, calm, and ethical voices of authority within the Zen community.

This book is written in part as a personal memoir of a Zen teacher who has spent decades in Zen and also as a discussion of Buddhist ethics and the precepts. Like all good Zen teachers, Rev. Ford speaks in reference to lived examples and stories, largely ones drawn from his own life. The text is divided into three parts:

What Is Awakening?
Sit Down, Shut Up, and Pay Attention
Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk

In “What Is Awakening?”, Rev. Ford discusses the nature of awakening and the experience of Zen, drawing from his life experiences, such as when he received Dharma Transmission from his own teacher and what that may or may not mean. This is the shortest section, just being a handful of pages really.

In “Sit Down, Shut Up, and Pay Attention,” he delves into his autobiography and the actual practice of Zen. How did he come to practice Zen? What is an experience of awakening actually like (and what is it not like, contrary to mythology)? How is Zen actually practiced in a day to day manner, not merely in theory, but as a lived part of your life? He discusses Shikantaza, Just Sitting, the primary practice of Soto Zen and how he’s found it to be useful and its functioning. Unusual for a seemingly Soto Zen priest, where koans are not a common tradition, he also delves into koan work quite a bit. Rev. Ford had an early exposure to the koan tradition (or kong-an) as taught by Rev. Sŭngsan, who founded the Kwan Um School of Zen. This gave him a taste of koan work and, as he says in the book, “I had found my heart practice.” Through happenstance and his own determination, he wound up work with Rev. John Tarrant, a well known Rinzai Zen teacher, where he practiced the full curriculum of koans as taught within that school. Rev. Ford gives a fairly good introduction to koan work, what it means, how it is practiced, and so forth within his own tradition and dispels many of the popular myths around koan work. As a Zen practitioner who uses the koan tradition of Sŭngsan as one of his primary vehicles of practice, I was quite happy to see an actual popular level discussion and explanation of koan work for the general reader. Texts that touch on it are few and far between. As Rev. Ford states:

“Koans are actually about life and death—our lives, our deaths—in the most intimate sense about who we are, you and I, about our true home, about what it is to be human and present to what is, all that is.”

In the final section of the book, “Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk,” Rev. Ford discusses ethics and precepts, focusing on how it is that we are to live an ethical life. This is the longest section of the book, comprising almost half of it. In this section, Rev. Ford’s wider training really shines. He is a graduate of a local multi-denominational Christian seminary, the Pacific School of Religion, and has served as minister for several Unitarian Universalist congregations. In his discussion of ethical behavior, discusses the current controversy in Western Zen around karma and rebirth but moves on quickly to discussing actual ways of living. In this, he draws on both the Noahide Laws, which some point to as an attempt at ethics drawn from a monotheistic, Western, worldview, and the traditional five Pratimoksha vows used within Buddhism. Given his background in both Unitarian Universalism and Zen, I can appreciate that Rev. Ford looks at things in a broader manner, across traditions, rather than limiting his influences to just the world of the Buddhadharma. With these both as influences, Rev. Ford draws a list of seven precepts:

Love Your Mother (in the sense of God/dess, the Universe, or Reality-as-it-is)
Reverence Life
Speak Truthfully
Respect Things
Respect Our Bodies
Seek Justice
Seek Clarity

The rest of the book is then a short chapter discussing each of these in turn. In the first and sixth, you can see the influences of both the Judeo-Christian background of the Noahide Laws (as much as I dislike the term “Judeo-Christian”) but also the commitment to social justice and activism in the world that characters the better end of that tradition, especially amongst liberal churches like Unitarian Universalism. Rev. Ford mentions that both sexuality and social withdrawl as the two “dark shadows” of Buddhist tradition (or “near enemies” as I tend to think of them). These are places where other traditions have often seemed to engage better. His examples are often personal and autobiographical, which is really the best way to teach and discuss these things. It is easy to sound “preachy” in an overbearing way when discussing precepts as absolutes or ideals without relating them to lived experience. Fortunatley, Rev. Ford’s experience, both on the cushion and in teaching others, comes to the forefront here.

Overall, I really (really) liked this book. It is engaging, humorous in places, deep without being dry, and shows a lot of reflective thought that I think only comes from experience (and Rev. Ford has decades more than me in all of this). This is the kind of book that I’d recommend my fellow Buddhists, especially Zen practitioners, read but which I would also recommend to my non-Buddhist friends and family (such as my Wiccan priestess mother and my Methodist preacher uncle). I think everyone would get something out of the discussion of lived ethics in it but also, for those unfamiliar, a strong taste of what the Buddhdharma, as practiced within Zen, is about at its best as a living and engaged tradition of practice.

If any of this is interesting to you, I suggest that you pick it up and give it a read when it comes out in a couple of months. I’m grateful that we have teachers like Rev. Ford taking the time to write from the heart to share their hard-won realizations with us.

Update: Corrected two errors noticed by Rev. Ford.

Learning to Play Go Online

2012-07-14T12:51:00-07:00

I’ve been learning to play Go lately. Like many people, I learned the rules when I was much younger and then forgot them due to lack of play. Growing up in America, Chess has always been the traditional game of strategy played by geeky sorts. (I’ll admit to being in chess club in junior high school.) Go has fulfilled that same role in much of Asia but has never taken off as much in America (or, I suspect, Europe). That said. it has a strong following these days and has been gaining popularity over the last few decades. After my childhood Chess days, I went on to role-playing games (Dungeons and Dragons) and various popular board and card games, continuing these, off and on, to this day. I haven’t played Chess much in many years though I do have a set or three around the house. I never really got into Go though.

Now, here I am decades later and a bit of a fan of many things Asian, though I already was as a child to some degree thanks to my mother’s love of Japanese culture, especially Toshiro Mifune. I’m a Zen Buddhist and, strangely, it is hard to be a Zen practitioner and not run into Go on a regular basis. In addition, there is a strange intersection of people who play Go and computer geeks. At least a few acquaintances of mine originally met playing Go. Because of this irregular exposure and a lifelong love of games, I’ve been wanting to really learn how to play.

The problem with learning Go, especially by yourself, is that the rules are deceptively simple and the game is amazingly subtle. It is easy to play bad chess and to start to get a feel for the different pieces and how they interact. You have to learn to see patterns in play by playing against a real person and getting a sense of what works and what doesn’t. It is additionally difficult to play go against a computer as there aren’t really good programs for it. Unlike chess, which various specialized supercomputers can play admirably well, there has not been a mastery of go exhibited by a computer program at this point. I gather that the game is a complex enough problem that computers are still relatively incapable of winning against a good go player (which I am not).

The end result is that you really need to play against people, as well as study existing games or perhaps read a few books on the matter. Since this is not an uncommon problem and people love to play, there are a variety of solutions.

You can join one of the many Go clubs, if you happen to have one in your area. Near where I live, the Berkeley Go Club has been going for a many decades. There is a regular meetup group for people who play in Oakland, as well. This provides for the ideal, which is in person play with people. (A longterm leader of the Berkeley Go Club was the original owner of the goban at the top of this post, which now resides at Ace Monster Toys.)

As a geek, though, I’ve found that I like online play. With some resources, you can play asynchronously, allowing each player to play a turn when ready without the other having to watch, or you can play simultaneously in a live match.

The dead simplest way to play online that I’ve found is Dave Peck’s Go, a simple webserver based system that allows you to play with single opponent and which will email each player when it is their turn. You can specify board size, handicap, etc., which is rather convenient. Like a real mensch, Dave even has his code for this up on GitHub so you can even run your own server if you want. This just requires a web browser and email, which makes it pretty easy, and allows for people to send moves and move on to other things.

The downside of the Dave Peck’s server is that it is a little clunky and only really works if you already have a designated player available (such as I did above). If you need to find an opponent because you don’t have a handy Go partner (or it is frustrating to play with only that person), there are places to go to find many other players.

For the real Go action, the place to…go…seems to be Pandanet, which runs the big “Pandanet Go Server.” There is a KGS Go Server as well but it requires you to run a Java client and friends don’t let friends run Java in their browsers (it is probably the #2 vector for attacks on your computer and should be disabled), leaving it out for me.

The Pandanet Go Server is an IRC-like application (you can watch text stream by in the console) that mediates Go games. This server has a number of very cool things going for it. Once you make an account, you can provisionally self-assign yourself a rank. (Did I mention that Go players are ranked by skill?) Once you play a 20 games against another ranked opponent in a conforming manner, your rank is set in the system. Pandanet’s server allows you to see a list of players who are connected to it, their official rank, and whether they want go play a game. This means that you can select an opponent of a suitable skill level to work on your play (or even a much more skilled player and play with a handicap) and actually advance your rank over time. You can record your games for later review and even send them to others. Additionally, you and others can observe the play of any games on the server, allowing you to watch (and review) the games of much more skilled players. All in all, this makes it an ideal environment in which to play Go if you aren’t going to do it in person.

The really cool thing about Pandanet’s server is that it is so ubiquitous that many people have written clients that can talk to the server. For OS X, which I normally run, there is Sente Goban, which is very nice even though not entirely open source. It is based on the Free Software Foundation’s GNU Go application, an open source (cough free software) project going back over 20 years (which hasn’t released a new version in three years now). Sente Goban is able to connect to Pandanet’s server, allowing me to log in and play games from my laptop. Pandanet offers their own older client, glGo (or here) but the OS X version doesn’t work anymore and I haven’t tried the Linux and Windows versions. Their officially listed client, GoPanda is another Java app that you shouldn’t run. They also offer the Panda Egg Go client for Windows.

The best way I’ve found to play on Pandanet is on a portable device. They have wonderful iOS and Android clients called “Panda-Tetsuki.” The clients have a lovely page with links to the various versions and they are available as free applications. I’ve embedded their video for the iPad client below and it is a great app.

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As far as basic resources for learning to play Go, there are a number of decent ones online. You can download a free copy of the introductory book, The Way of Go by Karl Baker to get you started on learning the rules and play. There is also the somewhat clunky The Interactive Way of Go. Sensei’s Library also has a set of dedicated beginner’s pages. “ChiyoDad” wrote a delightful blog for a few years, ChiyoDad Learns Go about his adventures learning Go as well.

A Review of Doctorow's Pirate Cinema

2012-07-13T11:35:00-07:00

I recently managed to score an advanced reader copy of Cory Doctorow’s upcoming young adult novel, Pirate Cinema. This comes out in early October, so it will be a while yet. Cory has been on a kick writing YA novels for a couple of years now. I believe Makers was his last adult-focused book but both For the Win and Little Brother were YA oriented (and did an excellent job at it as well).

Pirate Cinema is a pretty unabashed polemic piece along the lines of Little Brother. The book blurb reads:

Trent McCauley is sixteen, brilliant, and obsessed with one thing: making movies on his computer by reassembling footage from popular films he downloads from the net. In the dystopian near-future Britain where Trent is growing up, this is more illegal than ever; the punishment for being caught three times is that your entire household’s access to the internet is cut off for a year, with no appeal.

Trent’s too clever for that too happen. Except it does, and it nearly destroys his family. Shamed and shattered, Trent runs away to London, where he slowly he learns the ways of staying alive on the streets. This brings him in touch with a demimonde of artists and activists who are trying to fight a new bill that will criminalize even more harmless internet creativity, making felons of millions of British citizens at a stroke.

Things look bad. Parliament is in power of a few wealthy media conglomerates. But the powers-that-be haven’t entirely reckoned with the power of a gripping movie to change people’s minds….

I enjoyed this book a bit and I’m going to leave this review spoiler free, for the most part, given that it is three months until the book comes out. My main criticism of the book is two-fold. The first criticism is that this book is largely a rehash of arguments that Cory has been making for years about video (and other forms of) piracy on the net. If you’re a reader of Boing Boing and have read any of Cory’s pieces on video piracy, Youtube policing, or remixing culture, you’ve heard most of the arguments that are presented in fictional form in Pirate Cinema. In that sense, as a regular reader of his work, I kind of felt “Yeah, yeah, I know this point…” a lot while reading the book.

The arguments weren’t really new and the presentation was not particularly subtle. When the main character has horrible things happen to him or people he knows in response to the draconian privacy regime that his government has set up in concert with Hollywood studios, it is exactly the kind of worst case scenarios that we hear on Boing Boing and other outlets in response to the industry sponsored anti-piracy law of the week. It is painted in broad strokes and kind of hits the reader over the head with the clue bat repeatedly. That isn’t to say it is bad but it is pretty overt and presented as very black and white. The media guys are unrelentingly bad. In fact, I don’t think that there is a single positive portrayal of them in the entire book. They’re all clueless, money grubbin’, and evil, out to put poor kids in prison, etc. in order to protect their outdated business model and profits. The portrayal of government insiders, similar to Little Brother in parts, is a mix. You have the ethically bankrupt members of parliament and their parties willingly bought and sold by the movie industry and then you have the few, slightly less compromised, ones trying to do the right thing but in a compromised situation. They have a little more “gray” in them but not much for the most part. Almost without fail, government types, especially older adults, are largely either clueless, bought and sold, or just ineffective. The political activists, who are older, are helpless against blocking the horrible laws as they get worse until the kids take direct action and rally the populace.

All a bit polemical and not terribly nuanced. That said, it wasn’t badly done and it is good page turner. Cory Doctorow is an excellent writer, by and large, and knows how to craft a good story.

My second criticism is a bit more of a subtle thing (what I criticize, not my criticism itself, which is blunt). It is related to the above comments in a way. The criticism is that the world and the lives of the characters in them is not portrayed very realistically. On finishing the novel, this left me a bit frustrated. Trent, the main character is a runaway from a nowhere town in the north of the UK. Without giving much of a spoiler (it is the beginning of the book!), he spends an entire, single, night on the rough streets of London before finding a positive change in his fortune. While the kinds of things that happen to runaways to the big city are mentioned in passing, Trent never sees any of this directly. He meets good people. He’s unmolested. The bums and locals are friendly. Heck, even the drug dealers are friendly and leave him and his friends alone. It is like an ant-gritty version of a runaway story. Rather than strung out on heroin, beat up by the local predators (he is homeless after all and all of 16), or similar, it is all glossed over and presented in a positive light. This kind of tone is presented throughout the book, which is written in the first person (with a character that “sounds” a lot like Marcus Yallow in Little Brother). This may simply be that this is a YA book but I’m not sure that Cory really writes “gritty,” when I reflect on his earlier books. While people get beat up (for being gay even) at one point, anything violent or dangerous happens out of the direct perception of our viewpoint character. I think this detracts from the book.

If this was a movie, along with not being a very realistic portrayal of the life of homeless kids fighting the government, I’d say that it lacked tension. Little Brother had most of the same issues that I discuss above except for the fact that our viewpoint character witnesses violence first hand and is waterboarded in the first person, along with being imprisoned. The fact that horrible things are directly happening to Marcus and his friends in that book gives it a lot more tension and makes it more gripping. In contrast, Trent’s biggest issue is legal. No one is threatening him physically, ever, in the entire book. He may go to jail for his pirate activities and his activism but it is all kind of dispassionately presented. He’s never really terrified of it and you never really believe it is going to possibly happen. Without the threat of personal harm, either physically or in the sense of actually going to prison, the whole legal thread just kind of goes without being immediately present.

Reading the above, you’d probably think that I don’t like the book or think it is horrible. I don’t. Most of this criticism is that I was hoping for a better and more gripping tale than what I read. This is a good book, just not a great book. For people, especially teens, not well versed in the arguments around pirating movies (or other digital content) or the various proposed (and successful) draconian legal responses, I think that this would be a pretty good introduction to it. The characters are likeable and well written. The sex (of which there is much more than Little Brother) occurs “off camera” so the library associations and schools won’t need to necessarily ban the book for “showing” a little reality of what it is like to be a teen.

Would I recommend this to my adult friends who are very active online? Maybe. It is a quick read and enjoyable. It isn’t Makers though and that was the most gripping and best written of Cory’s novels in my opinion (and which I still recommend to people involved in hackerspaces with me).

Give this to your teenager or maybe your college kid and I think they’ll enjoy it but realize that it really is written as an anti-corporate, pro-sharing/remix culture piece and it isn’t terribly subtle about it. If you’re already a fan of Cory Doctorow’s, you’ve already heard all of the arguments in it.

The Dharma of Lifting

2012-07-10T23:07:00-07:00

Yaaaar!!!!

I have a confession to make. I used to be a 98 lb weakling and, later, a fat computer slob. That isn’t literally true, just a bit of hyperbole on my part. What is true is that I never made much of a point to exercise and I sat on my butt all day. I’ve been an introverted (really!) geek for my entire life.

When I was young, I was skinny and walked a lot but I only did a few sports-like activities ever. As a teenager, I did foil fencing (as in sport swordsmanship) for a couple of years in lieu of attending mandatory gym in my high school. I did brief stints in a couple of martial arts (Kenpo Karate and Aikido) as a teen. All of this ended by the time I hit college and full-time geekdom. I ran a bulletin board system (BBS) and hung out with computer geeks, goths, and other social malcontents for my social group. There was nary an athletic type among them. In my early 20s, I actually did spend several years in a modern karate-like art but even then it was becoming clear that I wasn’t fit enough to really keep up with that. When my daughter was born (16 years ago), I quit even doing that.

Fast forward to 2008, when I was 37. I had steadily been getting fatter over the previous decade. I had no fitness activities whatsoever. I remember going to the doctor and having the assistant ask me what fitness I engaged in and I had to say, “None.” That Fall, everything changed for me. I went to Egypt with my wife for vacation and started showing flu-like symptoms when I returned home. If you go back to my late 2008 and early 2009 blog posts, you can find far too much detail on it. I came down with a still unknown virus. In the course of a three month illness, I lost 35 lbs due to…well, being ill and not eating much. The illness stressed my system, spiking my blood pressure and taking my heart rate up to 98 beats a minute. Once it was all over, the doctors wouldn’t stop the heart meds until I began some sort of cardio routine to counter the rebound from stopping. So, reluctantly, feeling like something near death, I began to do cardio three times a week, and then up to five times. This was in mid-Spring 2009. Strangely, it became a habit and I managed to do regular cardio for the next year, improving my blood pressure and getting my heart rate into a happy place. In Summer, 2010, I happened to notice that a number of coworkers at Mozilla were seeing trainers near work so I started to do the same. He showed me how to use kettlebells and I spent much of the next six months going all out with the kettlebells several times a week.

That’s when a strange thing happened. My trainer, Dan, is a competitive powerlifter. He’s a big guy, needless to say. One of my uncles, Karl, had been a weightlifter when I was a teen but it had always been such a jock thing in high school that I never felt the urge to even do it. That Fall, I asked Dan to begin showing me how to lift weights. We began with classic Olympic lifting forms, the barbell squat and the deadlift. Then we started doing standing overhead presses and, by the following February (of 2011), I started bench pressing. Since that time, almost a year and a half, I’ve lifted between three and five times a week (settling into an every other day pattern now). I can safely say, without hyperbole, that it has been a life changing event for me.

I was a 39 year old, 230+ lb computer geek when I started. After the illness, my weight had climbed back up pretty quickly, though topping out lower than before. Yesterday, at almost 41 years old, I weighed in at 208 lbs. I’m still heavier than I should be (strangely, weight lifting does not cause weight loss) but I’m immensely stronger and feel physically better than I did at 30, with the exception that my lower back is a lot more sore than 30. That said, it hurts a lot less now than it did before I started lifting and I exercise it a lot. I notice this when I sit for meditation, where my back used to always ache after 20 minutes or so. Now, I can sit for hours and my back is no worse off.

The reason why I write about this here, other than to promote the virtues of fitness, is that I’ve found exercise to be a Dharmic practice. So much of what we often do as Dharma is very head focused, even when we try to have it not be. We’re thinking about the Buddha. We’re thinking about Sutras. We’re pondering the Eightfold Path and other teachings. Thinking thinking thinking. Then we sit and try not to think so much or, rather, to not focus on the inevitible thinking and to be present in this moment, as it is. Maybe we’re simply being present or maybe we’re investigating phenomena of the body and mind. For most of us, it is often a lot of thinking and we tend to fall into that. Compound that with the kind of people who are often drawn to the Dharma (introverted intellectuals) and it is easy for us to ignore the body in favor of our thoughts.

The thing is, Buddhism and Dharma practice have never been about those thoughts. I think most of us who practice know this, intellectually, but the habits of our lives cause us to go back to the thinking thinking thinking. The Buddha taught practices, such as the Four Foundations of Mindfulness that have a physical component. Much of the meditation instructions that people work with, in their attempts to be present, have to do with breathing and the feeling of breath. Heck, Reginald Ray wrote a whole book on body practice. That said, it is still a constant fight, I think, to incorporate the body as a somatic basis of meditation.

With my teacher, Rev. Myo Gak, there has always been an encouragement to have a body-centered practice of some sort. For some, this is martial arts. For one fellow priest, it is a daily yoga practice (to the point where she’s a professional yoga teacher). This acts as a counter for all of these head-centric tendencies that we often have. For myself, I really haven’t had a good somatic practice in previous years. I kept wanting to make time for it but (you know how it goes…) I never did. I still thought that I hadn’t gotten around to it until the realization hit me this evening while lifting weights that this was my practice.

When you lift, even if you’re listening to music or other people are around, you are present in a very concrete way. You learn very quickly that you must be present or you will hurt yourself! If you’ve never lifted or watched someone lift, you think something like, “Oh, they pick up heavy things and then they put them down.” This is actually very true. The thing is that you must pick them up in a particular way or you will rip/tear/destroy various tissues in your body. People injure themselves all the time and, in fact, I’ve injured my back fairly solidly once to the point where I couldn’t do much of anything with it in workouts for almost a month. There is a union of your body, the weight you are moving, the way in which you move (the form), and your mental focus. If you aren’t focused, your form will suffer. If you rush things or are goofing around and your form suffers, you get feedback from the weights and your body. Sometimes it is gentle feedback (“What the hell are you doing?!”) and sometimes it is feedback when you feel something go bad and you realize that you just hurt yourself, possibly badly. If you’re careful and not a macho idiot, this is unlikely to happen but weightlifting, as a practice, requires immediate and focused attention on the very moment you are in, what the body is doing, and how it feels in response to things. For lighter weights, you can get away with some inattention but when you are pushing towards the limits of what you can lift, there is no room for inattention.

The result of this is a punctuated focus. You will be extremely present in the moment as, for example, you manuver your body under a barbell for a squat. You position yourself, you remove the barbell from the rack holding it, and you squat and rise back up repeatedly. You are focused on the now, the feeling of the motion, of the weight on you, and how you turn your feet, your hips, etc. You correct for the defects in your form or just for how tired or weak your muscles may be. Then you finish, returning the barbell to the rack. At that point, you mentally relax and can return to your normal thinking until…you do it again or go to the next exercise.

During this whole process, you are present and aware in a way that I’ve found simply not to be there normally. I’m not talking about Flow states or the like. I’m not that good at this and don’t have tens of thousands of hours of practice. I’m just talking about an immediate presence in your physicality. Side chatter in the mind recedes to the background and you’re just there, going through what you need to do in order to get through moving that weight and putting it back.

I thought that this might be a perspective worth sharing. I know it has to apply to so many other physical activities, like yoga, that require sustained focus as the body is pushed against its limits. The fact that I’m writing a post on the meditative qualities of weightlifting means that I’ve definitely gone around some sort of bend into the weird union of both geekiness, jockdom, and the Dharma. I can’t be sad about that though.

Sitting at Kojin-an

2012-07-06T20:33:00-07:00

I just attended my first sit at Kojin-an Zendo here in Oakland. A fellow, Paul, from the “Saturday Night Sangha” open sitting group offered to take people there this evening and I decided to be wild and follow the opportunity to sit still for 40 minutes in a new place.

I’d heard about Kojin-an before but had never had the opportunity to visit. It is a small zendo, seating twelve in the main room. (The site mentions seating eighteen total but that includes putting six people in the outside hallway.) It is easily the smallest formal functioning zendo that I’ve seen. It resides, surrounded by trees and bamboo, on the back portion of a private residence in a nice neighborhood in Oakland.

As the history page on their website states, Kojin-an started in the early 1980’s as an converted attic space. Eventually, in 1990, the current land and house were acquired and the resident priest, Rev. Gengo Akiba, arranged to have a small zendo designed in Japan, have it disassembled after being built there, and then shipped to the Bay Area and reassembled. Following this, it was formalized as an official Soto-shu temple and Rev. Akiba was eventually appointed the sokan (bishop) for Soto-shu in in North America. He retired a couple of years ago and lives in the house next to the zendo now, with his wife, the founder and owner of a large and popular local Japanese restaurant, Yoshi’s.

From what I had previously heard, and had confirmed today, the zendo operates in a fairly quiet and intimate fashion. This isn’t surprising since it is literally in the backyard of a private residence. They don’t generally advertise in the local community. People find out about it by word of mouth. In order to sit there or visit, you need to go with someone who has gone to it before, who acts to introduce you. This keeps the place from having too many strangers just wander in but doesn’t act as much of a barrier. When I’d heard about Kojin-an a few years ago, I’d heard it was semi-private and that you needed to talk to someone who went there to even get the address. That semi-obscurity kept me from finding the place but I am very glad that I was introduced today. On weekdays, people can sit in the evening at a set time (usually for 40 minutes) and there are regular weekend events, including a more formal Sunday morning session of sitting. I was told that if I started coming on a regular basis, I should go to one of the Sunday morning sessions so I can meet Rev. Akiba and others (and they could meet me). While the calendar doesn’t list much, I am told that Rev. Akiba does organize sesshins on occasion and has students that come work with him, so there is some formal activity.

When I went there with Paul, he brought two friends, at least one of which was Soto or had done a bit of Soto work. The three of them were met by three of us from the Saturday Night Sangha, which is a local sitting group that…meets on Saturday nights (though it is not specifically Buddhist as some of the folks are “non-dual” practitioners of some kind of advaita). No one else was there this evening so the six of us halfway filled up the zendo and had a nice sit. Once we were done, we made our way out past the dog and went on our separate paths. It was a nice, low-key, way to just get together and sit and I found that I liked the lack of hustle and bustle in comparison to going to some of the larger groups.

I expect that I will go back on a Sunday morning (maybe not this coming Sunday though) and go there again. The place is only a couple of miles from my home (about a 10 or 15 minute drive depending on traffic) and is just so beautiful. I’ve put a small set of the few photos I took while there up on Flickr. Kojin-an also has a Facebook page.

The Great Fork

2012-07-05T10:10:00-07:00

I’ve done it now. As if having one blog that I updated about a tenth as often as I should wasn’t enough, now I have two.

I’ve forked Open Buddha to create Make Hack Learn. The latter is now where my tech oriented posts will be that aren’t specifically Buddhist. This will include general geek stuff, like my science fiction book reviews, stuff to do with the hackerspace I co-founded, Ace Monster Toys, learning electronics, building quadcopters, 3D printing and other stuff that I’ve been trying to work on during the last couple of years. This will allow Open Buddha to focus on Buddhist topics, such as Buddhist book reviews, my thoughts on being a lay Zen priest, teaching at the Prajna Institute, and to generally focus on the Buddhadharma. Since I’ve effectively had two distinct audiences for quite a while with a certain amount of overlap (but not a lot), I think this will help my writing and be better for my occasional readers. This frees me up to write on my geek oriented stuff without feeling like I’m detracting from talking about the Dharma on Open Buddha.

I’ve copied a bunch of the posts relating to Ace Monster Toys and geekier stuff from the last year and a half to act as a seed to the new site. This keeps me from having nothing there for anyone to see and to give some context.

As of two weeks ago, I’m no longer president of Ace Monster Toys or on the board. This was an effectively volunteer decision. A group of about 12 of us founded AMT in June of 2010 after meeting for a few months. I was elected to the board then and re-elected a year ago. In January of 2011, I was made the president (by the board) after the old president stepped down. After being on the board for two years and president for a year and a half, I was feeling a bit burnt out on the responsibility and figured that we could use some new blood. So I let it be known a couple of months ago that I was stepping down as president when the next board as elected and didn’t really want to be on the board (though I was a candidate). All of these dreams have come true and AMT now has a new board, half of whom are newer members, and a new president. They’re already instituting a bunch of positive changes so I’m pretty happy.

This means that I will have time to work on actual projects at AMT instead of working on AMT as my project. While technically, I’ve had time, there is only so much mental energy available for hacking related things and being the primary officer and a board member mostly tapped that out. I’m hoping to blog quite a bit more about actually hacking on things as a result of this. That was the final instigator that pushed for the creation of the new blog. We’ll see if it works!

A New Term Begins at the Prajna Institute

2012-06-28T17:07:00-07:00

Another few months have passed and a new term at the Prajna Institute starts in a few days. I’m looking forward to starting my classes with a new round of students and the older students that I’ve been working with over the last year or two. As I’ve mentioned from time to time, I’m an instructor in a distance-based Buddhist seminary called “The Prajna Institute”. I’ve lost track of how many terms I’ve been teaching and I’m feeling disinclined to double-check but it has been for much of the last two years or so.

PI started out as a training program for students of my own teacher, Rev. Myo Gak Foster, in order to guarantee a certain amount of basic study and training for those working towards ordination with him. Over time, the program was expanded to be less focused on our own lineage and to be more of a pan-Mahayana seminary. We have students from a number of different Zen traditions, Pure Land schools, and Tibetan Vajrayana. Many of those studying in the program are not working towards ordination with us (in fact, that could probably be said for all of the non-Zen folks) since we only ordain for our own lineage. These students come to us because they want to deepen their understanding of the Dharma as part of their own practice or in support for a variety of personal goals. For example, we have at least one student who is a Hospice worker and this person’s practice plays a key role in their day-to-day work caring for the dying. In another couple of cases, we have students who are leaders within or leaders of small sanghas who feel a need to strengthen the depth of their knowledge to support their roles.

We are very definitely not a diploma mill or some kind of rubber stamp process designed to give people more merit badges to collect. This is not one of those programs where you’re given a degree without having to do any actual academic or personal work in a few weeks or months. We have a system of two month terms with a month break in between that lasts over the course of at least two years (and often more) of regular study. During the school terms students spend a pretty fair amount of time reading texts, responding to questions about their understanding of the text, and writing papers. This is for the scholastically oriented classes. Additionally, we have practicums where students work with instructors on developing a regular meditation practice and work through a program of practices designed to introduce these students to methods that they can then use as the basis of their own practice. While not as hard as, say, working on a doctorate in neuroscience, it is at least as difficult as other academic programs in which I’ve participated. My own Humanities master’s degree was done through California State University, Dominguez Hills in a program which is now about 40 years old as a distance-based program. The work we have students do at PI is definitely on par with much of the work that I had to do at CSUDH, the primary difference being that I finished off my work there with a 90+ page thesis but had no practicums.

I mention this because I want to both encourage people interested in a program like this to participate but to also let people know that it is actually work. I can think of a few instances where students have been surprised by the amount of actual expected work and, in some cases, have left the program to go elsewhere as a result of this work without fully engaging with the program. We set high standards and demand regular interaction with folks as we work through our terms.

For those of us teaching in the program, this is done as a labor of love, a kind of Karma Yoga. We offer our time and energy as part of our Dharma practice without renumeration. While not all of the people in the program go on to ordination, all of the ordinands in the Great Cloud Zen Society are participants in this program.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, please check out the Prajna Institute site or contact me and I can answer questions. We’ll be having our Fall retreat in Maine in a few months and I’m hoping to see many students (and non-students) of PI there. Until then, we have the regular process of terms as people go through the program.

Buddhism is more than the Buddha

2012-06-22T11:40:00-07:00

If there was ever a poster child example of why I am not a Theravadan Buddhist (nor a conservative one in general), this post by Noah Yuttadhammo is it. I want to preface everything else here with a note that I quite respect Ven. Yuttadhammo, his convictions as a person, and what he’s been accomplishing these last few years. This is not an attack on him.

The post in question is “The Argument For Allowing Bhikkhus To Ordain Bhikkhunis” and it, obviously, focuses on the arguments for allowing Vinaya holding monks to ordain Vinaya holding nuns within the Theravadan tradition. (Actually, interestingly, other than the vague allusion to whever Bhikkhunis have been getting ordained currently, it doesn’t even really mention that there is a non-Theravadan tradition…) The post is a kind of blow by blow of textual analaysis and interpretation of whether the Buddha’s words in the Pali Canon can be used to justify the ordaining of nuns by monks in current times when the nun lineage in Theravada has died out in the same way for which the Buddha initially allowed, before it was superceded by later methods. It is all very technical, focusing on the meaning of Pali words and contexts.

It is also, in my opinion, completely beside the point. This whole thing gives me flashback images of late medieval Christian monks arguing whether Christ actually owned his own clothes or not and similar doctrinal silliness. This is the kind of arguing that had Christians fighting wars at one point. The real question is “What difference does it make?” Now, Theravada is, pretty much by definition, a conservative tradition. It is the tradition of the Elders (self-proclaimed) after all. In contrast, I’m a Zen priest in an American lineage derived from a Korean Seon monk who left Korea and started a new organization with its own methods and structure (though derived from Korean Seon). I’m a married householder priest holding the Bodhisattva precepts, not a Vinaya holding celibate monk. I think that, other than us both being Americans, Ven. Yuttadhammo and I are prety much at the opposite ends of the Buddhist spectrum. As a Zen practitioner, I care about one thing, awakening. Well, like the Monty Python Spanish inquisition, I care about two things (“How can I help you?”) or maybe even three or four. At the end of it all, it comes down to realizing awakening (or enlightenment) and doing my best to help others do this and lead lives that minimize suffering and promote compassion as well. In none of that, will you see “Argue the fine details of meaning of words attributed to the Buddha in a 2,300 year old text written down from oral memory hundreds of years after he died.” At the end of the day, that’s sophistry in my opinion.

The Buddha was the first one to promulgate the Buddhadharma, apocyphal stories aside. He was the first of us humans to realize supreme awakening. He wasn’t the only one though. Even the Theravadan tradition recognizes arhats (and we could get into more hair splitting on the difference between an arhat and a buddha or bodhisattva). While the Buddha’s words, such as we have and can trust them, are foundational, they do not circumscribe the entirety of the process of awakening for all people in all times and places. We are not necessarily limited to “The Buddha said this is how we do this and that’s the way it has to be.” That’s an ossified and dead tradition, not a vibrant and living one. When your tradition forgets the point of this entire exercise (see the Four Noble Truths) and becomes a bunch of lawyers arguing about the exact meaning of one word in the Pali Canon in order to debate whether you can ordain women or not, you’ve missed the point of it all.

Now, I’m sure Ven. Yuttadhammo would make an argument for continuity of tradition and the sangha and say that if people aren’t concerned (and haven’t been concerned) about such things, the sangha cannot survive and the Buddhadharma will disappear. I would find such an argument to be a form of sophistry though. If the sangha concerns itself with these things and maintaining itself as an institution to the detriment of its supposed primary goal, helping people realize liberation, it is a dead thing and should be allowed to pass from this Earth.

This also leaves aside the fact that other ways of organizing sanghas have developed, and I don’t just mean in America in the last century. There has been non-Vinaya focused ordination for 1,000 years in Japan and attempts to reform an only Vinaya holding clergy have happened there periodically and have failed to last. Similar developments happened in Korea (and not simply as part of Japanese occupation) and in Tibet, where there is a longstanding tradition of non-monastic, married lamas. Just because the Buddha found it inappropriate in his time and place (India, over 2500 years ago) doesn’t mean that it is forever inappropriate or necessarily a degeneration of the Dharma. We are allowed to innovate if it furthers the overall goals of the Buddhadharma, which is awakening and nothing else (not institutional continuance).

In fact, if we take it as a given that others have achieved enlightenment since the time of the Buddha, we should look to these men and women for guidance as much as we look to the Buddha. This is why I find the Mahayana Sutras and even some Tantras to be completely appropriate for guidance. Were the written by the Buddha? Almost certainly not. Were they written by people who had realized awakening? For some of these texts, almost certainly. I don’t need to think that the Buddha personally wrote the Diamond Sutra or the Heart Sutra in order to see the gleaming of liberation shining forth from them. I can look to the writings of one of the fountainheads of my own tradition, Chinul, and see both wisdom and the methods for realizing this wisdom. The process of realization is an ongoing process and new bodhisattvas and buddhas constantly appear in the world. We are not frozen in time, only able to reflect on the words of one man from thousands of years ago.

To return to the original disagreement that spawned Ven. Yuttadhammo’s debate with his fellow monk, if there is a need to ordain nuns, ordain nuns. You don’t need to be a legal scholar to see the need (which he clearly does) nor to justify it. See it as an act of compassion and wisdom, addressing the needs of these women and the wider world of humanity and ordain them. Others have already been doing so, both within the Theravadan tradition and elsewhere. The world has not shattered for allowing women to become monastics. If it serves the cause of liberation, look for guidance in that.

Splitting the Blog

2012-06-20T10:39:00-07:00

Gandharan Buddha

Once upon a time, this blog used to go gangbusters. I posted a few times a week, was hyper motivated to blog, and so forth. Then I got sick, in 2008, and was sick or recovering for over six months from my nasty illness (thanks, Egypt!). After that, I posted, at most, a few times a month and often less. I found myself less and less motivated to post, not because I didn’t enjoy writing but just because my energy was lower and I found myself less inclined to share my day to day life.

I’ve realized over the last few years that, contrary to my explicit motivations, most of what I post here is more tech oriented than it is Buddhist. I helped found a hackerspace in 2010 and have served on the board for the last two years (and as president for the last year and a half). Outside of work, a lot of my day to day energy has been focused there. Beyond that, I’ve been teaching at the Prajna Institute, an online Buddhist seminary that originally started as a means of training clergy for the Zen lineage in which I am ordained but has expanded itself into a non-denominational pan-Mahayana seminary. Teaching classes there hasn’t lent itself, really, to being good blog fodder.

I’m currently planning on forking this blog into two sites. This site, openbuddha.com, would be kept for my Buddhist focused posts and work. I’d start doing more book reviews again, posting about the seminary, and my work to get a local sitting group going in the Bay Area of California. I would move the overtly tech stuff, especially the hackerspace focused material, over to Make Hack Learn, which I recently registered. This would allow me to strongly differentiate the two areas of interest and possibly make blogs more interesting to their specific potential audiences. I have a feeling Buddhist readers kind of shrug at the tech stuff and tech readers don’t really care about a lot of the Buddhist material.

I’ve found myself not writing as much about hackerspaces, fighting 3D printers, learning basic electronics, etc. but I have a somewhat Buddhist blog here and that sort of thing can be somewhat outside of message. This blog has had a lack of a very specific focus for a number of years now so this is not a surprising problem. Once upon a time, I just did a generic “All about me” blog but those sorts of things become boring over the years and blogs are much more focused, if successful, than that in 2012, at least in my opinion.

Of course, it is well known that splitting blogs can often cause one or both of them to die so it is an interesting problem to try to address. We’ll have to see how it goes. I haven’t figured out if I should move a bunch of my tech posts over to the new site once I get it completely set up, as the current one is a stand-in. I plan on actually hosting it using github, like I do with this blog.

There should also be more news on actual local practice in the next few months. The Open Sangha retreats were somewhat successful but had consistently small (five or six people) turnouts. I’m looking at partnering with a local yoga studio or similar space to have a once a week evening sitting group available and then running monthly one day or half-day sits out of that. I need to work out some of the details though.

Scanning the Buddha

2012-06-02T16:39:00-07:00

It isn’t often that my Buddhist interests and my hacker/geek interests completely line up. Today is one of those days!

As part of a project to scan the world, Makerbot Industries has been organizing a scanning event, the Met MakerBot Hackathon, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. People are using Autodesk 123D to take images of art and then assembling these images into 3D models. The resolution is much poorer than the high quality, professional models but isn’t horrible.

A few examples of these scans are Buddhist. There are the Ghandaran Seated Bodhisattva Maitreya, the T’ang Dynasty Head of a Bodhisattva, and Avalokiteshvara (really just the torso) statues.

The models that are up now are the early, rough ones but I do expect that a bit of clean up will occur. I’d love to see more models.

Tony Buser has been having some fun with the models produced as well:

You can read more about the Met efforts on the Makerbot blog, especially here and here.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have a 3D printer (actually, I’m building a second one right now) at home. Ace Monster Toys also has a couple of Cupcake 3D printers and we may be building a few Printrbot printers if my build goes well. We’ve also just acquired a Zcorp z402, which should show up tomorrow. That can, as an experiment, take powdered wood or concrete, so there is the real possibility of printing some interesting and durable objects. I’d love it if one of the first things that came out of the new printers was a Buddha image.

In Memory of Leon Erlin

2012-04-24T23:30:00-07:00

My father-in-law, Leon Erlin, died last Thursday, April 19, 2012. He was 91 years old, a World War II veteran, and had survived a number of life threatening illnesses rather robustly over the last fifteen years or so.

My wife, Rebecca, and I went over to his and my mother-in-law, Louetta’s, house this afternoon for a small family memorial service. Leon was cremated and I gather that Louetta just wanted something quiet with immediate family.

She spoke a bit about her 42 year long marriage to Leon and what he was like as a man. Others spoke at length about their experiences of Leon as a parent, an uncle, a cousin, and so forth in their lives over the last few decades. It was eye opening to hear about the kind of man he’d been in the eyes of these people. I’ve really only known my wife’s perspective of her dad from my eleven years together with her and my own from knowing him during these last five and a half years. I never knew him well. He was quite old when we met and he was a taciturn man by nature, though I gather he grew less so over the years. He was a figure that I saw at family gatherings or the occasional visits to each other’s homes.

Leon grew up as a Jewish kid during the Great Depression, often on his own. He enlisted in the Air Force as a patriotic American to fight Hitler (his own words). He managed to go to college with no support or resources, always managing to build on his own tenacity and willingness to work. He studied horticulture and had a great love of nature, spending much of his time over decades camping and hkining. He taught public school for many years and went back to school following his retirement to earn a second degree, this one in the Russian language. It would be hard for me to do true justice to the long life of this man.

At the memorial, we did some short readings to remember Leon as he was. Leon was a Jew, if a non-observant one, so we recited the Mourner’s Kaddish together as a group. The Jewish members of the family doing the Hebrew and then all of us reciting in English.

In phonetic Hebrew, it is as follows:

Yit-ga-dal v’yit-ka-dash sh’mei ra-ba, b’al-ma di-v’ra chi-ru-tei, v’yam-lich mal-chu-tei b’chai-yei-chon uv’yo-mei-chon uv’chai-yei d’chol-beit Yis-ra-eil, ba-a-ga-la u-viz-man ka-riv, v’im’ru: A-mein.

Y’hei sh’mei ra-ba m’va-rach l’a-lam ul’al-mei al-ma-ya.

Yit-ba-rach v’yish-ta-bach, v’yit-pa-ar v’yit-ro-mam v’yit-na-sei, v’yit-ha-dar v’yit-a-leh v’yit-ha-lal, sh’mei d’ku-d’sha, b’rich hu, l’ei-la min kol bir-cha-ta v’shi-ra-ta, tush-b’cha-ta v’ne-che-ma-ta, da-a-mi-ran b’al-ma, v’im’ru: A-mein.

Y’hei sh’la-ma ra-ba min sh’ma-ya, v’cha-yim, a-lei-nu v’al kol-Yis-ra-eil, v’im’ru: A-mein.

O-seh sha-lom bim-ro-mav, hu ya-a-seh sha-lom a-lei-nu v’al kol-Yis-ra-eil, v’im’ru: A-mein.

This is English translation we used:

May God’s name be exalted and hallowed throughout the world that He created, as is God’s wish. May God’s sovereignty soon be accepted, during our life and the life of all Israel. And let us say: Amen

May God’s great name be praised through all time.

Glorified and celebrated, lauded and worshipped, exalted and honored, extolled and acclaimed may the Holy One be, praised beyond all song and psalm, beyond all tributes that mortals can utter. And let us say: Amen.

Let there be abundant peace from heaven, with life’s goodness for us and for all Israel. And let us say: Amen.

May the One who brings peace to His universe bring peace to us and all Israel. And let us say: Amen.

Leon had studied Zen when he was younger and sat with Suzuki Roshi around 1962 for a while at Soko-ji, a Zen temple in a converted synagogue in San Francisco. He lost track of Suzuki later but was influenced by Zen in his life. Because of this, I was asked to read something to touch on this. Following the kaddish, I read part of Hsin Hsin Ming (信心銘) or “Faith in Mind,” a poem attributed to the Third Patriarch of Zen and written around the year 600 C. E.

The section that I read was as follows:

In this world of Suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To come directly into harmony
with this reality just simply say
when doubt arises, “not two.”
In this “not two” nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension
or diminuation in time or space;
in it a single thought is ten thousand years.
Emptiness here, emptiness there,
but the infinite universe
stands before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference,
for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with being and non-being.
Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.
One thing, all things,
move among and intermingle without distinction.
To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality
because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.
Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.

Leon will be missed by his family and all of the people with whom he came into contact.

Review of Why I Am A Five Percenter

2012-04-07T21:40:00-07:00

I just finished reading Michael Muhammad Knight’s new book, “Why I Am a Five Percenter.” This is a follow-up to his previous, more academic, book on the Five Percenters, their history, culture, and beliefs centering on New York City that he wrote back in 2007.

Knight became well known a few years ago by the unique virtue of having accidentally created a movement in reality that he wrote about fictionally first. He is the author of “The Taqwacores,” a novel about young, American punk Muslims. He depicts these Muslims being followers of a punk-rock movement of Islamic bands as they struggle to find their Islamic identity in an American context. This wholly fictitious vision was inspiring enough that a number of punk Islamic bands actually formed after the book was quietly distributed in samizdat editions, bringing the vision to reality, at least to some degree.

Knight has also written a number of other works, such as Blue Eyed Devil, about being a white American convert to Sunni Islam living in a post 9/11 era. That work is an excellent travelogue of road tripping from mosque to mosque across America. He has also written another of travelling to Mecca on Hajj and the people he met along the way.

When I read his initial work on the Five Percenters, “The Five Percenters: Islam, Hip-Hop and the Gods of New York,” I was gladdened to see the level of sensitivity to the history of this movement that he paid. Knight seemed very sympathetic to their attempts to grapple with their beliefs, the role of these beliefs in their lives as Black Americans, and their relationship to the Nation of Islam. It turns out that, actually, he became more than just sympathetic, though it developed mostly in the years following his encounters that enabled him to right his first book.

For those that don’t know, the Five Percenters, who sometimes refer to themselves as the Nation of Gods and Earths, are a Black American spiritual movement (I won’t call them a “religion” because I don’t think they’d want that) that has historical roots in the Nation of Islam, the American Black Muslim organization that so many know because of the fame of Malcolm X. In 1963, Clarence 13X of the Nation of Islam (NOI) had a personal revelation concerning himself, reality, and the nature of the lessons that he had learned from the NOI. He declared himself to be “Allah” and began to preach to folks he met in New York City during the following years. The primary group who took up his teachings were Black gang kids who had some affinity to the ideals put forth by the Nation of Islam without necessarily being affiliated formally with it. When Clarence 13X (whom I will call “Allah” henceforth) called himself “Allah,” he was not identifying himself with the Allah of Islam as popularily understood. His conception of “Allah” was as the “best knower” with the understanding of the true nature of things and it was not an exclusive position. He regarded this knowledge and realization as the rightful inheritance of the Black man, who had been deceived, even by the NOI, as to his own nature. Allah spoke against the very idea of a monotheistic God, a “mystery god” to use the parlance of the NOI, the unknowable spook of mythology that people assign their beliefs to and use to justify their actions. In his conception, we (though more specifically Black men as he taught) are all gods, if we know the truth. These gods are not supernatural beings but people who have realized their godliness as whole beings. Allah preached a message of self-reliance, education, knowledge, and wisdom based on the 120 lessons (known as the “Supreme Wisdom Lessons”) that were the basis of the Nation of Islam’s teachings but given his own understanding of them. These Supreme Wisdom lessons are in the form of dialogues between Wallace Fard Muhammad and Elijah Muhammed, who founded the Nation of Islam and who regarded Farad as Allah. Allah took these lessons and added a spiritual mathematics, called the “Supreme Mathematics,” which interelated the meanings of words and numbers, along with a “Supreme Alphabet.” This is a form of what my occultist friends know as gematria where words have numerical equivalents and numbers have word meanings, so one can interchange back and forth between them, allowing one to assign meaning to numbers encountered, to combine them to form other meanings or numbers, and to use them as the basis of investigation. The term “Five Percenter” is a reference to a teaching originating in the lessons that 85% of the world lives in ignorance of the nature of themselves and the world, 10% know these truths but use them to dominate others, and 5% know the truth and are righteous, acting to lead the way for others. Allah’s followers are thus in the five percent while the other religious leaders of the world, who preach of illusory or incorporeal gods, are of the 10%.

I’m not going to do justice to the depth of the Five Percenter teachings here and I mean no offense to the places where (quite likely) my summary and understanding may be wrong. This is just a little history and context in which to understand the book.

Allah was assassinated in 1969 by unknown parties but his followers continued to work with his teachings, converting others to their truth, and building upon them. Unlike many groups in these sorts of circumstances, they did not insitutionalize themselves, staying rather a loosely grouped set of related individuals, teaching and learning from each other based around the Allah School in Mecca, a building given to the school by the New York City government during the 1960s as the basis for Allah’s work educating the community. They retain this building to this day and this was one of the places which Knight met Five Percenters and got to know their teaching while working on his earlier book, especially during their annual gatherings there.

What I found especially interesting about this book is how much aspects of it mirrored my own sense of religion and spirituality, along with the desire to come to grips with these, as concepts and lived realities, while living in our world today. Knight is a convert to Islam. He grew up a white kid in upstate New York surrounded by people who hated blacks, based on his comments. On seeing the movie of Malcolm X’s life and being exposed to rap music (Public Enemy, specifically), he converted to Islam. The Islam that he converted to was Sunni, which is the most common form of Islam and what we, in the West, are really thinking of when Islam is mentioned to us. This is the form of Islam prevalent all over the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, with the exception of Iran and parts of Iraq, which are largely Shiite. Knight learned Arabic, went to school in Pakistan, and freely admits could have easily wound up as John Walker Lindh, taking up arms as a Jihadist in Afghanistan. He was talked out of doing so by a teacher in his school (who thought he was smart and could do more good by writing) but Knight’s experience mirrors that of a certain segment of converts. On returning to the United States, I got a strong sense that he had a lot of difficulty in figuring out the line between traditional Islam, as presented to him in the Middle East, being a Euro-American convert, and living in a pluralistic world exposed to all sorts of philosophies, ways of thinking, and ways of interacting with the world. Knight is clearly a smart guy and is quite consciously aware of the situation that he found himself in. When you read “The Taqwacores” and works like “Blue Eyed Devil,” you can see he’s struggling with identity and how does one live as a Muslim without simply aping what has been handed to him or pretending he’s living in pre-modern times. For myself, as an Euro-American convert Buddhist (by way of more than 15 years of Neopaganism), his struggles speak to me as well. I have to walk the line of what really is Buddhism, questioning the traditional teachings, deciding which teachings, when dealing with a 2,600 year old tradition, are applicable or important in my experience today without just being a dilettante who skims the surface. For both of us, we’re the inheritors of traditions that come from outside the cultures in which we are raised, which puts us at a distance from the teachings. This is both useful, in evaluating things abstractly, but also leaves us at a remove from people who grow up in a tradition.

The impetus for Knight to write “Why I Am a Five Percenter” was his realization after he wrote “The Five Percenters” that their influence on his life wasn’t going away. He found himself drawn again and again to the Supreme Wisdom lessons and the teachings he had learned while studying them. He points out that this is one of the dangers of studying a group and getting in their heads in order to know them. They get in your head as well. Much of the book is Knight explaining Five Percenter teachings, contrasting them with traditional Sunni teachings, and then going over how he balances between them or how he can related to the Five Percenter teachings while still identifying as a Sunni Muslim. How can you both submit to Allah (God), as a Muslim inherently does, while embracing the teachings of Allah (the man), who speaks out against mystery gods? How do you relate to teachings which say that the “Asiatic Black Man” is God and white men are the devil while you are a blue eyed white man? What role, if any, does a white convert have amongst the Five Percenters? Knight was given the name “Azrael Wisdom” (meaning “Azrael #2” in the Supreme Mathematics). This was done by Allah’s one and only original white follower, who was named “Azrael” by Allah, and who is still alive today. As Azrael found, there was a role for a white man within the Five Percenters but he is also a historical anomaly. Knight discusses quite a bit how he grappled with the lessons, meant for an audience of Black men, and how to interpret them to be meaningful to himself. In doing all of this, he found both a relationship to these teachings but also the community that has developed around them and Allah’s teachings over the last 40 years, that added meaning to his relationship to traditional Islamic teachings. Knight clearly sees himself as both a Fiver Percenter, in some capacity, but also still a traditional Muslim. He goes over the teaching of a number of Sufi masters in past centuries, showing that it is possible to find idea quite similar to those of the Fiver Percenters in these Sufis’ teachings. He also points out that most Five Percenters would scratch their heads and probably think these miss the point. They don’t struggle with how to submit to Allah (God) while identifying to themselves as gods (but with no real connotations of magic, deity, or the supernatural in their idea of what a “god” is). They see themselves as gods and it is up to them to fix their own lives and the world. No one is going to help them without them helping themselves first. Knight stands in an in-between place as he straddles both the traditional Islamic world and a very American religion.

In many ways, reading about the Fiver Percenters brought me back to my own experiences as a Neopagan for many years. Many of the ideas that Knight relates in this book (and his previous one) would be at home with certain elements of the Neopagan and occultist world. Most Neopagans are overly theistic, which wouldn’t go very far with the Five Percenters, but there is an undercurrent in both Neopaganism and occultism of atheism, which reinterprets teachings, the gods, magic, etc. are forms of philosophy and psychology. Where the Five Percenters grow out of a matrix of black experience, especially the black experience of inner cities in the 1960s and the Nation of Islam before that, most Neopagan thought grows out of the experience of white and Jewish Americans living in urban environments but trying to find religious meaning in beliefs relating to sacredness, the world, and their own personal divinity. While there are significant differences in thought, I think there are a lot of commonalities and both of these very different milieus are struggling with spirituality, empowerment, and myth in the late twentieth century (and now the twenty first century) society.

The book is valuable in watching Knight engage in his balancing act, showing how and why he is a Five Percenter but also how he relates to his otherness, as both a Sunni Muslim and a white American, in this identication. He thinks long and hard (so long and hard that he felt compelled to write a book on the topic) and I feel that watching his thinking caused me to look at my own experience of religion and to see that many of the things with which I have struggled are not terribly unique. I expect that other people would probably find this struggle and Knight’s insights valuable as well.

DARPA, Hackerspaces, and Schools

2012-04-06T17:00:28-07:00

A little levity for your memes

There is a bit of a controversy brewing right now that, in many ways, may be a tempest in a teapot, but also points to larger divisions in the hacking/making community.

First a little background

In January, O’Reilly Media, which owns Make magazine and operates Maker Faire, issued a press release around receiving funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). This press release said, in part,

O’Reilly Media’s Make division, in partnership with Otherlab, has received an award from The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in support of its Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) program. The team will help advance DARPA’s MENTOR program, an initiative aimed at introducing new design tools and collaborative practices of making to high school students.

Makerspace […] will integrate online tools for design and collaboration with low-cost options for physical workspaces where students may access educational support to gain practical hands-on experience with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects.

The MENTOR effort is part of the DARPA’s Adaptive Vehicle Make program portfolio and is aimed at engaging high school students in a series of collaborative distributed manufacturing and design experiments. The overarching objective of MENTOR is to develop and motivate a next generation cadre of system designers and manufacturing innovators by exposing them to the principles of foundry-style digital manufacturing through modern prize-based design challenges.

The MENTOR contract award provides the initial year of funding for what is expected to be a four-year program. Throughout the program, O’Reilly Media and Otherlab will work to develop both a physical and digital workspace for collaborative design and manufacturing in high schools. Students will have access to sophisticated new tools for digital pattern making that allow them to create complex 3D objects using a variety of manufacturing methods, including low-cost manual or machine techniques. By making the dependency on specialized equipment optional, a broader range of schools may participate in the program, adding these tools later if needed. These tools also embody advanced methods for completing distributed design and manufacturing.

Make magazine also published a blog post on this as well.

As it turns out, the public details of MENTOR are available on fbo.gov. There, it is noted that MENTOR is part of a larger program, “Adaptive Vehicle Make,” which has the following objectives:

to dramatically compress development times for complex defense systems such as military air and ground vehicles
to shift the product value chain for such systems toward high-value-added design activities
to democratize the innovation process.

You’ll see the third goal cited a lot in discussions of MENTOR but not much mention of the first.

This led to a number of blog posts, somewhat criticical of Make’s involvement with DARPA:

Storify, 3 BIG questions (and lots of smaller ones) about DARPA & Make
Library Cult, Make, DARPA and the line in the sand, #1
Library Cult, Make, DARPA and the line in the sand, #2

The first of the above includes some rather choice tweets from Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media and more interesting ones, involving the editors of the Boing Boing blog can be seen here and here as well, which may explain why Boing Boing hasn’t covered this issue.

On April 2, Mitch Altman, one of the founders of the Noisebridge hackerspace and someone who often acted as a bit of an ambassador from the hackerspace movement, told everyone, via twitter, facebook, and some hackerspace email lists, that he would no longer be associated with Make Faire. He said:

It’s official. I’m greatly saddened I won’t be helping at US Maker Faires after they applied for and accepted a DARPA grant.

This caused a bit of a flurry of conversation over the last few days, such as the typical Slashdot trollfest, finally leading to an official statement from Dale Dougherty, the publisher of Make magazine and the man in charge of Maker Faire.

Who cares?

With all of this, you may very well be asking, “So what? Why do I care?” I can’t really tell you why you would care but I can tell you why I care. As I call out above, DARPA’s MENTOR program is part of the Adaptive Vehicle Make (AVM) program. That program’s first objective is “to dramatically compress development times for complex defense systems such as military air and ground vehicles.” What this means is that the AVM program is, first and foremost, a military program. It is about the development of military vehicles. Now, MENTOR’s specific goal “is to develop and motivate a next generation cadre of system designers and manufacturing innovators…” What this effectively means is that MENTOR is an educational program to develop designers and innovators (including, one surmises, engineers). This is all well and good. We can use more engineers in America. The problem is that this is meant to further the AVM program for the development of military vehicles. DARPA is interested in putting money into educational programs in order to guarantee itself a supply of the right kind of people to make military equipment or to develop new equipment.

This leaves me in a moral quandry. On the one hand, we have money that is being targeted to education, specifically science and engineering education. This is where Make is coming in with its role in the program to do this work in high schools. As they say in their press release:

“Makerspace […] will integrate online tools for design and collaboration with low-cost options for physical workspaces where students may access educational support to gain practical hands-on experience with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects.”

On the other hand, we have school programs being funded through the Department of Defense, of which DARPA is a member, rather than the Department of Education. As a parent of a 16 year old girl, I understand the need for science and engineering education. I helped start a hackerspace in part because I saw this very need, not just for myself, but for others in my community. I believe in “practical hands-on experience with new technologies and innovative processes to design and build projects.” That’s what we’re all about at Ace Monster Toys. The problem is that I really don’t want the military involved, no matter how indirectly, in the education of my child or that of other children. Money is a form of influence, even if done indirectly, and I feel a lot of aprehension at the idea of the Department of Defense having an ongoing channel of influence into the science and engineering programs at schools. We have a society with a strong and traditional separation between civilian life (including education) and the military and some very good reasons for this separation (look to history in certain regions).

Outside of this specific MENTOR program, there is also ongoing efforts by DARPA and willing hackerspaces to fund various effforts. Just this week, I received the news that the Hackerspaces Global Space Program had received DARPA funding (more docs are here and here with their mailing list archive here).

All of this together feels to me as if it serves as an opportunity to legitimize military involvement in our education institutions and also as a means for the possible co-opting of the hackerspace movement by the military. Hackerspaces have formed as a ground up phenomena, first starting in Europe and then spreading to America during the last few years (Mitch Altman played a key role in this effort, I should point out). No governmental entity or program created these workshops and educational spaces. We did it ourselves as a DIY movement. I fear the influence of government money (which is often called “free money” by folks) on our independence. There is also the issue that many of us, as individuals, have been supportive of anti-establishment movements like Occupy and one wonders how government backing would affect the kinds of activities and speech groups or people are willing to support.

At the end of the day, though, I’d like to see educational departments fund education, not military departments. While I understand the argument that it is our tax dollars and we should take education funding where we can get it, I do not believe that there is any such thing as “free money.” Money, or funding, always has implicit or explicit strings attached. There is a reason that people are giving it out, after all, and attached agendas. This doesn’t make DARPA or even Make bad actors in any sense but it does mean that we should think long and hard about these issues, especially when it comes to the funding of the education of children or the potentially changing effects on the organizations and movement that we have worked so hard to build.

I would use this as a call for more transparency and dialogue on DARPA and its grants to various organizations and individuals. Let’s get everyone talking, not simply flaming one another and drawing lines in the sand. I’ve had several brief e-mail exchanges with Dale Dougherty about this and I’ve found him to be a perfectly rational and well intentioned individual. I think there is room for all of us to have differences of opinion but I also think that there should be an open discussion, if not debate, on all of the issues around this and the reasons why this is acting as a lightning rod for many of us.

Open Sangha Progress

2012-04-03T11:00:00-07:00

The once a month meetings of the Bay Area Open Sangha continue to occur every month. We have had a little bit of an off and on again start since the weekend meditation retreat this last November, missing a month in March because of changed in scheduling.

As of this last month, there is an all day open sit on the first Sunday of every month. In this, we normally have six sessions of 40 minutes of sitting and 15 minutes of walking meditation. Other than that, there is a little discussion during lunchtime usually and then a little more discussion after the last session. The schedule looks like this:

9:00 AM: Participants arrive.
9:20: First session or sitting meditation (40 minutes).
10:00: First session of walking meditation (15 minutes).
10:15 – 11:10: Second meditation session.
11:10 – 12:05: Third meditation session.
12:05 – 1:00 PM: Lunch and informal discussions.
1:00 – 1:55: Fourth meditation session.
1:55 – 2:50: Fifth meditation session.
2:50 – 3:45: Sixth meditation session.
3:45 – 5:15(ish): Discussion period for participants.

Most people have found the sits either by knowing me personally, from the Saturday Night Sangha group that meets nearby, or from the meetup group. In regards to meetup, I’ve found that in both Open Sangha and for Ace Monster Toys, it has had a phenomenal impact on getting the word out to folks. Almost all of the recent new people find Open Sangha through meetup (and over half of the new people coming to AMT).

I’ve debated having a more regular sitting group, such as meeting for a couple of hours once a week but it isn’t clear whether it would fulfill a need or even be successful. As Michael, one of the regulars, stated, there is already a group for every night of the week and I might be better off just going to someone else’s sangha to sit. I’ve actively been thinking of going to Empty Gate now that I no longer work in Mountain View on Wednesday nights, which is their biggest weekday night when their guiding teacher does his talks.

That said, if I knew that I could get at least four or five people to attend, I’d probably arrange for a weekly sitting group where we could sit for two sessions and maybe chat and have tea afterwards.

I have finally set up the meetup entries for the monthly sit as a reoccurring event so I should be able to avoid the issue of people not having a lot of forewarning of which weekend we’re meeting. Attendance has varied between as many as ten people and as few as three. I am hoping to grow this to something like twelve regular attendees but it is really up to people being already interested in sitting all day. Frankly, if you do not already have an interest in practice, the above schedule of six sessions is both going to be daunting and not seem very exciting. Since meditation sessions are not “exciting” in a traditional sense of providing distraction, this is fine but probably not terribly good marketing.

I am also looking to find a co-facilitator who will share some of the load so when I go out of town or just cannot make a monthly event, there will be someone to keep time and arrange for things to continue.

The Attack of an Open Request

2012-03-07T21:28:00-08:00

Apparently, asking for people to support an open community and to keep divisive speech seen to attack community members off of Planet Mozilla is seen by at least one of the Planet Mozilla peers as an “attack.” See his comment here.

I can only shake my head at this and wonder how people just don’t get it.

One person calls for enshrining in law the traditional second class position of members of the LGBT community in society on the basis of his personal beliefs. A second calls for an open community. Does the peer call the first person’s post an attack? No. But apparently responding to it with yesterday’s post by me does constitute an attack. How’s that work?

I certainly never to expect to be chastised for my position and have a peer suggest I take yesterday’s post down for standing up for people.

What I said yesterday included the following:

One thing that I cannot abide is prejudicial actions within that community which go against its basic ethos of inclusiveness and betterment for the good of all.

and

I encourage all Mozillians to donate to one of the many public organizations supporting equal rights for the LGBT community. This is the best way to send a message in support of inclusiveness and an open Mozilla community.

I’m not going to apologize for wanting an inclusive Mozilla that treats my queer brothers and sisters (and they are all of our brothers and sisters, as well as wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, even sons and daughters) as welcome members and co-creators in what we’re trying to accomplish. We are a community based on openness and the betterment of society. Isn’t that what we’re here for? Not simply to participate in making cool Internet software?

Supporting an open Mozilla

2012-03-06T16:00:00-08:00

I’m a proud Mozillian. I’ve worked at the Mozilla Corporation since June of 2007. I came there after working at Microsoft for nine years and was tired of working in a closed system that seemed to be designed for the good of a few people only. Working with my coworkers and the larger Mozilla Community composed of everyone interested in Mozilla (not just Firefox) and contributing to it has been a great boon to me over the last few years. It was a breath of fresh air.

One thing that I cannot abide is prejudicial actions within that community which go against its basic ethos of inclusiveness and betterment for the good of all. Today, a fellow community member decided to send a post to Planet Mozilla, the public face of the community through its blogs, that was prejudicial against the queer community.

As with quite a few others, I was outraged at this but, as the individual has said, it is his blog and he can say what he wants on it. He has his bully pulpit but, as it turns out, so do I.

I decided to respond today with this post but, more importantly, I also gave a donation to Equality California in the name of my fellow community member. Why Equality California? Well, I live here and we’re actively fighting a battle on the very issue, gay marriage, that was at the root of the person’s post. EC is very heavily engaged in this fight. As EC says on their site:

Equality California (EQCA) is the largest statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights advocacy organization in California. Over the past 13 years, Equality California has strategically moved California from a state with extremely limited legal protections for LGBT individuals to a state with some of the most comprehensive civil rights protections in the nation. Equality California has partnered with legislators and advocates to successfully sponsor more than 80 pieces of pro-equality legislation. EQCA continues to advance equality through legislative advocacy, electoral work, public education and community empowerment.

Another option, for UK community members, is Stonewall.

I encourage all Mozillians to donate to one of the many public organizations supporting equal rights for the LGBT community. This is the best way to send a message in support of inclusiveness and an open Mozilla community.

Ace Monster Toys Book Scanner is Complete

2012-03-04T11:39:28-08:00

The Ace Monster Toys Book Scanner

A year ago, Ace Monster Toys member Myles and I did a bunch of work on a DIY Book Scanner based on a variation of Daniel Reetz’s design to make it more lasercutting friendly (see this). We took beta kits of the these to the 2011 Maker Faire and generated a fair amount of interest.

This last fall, Daniel went to the Open Hardware Summit and unveiled a much improved book scanner design. A few weeks after that, he gave us a set of mostly complete parts for the wood framework before moving away. Just a few weeks ago, he announced the near final revision of these.

The parts that Daniel gave us kind of languished a bit in preference to other projects but AMT has been very interested in Daniel’s call for a book scanner in every hackerspace. Recently, a new member, Ben, had a pressing need to scan a rare book before returning it so we got a fire lit under us to finally finish the build. As a result of this, Ace Monster Toys now has a fully functioning book scanner in its space. It isn’t the final revision design but it works and works well, using the new bicycle brake design for triggering the cameras, thus bypassing the need for hacked firmware as long as you can lock focus on the cameras after setting it for your books.

In the process of doing this work, Mike from AMT, who owns a shopbot, figured out how to do the routing on the current design and we expect to be able to produce more frames from 4’x 8’ sheets of plywood on demand. I’m going to get a couple routed out to do a build of this design.

Visitors to AMT can now non-destructively scan books that they own, provided they bring some windex (for cleaning the glass as it gets dusty quickly) and some elbow grease. The next step is to build a light enclosure (pun intended) around it to keep out the horrible UV lights in the space. Think of it as a small black tent for our modest scanner.

I want to thank Daniel for all of the work that he’s done on book scanners over the last few years, as well as Ben and Mike for doing work at AMT on the builds.

I’ve put a photoset of the AMT book scanner up on flickr as well.

Little Brother on Stage

2012-01-31T21:30:01-08:00

I went with friends on Sunday night to see the Custom Made Theater Company’s adaptation of Cory Doctorow’s young adult novel, Little Brother. As most of my friends know, I am a fan of Doctorow’s work in general, finding him to be both an excellent writer but also someone speaking on things that I care greatly about as someone who works at Mozilla on open source and keeping the web as open as possible. I am also a particular fan of this book, having given a copy to my own daughter (who is now 15) to read because I think it addresses a lot of important issues in our current times. When I found out that a stage version of the play was being done and done locally, I was excited and determined to see it.

Josh Costello did the adaption from Cory’s book and directed the play as well. We actually had a Q&A after the show so he spoke about it a bit. While he was in contact with Cory, both for the obvious legal reasons and wanting to keep him in the loop with what was done to his baby, Josh did the adaptation on his own without any real outside input, from what he said. The play is done with a cast of three actors, primarily playing Marcus, Ange, and Darryl. (Technically, this isn’t true in that Cory Censoprano who plays Darryl actually has very little stage time as Darryl but he does start and end there.) While Daniel Petzold always plays Marcus, both Cory and Marissa Keltie (who plays Ange) rotate through all of the other characters encountered in the course of the story. For example, when Marcus is confronting his parents, a sweater and a shawl are added, along with a change in intonation or accent, in order to convey that it isn’t Darryl and Ange (if that isn’t completely obvious). The conceit of the play, really, is that Marcus, Ange, and Darryl are telling the story of what happened to them after the fact in the storefront they’ve set up in the Mission following the incidents being related. Josh discussed afterwards that having the actors play the other characters so transparently (as opposed to really pretending that you couldn’t tell it was the same person) involves the audience as kind of co-conspirators in their doing so. I do agree that it was effective.

Another thing that worked well in the production was their use of video. The story of Little Brother is one that heavily involves technology. How to show this in a small stage play is an obvious challenge. One thing that was done was to have video intermixed at various points, especially when the characters are working online or texting, but to have it reversed so that the projected video showed them typing or texting (but no details) while the actors, right in front of us, explained what they were doing or acted it out. When Marcus does his press conference in Clockwork Plunder, a clockwork driven online pirate MMORG, pirate hats, plastic cutlasses, and, I believe, an eye patch or two were donned as the avatars in game acted out the conference (to some hilarity).

Overall, all of this worked out well. Obviously, I’m a fan of the original book so I’m predisposed to like the play but a bad adaption or approach to the story, which had to be condensed mightily to fit into two hours, could easily have ruined it. Using only three actors could have worked out very badly as well. I found that it flowed and was true enough to the essential story that I was satisfied. One of my companions did complain that his favorite line by Marcus from the book was left out (which was “I had a boner that could cut glass”) but even he was happy overall.

One of the things that makes the story continue to work well, which the cast and script writer/director acknowledged in various ways, is that even though it was written in 2008 to deal with issues of the post-9/11 world, Little Brother is very much of the current times in which we find ourselves. We’ve had the Arab Spring and the ongoing attempts in Syria and even Iran where people are using technology as a lever as they try to overthrow tyranny. We have our own Occupy movement (especially here in Oakland, where I live), which is very much trying to change the discourse in our nation and to raise awareness. This has lead to protests in the streets, here in America, and subsequent crackdowns. Against this sort of backdrop, I found that my emotional response to Little Brother was much stronger than it might otherwise have been. The idea that we need to stand up for ourselves, no matter how otherwise powerless we might be, and “take it back” is something I think that many of us understand much more immediately than we did in 2008 as the economic crash leading to our “Great Recession” began and everything that has happened to lead to the current very vocal dissatisfaction with business as usual. I wanted to post a quote a quote from Little Brother that covers the sentiment exactly:

“It’s our goddamned city! It’s our goddamned country. No terrorist can take it from us for so long as we’re free. Once we’re not free, the terrorists win! Take it back! Take it back! You’re young enough and stupid enough not to know that you can’t possibly win, so you’re the only ones who can lead us to victory! *Take it back!”

“TAKE IT BACK!” we roared. She jammed down hard on her guitar. We roared the note back and then it got really really LOUD.

Of course, in the story, this is followed by the kind of beatdown of the crowd by the authorities with pepper spray and clubs that would make the Oakland Police Department grin like proud parents.

I think that the play is definitely worth seeing and I see it has been extended two weeks through the end of February. You can get tickets at goldstar. You should go!

Changes and 2011 Review

2012-01-01T13:45:00-08:00

It is now January 1^st, 2012 so I suppose it is time for year end (beginning?) review and announcements.

For the most part, this has not been a year of changes. I’ve been at Mozilla for four and a half years, working with the seminary for the past few years (first as a student and now as an instructor), been in the same house, married to the same wonderful woman, and running the same hackerspace.

This year I turned 40, which is considered to be entering mid-life by some. It really doesn’t feel much different than 30 except I’m, perhaps, wiser or at least more aware of what an idiot I can be. I think that is all we can really hope for with “maturity” anyway. I do find it true that our conception of ourselves seems to freeze sometime between 25 and 30. It isn’t that we aren’t constantly changing as people still (nothing is constant except change, after all) but the shorthand we use to view ourselves is still that person we thought we were when we were that age. It could be different with others but, based on talking to people and what people have written in books and whatnot about themselves, I think this is a common feature. So, I’m old enough to know better, not that old still, but have to remind myself I’m not quite that loud-mouth I was when I got divorced in my late 20’s.

This is where I will announce, beyond Twitter and Facebook, that my work is changing. I’ve been doing Quality Assurance (“Software Testing”) since 1996 with the exception of a six month stint with a generic “Project Manager” title right before I left Microsoft in 2006. For most of the last four and a half years, I’ve run the QA side of security updates for Mozilla Firefox. This has meant triaging incoming bugs with devs and others, verifying fixes, and generally making sure the updates don’t destroy your computer or the usability of Firefox. Right now, I’m officially in transition to leave QA and to join Mozilla’s Security Team as a program manager. My duties at this point appear to likely focus on communications with various parties, such as bug reporters, looking at incoming issues, and helping out other Security Team members on wrangling projects. This is a pretty natural transition given that I’ve been working with much of the team for years and I’m likely reporting to one of my triaging partners. Obviously, lifewise, this is a big change as I’ll be leaving QA after 15 years for a new career shift into program and project management. Given the intersection of my work at Mozilla and helping found and run a hackerspace, this feels very “right” to me and organic as an evolution of what I’m doing and the space in which I wish to work.

Speaking of the hackerspace, Ace Monster Toys continues to do well. We’re up to about 30 paying members (+/-2) with a few more coming to events and meetings that are not members. We’re in the process of finishing our federal nonprofit paperwork in the next few weeks (we’re a California nonprofit right now). We had tables at the main Maker Faire and the local East Bay Mini Maker Faire this year and got a lot of attention at these. We were on the Make Live Hackerspace Roadshow with a video we made giving a tour of the space. The goals for this year are to have more regular workshops and classes for the public and to generally grow the membership.

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Within the Buddhist side of things, I’ve been fairly busy. The Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary went through a name change within the last two months, becoming the Prajna Institute for Buddhist Studies, to help differentiate ourselves as a non-denominational Mahayana Buddhist seminary from our Five Mountain Zen lineage. We continue to pull in a few new students on a regular basis and we’re examining how to increase our offerings and improve what we already have. I continue to teach a few classes every quarter, working with something like eight students on average.

My primary Buddhist teacher and the head of the institute, Rev. Jiun Foster, received Inga (Inka) this last week, recognizing his accomplishments and realization as a Zen teacher. As part of this, his Dharma name was changed to “Myo Gak” (or “Myogak”) by his teacher, Rev. Paul Yuanzhi Lynch. Not directly related to this but associated with ongoing developments in our Zen work, I’ve received a new Dharma name as well, which is “Ji Gong” (Jigong), written in Chinese as “智空,” and meaning “Wisdom of Emptiness” (or is it “Empty of Wisdom” as the joke goes). This is because I’ve been appointed Dogam or Vice-Abbot of Great Cloud Zen Society, of which more details will eventually be forthcoming. This is based off of Rev. Myogak’s work in Cincinnati over the last five or so years and will be an evolution of our continuing Zen work.

I’ve also begun to hold open Buddhist retreats in the Bay Area under the moniker of “Open Sangha.” I held a two day retreat in November and have begun scheduling monthly one day retreats starting this month. As I say on the site, “The Bay Area Open Sangha exists to allow people to practice and study the Buddhadharma, the teachings of the Buddha, without concern for sectarianism or the historical lines between traditions of Buddhism.” The retreats are a place for people to practice meditation, usually sitting and walking forms, without being tied to a specific school or tradition of practice. I realized that there are already quite a few Zen, Vipassana, and other groups in the Bay Area (and elsewhere) but few that allow Buddhists of all traditions of practice to come together. I feel that this is a useful space in which to work as I really question the value of too much sectarianism within Buddhism, though I do agree with the value of learning a coherent tradition of practice.

On a personal front at home, my wife, Rebecca, and I continue to do well. We’ve both embarked on a variety of fitness focused routines during the last year (and some). Part of reaching 40, as a fellow priest pointed out, is realizing that you can wake up in the morning having hurt yourself in bed without doing more than sleeping. Working a rather sedentary job (technology) combined with sedentary habits like reading, writing, and meditation, it is easy to just begin (continue?) to physically fall apart. I seem to have made a successful transition in the last year and a half to being a bit of a jock. I work out with a trainer once a week, do at least two cardio routines every week, and lift weights four or more days a week. Basically, I now work out almost every day compared to never working out or getting any exercise as recently as two or three years ago. A year ago, my trainer, who is a competition Olympic style weightlifter, taught my how to lift weights, which is something I’d never learned as a young geek who avoided the jocks at the gym. My garage is now filled with multiple lifting racks, two olympic barbells, and about 500 pounds of free weights (plus some dumbbells and a range of kettlebells up to 53 pounds). It is amazing the amount of difference working our daily has made in my energy levels and my outlook on life. I feel strange now if I don’t work out on a given day for at least an hour and feel a sense of accomplishment in my gradually increasing ability to bench press, deadlift, or otherwise lift heavy things. On the other hand, I’ve hurt myself pretty well a couple of times being ambitious but, given my age and habits, I really do need to work to be healthy.

Additionally, in October I had LASIK surgery on my eyes, which Rebecca had done about four years ago. While it took a month to fully heal (and aspects of it are still healing and adjusting), it has been a life changer. Having worn glasses since I was twelve, it is hard to impart how incredible it is to have at least 20/20 vision and to be free to run around without glasses. To any of my glasses wearing friends, I cannot recommend the procedure highly enough if you qualify. It is easily the best money I’ve spent in years for the most return. As it turns out, I’m only a couple of years away from needing reading glasses, which this doesn’t help, but in all other respects, I have perfect vision now. (I also had new portraiture work done by a photographer friend, to commemorate having no glases anymore and thus changing my appearance.)

In summary (for the “too long, didn’t read” crowd), I have a new job at Mozilla, am still running a hackerspace, and have a new ordained name. I’m also running retreats open to anyone in the Bay Area, teaching in a Buddhist seminary, and lifting a lot of heavy things often. I must say that turning 40 has been a lot better, a lot more even, than turning 30 was by any estimation. This last year has been good overall and I hope that this coming year is even better.

Hakim Bey on TAZ Origins

2011-12-28T14:45:00-08:00

I just read a recent interview with Hakim Bey today, In Conversation with Hakim Bey done by Hans Ulrich Obrist from e-flux.

As many of my friends know, I ran one of the longest running Hakim Bey sites for many years on hermetic.com before I gave the site away to a new curator. Back in my undergrad days in the early 1990’s, I was the person that (with permission) reformatted Bey’s T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism for posting on Usenet, the old discussion forum sort of area on the early Internet. I have been very influenced by his thought at various points in my life, even as I moved beyond my earlier enthusiasms (and despite the personal controversies around Hakim Bey).

I noticed in the interview that Obrist asked Bey about the origins of T.A.Z. and I thought it worth quoting. It was interesting to read (as was the whole interview).

I’m not sure when in 2011 that it was done but I do find it interesting that nowhere in the discussion below does the Occupy Movement come up. Given its natural tendency to do so, I suspect that this interview was done early in the year before it became much of a well known phenomena, especially since Bey is in the Hudson Valley in New York. I’m kind of curious as to what he would say about it.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: I also wanted to ask you about the origins of T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, which is a book that changed the way I approached exhibitions when I began working as a curator. Growing up with this idea that the exhibition has a master plan and the curator is the one who does a checklist, reading T.A.Z. for the first time in the early ‘90s really triggered a whole set of exhibitions for us, like Life/Live, Cities on the Move, and Laboratorium. Most of my exhibitions in the ‘90s, and then also Utopia Station in the 2000s, relinquished the curatorial master plan in favor of being temporary autonomous zones in which we would basically invite collectives and artists to curate shows within the show. So for me it was a toolbox for curating, and I always wondered how you came to write that book, how its genesis came about?

Hakim Bey: Well, the real genesis was my connection to the communal movement in America, my experiences in the 1960s in places like Timothy Leary’s commune in Millbrook. And of course the main criticism of this activity is that it didn’t last. But these things tend to be very ephemeral—if a secular commune lasts in America for ten years, it’s a miracle. Usually only the religious ones last longer than a generation—and usually at the expense of becoming quite authoritarian, and probably dismal and boring as well. I’ve noticed that the exciting ones tend to disappear, and as I began to further study this phenomenon, I found that they tend to disappear in a year or a year and a half. In the ‘60s we had a lot of communes that lasted for a year and half, two, three years. I think the only one that survived was The Farm, and that’s due to a number of things that made it very different, such as the fact that it had what I would say was a rather authoritarian leader, Steve Gaskin. What a brilliant guy. I think the place held together because he was willing to be its leader. A lot of the other communes fell apart because they were so anarchistic that they had no leaders, and so nobody washed the dishes. The movement was still going on in the 1980s. I had friends who were deeply involved in intentional communities, and I myself got involved. And everybody in the ‘80s was giving a good deal of thought to the whole idea of what intentional community could mean and how it could improve your life to be in one, or if it even could at all. That was the question. I think it unquestionably does. People have great fun for at least a year or a year and a half, and then when the problems start, that’s usually when it breaks up. After thinking about that for a while, it occurred to me that, well, it’s not such a great tragedy that these things don’t last. You shouldn’t condemn the experience of the people at Brook Farm, for example, just because it only lasted a few years. Those people had an incredibly deep experience that changed their lives. They had fun while they were there. They had a more intense existence, with everything geared up to a higher charge. All you have to do is read a little Emerson and a little Thoreau, see what the people who visited Brook Farm had to say about it. It was buzzing with energy and good vibrations.

HUO: Emerson said, “Nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm.”

HB: Exactly. So it occurred to me that you could make a virtue of the temporary nature of these things. If these organizations fall apart after eighteen months or so, well, let’s just plan on it. Let’s have these communities and say that they’re only going to last for a short while. And as soon as the intensity fades, then it’s over. It’s finished. We wrap it up, go somewhere else, do something new. But I also have to admit that by the 1980s, waiting for the revolution for thirty years had gotten a little tiresome. When I was really young and full of enthusiasm in the 1960s, we really, actually, sincerely believed that a major transformation was imminent. And as it turned out, we were all naïve, perhaps like those Christian fundamentalists who are so certain that the end of the world is imminent. I don’t know. It could have been a form of millenarian insanity, but we believed in it in any case. The older we got, the more this receded into history, at least for me. And for others it became a futile, youthful dream they had to give up. But I’m still working for that transformation, though I’m no longer convinced it’s around the corner, or that it’s going to happen in my lifetime. So as I began wondering how we could have a taste of revolutionary life without the revolution, since it was apparently not going to happen, this new Temporary Autonomous Zone seemed the only possible answer to that. There was no single moment of genesis really, but a whole series of light-saturated moments throughout American history—including the 1960s, which I had lived through myself—that all culminated in that theoretical work.

HUO*: So if one considers Temporary Autonomous Zones as these pockets of anarchy, do you find any now, in the twenty-first century? Where are they? Can they be expanded? And what forms do they take?

HB: Well, I’ve always said that I didn’t invent the TAZ. I just noticed that it existed. It’s always existed. For some reason, most people have to believe that what they’re doing is going to last forever in order to find the enthusiasm to do anything at all. The only thing that changed was thinking of the temporary itself as a possible good, instead of an obstacle. A good dinner party is a Temporary Autonomous Zone. Nobody tells you what to do at a good dinner party. Nobody gives orders. Nobody collects taxes. It’s an experience of giving and being given to, of filling the body and emptying the mind, having good conversation and good wine and so forth. This is already a TAZ, but you have to conceptualize it that way for it to be that way. It’s simply a matter of consciousness. But once you find that consciousness, the forms of organization begin to open up. You begin to see all the different forms of organization that this could take. It could be anything from a picnic by the riverside to a community that lasts for two years. Where is it actually happening? Well, I have to say that the current moment at the end of this decade is, to me, one of the low energy points of history. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I feel that it’s actually hard to find a good TAZ now. And it’s more important than ever to do so. One reason being that communism is no longer. We now live in the world of the triumph of capital. And in this world, it would seem that the TAZ is, perhaps, the last possible revolutionary form. I hope that’s not true, but it may be. Either way, the idea is certainly more important now than it was around 1989 when I dreamed the idea up in the first place.conversation and good wine and so forth. This is already a TAZ, but you have to conceptualize it that way for it to be that way. It’s simply a matter of consciousness. But once you find that consciousness, the forms of organization begin to open up. You begin to see all the different forms of organization that this could take. It could be anything from a picnic by the riverside to a community that lasts for two years. Where is it actually happening? Well, I have to say that the current moment at the end of this decade is, to me, one of the low energy points of history. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I feel that it’s actually hard to find a good TAZ now. And it’s more important than ever to do so. One reason being that communism is no longer. We now live in the world of the triumph of capital. And in this world, it would seem that the TAZ is, perhaps, the last possible revolutionary form. I hope that’s not true, but it may be. Either way, the idea is certainly more important now than it was around 1989 when I dreamed the idea up in the first place.

Digital Dharma Kickstarter

2011-12-17T13:32:00-08:00

Digital Dharma

Staff for the documentary, Digital Dharma, contacted me the other day about their upcoming film. Coincidentally, a day later, Kickstarter let me know about this film because it also has an ongoing kickstarter drive going to raise money to finish the film. Between the two of these, I thought it especially timely to talk to people about Digital Dharma, in order to help see the film fully realized.

I was told:

The film chronicles the life of the mormon from Utah who sparked a global mission to save Tibetan Buddhist culture. E. Gene Smith was the founder of the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, currently located in New York City under the roof of the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art and the Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation.

I’ve heard of Gene Smith on more than a few occasions. He was held up as an example of a man who had dedicated his life to the Dharma through his unending support of Tibetan culture, its Buddhism, and especially the preservation of the Tibetan Canon of texts.

Most people are aware of at least some of the reality of the last 50 years of Tibet and how many of its people, and most of its leadership, fled to India for refuge after the Chinese took over Tibet at gunpoint. What many people don’t realize is that these Tibetans often fled with only what they could carry on their backs. Tibet has a rich culture, especially a textual tradition. Imagine if the Vatican had to flee Italy with only what its people could carry and any other texts from a more than thousand year long history might just be lost forever (during the Cultural Revolution is what not uncommon for texts to be burned by the Chinese). Gene Smith’s work (and that of many others as well) has been to try to digitize and preserve texts that have made it out of Tibet in an effort for the Tibetans to not lose their cultural and spiritual history. Often only a single copy of a given text has made it.

As their kickstarter page states:

With the Buddhist thought at its core, his goal was to digitize the more than 20,000 volumes he rescued in order to provide free access to the story of a people. With technological advancement speeding forward, Gene’s vision was to make these texts accessible to everyone, even in the most remote monasteries and villages, and preserve the knowledge they contain for humanity.

This is the official trailer, which says things much better than I could ever hope to do:

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The filming is done for this documentary and they are raising funds for final production work for color correction and audio production with this footage. Please consider donating to it right now on the kickstarter page.

You can find more information at http://digitaldharma.com and they have a facebook page also.

I want to close with one clip from the film. This is His Holiness, Menri Trizin Lungtok Tenpai Nyima, who is the abbot of Menri Monastery. For those that don’t know, HH is the head of Bon, which is usually thought of as the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet. The actual truth is more complex as Bon is a mixture of Vajrayana Buddhism with native pre-Buddhist, shamanistic beliefs. It is now recognized to be the fifth branch of Tibetan religion but has undergone challenges for recognition because of historical factors. I include this clip because it shows the inclusive nature of this documentary and because, little known to most of my readers, I actually took refuge with a Bon teacher years ago and feel ties to the tradition.

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I encourage people to contribute to this project at the kickstarter page. I also encourage people to visit the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center. This is the project for the preservation and digitization of the texts and they could really use your donations as well.

Ace Monster Toys on Make Live

2011-12-01T10:30:01-08:00

Ace Monster Toys was approached recently to appear Make: Live as part of their “Hackerspace Roadshow.” As their page says, Make: Live is a streaming show and tell show from people at Make magazine. Given that I own every issue of Make and, of course, all officers of a hackerspace are unable to turn down free press, we agreed to be on their show.

Make: Live had done a first Hackerspace Roadshow this last year, profiling a number of other hackerspaces around the United States, including our sister (cousin?) space in San Francisco, Noisebridge. This time, they profiled Ace Monster Toys (of Oakland!), Hive13</a> in Cincinnati, Perth Artifactory in Perth, and Tokyo Hackerspace in, you guessed it, Tokyo! A little more international this time.

For the show, they asked us to give a brief tour of the space, show our coolest tool, maybe give a little history, and then show some projects. I gave the tour (under some duress) and Stacy, Chris, and Atom Bomb all showed their projects (which are far cooler than my touring ability).

You can see all of the shows right now on the Make: Live web page. The videos are also up on Youtube. I’ve put the AMT video inline below or you can watch it there.

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First Open Sangha Weekend Retreat a Success

2011-11-20T22:00:00-08:00

The first retreat event for the Bay Area Open Sangha was a rousing success. I just returned from spending the last two days practicing with folks that came to our two day meditation retreat.

This was our inaugural weekend as an organization. I’ve never organized a retreat before this one though I have attended plenty and even done some minor teaching at one. This was also, as far as I know, the first retreat event held at the new Bear Oaks Dharma Center in Briones, California. This is a small center about 30 minutes East of Berkeley and Oakland that just opened up in the last month for practitioners.

We had a total of nine people attending, including me, with eight on each day. This is less than had initially signed up but I had expected some to drop away given that this was a brand new event with no history being held in a new space. With the space being outside the city a little ways, I figured that some people would get up Saturday or Sunday morning and make the decision that they did not have the energy to attend with all of the other commitments of day to day life. This is normal and a good thing. I want people to get to a retreat excited and energized to practice and everyone that came definitely was these things.

We had a number of people associated with the East Bay Healing Collective’s “Saturday Night Sangha” group, which is an open sitting group that meets every Saturday night at 6:00 PM in Berkeley. (In fact, we had at least three or four attendees who, on leaving the retreat at five or so in the evening, immediately headed to the Saturday Night Sangha to sit an hour with them and attend a teaching.) Several attendees had also met at or attended the Buddhist Geeks 2011 conference in Rosemead this Summer.

With the existing associations, there were a number of shared interests or perspectives on practice within the group. Most of both days was spent in periods of 40 minutes of sitting practice followed by 20 minutes of walking practice, either inside the main Dharma room or outside on the property. There were also discussions during lunch and at other arranged times. Discussions ran the gamut from discussions of the object of meditation used during practices (either concentration or vipassana meditation) to the role of textual or doctrinal study for Dharma practitioners. Given the small group size and the existing connections between some of the people, I felt that it had a nice, friendly, group atmosphere for these discussions.

Of the attendees, at least two or three had studied Zen at some point (including me) and several had either trained with or attended retreats at American Vipassana meditation centers, such as Spirit Rock. This fulfilled my personal goal in having this as a non-sectarian event that crossed some of the common boundaries in the Buddhist world. Since I am a Zen practitioner but have begun working with vipassana (in the Theravadan sense) meditation techniques, I felt completely at home with the group. It is my sincere hope that everyone who attended found it to be a warm and welcoming environment for practice.

I’ve scheduled our next event, one day meditation retreat for the third Sunday in December, the 18th. This will likely follow the same model that was used this weekend of rounds of sitting and walking with some discussion but only for a single day and probably in town, to make it slightly more accessible to new people. I definitely encourage people interested in what we’re doing to come attend.

Occupy Samsara

2011-11-14T21:30:00-08:00

While I’ve spoken about it quite a bit on twitter (and retweeted a lot of posts by others), I haven’t said anything really about Occupy Wall Street (now just the “Occupy” movement) or my local branch, Occupy Oakland. I’ve felt that there is little that I could add and I haven’t had boots on the ground for it (I had LASIK done just about a month ago and wasn’t allowed to touch my eyes, let alone get them tear gassed). I didn’t feel that I could say things better than the people putting their presence (and butts) on the line.

Seeing the pictures of this morning’s raid with meditators calmly sitting as the police in their riot gear took them away brought it all to mind again. As much as Buddhists can take a more active role in the world, I think that our real strength is simply be present, aware, and paying attention as things go on. Lending an unmovable presence and awareness to things without getting into the mix, yelling, speechifying, or otherwise involved. I certainly don’t have any criticism for those that do these things as long as they are non-violent but I see our role as being that point of stillness.

The people at Occupy Oakland are in a rough spot. Oakland has had a lot of troubles over the last few decades and the role of the police in these troubles has rarely been positive. I don’t know what the current figures are but it used to be that the true unemployment for 18 to 35 year old Black citizens here was at least double the rest of the population and, often, triple, and are disproportionately underrepresented in education and the good jobs (hello, silicon valley) around here. We have cops here that have been caught over and over again creating their own laws. We had a rogue cop group in the 1990s and the police are currently operating under an agreement and citizen oversight from the last time they were kicking the crap out of protesters a number of years back.

Needless to say, it isn’t surprising that things have escalated here in Oakland as the cops have turned up the heat. In the long run, responding to violence with violence isn’t a solution. It just gives the cops an excuse to beat heads and look justified to the public in doing so. While I don’t really expect that non-violence will be maintained, just because of the way people are and how people around here feel, I do wish it could be.

The Occupy movement is getting people talking about the injustices in wealth in our society. It is pointing at the systematic pillaging by certain elements of society, be it bankers looking for short-term profit or the fabulously wealthy who are happy to take the short-term gains in wealth for the long turn detriment of their own culture. The only way that the Occupy movement can really win is by being present and just not going away. This isn’t about actively smashing the state (sorry, black bloc!) but about getting our fellow citizens, including those who think things have been rough but are going to get better, to really open their eyes and look at how our society is operating and where it is headed. Some people have decided that enough is enough and are making a public statement about it. That can be enough if it raises awareness in others to the point where it begins to affect their day to day decision making and how they live their lives. The destructive aspects of our current way of life and of how wealth and opportunity are apportioned can only continue if the great mass of people allow it. If they choose to no longer allow this, be it by not participating or even taking non-violent direct action, things can change. It might take quite a while but, as the cliche goes, this is a marathon and not a sprint.

As Buddhists, we need to bear witness and do what we can to relieve the suffering of others. As one of my teachers has often said, it begins with, “How can I help you?” directed towards other beings around us. We cannot simply do this for ourselves. We know that the suffering that we see in the world around us has a solution. It isn’t a short-term one or an easy fix but it is attainable for all of us.

Narcissism and Photos

2011-11-03T14:00:00-07:00

As a number of my friends know, I had LASIK surgery on my eyes about a month ago to correct my vision. I’ve been nearsighted since I was about 12 years old. Long enough that I barely remember what it was like to not wear glasses. Now that I’m 40, I decided to fix this. (Of course, I may very well already need reading glasses but let’s gloss over that fact of aging…)

As a result of this work, which was successful, every single photo I have of myself is now incorrect in that I don’t actually look the same anymore. Removing glasses from your face changes your appearance in many ways, which I am sure is not shocking. Because of this and my existing desire to have a few professional photos of me, rather than candid snapshots, for my online work and presence, I contacted my friend, Ash Bowie. Ash is someone I know through my old Thelemic associations but he’s also been working more and more as a photographer in the last few years. He’s had a series of portraits up on Flickr that I admired. I asked Ash to do some photos of me and my wife did the same for some of her work. We decided to throw in some pictures of the two of us together as well for ourselves and the family.

I think that they turned out quite well. You can see the entire series. I recognize that it is a bit narcissistic to post photos of yourself but, you know, it’s my blog and where else would I post them? I include a few below. For those interested, take a look at them on flickr for the series.

Open Retreat is on

2011-11-03T12:00:00-07:00

The details for the upcoming two day open retreat in the East Bay of California have been updated and somewhat finalized. I am still looking for three or four teachers to cover the morning and afternoon talks/practicums/teachings on each day. Even if they can only come for that time period or that half of the day, it would be great to get some local, Bay Area, teachers to come out and teach.

The organizational site for this event is bayarea.opensangha.org. I plan on additional quarterly open retreats and, probably, a monthly day-long sit on a weekend day.

You can RSVP on meetup.com if you’re local and want to attend. Please consider joining our e-mail list as well.

I include the details below.

This is a open retreat, unaffiliated with any specific organization or tradition of practice. This is occurring on November 19 and 20, 2011.

This is a 2 day, community organized non-residential retreat. This retreat will be a collaboration of practitioners from the varied Buddhist traditions and will consist of periods of sitting and walking meditation, group discussion, and recorded Dharma talks from known and respected teachers. We are also seeking a local teacher who might wish to share live teachings, in person.

This retreat will be primarily facilitated by Al Jigen Billings, but will ultimately be community directed, according to the needs of the present participants. We hope that each person will bring something to add to the altar, and an intention or aspiration to share with the group for these two days of shared practice. This retreat will be suitable for students of all levels of experience, and we welcome people from all traditions. However, only basic instruction will be offered, so please contact us ahead of time to find out if this retreat is right for you.

Schedule

The daily schedule will look something like the following, with the caveat that this is a more "Zen" version and the actual schedule may be more diverse than this:

9:00 - Open morning some kind of fairly open liturgical practice (this may be impractical though)
9:30 - 11:10 Alternate sitting and walking meditation for two sessions each (40 minute sit, 10 minute walking)
11:15 - 12:30 - Some kind of morning talk or practicum
12:30 - 1:30 - Lunch
1:30 - 3:10 - Alternate sitting and walking meditation for two sessions each (40 minute sit, 10 minute walking)
3:20 - 5:00 - Afternoon talk or practicum
5:10 - 6:50 Alternate sitting and walking meditation for two sessions each (40 minute sit, 10 minute walking)
7:00 - Dedication of merit and closing

The idea is to alternate periods of meditation that occur for most of two hours with other practices or talks.

We would love to see meditation methods, such as Vipassana techniques, explained and led for any of the larger block meditation sessions by other community members.

This should not be a "top down" style of event but one with just a couple of facilitators. We can do what the people who arrive want to do with a schedule planned ahead of time, loosely, to frame things if people do not feel an urge to diverge.

Who: Meditators from all traditions and all levels of experience

What: A 2 day, community organized, non-residential retreat

When: Nov 19 & 20th 9am-7pm (both days)

Where: Bear Oaks Practice Center, 315 Bear Oaks Lane, Briones CA, 94553

Why: to share two days of practice with a diverse community of practitioners

What to bring: Lunch and snacks, warm comfortable clothes, a shawl or blanket if desired for sitting, a rain coat in case of inclement weather

Price: $20-$40 suggested dana (for both days). No one is turned away for lack of funds.

For more information: Please contact Al Jigen Billings at albill@openbuddha.com

About the Location, Bear Oaks Practice Center:

BOPC is a newly formed retreat/home in the hills of the Briones Regional Park Area. Set on 2 quite acres of land amidst horse farms, rolling hills and pastures, there is a peaceful and sizeable meditation hall, room for a vast garden, and a wooded hillside on which meditation platforms will soon be built. BOPC offers various programs ranging from non-residential retreats, day-longs, workshops, short/long term classes, and other events that support the arts, awakening, spiritual practice and healing. Outside groups are welcome to rent the BOPC meditation hall/community room for private or public events.

The stewards and residents of BOPC have committed their efforts to the co-creation of a Dharma inspired refuge, which welcomes people of all spiritual traditions. They welcome the participation and presence of people of all levels of experience and interest in spiritual practice, and hope to support the intersection of the varied and diverse communities of the Bay Area.

To help initiate BOPC, DANA (generous giving) is welcomed in many forms: financial donations, toilet paper, garden assistance, tea and food supplies, garden tool donations, etc. When giving generously please consider yourself a member of the BOPC community. BOPC has been created for the purpose of supporting the awakening of all beings.

BOPC is13 miles east of Berkeley, 10 miles south of Martinez, and 6 miles west of Walnut Creek. For further information about BOPC please call 360-622-6388 or email nicholeproffitt@gmail.com

Bay Area Open Sangha

2011-10-29T13:00:00-07:00

I’ve recently been prompted to get involved with putting together a retreat and an “unorganization,” called “Open Sangha.” I blogged about doing a small, ground up, retreat locally in the East Bay a month ago. Normally, I travel to Nevada or Ohio to do retreats because I’m part of a distributed sangha associated with the Five Mountain Order. We have students in our seminary all over the country and we get together at least once a year for a week long retreat. As a side effect of this, I don’t really have a local sangha with which to meet or do retreats.

I realized that it would be entirely possible to just casually self-organize a small retreat. I do things like this all the time for my hackerspace. Why not do it within Buddhism? Out of this, grew the November retreat that is happening for two days next month, on the 19th and 20th. Once I started the ball moving on that, I realized that I shouldn’t do this just once. These things often take a while to really gather momentum which means I should consider making this a repeated event. At this point, I’m thinking of doing an open Buddhist retreat for two days (a weekend) every quarter and trying to organize a day-long sit once a month. Doing something weekly requires a much bigger commitment of time, energy, money, and space and, locally, the East Bay Healing Collective already has a “Saturday Night Sangha” that meets as an open group on Saturday evenings. They bring in anyone interested in doing a sitting session, have a short discussion following it, and then often go to dinner.

To facilitate the idea of these open retreats, I registered “opensangha.org” (it goes with openbuddha here, among other things) and set up bayarea.opensangha.org off of it. I also set up an @opensangha twitter account and a Google Groups e-mail list/web forum. The events, themselves, I am organizing using meetup.com, which has worked out very well for my hackerspace in terms of bringing people in. When Meetup did its once a week e-mailing of “groups that you might be interested in” to people, I had over 25 people sign up for the group to get notified for events, which I find encouraging. The Google Group has eight members now (including me and my wife).

I also found a site out past Orinda (on the other side of the hills from Berkeley and Oakland) that is being set up as a Dharma Center of sorts by a small trio. They’re living out there on two acres in a place that has a large room that can hold more than 20 people purposefully wanting to act as a organizing point and location for the Buddhist community. Nichole, who is one of the three, is actively interested in Open Sangha and we met the other day to discuss the upcoming retreat and the ideas around the (un)group. I’m calling it an “unorganization” and listing myself as a “facilitator” because I don’t see this as primarily being a vehicle for me to teach or to start an organization for myself. This is meant to be an open, ground up, ecumenical pan-Buddhist group of people where the character and activities of the group are really driven by the people involved and not an agenda assigned to any one tradition of practice or form of Buddhism. This is something that I do think is often missing as most Buddhist organizations are highly centered on one form of Buddhist teaching or practice and are much less interested in bringing together people, regardless of Buddhist tradition, into a group to talk, share, and practice together. I think that this is something needed and facilitating this, through retreats and what-not, would be very benficial.

If you’re in the Bay Area and interested or even just want to know what’s going on, I highly encourage you to go to the Open Sangha site, follow us on twitter, or to join the Google Group.

College of Lockpicking

2011-10-28T14:30:01-07:00

Last night, Ace Monster Toys had a two hour or so workshop by guests, Eric and Jamie, from the College of Lockpicking. This was a brief history of locks and lockpicking followed by a hands on practicum where we all got to work on learning to pick locks hands on with some help and supervision.

AMT has had a few locks and a member or three who knows something about lockpicking but we haven’t gone out of our way to make lockpicking a core part of what we hack on. For those that don’t know, within the hacking community there is a long tradition of lockpicking as a hacking thing, learning to work hands on with the intricacies of getting through locking mechanisms. As I recall, this goes back, in engineering circles, to Richard Oppenheimer hacking locks at Los Alamos for fun, among other places.

A few years ago, Toool, The Open Organization of Lockpickers, was founded and members of Toool have chapters all over and are an omnipresent part of hacking conferences, like DEFCON. There is actual a competition form of lockpicking called “Locksport,” that has a number of competitions. The Fraternal Order of Lock Sport and Locksport International are good places for more information on that.

For the class, people either purchased lockpicks from the organizers or brought their own. We then sat down, after some theoretical discusion of how tumbler and pin locks actually work, to open locks. This involves a bit of a learning curve as you need to learn to manipulate the tools, how much tension to put onto the lock, and how to “feel” the pins in the lock as you poke at them. I was able to open a cheap chinese padlock, a simple 1 pin lock (used for training) and a 3 or 4 pin lock. I wasn’t able to get the Masterlock on the table or any of the 5 pin locks open. (More practice is needed, it seems.) Some people doing this for the first time, or nearly so, were able to reliably get five pin or more locks opened without too much trouble. Future dentists, one supposes…

We also got to play with police style handcuffs and zipties. It turns out that getting out of handcuffs isn’t too hard if you have a little metal shim and they aren’t already cutting off the blood to your wrists (since you need to tighten them a little to shim them). Zipties can be cut through with a little vigorous footwork using good shoelaces or paracord (and time alone away from the cops). Given the last week of Occupy Oakland, this might be useful.

All in all, it was a good event and I’m glad that Eric and Jamie were going to make it out to teach it. This has encouraged those of us at AMT to potentially add a few more locks to our sets in the space and I’ve proposed some kind of reoccurring night for people to come hang out and be frustrated by locks together.

A Hardcore Buddhist Evening

2011-10-18T11:00:00-07:00

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Daniel Ingram, photo courtesy of Buddhist Geeks

It is amusing that I wrote about Daniel Ingram last week in regards to the release of his book as an ebook because I wound up having a dinner and long evening with him and others in San Francisco last night.

Meditation teacher Alan Chapman has been in the area, in Sebastopol, for the last week doing a semi-private retreat. He came and did a meditation teaching and talk at the local Saturday Night Sangha recently, which I recorded. That retreat was ending this last weekend (when I was distracted by the East Bay Mini Maker Faire) but I got a tweet from Vincent Horn of Buddhist Geeks about a dinner in San Francisco with him and my friend, Eran. It turns out that one of the “Hardcore Dharma” teachers, Kenneth Folk, has just moved to San Francisco for at least a year and we were going to get together with him. It sounded like fun. I mean, a Monday evening with Kenneth (whom I like quite a bit), Alan, Vince, and Eran, along with some others. What’s not to like?

Once Eran and I got there, it turns out that the crowd as even larger. Ona Kiser, a very active member of the Buddhist twitter space, and her husband were in town from Brazil. Antonio, who is local and I met at the Buddhist Geeks conference, was there too. The final surprise was that Daniel Ingram was here for a medical conference. (For those that only know of him from his book, Daniel is a medical doctor working in a very active emergency room in Alabama.)

We had this weird convergence of people that knew each other from twitter and blogging, from the Buddhist Geeks conference earlier this year, and the so-called Hardcore (or “Pragmatic”) Dharma movement. Almost none of these people are actually local so it was quite a confluence to get everyone together in one space. The only person missing was Hokai Sobol, though it was pointed out that a stray comet or meteor would have undoubtedly ended us all at that point, thus ending the movement.

In any case, we wandered the streets of San Francisco to a nice eatery, got food, and had a little conversation. I got to watch Alan and Daniel have a verbal cage match about the nature of their understandings of enlightenment, suffering, and so forth. From what I could gather, given the understandable limits of language, people wind up spending quite a bit of time trying to map terminology that one person or tradition is using to discuss experience to that of another before people can even attempt to talk about something as ineffable as enlightenment.

We then wandered back to the house where Kenneth and Beth, his wife, are staying. There, lounging by a pool and having a little wine, conversations continued for another three or so hours. One of the things that came out of this is that Kenneth Folk is going to be local, in San Francisco, for a year and is going to have a weekly Dharma group meeting. Out of talks between Kenneth and Vince, this will be the first official local Buddhist Geeks group, loosely referred to conversationally as the imaginatively titled “Buddhist Geeks, San Francisco.” Kenneth will teach and work with people locally and when people like Vince associated with Buddhist Geeks are in town, other events will occur. I find this very interesting on a personal level. Vince also dropped that he expects, without having had the Buddhist Geeks 2012 conference, that the 2013 conference will be in San Francisco, assuming everything goes well. I’m very excited by all of these developments.

The weirdest thing for me of this evening was I wound up walking with Daniel, the two of us ahead, on the way to the restaurant. Now, I’m as likely to fall to unrealistic ideas concerning a “famous” person as the next guy. So, here I am, talking to a self-proclaimed Arhat, whose work I’ve read and am planning on using for a detailed course of study this winter. As one would expect, Daniel is a pretty normal guy, turns out to have a similar spiritual background to me in a number of esoteric respects, and a rather sarcastic sense of humor. As a sarcastic bastard of ill repute, it put me at ease and we had a good conversation. It was a bit odd, initially, to have “the” Daniel Ingram ask me, “Tell me about your practice. What do you do?” and to follow it with a bit of conversation. After enough talking over food and wine, some of the glimmer in my eyes wore off enough to see a bit more of the man. I must confess, all things being equal, I like the man. He’s a good guy following a difficult calling (and I’m referring being to an emergency room doctor here, not even the Buddhism). He had some great rants about the current legal situation in regards to illegal aliens in Alabama (something very much in the news) since it affects him, being in Alabama, and his family.

Towards the end of the evening, as Eran was patiently waiting to walk out to the car, I got some very specific instructions on technique relating to concentration practices with support (a flame), the kinds of things to focus on and be ready for while doing it, and ways to judge progress with it. This is something that I really appreciated and Daniel definitely has a no-nonsense way of discussing these things that is very direct and to the point.

Finally, we schlepped home, getting back after 1:00 AM. Today, I’m rather sleep deprived but all the richer for getting a chance to meet online friends, Buddhist Geeks, and at least one person that I’ve admired but never thought I’d actually meet. It is times like this that living in a place like the Bay Area seems worth it.

Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha out as ebook

2011-10-14T11:45:00-07:00

Daniel Ingram is a fairly well known Buddhist teacher in certain circles. He gathered a bit of controversy years ago by being publicly willing to claim arhatship, a level of Buddhist awakening or enlightenment. This is something that is generally not done (whether achieved or not) within the Buddhist community, especially in the Western vipassana community utilizing the same general practices and orientation as Dr. Ingram.

Daniel wrote a book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, which he initially offered in blog format and then, later, as a freely downloadable PDF and in wiki format.

This book, and Daniel, propelled a lot of people into the “Hardcore Dharma” movement (as it has been called), including Alan Chapman, whom I blogged about the other day. He’s been influential on quite a few folks to get down to meditating, focusing on practice as the essence and not getting too mired down in theory. For the people that are part of this movement (quite a few of whom are connected with Buddhist Geeks in some fashion), Daniel’s no bullshit approach has been very appealing. You can watch a few Vimeo.com videos of Daniel speaking about his approach as well.

Doctoral student, Brooke Schedneck, has written a few blog posts about the movement, here and here, which outline some of the controversy. As she points out, some people are calling it “Pragmatic Dharma” now but the terms are not terribly important.

I’ve had a copy of Daniel’s book since it as a PDF and have worked with some of the techniques, though not in any systematic fashion. I’ve been following the discussions around it, and related teachers such as Kenneth Folk, fairly closely over time. I picked up the paperback of his revised edition a few years ago to support him but have watched for a true ebook format (as PDF is pretty craptastic on ebook readers).

I noticed this last week that his book is now available in Kindle format from Amazon, in ePub from Barnes and Noble, and from Google Books in whatever format they use… I figured this might be a good time to highlight his book and post a few links to it for others since ebook readers are becoming more of the norm, especially in the geek crowd.

You can find it as follows:

You can also view an ebook sample of it at Google Books, which I’ve embedded as a nasty iframe below on my blog.

I encourage those thinking about really knuckling down to practice, especially if interested in Theravadan Vipassana techniques, to check out the book and, perhaps, to just do it for a few months. See how it works out for you!

I’m actually planning on doing so as a project over this winter, working consistently with the practices as Daniel outlines them. When I talk here about Open Source Buddhism, in many ways, I’m talking about people doing exactly what Daniel Ingram has done (with or without claims of awakening). People taking the teachings of the Buddhadharma, regardless of source, working with them intensely to figure out what really seems to work or not, and then teaching them to others, so they can then do the same.

Ace Monster Toys at East Bay Mini Maker Faire

2011-10-14T09:30:01-07:00

This weekend is the second annual East Bay Mini Maker Faire in Oakland, CA. As the EBMMF website says:

A Maker Faire is about celebrating learning and doing – not the finished and perfect end product. It’s a place to share what we’re learning with others, and celebrate the fun and freedom of being an amateur.

Featuring both established and emerging local “makers,” the East Bay Mini Maker Faire is a family-friendly celebration coming to Oakland for its second year on Sunday, October 16, 2011. It will feature rockets and robots, DIY science and technology, urban farming and sustainability, alternative energy, bicycles, unique hand-made crafts, music and local food, and educational workshops and installations.

Ace Monster Toys participated in the first of these last year just a few months after we were founded and in our workshop space. (You can see last year’s photos.) This year, we’re returning. (Hopefully it won’t be raining the entire time this year!) This is a great event for kids, hosted by the Park Day School in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland, CA. AMT will have a table, be showing off a few of our projects from our laser cutter, and probably spending much of the day doing small prints on the 3D printers.

I encourage people to come to the event, have a good time, and stop by and talk to us. Bring your kids! We promise not to leave them alone with the soldering irons!

Alan Chapman Talk in Berkeley

2011-10-09T11:45:00-07:00

Last night, Alan Chapman happened to be visiting Berkeley and leading a meditation session at the open Saturday Night Sangha sitting group that Rebecca and I have been occasionally attending. Alan is a teacher who, for lack of better terms, is looking at bridging the worlds of Western Culture, awakening, and the Dharma. I’ve known of Alan for a number of years because of his old website, The Baptist’s Head, where he and his friend, Duncan Barford, engaged in open discussion and recording of their experiences and thoughts relating to the Western Esoteric Tradition (aka “Magic”). Since I spent about 16 years primarily being involved with that tradition (and did my Master’s thesis on aspects of it), I was very interested in his work. I’ve often been drawn to people who have gone from involvement in these stereotypical Western European derived approaches (which definitely have some serious issues as a non-continuous set of traditions) to the Dharma. There are a surprising number of Dharma practitioners who were, at various points, involved with Neopaganism and/or occultism of various stripes.

As time went on, Alan went on to do less Western focused meditative work, pulling from Buddhism and other traditions, and had what he considers an enlightenment experience. He talks about his experience of enlightenment on YouTube in a video from a couple of years ago, which I have embedded below:

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I’m not really qualified to state whether Alan’s experience is “genuine” or not by some measures but, as he mentioned in his talk at the sitting group last night, as time goes on, his experiences bring him closer and closer to teachings of the traditional Buddhadharma, though without a lot of what I think he considers to be accreted crap.

After his experiences, Alan started the Open Enlightenment project with Duncan, which he freely confesses to having been a bit of a failure in the talk below as well! As a part of this and following this, he also did a series of videos where he spoke on various topics. Alan is currently working on what he calls “Deep Humanism,” as his term for what and how he is teaching now. He’s up on deephumanism.org, though he says he really won’t have real content up for a few weeks. The “Deep Humanism” is, as I gather, his term for his approaches to awakening in a Western mode without as much baggage from earlier institutions and presented in a way that people who grow up in a Western culture (leaving aside arguments of what that may or may not be) can understand and integrate.

I’ve corresponded back and forth with Alan on Twitter for a bit during the last few years and, while I freely admit to being one of his “Zen critics” of the Open Enlightenment project mentioned in last night’s talk, I’ve found Alan to be erudite, well spoken, and generally spot on in his observations, especially when you have a chance to actually talk with him (instead of the abstracted Internet “discussions”). Listening to him speak for an hour and having dinner with him afterwards reinforced my impression that Alan is no phony, regardless of the nature of his enlightenment, and is speaking from personal experience with humility, humor, and some genuine insight. I definitely think he’s worth listening to in order to hear another view of things, if nothing else.

When Alan led things last night, he did a roughly 35 minute directed meditation, interjecting instructions at a few points, followed by an hour of a talk. The last 25 minutes or so of the talk were a Q&A with various people, including me. With Alan’s permission, I recorded both of these to put up on the net (I expect a video from another person to show up eventually as well.) I put my recording of Alan’s directed meditation and then talk up on the Internet Archive under a Creative Commons license. The first of these, the meditation, is about 10 minutes long because I removed many of the minutes of silence between directions (it really was over 35 minutes!). The second of these is 59 minutes long. If you aren’t interested in meditation direction, definitely skip to the talk.

I’ve also embedded them in a flash player below. Push the “fast forward” button to go to the talk as the player starts with the directed meditation.

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Alan is here in the Bay Area doing a retreat this week. I wish I would have known of it ahead of time as, after last night’s talk, I’d definitely be willing to sit with him for a few days or a week to have more of a chance to hear his point of view and see what he has to teach. He’s definitely worth examining.

New DIY Book Scanner Design Goes to Beta

2011-10-05T14:30:00-07:00

Daniel Reetz has released his beta files for the newer DIY Book Scanner that he showed at the Open Hardware Summit. This is the first version designed to be CNC milled directly and from a single standard sheet of plywood. Of course, to do so, you’d need a shopbot or similarly sized router. You can also do it with smaller pieces of plywood on a more commonly sized CNC though some of the pieces are fairly large. It should be noted that the plywood is sized to be about 3/4” in thickness, as it gets a bit wobbly otherwise in places.

Daniel has an announcement on the DIYbookscanner.org forums and a 16 minute long demonstration and walk through of the new version up on YouTube, which I have embedded below:

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Daniel links to the source files, offered under the Open Hardware (OSHW 1.0) license, in his post but I link to them directly here as well:

DIY Book Scanner Kit BETA .1 for Corel Draw - These are the native format files and the only ones guaranteed
DIY Book Scanner Kit BETA .1 DXF
DIY Book Scanner Kit BETA .1 AI
DIY Book Scanner Kit BETA .1 SVG
Vcarve CAM files

Ace Monster Toys, as Daniel mentions in the video, has the wood parts for one of these. We have to get a few additional parts but I expect that we’ll be building our new DIY book scanner in the next few weeks. I want to thank Daniel for all of his hard work here and for being a good friend to AMT.

Three Buddhas

2011-10-01T19:45:00-07:00

Scott turned me on to a couple of Tumblr blogs today:

Dharma Snapshots
Buddha Quotes (from which came the above image)

I thought that I’d share these. I enjoy seeing photographic and artistic work relating to the Dharma but don’t often run across interesting expressions of it.

Bay Area Open Buddhist Retreat

2011-09-27T16:00:01-07:00

This is kind of a “Hey, I have a barn…Let’s put on a play!” kind of post.

I was thinking about retreats earlier today and how I either get to attend retreats run by various local groups (such as the Empty Gate Zen Center) or I travel, once or twice a year, to the other side of the country (or Las Vegas) in order to do a retreat with the Five Mountain Sangha. I went to a retreat this last March with my fellow sangha members but we had to bring people from all over.

I also thought about how I’d met a bunch of people at the Buddhist Geeks 2011 conference in July, some of whom turned out to be very local. I’ve also thought off and on about the Online Meditation Crew, who organizes sits via twitter, and my thoughts on “Open Source Buddhism” in allowing people to work with Buddhism in whatever way adds utility. Rebecca and I have visited the East Bay Healing Collective a couple of times recently. They organize an open meditation group that meets twice a week in Berkeley but which isn’t associated with any specific tradition of practice (some of them aren’t even Buddhists!!!).

This led me to the realization that I really don’t have to go to someone else’s retreat, travel, or even wait for someone to do things. I mean, I managed to help start a hackerspace and am used to herding people around to get things done from that experience. I could just organize a local retreat…and even combine it with the idea of an unconference in a way.

With that thought, I am going to give it a go. Right now, I’m going to propose either a two or three day meditation and practice retreat in Berkeley from November 19 (or 18) through 20, 2011. That’s either the Saturday and Sunday the week before Thanksgiving or Friday through Sunday. (This may turn out to be a not perfect weekend but I know from experience that there will be something wrong with all choices.) The two day retreat might wind up being the easier choice, given that most people work and would have to take a day off to go to some weird event with unknown people for the first time.

This would be non-residential, with people arriving every morning and leaving every evening. I don’t think it would make sense to even pretend to be keeping the “closed” container of a retreat (the typical retreat has one practicing austeries, agreeing not to talk to people outside, etc.) since it cannot be residential and people will be returning home at night.

I’d like to talk to some local meditators and Buddhist teachers so see who would like to participate and maybe even convince a few people to lead some talks or practicums there. This would not be a paying gig as I’d like to see the only fees charged be to cover costs (basically, the space rental and food).

This does not need to be a Zen style “let’s stare at the walls from the cushions” three day practice. I’d like to see a more diverse array of styles but it really depends on who I can get to attend.

A daily schedule could look like the following, with the caveat that this is a more “Zen” version and the actual schedule could be much more diverse than this:

9:00 - Open morning some kind of fairly open liturgical practice (this may be impractical though)
9:30 - 11:10 Alternate sitting and walking meditation for two sessions each (40 minute sit, 10 minute walking)
11:15 - 12:30 - Some kind of morning talk or practicum
12:30 - 1:30 - Lunch
1:30 - 3:10 - Alternate sitting and walking meditation for two sessions each (40 minute sit, 10 minute walking)
3:20 - 5:00 - Afternoon talk or practicum
5:10 - 6:50 Alternate sitting and walking meditation for two sessions each (40 minute sit, 10 minute walking)
7:00 - Dedication of merit and closing
7:15 - Adjourn for dinner

The idea would be to alternate periods of meditation that occur for most of two hours with other practices or talks. I’d also love to see meditation methods, such as Vipassana techniques, explained and led for any of the larger block meditation sessions. I’d happily consider other alternatives as well.

I envision myself as a facilitator for this in that I’d arrange for the space and be the point of contact for people but this should not be a “top down” style of event. We can do what the people who arrive want to do with a schedule planned ahead of time, loosely, to frame things if people do not feel an urge to diverge.

I have no idea if there is enough interest locally to make this happen. It could easily wind up being me, Rebecca (my wife), and three acquaintances or maybe we could actually get 15 or 20 people to come.

If people do seem interested in this, I’ll need to start arranging to get a space. I think that I’ll aim for something that could comfortably hold 20 people (which is really just a 20’ by 20’ room with non-concrete floor and some light) and go from there. I’m going to aim small really though it would be cool if there was enough interest for some real attendance.

If you’re in the Bay Area (or will be passing through at the right time) and you would like to come to something like this, drop me a line at albill@openbuddha.com. Even better, if you’d like to present a talk or a practicum of some sort (be it paired meditation practice, mindful yoga, or what-have-you), contact me. As things get organized, I’ll be adding content to bayarea.opensangha.org when I have more to say but I will post here as well. (note: this may not resolve yet as I just registered the domain!)

Let’s see what happens.

New Blog Software and Changes for the Site

2011-09-26T16:00:01-07:00

Hi there!

Inspired by “Blogging like a Hacker” and a number of my friends blogging through developer tools, I’ve decided to switch my blog off of Wordpress and move to Jekyll. As Tom says in his post above:

Jekyll is a simple, blog aware, static site generator. It takes a template directory (representing the raw form of a website), runs it through Textile and Liquid converters, and spits out a complete, static website suitable for serving with Apache or your favorite web server.

The bonus of all of this for me is that rather than having thousands of blog posts living in a SQL server somewhere, they’re actually each a separate file that I’ve backed up to GitHub, making them immediately accessible, searchable, etc. for me. I can also edit my posts simply in a text editor, save the file into my git repository, and build the site easily. If I really wanted to, I could host the site on github and, actually, you’ll see a copy of it running on albill.github.com, where github builds a copy whenever I check anything in.

I’ve switched the comment system over to Disqus, which should preserve the existing comments from the last five or so years, assuming that they imported correctly. Otherwise, it is a new world for everyone.

I’m also using this as an opportunity to refresh my blog a bit and will be doing more in the coming weeks. I had blog posts going back nine and a half years but a lot of them, especially early ones, are more the kind of things people do on Facebook and Twitter these days. They were super brief and chatty updates from back when my blog was originally on Livejournal and I was talking to a fairly small community of friends. I wanted to remove these older posts so I have taken this opportunity to remove and archive everything from before 2006. I figure five (almost six) years is enough.

I also began to post a lot less starting in late 2008, when I had a fairly traumatic and life-changing multi-month illness following a trip overseas. Since that time, especially in the first year or two after, my energy was much lower. I’d developed a sleep disorder and wasn’t sleeping well at all. As a result of trying to cope with this, I no longer used the computer as much very late at night, which is actually when I used to write many of my posts. I went from posting nearly daily (sometimes more and sometimes less) to posting a few times a month, if that.

As part of this shift, I plan to change this. The eventual goal is to try for the 1,000 words a day that many writers speak about, including well known bloggers. In the short term, I’m going to try for 1,000 words three times a week. We’ll see if I can manage to do this but it will be an interesting challenge.

The blog will be under a bit of flux as I fix issues that I notice, especially the formatting of old posts, and try to add some more capabilities to the site.

Daniel Reetz unveils new DIY Book Scanner at Open Hardware Summit

2011-09-22T16:13:01-07:00

My friend, Daniel Reetz, was a speaker at the recent Open Hardware Summit. His talk there was called “DIY Book Scanning: Open Hardware for Open Content.” Daniel is well known for inventing the DIY Book Scanner, which has grown into an entire community of people on diybookscanner.org that builds their own scanners.

As I’ve mentioned before, Myles and I of Ace Monster Toys have been working on an iteration of Daniel’s designs (mostly Myles with me for grunt work). Myles, consulting with Daniel, worked out a laser cut version of the platen and some of the difficult pieces of the book scanner which, when combined with commodity parts from a hardware store, make it fairly easy to make your own book scanner. AMT was selling beta kits of these at the Maker Faire a few months ago.

Daniel has released a new iteration of his DIY Book Scanner at the Open Hardware Summit. It is a thing of beauty, especially compared to earlier designs:

Daniel worked some other engineers who had developed a larger tabletop shopbot-like CNC router to create a larger version. He then used this to route out all of the core parts of the new book scanner design from a few sheets of plywood. He’s going to be working to make kits available but one of the things he mentioned in his talk is the idea of having a book scanner in every hackerspace. While every individual may not need their own book scanner (they are kind of bulky and how often do you need to scan books), it definitely makes sense to have one available as a resource. This is the kind of thing that hackerspaces should excel at: making resources available to people along with the know-how for using them.

Daniel has promised AMT one of the first of his new book scanners based on this new design and I’m looking forward to putting it together, messing with it, and scanning a bunch of my massive library of print books. I encourage people to come check it out once we have it all set up.

You can watch the entirety of Daniel’s short talk about all of this on Vimeo. I’ve also embedded it below for easy viewing.

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Thanks for all of the hard work you’ve put into this project, Daniel!

Update: Daniel came to the weekly AMT meeting this evening and we all geeked out. He brought his homemade suitcase made to hold the book scanner for the trip to the Open Hardware Summit. He opened it up and he and some of us put the whole thing together from pieces (minus cameras) in about 15 minutes. I took a few photos of it and him (the one at the top of the post) with my phone and added them to the AMT flickr collection that I have. I include two below:

This thing is great. We got to play with how Daniel used bungie to add tension to counterweight the whole thing. Previous book scanners lower the platen (with the glass) onto the carriage holding the book. This design raised the carriage and the book up to the fixed glass for each photo, which is mechanically triggered by the bike brake lever, which also acts as the handle for the whole motion. It is amazingly smooth.

AMT will be looking to potentially sell kits of this scanner as things firm up a bit.

Daniel Reetz unveils new DIY Book Scanner at Open Hardware Summit

2011-09-22T16:13:01-07:00

Originally published on Open Buddha

Daniel has released a new iteration of his DIY Book Scanner at the Open Hardware Summit. It is a thing of beauty, especially compared to earlier designs:

You can watch the entirety of Daniel’s short talk about all of this on Vimeo. I’ve also embedded it below for easy viewing.

</embed>

Thanks for all of the hard work you’ve put into this project, Daniel!

AMT will be looking to potentially sell kits of this scanner as things firm up a bit.

Ace Monster Toys Hackerspace on Meetup

2011-08-12T10:56:44-07:00

We decided (well, David the treasurer did…) to start using Meetup to promote events at Ace Monster Toys very recently. Last night was the first public event using the new AMT page on Meetup.

Wow! We had something like 14 non-members RSVP for our Thursday night weekly meeting. I thought to myself, “Well, we’ll probably get two or three, maybe four if we’re lucky but cool!” Instead, we had, I would guess, about 12 people show up that had never been to the space before.

To give some context, AMT has about 25 dues paying members, average, month to month. We’ve been slowly growing by a member or two a month for the last nine months but we’ve also lost a few members due to attrition. Given that we’re in a slightly industrial part of north Oakland near Berkeley and Emeryville, California, this isn’t surprising. The other hackerspaces in the Bay Area, Noisebridge and Hacker Dojo, are either right in the middle of walking areas of the city (for NB) or right next to Silicon Valley and all of its tech companies (for HD).

We’re ok with being small but we haven’t done a lot of marketing and it would be nice if we were about double our current size, just for critical mass for events, workshops, and people hacking on things.

Given the amount of people who showed up and expressed interest, I really do think that Meetup is a good advertising vehicle for us. I expect that we’ll keep using it and we’ve already listed a number of upcoming events on our page. Check it out and come by if you’re in the Bay area.

Next week, we begin a series on learning PCB design run by David Rorex.

Al's Black Hat 2011 and DEF CON 19 Visit

2011-08-11T14:47:13-07:00

I attended Black Hat 2011 and DEF CON 19 this last week under the auspices of Mozilla. We generally have a bunch of us who are involved in facets of the security releases attending these back to back conferences every Summer in Las Vegas. This is for a few reasons but the primary ones are to be on hand for the exposure of potential zero day security holes in Firefox and to get a sense of the direction and focus of the work going on in exploiting browsers (and security in general).

Some years, there is a lot of browser specific exploits being done. This year, this seemed to not really be the case with people either focusing a lot on overall system/infrastructure issues (DNS, SSL as a whole) or on opportunities in the growing mobile space (and including Chrome OS as well).

Some of the take aways I have, at a fairly high level, are that mobile is becoming more and more important. A couple of years ago, mobile was seemingly very important. Looking back, that seems almost quaint given how smartphones, iOS, and Android have grown in the last few years, making the intersection of the Internet and phones simply an ubiquitous part of life. Over time, I notice a lot fewer laptops being carried about and a lot more in the way of tablets and high end phones. That just kind of points to the direction of things. I noted that I saw three or four penetration testing suites in booths at Black Hat that were based on using Android as a penetration testing platform. While it has been possible for a while, I don’t recall there being that many explicitly commercialized offerings in previous years.

The Arab Spring and its implications were also readily evident. I gather from Bruce Sutherland’s comments the DEF CON, at least, actively solicited presentations relating to it. I’ll highlight a few talks below that directly referenced it but there was a lot of thinking going on about Internet, communication in crises or when governments cut off access, and the clear importance of worldwide communication in troubled situations.

On to talks!

At Black Hat, among other talks, I attended Matt Johansen’s and Kyle Osborn’s talk, “Hacking Google Chrome OS.” This talk focused on Chrome OS as present on the recently offered Chromebooks. Matt and Kyle have been playing with things there for most of the last year and found a number of exploits (the ones demonstrated were reported and fixed). As they point out, issues around cross-site scripting become even more important when the browser they occur in is actually the basis of your entire operating system and user experience. They also showed that, contrary to the impression that many people have, Google does no real validation on the addons uploaded for Chrome. People can write arbitrarily exploitive addons for Chrome and have them immediately available to users of Chrome on Google’s own site. Google also has, until just the last few weeks, had almost no guidelines on how to write a secure addon or best practices. By doing standard web browser attacks on an addon being run as if it were a separate program in Chrome OS, they demonstrated cookie stealing, clickjacking, and even theft of personal data (the contact list and its contents) as being very possible.

This was a lot of fun and it is good to see people digging in here. None of the basic ideas or attacks were novel (nor were they required to be so). This just really illustrated the dangers of extending the browser extension and trust models to entire operating systems. I would bet that many of the same sorts of things would work on WebOS and possibly on at least HTML5 apps on iOS.

Given Google’s integration of services, these attacks also exploited access to Gmail and Google Voice, for example. With so many essential services tied together, there is real potential exposure.

Another talk that I really enjoyed as Moxie Marlinspike’s “SSL And The Future Of Authenticity.” I’ve heard Moxie speak a few times and am acquainted with him and he’s always an engaging and thoughtful speaker (and a few monotone-like talks that I attended really reinforced that).

Moxie spoke, as he often does, on the problems with SSL. He went over the exposure of Comodo earlier this year and the ongoing problems there are with root certificate authorities really not doing a very good job at both vetting people and applications and at protecting their data. A fundamental issue is that many of the root CA’s are, essentially, “too big to fail.” Given the huge portion of the SSL certificates that come through a few key players, even when they screw up, the option of removing their trust from web browsers is not really available to browser vendors. All of the browser vendors (or most of them) would have to agree in order to do that or users would simply see, say, 15% of the SSL on the net no longer working as a browser bug. Even if everyone agreed, can we really afford to have that much of the SSL net become unavailable? Basically, we are much too centralized with a huge legacy problem (and I happen to very much agree with this).

Moxie proposes a solution, which is the decentralization of authority from the current certificate authority system. Rather than trusting a monolithic set of CA’s, Moxie proposes “notaries” that are user designated and who provide their own validation of sites. Users configure themselves to use (ideally) a set of notaries, whom they trust, that each return data concerning a site when requested. By looking at the aggregate of returned data from the notaries, users can have the browser make decisions on whether to trust a site. He’s put up a beta technology for this end called, “Convergence.” This currently runs using a Firefox extension as a reference implementation. You can see the details as outline by Moxie here. Code is also available for groups or individuals to set up their own notaries.

I haven’t thought through how well this kind of system would work in practice with billions of potential users but Moxie is a smart guy (smarter than me) and he’s put a lot of thought into it. It is definitely worth investigating. To me, it seems very clear that the current, legacy, CA system is pretty broken and no one has a real means to fix it. Moxie’s ideas propose at least one alternative.

Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University did a talk on images and Facebook called, “Faces Of Facebook-Or, How The Largest Real ID Database In The World Came To Be.” This looked at the meeting of facial recognition technology and the rampant self-disclosure, via photos, that happens on Facebook (though it also happens via Flickr and other services as well) in combination with real names (Hello, Google Plus!) and other sensitive data. As a research project at CMU, Acquisti and his team used some standard image recognition software, Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition (PittPatt) developed at CMU, and applied it against public photos on Facebook and some dating sites. They pulled over 275,000 publicly available profile images of Facebook members in a particular city in addition to photos from other sites, Acquisiti mentioned. They were able, for discrete groups or locales (such as a university or a city) identify at least a third of supposedly anonymous students in the study from their photos and those of their friends. From this, they were able to often get date of birth, social security numbers, and other data (27% of the time after four attempts). Acquisti said,

“In all, about 5,800 dating site members also had Facebook profiles. Of these, more than 4,900 were uniquely identified. The numbers are significant because a previous CMU survey showed that about 90% of Facebook members use their real name on their profiles. Though the dating site members had used assumed names to remain anonymous, their real identities were revealed just by matching them with their Facebook profiles.”

They were able to identify people hidden in the public photos of other Facebook users based on their existing identification with facial recognition. This could be used to show networks of associates and possibly to help build a social graph for these people.

When we think of ourselves as being anonymous with our friends or at events, this kind of work shows that we really aren’t. This is all the more true since these photos aren’t going away (I have photos online from the 1990’s) and the techniques can always be applied retroactively to older data if it is captured.

Acquisti makes the point that we should probably just not consider ourselves anonymous online if we engage in social networking and expose photos. This could obviously be extended to other kinds of data as well. Our data footprints are large and only getting larger through continual use of services like Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, and whatever becomes the next big thing a few years from now. Someone is going to be able to connect the dots between your online presence and your life unless you, essentially, do not use the full features of many of these services.

These were at Black Hat. At DEF CON, there were a couple of presentations about getting your data out in an emergency or when communication has been shut down by the government:

Thomas Wilhelm’s presentation focused on setting up mesh networks with smartphones in an emergency or political situation. He calls it “Auto-BAHN” and has an alpha Android application up at hackerdemia.com. His focus is on using point to point communications to communicate dynamically without a centralized infrastructure so that when cell towers go down (and his examples are in both Katrina and Egypt type situations), people can still get the word out amongst themselves and also, potentially, communicate with authorities as they become available. Wilhelm would like to see this kind of communication built in by mobile operating system manufacturers and/or cellular providers because of the implications for disaster responsiveness, when our phone mostly become power hungry bricks.

The idea behind Alonso and Garrido’s Dust presentation is to make the feed of your sites available from multiple sources, instead of one canonical and centralized source. That way if it becomes unavailable (or is taken down) there are mechanisms to still get information out. I think that they are largely looking at a Wikileaks style scenario. They want to use a peer to peer backend as a secondary feed source. They haven’t published any other information yet though Alonso did demonstrate a proof of concept during the talk.

Sutherland’s presentation focused on Ham radio, specifically the use of packet radio and satellite’s to get data out of crisis zones without going through normal infrastructure. He wants to use APRS, a digital ham radio protocol, to send e-mail and, more specifically, to talk directly to twitter. Given the role of twitter in recent uprisings and unrest, he sees it as an essential service for people to communicate with both each other and the world. His APRS to Twitter gateway is up at www.hamradiotweets.com, which will post messages under @hamradiotweets on twitter. His presentation is actually available as a PDF if you’re interested in reading it.

The most amazingly out of the box and geeky talk I attended was the “Sounds Like Botnet” presentation by Itzik Kotler and Iftach Ian Amit. This was a proof of concept talk and demonstration of setting up a botnet command and control system using voice over IP (VOIP) systems. As Kotler and Amit pointed out, even on supposadely closed networks, people are often allowed (or even required) to run VOIP software in lieu of having actual phones. Because it needs to communicate with the real world (or else it isn’t much of a phone system), these systems often directly bypass firewalls and other protections. Additionally, because they haven’t traditionally been considered an attack vector, the VOIP systems are often pretty much ignored and unmonitored by the IT security apparatus at companies.

Their proof of concept implementation is moshimoshi, which is a Python script that can connect using SIP to a SIP server, such as Asterisk. They demonstrated it working with one laptop running the bot and then calling into a conference room (where many bots could call in) on an Asterisk server and then telling the bot to do things using DTMF tones. They also had the bot use both text to speech, to read a file aloud, and also transmitted data in the audible range using 16 tones to encode it (which sounded almost musical). They pointed out that if you wanted to be more advanced, you could use the old modem protocols on top of VOIP and then run TCP/IP on top of that. It strikes me as being pretty slow but it would undoubtedly work to transmit data back and forth easily.

You can view the presentation as a PDF or via Slideshare.

I attended many many other talks but these were the ones that I thought would be interesting to mention here. For DEF CON, at least, the videos of this year’s talks will probably be available to the public sometime next Spring (this often seems to be the case though I haven’t tracked it closely). Video sets were being sold at both conferences and are probably still available, though prohibitively expensive for most people.

Ordination of Laura Bŏnyōn Neal in the Five Mountain Zen Sangha

2011-08-09T19:51:33-07:00

I’ve been working with some of the students at the Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary for a couple of years now. One of our students, Laura Neal, has been running a small sangha, the True Nature Zen Center, in Bar Harbor, Maine. Laura runs a yoga studio there on the island (among her many other talents).

This last weekend, Rev. Jiun Foster, the abbot of the seminary and a teacher in the Five Mountain Zen Sangha, went out to Bar Harbor. The event was the ordination of Laura within Five Mountain. This ceremony was conducted amongst sangha members, family, and friends and Laura was ordained as Rev. Bŏnyōn by Rev. Jiun. I was invited out but, unfortunately, was not able to make it to Maine. Additionally, eight members of the True Nature Zen Center received the five householder precepts, making it a momentous event for everyone in the sangha.

Fortunately, many photos were taken of the event and you can see them here if you are so inclined. It looks like it was a lot of fun as well as being a very serious business Zen event. I especially like the “True Nature” celebratory cake:

Congratulations to the new priest and householders of the True Nature Zen Center!

Buddhist Geeks - Last Day and Closing Thoughts

2011-08-03T10:44:17-07:00

I’m a little late in writing this (it is now Wednesday) but I’ve had nearly back to back trips to several conferences so bear with me.

I wanted to write about the last day of the Buddhist Geeks conference.

Ken McLeod

Ken McLeod did a talk, “There is No Enemy: a tool kit for change,” which spoke from his personal experience. Several days later, I have a hard time summarizing it, though I found it engaging. Diane Musho Hamilton also presented on “Enlightenment through an evolutionary lens.” These were each short, 20 minute, presentations.

Rohan Gunatillake

Rohan Gunatillake spoke after this on how the aesthetic of Buddhism, specifically meditation, is broken (see a podcast with him on this topic). By this, he meant that the presentation, marketing, and form of it were broken from the viewpoint of the public. People have a very odd idea of what Buddhism or meditation actually is and this impacts their willingness or interest to participate in what would otherwise be useful and engaging activities. He spoke to the idea of taking lessons from groups like YCombinator and startups and creating skillful applications and methods for teaching practices and the Dharma, as well as presenting them to people. An example of this is his own “Buddify” phone application that he’s hoping to unveil this fall, which will teach meditation to your average person in a way that is accessible. Rohan would like to see a thousand flowers bloom and see a bunch of Buddhist startups where people create new tools and methods of working with the public (or even the existing Dharma community).

One of the more interesting sessions of the day was the “Emerging Face of Buddhism” panel with Ken McLeod, Diane Musho Hamilton, and Shinzen Young with Hokai Sobol moderating.

Ken McLeod, Diane Musho Hamilton, Shinzen Young, and Hokai Sobol

I’d been thinking of doing an “unplugged” session on Buddhism and money but it turned out to not be necessary. The panel spent about 60% or more of its time discussing the issues around money and Buddhism, specifically charging for instruction, what is sustainable, how teachers can (or cannot) make their living by teaching the Dharma.

Ken McLeod has been using a coaching and instructor model for, he said, about 20 years, in Los Angeles. Diane Misho Hamilton spoke about charging small fees (though they might be dana based) to maintain the Zen center that she and her husband, Michael Zimmerman, operate. They also charge students who decide to participate in koan interviews and training on a regular basis for, I believe, weekly meetings. She made a point to note that none of this income goes to support her, as she makes her living off of her secular career. Shinzen Young pointed out that he’d never had a “real” job, having been a meditation teacher for decades. He stated that if you’re willing to live a semi-monastic lifestyle (as he does) with no family, spouse, etc., it is possible to live simply on dana given by students “as long as you deliver the goods” (as he said). If the students see the value and utility of what you are teaching, if they get results, they will value and support your work.

The elephant in the room (or the Voldemort) here is Diane’s teacher, never actually mentioned by name, Genpo Merzel. She mentioned that her unnamed teacher had caused a lot of controversy with charging wealthy people $50,000 each for small group (five people plus the teacher) five day retreats. She stated multiple times that she wasn’t comfortable doing this, herself, and had issues with it but also that it pointed out that there are different communities willing to pay different amounts for the Dharma and that this money had been used to support the other activities of that sangha.

All of the teachers on the panel seemed to agree that issues of access and sustainability were very important. Dharma seekers or practitioners need access to the teachings. Setting fees too high will exclude people, especially working class folks, people with families, or otherwise lacking means. This also disproportionately impacts minority groups (and Diane acknowledge that the panel and the room was a rather limited demographic of practitioners, alluding to the fact that it was a very white and very middle class audience).

I did not get the sense that they had specific answers to this problem and considered it to be an evolving situation that we need to address over time. I did come away with the feeling that everyone on the panel was thoughtful and had reflected on these issues, even if they didn’t always have a solution. I also came away very favorably impressed with Shinzen Young, even though he makes his living entirely from the Dharma (readers of my blog will note that I’ve commented on people who charge high fees in a “trainer” model of the Dharma before in a negative fashion). From my own point of view, I’m not opposed to people making a living from the Dharma as much as the exclusion that results from high fees and there is a very large gray area on what this means “acceptable” fees will be (and no universal standard for this).

Vincent Horn, Kenneth Folk, and Hokai Sobol

Later, we had another set of “unplugged” sessions that follow the unconference model of being bottom up directed sessions guided by a facilitator. I attended one on the “Pragmatic Dharma” movement that was organized by Vince Horn, Kenneth Folk, and Hokai Sobol. I’m not going to attempt to summarize that movement overly but, in many ways, it is trying to create a 21st century Buddhist practice optimized for people living today in the kind of world in which we live. For Kenneth, this means stripping practices down to their functional and useful essentials, jettisoning all of the fluff or culturally specific baggage. Hokai spoke (with David Perlman and others going back and forth) on how this could related to Buddhist tantra. There was also a bit of discussion of whether the Pragmatic Dharma (or “Hardcore Dharma”) movement is really a splinter off of other Dharma traditions or just a mode of practice that will be reintegrated into them. I found it very interesting but I’ve also known all three of the facilitators online for years and done some sort of Dharmic work with two of them so I might already be considered to be in their camp, by some.

Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche

The closing keynote of the talk was by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. Paul Lynch, one of my own teachers, noted that DPR managed to blow, by presence and the ideas in his talk, almost everyone away in comparison. DPR spoke for an hour. He acknowledged the great utility of current technology, admitting to owning a smartphone, using twitter, and speaking from notes on an iPad. He admonished geeks to put the magic of the heart into technology. We must not create more isolation but connection with our gadgets and working with them. He said, “Dharma has to be practical, not theoretical… Help beings that need help in your neighborhood.”

I think that it would have been incredible (but not possible given the Karmapa events on the East Coast) if Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche could have done the opening keynote of the Buddhist Geeks 2011 conference. It would have set just the right tone for the event that followed.

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Buddhist Geeks 2011 - Day 1.5

2011-07-30T22:01:10-07:00

I am in Los Angeles (technically, Rosemead but you know…) attending the Buddhist Geeks 2011 conference. This is the first ever Buddhist Geeks conference, in fact. For those that don’t know, Buddhist Geeks is a popular podcast dedicated to (wait for it…) Buddhism and geekery. It was started by Vincent Horn, Ryan Oelke, and Gwen Bell. After a while, it was just Vince and Ryan and, currently, it is being run by Vincent. The podcast has a history of interviewing interesting people within the Buddhist community and being a lot of fun. It has also gained quite a following on twitter and social media over the years, establishing a bit of a community.

This year, after Vincent and his wife, Emily, relocated to the Los Angeles Area, they decided to try to get a conference going. As a longtime fan of the podcast and a Californian, I quickly bought a ticket. They gathered a pretty good crowd of speakers for short presentations, people whose work I had followed in various ways, and we’ve had people come from as far away as Europe and Australia to be here.

I mark this as “day 1.5” because it is the end of the first full day, Saturday, but we had some short activities Friday afternoon. Today we opened with short presentations by three people: Kenneth Folk, Kelly McGonigal, and Ethan Nichtern. I had not heard of Kelly McGonigal before though I gather that she is quite well known through her work as a professor at Stanford and is a Zen teacher. Kenneth, I must freely admit, is someone with whom I’ve done some brief study and a person that I rather like, and Ethan is the well known head of the Interdependence Project in New York, which is going wonderful work in Urban Dharma (if there was a version of it in the Bay Area, I’d be there in a heart beat).

Kenneth Folk

Kenneth Folk presented “Enlightenment for the Rest of Us,” which gave Kenneth’s perspective of enlightenment that is something that is achievable by any human being (including his own experience of it). Kelly presented “What Science Can Teach Us About Practice,” which focused on some of the results of studies of the neuroscience of meditators and the implications for people. Ethan presented “The Internet Is Not Your Teacher” about the two-edged sword nature of the Internet as both a wonderful communication tool but also one that comes at some potential cost.

Kelly McGonigal

All three of these presentations were well done. I especially liked Ethan, as I’ve been a fan of both his writing and his work, because I had not heard his ideas articulated before. I’m familiar with Kenneth’s work and ideas and I have been following a bunch of the neuroscience work with meditation so those were both much more familiar.

Ethan Nichtern

This was followed by a panel, called “Generation Wise,” with Ethan Nichtern, Vincent Horn, Diana Winston (of UCLA and its mindfulness program), and chaired by Trudy Goodman of InsightLA. Jack Kornfield showed up as a surprise guest (though he had promised to let the younger folks do most of the talking). I’m not going to attempt to summarize the panel as it was pretty free form but I found it interesting. It largely focused on generational issues and the direction (or questions around it) of Buddhism in the West. My only complaint is that during Q&A, I got to ask a question about balancing the desire to create new Buddhist forms and traditions within our culture with the need to be aware of our 2,500+ year legacy and wanting to guarantee Buddhism is still being passed down successfully 100 or 200 years from now (not just being redesigned for today but for the ages). Jack Kornfield responded briefly but Trudy immediately cut in following him and moved on to take another question. No offense to Mr. Kornfield but I was more interested in hearing Ethan or Vincent’s responses to this and hearing some discussion. I know what Kornfield’s response to that as his institutional legacy is already clear.

Generation Wise Panel

After a bit of lunch, we were allowed to do hour long workshops or presentations with a variety of speakers there. I chose to attend that of Shinzen Young, a Buddhist teacher whose work I admire, especially with his teachings being up on Youtube quite extensively. Shinzen was presenting a practice focused session, “The Importance of Feeling: The Role of Emotions in the Spiritual Path.” This gave a hands on introduction to one of his meditation approaches or techniques to working with emotions and the body. I found it quite interesting though with the post-lunch fugue combined with a warm room, I did find it difficult to maintain focus. He’s made the 150+ page manual detailing the entire approach available to us as well, so we could go follow up on it later in much more depth. I appreciate this quite a bit.

Following this was “Buddhist Geeks Unplugged,” which was an “unconference” period where we, as attendees, could organize our own discussions groups in various areas. I attended one that focused on the Dharma and prison ministry. This is an interest of mine from having done (non-Buddhist) volunteer work in a state prison previously. I found that to be a quite heart felt discussion with a number of people and I think it was useful for the attendees. A number of them were currently training as chaplains here at the University of the West and were looking at prison work as part of their overall path.

Jane McGonigal

We finished the main part of the day with a presentation by game designer Jane McGonigal, twin sister of Kelly from morning session and well known author and TED presenter. She presented either “Awakening is an Epic Win” or “Awakening is an Epic Win?” depending on how you wanted to take her comments. This covered much of the ground of her recent book, “Reality is Broken,” which I’ve been fortunate to be reading recently. She outed herself as a Buddhist and asked a number of questions about whether her insights into gaming as a cultural outlet could also be applied to Buddhism at all. She didn’t have the answers to this (which she freely admitted) and I must admit to a certain degree of skepticism, but it was an entertaining and interesting talk. She also broke things up a bit and enlivened the audience with a game of massively multiplayer thumb wrestling (mmtw?). This involved the entire room doing a massive thumb wrestling game (both hands and with three persons/hands per “node”). This was highly amusing and fun, as well as a nice change after spending much of the day listening to people speak.

MMTW FTW!

So far, Buddhist Geeks 2011 has definitely been worth attending and I’ve had a great time. I’ve had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with one of my Zen teachers, Paul Lynch, here and met up with a lot of people that I’ve either only known from twitter or whom I almost never see in person.

Buddhist Geeks!

3D Printing Sucks or the State of Things

2011-07-17T11:52:55-07:00

Alice...my makerbot

Look around and you’ll see more and more articles in the mainstream press about 3D printing and printers. Makerbot Industries has built a business (and gotten investment) on kits for 3D printing over the last few years and there are actually a number of competitors now for them in the hobbyist market. Reprap hobbyist printers have existed for years before that as a DIY open source movement (with all that entails) as well.

The dirty little secret of 3D printing is that it kind of sucks. I say this as an enthusiast and participant. I’ve got a (now orphaned by Makerbot) Cupcake 3D printer. I’ve got the parts for a Reprap Prusa Mendel or two floating around Ace Monster Toys and my house. Clearly, I’ve drunk the kool-aid and am happily playing in the pond with everyone else. That said, it still sucks. The reasons for these are multifold but they really break down into two areas:

Quality of Prints
Quality of Printers

In the case of quality of prints, the output of most 3D printers leaves a lot to be desired. While people are out there extolling the value of these printers and the amazing ability to print what you want, if you actually look at a printed item, most of the time, frankly, they look like shit. Now, before all the fan boys chime in, yes, you can make better and higher quality prints if you tweak and tweak your printers and really work on them. I’ve seen some amazingly high quality prints come out of a few hobbyist printers. They are few and far between and probably involved many tens (if not hundreds) of hours of tweaking on the part of their owners. Most of the time, they look like a wiggly thing made out of plastic string. Even many of the “professional” prints from commercial devices look about the same so it isn’t always about the printer. Fundamentally, we’re using a process that melts a bunch of (usually) ABS plastic (think Legos) when it enters the printers and squeezes out a line of it while the platform or printing head moves around. You’re layering lines of plastic and the lines are very often quite large and the degree of control is kind of weak for a lot of machines (or at least not one would hope for).

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Clonedel printing

This feeds into the second reason, the quality of printers. We’re still in the early 1970’s era of personal computing with most 3D printing. You get a pile of laser cut parts, some rods sourced from something like home depot (you’d better hope to the gods they’re straight!) and electronics that you often solder together yourself. This definitely keeps the price down into the $700 to $1,200 range for a printer but, frankly, there is a reason that the $10,000 or higher printers cost that much and it isn’t all about lining someone’s pockets.

My Cupcake, for example, is a pretty dumb device. Out of the box, all it basically knows how to do is (loosely) monitor the temperature of the hot end in the extruder and move (mostly) in a regular fashion along an x and y for the bed and up and down for the printing head. Anything else costs you extra time and hacking. What was originally a means to an end (I wanted to print 3D objects) became an end to itself (I got to spend nearly infinite hours trying to get the damn thing to move without skipping or printing reliably). You can add a few parts to most of them so they have a fair idea of where they are on their x, y, and z axes but, otherwise, every print is an exercise in hand tweaking and debugging a device in order to get it positioned just right so when it prints (and you cross your fingers), the object actually comes out somewhat right.

Some of this is the fault of the patent industry. There are better ways of printing three dimensional objects that laying down a bead of plastic. The problem is that they are all under patent (at least for another year or so). We’re using ideas from 20 or more years ago because the patent system won’t allow us to use current technology in an open source manner. A few of the commercial 3D printing companies have all of the patents sewn up, leaving the rest of us to work with what either escaped their clutches or fallen out of copyright. We exist in a funny space.

I was thinking about this a lot yesterday as I was working on parts for a Prusa Mendel, one of the simpler open source 3D printers from the reprap community. My hackerspace got clonedel molds, which allow us to pour Prusa Mendel plastic parts rather than spend 14 hours printing them on another 3D printer. The downside of those is that you have to use a drill press (or a hand drill) to drill out all of the places for rods and screws in these molded parts. About the time I destroyer my third or fourth part on the drill press (because plastic cracks and is also hard to keep straight with odd sized parts), I asked myself, “What the hell am I doing?” The last year of screwing around with my Cupcake and now mendels kind of bubbled up.

I also had an epiphany which is that when you have an 80 watt laser cutter with a 1200mm by 800m cutting area, why the hell don’t you just laser cut boxes out of which to build the framework for your 3D printer instead of playing games with plastic pieces and (mostly) straight rods? Once I finish this mendel, I think it will be my last…

My Cupcake? It doesn’t print right now due to bugs in the firmware combined with me not wanting to pay Makerbot Industries another $370 for new generation electronics. Instead, I’m soldering new Reprap electronics together and probably going to canabalize my old device.

One thing I see a lot of hackerspaces doing is working on their own variants of 3D printers but most of them don’t seem to be putting them up on github or thingiverse to allow others to iterate on them. I’d like to see that change. Recently, I registered OpenFab.me and put a wiki and forums on it in order to provide a place for people to share information. As with many small and new projects, I haven’t put much work on it at all yet but the overall goal is to have a site not associated with any existing company or project just for those of us actually trying to work with 3D printers on a regular basis.

I figured that I would write my short and inspired comments on the state of 3D printing because what is a blog if not a bully pulpit? I’d like to see the state of things advance to the point where the devices were much more intelligent, much more controllable in the quality of prints, much more reliable as devices themselves, and much more reproducible when it comes to building the actual printers. I’m happy to build my own. I hack shit. That’s cool by me but half of the work is either building a so-so device that someone else has already made or building most of one and then trying to tweak and tweak it to get something better and maybe slightly reliable. We need to iterate and improve on things and I’m not sure the existing communities (I’m looking at you, Reprap folks, really have these goals).

Now, off to work on that Prusa Mendel.

Update 12 hours later: Since I was on the topic of my Prusa Mendel, I thought that I’d share the progress that I made this evening while watching a show with my wife:

The Prusa Mendel Frame

This is probably a third of the way through, at best, and I found that I don’t have a metric tape measure in the house so I’ll need to find it or my ruler from Ace Monster Toys to make sure the frame is aligned correctly.

The Heart Sutra Commentary by Zen Master Seung Sahn

2011-07-04T20:35:37-07:00

I found this randomly on the Internet today. I’m a student of Seung Sahn’s lineage and try to understand his perspective especially, as well as that of other teachers that I study. Given the role and importance of the Heart Sutra within Zen, I thought this teaching would be worth studying by others and wanted to share it.

The Heart Sutra

Maha Prajna Paramita Hridya Sutra

Commentary by Zen Master Seung Sahn

Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva
when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita
perceives that all five skandhas are empty
and is saved from all suffering and distress.

Shariputra,
form does not differ from emptiness,
emptiness does not differ from form.
That which is form is emptiness,
that which is emptiness form.
The same is true of feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

Shariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness;
they do not appear or disappear,
are not tainted or pure,
do not increase or decrease.
Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.

No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch,
no object of mind;
no realm of eyes
and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness.

No ignorance and also no extinction of it,
and so forth until no old age and death
and also no extinction of them.

No suffering, no origination,
no stopping, no path, no cognition,
also no attainment with nothing to attain.

The Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita
and the mind is no hindrance;
without any hindrance no fears exist.
Far apart from every perverted view one dwells in Nirvana.

In the three worlds
all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita
and attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.

Therefore know that Prajna Paramita
is the great transcendent mantra,
is the great bright mantra,
is the utmost mantra,
is the supreme mantra
which is able to relieve all suffering
and is true, not false.

So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra,
proclaim the mantra which says:

gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.</blockquote>

The Heart Sutra has only two hundred seventy Chinese characters, yet it contains all of Mahayana Buddhism’s teaching. Inside this sutra is the essence of the Diamond Sutra, the Avatamsaka-sutra, and the Lotus Sutra. It contains the meaning of all the eighty-four thousand sutras. It is chanted in every Mahayana and Zen temple in the world. In Korean temples and in our Zen centers in the West, the Heart Sutra is chanted at least twice every day, in the morning and at night, and during retreats it is chanted more. Sometimes if you find that your mind is not clear, and meditation does not help so much, you must read this sutra. Then your mind will become clear.

Maha means big, great. Prajna means wisdom, and paramita means “going beyond,” or perfecting. Hridya means heart. And the Chinese characters for Heart Sutra are shim gyong, or “mind road.” So this sutra is the “great path for the perfection of wisdom.”

The word maha in the title of this sutra points to something of very great size. What is truly numberless in time and space? Someone may say that the ground is the biggest thing. When you really stop to think about it, the oceans seem to be the biggest thing — there is more water than land. Or is the sky the biggest thing? Maybe space is the greatest thing we know of. Perhaps sky and space together are the number one biggest thing! The universe is infinite in time and space, and contains infinite worlds — is that the biggest thing? Everybody probably thinks that this is so. But an eminent teacher said, “This whole universe covers my body, yet my mind can cover the whole universe.” This is a very important point. The universe covers and surrounds our world and everything inside it, so it must be truly big. But in the instant that you think of the universe—”universe”—you have already covered the whole universe with your mind. Therefore our mind is bigger than the infinite time and infinite space of this universe. How wonderful! The Heart Sutra points to this biggest thing: mind. It shows how we can discover and cultivate the proper use of the biggest thing, so that is why this little sutra is called maha.

Perceiving that all five skandhas are empty saves all beings from suffering and distress.

There is suffering everywhere we look in the world. All beings are in pain and distress. But where does suffering come from? People are struck with a hopeless love for somebody, or they pursue the desire to obtain some material things. People have ambition to become things that they feel will complete their life, or to be recognized and approved by others. But no matter how hard we struggle for these things, even when we get them, we cannot keep them. And this causes all our suffering. But originally this suffering does not exist. It all comes from our mind, as a mirage rises up from a hot road and appears real. If I am suffering over some matter, and then I die, my suffering also disappears. When we realize this — that suffering is merely the product of our minds, and does not have some independent existence — then there is no longer any suffering and distress.

So, what is this mind that is so great? If you are thinking, you cannot find your mind anywhere. If you cut off all thinking — which means if you cut off all attachment to your thinking — then your true nature appears everywhere. The Buddha first taught that what we call mind or “I” is only the five skandhas of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. These skandhas, or aggregates, are constantly changing; they are only heaps of mental energy. Since human beings are attached to form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness, then when they inevitably change, we get suffering. We never get out of the suffering world. This is because we believe that these things are real, and that they are the real “I.” This is a central teaching of Hinayana Buddhism.

However, the Heart Sutra’s opening line shows that these skandhas are originally empty. Since that is so, where is suffering? What can possibly suffer? Here is a cup of orange juice. If you have “cup,” then you can keep this orange juice here. But if this cup breaks, how can the orange juice remain? You cannot keep the juice there, yah? Suffering is the same as that. Where does suffering abide? If you are attached to the five skandhas of form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, or consciousness, then suffering has a place to stay. But the Heart Sutra shows the view that these five skandhas are empty. Mind is completely empty: where can suffering possibly stay? So this teaching about emptiness is very, very important to attain. When you practice the way of the perfection of wisdom, you attain the view that all five skandhas are actually empty. Attaining this view saves us from all suffering and distress. Merely understanding these views cannot help you — you must attain something.

Form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

The Heart Sutra teaches that “form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.” Many people don’t know what this means — even some long-time students of meditation. But there is a very easy way to see this in our everyday lives. For example, here is a wooden chair. It is brown. It is solid and heavy. It looks like it could last a long time. You sit in the chair, and it holds up your weight. You can place things on it. But then you light the chair on fire and leave. When you come back later, the chair is no longer there! This thing that seemed so solid and strong and real is now just a pile of cinder and ash which the wind blows around. This example shows how the chair is empty: it is not a permanent, abiding thing. It is always changing. It has no independent existence. Over a long or short time, the chair will eventually change and become something other than what it appears. So this brown chair is complete emptiness. But though it always has the quality of emptiness, this emptiness is form: you can sit in the chair, and it will still hold you up. “Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.”

But why is it necessary to understand this? The reason for this is that many human beings are attached to name and form, and this attachment to name and form is the cause of nearly all suffering. If we want to cure human beings of this attachment, then we must apply name-and-form medicine. We must begin by showing that names and forms are not real and permanent: they are always changing, changing, changing. If you are rich, you must see that the riches you covet are empty. If you are attached to fame and other people’s approval, you must see that these things that you struggle and suffer for are empty. Most people treasure their bodies; they use a lot of money to make their bodies strong or beautiful. But someday, soon, when you die, this body will disappear. You cannot take this empty body with you, however much you treasure it. You cannot carry fame with you. You cannot carry money. You cannot carry sex. You cannot carry anything!

Nowadays, many people are very attached to these things. They treasure names and empty appearances above nearly all else, harming themselves and others just to protect them. They want to get money, or a good reputation, or a good relationship. They struggle desperately to get high positions. People always subject their minds to the worst kind of abuse and suffering just to try to get and then keep these empty, impermanent things. Nowadays many humans are very attached to sex. But none of that is necessary. All form is empty, so thinking that you can get anything or keep anything is a fundamental delusion. This line teaches that point.

The most important thing is, what do you want in your life, right now? What you want in this very moment makes your mind, and that mind makes your life. It determines this life and your next life. By perceiving that all things are originally empty, you can put it all down and just live, without suffering over these impermanent things.

No appearing, no disappearing. No taint, no purity. No increase, no decrease.

The Heart Sutra is known for its very interesting way of describing our true nature. It uses “no” many times. When you attain true emptiness, there is no speech or words. Opening your mouth is already a big mistake. So words and speech cannot describe our original nature. But to teach people still caught in words-and-speech delusion, sometimes words-and-speech medicines are necessary. The Heart Sutra recognizes both these points. So it describes our true nature by completely describing what our true nature is not. You cannot say what it is, but you can give a sense of what our true nature is not like. “It’s not this or this or this or this or this. It’s not like that or that or that. Understand?” Ha ha ha ha! This is a very interesting technique. The Heart Sutra only says “no,” because this is perhaps the best that words and speech can do.

This line points right to the fact that, in our original nature, nothing ever appears or disappears. There is no such thing as taint or purity, because these are merely qualities created by the thinking-mind. And in original nature there is neither increase nor decrease. Our true nature is completely still and empty. It is the universal substance of which everything else is composed. How, then, could it ever appear or disappear, or be tainted or pure? More importantly, since our true nature is the same as the universe, how could it ever increase or decrease? Infinite in time and space, it has none of the characteristics that apply to things we can describe with speech and words.

All dharmas are marked with emptiness. No cognition, no attainment. Nirvana.

The Heart Sutra says, “All dharmas are marked with emptiness.” But all dharmas are already empty and nonexistent even before you say this. Name and form are already empty. How can you even mention dharma, and then say it’s empty? That is a big mistake! In the true experience of emptiness, there are no words and no speech, so there is also no dharma. When you open your mouth to say “All dharmas are marked with emptiness,” that is already no longer emptiness. So be careful. The point of this is that if you just understand words and speech, and keep only an intellectual understanding, this sutra and any other sutra cannot help your life. Some actual attainment of what these words point to is necessary.

So when we say that everything is empty, we are saying that therefore there is also no cognition and no attainment. This point of emptiness is the Absolute. There is nothing, so what could you possibly attain? These words in the Heart Sutra are only wonderful speech and words. But however interesting or wonderful the speech and words are, if you just understand them conceptually, they cannot help your life. Again, you must truly attain something. You must attain that there is actually nothing to attain. Everything is already truth, exactly as it is. You are already complete. But be careful! Merely understanding these beautiful words is one thing, and attaining them is quite another.

The Heart Sutra begins with the Hinayana experience of emptiness and takes it one more step. The Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path of Hinayana reflect a path which perceives that everything is suffering, and which then leads to stopping suffering, stopping birth and death. This is nirvana. There are no opposites: no coming or going, no high or low, good or bad, birth or death. So in the true experience of emptiness, you perceive that there is already no birth or death, no coming or going. How can you stop some thing that doesn’t even exist? There is already no suffering: how can it have an origin, and how can it possibly be extinguished? That is why the Heart Sutra talks about “no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path.” It completely “hits” the opposites-thinking of the Four Noble Truths that there is suffering, and an origination of it, and a stopping of it, and a path. So Mahayana Buddhism teaches that there is one more step from Hinayana teaching. If you only stop at this point, at complete emptiness, you only attain nirvana. Mahayana Buddhism’s view means taking another step.

Unexcelled perfect enlightenment — anuttara samyak sambodhi.

Anuttara samyak sambodhi is a Sanskrit phrase meaning “unexcelled perfect enlightenment.” It is simply another way of saying “truth.” When you see, when you hear, when you smell, when you taste, when you touch, when you think - everything, just-like-this, is the truth. Before, just at the point of nirvana, there is no cognition, and no attainment with nothing to attain. So the bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita, and attains nirvana. But then these three words appear: anuttara samyak sambodhi. Before, there is no attainment; now, all Buddhas attain anuttara samyak sambodhi. What does this mean?

If you just attain true emptiness, this is only nirvana. It is an experience of complete stillness and bliss: there is no subject or object, no good or bad, no coming or going, no life or death. There is nothing to attain. But Mahayana means your practice continues “beyond” this point, so that you attain no-attainment. You must find nirvana’s function in the world. The name for that is unexcelled perfect enlightenment. If you attain no-attainment, then you attain truth. Your mind is empty and clear like space. This means your mind is clear like a mirror: If a mountain appears before the mirror, there is only mountain; water appears, and there is only water; red comes, red; white comes, white. The sky is blue. The tree is green. A dog is barking, “Woof! Woof!” Sugar is sweet. Everything that you see, hear, smell, taste, touch, and think is the truth, just as it is. Nirvana means attaining emptiness, which has nothing to attain. Anuttara samyak sambodhi means using the experience of emptiness to attain truth. With an empty mind, reflect this world, just as it is. That is Mahayana Buddhism and the Great Bodhisattva Way.

Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha!

So there is yet one more step. If you attain emptiness, and then attain truth, how does this world’s truth function to help other beings? All Buddhas attain anuttara samyak sambodhi, or unexcelled perfect enlightenment. This means that they attain truth. They can see that the sky is blue, and the tree is green. At the end of the sutra we are told that there is a great transcendent mantra, a great bright mantra, an utmost mantra, a supreme mantra: Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha. It can be translated as “Gone, gone, gone to the other shore beyond.” So this mantra at the end of the Heart Sutra means only action. Up until this point, everything is just speech and words about attaining emptiness and truth. It is all a lot of very interesting description. But this mantra means you must just do it. Some kind of action is necessary if you want to help this world. For the bodhisattva, there is only bodhisattva action. When you attain unexcelled perfect enlightenment, you must attain the function of this enlightenment in the world. That is what we call moment world. From moment to moment, perceive suffering in this world and only help all beings. That is a very important point.

Attaining truth alone is not enough. If someone is thirsty, give them something to drink. If someone is hungry, give them food. When a suffering person appears before you, you only help, with no thinking or checking. The early part of this sutra has no “do-it,” just good speech about attainment and no-attainment. But if you attain something, you must do it. That is the meaning behind Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha. Step by step, we attain how to function compassionately for others, to use truth for others, spontaneously, from moment to moment. This is the whole point of the Heart Sutra.

From moment to moment, when you are doing something, just do it.

Remote Control Plane Talk at Ace Monster Toys

2011-06-10T21:12:52-07:00

Aaron shows one of the planes he built

Aaron did a talk on the basics of remote control planes at Ace Monster Toys after the weekly meeting yesterday, June 9. A number of us have been talking about building an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone using some of the materials from DIY Drones for the electronics portion (they use arduino based autopilots). The main barrier is not doing the electronics but actually knowing how to fly an RC plane well. Electronics we are good at! Building a plane with a couple of hundred dollars of electronics plus cameras and parts is no good if you crash it the first time you fly.

Aaron has a lot of experience as a hobbyist doing RC planes and offered to do a talk explaining a bunch of the basics to people. He went over the basic ideas in RC planes, showed how he had built his own planes out of foam, as well as showing one of the ready to fly planes that he had bought and modified.Following the talk, we got to play with Aaron’s RC plane flight simulator and find out just how horrible we all really are at flying anything in real time. After crashing repeatedly, I was convinced that a lot of practice in the simulator will be necessary before much flight.

I have a ready to fly plane that I’ve picked up for cheap with a three channel controller. I plan to head out to one of the local parks with Aaron on a weekend and try flying it (after the increased simulator time). Once I’ve gotten used to doing that, I’ll be adding the autopilot, GPS, new radio, and other electronics necessary to turn it into a UAV. There is no point in doing so if I cannot get it off the ground, keep it there, and then land it (intact!).

Aaron coaches Costa on RC flight simulator

Ace Monster Toys at Maker Faire - Follow Up Report

2011-05-28T11:32:02-07:00

Ace Monster Toys had its first booth at a Maker Faire last weekend. Technically, we were at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire this last Fall but that was a purely local event.

For those not familiar with it, Maker Faire is an annual event in the Bay Area sponsored by O’Reilly Media and associated with Make Magazine. More than 10,000 people come to see various projects, vendors, and exhibitions of maker and hacking culture. Think of it as a souped of science fair for people who make things and the community around it combined with a little bit of a trade show for vendors associated with it.

Personally, I could do with a few less professional vendors and more projects but it works out pretty well.

Willow from Jigsaw Renaissance in Seattle organized a room for hackerspaces this year. In previous years, hackerspaces who had booths were spread over the main expo building so this got everyone together in one area together. This turned out to work fairly well and we got to interact with other spaces, both local and from much further afield. I met the founder of the Tokyo Hackerspace, as well as Arizona’s Heatsync Labs and Crash Space of Los Angeles.

AMT was demonstrating the prototype of our DIY Book Scanner. We had just made beta kits of the laser cut portions of it, along with commodity parts from Home Depot or the like. We got asked an awful lot, “How does it turn pages?”, and had to demonstrate that you turned the pages yourself after pivoting the glass top, which was quicker (and tens of thousands of dollars cheaper) than building a page turning scanner. We even sold a few kits.

We probably handed out one or two thousand flyers, met some local teachers and other educational folks, and got the word out that there is a hackerspace in the East Bay.

At this last Thursday’s post-Maker Faire weekly meeting, we had three new people show up and at least two of them admitted to seeing us at the Maker Faire, so I think that it has worked out well.

Getting the word out about us into the local East Bay community, especially amongst all of the makers in the Burning Man crowd, is one of our next big projects.

Final Look at Refuge Tattoo

2011-05-28T11:18:07-07:00

Last September, I blogged about the tattoo work I was having done on my left arm by a friend. I had Buddhist refuge vows done in Sanskrit using the script commonly called “Siddham” here in the West. You see this a lot for mantras and other Sanskrit text in Japan and Korea (and I presume China, at least at some point). The vows go:

बुद्धं शरणं गच्छामि।
धम्मं शरणं गच्छामि।
संघं शरणं गच्छामि।

Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
Dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
Saṃghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.

I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dharma.
I take refuge in the Sangha.

I’ve posted preliminary pictures before of what it looked like after the initial blackwork was done but not of the final design where it was outlined in red. We actually went over both the black and the red twice because I have a perfectionist tattoo artist and he wanted everything to look clean and strong (as did I).

This is what it initially looked like before the red work the day it was done before it healed:

When I was outside to work out the other day, I noticed that the light was decent so I grabbed a couple of shots with my iPhone and I thought that I’d share them. (Ignore the fact that I’m still growing some of the shaved hair back on my freckled arm…)

Inside of Arm

Outside of Arm

As you can see, most of the characters repeat because, if you look at the text I posted above, two of the three words are the same in all instances.

All in all, I think that is worked out very well and I get a lot of random comments from people I meet about the work. I take them as a reminder of my vows and my path as a Buddhist, engraved on my flesh.

Nortd Labs discusses the Lasersaur laster cutter at Ace Monster Toys

2011-05-20T12:12:14-07:00

Nortd Labs is in the Bay Area for the Maker Faire this weekend. They are the creators of the Lasersaur, which is an open source laser cutter. They’ve been working on this design for the last year and have kits out to their initial builders now. They’ll be incorporating feedback as they publish all of their designs. They came by Ace Monster Toys to talk about the project last night.

One of the dirty secrets of the hackerspace/maker movement is our laser cutters. They are all pretty much from China because the nice, American made, laser cutters like Epilog’s, all cost at least five times as much as the cheapest, so-so, Chinese cutters. Since most hackerspaces are pretty poor, everyone winds up buying the Chinese ones. The problem with these is that, well, they’re pretty much crap. I mean, if you get really lucky, it will all be working with no boards hanging loose, wires dangling, etc. when you get it off of the container ship. Even then, people wind up using crap programs to control the laser cutter that require you to run under Windows with really cheesy software or drivers without a full range of control. Nice things cost money and this is what you get for cheap.

Enter the Lasersaur. It is built with an extruded aluminum t-slot frame, arduino based electronics, and the specs are completely open. You can see the current build of materials of what you’ll need for it. Nortd is still working on a lot of the control software but people will be able to easily write customer software and add custom hardware to the design.

For hackerspaces that are happy to hack on things, this has a lot of potential. If the design had been further along, we would have probably gone this way at Ace Monster Toys. (As it is, our 80 watt 800 lb. Chinese laser cutter will be here in a week.)

I took video with a higher end webcam of the talk last night. It is an hour and eight minutes long and is a pretty casual conversation with a lot of off-camera questions from members of Ace Monster Toys. If you’re interested in the Lasersaur, you may find it worth watching. I took it mainly so members of AMT that couldn’t make it could see the presentation!

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Pagan Dharma - A New Beginning

2011-05-18T23:50:01-07:00

Earlier today, at the encouragement of my friend, Catherine, and a few others, I set up Pagan Dharma at pagandharma.org. I also set up a twitter account for the site to be used for announcing postings.

Below you will find the post that I just added to the site. I am reposting it here because Pagan Dharma currently has no readers or visibility so I want to let people know what is going on there.

Feel free to add comments here or, even better, go over to pagandharma.org and add them to the post there!

This post is partially an explanation of why this site, Pagan Dharma has been created. The other day, I was speaking with my old friend, Catherine. Catherine and I went to college together 20 years ago this year. We met through the pagan student group at the University of Washington as undergraduate students there, circled together on and off, were in a magical order together later, dated some of the same people, and are still friends through all of this.

These days, Catherine and I are both basically Buddhists. She practices a form of Chinese Chan, which is really the kissing cousin of my own American form of Korean Zen. Before all of this, we were both card carrying members of American Neopagandom. In many ways, we still are though, and that was where my conversation was coming from. While we both very much identify with a spiritual tradition, that of the Buddha, which is not “pagan” in the sense of the 20th (and now 21st) century neopagan movement, it is very much a pagan one in any classical sense. Additionally, speaking for me, my cultural outlook and how I relate to the world spiritually is still very much influenced and informed by the nearly 20 years I spent as a pagan. My orientation to the sacred, this world as a lived thing, and how I go about my life and ritual is as much that of a neopagan and a magician as it is that of a Buddhist. I’ll allow Catherine to speak for herself on this site but I think it is very much the same for her.

I had the idea of putting up a site that looks at the Dharma, the teachings and way of being derived from the Buddha, from the point of view of being a pagan, in whatever loose sense we want to define that. It is easy enough to put a site up and so much of Buddhism as taught in the West derives from a much more Protestant (or even occasionally Jewish) way of interacting with the world and basic mindset.

What does a pagan dharma look like? I’m interested in finding out. In talking to Catherine, she is interested in talking about this as well. The hope is that perhaps others will find this of interest and contribute to the potential community here as well.

This site will act as a vehicle for some essays by the pair of us and possibly by a few other pagan Buddhists that I know. I’ve also added the capability to have groups and forums so we can communicate with each other in an ad-hoc fashion. Maybe nothing much will come of it but it never hurts to try and I can use an excuse to inflict my thoughts upon the world.

More of this sort of thing can occasionally be read on my blog, Open Buddha, along with some hackerish and geeky things as well.

A May Talk by Rev. Bon Soeng of Empty Gate Zen Center

2011-05-17T16:11:40-07:00

Empty Gate Zen Center is my local instance of the Kwan Um School of Zen. The lineage that I practice in is ultimately the same as theirs as we are all students of Zen Master Seung Sahn, who founded that school and who died a few years back.

Empty Gate has sitting available just about every day but on Wednesday nights, their abbot, Rev. Bon Soeng, gives Dharma talks. In a rare embrace of the 21st century, they actually stream these talks live and often make them available afterwards.

Below is Rev. Bon Soeng’s talk from May 11, last Wednesday. I’ve been listening to it and found it to be quite good and definitely in line with how we approach things in the Five Mountain Sangha as well. I recommend listening to it if you have the time and inclination.

You can hear it on ustream or watch it below if you have flash installed and enabled.

Ace Monster Toys at Maker Faire

2011-05-17T13:20:09-07:00

Ace Monster Toys, the hackerspace which I helped found in Oakland, will have a presence at Maker Faire this coming weekend. This is a first for us as we went through our founding process just around the same time Maker Faire happened last year, elected our board last June, and got our space at the end of July. We did attend the East Bay Mini Maker Faire but this is our first really large scale event.

We'll be in the Fiesta Hall (oooh, sounds fun!) in the hackerspace area. Willow over at Jigsaw Renaissance arranged for a bunch of hackerspaces to share a common large room for our booths, which is cool. Right now, we expect to have a working copy of the DIY Book Scanner that we've been working on for the past few months and beta kits of it to be sold to a few people. Myles has been working on a laser cuttable version of the platen and other key pieces. We'll be selling these along with some bags of parts to help people build their own. This is our first attempt to do so.

Bookscanner Prototype

I expect that we'll also have the makerbots and a few other things there. AMT members will be staffing the booth during the open hours of the faire and I plan to be there from opening until 2:00 PM or so on both days.

CMKT 4 Workshop at Ace Monster Toys

2011-05-14T15:38:00-07:00

The circuit-bending rock band, CMKT 4 paid a visit to Ace Monster Toys this last Thursday. CMKT4 plays a rather different sort of music, which you can hear over on their Reverbnation page.

The guys (Zach, Austin, and Jeff) rolled up and worked with a bunch of our local monsters on building contact microphones. This involved taking a piezoelectric sensor, soldering some leads directly to the crystal element and the brass border on it, attaching wires, and gluing this into a bottle cap. The other end of the leads as soldered to a standard audio jack, which was also put into a bottle cap. Copious amounts of hot glue and a fair amount of liquid plastic (to seal the sensor) were added to this mix.

You can see some of my pictures below and on my Ace Monster Toys flickr set:

the sensor (and no commentary on my soldering technique!)

halfway there!

the jack end

a completed contact microphone

Most of us also made a circuit bending device as well, which allows you to attach leads to interesting points on children’s speaking toys to see where one might attach switches or potentiometers in order to have them make interesting sounds, which is a mainstay of CMKT 4’s music.

CMKT 4 is on a tour of American hackerspaces for the month of May, including a visit to Maker Faire in San Mateo next weekend. They’ll be performing on stage there and visiting various people so I encourage attendees to check them out. They’ll also be selling contact microphones and kits of parts for those that want to make there own.

I’ve added Dallas Moore’s video from a few days ago about circuit bending with CMKT4 and Creme Dementia. It definitely gives a feel for what the guys were showing us and talking about for those that couldn’t make it to the event.

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Laser taking a boat trip to Ace Monster Toys

2011-05-11T20:31:27-07:00

We've received word at Ace Monster Toys, the nonprofit Oakland Hackerspace that I helped found, that our 80 watt laser has left its homeland of China and is now wending its way across the Pacific ocean towards us. The expected due date is somewhere around May 26. This means that we should begin getting it set up the week after the Maker Faire.

This is big news for us. This is the most expensive piece of equipment that we've gotten and it took an investment from a group of people in order to purchase. It is an Exlas 1280 80 watt CO2 laser. It has a 47 inch by 31 1/2 inch cutting area, which is HUGE. It also weighs in at almost 800 pounds. It is so big that we're literally putting in a wider door to the back room of our shop area.

When it was put onto the ship, we were sent a few pictures of it, which I include below.

I'll post more updates once the laser arrives and is set up at AMT.

The Three Pathways of Awakening - Class 2 Rough Notes

2011-05-09T16:49:00-07:00

I am continuing to take Hokai Sobol’s online course, The Three Pathways of Awakening through Buddhist Geeks. This class is early Sunday mornings. I blogged my notes for the first session last weekend and I am continuing with the second session below.

Three Pathways of Awakening

Class 2 - The Body

May 8, 2011

This session begins the actual content of the course. The subject of this first practical session is the body or the body as pathway of awakening.

Before introducing several aspects of the body as a pathway of awakening, Hokai reads from an allegorical writing to do with the body from chapter 26 of “The Monkey Grammarian” by Octavio Paz.

We move into the exploration of the body as the dimension wherein by deepening our awareness, we are awakening from the moment of beginning to pay attention. People are admonished to pay attention to posture, not just external posture of the body, but the inner posture of being present as the body. This allows us to make this session a body-based practice where we pay attention, listen carefully, hear what is said, and think about it but we do all of this rooted in the body.

Hokai goes back to the example of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, and his discovery of the middle path. Usually when we speak of the middle path, it is a philosophical position (or non-position). A position that avoids extremes of eternalism and annihilation, a position that is based on unfixed approach to experience and lived reality. However, the beginnings of the Buddha’s discovery of the middle path have to do with the Buddha’s relationship to his own body. If you remember the story of his life, he spent his youth surrounded by servants, luxuries, with things available at any given moment. If a difficulty arose, effort would be made to remove it.

After he left his home at court and the luxuries of princely life, he led a very difficult life as a rununciate. He exposed his body to the natural elements. In the beginning it was a somewhat moderate discipline when he followed his initial two meditation teachers. However he embarked on a journey of severe and then extreme austerities. This is the period when he was followed by five companions, fellow ascetics. In this period, he fully explored the opposite of what he experienced living as a prince in the palace. He systematically deprived his body of basic needs, day in and day out. The need for warmth in the night, the need for shelter, the need for food, the need for water, the need for sleep, etc. By following this extreme discipline of asceticism, he brought himself to the brink of death and almost died. By reaching this point, he came to the realization that he would die and lose the opportunity for spiritual realization but also the more important conclusion that when the body is wasted, mind becomes less and less precise, numb, and prone to imbalances, such as hallucinations and loss of clarity. He came to a new strategy of working with the body.

The story tells us that he took food again to gain strength, washed, etc. and abandoned that path. We’ll leave the story at this point but we can see that before forming a philosophical middle path, the Buddha discovered a physical middle path. This physical middle path was a middle path beyond self-mortification and self-indulgence as extremes. He found a path of treating the body in a balanced way, which has proved to be a successful path.

When we think of the Buddha, we think of a statue of a human in a seated lotus position, which has become a symbol of Buddhism throughout the world. That body is, apart from some exceptions, is depicted in a harmonious way with no marks of self-indulgence or self-mortification. This is a powerful symbol of a human being, a symbol of a well rounded or balanced human body. The only exception that we may have at this time is that a female body may work just as well.

Let us do a short exercise for working with the body.

The bell will ring to begin and end the exercise.

rings bell

The following exercise is resting the body in its natural state. Take a good seated position Sway your body gently forward and backwards, sideways and left and right Relax the midsection of the upper body Plant your feet into the ground (if you’re sitting in a chair, flat on the ground) Make sure your knees are pushing into the ground or that you are comfortable and balanced Make sure your back is straight without straining or rigidity Rest your hands on your thighs comfortably or rest your palms upwards with your left palm under your right with the tips of your thumbs touching Gently extend your neck by slightly pulling the chin inward while gently opening or extending the chest bone without pushing your chest forward Relax your shoulders by taking a deep breath

Now take a second breath, feel the whole body tighten as your breathe in, slightly Feel your body as you hold your breath for a second Feel your body relax a little as you breathe out Maintain the posture

As you breathe in and out for the third time, seek to find balance between holding the posture and relaxing

The basic practice of meditating with the body and sitting with the body consists of just this. Very simply and naturally balancing effort and relaxation as we maintain a body posture that is neither absolutely immovable, but at the same, that is relaxed, that is without unnecessary movement.

Notice the way that the body just is. There is no effort required from the side of your conscious awareness or intention to sit. The body just is. As long we’re here, alive and well. As long as we’re capable of taking a seated position, just able to sit. The body is effortless, available, and open.

The only object of intentions, it is the only place of awareness that we don’t have to look for. Even as a beginner, we find our bodies in a natural way. We just sit and pay attention. We may wander, we may be distracted, we may fall asleep, many things may happen but returning to the body is a natural thing. We do it every morning and it is the basic starting point of the place of awareness.

If there wasn’t this place of awareness, it would be very difficult to decide whether we were conscious or not, whether we are aware or not.

There is a very deep stream of awareness connected to the body that stays bound to the body as long as we live. Even in deep sleep, our body is alert. There is a supple constancy that remains with the body. No matter how deep we sleep, if there is a loud enough sound or a bright light, we will wake up. There is a supple and basic alertness that comes with the body. This alertness is given and requires no effort to maintain.

Recognize this and by taking a deep breath, bring this exercise to conclusion.

rings bell

In the Buddhist tradition, there is a spectrum of attitudes concerning our physical existence, the body as such, the senses, the sensual life. This spectrum of attitudes is biased towards the cautious attitude towards the body. This is in part reflected by the prevailing spiritual culture of the Buddha’s time in India. In part, it is also in connection to the fact of during a significant part of its history, Buddhism spread and maintained its transmission mostly as a monastic spiritual tradition. As we know, monastic people have a specific relationship to the body. Also, finally, this attitude is informed by the fact that Buddhism was very much a male spiritual tradition. Without getting into what that means in detail, there is a strong impulse to conquer the body in the male psychology and take that kind of victory as a measurement of some sort of emancipation from the base or more instinctual urges. As well as the social isolation pursued by some yogis had an effect.

However, even with these historically strong influences, the actual Buddhist practice in regards to meditation is a type of spiritual tradition that cannot function without the body. Meditation cannot be done in a disembodied state. Meditation can not be done properly in a disembodied state, at least! If we bring together all the positive discoveries and qualifications of the body in the shared Buddhist tradition, we can say that the body is recognized as a precious, impermanent human body that has the dharma written all over it. To put it another way, the body is recognized as a precious opportunity that we need to take care of and take advantage of. We have also come to find during modernity, that the body is a product of evolution that took place over billions of years, physically, biologically over millions of years, and culturally over thousands of years. All three of these are, in a way, written all over our bodies. When we begin to become intimate with our embodied state, we meet all of these writings and states and, if we read carefully, we can learn a lot about ourselves and the world we are in.

The important point is that we practice as a body, not just with a body. The body is not just a instrument, vehicle or tool on the path (though we can think of it instrumentally). The body is who we are at a very simple and immediate level. Not who we truly are but also not who we are not. The body stands in the middle between who we are and who we are not. It is a pathway between something we imagine to be and what really is. The body is the tissue that connects these two spheres of reality and unreality.

The main challenge of working with the body in a post-traditional context is to appreciate this body. To appreciate it in its precious dimension as well as its impermanent dimension.

To bring this home, let us venture into the next exercise, another guided reflection. We will ring bell to begin and end.

rings bell

Let us appreciate this body first. As you sit, take a deep breath, relax, and close your eyes. Bring your attention internally to fill the body.

From the top of the head, fill the body with attention moving downward To the face The belly Legs And finally feet

Let the body fill itself and let it register in your awareness

Now remember the fact that you were actually born. On a certain day, a certain hour, 20, 40, 60 or more years ago. You were born. You had your first breath. You were born from a mother with whom you shared a body for nine months before birth.

You were born mortal. Remember this.

Let your birth and your mortality register in your body. Your body knows the fact of birth and the fact of mortality. It knows them in every cell, in every breath or heartbeat.

In the space between these two facts of birth and death, acknowledge the potential that is available to you as a living body. This potential may be personal, it may be impersonal, but it is a very rich potential. Basically, according to the Buddhadharma, the core of this potential is wakefulness. In the Vajrayana traditions, it is the threefold decision of body speech and mind, the body stands as the fact of wakefulness, not just the potential.

Now, as you acknowledge the potential available to you as a living body, secular or sacred, acknowledge that the body IS this potential on a deeper level. Not just on ordinary level of the flesh but on the extraordinary level in which the body is the pathway without which there would be no potential at all. By acknowledging this potential , allow a sense of gratefulness and humility to arise. Gratefulness to the mother and to all the mothers that have come before her. In this way, we are connected to many and gratefulness should arise and a sense of this and humility to arise to take advantage of this opportunity and to make a decision to not squander this living body. Only a living body is a body. Without life, it is just a corpse.

By breathing in fully and breathing out, allow this acknowledging effort to dissolve and bring this exercise to a close.

rings bell

This is at the second exercise intended to bring up some of the emotional and conceptual resistances that are often shared by whole societies and cultures. These are most often dealt with in preliminary stages of any serious spiritual path. In this case, a little modified to include the fact that we now see and understand the body, in the 21st century, significantly differently. Not to say we understand the body more but our view of the body has been changed by scientific advances. The body still appears mysterious to us, possibly more mysterious as we know more.

It is important to say that treating the body at the beginning is very useful and constructive for spiritual practice.

At least three dangers are avoided by having a good grasp of the body as a spiritual pathway:

The first danger to be avoided is to cut off the tendency to use the spiritual path to bypass the body. To transform spirituality to some kind of seeking for spiritual transcendence of the body.
The second pitfall that is avoided by treating the body totally at the beginning of the spiritual journey is to avoid being unconsciously angered by the body or the instincts, which are just a part of bodily nature.
The third danger that can be avoided is the dualistic approach that sees the body as a useful instrument but sees the mind as the actual active part of the spiritual journey. There is no mind without a body, just as there is no body without a mind (it is a corpse).

The combination of body/mind is our relative identity. When we are ask “Who does the spiritual journey?”, we can answer that it is the body/mind that does the spiritual journey. The image of the body that we have is not the body/mind, nor is what we see in the mirror. It is not the way we look. It is not our gender or ethnicity. It is not our age or our relative health. The body that we speak of is the actual and immediate lived feeling of being here. It is not the power of now. It is the power of here. It is the power of being here and receiving whatever comes up. This is the body that we are discussing.

This consideration creates a huge contrast between being embedded in this reality and embodied in this physical world. In the Vajrayana tradition, the body is seen as the synonym of our fundamental intentionality or purpose. Especially in the more ritualized versions of tantric practice, most often called “sadhana,” body gestures (known as “mudras”) are used to seal the words we pronounce in the ritual and also to seal the realized part of the practice, or the intentionality that is mental action or emotional tone. The gestures are used as a mudra as a sort of seal of intentionality. The body is used as a sort of confirmation that we really mean what we mean. We need to “walk the talk” in that the body and verbal or mental action should be congruent.

The body is very important and serves as a bridge between the secular and sacred. As long as this division exists in ourselves or our society, the contemplative body serves as a bridge.

Let us look at the way the four seals of the view work with this.

All conditioned things are impermanent

When we say all things are impermanent, we mean that the body is a river. It is never the same body twice, moment to moment, but there is also a continuity there. Without continuity, there is no experience or knowledge of impermanence.

All phenomena are empty without inherent existence

This requires a certain depth of spiritual experience where we can feel that the body is hollow or empty. In intense spiritual practice where there is a physical component included, such as mantra recitation, our senses will open and we will experience the body as a sort of huge sense organ in which all sense expressions simply enter our experience without a division between inner and outer. We can also approach this line through reason or logical means. To see how the body is an example of this line is to realize that our body is not one but it is composed of many individual parts. We can even live without many of these parts, such as a finger or an eye, without feeling that we are gone. The body is also not many things because we would have many bodies. We recognize that the body is not one or many. This allows us to enter a way of thinking about the body without entering into the normal conceptual frameworks. We can directly experience the nature the body without entering the concepts of the body.

All dualistic experience is inherently painful

Who we really are is not the body yet we live as this body. This is a paradox that serves as a pathway in itself. If we think we have this body, we think we really really are born, we really really live, and we really really die. We are this physical experience and then we’re gone. There is obviously a problem with this view that is apparent to us. There is a problem with the opposite of this view. If we decide we aren’t this body, then this experience is intrinsically painful. It is painful to live, to be born, to die. It is unacceptable. Whether we choose to resolve this dualism that we are this body or that we are not this body, it doesn’t work either way. Either choice results in unnecessary painful experience and this proliferates into pain emotions, painful relationships, and painful spirituality. Our spirituality becomes an attempt to run away from the body or deals with the body as something that needs to be “fixed.” We tell ourselves myths that with awakening, we will literally achieve another body. We need to recognize that the body is a treasure trove to which treasure we need to awaken.

Nirvana is peace and without concept

Body, speech, and mind leads to awakening by neither craving or rejecting the body in this world. Even this fourth line is to be realized as we embody our pathway by neither craving nor rejecting the body or the world. This leads to awakening.

These are the four seals. Let us move onto the concluding exercise.

rings bell

Make sure you are seated conformably with a good posture Sitting straight up and yet relaxed Move forward and backward and left and right if you need to Allow your hands to rest on your thighs or in your lap

Now, as you elevate your neck a little bit, touch the palate with the tup of your tongue Elevate your gaze a little, keep your eyes open for this exercise. Allow your chest to open a bit without pushing your upper body

Breathe in and breath out as you allow the body to feel itself and to register in your awareness

Recognize that posture is a statement of a certain life purpose Allow the posture that you hold to be such a statement Allow this posture to be the seal of what this is about Allow this posture to be still as you breathe in and relaxed as you breathe out

As you sit, you sit as who you really are.

Feel this body that is the statement of awareness Feel the contact with the ground or chair Feel the air on your face Feel the mixture and bend of sensations of heaviness, solidity, warmth, softness and spaciousness that is this body Feel it all at once

Feel the breathing Feel the heartbeat in the background and the buzz in your nerves

Now without moving the focus of your awareness away from the tactic sensations, allow your awareness to expand to simultaneously register sounds You can hear other sounds but also the space of silence around or between sounds, even within sounds

Feel the tactile sensations Feel the auditory sensations

Allow your awareness to expand to visual sensations Allow your gaze to be unfocused and relaxed

If your gaze is a little downwards, you can lift it now a little forward

Now you are not just aware of your body but you are also aware of your immediate environment

Allow the tactile, auditory, and visual sensations to appear simultaneously as one field of awareness Trust in your body

No special skill is required for this. If you get lost, just return to the tactile sensations and then expand to sound and then to light. Expand and come back to it.

Now gently return to the posture at the center of awareness With a deep breath, bring this exercise to a conclusion.

rings bell

Some of us are new to this sort of practice but even experienced practitioners need to come back to basic technique and simple and elegant awareness and skills. We need to develop the skills here again and again no matter what our practice is like.

Now to conclude this exploration of the body as a pathway, there are a few remarks.

It is important how we treat the body and the bodied of others. Not just how we regard them but how we treat them. The nature of the attention that we pay to the body is important. The prevailing popular culture says that we pay attention to how the body appears but we need to balance this with actually taking care of the body. We need to give the body good nutrition and sufficient movement or exercise, especially if we are in situations that do not normally do this. It is important to recognize that there is the social dimension of the body. The body in general is treated in extreme ways. It is either seen obsessively or it is basically neglected. This is not just the physical body but also the physical body as a symbol or seal of our spirituality, as the confirmation that we are here. The body is rarely appreciated in a way in line with this, the power of here.

It doesn’t matter if it is my body, my partner’s body, my child’s body, or even my enemy’s body. The body is a universal part of experience.

Questions and Answers

Question: What is meant by inner posture versus external posture?

Answer: External posture means that posture that others can see. Even without looking at ourselves, we can normally feel the posture we are in, especially with a little movement to refresh sensation. There is an inner posture that is the inner experience of sitting that may feel very different in how the body feels. This can even change between sittings in a given day, such as on retreat, even if the outer posture is identical. The internal posture is not just how the body feels. It also has something to do with subtle intentionality. How the body feels on the inside is part of inner posture and is affected by our intentions when we seat. Our attitudes subtly shift the experience of sitting. There are even tantric approaches to do with channels and energy that will shift this as well. The inner posture consists of the interior feeling of sitting and the quality behind our intention of sitting.

Question: You said “Who does the spiritual journey?” and you said “The body/mind.” Can you elaborate on this?

Answer: This is best answered by doing the journey but the theoretical basis for the answer may come from different places. At the risk of being vague or non-specific, there is more than one way to answer this question. The strictly early strata of Buddhist teachings preserved in the Pali Canon or often preserved in the Theravadan school would say that the answer of “who does the journeying?” they would say “No one does but the journeying occurs.” The questions asked in other strata lead to different answers and the questions themselves become a journey or a practice. The Mahayana basically answers this question that from the relative point of view, it is the individual that does the journey. From the absolute point of view, “What journey?” The journey only occurs because of the relative experience of the person. The beginning and end points of the journey are not divided but are simply hidden by the veils of experience of human beings as unawakened beings. This is part of the difference between relative and absolute views. The later Mahayana teachings known as the Buddha Nature teachings basically say that the journey is the process of Buddha Nature discovering itself through human experience. This Buddha Nature approach attempts to explain how the relative and ultimate are resolved into non-separation in our lives. The relative and the ultimate are two sides of the path that are resolved through our journey. I, Hokai, say that someone does this journey but, on investigation, the empty nature of the self becomes clear through the journey.

Comment from Larry: Mindfulness in body practices usually is applied in yoga, martial arts, or sports.

Hokai: Mindfulness as a notion in the Buddhist teaching is spoken of in four stages

mindfulness of the body
mindfulness of feelings or feeling tone
mindfulness of mind states
mindfulness of phenomena or inclusive mindfulness

The fourth category embraces the previous three categories and to recognize the four marks of existence. The division of body, speech, and mind can be fit into this scheme with the body being mapped to mindfulness of the body. The speech division is mapped onto the next two divisions. The mind division is then mapped to the mindfulness of phenomena or inclusive mindfulness. Dividing the spectrum into three categories of body, speech and mind maps the body to more coarse phenomena, speech to subtle phenomena, and mind to the most subtle. This is common in the later Vajrayana teachings. In early teachings, these visions of coarse, subtle, and very subtle are mapped each to body, speech, and mind and mindfulness is applied to them in each division.

In the context of sports or other activities, mindfulness is meant of bringing awareness to these things. In a Buddhist context, mindfulness means paying attention to the nature of things and not forgetting the nature. Mindfulness is always a strategy for developing insight, not just of being aware. This means it is a means of penetrating the veils and seeing the true nature of things and to experience the four seals directly.

We conclude with refuge and dedication.

I take refuge in the wakefulness: vast, blissful, and emanating. I take refuge in the truth: ever-present, open, and changing. I take refuge in the congregation of all conscious beings. Through this practice I realize my true nature, and bring benefit to all.

Next sunday, we will cover the speech section of the course.

Article Swap: Nate of Precious Metal on the Role of Tradition

2011-05-08T10:49:40-07:00

As part of the 2011 Article Swap, the following piece was written by Nate from Precious Metal on the role of Buddhist tradition in the current age.

I want to thank Al for being part of the Article Swap, and for hosting me here today.

I was a bit unsure how to approach the topic that Al chose, which is my thoughts on the role of tradition in Buddhism in the current age. I thought a lot about it, and the complexities of it. I could write a book on the subject, especially considering the scope of Buddhism in the world. So, I figured I’d whittle it down a bit and concentrate more on the US/ North American region.

The topic engenders a multitude of different directions, but stripping away everything, the core should be something like, do cultural traditions translate well in todays world? Specifically, as folks travel to other parts of the world, does the cultural leanings on Buddhist tradition from their country ring true for those that are now learning from that teacher/ mentor?

Ever since Buddhism made it’s way to the shores of the US, like elsewhere in the world, it has adapted. The first temple in the US was built in 1853, though it wasn’t until the 1950’s- 1960’s that we really started to see Buddhism take root on this soil. The influx of Buddhist masters during this time seemed to coincide with the need for Dharma teachings to be transmitted. Masters from all over the world, such as Japan, China, Korea, Tibet and more descended on the US like a charge of locusts. You had guys who were setting up temples and centers, and others that had been invited into homes to teach smaller, more intimate groups. Zen seemed to adapt well, and really became a solid foundation for future. As His Holiness The Dalia Lama’s profile became a media spotlight, the Tibetan tradition gained some steam to, and due to it’s popularity, grew at a quick rate. Statistically though, according to the Pew Forum, the three major branches of Buddhism have roughly the same amount of followers.

Due to the variations in each school of Buddhism, it gives the seeker an array of options to choose from. While one tradition may have a bit more ritual practice, one might chant quite a bit, and others might engage in more meditation. Each school, contrasted with the others, are at the core the same. Like flavors of a lollipop, there is a Buddhism for just about everyone.

For the most part, things will remain the same for Asians in the US. For those that have immigrated here and have a heritage steeped in Buddhism, the role it plays in their lives will continue. The traditions they carry with them are an important part of their lives, in a new country it helps keep them grounded with where they came from.

Sometimes, these cultural traditions have actually become a stumbling block in relations with American Buddhist counterparts. Some of the more “purist” folks look down on Westerners as if we/ they are some sort of infidel to their religion. As if we are not able to comprehend the true meaning of the Dharma and so we are unworthy. This dichotomy has at times strained relationships, and turned off some Americans.

With that, we’re already seeing the emergence of various forms of Buddhism in the US, which may or may not exemplify where the tradition is going. A couple of these forms are Engaged Buddhism and Secular Buddhism.

Engaged Buddhism isn’t something completely new, Thich Nhat Hanh could be considered the “grandfather” of this movement, but recently it seems to be growing more and more. Engaged Buddhism can be summed up as a practice that involves taking our meditation routines and our dharma practice into social and political situations. There are a number of organizations that exist that exemplify these practices such as The Prison Dharma Network, Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Zen Peacemakers, Liberation Prison Project, The†Interdependence†Project†and more. These groups, and the people involved, are highly active and believe the Dharma is not just an on the cushion activity. Some of the teachers that are attributed to the Engaged Buddhist practice are Bernie Glassman, Robert Aitken, Fleet Maull, Roshi Joan Halifax, Bhikku Bodhi and more

Secular Buddhism is growing because of it’s more practical approach to Buddhism. I do not consider myself to be a Secular Buddhist, but the methodology for inquiry has peaked my interest. Secularist’s believe that Buddhism should be stripped down, to take away the religious aspects, and practice what they believe in something that more closely resembles the practice of the Buddha himself. One of the preeminent teachers, and proponents of Secular Buddhism, is Stephen Batchelor. His books lay out the groundwork for skepticism of ritual practice in Buddhism, and belief in such teachings as karma an rebirth. One of the main reference points for Secular Buddhists is the teaching in the Kalama Sutta.

We are also seeing the manifestation of some young teachers who adhere to specific lineages and traditions, but teach in a †manner that a lot of younger folks can relate to. Whether you are a punk, a†metal-head†or consider yourself a geek, there are people to learn and take inspiration from.

You’ve got Noah Levine, who’s referred to in some circles as the†Tattooed†Bodhisattva, author of books such as “Dharma Punx”, “Against The Stream” and his newest offering “The Heart Of The Revolution”. His first book spawned a small movement of†tattooed†punks bucking the idea that Buddhists need to have this clean and proper exterior shell. His students believe that Buddhism is similar to the punk rock movement in the way they are both radical, rebellious forms. I tend to agree and enjoy his books, and dharma talks, immensely. He recently opened up shop at the Against The Stream Buddhist Meditation Society in Los Angeles.

Brad Warner is another one that does not fit in the box. His books, such as “Hardcore Zen”, “Sit Down and Shut Up”, “Zen Wrapped In Karma Dipped In Chocolate” and “Sex, Sin and Zen” can be, and are to some, controversial. I’m not of that belief, I think his books are very necessary today as he cuts through the bull, he is by far a “cookie cutter” Buddhist. The controversy with Brad comes from his columns he has written for the soft core porn site, The Suicide Girls.

There are a variety of other Buddhist teachers and groups that are worthy of mention, that again, have stepped outside of the box. You’ve got Ethan Nichtern, of The†Interdependence†Project, who’s project falls under the Engaged Buddhism idea I was talking about earlier. For those of us that are little more geek-ish, there are the Buddhist Geeks podcasts. Buddhist Geeks was founded by†Vince Horn and Ryan Oelke. BG started in 2007 and has grown so much, this year they will be running their own conference.

We are still very new to this Buddhism thing here in the US, and as our personal relationships grow, so will our spiritual relationships. The Dharma, in theory, with all of it’s schools and lineages will become just like the rest of America, a big melting pot. I believe wholeheartedly, as time passes, a boiled down, palatable version of Buddhism will emerge. We are beginning to see small hints of it, but there is still to much divisiveness for something like that to take hold just yet.

– Nate

The Three Pathways of Awakening - Class 1 Rough Notes

2011-05-02T16:35:05-07:00

I am taking Hokai Sobol’s online course, The Three Pathways of Awakening, which is offered through Buddhist Geeks. This is a six-part course that is offered every Sunday morning at 9:00 AM my time for the next six weeks.

The course is offered as an audio gathering where you dial into a local number, either on your phone or skype, and listen to the teacher speak. Later, he is able to unmute various participants and they can ask questions or make comments.

According to his bio page, Hokai is a Shingon teacher and a follower of Acharya, Rev. Jomyo Tanaka. I’ve encountered him online on and off for a few years through his blog and the Buddhist Geeks podcast and associated community.

Since I have some (possibly irregular) connection to Tendai in my past, which is the sister school to Shingon that also practices the Japanese form of tantric Buddhism, and I am also interested in the development of new Buddhist practices in the West, the class appeared to be of potential interest. I figured I’ve got nothing else going on at 9:00 AM on a Sunday morning and it could be quite useful.

Below are my notes from the first class, taken as the class progressed during the 1 1/2 hour session. This class was the introduction for the course as a whole.

Three Pathways - Class 1

Very Rough Notes

This is a six part course.

Class 1 is the Introduction. Class 2 will be focused on the body as the pathway of awakening. Class 3 will focus on speech as the pathway of awakening. Class 4 will on mind as pathway of awakening.

The course follows traditional mechanisms concerning body, speech, and mind as methods of awakening.

Class 5 will be looking at developing a personal practice based on the previous components, irrespective of specific methods or styles. Class 6 will focus on integrating formal practice and every day life.

Terms used in this course

Vajrayana: This is a term which is commonly associated with Tibetan Buddhism. We will not be doing specific Vajrayana practices that involve a personal demonstration and empowerment by, or connection with a teacher. However, many of the considerations we make will include a Vajrayana perspective, especially in how the view is formulated. The view of "Vajrayana" is based on the innate sacredness of this life and this world.
Post-Traditional: Post-traditional does not mean to infer that tradition, as such, is an obstacle. It refers to a traditional viewpoint of strict orthodoxy and canonized and settled ways of approaching practice, developing one's attitude to practice, organizing ourselves, and especially empowering individual realization.

Starting from the context of where we find ourselves, in a virtual space, we are definitely in a post-traditional setting. We’re thousands of miles away from each other right now but we can still interact with one another. This puts us in a post-traditional space for establishing a Dharma community.

The readings given before class provide some basis for perspective for the class (see here and here).

We are looking at the post-traditional approach to Buddhadharma.

At the beginning of this class, we will recite a short refuge first (for those that have taken refuge before).

I take refuge in the wakefulness: vast, blissful, and emanating.
I take refuge in the truth: ever-present, open, and changing.
I take refuge in the congregation of all conscious beings.
Through this practice I realize my true nature, and bring benefit to all.

The Buddhadharma arose with the prince of the clan of the Shakya over 2,500 years ago. He felt a severe crisis engulfing his life sometime in his 20s. After trying to do away with his feelings of unfulfilment and frustration, he decided to leave home, and his wife and child, to master the spiritual disciplines available at that place and time. After doing that for several years and mastering various techniques and their experiences, he found those approaches to be insufficient. He awoke to the idea that there is a deep conditioning around our experience that acts as a veil. This veil acts as something that reduces lucidity or wakefulness. Things appear to exist separately, or independently, including a sense of self. The relationship between self and all things or experiences remains hidden from our awareness. This prompted him to renounce his reliance on these veils. The practices he had done before had not made these veils clear. These were mainly concentration practices that produced trance-like states where the mind appears infinite, endless, or the mind seems to seize and experience a reality that is nothing at all. However, when returning from these experiences, the Buddha found that he was not changed. This is not to say that he was not changed by these experiences but he returned from the experiences of these practices.

Later on, these veils are described as affective or cognitive veils within Buddhist tradition. The Buddha did not systematize them this way at the time. After he penetrated his condition, the Buddha had a series of remembrances of various types of existence. Subsequently, he had a third experience where he achieved knowledge or supreme clarity as to the nature of both relative reality (or experiential realm) and ultimate reality (or the fundamental nature of everything). This third event is most appropriately known as the Buddha’s awakening though traditionally all three are stages or steps in his awakening.

This basic event of his awakening is what gave rise to Buddhist tradition, basically.

The first form of his teaching is the 45 years of teaching of the Buddha to his disciples, his collected sayings, practices, etc. The Buddha taught all sorts of people, lay people of all sorts (merchants, courtesans, philosophers, kings) who were householders as well as people who became monastics.

This first form is fundamental to all schools of Buddhism. This was focused on the central idea of renunciation, meaning a conversion or spiritual turnabout from a life that is limited and trying to find fulfillment in the evershifting objects of experiences to a life that is more introvert or self-aware that is based on awareness, clarity, discipline, and, finally, view.

500 years later, this early teaching gave rise to a newer form of teaching, the Mahayana vehicle. This built on the previous ideas to then focus on the idea of great compassion. This is a code term for renunciation that sees the benefit or happiness of ALL beings as part of our spiritual project or focus. This is a path of magnanimous empathy. This informs the intention, orientation, and, in a subtle way, one’s realization.

500 years after this, the third type of development appeared. This appeared under various names but we will call it “Vajrayana” here. Sometimes it is called esoteric Buddhism or tantric Buddhism. To the Mahayanic great compassion orientation, Vajrayana added a whole series of spiritual methods, technologies or tools. Not to just experience awakening but to further enhance the existing realization of wisdom. The specific contribution of Vajrayana is to put devotion at the center of one’s spiritual practice. Devotion not in the sense of faith, which was already important, but in the specific sense of a readiness to give up on self reference (?) so that it creates a strong connection to the wisdom of one’s inherent nature as well as compassion.

In all of these three great traditions that gave rise to a variety of schools, there is a common thread running through them and a common basis for understanding the potential of spiritual practice and the dynamics on the path. That understanding is the view of the human being as a multi-faceted phenomena.

A human being is said to consist either of five aggregates or human experience is said to consist of 12 or 18 components. The latter are the six senses (including mental) including their respective objects or, in the 18 component system, the addition of their six consciousnesses.

Another classification of the human being is in respect to action. This can be conventional action or spiritual discipline. This is the division into body, speech, and mind. This is not specific to Vajrayana but can be found in the earliest strata of Buddhist teachings. (Discussion of ten negative and positive actions here.)

Later on, the teachings taught that through actions of body, speech, and mind themselves we may use them to engender an awareness that is reflective of our true nature. This awareness is a close approximation of our true awakening. Practices were developed to use our body in very specific ways to quickly produce states of spiritual clarity, then use our speech to enhance this first realization, and then use our mind in addition to this to dissolve the remaining subtle sense of separation. By coming actions of body, speech, and mind, there is a skillful way to create a state that reflects our true nature. This experience serves as the basis for post-meditation practice, which is the rest of our life.

This is a post-traditional view of the spectrum of development of a very long and rich Buddhist history.

There is a very famous formulation of the Buddhist view that summarizes these developments in a specific way. This gives a context for different approaches or styles of Buddhist practice. The overarching principle is the View or Buddhadharma. This is given in four lines of traditional verse sometimes. These are the Four Seals or Marks.

Four Seals of the Buddhist View

All conditioned things are impermanent All phenomena are empty without inherent existence All dualistic experience is inherently painful Nirvana is peace and without concept

We will see how these seals refer to body, speech, and mind and what practicing with these four seals means when developing a personal practice. We will also see how they apply to integrating practice with daily life.

We will conclude with refuge, which includes a dedication of merit. We open and close with this normally.

Monologue concludes.

From Q&A after talk:

Question: What makes this “post-traditional?”

Answer: There are three basic elements that move someones approach from traditional to post-traditional. These are three shifts in practice that make it post-traditional without throwing away the tradition.

One needs to really make sense of both the techniques and teachings that one is putting into practice and following. "Really making sense" means that one can actually explain what one is doing and how one is thinking about it in terms of one's own life without recourse specific notions and concepts that were only learned in the context of learning Buddhism. "Naturalizing the Dharma" means that the dharma needs to be defined in terms meaningful to one's life.
In pursuing one's practice, one needs to take an additional degree of responsibility for the results of one's practice. One must be fully clear that one is developing the commitment and relationship of one's free choice. Whatever happens in the relationship, one is responsible for it. Without this shift, one may feel victimized when things get tough, either by hitting our limits or edges, or when communities or teachers fall apart or appear to be not as expected. Feeling victimized means that we haven't taken full responsibility for our practice. This does not mean giving up reliance on community and teachers but not giving up responsibility and accountability from ourselves.
The meditation experience or realization, in itself, means nothing. Every experience and every realization, even advanced ones, needs to be fully interpreted, acknowledged, and integrated into life experience. There needs to be a high degree of integrity between our spiritual lives and our mundane lives. The basic degree of spiritual development is decreasing the gap between what we see as "spiritual" and what we see as "ordinary" in our lives. This is important because there is a lot of talk as samsara as nirvana and nirvana as samsara but this is actually missing in practice in the lives of people.

Question: What is meant by devotion?

Answer: In a traditional sense, devotion meant devotion to one’s teacher. Devotion was an integral aspect to reality. The way it is used in Vajrayana as an opening or as an quickening for both wisdom and compassion. Specifically, this means that instead of trying to develop wisdom through analytical means or generate a feeling of compassion, one opens oneself to wisdom and compassion as already existing, powerful features of the whole reality. Because it is sometimes difficult to access these features of reality, because these aspects often seem to be lacking in the world, these aspects of reality are often given symbolic forms that we can relate to. Sometimes the teacher is seen as embodying these as well. Devotion means something that is opposite to but synonymous with effort. In the same way that we can make great effort to pursue a certain discipline over a period of time, we can use devotion the same way without the idea of making a great effort but, instead, with the idea of opening ourselves to something.

Beginning of Clonedels at Ace Monster Toys

2011-04-23T17:46:21-07:00

Today, we poured our first set of clonedel pieces for the upcoming set of Reprap Prusa 3D printers that we’re going to make at Ace Monster Toys. “Clonedel” is what people have been calling the Reprap printers where the pieces normally made from printed plastic are made from molds, instead. The printing of these parts on another printer, such as the makerbots we have at AMT, takes about 14 hours. Pouring them takes about 10 minutes plus pulling them from the molds and letting them cure.

You can see some of the first set pf poured parts below.

As it turns out, the molds had a few flaws in places, being either too rough or having some air bubbles, so we weren’t able to pour all the parts with the level of detail that we really want or without damage. We’re going to clean up some of the pieces and I’m going to print a few more on the makerbot in order to make a new mold for those pieces. Almost all of the larger pieces are fine and they take the longest to print so this is still an overall positive.

Over at Metrix: Createspace, where we acquired the molds, you can see that they’ve been working on building many of these as well:

The end result is a 3D printer that is much smaller and simpler than the makerbots we’ve been using in the space.

I’ve also had RAMPS boards made to act as the electronic brains for these in a fetching purple. I and others will be soldering components to these sometime in the next couple of weeks.

The end result of all of this is that we hope to go from having two makerbots in Ace Monster Toys and a couple more in the homes of members to, eventually, a dozen or more of these either in the space or in member homes.

We’ve also just ordered our 80 watt laser (with a four foot by three foot or more work area) from China for the space. This will give us the ability to laser cut acrylic and plywood sheets, opening up a whole range of work possibilities.

Fudō Myōō Painting

2011-04-13T11:51:56-07:00

For a while now, my friend, <a href=http://nondualelf.com/”>Kat Lunoe</a>, has been working on a painting for me. Kat is a local magician and artist who has done some excellent work, especially for the cover of Sam Webster’s “Tantric Thelema” book. She’s also a tantric (vajrayana) practitioner and we’ve had a number of excellent discussions on matters tantric.

I’ve been wanting an image of Fudō Myōō for quite some time. Fudo-sama is an important figure in Japanese mikkyo, Japan’s form of tantric Buddhism. You will see central Fudo images in most (all?) Shingon and Tendai temples. He’s considered to be a form of Dainichi Nyorai by some though technically, he’s one of the five vidyarajas, the “light kings” or “wisdom kings” that date back to the origins of tantric Buddhism in India and who are ferocious protectors of the Dharma.

Because of my existing relationship (largely undiscussed here) to tantra, including Japanese tantra, I’ve wanted an excellent shrine image of Fudo-sama. Екатерина produced a wonderful image for me over many months of work. This is something that I’m both proud to have as part an altar and that I consider a wonderful and very personal work of art.

For those interested in prints of this image, Kat is potentially willing to produce them. You should contact her through her website at <a href=http://nondualelf.com/”>nondualelf.com</a>.

Original steampunk revisited, a review of Jeter's "Infernal Devices"

2011-04-10T21:12:17-07:00

This last week, I read the reissue of K. W. Jeter’s classic steampunk novel, Infernal Devices. This is being released in the next month by Angry Robot and I managed to score a review copy from them. Jeter hasn’t written much in the last decade. I’m not sure what he’s been up to and his bio page doesn’t help… The bulk of his work was during the 80’s into the early 90’s. For those unfamiliar with his work, he was pretty influential in his heyday, considered by some to be amongst the cyberpunk authors. I fondly remember reading “Farewell Horizontal” and “The Glass Hammer” when I was a teenager. Jeter has the claim to fame of actually having coined the term, “steampunk,” in a 1987 letter as a kind of a joke given the attention that cyberpunk was getting at the time. Infernal Devices was originally published that same year and is definitely an example of the ur-steampunk novel.

Our protagonist is one George Dower, the inheritor of a watchmaking business from his deceased (and almost entirely absent) father. The period is vaguely Victorian or Edwardian and the setting is London. George isn’t much of a watchmaker. In fact, he seems entirely inept at his inherited trade. His father, though, was a genius with gears. It becomes clear over the course of the novel, Dower Sr. did not limit himself to the creation of watches but created all manner of clockwork mechanisms, both large and small, and his clientele was, shall we say, often questionable. The story opens with Dower the Younger addressing his reader, stating that he is writing his account to attempt to clear his own sullied name and to defend himself, even though he knows it will do little good. Dower describes how a number of odd individuals enmeshed themselves in the mechanism of his life through the vehicle of his father’s devices. For the most part, these devices act as a macguffin, with people chasing hither and yon after one or more of them (though more and more of them come to the forefront over time).

Dower Jr. has the unfortunate quality, so necessary in a protagonist, of not leaving well enough alone and seeking the answer to mysteries. Now, he seeks these largely because of his nearly penniless condition (servicing his father’s lesser creations with the help of Dower Sr’s assistant does not pay well) but, like a character in a horror movie, he always decides that it might be time to give up and quit about two minutes after he has lost the option of doing so.

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable read and I can see why it gained the good reputation it had when it was originally released. There are mysteries to be investigated, churlish companions, villains, both hidden and obvious, and a heavy dose of clockwork and victoriana. Some may find George’s language, as he narrates the events, both directly and through his breaking of the wall between he and his readers in writing his account, a bit difficult or distracting at first. I enjoyed Iain M. Banks’ “Feersum Endjinn” and Neal Stephenson’s “Anathem,” both with reputations for purposefully difficult language, but I still found Dower’s voice a bit distracting initially. In time, it does grow on the reader and becomes much less of an issue (if any) and it definitely adds atmosphere or tone to the tale.

For my friend’s interested in a steampunk novel, especially one of the original ones (predating the current craze by two decades), this is well worth a read. The book definitely holds up well in comparison to the current steampunk books (in fact, it is better than quite a few of them). You can find it on Amazon as either a paperback or ebook on April 26. I’ve embedded a sample of the first 50 pages below (flash is required for this…).

My next step after this book (with a side jaunt to “The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack”) is Jeter’s sequel to H. G. Wells’ Time Machine, Morlock Night. This is also being reissued this month and I’ve never been able to track down a copy of it before now.

Jundo Cohen's Comments on Genpo, Sexuality, Money, and Zen

2011-04-08T21:51:18-07:00

Jundo Cohen of Treeleaf Zendo offers his amazing, insightful, and hilarious commentary on Genpo Merzel, sexuality, money, and Zen in a video he posted on April Fool’s Day, 2011.

I encourage everyone to watch it unless they have no sense of humor.

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Extra points for placing Genpo Merzel and Brad Warner in the same…position…in his announcements.

A Visit to the Internet Archive

2011-04-02T11:05:38-07:00

The Internet Archive HQ

A number of us from Ace Monster Toys went to visit the Internet Archive on April 1, 2011. The creator of the DIY Book Scanner, Daniel Reetz, had come into town to meet with people there on, you guessed it, book scanning. As always, he came by Ace Monster Toys when he arrived to take a look at the progress on our own book scanner. He invited me, Myles, Robbie, and others to go with him to the Internet Archive to check out the book scanners that they use for their ongoing book digitizing efforts.

Friday morning, I gathered everyone up in the trusty prius and we drove over to the archive in San Francisco. As you can see above, they’ve taken over a Christian Science church building, which gives the place the kind of regal air that you would expect of an institution dedicated to the public good. We had lunch with the archive’s employees and guests and got to hear a round of introductions and updates on what people had been working on or why they were interested in the archive. The diversity of people there, including visitors from two different universities (I believe), was pretty inspiring. They’d just moved their data center into the building and were excited to be retiring the last of the old servers that week.

After lunch, we were taken next door to check out their book scanning machines. Let’s just say that theirs were built on a whole different scale than our own. In comparison, here is the current image of the one we’ve been working on at AMT:

This is what they’re using at the Internet Archive (with the darkening covers pulled off):

As you can see, there is a little difference in sizing. Their design is much more robust that our own. Of course, other than our cheap cameras, ours has probably cost us $60 or $70 in parts and theirs, when first built many years ago, cost more than $10,000 each. These days, they can probably make them much more cheaply but they are looking to simplify their designs and to also make them much more portable. Our design, based on the work of Daniel and others, is table top and I carry it around the AMT space quite often as we work on it.

We were given a walk through of how they use their scanners. Myles and Daniel had a number of engineering questions as the weakest link in most book scanner designs is the platen that we use to hold pages spread for the photos. The Internet Archive’s design is elegant and a thing of beauty, as you can see, and we took many pictures so we can reference things as we try to figure out a way to make our own design better.

One of the things that Myles and I have spoken about a bit, and he’s been conferring with Daniel on this also, is coming up with practical ways to make DIY Book Scanner kits. These kits would include (potentially) the parts for the platen (which is the most complex), and plans and some parts for assembling the rest of the scanner out of standard materials that you can get at a hardware store. We’re still very much in the idea stage but it is goal in our thinking as we work on our scanner. We’re already planning to redo the platen on ours as soon as we figure out what we want to do as it is has some issues (though it works).

It was rather cool to get a chance to go out to the Internet Archive, see what they are doing, and meet a group of people that are really working to benefit everyone rather than enrich a series of investors. There is a phenomenal body of ephemeral materials in the world, be they books in local languages dating back hundreds of years, records in war zones, home movies and films, even television and other popular media of recent decades. Much of this material will be lost if people do not work to preserve it but it is the kind of thing for which universities have lost much of their funding. The Internet Archive seems to be pretty well focused on this problem, along with the ephemeral nature of the Internet.

I’ve put a photo set of the pictures that I took (mostly of their book scanners) up on flickr for those interested.

The Need for a Public Stance on Ethics in Zen

2011-03-31T10:53:50-07:00

Within the Five Mountain Sangha and some friends, there has been a brief discussion in the last day (and a much longer one before that during retreats and otherwise) on the various sex scandals within the Zen community during the last year and some examples in articles circulated with the initial e-mail. I’d be very unsurprised if more of these skeletons came out of the closet as I know of at least a couple of more incidents (all a decade past or more) and I’m not even terribly well connected. When asked for my thoughts on the particulars of one and the situation in general, I wrote a response to my peers and seniors. I thought it might be worth sharing here. Below is my verbatim post of what I sent to the others. (Rev. Jiun, whom I mention, is my main teacher that I work with weekly.)

Hello,

I had seen the substance of much of this, though not all of the details, before. A lot of this has been circulating between people during the last few months, especially the last few weeks.

It is difficult to know what to say beyond what has been said about the same problem with other teachers. The overall problem is real. From what I’ve heard, it is more real than many many people know because most of this kind of sexual relations with teachers is never reported. People quietly disappear from sanghas without their companions there knowing why someone has left. People don’t want to believe it is happening or think that a particular instance isn’t their business or is ok. As the letters mention in the article, the relationships are often consensual, though the power dynamic is very real.

The only thing that I know that can be done is for individuals to take a strong personal stance on it, to speak on this stance when the situation warrants it (or in general, at this point given the back to back scandals), and for organizations to adopt a pretty uncompromising ethical code when it comes to the relationships between teachers and students. Rev. Jiun and I have spoken about this a bit during our regular meetings. I’ve admired the stance that James Ford has taken with the recent adoption of an ethical code in the Boundless Way.

Whatever we do, we need to not enable this kind of incorrect relationship and behavior. Sure, people are adults and people will even fall in love or feel the heat of passion. At that point, there are decisions to be made before actions are taken and we have a choice as to what we do. Rev. Jiun related a story on at least one occasion when, as a monk, he asked a Tibetan lama about the difficulties in keeping vows. As I recall, the teacher said it was actually very easy. We make a decision and we stick to it. We all know what is right and wrong, barring aberrations, in our relationships. We know when we are acting badly or inappropriately, both as people or as representatives of the Dharma. I think the major problem in the Zen community isn’t that these things have happened, because they always happen, regardless of community or role. The major problem is that people have swept it out of sight, tolerated it, looked the other way, and pretended that they can ignore problems or that a situation is special to the point where it has compromised the basic ethics of many many zen people, teachers, and organizations, leaving a visible taint that damages the relationship of people to the Dharma and to all teachers and institutions.

I think a public stance, including a public code of ethics is called for, and we need to be seen to follow it, without exception and without hiding things from the public eye.

Jigen

Does the world really need more Zen sitting groups?

2011-03-29T11:19:15-07:00

It comes up every so often that the only active sitting groups for the Five Mountain Sangha are in the Los Angeles area and in Cincinnati. Here in the Bay Area, there are only two active members of the order. The other member, Greg LeBlanc, is a teacher in the order but really only has the time to do a group sit once a month because of his many (many!) other commitments.

I generally practice at home and don’t do much in the way of group or together action with others. I’ve gone to Empty Gate Zen Center run by the Kwan Um School, which is part of the same overall lineage, but not on a regular basis. The lack of a local sangha is, I feel, the biggest detriment of the model of practice that we follow, where all of us are distributed across the United States and get together for retreats.

That said, I’m not sure that the world, or at least the Bay Area, really needs more sitting groups. In Cincinnati, it is different in that there are a total of two (yes, two!) Zen groups. That’s it. In that instance, forming a group, as my teacher Jiun Foster has done, probably fills a real need. Here? Well, off the top of my head, there are two large and long lived (since the 1970’s) zen organizations with a building or two within two miles of my house. If I’m willing to do out to five or six miles, there are probably, easily, a dozen.

In that circumstance, what does adding a sitting group do? It strikes me as a bit hubristic to say, “Oh hey, I’m going to form a Korean Zen group. We’ll all get together and chant and sit” when there is a group that has 30+ people meeting a bit over a mile away. It feels self-focused in the way that we try to avoid. That isn’t to say it would be bad to have such a group but a large part of me says, “Get over yourself. Just go to where the other Buddhists are!” Of course, I hear that voice but I generally don’t do so!

I think it would be much more useful to form a service-based group or organization and fulfill some actual need (and that need is not to sit on a cushion). A “Helping Hand” organization in some fashion. The back of my rakusu has a poem on it in English. It says:

great love,
great compassion,
the great Bodhisattva way,
attaining Bodhidharma’s family tradition.

This comes down to the maxim, the great question of a Bodhisattva, “How can I help you?”

Sitting and the support of a group can help a great many people but there are many other ways to help others as well. I’m not sure what I am ultimately going to do in that regard but it seems likely that the help offered by running a small group of practitioners is well covered. I think that I would better serve others by finding ways to help other people that are not being covered to relieve at least a little of their suffering.

In the short-term, this probably means getting off of my butt and cushion, and actually getting over to San Quentin to work with the inmates there in their Zen group. It may also mean some time in the local food banks or even, as funny as it is, helping people in the community with their computers and technical problems. There are many ways to serve others and we don’t need to fit everything into the Buddhist box.

I’d be interested in any thoughts others might offer on this kind of problem, not necessarily for my situation but in the general sense of things Buddhists can do instead of simply lighting incense, chanting, sitting, or ringing bells.

Just back from Five Mountain Sangha 2011 Spring Retreat

2011-03-28T14:23:08-07:00

The Five Mountain Sangha Retreat Group

I just returned yesterday evening from the Five Mountain Sangha 2001 Spring Retreat. The FMS is the organization of Korean Zen within which I am a priest and practitioner. We are a geographically dispersed group, with members on both coasts and several states in between. In order to facilitate together action and the bonds of the order (and our practice), we have at least one short retreat a year that brings as many people as possible together. This year, we met at the Zen Center of Las Vegas, run by Rev. Thomas Pastor, JDPSN of the Kwan Um School of Zen. Rev. Pastor is an old and good friend of Rev. Paul Dochong Lynch, our guiding teacher, and has gone out of his way to be welcoming to us and allowing us to make use of his center. Because Las Vegas is, well, Las Vegas, it is actually very easy for people to get there from all over the country.

Many of us at the retreat have been quite active in the Five Mountain Seminary, which is used as part of our training for priests within the Five Mountain Sangha (though not everyone in the school is part of our sangha or training to be a priest). I received my diploma as the first graduate of the school at this retreat (w00t!). I also got a chance to see people from classes that I have been teaching within it. This helps improve our ability to connect and communicate within the school since we use Moodle as the means of running a distance-based program, supplemented with phone calls and/or skype audio and video.

For the retreat, a few of us arrived on Wednesday night, with the rest on Thursday, to have some informal time together before the start of the retreat around 5:30 AM on Thursday morning. We had teachers from California and Ohio working with Rev. Lynch in guiding students in kong-an (koan) practice, as well as meditation work. For those unfamiliar with this sort of retreat, we normally have sessions of sitting meditation followed by short sessions of walking meditation. While people are engaged in these practices, we have interviews (one by one) with a teacher or teachers to work on kong-ans with which we are already working or assigned in particular during the retreat.

In between the sessions, we have a work period, meals, Dharma talks, or similar activities until we go to bed around 10:00 PM in order to get up early the next day and do it again.

Because this was one of our few opportunities to get everyone together in the same room, we also tend to do precepts and ordination at the same time. We ordained several people at this retreat (congratulations!), I took the 74 Bodhisattva Precepts (as I was already a priest), and another priest was confirmed as a teacher.

We also had a chance on Sunday to practice with some of Rev. Pastor’s students, who came to sit with us for the morning (the time of their normal Sunday service). This also gave all of us a chance to do kong-an interviews with Rev. Pastor, which is always an interesting addition, especially after a couple of days with the other teachers and their poking and prodding!

All in all, it was an excellent chance to see people that I speak to quite often virtually over skype, on e-mail lists, or in online classes, but so rarely see in person.

I have a lot of photos up in my flickr set for the retreat for those interested. I was taking photos during much of the ordination ceremonies.

You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

2011-03-28T11:44:43-07:00

I was going to write a nice post about the three day retreat from which I just returned with my sangha. Instead, I’m writing, once again, about current Zen scandals. It is the gift that keeps on giving.

My mother sent me of this today, “Changes at Kanzeon Zen Center.” She lives in Salt Lake City and, while not a Buddhist, has connections in the community and an interest in what is going on there.

This post opens with the following:

“As previously announced, Genpo Roshi has retired as a Buddhist Priest but will continue as a Zen Master to teach and lead retreats, at the Bear Trap Lodge when in Salt Lake City and elsewhere including Hawaii. He has invited Rich Taido Christofferson Sensei to step in to take his place as full-time teacher at the Zen Center.”

Now, as people may recall, at the beginning of April, Genpo Merzel (aka Genpo Roshi), officially disrobed as a Zen priest and stepped down as an elder in the White Plum Asanga. (I’d link to the posts where he announced it at http://www.bigmind.org/Home.html and http://www.bigmind.org/Responsibility.html but they are now a 404 link and have been removed.)

When Genpo stepped down, disrobed as a priest, and left his elder position in the White Plum organization, I, like most, figured that meant, well, that he’d disrobed as a Zen priest and wasn’t acting as such any longer. That word, “disrobed,” generally means that sort of thing to those of us who are Zen practitioners (as well as priests or monks). Apparently, we have a princess bride situation here where Genpo uses that word differently.

There is no way that you can seriously say that you’ve disrobed and then say that you are going to “continue as a Zen Master to teach and lead retreats.” I mean, seriously, what the hell? That makes his whole “I’ll own up to my mistakes, step down, and disrobe as a priest and elder” into a punch line in a bad joke.

The post on the Kanzeon site also goes on to say (if the preceding wasn’t clear enough):

(…references to sale of Kanzeon buildings to pay for debts removed…)

The sale will also allow Kanzeon to pay off its obligations and sustain its existence, with Genpo Roshi continuing as its Abbot, outside Salt Lake City at Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon.

(…)

Genpo Roshi will continue to teach all those who wish to study from him. This year he will be in residence at Solitude from early April through September. In addition to Big Mind Conferences and Retreats, he will be available to Kanzeon members for small group teachings. When not in Utah, he will be teaching and leading trainings and retreats throughout the world, including on the island of Maui, Hawaii.

He’s still Kanzeon’s abbot and will be teaching at “Solitude” (some kind of retreat location) in the Cottonwood Canyon, which is just outside of Salt Lake.

I guess it was all some sort of farce or a public relations bait and switch? You cannot “disrobe” and still be an abbot running a center, running retreats, teaching students, and functioning as a Zen priest. Where is your integrity, Genpo? Actually, where is the integrity of Kanzeon’s board and Rich Taido Christofferson, the supposed new “abbot,” to even allow this and act, with a straight face, as if it is all good?

Any belief that people had that Genpo had shown at least some integrity in stepping down and acknowledging mistakes should be reexamined very closely. People are being sold a pack of lies and I’d recommend people stay far away from Kanzeon and its “abbot.”

Update: A friend sent me Genpo’s original statement that was on the Big Mind home page. Compare it to what is revealed above (or on the Kanzeon site where I link). I guess he chose his words very carefully since he didn’t actually say that he wouldn’t be abbot, running Kanzeon, or teaching as a Zen priest. Just that he had “chosen to disrobe” and “will stop giving Buddhist Precepts or Ordinations.” You wouldn’t think you’d quit being a priest but still maintain an attachment to the Zen Master thing. Tricky, this Genpo!

A Personal Statement from Genpo Merzel

I have chosen to disrobe as a Buddhist Priest, and will stop giving Buddhist Precepts or Ordinations, but I will continue teaching Big Mind. I will spend the rest of my life truly integrating the Soto Zen Buddhist Ethics into my life and practice so I can once again regain dignity and respect. My actions have caused a tremendous amount of pain, confusion, and controversy for my wife, family, and Sangha, and for this I am truly sorry and greatly regret. My behavior was not in alignment with the Buddhist Precepts. I feel disrobing is just a small part of an appropriate response.

I am also resigning as an elder of the White Plum Asangha. My actions should not be viewed as a reflection on the moral fabric of any of the White Plum members.

With great humility I will continue to work on my own shadows and deeply rooted patterns that have led me to miss the mark of being a moral and ethical person and a decent human being. I appreciate all the love and support as well as the criticism that has been shared with me. Experiencing all the pain and suffering that I have caused has truly touched my heart and been the greatest teacher. It has helped open my eyes and given me greater clarity around my own dishonest, hurtful behavior as well as my sexual misconduct. I recently entered therapy and plan to continue indefinitely with it. I am in deep pain over the suffering I have caused my wife, children, students, successors and Sangha.

With sadness and love,
D. Genpo Merzel

Another version of Firefox, another cake

2011-03-22T15:11:02-07:00

We shipped Firefox 4 today at Mozilla, where I work. This is a big deal for us and for the open web as well. (Go download it!)

Following the friendly tradition, the Internet Explorer team just sent us a fine cake, as they have on previous releases:

When we received one for Firefox 3, it was about a year after I started working here. By coincidence, I happened to answer the door so I was the one to receive it that time and a former Internet Explorer coworker of mine, Sean, dropped it off, which was amusing.

You can see the Firefox 3 cake (with me):

Then there is the old Firefox 2 cake to compare it against:

I haven’t tried the one we got today yet but I’m looking forward to it.

Book Scan Wizard and the Internet Archive team up to form a massive book scanning robot!

2011-03-13T19:19:23-07:00

Book Scan Wizard is the software that is the heart and soul of the DIY Book Scanner that I’ve been working on for the last month (and blogging about here). It greatly eases the process of scanning images of pages of text from books and turning them into something actual usable. In reality, the process of scanning a book is pretty easy to do cheaply and sloppily but the real difficulty is turning your crappy scans or photos of pages into something usable by others. Book Scan Wizard was written to be a solution to this problem and it does an astounding job at it.

It was just announced a couple of hours ago that the brand new version of the Book Scan Wizard will support automatic uploads to the Internet Archive, a non-profit that, you guessed it, archives the Internet and also acts as a repository for all kinds of digital information. Even better, it does it for free and supports the public domain and also allows for the creative commons licensing of works. The podcasts that I’ve done in the past and the various public events (such as Cory Doctorow doing a public reading) are all actually permanently stored on the Internet Archive.

The Internet Archive has been working with various groups for quite a while to create a repository of free texts to fulfill the promise of making the cultural legacy of the world’s books available to people (something that Google Books has failed to do for all of their verbiage about scanning texts).

With the new version of Book Scan Wizard, or even through just uploading directly to the Internet Archive, any PDF composed of images of book pages or organized zip file filled with images of book pages will be automatically processed. The Internet Archive’s servers will then automatically perform optical character recognition (OCR) on the book and make a pdf, epub, kindle (mobi), daisy, djvu, and text file copy of the entire book available for download by anyone, anywhere. You can see a sample book from this process to get a better idea. All this happens within a few hours of the book being uploaded and then anyone can download it. This is free OCR for anyone in the world.

I hope that I don’t have to spell out the implications of software that makes it easy to process the images out of scanners to create books combined with the resources, availability, and now processing of the Internet Archive. This is a game changer in many ways. While this is likely to be controversial to some people, the benefits of having this end to end chain of tools from physical books to electronic texts that can be read on any computer or mobile device is just amazing.

Go read Steve’s post on the DIY Book Scanner forums for all of the gory details.

Update: Greetings visitors from Boing Boing! Find out more about the DIY Book Scanner I am building at Ace Monster Toys.

DIY Book Scanner is almost complete

2011-03-13T13:32:11-07:00

Myles and I have continued to spend a few hours a couple of times a week on our DIY Book Scanner. As you can see below, it is mostly complete at this point.

Yesterday, we finished putting the physical parts together, figured out how to hang the lights, and made sure that the cameras could focus correctly on the pages (as well as get external power). The only thing left to do with the body of it is to hang a counterweight from the pulley at the back. This will allow us to raise and lower the platen without putting a lot of force on it. Sooner or later, we expect to rebuild the platen as we learned a few things while doing it and the acrylic that we are using tends to build up a big static charge, which holds onto the pages from books.

You can see our overall build progression in my Flickr photo set.

Our next step is to get all of the electronics working. This is non-battery power to the cameras and a foot switch to cause them both to take photos. We’re using a linux virtual machine with the open source scanning software so people should be able to run the software on any computer at Ace Monster Toys, assuming they install VMware’s tools.

One of the discussions that Myles and are having is how we could build a book scanner from scratch in an easier fashion, using some sort of standard parts and maybe molded corner pieces or some sort of interlocking system. The idea would be to create an easy to assemble set of parts that we could then turn into kits, making it easier for other people to build their own book scanners without staring at pictures of the builds of others on the DIY Bookscanner forums and figuring it all out for themselves. These conversations are just in the beginning stages but it seems worthwhile to discuss.

Who am I and what do I do?

2011-03-12T12:19:16-08:00

Me at Borobudur on Java paying homage to the Buddha

I realized that I have only indirectly spoken about myself in this blog for quite a while. I figure that most of my readers know who I am, what I am about, etc. or they just don’t care that much about the details. Since I do randomly pick up quite a bit of traffic, it is probably relevant to go over some personal things here, as well as updating existing friends or fans on my life a bit.

My name is Al Jigen Billings, as it says in a few places. The middle name of “Jigen” is assumed/gifted and not a legal name. California has a few legal alias recognitions such as “Professionally Known As” or something similar. Jigen is my ordination name within the Five Mountain Order (FMO) and sangha, the Zen organization(s) of which I am a priest. I was ordained almost two years ago as a novice priest after completing some of the seminary work in the Five Mountain Seminary and having already worked with my primary teacher for a few years before that. I’ll be taking more vows as a Bodhisattva Priest (or senior priest) at the end of this month in retreat. FMO is a Korean Zen (or Son or Seon) organization ultimately derived from the famous master, Seung Sahn, and his Kwan Um School of Zen. (In Monty Python parlance, we’re “splitters,” having organizationally gone our own way quite some time ago.) My work in Zen is focused on participation (including teaching) within the Five Mountain Seminary and my own practice. We have no sitting groups running in my local area so I sit with other groups or, mostly, at home. I work with my teacher via skype, usually spending about two hours a week doing video chat with him, working on koans and seminary issues, as well as discussing practice.

I co-founded Ace Monster Toys, a nonprofit (incorporated) hackerspace in the Bay Area in 2010. We rent a 1,600 sq ft space in north Oakland, have regular meetings, and generally work on building stuff. I serve on the board and am currently the president but all of these could easily change. I’m a big believer in the culture of making things with our own hands and tools, rather than simply being a consumer culture.

I also work at Mozilla on the Firefox web browser as a QA Engineer (aka a software tester). I’m the leader for QA on our sustainability releases and I also run QMO, our QA Community site, and do work on its development and enhancement. I may or may not stay at Mozilla forever but it has been a nice contrast to the nine years that I spent as a software tester (and, briefly, project manager) at Microsoft for Internet Explorer. I like open environments.

The moniker of this web site is “Open Source Buddhism, Technology, and Geekery.” I believe that Buddhism is in an era, with all of the traditions (including some dead ones) available to so many people that we should be embracing their commonalities and borrowing or sharing what works from any tradition of Buddhism in order to have something that provides the best possible support for our goal of simply waking up, which is what enlightenment really is. Sectarianism and bureaucratic BS should play no role. As I’ve said before, if I wanted the politics and domineering dogma, I would have stayed a Roman Catholic. I’ll happily borrow Theravadan jhana techniques if they work, just as I’ll borrow Tibetan mahamudra techniques. I’m less concerned with permission and doctrine than I am with utility. That said, I am of the camp that Buddhists (or people that call themselves such) need to have a basis of understanding in the doctrine and philosophies of Buddhism. I question the ability (and eventual success) of Zen organizations that, for example, never have anyone read a sutra or actually discuss or think about what the Buddha or famous teachers said. It isn’t enough to simply stare at a wall and have no basis of understanding in what you’re doing.

If it isn’t clear yet, I don’t consider myself an especially holy person or somehow any sort of guru. Buddhist teachers are, in reality, just like anyone else. They can be confused at times, even full of shit. They have foibles, make mistakes, or otherwise act, well, human. One hopes that with some measure of experience, especially with meditative practice, koan work, and the like, that they develop some insight into themselves (or their lack of self) and the human condition, which they can then share. Any Buddhist teacher you meet that exudes an explicit (as opposed to incidental) aura of holiness or perfection should set off a warning light. Like doctors or psychiatrists, many people cultivate an aura or persona of being a certain kind of person but it is just a mask assumed. All teachers or dedicated Buddhist practitioners are just themselves, maybe more aware of certain things, but still just folks. I try to cultivate an up front presentation of my approach to Buddhism and life but to recognize, as well, that I can be as completely full of crap as anyone else. Beware the holy men for they have something to sell you.

In my day to day life, I’ve been struggling with aspects of my health for a few years. In late 2008, I went to Egypt for a vacation (with a stop in London) and came back with an undiagnosed virus. (It is undiagnosed because when they rule everything else out and have no clue what is making you sick, they say it is a virus but there are millions of those.) I was sick for three months, lost 35 lbs in weight, had my heart rate go to about 100 beats a minute, my blood pressure reach near stroke levels, and had a revolving fever. Eventually, I “recovered” from this, though it took six months for much of it to resolve. The illness brought out a latent sleep disorder, related to sleep apnea (or a form of it, depending on who you ask) so I generally sleep with a CPAP machine and wake up five or six times a night now. Needless to say, this has played holy hell with my life ever since and probably precipitated some problems that I have fought since then.

I have a Master’s degree from California State University, Dominguez Hills in Interdisciplinary Humanities with a concentration in Philosophy. I did my thesis on particular religious beliefs of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. After this, I did some graduate level work in the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley and even joined the doctoral program at the Graduate Theological Union for Buddhist Studies. Unfortunately, I was also still quite messed up from my viral illness and ongoing sleep problems. I was also still working 60% time at my Mozilla job and, effectively, couldn’t deal with all of the demands, my fatigue, and the overall stress. I quit my program during the first semester and went back to working full-time. I still have an interest in doing doctoral work in Buddhism but it seems unlikely to happen at this point.

For most of the last year, partially in response to the health scare two years ago, I’ve been re-focusing on fitness. I’ve been working with a trainer two days a week for over six months. I’ve lost 25 lbs (and could lose another 25 probably) and gotten to the point where I work out about six days a week. I swing a lot of kettlebells, do cardio training on my bike, and have developed into a weight lifting crazy. I have an olympic barbell, dumbbells, and plates in my garage and have been learning how to properly lift weights. I never thought I’d enjoy the physicality of these things, having been a computer geek since I was a teenager, but it has been really life changing for me to do this.

I have a set of goals for this coming year that I will mention, at least briefly. In regards to Buddhism, during the next year, I plan to:

Graduate from the Five Mountain Seminary
Write a couple of mobile device Buddhist applications for the iPhone and Android devices
Begin going to San Quentin prison at least twice a month in support of their Zen group there
Take part of a general revision of the program offered by the Five Mountain Seminary using lessons that we've learned in the last few years of running it.
Begin some sort of book on the idea of Open Source Buddhism (whether I actually call it that or something else), what is involved in its approach, and why it is relevant.
Get trained in the current secular mindfulness techniques being taught as therapeutic techniques
Figure out something to teach, perhaps relating to meditation, Buddhism and its history, and/or mindfulness at some local educational institution.

I also would like to:

Actually learn Python at a decent enough level to be able to legitimately put it on my resume.
Do some volunteer work for the Internet Archive
Get Ace Monster Toys into the clearly cash positive and healthy zone as a non-profit (we're doing ok but it is tight).
Foster stronger connections between local hackerspaces and the larger community of makers, artists, and builders in the Bay Area.
Get the proposed transcription of J.F.C. Fuller / Allen Bennett Golden Dawn notebooks done and self-published as a service to both my Golden Dawn friends and those academics interested in the history of Western Esotericism.

I think that this post has rambled enough for now so I’ll stop here.

More Bookscanner Progress

2011-03-04T11:39:28-08:00

Gaze in awe at the completed base

Myles and I met up before and after the weekly AMT meeting last night to do a little more work on the bookscanner. Other than building the platen, which holds down the pages of the books and mounting it, we're getting much closer to being done building it. It has to rise up and down on rails and getting those squared and fitted is a little tricky for those of us with weak wood working skills.

The real challenge is going to be the electronics to control the Canon 480 cameras. The firmware on those cameras is well hacked, which means that we can mount them and have them each take a photo of a page (one side of the book per camera) at the push of a button and then pull the images directly into a Linux virtual machine that Myles has put together.

I took a few photos but I'm hoping that we will have more impressive looking results after another workday on it on Saturday.

No, we are not woodworkers

Just Back from visiting Green Gulch

2011-02-27T16:47:12-08:00

My wife and I took a short trip to Green Gulch this week (also known as Green Dragon Temple). This is the Buddhist farm, monastery, and retreat center operated by the San Francisco Zen Center since the early 1970s. It’s in the Marin headlands just across the Golden Gate bridge from San Francisco.

We’ve been there before on a few occasions. Once with R’s parents and for a wedding on another occasion. (As an aside, I’m still amused that my father-in-law briefly studied with Suzuki Roshi in the early 1960s, lost track of him, and had no knowledge of how famous he and his Zen group later became.) We’ve been wanting to go out for a visit again. None of the visits have been in the context of specific retreats but Green Gulch maintains a guest house and it is quite easy to go and stay for a night or two. It gives one ample time to wander the groups, eat meals with the residents and staff, and do some sitting. There are set times for practice sessions and the zendo is open for sitting whenever people want the rest of the time.

We went out yesterday morning, spent some time wandering, including following the path to Muir Beach, and then sat in the evening session before eating with the residents. The rest of the evening was spent in quiet reading. We had planned to go to the morning sessions but my sleep problems kicked in a bit (I have a diagnosed sleeping disorder) and I wound up staying in bed fairly late trying to get some actual rest so we missed the morning sitting.

The only downside compared to previous visits was that we had come in late Spring and Summer previously and we had actual snow warnings for the Bay Area this weekend. Thankfully, the snow didn’t really appear but it was pretty cold on site and Zen monasteries are not exactly big on central heating. It wound up being quite chilly overall (which actually seems to be a constant in many Buddhist places I spend time within).

Still, it was a nice and quiet way to spend a chunk of the weekend. I put a photo set up on Flickr of the photos I took over the last day.

Ace Monster Toys Visit by Daniel Reetz of DIYBookScanner.org

2011-02-25T12:31:07-08:00

I blogged the other day about the DIY Book Scanner that we’ve been working on at Ace Monster Toys, which we’ve gotten it roughly a third finished.

Daniel Reetz of diybookscanner.org, who invented it, saw the post as he has an ongoing Google alert set for the site. It turns out that he is in the Bay Area from Los Angeles this week for the Internet Archive for Personal Digital Archiving conference, where he is speaking. Dan arranged to come over to AMT to meet us last night during our weekly meeting. He pointed out that while he sees pictures of a lot of book scanner builds on his website, he very rarely gets to see them in the flesh and meet people building them. Myles, whom I am helping with this project, had some specific questions on the build so it turned out to be fortuitous that he was available.

Dan made it over after experiencing some of the joys of San Francisco traffic (he actually got out of the car he was in with a friend partway to the East Bay and got onto BART in order to get to AMT in a timely manner). We showed him around the space and showed him the book scanner progress. He then showed us some LED lights that he’s been working on for the book scanners to improve the light and to use less power.

Very Bright Lights

After some chatting, he agreed to do a dry run of his talk at the conference today so we got to hear his take on the direction and implications of digital photography and its ongoing development, which was extremely cool.

Daniel Reetz Lecturing

He also showed us some of his other work in digital photography, part of which got him his current job as an engineer instead of this kind of thing just being a personal obsession. Of particular interest (and what got people’s attention) was his Large Light Field Camera Array. You can check out his blog for many more of his projects and interests.

All in all, it was quite cool and appreciated to have him come by and visit us at AMT.

Update: Daniel gave his official presentation of his talk at the personal archiving conference the next day and the video is online now for those interested in seeing it.

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DIY Book Scanner in progress

2011-02-22T11:05:18-08:00

I don’t blog as often on the out and out geeky side of things here very often right now but I wanted to share a project that I’ve been working on. Along with all of the Buddhist things that I do, I am a founding member of a hackerspace and spend a significant amount of time each week with hackers hacking (along with my job working on the Firefox web browser).

I own a lot of old or obscure books. Many of these are from small publishers who disappeared long ago. I’ve been moving more and more to ebooks during the last two years but I own something like 8,000 or more books. I’d like to preserve a lot of the hard to find books and something to scan them would make it easier to do so. I’ve stood over my share of digitizing photocopiers to facilitate them but they work slowly and often badly. Unfortunately, most of the time the easiest ways to scan a book will destroy the same books. There are other solutions though…

A current laser cut book scanner

Yesterday, I went over to Ace Monster Toys, my local hackerspace here in Oakland, to work on a DIY Book Scanner. Daniel Reetz came up with this idea a while back for cheaply and easily scanning in books into computers without cracking the spine on his books.

You can see a presentation that that Daniel did at Google recently below (or here):

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A lot of people have taken it and run with it, spawning improvements, since Daniel’s original book scanner. This technology is very similar to what Google used for their giant bookscanning project with various universities except done on the cheap. It consists of a simple rig, normally made out of wood. It has a cradle to support the book, open and face up, a platen made of glass or acrylic to hold the pages flat, a lower end digital camera focused at each page, and lighting. This is connected to a computer to process the images as they come in. Wired’s Gadget Lab wrote a blog post about it a bit over a year ago.

Myles, whom I know from AMT, and I decided that we wanted to work on one of these. I had suggested it as a project but hadn’t gotten around to trying to implement it. Myles jumped on grabbing some appropriate cameras (Canon 480s) and we arranged to get together to work on it yesterday.

Some people create very fancy and professional book scanners with nicely engineered parts that they paint, wrap, finish, wrap in special boxes, etc. We’re at a hackerspace and, really, we just care if it works. This is our first time so we figured it would be a learning experience. Myles scoured the forums at DIYbookscanner.org to find the simplest and most elegant design that both worked and which we could build. Neither of us are exactly master craftsmen so ease of building was a factor. We decide to go with the “New Standard” design being developed by Daniel Reetz. The end result should look something like:

Our Model

Yesterday, we went to home depot, bought a bunch of parts and began working on the base. This is a square frame with a pair of drawer rails mounted inside. A platform is mounted on these rails and then the cradle to hold the book sits on it. The important parts, other than making it relatively even, is that the rails need to allow the cradle to slide back and forth in order to center different sized books under the platen and camera. The cradle needs to be adjustable on this platform to accommodate the spine and pages of both large and small books as well. The cradle needs to be angled at a right angle in total so the pages of the books will directly face the cameras above.

While we were working on it, Stefan from AMT (who does have some wood working skills) was around and wound up getting sucked into helping us. After five hours of work, we managed to get the based entirely put together with the exception of mounting the last two pieces of the cradle where you place the book.

I put a photo set up on Flickr with our current progress. The end result of yesterday’s work is this:

All your base are belong to us

We’re going to get together later in the week to continue the work. Myles has put together a linux virtual machine that contains the software to process the scanned images. He’s also doing more electronics work. The tricky part will be the platen because it requires a lot more detail work to have it function correctly. Once that is put together, we just need to mount the lights and cameras and start tweaking the whole thing.

Update:: Here is an interesting animated gif of the laser cut book scanner that I found online:

Question About Kong-ans (koans) to Zen Master Bon Soeng

2011-02-17T14:25:13-08:00

This was posted on facebook today by Empty Gate Zen Center. As someone who is doing ongoing work with kong-ans (though I usually just use the colloquial American “koan” at this point), this spoke to me.

Question About Kong-ans (koans) Zen Master Bon Soeng

by Empty Gate Zen Center on Thursday, February 17, 2011 at 9:49am

Question: If you read to many books about kong-an practice, or kong-ans in general, do you run the risk of having your interviews tainted?

Zen Master Bon Soeng: It’s not the interviews you have to worry about, it’s your own mind. Interviews will take care of themselves. But too much thinking about kong-ans only confuses the issue. Kong-ans about before thinking mind. So reading about it a little bit might help you get a feel for something, but a lot of thinking about it only gets you lost in the dream of what you think it’s supposed to be. Kong-ans aren’t really about the answers, kong-ans are about raising great doubt. Everybody comes into interviews, and it’s a tricky situation because I ask you a question, and traditionally you’re expected to know the answer. So of course you want to be able to give me the right answer. But that’s just your ego-mind. “I want to be good”. “I don’t want to be bad”. “I don’t want him to think I’m stupid”. But Zen Master Seung Sahn used to tell us all the time, “More stupid is necessary!”

Everything is turned on it’s head. So, it’s about not knowing. And kong-an practice can be very frustrating because you don’t leave the room until you get one wrong. So don’t worry about getting the answer. Kong-ans are about raising great doubt. Stopping the mind for a moment, and opening to wonder. You can read about them, but that wont help you. Back in the early 1900’s, a Japanese monk published all the answers for all the kong-ans. That doesn’t help. It’s not about the answer, it’s about the question. So, try to move away from the answer to the question. Then the answer will take care of itself.

A Letter from Kanzeon Zen Center Concerning Genpo Merzel

2011-02-17T13:32:45-08:00

As many of you have heard, Genpo Merzel of Kanzeon Zen Center and Big Mind disrobed recently on the revelation that he had been having an affair with one of his senior students and Dharma heirs. You can read about it on Sweeping Zen as well as other places. I have refrained from comment so far as so many others were doing so and because I felt that, by and large, Genpo was doing the right thing by acknowledging his actions, disrobing as a priest, resigning as a White Plum Asanga elder, and going into therapy.

A lot of people have written about this issue and 44 American Zen Teachers sent their advice to Kanzeon the other day. Today, I received this letter from Kanzeon, reproduced in its entirety below (disclosure: a few years ago, I paid for an online subscription to Kanzeon’s archive and updates for video and audio by its various teachers so I’m on their mailing list).

It seems like they are having enough issues right now that people might do well to give them a little space.

The letter:

Dear Kanzeon Zen Center Members and Friends,

As you are no doubt aware, the situation at Kanzeon has been the subject of a great deal of conversation on the internet and elsewhere, including an open “Letter of Recommendation to Kanzeon Zen Center” from 44 American Zen Teachers, which was sent to us directly by Kyogen Carlson of the Dharma Rain Zen Center and posted two days ago on the Sweeping Zen website.

Attached is the Kanzeon Board’s response to that letter, which we are sending today to Roshi Gerry Shishin Wick, President, of the White Plum Asanga, and to the American Zen Teachers Association. We trust that they will post our letter on their websites and pass it on to their members.

We would also like to remind you of the healing circle meeting tonight in the Zendo at Kanzeon at 7:30. These meetings will not be broadcast or recorded. Once again, we invite you to speak and listen from your heart, and even if you have not been involved in the conversation until now, to join us and participate actively in the healing and rebuilding of our sangha.

Sincerely,
The Kanzeon Board

To Members of the American Zen Teachers and White Plum Asanga:

As members of the Board of Kanzeon Zen Center, we have received many e-mails and phone calls concerning the highly-publicized situation resulting from Genpo Merzel’s admission of his transgressions and sexual misconduct. These communications from Zen teachers in your organizations and others, not to mention open letters and other postings on various social media and internet sites, are filled with advice and recommendations, many of which are beyond the scope of our responsibility as a Board. To the extent that they are motivated by a sincere concern for the survival, healing and rebuilding of our sangha, we would like to share with you an account of some of our efforts to date.

     * Feb. 3rd: Shortly after returning from the international sangha meeting in Europe, Genpo Merzel met with the sangha at the Zen Center in Salt Lake City in an open meeting which was widely publicized in advance. He admitted his misconduct (which had already been made public but wasn’t known by all attending), apologized for his actions for which he bears the blame and responsibility, and responded to the pain, anger, concerns, questions, and feelings of his wife, family and sangha members.
     * Feb. 6th: Genpo Merzel announced he is disrobing as a Soto Zen Buddhist priest, resigning as a member of the White Plum Asanga, acknowledged his own dishonest, hurtful behavior as well as his sexual misconduct, and said he has entered therapy which will continue indefinitely. This statement was posted on his website on Feb. 7th — http://bigmind.org/Responsibility.html.
     * Feb. 8th: Kanzeon Zen Center announced that Richard Taido Christofferson Sensei will be taking over the teaching functions, training, administration, day-to-day operations, scheduling of all events, ceremonies, retreats, etc. as Vice Abbot and full time resident teacher. Kanzeon and Big Mind (a separate corporate entity) will also separate their websites, and Big Mind will continue as a separate secular practice, not connected with the Soto Zen Buddhist School. This announcement is posted at http://bigmind.org/Home.html.
     * Feb. 10th: The first of a projected series of council meetings was held with community members who wished to attend and express their feelings and their views on attempts for future healing.
     * Feb. 13th: Taido Sensei arrived in Salt Lake City to lead a town hall meeting to which all local members were invited. He outlined his vision for the future of Kanzeon under his leadership and responded to the concerns of the audience.
     * Ongoing: The Board is formulating a Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Procedures addressing issues of misconduct, abuse, and grievances within the sangha, based on models already instituted by other groups. They will be adopted as soon as possible.

Further, an e-mail sent to us yesterday by members of your organizations raised six issues, to which we briefly respond as follows:

Teaching. Genpo Merzel is taking an indefinite leave of absence of at least a year from Kanzeon. The Board has no authority over Big Mind, Inc.

Therapy. This is a matter for health care professionals working with Genpo to determine. This is not within the expertise or purview of the Board.

Salt Lake Zen Center. The Board is making every effort to maintain the facilities and keep the Center open for the community. This effort has been hampered by the heated rhetoric coming from the Zen Teacher community, in particular those who have reached out to members of our community to inflame reactions that are more adversarial than cooperative.

Money Issues. The Board is supporting Taido Sensei’s effort to maintain the flow of revenue through memberships and programs. His teaching schedule for the next two months will be posted shortly. We are a small Sangha, which has been financially supported by Genpo’s teaching for many years and more recently by his teaching through Big Mind, Inc. He has offered to continue to support Kanzeon to the extent he can. Therefore, donations you wish to make to enable the Board to implement item 6 below would be welcomed.

Public Statement of Apology. Genpo has apologized and his apology is posted at http://bigmind.org/Responsibility.html. He continues to talk full responsibility for the harm his actions have caused.

Outside expert assistance. Taido Sensei has been in contact with several Dharma teachers in the White Plum Asanga, who have offered their support and willingness to come to Kanzeon to share their skills as teachers, therapists, and leaders who have experienced the problems of leading centers through similar crises. The Board in consultation with Taido Sensei will develop a plan that will include consultation with and participation of these and other Zen teachers. The Board has also been in contact with organizations, which can provide experienced, objective, professional assistance in guiding us to the creation of a healthier sangha with proper safeguards and strategies to avoid any future misconduct and abuse.

As you might expect, these activities are occurring in an environment that is under great stress. The Center’s very small staff which is implementing the changes we have set in motion, is struggling to maintain the Center’s schedule and commitments in financially constricted conditions, not to mention the strong daily practice which all agree is vital especially now, while at the same time coping with a deluge of phone calls and emails engendered by the ever-increasing volume of recommendations and calls for action like yours. Long-time bonds of respect and friendship among members of the sangha are being frayed and broken. People with little or no connection to our sangha or Center have appeared at meetings designed to promote healing only to offer their own inflammatory views on our situation. Our Zendo has been vandalized, a beloved statue stolen from the altar. Under these circumstances, we respectfully request that those people who sincerely hope that we at Kanzeon survive and heal as a community, and create an environment and adopt procedures that lessen the possibility of any future misconduct or abuse, will extend us a little patience and allow us the time and breathing space to restore the peace and harmony of the sangha and the strength and sound practice of its members. Genpo Merzel has repeatedly reiterated his full support for all of the actions taken by the Board and Sensei as outlined above.

Board of Trustees of Kanzeon, Inc. Kanzeon Zen Center 1268 E. South Temple Salt Lake City, UT 84102

Buddhism is not an espresso machine or Zen Heart, Vajra Heart

2011-02-15T17:59:46-08:00

I attended my first Zen Heart, Vajra Heart day-long workshop last weekend. This was taught by Lew Richmond, an heir of Suzuki Roshi, and Lama Palden Drolma, an empowered teacher in the lineage of Kalu Rinpoche.

I’ve been interested in attending one of these events since I first heard about them a year and a half ago. One of the areas of doctor work that I had considered focusing on was the way different traditions of Buddhism cross fertilize or cross train in the West.

Here is the video presentation from their site:

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The site explains the background as follows:

“When we started Zen Heart Vajra heart in 2009, Lama Palden and I did not have a well-formed idea of how we were going to proceed. We felt deeply that there was a strong resonance and affinity between the Mahamudra and Zen traditions, and through our long teaching collaboration we knew that the best way to bring out that affinity was to combine a sense of the planned and the spontaneous. [..] The Heart Sutra—as a vitally important text for both traditions—was an important starting point. The unity and full interpenetration of form and emptiness is a good jumping off point for both traditions, so we started there.

Our concept for Zen Heart Vajra heart was to explore the intersection of two great Mahayana Buddhist teaching traditions, but as we went forward we realized that there was a third tradition in the room and in the air—the fact of our all being Americans, today in the 21st century, dedicating ourselves both to understanding these ancient wisdom traditions as well as apply and integrate that wisdom into our lives of today. The minute we all gather in one room three streams are there, not two—Mahamudra, Zen, and America.”

I have a personal background in the Vajrayana, having initially taken refuge in 2002 with a Sakya teacher and having practiced with both Kagyu and Nyingma teachers on retreat. I eventually wound up in Zen for reasons that I’ve discussed elsewhere but here were two well established and respected teachers focusing on the union of the traditions, their points of commonality. As someone participating in a non-denominational Mahayana seminary, this was of great interest to me.

So I set my expectations and went to the daylong event last weekend. My response to it is probably going to seem critical and there are elements of that but I want to say up front that I have a great respect for Rev. Richmond and Lama Palden. They’re definitely putting heart and mind into what they are teaching and their dedication to it is clear.

When we first arrived in the morning, the group of us settled into the space. There were 15 of us and I was the only guy (not counting Rev. Richmond in this). The rest of the participants appeared to be mostly followers and students of Lama Palden. This fell into the normal demographics that I’ve seen in much of the Buddhist community, being mostly older (than me at 39) women. This was not unexpected, actually, and I’m pretty used to being either the youngest person at a Dharma event or often one of possibly two or three men.

We did a guided Shamatha practice with Lama Palden giving guidance and prompts during the session. I found it a little difficult to focus but I’m used to fairly silent Zen meditation these days so I don’t ascribe that to anyone. Following this, Rev. Richmond did a Dharma talk on Genjo Koan He talked at length about life as a koan and compared this to curricula koans, such as the structured koan traditions present in many Zen schools. Not knowing Dogen well (I’m in Korean Zen after all) and being part of a structured koan tradition, I found this quite interesting and engaging.

During this talk, Rev. Richmond uttered a line that stuck in my head, probably more for amusement value than being especially profound to all beings. He said “Buddhism is not an espresso machine.” By this, he explained that while Buddhism (and life) take an input, which is coffee, perform grinding, and end with tasting, enlightenment or awakening is not an automatic result of putting the right mix of things into the grinder and having enlightenment as the push button result. It takes work and struggle and different ways work for different people. He then spoke about Life Koans, as opposed to curricula koans, with which we struggle. These are universal issues, not purely personal, that we as individuals will encounter and fight. He said that the Buddha found one when he saw the afflictions of disease, old age, and death and asked himself, “Why do beings suffer?” The Buddha struggled with this for a long time until he found a solution, which led to his awakening and the Buddhadharma that he taught to others.

Following the talk, we, the participants, were instructed to pair off and try to find out what our current Life Koan was. Not to solve it but to identify it. One of us would speak to our partner for 15 minutes and the partner would listen, prompting us with “What is the life difficulty you are struggling with” or “What is your life koan” if we were silent for some length of time. This was supposed to involve some inner reflection and searching as a kind of stream of consciousness, not some kind of long and organized, pre-thought out, speech to the partner. After one spoke, the roles would switch.

I did this with a partner, a very sweet and elderly lady. I did my bit and found it an interesting experience, though a bit odd. She then did hers and I simply witnessed, listening to what she was saying. I felt a lot of empathy for the struggle expressed in what she said and for the process that she was going through.

Afterwards, we had a break for lunch and then we, as a group, spent a considerable amount of time where individuals were asked to relate to Rev. Lew and Lama Palden what the Life Koan was that they had encountered, in front of the whole group.

Following this, Lama Palden had us all sing aloud a song of realization, the “Seven Delights” by the Tibetan siddha, Götsampa. She then unpacked the song a bit, explaining its meaning, verse by verse, and relating it to the experiences we have. This was compared to the Heart Sutra and its contents. After this, we had a brief period of sitting and we ended for the day.

The combination of paired work and group witness and commentary by the two teachers is what I think caused me to feel that I was not the target audience for this teaching and event. I thought that the paired work was interesting, as were the comments by the teachers, but it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting from the Zen Heart, Vajra Heart site and presentation. I had expected some sort of event where one or both teachers would teach on the Heart Sutra, relate it to their tradition in some manner, and then we’d do some sort of meditative practice related to it or to some union of the ideas of both traditions. The paired work felt much more psychological, for lack of a better term. That isn’t to say it isn’t useful but I am not one of those people attempting to merge psychological work into Dharmic practice. I think both are valuable in their own spheres and since both deal with the mind, its behavior, attitudes, attention, and so forth, there is overlap between the two but I am a believer that psychology and the Dharma are both better served by remaining distinct. I did more than a year of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) a decade ago for anxiety problems (panic attacks, specifically) and found it to be very valuable. Two of the teachers in my tradition (including my own teacher) are either clinical psychologists or training to be one but this all felt somewhat out of place to me.

In some sense, I expect it is a matter of “making something” or of coming to this event with a set of expectations. That is silly of me and my own fault. That being the case, I think some people may react badly to having interpersonal paired psychological work being given to them as a task with no warning at a Dharma event. It was a bit outside my comfort zone but I’ve gotten used to the idea that my comfort zone is, after all, an ego thing so I’m pretty willing to roll with something and see what the experience is like. Others, including myself ten years ago, might react more negatively.

As I said, this sounds a bit like a criticism of Zen Heart, Vajra Heart and that is true in a fashion. I am being critical of aspects of the presentation but I want to be clear that I do not think that the event was without value or that the practice isn’t useful. I think it has a value and a use and I believe that both Rev. Richmond and Lama Palden are doing a service in pushing the normal boundaries of Dharma practice. I do think that it might do them well to clarify on their website and when discussing events when they are going to expect people to do something pretty far outside the normal range of either Zen or Vajrayana practices as people are likely to be at least occasionally surprised.

I had to really think about whether to post this because I am sure that someone associated with the event with read this sooner or later, the Internet being as small as it is amongst Buddhists in many ways. I decided that outlining what was actually done at one of these events, since they are so new, and my reactions to it would hopefully outweigh any seeming negativity that my comments my engender in the others. If people take offense, I do offer my sincere apologies. I offer these as my honest thoughts and reaction.

There will be another Zen Heart, Vajra Hear day-long event in May and it was stated that there were planning their first multi-day (four day?) event for late Summer this year at Lama Palden’s new center. If this kind of work sounds interesting to you, I do encourage you to attend and encounter it.

More Metal in my Heart Sutra, Please

2011-01-27T11:01:04-08:00

A friend of mine sent this to me today. It is a metal version of the Heart Sutra and is so amazingly epic that I decided that I couldn’t just share it as a tweet on my twitter account.

Many, if not most, Mahayana Buddhists of various sects make a practice of chanting the Heart Sutra in either their own language or that of from wherever their form of Buddhism comes. I tend to chant it in English as a regular practice but when I, for example, visit Rev. Keisho the Tendai priest, we chant it in a shomyo form used within Tendai in Japanese. One is not really encouraged to embellish it but it is such a common practice that I think the temptation is there, just as much as you see people in the West messing with old Church hymns that they grew up hearing.

I know nothing about the video beyond the Youtube data but that’s ok. It was an interesting diversion for a few minutes. I’ve embedded it below or you can watch it on youtube.

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Review of Sheng Yen's Footprints in the Snow

2011-01-15T11:39:40-08:00

I just finished reading, “Footprints in the Snow: The Autobiography of a Chinese Buddhist Monk” By Sheng Yen. I’d been wanting to read this since it came out and all the more since his death following the release of the book. (I note that Amazon has the book for the “bargain price” of just under $8 right now.)

Sheng Yen is a key figure in the revival or reinvigoration of Chan in Taiwan. He is the founder of Dharma Drum Mountain there. He also happens to be one of two Chan teachers who have played a key role in introducing Chan to non-Chinese in the United States. Not counting this biography, he is also the author of twenty Buddhist books in English, no small feat. I’d first encountered his books on meditation and, more recently, his book on the Chan form of koan practice. I’d been very impressed by what he wrote and the more I’ve learned of him, the more impressed I’ve been. He’s the kind of Buddhist figure of which I wish we had more on the world stage. While I’m sure he was as human as the rest of us (and he freely admits to failings), he seemed to embody the virtues that we would expect to see in a monastic and a teacher.

Reading this autobiography only reinforced my impressions of him. While there is a truism that all autobiographies present a particular view of the author (usually flattering), I think Sheng Yen’s personality came through very well and his inherent humbleness and equanimity in the face of adversity. I hadn’t realized that he’d literally spent his childhood as a peasant living in a hut near the Yangtze without, usually, money in his family for luxuries like salt. He came to be a monk as the youngest child through happenstance (or, as many would say, karma) but, due to the Japanese invasion and occupation of China and then the communist revolution, did not have the smooth and quiet monastic path that many would expect. As a young monk, he saw first hand the debasement of Buddhism to market forces in the rough and tumble Shanghai of the war where he witnessed monks (and defrocked ex-monks) fighting for funeral business (usually at the expense of any actual practice). He saw junkie monks doing heroin and monks patronizing prostitutes. He also, and he freely talks about this, found the joys of faith, of the draw of the liturgy, and how the practice of prostration literally changed his mental makeup. Later, when the communists were winning the revolution, he wound up in Taiwan by volunteering (for life!) to join the army as that was the only way to get there if one had no money. Sheng Yen spent nine years in the army and even though he kept his vows as best as he could, he struggled in that life. It was again through happenstance, the Buddhist wife of his commanding general and other patrons, that he was able to be released from army service.

After this, he returned to the monastic world. I found the early part of his life interesting but most interesting was his description of his struggle to both be a monk and to figure out his role. I especially appreciated his description of his interactions with his master, who took great pride in playing “jokes” on him to train him in equanimity and unattachment. For example, there were two rooms (a large and small) where they were staying. His master would, almost daily, tell him, “Oh, for reason X, you should be sleeping in the other room. Please move your things over there now” and then do the opposite, for different reasons, the next day. Back and forth, back and forth until Sheng Yen, first, lost his temper on constantly moving his things and, later, learned to not be attached to any of it. There was an amusing story of the endless and pointless task for three (!) matching tiles to patch a spot in the kitchen that had Sheng Yen traveling all over city and countryside looking for the exact match (only to find that there were spares left over and set aside). Later in his life, in New York City, Sheng Yen voluntarily found himself homeless and living on the street. He mentioned how these lessons earlier in life taught him to not care about trivialities of having a place to sleep, good food, or other luxuries. As long as he had the Dharma and his students, what more did he need?

There is a reoccurring message through the book on the power and role of faith in Buddhism. This isn’t something we hear about as much in the West, at least in the convert community. I found it thought provoking as the faith aspect of Buddhism is something that I have struggled a lot with over the years. I tend to be much more atheistic in outlook whereas Sheng Yen freely admitted to his faith in Guanyin and his practice towards her during the entirety of his life from childhood. We could do well to reflect on the strengths and virtues of faith without abandoning ourselves to it unthinkingly.

The autobiography covers the last decades of his life much more briefly and I had hoped to read much more of this. His first thirty years take up most of the book and the period after he founded his American organization, while discussed, move very quickly. What comes across is his inherent lack of self cherishing and his dedication to the Dharma and teaching others. For my own part, I can only hope that I’m a tenth of the practitioner he was and I found his story to be very inspiring. I very much recommend this book (and all of his other books) to people.

Kuan Yin in the Snow by Gretchen Faulk

The Buddhist Lifecoach or Charging Fees for the Dharma

2011-01-11T15:07:59-08:00

This is yet another one of those troublesome “money and the Dharma” kinds of posts. It isn’t going to be short.

Issues around money and Buddhism are a reoccurring problem, at least for some of us. Traditionally (as in pre-modern times and inside Asia), the Dharma subsisted on the twofold supports of state patronage and lay patronage and donation. (We could add a third leg to make a stool with “working monastics in cottage industries in the monastery” but we’ll leave that aside for now.)

Here in the West, we do not have either of these two traditional supports in as great of a degree. State support is limited to tax exempt status if incorporated as a religious institution, at least here in the United States. There are no kings or emperors giving vast amounts of land and annual payments to create and maintain monasteries, monastic colleges, or national teachers with the full power of governmental support. Lay support does exist in the United States (in fact, that is the only support that does exist). In Asia, this comes across as money donated to specific temples or monasteries, food and money donated to begging monastics, and other financial or material support given by laity as a sign of faith, reverence for the Dharma, and, frankly, because it has been customary.

In America, centers and retreat sites seem to be more often funded by a few well to do patrons (aka sugar daddies) who are quite devout and fairly well off. They show their support and faith by donating enough money to help a building or piece of land to be bought or maybe in defraying ongoing costs. I’ve personally seen this happen in a couple of places in the Tibetan Vajrayana community (and this isn’t a criticism). The problem with that is it is rather unpredictable and unsustainable because it relies on random individuals instead of large groups of people in aggregate. If that individual dies or goes away, the support ends. It is not a good way to keep things going.

In Western Dharma, as I’ve experienced it, support for the Dharma is largely in monthly dues to an organization or center, fees paid for specific events, such as retreats, and dana given as donation to teachers for specific activities, such as retreats or training. Many institutions also maintain bookshops and the like to help. It is also quite common to have work periods or “karma yoga” during events or retreats where event participants spend a period of time working on the center that is holding the event. At the one day retreat I attended recently at Empty Gate Zen Center, I spent thirty or forty minutes trimming bushes or hedges and then some time weeding in order to help the place look better and be maintained. Everyone else was doing the same.

The problem is that this kind of thing often isn’t enough to maintain a center or to pay teachers anything. We live in a society that is money-based and their are ongoing costs to simply live. There aren’t too many monasteries with 1,000 acres of lands and a group of monks farming it. Even Catholic monastics have run into this issue in maintaining themselves though they do have the Roman Catholic Church to fall back on for some support. There is a school of thought that says, well, the Dharma should be free and no one should be charged anything. People should be encouraged in generosity, dana, as a virtue. This means that people are told that the group and teacher (or event) needs donations and often a suggested amount and what people pay is what they decide to give. That works to some degree but I’ve heard a lot of grumbling over the years about it and I’ve seen a number of Buddhist centers close down because there wasn’t enough income coming in to pay rent and utilities, let alone for materials or anything else.

There is the additional problem of people who have (or want to) give their life entirely over to the Dharma. I’ve known of people who made the decision when young (in their 20s) to be full time monastics or lay clergy. They spent the next 20 or 30 years training, giving service, and otherwise living that life. Some of them (the lay ones hopefully) even married and had children. At that point or when any of them get older, they find themselves, usually, without medical insurance and without any substantial income to pay bills as they age or as their children grow up. I met one kick ass Phowa practitioner in Colorado who would spend three or six months working dead end jobs at Best Buy or Circuit City, living in a tiny room on almost nothing or couch surfing, to save up the money necessary to support himself in annual retreats with his teacher and others. He’d been doing this or similar since the 1970s. It is a dedicated life but also probably much harder than many other choices. I know that the San Francisco Zen Center has been having discussions and some concern about the promises that they made, decades ago, to support their clergy for life now that a larger number of the Boomer generation clergy are entering the later years and continue to need more and more support. They cannot simply throw them out but, like social security, it may make their finances insolvent. What is to be done?

Some people will say, “Well, that’s the choice people have to make for the Dharma.” That is certainly true though I will point out that, historically, most monastics that chose this style of living hand to mouth would be able to beg for food and receive it (without being arrested) and would otherwise receive some support to allow them to keep going.

Some teachers have supported themselves by making teaching their secondary occupation, an evening and weekend thing. They have a day job, often in psychology or some other job where they can serve people. This gets around financial issues but at the expense of being able to commit time to the Dharma. Rev. Keisho, my Tendai priest friend, used to work all day running his cabinetry business and spent all of his free-time on the Dharma. Eventually, when he got into more senior years, he sold the business, rented out his home, and went to Japan to train and live in a temple for six years. When he came back, he sold his home and bought retreat land to transform, mostly on his own, into a temple and Dharma center. He only was able to dedicate himself to the Dharma 100% full-time as a sort of retirement from day-to-day lay life.

In response to this overall money problem, there have been various, shall we say, more creative solutions.

Genpo Roshi has received an amazing amount of shit from people like Brad Warner (who charges nothing for teaching, as far as I know) for asking for large “donations” from well-to-do patrons. I don’t remember the exact numbers but I know that Genpo charges upwards of $50,000 for small, five or ten person, private retreats attended by these people. I also know, and this is something that his detractors often gloss over, that he charges much smaller fees to most folks. I have personally met people who worked with him who were poor and any and all fees were simply waived by Genpo and his other teachers. Is it wrong to ask a multi-millionaire to pay what is, for him or her, a relatively small amount, and then funnel that money back into the organization to support waiving fees for people with no jobs? Of course, with this money, I know that Genpo maintains a good sized zendo, a building next door filled with resident monastics, and a rented office (or he did two years ago when I visited it in Salt Lake City).

Other teachers, whom I won’t name in order to not single them out and because I’ve worked with them, have decided to use the model of coaching or training for the Dharma. My physical trainer, whom I use for cardio and weight lifting training, charges $70/hour (luckily, my work subsidizes much of this as a benefit!). My old Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, who was a PhD psychologist, charged my insurance over $100/hour ten years ago. I’ve seen Dharma teachers charging $10/hour, $40/hour, and even $70/hour or more. They treat meditation training and working with students on the Dharma as, say, your yoga teacher would for working one on one. Is this wrong? Part of me reacts to it rather distastefully, even though I’ve participated personally, because it feels like it runs the risk of turning the Dharma into another commodity and of inserting financial considerations, either on the part of the student or the teacher, into a relationship that should be free of it. Perhaps I’m also a little jealous as I would never have thought to charge, say, $40 an hour for training someone in a Buddhist practice and I’m really not sure that I could.

Both the Genpo “Charge on a scale” approach and the trainer approach are much more clearly sustainable, financially, than hoping that your basket by the door has enough to cover rent. I’m not sure if they are sustainable over decades or centuries though.

What is an appropriately ethical and Buddhist response to the monetary needs of Dharma teachers and Dharma institutions in the West?

I don’t have any answers in this. I’m very interested in what people think on this matter within the Buddhist community and their own experiences, pro, con, or whatever. Please feel free to comment or start a discussion on your own blog and link back to here.

Shoveling Snow Buddha

2011-01-06T17:09:16-08:00

My mother, Gretchen, took this photo the other day and sent it to me. I thought I’d share it with people as something a little humorous.

You can see her other work up on her Flickr page.

Ten Steps to Zen Meditation from Dr. Michael Saso

2010-12-30T16:49:16-08:00

I’m going to “steal” from another blog here, which I generally avoid doing, in order to draw attention to it and what it has to say. Dr. Michael Saso has posted a synopsis version of the ten steps in shamatha and vipassana practice according to Zhi Yi, the famous ancestor (what my lineage of practice calls the “patriarchs”) of Tendai Buddhism.

I found this an excellent enough summary that I wanted to repeat it here and draw attention to Dr. Saso’s quite enjoyable and informative, if occasional, blog posts.

Ten Steps to “Zen” (Samatha Vipassyana) meditation

(Adapted from Zhi Yi’s writings, on Mt. Tiantai, 560-580)

never harm, or say bad things about anyone;
Purify the five sense (ears, eyes, nose, taste, touch) of “me only” feelings;
Purify the heart of “me only” desires, and the mind of all images;
Harmonize breathing, eating, sleeping, and daily living by “centering;” (i.e., be focused on "Transcendent” presence within)
The joy of “Stop-samatha” “Look-vipassyana” prayer is overwhelming:
stop all judging; to look at others with compassion;
A true spiritual path overflows with love & compassion;
Discern “good,” and “bad” spirits, to heal them;
True love/compassion really does heal others;
Follow any and all spiritual paths that teach compassion.

I wanted to add that Kalavinka Press has wonderful translations available of Zhi Yi’s (Chih-i) writings in both printed and PDF formats. They have his The Essentials of Buddhist Meditation and The Six Dharma Gates to the Sublime available. Both are excellent meditation manuals and well recommended to me by my local Tendai priest (and occasional teacher), Rev. Keisho of the California Tendai Buddhist Monastery when he was teaching meditation locally. Zhi Yi’s works have been used by many in both China and Japan over the centuries as guides to practice.

Eido Shimano kinda sorta denies it all and chastises the New York Times

2010-12-26T12:03:37-08:00

The Eido Shimano controvery seems unwilling to die, like the undead in the current crop of Zombie novels and movies. I’ve avoided saying much on it during the last two months because it seemed rather pointless to do so given the lack of any public information on what is going on and also the fact that the Zen Studies Society board appeared to be trying to deal with the matter. For their sake and space, I figured it would be best left alone for a while. It is also a difficult matter to discuss without it descending entirely into negativity and nastiness.

For those who have not been folloiwng, Eido Shimano, the Abbot of the Zen Studies Society and Dai Bosatsu Zendo in New York, has been accused (more than once) of having rather improper sexual relations (predatory ones, at that) with female students over the years. This alleged behavior dates back into the 1960s according to the accusations made and, over the years, has spawned such things as a 1982 Village Voice article on the matter (which was not printed at the end of the day).

There was an article in August in the New York Times, which I mentioned previously. This got quite a bit of public attention and turned this from a sordid scandal within the Zen community into a public blackening of the Dharma, given Eido Shimano’s very public role as abbot. There were also a number of followups as a variety of actions and rumors of action at the Zen Studies Society took place. (See here, here, here, and here.)

Since then, very little seems to have happened other than people coming forward to write letters to the ZSS board. Eido Shimano has now made a public response, at least to the New York Times. The Shimano Archive has published a letter written by Eido Shimano to the New York Times chastising them for their article and tepidly denying the allegations. I say tepidly because, while questioning why the late Aitken Roshi would be writing about him, he doesn’t address anything that Aitken Roshi actually said. You can read it for yourself from the PDF scan above or my transcription below:

December 1, 2010.

News Editor
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, New York 10018

Re: “Sex Scandal Has American Buddhists Looking Within” - published Saturday, August 21, 2010, The New York Times National section

Dear Sir,

It has been three months since the article written about me appeared in your National Section. In this day and age, it quickly spread all over the world and, I am told, was translated into Japanese. I was hurt deeply. However, I endured for more than three months and endeavored to calm down. Since this is the year that I am planning to retire, I do not this article and my retirement to be linked. One has nothing to do with the other - there is no cause and effect.

As the date for my retirement is nearing, I think that at the very least, I need to point out the inappropriate attitude of the writer of the article and the misinformation contained in his piece. I highlight the following:

Mr. Oppenheimer did not interview me for this article, nor did he speak with Mr. Aitken or the young woman who is referred to in the article. The article states that he attempted to contact me and that I did not return several phone calls - this is just not true. I was never contacted by Mr. Oppenheimer, nor did I receive any correspondence from him at either my Livingston Manor address or my New York City address.

It is clear to me from reading the article and knowing the facts, that Mr. Oppenheimer obtained his information from second and third hand sources and the opinions expressed therein are neither factual nor backed up by proof. In fact, none of the individuals who have been quoted in the article were at the dinner table when the purported statement was made and there could not have “overheard” what was said.

In addition, I have no resigned because of these false accusations. At the beginning of this year, during a meeting of the Board of Directors in January, I made an announcement that 2010 was the 50 year anniversary of my being in America and that I planned to do a final fund raising for a mountain gate entrance to the monastery and would step down from the Abbot. This fundraising was to be the final act in a 50 year career in the United States. The article falsely states that I am stepping down from the Abbot because of allegations.

Moreover, I would like to mention the following: When the article appeared, I was in Switzerland doing a silent retreat. When I returned to the United States, many people brought the article to my attention. The effect has been profound. Many people are hurt and confused. As an aside, minutes from our Board of Directors meetings are private documents. If they wound up in Hawaii or in Mark Oppenheimer’s possession, they were improperly obtained and/or delivered. Did anyone question why Mr. Aitken would write about a Buddhist monk for 50 years, when I have had contact with him only twice since 1964. I shall look forward to what your journalist, Mark Oppenheimer, has to say about the contents of my letter.

Very truly yours,
signed
Eido T. Shimano, Abbot

In response to this, over at Tricycle.com in a blog post from Septemer 7 detailing the Eido Shimano controversy, the Zen teacher and ZSS board member (as well as Dharma heir of Eido Shimano), Rev. Genjo Marinello left a comment on this letter to the New York Times on December 23:

I am sorry to report that Eido Roshi has yet to get past his denial. Just yesterday I read a letter dated December 1st, 2010, directed to the editor of the New York Times signed by Eido Shimano Roshi. I can only say that I was shocked, disturbed and offended by what I read. In this letter he claimed that the New York Times article that appeared August 21st was not factual and said that, “I have not resigned because of these false accusations.” In my mind, this statement makes a mockery of Eido Roshi’s public apology of September 7th. This letter to the NYT is a clear attempt to rewrite history and is a pure and simple example of denial.

Accordingly, I have written Eido Roshi (who, as of Dec. 8th, resigned as Abbot) and my colleagues on the ZSS Board that this denial undermines the spirit of the retirement agreement that is currently being negotiated. In addition, I mentioned that our willingness to allow Eido Roshi to occasionally see requesting senior students for dokusan (Dharma Interview) on ZSS property is predicated on the idea that he genuinely acknowledges and is remorseful for past actions and understands the damage he has done.

Under the circumstances, I have asked the full board to revisit our previous deliberations. I ask this with the belief and determination that the work of the ZSS Board can, to paraphrase what others have said in previous posts, help this organization actualize its potential to become a sincere place of practice and learning, an oasis of Buddhist wisdom, and an inspiring example of Right Living.

It appears that Eido Shimano is more concerned with his eventual reputation than the damage he did to the women involved, his students, the Zen Studies Society, and the Dharma. This seems likely to wind up being another example in the sordid history of teachers occasionally abusing their position that we’ll all get to point to as an object lesson later.

All of this does make me wonder, even though I think they went a bit overboard, if the San Francisco’s reforms after Baker Roshi’s sex scandals in the 1970’s were really the right idea after all. Putting too much secular power into the religious figure of a Zen Master seems to be problematic a little too often.

I do want to point out that the VAST majority of teachers and Zen Masters do not appear to have these sorts of problems but it is a reoccurring theme with a few and something I know people struggle in addressing.

One Day Retreat at Empty Gate

2010-12-19T12:07:30-08:00

Yesterday, I attended a one day retreat at Empty Gate Zen Center in Berkeley, California. I knew it was somewhere very close by to me but had never gone looking in detail. It turns out that it is probably a mile and a half away (which, in the concentrated urbanity of the Bay Area, is further than some places but also shamefully close). Empty Gate is one of the oldest centers operated by the Kwan Um School of Zen, the Korean Zen organization founded by Zen Master Sŭngsan. The Five Mountain Sangha, in which I am ordained, is actually ultimately derived from Sŭngsan and the Kwan U School as well. Our practices and general way of doing things are very close to theirs, making it a good fit for me, potentially. Because of both this and the fact that the FMS is physically dispersed and has no regular sitting group locally, I wanted to visit Empty Gate since I would like to find someone to sit with besides my wife and/or cats. The lack of a local supportive community has been an ongoing frustration for me during the last few years.

Normally, Empty Gate runs the same three day retreats, “Yong Maeng Jong Jin” (to leap like a tiger while sitting), that we do when FMS gets together for a short retreat. This month, they decided to do a shorter, 9:00 to 5:00, one day informal retreat. This struck me as both an opportunity to get a little bit of practice time in and to get to know the group and its dynamic without having to take a day off from work to spend the weekend with complete strangers (“I’m not willing to start a retreat and not finish it and what if they were not my kind of people?” says the attached mind!). It turned out to be a good choice. There were twenty two of us there yesterday, including Jason “Unknown Dharma Name” Quinn, the abbot, and Zen Master Bon Soeng (aka Jeff Kitzes). The group was much more diverse demographically than many that I’ve encountered in the past, not being a room full of either white middle-aged Zen guys or women of my mom’s generation. There were people from, at a guess, mid-20’s up into the Boomer years, and the group reflected the Berkeley mix of whites, Hispanics, and various Asian Americans (though no one black). The group was roughly half female. The center, itself, is a roughly 1,500 sq ft building, converted from something. It has a large shrine room/meditation hall, probably 30’ by 30’, a kitchen, and a couple of small rooms, one of which is used for interviews with the Zen master.

It may sound like I’m focusing on minutiae here and that would be correct, in a way. When I encounter a new group or go on a retreat, the old anthropologist comes out and I tend to start counting numbers of people, gender, etc. I also look at the space, its organization and upkeep, and the way people interact, especially with the teachers or retreat masters. These things tell you as much about a group as anything that it overly said. The diverse mix that I saw, the very friendly demeanor to people and lack of cliquishness, as well as the interactions with the teachers and manner of instruction, all struck me as excellent. This is a group of people that are there to practice but aren’t so strict or bound by form that people aren’t relaxed and having fun with it.

Zen Master Bon Soeng opened the retreat with a short teaching. He quoted the Hsin-Hsin-Ming, which is attributed to Seng-ts’an, the third ancestor of Zen in China:

“The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.

Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.”

This echoes the core teachings about not making things that I mentioned the other day, but accepting the universe in all of its richness (including pain as well as joy) as it is, without preference and without creating some abstract from it within our minds. I found that this quote and Bon Soeng’s brief teaching, really set the right tone for the retreat.

Of course, having not set that much in one day since August, I found myself struggling a little. My morning sitting was surprisingly strong, given how tired I had been the night before. After lunch and work period, I found myself in the place that so many of us do in retreats where I had alternate periods of strong focus and awareness and then I’d realize that I had been distracted for minutes, thinking on things, making plans. I generally remind myself that this is OK too and to be compassionate to myself, rather than turning distraction into an excuse for both more distraction and also a lack of compassion towards one’s self. It does point to the need for more regular long days of sitting and walking, like this, but it also reminds me of the advice of Namkhai Norbu and Thrangu Rinpoche (as well as others) that you’re often better to have many short but focused and solid sitting sessions than one really long one where you are distracted for most of it. I look at it almost as exercise sets and sessions. When you lift weights, do pushups, etc., you’re better off doing short, strong and well-formed sets and repeating these sets as you can than you are trying to brazen it out by doing things until your form falls apart and you can’t do anything anymore. Of course, since all of us are in a different place, it would be rather hard to structure a retreat around that.

I do want to mention that Zen Master Bon Soeng and Empty Gate have taken to video streaming their Sunday morning practice periods and their Wednesday evening practice and teachings. This is the kind of thing that we are very much interested in within the Five Mountain Sangha, given how distributed we are. Empty Gate also makes very active use of Facebook and Twitter as well. I wanted to include one of the recorded Wednesday teachings by Bon Soeng to give people a low-effort taste of the style of teaching and their center. I found a recent one that also discusses the Hsin-Hsin-Ming a little bit in the context of another Zen poem as a teaching device. You can see it below (on my blog if you have Flash, at least) or also find it here.

In any case, I very much enjoyed the retreat at Empty Gate and meeting people. Since they sit every morning and every evening, as well as having weekly programs, they are an excellent local resource. I’ve recommended them to at least one person who wanted something a bit more active than the simple sitting since Empty Gate incorporates prostration practice and chanting as part of the daily service, along with the meditation practice. I plan on spending more time there in the near future though I am unlikely to formally join given my role in the Five Mountain Sangha. They are an excellent group.

Don't Make Anything

2010-12-16T13:07:34-08:00

I came across part of the following quote today in comments on Jack Daw’s blog post, The Enlightenment of Ghouls. Jack posted about his disillusionment with many Buddhists and their materialism and attachment.

The quote is from the great Indian Vajrayana teacher, Tilopa, in his “Ganges Mahamudra,” as translated by Ken McLeod:

"Those who follow tantra and the vehicle of the paramitas, the Vinaya, the Sutras, and the various teachings of the Buddha with an attachment for their individual textual traditions and their individual philosophy will not come to see luminous Mahamudra, because the seeing of that luminosity or clear light is obscured by their intention and attitude. The conceptualized maintenance of vows actually causes you to impair the meaning of samaya. Without mental directedness or mental activity, be free of all intentionality. Thoughts are self-arisen and self-pacified like designs on the surface of water. If you do not pass beyond the meaning which is not abiding and not conceptualizing or focusing, then through not passing beyond that, you do not pass beyond or transgress samaya. This is the torch which dispels all obscurity or darkness."

Without getting in Vajrayana language, one of the themes above, which I have seen from other great teachers, is not to get attached to form and views, even those forms or views that we label as “Buddhist.” Within my own Korean Zen tradition, we talk about not “making things.” We live in worlds of our own creation, rather than the world as it is. We don’t see, hear, taste, touch, smell, or otherwise experience the world as it is but, instead, the world of objects and labels that we have reified from the actual experience of things just as they are. When we become Buddhists, perhaps because we see the cracks in this created facade or sense the incompleteness or barrenness of it because it isn’t reality as it is, we often replace these mental labels or objects with “Buddhist” ones. We congratulate ourselves on how evolved we are or how refined our views and practices are but we’ve just replaced one bucket of shit with another. Either way, it is still shit and you aren’t going to go through the motions or intellectual arguments of Buddhism and realize your awakened nature but dressing the world up in a different set of clothes.

A friend of mine, named “Robert,” used to own an esoteric bookstore in Seattle. Much of his stock and customers were Buddhists, as opposed to the pagans that I normally ran with. It was one of the places where I began to encounter Buddhist books and ideas though. Robert used to mention that one of the problems with Buddhists, in his experience, was “ABP,” or “Artificial Buddhist Personality.” This is the persona that so many Buddhists seem to assume where they take up the trappings, the mental ones as much as any physical ones like statues or beads, of what they think a Buddhist should be and they wear them like a new skin. They aren’t necessarily compassionate, for example, but they know they should be so they go through the motions. The problem here is, of course, that realization is not a persona. It is not something that we take on or assume as mask or role. It is a waking up from masks and roles. The compassion and other attributes of awakening are the natural result, as expressed in the world, of this awakening. Sure, we can go through the motions of breaking negative habits and fostering positive ones, being more compassionate, but that is simply training for later, when we can truly see things as they are, including other beings. Many of us are bad at this (probably Jack Daw is at times, I know that I am) because we know that we haven’t realized this directly for ourselves and we know that everyone is just as full of shit as we are.

I suppose the truth I’m trying to convey here is don’t “do” Buddhism. Study the Dharma, especially the words of great teachers. Practice it with whole heartedly but don’t make it into some kind of game or another social scene in which to insinuate yourself. In fact, if you can, avoid Buddhism or set it aside if it gets in the way of actual awakening. Don’t be attached to it and, at the end of the day, remind yourself not to make anything. Pay attention and see things as they are, both looking inward as well as outward. Wake up!

Shugendo Documentary

2010-12-07T13:24:14-08:00

I went to the International Buddhist Film Festival showcase in San Rafael last night. I didn’t even know that the festival was occurring and missed a number of good films. I heard about it because I was looking at information on Shugendo and found out that there were three recent documentaries and, lo and behold, one was being shown the next day 30 minutes away from me!

The film was “Shugendo Now” by Jean-Marc Abela and Mark Patrick McGuire. Their synopsis of it is as follows:

"How does one integrate lessons learned from nature in daily life? This feature documentary is an experiential journey into the mystical practices of Japanese mountain asceticism. In Shugendô (The Way of Acquiring Power), practitioners perform ritual actions from shamanism, 'Shintô,' Daoism, and Tantric Buddhism. They seek experiential truth of the teachings during arduous climbs in sacred mountains. Through the peace and beauty of the natural world, practitioners purify the six roots of perception, revitalize their energy and reconnect with their truest nature – all while grasping the fundamental interconnectedness with nature and all sentient beings. How does one return to the city after an enlightening experience in the mountains? More poetic than analytical, this film explores how a group of modern Japanese people integrate the myriad ways mountain learning interacts with urban life. With intimate camera work and a sensual sound design the viewer is taken from deep within the Kumano mountains to the floating worlds of Osaka and Tokyo and back again. Might the two be seen as one?"

You can see the trailer for it below or go to vimeo or Youtube to see it.

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The film was quite well done and I was very moved by it. I’ve been to Japan, including the sacred mountains of Mt. Hiei and Mt. Koya of the Tendai and Shingon sects, respectively. I also have some exposure to Tendai practices. This combined with the beautiful scenery, very reminisicent of my home for much of my life in the Pacific Northwest, pulled on my heart strings quite a bit, stirring up a real longing to do the kinds of practices and pilgrimages depicted in the film. It isn’t a film that explains much of what is going on in detail, allowing the people, especially Tateishi Kôshô, speak for themselves, often through actions more than just words.

I spoke to one of the film’s makers, Mark, for a bit after the film, and I was quite taken with his thoughts on the people and the experiences. He and Marc did a question and answer period following the film as well. I picked up a DVD copy of the film from them after the screening as well. I encourage people to check out this film if they are interested at all in the ways that Buddhism has interacted with other forms of spirituality as well as a reverence of nature.

Here in Northern California, we are quite fortunate that my friend and sometimes teacher, Rev. Keisho, teaches Shugendo and Tendai practices and philosophy at his hermitage. While a formally trained and ordained Tendai priest who lived in a temple for six years in Japan, his primary teacher (a Tendai abbot) was mainly a Shugendo practitioner and well known as such. This makes Shugendo available here, which is an incredible opportunity given its rarity outside of Japan. There is so little in print in English (only two or three books total) that Shugendo is almost entirely unknown to the general public. Even in Japan, as the film relates, people think it is a facet of history and folklore and are often unaware that it still exists.

I will be receiving a copy of another Shugendo documentary, “Where Mountains Fly,” shortly from its creators and I plan to post on it as well.

Ace Monster Toys at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire Today

2010-10-24T18:30:31-07:00

I and other members of Ace Monster Toys spent the day at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire today in Oakland, California. AMT had contacted the faire about having a table for presenting projects and such. We wanted to support the efforts to have a maker oriented event in our own back yard. Now that we’re finally a legal entity (and one with a space to boot!), we also wanted to get the word out locally that we exist as well.

The faire was great though I bet it was a mixed bag for the organizers. Sunny California entered its Fall/Winter mode which means “rainy season.” It’s been coming down for the first time in months starting yesterday. It was just showers at first but, by today, it had become a pretty strong downpour, which lasted until 30 minutes before the faire ended (of course!). This caused Ace and other groups to have to relocate to interior spaces and for a lot of groups and people to huddle under hastily put up awnings. The Park Day School, where the event was held, has a lovely four acre campus and it was too bad that people couldn’t enjoy it as much. Now, that said, I saw hordes of kids with parents all day so the overall turnout looks to have been good. I’m glad because I think it is a good event and I want to see it repeated in the future.

AMT had a table right inside the entrance of the Studio One space, where most of the tech projects and groups wound up. We set up a table with 2 1/2 functioning makerbots (one fully functioning and two somewhat functioning, including my own, which I was working on as I sat there). We spent most of the day printing out objects and talking to people about makerbots, our hackerspace, and hackerspaces in general. I expect that a few people will be coming to check us out in the next few weeks.

I put a photo set up on Flickr of my photos from the day.

30 Days of Practice

2010-10-21T15:32:20-07:00

Inspired by Ryan’s “100 Days of Practice” series, I’m setting up a public commitment to practice, though I’m going to scale it down to 30 days this first time. Now, I have a somewhat regular practice of sitting though I haven’t made a point of doing the same amount at the same times every day. I also haven’t always done the same practices, outside of sitting, every day. This discipline has often been difficult for me though I generally try to roll with it and be compassionate towards myself.

I am setting this for myself as a challenge, starting this weekend. I’m blogging about it, which I generally do not do about my practice, because I want to encourage other Buddhists with whom I work in the seminary and elsewhere to possibly do it as well. As part of this, I’ve outlined a basic practice below. I’m actually going to do a bit more than this but the form below is drawn from the one used within the Five Mountain Sangha, so I will be doing something very similar. What is below could be considered a good minimal version for many Zen practitioners or others within the Mahayana tradition. As you will note, we generally practice in English in my school, thinking it is better to understand what one is saying rather than chanting in some exotic sounding language but forgetting the meaning. When we do chant in other languages, with the exception of mantras or dharanis, we follow that with the same chant in English.

I encourage other people to consider taking up the challenge of maintaining a regular and formal practice for a 30 day period during the next month in order to see how it does (or does not) affect your relationship to practice and the Dharma.

A Practice

Vandana - Homage

NAMO TASSA BHAGAVATO ARAHATO SAMMA SAMBUDDHASSA

Homage to the Buddha, The Venerable One, the Enlightened One, The Supremely Awakened One.

Tisarana

BUDDHAM SARANAM GACCHAMI DHARMAM SARANAM GACCHAMI SANGHAM SARANAM GACCHAMI

I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha.

Huayen Purification

All the negative karma committed by me from beginningless time Due to greed, anger, and ignorance Born of my body, speech, and mind I now confess and purify it all. (Repeat above three times)

Opening the Dharma

This Dharma incomparably profound and minutely subtle is hardly met with Even in hundreds of thousands of millions of eons. Now we see it, hear it, receive it. May we completely understand and actualize This Tathagatas true meaning.

Heart of Great Perfection Wisdom Sutra

(Each syllable below is chanted distinctly, usually to the beat of a wooden drum. If you can’t manage that, just do a monotone chant but put some energy into it! You can hear the Kwan Um chanting of this here.)

A‐VA‐LO‐KI‐TESH‐VA‐RA, THE BO‐DHI‐SATT‐VA OF COM‐PAS‐SION, DO‐ING DEEP PRAJ‐NA‐PA‐RA‐MI‐TA CLEAR‐LY SAW THAT THE FIVE SKAN‐DHAS ARE SHUN‐YA‐TA, THUS TRAN‐SCEND‐ING MIS‐FOR‐TUNE AND SUF‐FER‐RING.

O SHA‐RI‐PU‐TRA, FORM IS NO O‐THER THAN SHUN‐YA‐TA, SHUN‐YA‐TA IS NO O‐THER THAN FORM. FORM IS EX‐ACT‐LY SHUN‐YA‐TA, SHUN‐YA‐TA EX‐ACT‐LY FORM. FEEL‐ING, THOUGHT, VO‐LI‐TION, AND CON‐SCIOUS‐NESS ARE LIKE‐WISE LIKE THIS.

O SHA‐RI‐PU‐TRA, RE‐MEM‐BER DHAR‐MA IS FUN‐DA‐MEN‐TAL‐Y SHUN‐YA‐TA. NO BIRTH, NO DEATH. NO‐THING IS DE‐FILED, NO‐THING IS PURE. NO‐THING CAN IN‐CREASE, NO‐THING CAN DE‐CREASE. HENCE: IN SHUN‐YA‐TA, NO FORM, NO FEEL‐ING , NO THOUGHT, NO VO‐LI‐TION, NO CON‐SCIOUS‐NESS; NO EYES, NO EARS, NO NOSE, NO TONGUE, NO BO‐DY, NO MIND; NO SEE‐ING, NO HEAR‐ING, NO SMELL‐ING, NO TAST‐ING, NO TOUCH‐ING, NO THINK‐ING; NO WORLD OF SIGHT, NO WORLD OF CON‐SCIOUS‐NESS; NO IG‐NOR‐ANCE AND NO END TO IG‐NOR‐ANCE; NO OLD AGE AND DEATH AND NO END TO OLD AGE AND DEATH. NO SUF‐FER‐ING, NO CRA‐VING, NO EX‐TINC‐ION, NO PATH; NO WIS‐DOM; NO AT‐TAIN‐MENT,

IN‐DEED, THERE IS NO‐THING TO BE AT‐TAINED; THE BO‐DHI‐SATT‐VA RE‐LIES ON PRAJ‐NA PA‐RA‐MI‐TA WITH NO HIN‐DRANCE IN THE MIND. NO HIN‐DRANCE, THERE‐FORE NO FEAR. FAR BE‐YOND UP‐SIDE DOWN VIEWS, AT LAST NIR‐VA‐NA.

PAST, PRE‐SENT, AND FU‐TURE, ALL BUD‐DHAS, BO‐DHI‐SATT‐VAS, RE‐LY ON PRAJ‐NA‐PA‐RA‐MI‐TA AND THERE‐FORE REACH THE MOST SU‐PREME EN‐LIGHT‐EN‐MENT. THERE‐FORE KNOW: PRAJ‐NA PA‐RA‐MI‐TA IS THE GREAT‐EST DHA‐RA‐NI, THE BRIGHT‐EST DHA‐RA‐NI, THE HIGH‐EST DHA‐RA‐NI, THE IN‐COM‐PARA‐BLE DHA‐RA‐NI. IT COM‐PLETE‐LY CLEARS ALL SUF‐FER‐ING. THIS IS THE TRUTH, NOT A LIE. SO SET FORTH THE PRAJ‐NA PA‐RA‐ MI‐TA DHA‐RA‐NI. SET FORTH THIS DHA‐RA‐NI AND SAY:

GA‐TE GA‐TE PA‐RA‐GA‐TE BO‐DHI SVA‐HA. GA‐TE GA‐TE PA‐RA‐GA‐TE BO‐DHI SVA‐HA. GA‐TE GA‐TE PA‐RA‐GA‐TE BO‐DHI SVA‐HA.

Meditation

(Periods of sitting and walking meditation go here. At the very least, try doing a 20 minute period of sitting meditation followed by 10 minutes of walking meditation.)

Dedication

Buddha Nature pervades the whole universe existing right here, now. Whenever these devoted invocations are sent forth, they are perceived and subtly answered. We dedicate their merits to all members of our human family, throughout space and time. We especially dedicate their merits to those who suffer as a result of calamity, cruelty, and war. May we live in perfect peace with Buddhadharma, and may we realize the Buddha way together.

All Buddhas throughout space and time, All the venerable Bodhisattva‐Mahasattvas, Maha Prajna Paramita.

Four Great Vows However innumerable all beings are, We vow to save them all. However inexhaustible delusions are, We vow to extinguish them all. However immeasurable Dharma teachings are, We vow to master them all. However endless the Buddha’s way is, We vow to follow it. (Repeat above three times)

Eido Shimano Update

2010-10-19T09:42:46-07:00

Rev. Barry Briggs has an update on his blog on the Zen Studies Society and Eido Shimano for those still keeping track.

He notes that the official retirement date for Eido Shimano from his controversial role as abbot has been moved up to December 8, 2010 but that Shimano will still be giving official teachings after this date and is offering jukai to people next month. Not exactly the role that one expects for an abbot accused of decades long sexual predation on his way out of an organization.

I encourage people to read Rev. Briggs’ post and comment there.

I’m, personally, pretty tired of the seeming lack of moral strength on the part of the ZSS board to, at the very least, remove Shimano from all active and public roles given the strength of the accusations against him, at the very least. It makes it hard to take the organization seriously as a source of the Dharma or any real wisdom.

Ace Monster Toys at East Bay Mini Maker Faire this weekend

2010-10-18T14:43:13-07:00

Ace Monster Toys, the East Bay hackerspace, is going to have a booth at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire taking place in Oakland this coming weekend. This is the first local event we will be attending since our founding back in June and our acquisition of a space at the end of July.

The plan right now is to have three or four makerbots acting as a little makerbot orchestra, to have one or two of them printing objects (especially if I can get the plastruder on mine working), and to have a laminar flow water fountain. It’s nice to see an event like the mini maker faire going on right in our neck of the woods and we’re looking forward to seeing who else shows up from the local community. It is a good opportunity to make connections with local groups and individuals, especially the kids at the Park Day school.

By the way, as you can see above, we finally have a cool logo. David Rorex, our treasurer, has a friend who is an excellent designer. Rebecca Hathaway made the logo that you see above and below, as well as some variants, and got them to us just the other day. I’m not sure if we’ll have them on our flyers, given the timing, but I’m super excited about how it turned out.

You can see an examples of variants below, incorporating the letters “AMT” as well as a robot in the inverse space:

The word also came down today that Ace Monster Toys has been approved as a California nonprofit corporation. The next step is our filing for Federal 501(c)(3) status. This, at least, means that we can finally get all of our business, such as a bank account, in the name of the organization. We have entered corporate personhood!

Zero History

2010-09-28T21:57:26-07:00

While on my current trip in Bali, I’ve had the chance to do a little reading. One of the first things up on my list of books was the new William Gibson novel, Zero History. This is the follow-up to Spook Country from a few years ago, which, itself, was an indirect sequel to Pattern Recognition. Zero History completes a trilogy of sorts that is near future (or even recent past) contemporary fiction with a science fictional tone. All three novels feature the figure of “Hubertus Bigend,” the maverick (and seemingly batshit crazy) businessman who owns a company called, “Blue Ant.” Bigend is never a viewpoint character and is, in fact, more of a force of nature, as one of our protagonists in the last two novels, Hollis Henry, characterizes him.

Hollis Henry, a former singer in a briefly well known rock band, continues her wander through life begun in her encounter with Bigend in Spook Country. While wanting nothing to do with Bigend’s Bond villain style machinations, she finds herself swept in his wake, following his will. Milgrim, the benzo popping fellow from Spook Country, also makes a return visit and it could be argued that he is the actual primary character of this new book, not Hollis.

The initial focus is Bigend’s desire to get into the “recession proof” industry of designing clothes for the American military as well as his desire to track down the source of a secret brand of designer workman-like clothes that have been appearing in underground fashion. Bigend is worried that someone is stealing methods from his playbook and hires Hollis to track down the source. Milgrim, on the other end, is being used as an odd jobs man for Bigend after having been cleaned of his decade long benzo addiction (which was a key piece of his character in Spook History). The reconstituted Milgrim that begins to emerge is eventually quite a different fellow, more interesting but more unpredictable, than Bigend has expected. (He seems almost like a pet to Bigend originally…)

Things, of course, go pear shaped as unexpected forces come into play and off-screen actors begin to react to Bigend’s activities (and those of Hollis and Milgrim as his initial proxies).

I found the book a real joy to read. I’ve been a big fan of Gibson since I was a pre-teen reading Neuromancer and Count Zero, waiting for Mona Lisa Overdrive. I’ve rather appreciated how Gibson’s writing, in both style and content, has evolved and refused to be pigeon-holed into the “guy who invented cyberspace” box. I really do enjoy reading his contemporary set works and I say this as someone whose fiction is almost always genre-based within SF (spending my non-fiction time a bit more widely within history, anthropology, religious studies, etc.). The utter strangeness of his seemingly contemporary landscape, our world but skewed in perspective, is an utter joy to read, as is his prose.

I really recommend this book to people though I think people would be ill served to not have read Spook Country, at the very least, first, and really you should start with Pattern Recognition.

An Expansion of the Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary Presence in Second Life

2010-09-24T21:11:24-07:00

The Five Mountain Sangha has been running a distance-based non-denominational Buddhist seminary for a few years now, the Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary. This was originally created in order to educate our own priests and sangha members (I am an ordained priest within the Five Mountain Order). This was necessary because we do not have a single primary physical center of activity. Our presiding teacher, Rev. Paul Dōch’ŏng Lynch, resides in Southern California. Another of our senior priests (not me) resides in the Bay Area. We have another priest and center in Cincinnati, Ohio. In addition to this, we have members in New England and Texas as well. To accommodate such a physically separated group, we have set up retreats where we gather but also have embraced the use of Internet technologies, such as Skype, Second Life, and e-mail lists for information sharing, training, and student/teacher interaction.

Once we established the Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary for our own students, we realized that it might very well have utility for others so we opened the program up to people who are not members of our own sangha. While our orientation is primarily one focusing on Zen Buddhism, we accept students that embrace any Mahayana school of practice.

Over the last year or more, we have been experimenting with the use of Second Life as an adjunct technology for the distributed members of the school. I’ve blogged about <a href=”http://www.openbuddha.com/2009/11/16/how-to-miss-the-point-of-sl-and-the-dharma/>this before</a>. Recently, we decided to make it more central to the school in our ongoing efforts to make improvements to our program. We had previously been using space gratefully donated to us by <a href=”http://kannonji.blogspot.com/>Kannonji</a> in order to host talks and student/teacher interaction. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve set up our own sim in Second Life. What this means in practical terms is that we are hosting our own space in Second Life instead of borrowing space from another group. This gives us a lot more freedom in controlling how the space is set up, the range of activities we can support, and the complexity of the space and the tools. We aren’t borrowing resources from others now and can prioritize things as we wish.

The outcome of this is that we have a much larger space to host seminary activities. Starting this October, we will be holding incoming student orientation within the new sim in Second Life and using it for ongoing group meetings between students and faculty. Since Second Life supports group voice discussions, we can host lectures and classes, do question and answer meetings, and student teacher interviews. Those of us who are faculty in the seminary program will also begin to hold regular office hours in the new sim.

I’ve posted a few images of the sim here and put up a photo set on flickr as well. I encourage anyone interested in visiting us in Second Life to feel free to come check us out.

Pema Chödrön Online Retreat Weekend in October

2010-09-23T12:21:19-07:00

I’ve been a fan of Pema Chödrön for a while. She’s been one of the better teachers and writers to come out of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s lineage of practice and the Shambhala Tradition in the last few decades. Her works seem to be pretty widely read outside of the immediate Buddhist community as well, which is a bit of an accomplishment. I’ve actually done a bit of training in the Shambhala Tradition in the past and it, in a way, acts as an excellent bridge between Tibetan Practice and the West. Trungpa was quite accomplished in bridging cultures. I’ve also found the sitting practice that they teach to be a quite excellent introduction for beginners.

Pema has been a stalwart standard bearer for Trungpa’s legacy in her writing especially. There is a new book by Chögyam Trungpa that just came out, Smile at Fear. It’s description is:

"Many of us, without even realizing it, are dominated by fear. We might be aware of some of our fears—perhaps we are afraid of public speaking, of financial hardship, or of losing a loved one. Chögyam Trungpa shows us that most of us suffer from a far more pervasive fearfulness: fear of ourselves. We feel ashamed and embarrassed to look at our feelings or acknowledge our styles of thinking and acting; we don’t want to face the reality of our moment-to-moment experience. It is this fear that keeps us trapped in cycles of suffering, despair, and distress. Chögyam Trungpa offers us a vision of moving beyond fear to discover the innate bravery, trust, and delight in life that lies at the core of our being. Drawing on the Shambhala Buddhist teachings, he explains how we can each become a spiritual warrior: a person who faces each moment of life with openness and fearlessness. 'The ultimate definition of bravery is not being afraid of who you are,' writes Chögyam Trungpa. In this book he offers the insights and strategies to claim victory over fear."

Focusing on this book and the teachings in it, Pema Chödrön is doing a weekend teaching retreat here in California, “Smile at Fear: Finding a True Heart of Bravery” in mid-October. The local event has been sold out for some time now but Shambhala Publications has arranged for an online version of it to occur. During the event from the evening of Friday, October 15 through the afternoon of Sunday, October 17, the video of Pema teaching will be streamed in real-time. Following the online event, those that participated in it will be able to view it on demand for two months and get an edited copy of the event video along with an e-book of “Smile at Fear.” The official description of the retreat states:

"The 'Smile at Fear' retreat is a rare opportunity to practice and study with Pema in real time, as she teaches wisdom learned from her own teacher, Chögyam Trungpa. Using his book of the same title, she shows how to approach the things that scare us in a radically different way than we're accustomed to, and in doing so to discover how astonishingly insignificant fear really is—and how surprisingly simple it is to access the heart of fearlessness. These are Buddhist teachings and practices that can become resources for a lifetime."

Given how many people are interested in her work and how few of us live in California (or, like me, are in California but cannot attend since it is sold out), this isn’t a bad option at all. It’s basically $60 for access to roughly fourteen hours of teaching by Pema Chödrön which is a pretty good deal. You can sign up at the event site over at Shambhala Publications. Shambhala Publications has helpfully offered to give two tickets to the online retreat away to readers of this blog. If you’re interested in attending, please post a comment about why you’d like to attend and maybe some anecdote about how Buddhist or meditative practice has impacted your ability to work with the difficulties we encounter day to day. I’ll pick two people (assuming there are more than two) from the responses. If you want to know more about Pema Chödrön, you can watch a wonderful interview with her by Bill Moyers below or over here.

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Watch the full episode.

"Take on the Machine" Hackerspace Video Series

2010-09-21T11:45:17-07:00

Mitch Altman, one of the founders of the Noisebridge hackerspace in San Francisco, has been working with people on the “Take on the Machine” challenge. This is a contest between five different hackerspaces to come up with the best repurposing (and rebuilding) of some common object for a new use. Each of the spaces involved as given three weeks and a $3,000 budget to do this and the whole thing was filmed and is being run as a weekly webisode series.

The first episode just went up. You can watch it here or I’ve embedded it below for those reading this locally on my blog.

</embed>VIMBY - Take on the Machine: Episode One

This ought to be a fun bit to watch as it progresses.

New Steampunk Manjushri Logo for Open Buddha

2010-09-15T13:47:35-07:00

A Buddhist and artist that I know from twitter, the Kamikazen, designed a new logo for my blog today. You can see his post on it (as “Steampunk Dharma”). He’s also making t-shirts of it available as well.

The full version can be seen below. It is a steampunk Manjushri, which fits very well with the byline of the blog of “Open Source Buddhism, Technology, and Geekery.”

For those unfamiliar with Manjushri, I recommend the wikipedia article on him. He is often considered the embodiment of prajñā, which is the wisdom of the prajñāparamita texts, foundational to Mahayana Buddhism.

You can read about steampunk as well but it is, essentially, a literary, fashion, artistic, and gaming movement that re-imagines the pre-World War I industrial age as it should have been or in a fantastical way reflecting our current values and viewpoint from a post-Industrial age. (It has also been called, “What happens when goths discover brown.”) There is a lot of fiction being written that is steampunk and a lot of makers (like the people at my hackerspace) make steampunkesque gadgets with brass, gearing, and lots of welding. My monthly gaming group is playing a 19th century steampunk game as well as the crew of an airship.

So, all in all, I think it is a pretty appropriate logo to have on my blog. I’m really thankful for the Kamikazen for having done it for me. It is a great piece of artwork.

Patheos Book Club

2010-09-14T16:03:16-07:00

Patheos, an interfaith web site, is now running book clubs as part of their site. You can see their page for Religion and Faith Book Club and they posted a press release about it this weekend.

Of immediate relevance to some Buddhists is that they’ve just started their first book with Deepak Chopra’s “Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment.” They’ve posted discussion questions and are hosting online discussions for the book. As part of this book club, Patheos and the publisher are making ebook versions of Chopra’s book available for free for the Kindle, Nook, and the iBookstore from Apple.

For those interested in an online discussion of the book or new to Buddhism, this is a nice opportunity. I’ve read Chopra’s book and found it to be a decent introduction to the Buddha without much in the way of polemic.

East Bay Mini Maker Faire October 24, 2010

2010-09-13T10:34:21-07:00

Chris Hecker, here in the East Bay area, wrote about a local Mini Maker Faire. He says:

We're doing a mini version of the Maker Faire at Park Day School on Oct 24th, and thought people might be interested. I'll be there in a little booth doing henna...I love doing henna, it's such a blast! Here are some of my previous ones: http://chrishecker.com/Henna_Tattoos :) Here's a blurb about the Faire, and hope to see you there, and please spread the word to the other neighborhood lists around here: Featuring both established and emerging local “makers,” the East Bay Mini Maker Faire is a family-friendly celebration. It will feature rockets and robots, DIY science and technology, urban farming and sustainability, alternative energy, bicycles, unique hand-made crafts, music and local food, and educational workshops and installations. More information about the event is here: http://ebmakerfaire.wordpress.com Tickets are on sale now here: http://ebmakerfaire.eventbrite.com We are also accepting Makers, Crafters, Performers, Workshop leaders, etc for 2 more days only through the site here: http://ebmakerfaire.wordpress.com/call-for-makers The event is put on by a few dedicated parents at Park Day School who wanted to bring Maker culture to North Oakland and support the community as well as the school. You can also follow us at @ebmakerfaire on Twitter.

There is a decent blog post about the origin of this mini event on their blog.

Ace Monster Toys, the East Bay hackerspace, has a proposal in discussion for the event and I know that many of us plan to attend since it is in our back yard. I encourage others to go as well.

Petition for Eido Shimano to Resign as Abbot of the Zen Studies Society

2010-09-12T10:35:17-07:00

Rev. Jiro Andy Afable, Eido Shimano’s second Dharma heir, has posted a petition for Eido Shimano to resign as the abbot of the Zen Studies Society and to step down from their board.

Rev. Jiro states:

Archives recently published on the Internet reveal the enormity and historical depth of Eido Shimano’s violations of the Buddhist precepts going back at least 40 years. With every passing day, former Sangha members, male and female, come forward to recount their stories. Eido Shimano has denied none of it. Judged by the standards of civil society, Buddhist law, clergy ethics, or any other standard applicable to the conduct of human affairs, Eido Shimano’s conduct has been a disgrace. It has been an affront not only to the monks and nuns of Dai Bosatsu Zendo, to the practitioners of New York Zendo Shobo-ji, to the Zen Studies Society Sangha, but to sincere Buddhist practitioners everywhere. We petition you to express your strong disapproval of Eido Shimano’s deeds. The online petition is at: www.sanghaconvergence.org Remember, your clarity and intention count.

I signed this petition yesterday.

We’ll see what effect the petition has but this is one of Shimano’s own Dharma heirs calling for him to remove himself from involvement with the Zen Studies Society and students.

Sometimes Mindfulness Requires a Post-it Note

2010-09-11T11:22:37-07:00

Yesterday, I had my second tattoo done. I did one almost eight years ago on the top of my right arm, back before I was committed to Buddhism as my path. It reflected my spiritual background at the time. I’m generally committed to the idea, for myself, that a tattoo should be a meaningful reflection of something in your life. I took refuge in 2002 and fully committed to the Buddhist path over the next few years more and more. I’d been wanting to do something to both acknowledge this as my path and as a reminder to mindfulness concerning it.

I’ve been talking for the last six years (to the day almost) about using the Siddham script of Sanskrit for a tattoo to reflect my Buddhism. Siddham is an archaic script not commonly seen except one will see it on Buddhist art and architecture in East Asia. It is commonly used for mantras or on mandala, for example, or as ornamentation on temples. You can see one of the examples of its use during the Tang Dynasty (around 927 CE) in China below, which is the Pratisara Mantra:

There is this example of it was part of the core mandala images displayed on Kongobu-ji on Mt. Koya in Japan (taken when I visited) as well:

I decided on the basic design a year and a half ago of having my refuge vows done in Sanskrit. My friend, Jayarava, drew them out for me as he’s been practicing Siddham calligraphy for quite some time.

These vows are:

बुद्धं शरणं गच्छामि।
धम्मं शरणं गच्छामि।
संघं शरणं गच्छामि। Buddhaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
Dharmaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi.
Saṃghaṃ śaraṇaṃ gacchāmi. I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dharma.
I take refuge in the Sangha.

The basic calligraphy in Siddham (with some red highlighting) looks like this:

It took me a while to find a tattoo artist that I wanted to work with on this but through fortuitous circumstances, I found out that the husband of a friend of mine (who is also an artist) was a tattoo artist with decades of experience. He and spoke about it a bit over the course of the summer and he finally came over yesterday to work on it at my house.

Adam working on my arm

We did an initial four hour session (an exercise in mindfulness by both of us if there is any at all) for the outlining and initial coloring. We’re going to meet in a month after I’m back from Bali to fill in any of the black which fades during healing, which is quite common. After that, he’ll be adding the red outlining. I’m also probably going to have a few more things that fit in with the Siddham added to that arm during the next year as well, such as the Fudo Myoo seed syllable.

The just completed result looked like this:

I know that the idea of Buddhist tattoos is controversial to some, especially overseas. People see them as an ego ridden exercise and narcissistic. Tattoos hold an odd place in American culture, especially as things have changed over the last 25 years. While I cannot pretend that they aren’t narcissistic at times, I know that for me the tattoo is coming out of my love of the Dharma and my own commitment to it as a lifelong practice.

Has Eido Shimano Really Resigned?

2010-09-11T00:18:37-07:00

There is apparently some questions circulating within the Zen teaching community about whether Eido Shimano has really resigned from his position at the Zen Studies Society, as the letter posted by Tricycle claims (which I posted about the other day), or if it is all just a kind of verbal bait and switch to distract people from the fact that nothing has changed.

The following is an excerpt from a note that I received tonight by someone in a position to ask and answer questions (from within the Zen Studies Society community). I’m not going to quote the whole thing as more information will apparently be forthcoming from the author and others.

...In fact, Eido Shimano has not resigned as Abbot. He has neither tendered his resignation to the Zen Studies Society Board of Directors nor has the Board of Directors accepted his resignation. Nor have the Directors dismissed him. There has been no “public” statement of the Abbot’s resignation, no press release; just a brief email to the current members of the Zen Studies Society mailing list and a curious notice on the ZSS website. From the ZSS website, September 9, 2010: Shinge Roshi Roko Sherry Chayat, who will be installed as Vice Abbot, Dec. 31, 2010, will offer dokusan from January 2011 on. Roshi will actively continue in his role as Abbot of the society until he retires, December 8, 2010, but he will not be seeing new students for dokusan. Eido Roshi has said he will remain committed to ordained and long-time students for as long as his health allows. [...] Obviously, he intends to see “ordained and long-time students as long as his health allows” under the sponsorship and umbrella of The Zen Studies Society. He will, presumably, keep his apartment in Dai Bosatsu Zendo, his suite at Shoboji, and will continue to receive substantial financial compensation from Zen Studies Society. A man without any spiritual standing will continue to have a significant presence and tremendous influence on the Society. [...] What Mr. Shimano has done is to offer a non-binding “promise” that he will resign in the future. He has made similar promises before, only to renege each and every time. Until his Abbacy is terminated by an irrevocable, binding resolution of the Board of Directors, or his immediately effective resignation, duly accepted and recorded in the organization’s minutes, Mr. Shimano not only remains the Zen Studies Society Abbot, but continues, together with his wife, Yasuko Shimano (Director of New York Zendo Shobo-ji), to control the process of his own removal. A close reading of the by-laws of The Society will reveal that Eido Shimano is still on the Board of Directors even if he made the gesture of “stepping down from the Board.”

I am saddened that this whole thing continues to be a source of suffering in the Zen community and leaves so many questions open. I don’t feel that I could simply say nothing, in good conscience, since I’ve been speaking about Eido Shimano and the controversy around him in previous posts.

Hopefully, a formal decision is made, recorded, and communicated to those affected by this and, eventually, the rest of the Zen community. These kinds of ongoing controversies damage the Dharma in the eyes of so many but pretending they aren’t happening also damages the Dharma and our commitment to truth and honesty.

Chinul and the Hwadu Meditation

2010-09-09T12:37:20-07:00

This was originally written as a short paper for a seminary class on Chinul and Korean Sôn at the Five Mountain Seminary. I thought people might appreciate some of the content though it is a bit long for a blog post. Hwadu is part of my own practice within my overall work with kong-ans, which I tend to avoid discussing here (as with most aspects of my personal practice).

Chinul lived in the latter half of the 12^th century and the beginning of the 13^th of the Common Era on the Korean peninsula. While Buddhism was well established within Korea by the time of Chinul, there were strong divisions between the existing scholastic oriented schools and the later established schools of Sôn, the Korean form of Chán or Zen, that had become popular through the influence of Chinese Chán schools and masters. Chinul is considered by many to be the effective founder of Sôn, even though he is not in actuality, because of his work on healing the divisions between the two forms of Buddhism and his ecumenical approach and systemization of Sôn teachings using the texts revered by the scholastic schools to legitimize the Sôn approach. In addition to this work in systemization and reconciliation, Chinul was also an innovator, regularizing and introducing meditative practices that later became essential components to Sôn and, eventually, all of Korean Buddhism through the eventual cultural dominance of Sôn. Later, even when the Sôn of his period was eclipsed by later developments, many of his practices and teachings remained in use. A key innovation of his within Sôn was his introduction and elaboration of kong-an or hwadu practice from Chinese Chán. To this day, his methods of hwadu are still practiced within Korean temples, commentaries are written on its methods, and hwadu is considered to be the key practice of Sôn monasticism. This paper examines hwadu, its practice, and how it fits within the overall meditative teachings of Chinul.

Unlike most Sôn practitioners of his era, Chinul was a scholastic student of the sutras and Buddhist commentaries as well as a meditative practitioner. While nominally having a Sôn teacher, in practice, his studies and practice were solitary and self-directed. Partially as a result of this, he engaged in textual studies, uncommon in Sôn, as a primary component of his practice and this proved to play a key role of his personal realizations and later teachings. During the course of his textual studies and the associated contemplation of these texts, Chinul had three main enlightenment experiences, each building on the previous. Each of these experiences led to one of the primary methods of Sôn practice that Chinul taught (with the later addition of two more methods elaborating on these initial three). Chinul’s first enlightenment experience was while studying the Platform Sutra, leading to Chinul’s teachings on cultivating samadhi and prajna deriving from that text; the second experience was while studying the Exposition of the Avatamsaka Sutra, leading to faith and understanding practices; the third and final experience was while studying the Records of Ta-hui, leading to Chinul’s teaching of hwadu techniques.

The cultivation of samadhi and prajna practices are similar to the existing shamatha and vipassana practices found elsewhere in Buddhism, especially in China. They teach methods for stilling and calming the mind from its normally turbulent state and how to then use the developed concentration coming with this stillness to investigate the mind and its nature, reflecting the mind back onto itself. The eventual goal of these practices is to cultivate direct knowledge of the original enlightenment of all beings, the Buddha-nature or original mind. This cultivation occurs after the practitioner undergoes an initial enlightenment experience or flash of understanding of the original mind that then provides the basis of faith to fuel continuing practice. Chinul belonged to the dominant (and only extant) school of Chán (or Sôn in Korean) that used this method of Sudden Enlightenment followed by Gradual Cultivation. The samadhi and prajna cultivation practices are based on this model of the way to realization or awakening as set forth in the Platform Sutra. The faith and understanding practices taught by Chinul are derived from the Hua-yen school of China, whose teachings were absorbed into Chán, and its teachings based on the Avatamsaka Sutra. These practices involve the gradual cultivation of understanding using discriminative thought after the initial sudden awakening or enlightenment experience. Unlike most of the other methods used by Chinul, the faith and understanding practices make great use of conceptual thought and contemplation based on study of Buddhist texts and philosophy.

These first two methods of practice, the cultivation of samadhi and prajna and the practices of faith and understanding, both work within the conceptual or discriminative mind of the practitioner. They are based on the study of doctrines and the practice of methods that can be easily conceptualized rationally or logically. Because of this, they are subject to the limitations of the rational mind. According to Chinul, the nature of original mind or Buddha-nature is beyond all conceptualization or thought. This means that these practices two methods of practice cannot lead the practitioner all the way to realization as taught by Chinul because the practitioner will still have only a conceptual understanding of original mind, even if all defilements or obscurations are removed or great understanding of doctrine is attained. These are practices that are based solely on words, according to Chinul, and ultimate realization is beyond words. Chinul states in his Excerpts from the Dharma Collection that the two methods above will lead the practitioner to understand all of the doctrines within the Buddhist sutras and texts, which point to the nature and characteristics of the mind, but the practitioner will be “bound by intellectual understanding and never gain tranquility” (Buswell, 1991, p. 182). The third method of practice, hwadu, is meant to be the solution to this problem or limitation since it bypasses Buddhist doctrines and conceptual understandings and enters a path that leaves behind all words.

Hwadu is derived from the Chán schools of the middle T’ang dynasty of China and developed over a number of generations during the most diverse period of Chán’s growth. The Records of Ta-hui, Chinul’s most immediate acknowledged source, was written only a generation before Chinul lived and he may have been exposed to teachings relating to it and hwadu during his earlier years of practice through contact with Chinese practitioners. Initially, hwadu practice was quite fluid and based on exchanges between a master and a student in which one party asks the other a question and a response is given that demonstrates the realization of the original mind. These exchanges were eventually written down and preserved in collections by students and came to be called kung-an or kong-ans (or koans as they are known in English commonly), which translates to “public case records” (Buswell, 1991, p. 68). Buswell states that there is some evidence that the first uses of practices similar to koans may date to the Fifth Patriarch of Chán Buddhism, Hung-jen, but its later use and codification was popularized by Ta-hui Tsung-kao, who wrote Records of Ta-hui read by Chinul. In its earliest form, hwadu is the portion of a koan that forms the central point or core topic of it and can be considered its key. As it developed later, it can be best understood as “the point at which (or beyond which) speech exhausts itself” (Buswell, 1986, p. 219). These koans and their attached hwadu form a puzzle of sorts. At an intellectual, rational, or logical level, they make no sense. If they are treated simply as an intellectual puzzle, they appear nonsensical, almost like a bit of nonsense text quoted from Alice in Wonderland, for example. The words can be read rationally but their meaning will elude you because the nature of the exchange is transcending speech and rationalization. According to Chinul, while koans are a form of speech and, therefore, of rational thought, they go beyond the limits of rationality, showing where intellectual understanding reaches its limits. Chinul also points out that the hwadu acts as a purification device that wipes away conceptualization or thoughts, leaving the mind open to the unconditioned or original mind that is beyond all ideas, speech, or discrimination. Chinul quotes Ta-hui in Chinul’s Excerpts from the Dharma Collection, stating that in true hwadu practice “you need only lay down, all at once, the mind full of deluded thoughts and inverted thinking, the mind of logical discrimination, the mind that loves life and hates death, the mind of knowledge and views, interpretation and comprehension” (Buswell, 1991, p. 185). Chinul taught initially that this was the shortcut method of enlightenment only accessible for superior practitioners, but near the end of his life he shifted more and more emphasis on hwadu as the best or ideal vehicle for realizing enlightenment for all followers of the Dharma.

In his Excerpts from the Dharma Collection, Chinul quotes what is,to many, the quintessential hwadu (the first one of the famous kong-an collection, The Gateless Gate): “A monk asked Chao-chou, ‘Does a dog have the Buddha-nature or not?’ Chao-chou replied, ‘Mu! [No!]’” (Buswell, 1991, p. 185). This is a seemingly nonsensical exchange in that, as taught in Mahayana Buddhist doctrine, all living beings have Buddha-nature. So the monk is asking what is, on its surface, an obvious and absurd question, and Chao-chou is giving an answer that, by existing doctrine, makes no sense. At its most obvious, it is clearly not true that a dog has no Buddha-nature. How can a Chán master, an awakened teacher, give an answer that is seemingly wrong and contradicts the Buddhist teachings? In discussing this hwadu and instructing how to work with it, Chinul says that Mu is:

…the weapon which smashes all types of wrong knowledge and wrong conceptualization. [1] You should not understand it to mean yes or no. [2] You should not consider it in relation to doctrinal theory. [3] You should not ponder over it logically at the consciousness-based. [4] When the master raises his eyebrows or twinkles his eyes, you should not think he is giving instructions about the meaning of the hwadu. [5] You should not make stratagems for solving the hwadu through the use of speech. [6] You should not busy yourself inside the tent of concern. [7] You should not consider it at the place where you raise the hwadu to your attention. [8] You should not look for evidence in the wording. Throughout the twelve periods and the four postures, try always to keep the question raised before you and centered in your attention. Does a dog have the Buddha-nature or not? He said mu. Without neglecting your daily activities, try to work in this manner. (Buswell, 1991, pp. 185-186)

This instruction on how to work with the hwadu is at the core of Chinul’s method. Here he clearly states that a hwadu is not a clever bit of rhetoric to decrypt or a story problem to be followed to a logical conclusion. It is not a trick or a game played by a master. He says that one must keep the question constantly in mind. In actuality, Chinul taught two different methods for hwadu investigation, one superior and one inferior, depending on the ability or capacity of the practitioner. These two methods are the (1) investigation of the idea or meaning of the hwadu and (2) the investigation of the word itself. Chinul calls these “dead word” and “live word” investigation, respectively. In the example of Chao-chou’s Mu above, understanding what Chao-chou’s intent in mind was in making his statement to the monk is the method of investigating the idea or dead word. This investigation of the idea was considered to be a more approachable or beginner practice for those of lesser ability or capacity because it allowed for an intellectual understanding of the hwadu. It requires the use of intellectual thought and conceptualization to approach an understanding of the intent behind the statement of the hwadu but does not require anything beyond this level of understanding. The result of this method is a conceptual understanding of the hwadu but this will not open the way to the final realization of one’s original mind, according to Chinul. What it can do is bring about the initial realization of sudden enlightenment that forms the basis of later gradual cultivation as taught by Chinul and all descendants of the Southern School of Chán. This means that investigating the idea fulfills the initial role of developing the necessary faith for the path of sudden enlightenment / gradual cultivation as a method of practice, just as the previous two methods of samadhi and prajna or faith and understanding. It can provide the impetus for following the path of the Dharma to final realization.

The second approach to hwadu, the investigation of the word, is the more advanced practice. This method does not allow for any conceptualization or intellectual approaches to the hwadu. For Chinul, this is the true hwadu practice that leads to ultimate realization. In the example of Chao-chou’s Mu, the investigation of the word is looking directly at Chao-chou’s answer, mu. There are no concepts to be grasped, simply the word, mu, by itself. In Chinul’s teachings, because there is nothing for the conceptual mind to grasp, this method frees the mind from the activating consciousness, vijnana, which separates the world into subject and object, and that gives rise to our deluded minds and suffering. The method frees the mind by generating doubt (or wonder, puzzlement, or questioning). This creates a state of doubt and questioning in which rational thought and conceptual understanding cannot operate. As the tension and pressure of this doubt grows, it leads to the exhaustion of the discriminating mind and into a state of no-mind, as taught in the Platform Sutra. In this state of no-mind, the original mind or Buddha-nature can be apprehended since discriminating consciousness with its thoughts and conceptualization is no longer in the way. For Chinul, this was the highest practice that would act as the shortcut to enlightenment, bypassing the need for continuing gradual cultivation over time . Rather than simply studying doctrine and cultivating samadhi and prajna or faith and understanding, hwadu allowed those able to engage in it the means of bypassing the Dharma contained in words to the realization of the mind of the Buddha and all of the patriarchs of Chán, the transmission that occurs outside of words when the original mind is realized.

Chinul’s methods for studying and practicing the Dharma are still used as the basis of practice in Korea to this day. As Buswell relates from his time as a Korean monastic in the 1970s, the practice of hwadu is one of the primary methods, if not the primary method, used still. Chinul defined a set of practices, culminating in hwadu as the most advanced and direct, that have been used for more than 800 years on the Korean peninsula. While the cultivation of samadhi and prajna allow for the calming of the mind, the deepening of concentration, and the investigation into the mind, and those of faith and understanding develop both a faith in and understanding of Buddhist doctrine, neither is thought to lead to immediate realization. It is only the hwadu taught by Chinul that acts as the means of going beyond conceptualization and doctrines to a direct apprehension of the mind. Because of this, it remains in constant use as the preeminent method within Sôn.

References

Buswell, R. (1983). The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Buswell, R. (1986). Chinese Meditative Techniques in Sôn Buddhism. In P. N. Gregory (Ed.), Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism (pp. 199-242). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Buswell, R. (1991). Tracing Back the Radiance: Chinul’s Korean Way of Zen. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

Buswell, R. (1992). The Zen Monastic Experience. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Keel, H. (1984). Chinul: The Founder of the Korean Sôn Tradition. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley.

Eido Shimano Steps Down as Abbot of the Zen Studies Society

2010-09-08T00:05:21-07:00

I blogged back on August 22 about the rekindled controvery with Eido Shimano, the longtime abbot of the Zen Studies Society in New York, concerning his alleged history of improper sexual relationships with students. The New York Times had a piece on it and there has been other documentation available for some time now.

The Zen Studies Society organization and its board has been trying to deal with this issue and what to do with their abbot. The Tricycle blog has just broken the news that Eido Shimano is stepping down as abbot and sent them a letter yesterday concerning this action. I include the letter below:

September 7, 2010 Dear Friends, I would like to acknowledge the pain and unnecessary suffering you went through in your hearts due to my faults. I have a profound feeling of remorse for my actions. This August marked my 50th anniversary in the United States. During this half-century I have received so much from people the world over. Over time, I took your kindness for granted and arrogance grew in my heart. As a result, my sensitivity to feel the pain of others decreased. Now, as I reflect on the past, I realize how many people’s feelings and trust in me were hurt by my words and deeds. Please accept my heartfelt apology. My mother was the person who encouraged me the most to follow Buddha’s path. Tomorrow is her memorial day, as she passed away on September 8, 1986. Hearing her voice, I have decided to observe my 50th anniversary in the United States by stepping down from my position as abbot of the Zen Studies Society on the last day of Rohatsu sesshin in 2010. Even though I carry sadness in my heart, as a Buddhist monk, my vow to practice will not end. In order to preserve the Dharma legacy, ensure the training of future teachers, and to purify my own karma, I must march on. Gassho, Eido Shimano

This is quite big news, especially within the Zen world where Eido Shimano has done a lot of harm, both to the women he allegedly had improper sexual relationships with as a teacher (NEVER, ever do that if you’re a teacher!) and for all of the men and women who looked up to him as a representative of the Dharma, an example to all. The fact is that there are a number of wonderful teachers out there who have Shimano as their teacher and preceptor, which leaves them in a very difficult position and, often it seems, at a loss as to how to properly react.

I’m glad to see that he’s stepped down. I find his apology to be somewhat half-hearted and a bit overly indirect in acknowledging responsibility but at least it is done and he’s resigned. I hope for the easing of his suffering as much as all others.

A Review of Cherie Priest's "Dreadnought" or A Rather Pleasant Train Ride Across the American Landscape With Friends

2010-09-07T22:54:39-07:00

<img src=”https://farm5.static.flickr.com/4149/4970268302_1d60a8ca5c_m.jpg” align=”right” hspace=”10”width=”161” height=”240” alt=”Dreadnought” /> A month and a half ago or so, I managed to get an advanced reader’s copy of Cherie Priest’s upcoming steampunk novel, Dreadnought, through questionable means. This novel is a sequel of sorts to her previous, Boneshaker. It effectively picks up where Boneshaker ends but there are only a few direct connections between the two books. Both books are part of Priest’s “Clockwork Century” setting, which also includes the short novel, Clementine, just recently released. (There is also a short story, Tanglefoot set there as well.)

Boneshaker was the effective introduction to the setting. In that, we find out that the American Civil War has been going on for 19 years, rather than the original four. It is 1880 and the country is still divided and fighting, though those young at or born after the start of the war are not necessarily clear as to why. It has become a multigenerational conflict fueling an arms race, among other things. In Boneshaker, the action occurs in Seattle so the war remains largely offstage, really only there by implication and technology, such as the airships. Seattle has been largely abandoned after the accidental release of a gas has turned a large chunk of its populace into rotters (zombies, in other words). The city is walled off and left to, well, rot. In that novel, the story is as much about a mother’s love for her son, our heroine, Briar Wilkes, seeking her son, Zeke, in the city.

In Dreadnought, the Civil War moves very much to center stage for much of the book, dominating aspects of the first half of it. Again we have a heroine and she’s another amazingly strong and determined woman. This time is is “Mercy” Lynch, the Southern widow of a Union soldier who has been working as a nurse in Richmond. In a bit of grim storytelling, the grit of this woman, not as a soldier but as someone who has to patch up the wrecks of soldiers, is displayed. We open with her digging through bloody linens for a lost watch for a horribly wounded soldier and doing what needs must as the mangled men to arrive in order to help them survive. From this initial setting, Mercy is required to take a journey, across the country, when she receives word that her father, long thought as either dead or having abandoned his family, sends word that he needs her and may be dying. Mercy sets off with a grim urgency, having no family at all outside of this rather attenuated connection to someone that she hasn’t seen since childhood.

The “Dreadnought” of the title is something encountered along the way. I’m not going to give many spoilers for this book, not wanting to ruin it, but it doesn’t give much away to say it is a train. In fact, it is a Union train that she is compelled to travel on as a Southern woman (if an obvious noncombatant). The most powerful armed and armored train of the Union in a war where, even historically, rail power made the difference between defeat and loss. Along the way, we encounter a tough as nails Texan, reliable and crazed representatives of the Union, Confederate airships and generals, walking and clanking tanks duking it out, and a threat that neither side has really planned for but from which at least one is hoping to profit. We get to see just how driven and determined a nurse can be and, frankly, one of the toughest protagonists, male or female, that I’ve probably read in years. This woman makes most of Clint Eastwood’s characters look rather milquetoast in comparison, especially by the end of the book.

The book doesn’t spend long in the Eastern or Southern portions of the country so while we get some idea of how the unending war is affecting society, it isn’t entirely clear since we avoid all but a couple of cities. We do get a sense of the breadth of the continent in a true American fashion as well as just how far it can be from Virginia to Washington on a train that everyone wants to stop where you can’t really trust anyone.

In most ways, I found this to be a far better and more compelling novel than Boneshaker. Sure, Boneshaker had frikkin’ zombies running in packs in a walled city, poison gas, underground paranoia, and airships but it just doesn’t hold a candle in pacing and tension to the ongoing knife edge ride of Dreadnought. I do think they are wonderfully complimentary and I do encourage people to read Boneshaker first. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how the rest of the Clockwork Century tails develop (feel free to send me more ARCs!).

This is definitely one of the novels to read this fall and one of those that I hope to get my 14 year old daughter to read sooner or later. We need more Briar Wilkes and Mercy Lynches in our steampunk or even just in our fiction. Thank you, Cherie, for that!

Go buy this wonderful book in three weeks when it comes out! Heck, pre-order it now!

Addendum: I do want to add that I much prefer the original cover of the book, given how small of a role the “walkers” play in the book. I’ve scanned the cover from my ARC so you can see it below. Would you want to mess with this woman or get between her and family? Hell, no!

Ace Monster Toys as a real hackerspace

2010-08-31T17:22:42-07:00

I’ve been meaning to post an update for Ace Monster Toys, the hackerspace that I co-founded recently in Berkeley. I last posted about it in mid-June. We had just elected our board and begun collecting dues while we were looking for a space to rent.

I’m happy to tell people that we did find a space and moved into it at the end of July. We’ve been there for an entire month now. It is at 6050 Lowell Street in northern Oakland, which is the tri-border area where Oakland, Emeryville, and Berkeley come together. We’re a 20 minute walk from the Ashby station in Berkeley or a quick bike ride. I don’t have any great photos of the space except some I took of the space when were were examining the building.

We have 800 sq ft in two concrete floored rooms downstairs and 800 sq ft in one larger room upstairs (pictured below) giving us a fairly large overall space. The build out of the space has taken a little longer than we initially expected but we’re making progress. Right now, we have a conference table, a couch, and about 10 desks upstairs along with a packet radio station, a broken makerbot, and an unassembled makerbot. The downstairs is full of tools from building our desks (which is an interesting project in and of itself). Soon, we’ll have at least one more couch and conference table upstairs as well. It took us a few weeks of fighting to get high speed Internet but it is finally working (Comcast sucks, by the way) so people can actually get work done while in the space. Dr. Jesus, one of our board members, also built an electronic entry system for our door, giving us 24 hour access to the space. Another member, Dennis, who is an architect, has been working on designs in Google Sketchup for the space but we’re kind of jury rigging things as we go right now.

AMT has somewhere between 16 and 20 active members and seem to be picking up a few a week right now. We continue to meet every Monday night at 7:30 PM for a general meeting, demonstrations, and workshops. Our first quarterly meeting is in two weeks where we will induct new members officially into the organization. You can join our e-mail list if you’re interested in the group or go to the wiki for more information.

My next personal projects at AMT are:

Finally building my makerbot
Building my Zen Toolworks CNC mill (from a kit)
Beginning to work on my DIY Drone using a megaduino and some off the shelf electronics inspired by DIY Drones and a Defcon 18 talk that showed how easy it really is (by some definitions of "easy")
Building a trike with Mike G. (who is building a tandem trike) using plans from Atomic Zombie (This will involve a bit of welding so we've been delayed by ventilation needs)

Other people are working on far more interesting projects as we get tools into the space.

I encourage anyone local to the Bay Area, especially the East Bay, or coming through to contact us and stop by.

Visiting Dharma Cousins in Las Vegas

2010-08-30T23:44:30-07:00

The Zen Center of Las Vegas

This last weekend, I was in Las Vegas for the second time in a month. I had been there a month ago for the Black Hat and Defcon computer security conventions. Generally, I only go to Vegas when my work sends me since I don’t really drink, gamble, or womanize. This time, I came back for a Zen retreat.

When I told people that I was going to Las Vegas for a Zen retreat, everyone seemed utterly shocked. They would ask me, “There’s Zen in Vegas?” I’d tell them that of course there was. Zen can be found in most major cities but the cognitive dissonance seemed to be pretty big for a lot of people. I shouldn’t have been too surprised because I had only been vaguely aware that there were Zen practitioners there before quite recently.

I was invited to attend by one of my teachers, Rev. Paul Dōch’ŏng Lynch, JDPSN. He is the head teacher of the Five Mountain Sangha in which I was ordained last year. This retreat was the first multiple day one held at the Zen Center of Las Vegas’ brand new temple. They have been around since the early 1990’s but had recently acquired two adjacent houses and refurbished one into being their new center. They did a wonderful job as well as you can see below and on my flickr photo set:

The Dharma Room

The View Across the Property

The retreat was a Yong Maeng Jong Jin (in Korean) or “to leap like a tiger while sitting” retreat. These are generally three or seven day intensive retreats, similar to the Japanese Zen sesshins. The Zen Center of Las Vegas (hereafter “ZCLV”) is a member of the Kwan Um School of Zen, the largest Zen organization in the West, which practices a form of Sŏn, or Korean Zen Buddhism. The school was founded by Zen Master Sŭngsan and it is where Rev. Lynch originally trained before Sŭngsan’s death in 2004. Rev Thomas Kwanjok Pastor, JDPSN is the guiding teacher at the ZCLV and one is also one of Rev. Lynch’s closest friends. Because of this close relationship and history, we were invited to participate in this inaugural retreat at the new temple by Rev. Pastor.

I found the retreat to be very interesting. In a sense, that’s not actually true. The practice of the retreat itself, the sitting and walking meditation, the morning and evening ceremonies, and the interviews for koan work, were all not terribly unusual. We used the forms of the Kwan Um School but since we are, ultimately, derived from that school and its founder, they were almost the same as what we practice within the Five Mountain Sangha. What was interesting to me was to see how our Dharma cousins at the ZCLV practiced, interacted, and otherwise went about their normal practices. They did things slightly differently, emphasizing different aspects of practices, and had a little bit of a different outlook than what I’ve sen at our own Five Mountain Sangha retreats. It was close enough to not be terribly alien but just different enough that it stood out from time to time. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to help officiate at a precepts ceremony for a Five Mountain Sangha member, Glenda, who is also an occasional student of mine. The ZCLV was kind enough to allow us to hold our ceremony separately from their own during the retreat, which also allowed me to see how they did the same ceremony. Again, same but different.

I also had an excellent opportunity to interview with Rev. Pastor and engage in koan work with him. I am very grateful for that. I also found the sangha members of the ZCLV to be overwhelmingly friendly, engaging, and welcoming to us. It would have been easy for them to not know what to make of the four of us who participated in their retreat but they didn’t treat us as anything other than fellow members of the Buddhist sangha. They even invited us to come back, reminding those of us from California that they are only a short flight or drive away. I know that I feel like I definitely have a welcome place to go when I find myself in Las Vegas. It is nice to know that the Dharma can be found in a city that I’ve often thought of us exemplifying everything that is wrong with American culture and society. It turns out that I was wrong and places like the ZCLV are beacons of sanity in a desert there.

Update: Rev. Lynch has put his pictures of the precepts ceremony up as well here. He has also written his own blog post about the retreat.

Zen Sex Scandal Goes Mainstream

2010-08-22T12:19:37-07:00

I blogged about the sexual scandal associated with Eido Shimano Roshi last year with Aitken Roshi’s papers on the matter became available online.

There have been ongoing rumbles about this scandal going round the blogosphere and tweetverse since this time. In mid-June, the board of the Zen Studies Society met and decided to produce ethical guidelines for their organization that included both sexual conduct and also a somewhat weak acknowledgment of past improprieties by Shimano Roshi. People were somewhat mollified but I know quite a few felt like it was still kind of sweeping it under the zabuton (or is “sweeping under the tatami” a better metaphor?). I’d heard that things had heated up after this but had not been paying much attention to it during the last two months because, really, what do I have to say about the conduct of a Zen master that I don’t know in an organization that I have no connection with when so many others have said so much?

Well, the issue has hit the mainstream press now. There was a New York Times piece on it this last Friday, August 20. It turns out that part of why the issue heated up again is that it turned out that (surprise!) the misconduct was not all well in the past but still ongoing. From the piece:

"In interviews over the past two weeks, four board members, including Mr. Marinello, said that on June 21 a woman — whose name he would not reveal — stood up during dinner at the Catskills monastery and announced that for the past two years she had had a consensual affair with Mr. Shimano, who was at the dinner. Several board members have said that Mr. Shimano later admitted the affair in conversations with them. On Wednesday, the society issued a statement acknowledging that 'in June of this year, a woman revealed that there was an inappropriate relationship between herself and Eido Roshi.'"

To quote Homer Simpson, "Doh!"

You know, if I was the focus of ongoing discussion about my role as a teacher and my sexual behavior, discussion going on not just for years, but for decades, I might try to find a way to avoid even the appearance of impropriety that comes with even a consensual sexual relationship with one of my students. I understand that things can be quite complex between adults, believe me, but good sense and knowledge of one’s role to others (not to mention power dynamics between teachers and students) just makes this kind of thing a bad idea even if one is not already underneath a cloud and being gossiped about by others. The fact that we are now reading this in the New York Times does actually damage the standing of the Dharma in the eyes of the public, doing it a great disservice. The solution, of course, is not to hush things up (as some might do) but to not engage in this behavior as a teacher!

I do not know Shimano Roshi. I have no real desire to know him. I also have no real ability to judge him as a human being, not knowing him, his situation, or his relationships. I do have a responsibility as a Zen priest to the Dharma though. I have enough problems keeping my own conduct in adherence with the Dharma and my precepts for both my own benefit as well as that of others, without seeing people engaging in out and out egregious behavior. That is what prompts me to say, in no unclear terms, that Shimano Roshi’s behavior, at least when it comes to his relationships with women, is in no way acceptable or within the bounds of the behavior of a Zen teacher (nor probably anyone else, come to think of it, given his position of authority). The fact that tens or hundreds of thousands of people who know little about the Dharma or Zen are now reading about it in the newspaper just makes the damage all the more severe. This is going to be a longterm scandal, just like that of Baker Roshi and the San Francisco Zen Center, that we will hear about for decades to come. Given our inability to police our own teachers and community, it is probably well deserved in a way.

Robert Aitken Roshi is dead

2010-08-06T10:30:40-07:00

Robert Aitken Roshi died last night. He was 93 years old. This is a sad moment for American Zen.

Here is the official notice from his blog.

James Ford wrote a wonderful post on Aitken Roshi reflecting on his history and impact.

Aitken Roshi, through his books and example, has had a profound effect on my perception of Zen and my desire to practice this path. He has been one of the stalwart examples of an ethical teacher that, as far a I can tell, lived up to the principles of our faith. His writings were and are incredibly inspirational to me.

I believe he will be remembered as one of our most important Western teachers of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Jack Daw posted the following quote from Aitken Roshi’s book, “Miniatures of a Zen Master”:

"Old age ain’t no place for sissies. Yes, that’s true. One must cope with a range of afflictions from incontinence to macular degeneration, not to mention peripheral neuropathy, strokes and cancer – and memory loss! Yet I don’t mourn my loss youth. What a confused mess I was! What time I wasted! All in all, I am really quite comfortable in these last years. Pass the marmalade."

Going to San Quentin Soon

2010-07-15T15:36:07-07:00

I’ve received word back that I am now approved to visit and on the visitor’s list for San Quention. SQ is the big (and fairly famous) prison in the Bay Area of California. What many people don’t know is that it is also a facility with an incredible amount of volunteers and volunteer work. There are all kinds of groups and individuals meeting with inmates to try to help their lives or give them opportunities.

There has been a Zen sangha there for ten years or so. Most of the volunteers for it are affiliated with the San Francisco Zen Center or East Bay Community of Mindful Living. It meets every week on Sunday evening and has a fairly regular population of inmates during its existence, though people do tend to come and go as inmates get transferred around, released, or simply move on.

A number of years back, I spent about a year and a half volunteering at McNeil Island in Washington State (the only surviving prison on an island, as far as I know). This was in a Neopagan context, working with a friend who had been running a group out of the chapel there for a few years. My own practice was transitioning to Buddhism at this point but he needed help, effectively running a one man shop on his own. I began helping him and quickly wound up running things as he was forced to go to Iraq for our lovely war there. Eventually, I simply couldn’t maintain the level of commitment involved, especially with the prison being hours and a ferry ride away, but I have been wanting to go back to working with inmates. The group at San Quentin, with its large volunteer pool, is a good opportunity to get back into this sort of thing. It’s only a 25 minute or so drive away on the other side of the Bay.

As I’ve mentioned to people before, prison really strips things to their essentials for a lot (if not all) people. The inmates have so little control over their lives and, really, so little to actually do that they wind up having a lot of things that we all tend to ignore in our lives made unavoidable. They have nothing but time to think and, if so inclined, they have ample opportunity something as straightforward as a meditation and study practice. Given the barrenness of life in prison, as well as the stresses, anything that can be done to support inmates in practice should be done, in my opinion.

This is leaving aside the unfortunately large part of the population that thinks inmates should be locked away for life, treated like animals, and forgotten by society while they are being punished. That doesn’t really play well with Buddhist ethics though. These people made mistakes, often many of them, and are, justly or not, paying a price for them. Cause and effect is karma in its essential form. That being true, they are still not any different than you or me and you have to ask yourself, when working with inmates, how easily it could be you on the inside there. I’ve certainly wondered at times. It is important to treat them as people and give them opportunities. If they don’t choose to avail themselves to them, that’s one thing, but it is one of the best ways to help them turn their lives around when they want to do so. We have one of the largest prison populations in the world and these are men and women that are shit upon by society, even once it is all over. The Dharma is for everyone, not just for supposedly perfect people. Everyone!

OneSangha, a Buddhist Social Networking Site and Forum

2010-07-14T13:24:29-07:00

I’ve owned the onesangha.org domain for a while. In 2008, I made an attempt to get a group Buddhist blog going there drawing on people from a number of different traditions. For a variety of reasons, that blog never had more than a couple of posts, mostly because the other authors were just a bit too busy.

I’ve spoken about E-sangha here before and all of the problems that Buddhist forum had during the last few years (almost entirely problems of their own creation). As it turns out, E-sangha died a final death sometime in this last year. While the Zen guys have created the Zen Forum International, there hasn’t been any large scale replacement for a non-sectarian Buddhist web forum. All current efforts are organized around specific groups, traditions, or commercial enterprises. For example, the Karma Kagyu have a very active group on ning.com but it is limited to their own people. Tricycle magazine has an active site as well but it is a vehicle to support the magazine, its content, and community.

In the last few years, social networking has continued to move to the forefront of the daily activity of people, bringing more people into active participation online. Because of this, I think that this is actually a great time to have some sort of social networking site as well as something that can replace the aforementioned E-sangha. To this end, I’ve repurposed the onesanghga.org domain to create the, simply named, OneSangha community site.

The site is built using Buddypress, an add-on to Wordpress that allows one to integrate social networking into a wordpress-based site. Additionally, Buddypress supports BBpress, a web forum software made by the same people. I’ve used Wordpress for my blogs for years, which makes it pretty easy for me. We’re also using it (and probably Buddypress) on the Mozilla Quality site that I work on for work.

Buddypress is based around the concept of “groups” within it. People create their personal accounts and then join or create groups on the site. These groups act as a gathering place for activity, host personal updates and forums. There is also the possibility of adding a group blog to each of the groups through plugins. This means that each interest group, tradition of Buddhist practice, or organization can create its own group, such as “Kwan Um School” group or a “Avatamsaka Sutra” group.

The site also allows users to tie into twitter (which I use quite heavily), pulling their tweets into OneSangha and being able to post from OneSangha into twitter under their accounts as well. I’ve added RSS feeds for groups and posts, which will also make it much easier to read content when not on the site, which has been difficult with other forums in the past.

Right now, the site is very much in an alpha stage. There are all of six or seven users and two groups in existence on it. I’m encouraging people to make accounts, log in, create groups, and play around with the site. I’m also continuing to add useful plugins to enhance the existing functionality.

I’ll probably need to add some sort of text advertisements or something similar on the pages simply to pay for the hosting fees but I’m hoping to keep such things pretty low-key and as unobtrusive as possible.

Please come check it out if you are looking for a Buddhist social networking site and web forum. Please give me feedback on what you like or don’t like (leaving aside Buddhist teachings about preferences for the moment). If you are interested in helping out in some fashion, please let me know as well. The theming, look and feel, etc. are all pretty basic at this point.

A Visit to Seattle Hackerspaces

2010-07-05T16:52:53-07:00

While I was in Seattle visiting friends and family the other week, I had a chance to visit Metrix Create:Space and Jigsaw Renaissance. These are two of the public hackerspaces in the Seattle area. Metrix is run along more business and less club lines. People can show up and work on things, rent tools or time on the makerbots or the laster cutter, and generally sit around developing projects. Jigsaw Renaissance is a hackerspace on more common lines, as a sort of member-based social club. In that model, which we were also using for Ace Monster Toys, people pay for membership in the space and can use it as they wish. When more expensive items need to be purchased, the group raises funds internally in order to facilitate things. This kind of space also builds a bit more of a community, in my experience, as it isn’t being run as any one individual’s personal profit making business.

That being said, both spaces look to be interesting places to check out. I definitely felt more at home with what Jigsaw Renaissance wants to do. You can find both spaces near Capitol Hill.

I put up photos from Metrix Create:Space and Jigsaw Renaissance up on Flickr in order to help people get a sense of the spaces.

Buddhist Ebooks

2010-06-23T13:34:25-07:00

I’m a computer geek and an avid reader of ebooks. I understand the criticisms that many have of whether you “own” an ebook or not and I certainly don’t like digital rights management (DRM) combined with ebooks. That said, I also own more than 8,000 physical books. I have half of them in boxes in the garage at this point. The rest are scattered in overflowing bookshelves throughout my house and I really don’t have room for many more books. I do own a Kindle DX, on which I have been reading ebooks for the last year. It has gotten to the point that for any popular novels that I want to read, I’ll always check to see if the publisher makes an ebook version of it. If they don’t, I stop and ask myself if I really want to read it. If it is one of the authors that I always read, I bite the bullet and get a paper book but that is really a less valuable option for me at this point. One problem that I’ve had is that while this works for fiction, this does not work so well for Buddhist books. Almost all interesting new Buddhist books, as well as older titles, are only available in paper. Only Snow Lion has made a lot of their books available as ebooks. They’ve only done that on the Kindle in the proprietary topaz format (not even the normal mobi format that most Kindle books use). As far as I know, they aren’t doing anything in the ePub format which is actually a decent standard at this point. Because of this, I have actively avoided purchasing Snow Lion’s ebooks. For myself, I prefer open formats or at least ones not tied to one device. For fiction, I actually prefer going to places like Webscriptions.net to purchase mobi or ePub format books because I can get them without DRM. This means when the Kindle dies or is superceded, I will be able to take those same books to another device as long as it can read mobi or ePub formatted books. If I can’t get those two formats, I’ll often go for PDF, which are not resolution independent (they all assume a certain size of book) but are fairly well supported on any platform. I can read PDF books on anything. It is important to think about the longer term, not just the next year or two, when we talk about the conversion from analog to digital media. Shambhala Publications announced today that they are going to make a certain selection of their books available, focusing on big authors for them like Chögyam Trunga and Pema Chodron. Then they are going to offer their back catalog. In conversation on twitter, I was told that they would support multiple formats and that DRM wouldn’t be an issue. The announcement on Publishers Lunch states:

Shambhala Publications will work with Open Road as their exclusive digital marketing partner. Open Road's digital entertainment evp Luke Parker Bowles will produce marketing videos about Shambhala's authors, books, "and the worlds and ideas that they explore," focusing initially on four authors--Pema Chodron, Natalie Goldberg, David Richo, and Chögyam Trungpa--as their titles release in ebook versions. Shambhala expects to have the bulk of its backlist converted to and available as ebooks by the end of the year, and will publish its frontlist simultaneously in print and ebook form starting in September.

“Open Road” here is “Open Road Integrated Media,” from what I can tell. They have a rather bare site up at http://openroadmedia.com but there was a New York Times article on them last October. I’m hoping that this is the beginning of a shift in the Buddhist publishing world that will herald the availability of Buddhist texts, both old and current, as electronic books. For example, I would love to have a good readable translation of the Pali Canon, such as the one that Wisdom Publications has done (see here for one volume of this). That would make study so much easier given the size of many of these books or Mahayana sutras like the Avatamsaka Sutra, which is over 1,300 pages long in translation.

Summer Solstice and Celebrations

2010-06-21T14:55:50-07:00

There is still a lot of pagan in me, as I’ve said before. It is still my basic cultural paradigm for interacting with the world with whatever Buddhist sensibilities I’ve developed on top of it.

I’ve always appreciated, if not always dramatically celebrated, the wheel of the year as a sensible series of holidays (or “holy days”) during the year. Of these, I’ve always appreciated the solstices the most. They are the points of the greatest light and darkness in our daily experience of the world. Today, the Summer solstice occurred at 4:38 AM today in my local time (and I think that I was even awake for it!). Today we enter Summer. The days will continue to get hotter, especially here in California, but they will begin to shorten again.

Since I’m not involved with any of the pagan groups in California, having pretty much switched entirely to focusing on Buddhist practice in the year before I moved down here, I’m not celebrating today’s solstice with anyone. I’ll engage in my normal meditative practices today.

Instead, this weekend, I will be visiting family and friends in Seattle with my wife. While there, we’re going to go to the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America, the only North American Shinto shrine. This will be to attend Nagoshi-no-Oharahi Taisai (夏越の祓), the great midyear purification. (Shinto is rather big on purification…) It isn’t quite a solar celebration as much as a midyear one since it is performed on the last day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, being one of the two great purifications done a year (the other being at the end of the twelfth lunar month). This rite is a form of purification involving walking through a circle of rope. A large sacred ring called a chi-no-wa, made of loosely twisted miscanthus reeds, is set up and after oharahi people walk through it. It was originally intended for the purification of agricultural workers, to ward off mishap.

The shrine describes the event with the following:

This is one of the most enjoyable and interesting ceremonies and important days of Great Purification during the yearly cycle...during this ceremony the Oharahi-no-Kotoba (the most important words of Shinto) is read facing the sanpaisa instead of Shinzen and participants receive the Kirinusa Oharae (Oharahi Shinji)....this Taisai employs the sacred instruments of Katashiro (paper effigy/hitogata) and Chi-no-Wa (reed hoop) to purify any unfortunate Ki from first hald of the year and then to receive fresh Ki/ power of Nature to successfully pass through the second hald of the year...after the Chi-no-Wa Shinji participants can see the purified Katashiro go into the Mountain River (Katashiro Shinji).

We joined the shrine a bit over a year ago when visiting Seattle but this will be the first event that we’ve attended since that time. I’m very much looking forward to it.

The seeming oddness of a (nominally Korean) Zen priest who grew up Roman Catholic and was a Neopagan participating in Shinto purification rituals is not entirely lost on me but, as a friend of mine once said to sum up certain aspects of the global world we find ourselves within, “Aloha, Amigo!”

Ace Monster Toys: All On Board

2010-06-17T21:18:46-07:00

Left to Right: Chris, Al, Shannon and his Mustache, Dr. Jesus, Mike, Neha

The effort to get Ace Monster Toys, the East Bay Hackerspace, off the ground continues. We continue to meet on Monday nights at 7:30 PM, often at Berkeley Coworking. This last Monday we took another step towards becoming official by electing our board of directors. This consists of:

Al Billings (that is, me)
Christian Fernandez
Shannon Lee
Mike Gittelsohn
Dr. Jesus (a man of questionable virtue)

Our next task is to appoint our three officers, the president, the secretary, and the treasurer. Neha volunteered to be secretary on the spot (a thankless task!). We have candidates for the others though it is also possible that one of us may resign from the board to become president because, in a fit of civic theory, we made board member ineligible to be officers and then elected most of the membership willing to be in charge of things to the board. (Oops!) The reason why we need officers immediately to go with the board is that I will be filing California non-profit incorporation papers for us. These papers require us to name our board and officers, along with our by-laws. The incorporation process is quick, taking only a week or two, and will allow us to rent a space and receive donations from people. Once that is returned, we will be filing for 501(c)(3) status with the federal government. In the meantime, we are constantly looking at various potential spaces in the East Bay. You can follow our progress on the wiki if so inclined. We have several good candidates in Oakland and Berkeley. Now that we have a board, I expect that our weekly Monday meetings will transition to something a bit more fun and a bit less organizational. We’ve spoken about having a visit and maybe class by the local chapter of Toool, the Open Organisation Of Lockpickers, as well as doing some electronic project instructions. I encourage anyone interested and in the East Bay to come out to one of the Monday meetings.

Amongst White Clouds - More Chinese Buddhism in video

2010-05-31T11:19:25-07:00

Rev. Paul Lynch, my preceptor and the head of the Five Mountain Sangha, just did a blog post about “Amongst White Clouds,” a Buddhist documentary filmed a few years back. Since I’ve been posting a bit about videos, especially Buddhist documentaries recently, I thought I’d mention it as well.

It is a film about Chinese Buddhist hermits living in the Zhongnan Mountains of China. The filmmaker, Edward Burger, wanders around interviewing various hermits to ask them about their practice and why they live that way up in the mountain. It is quite interesting and the Journal of Buddhist Ethics has a review of it online as well that gives it a positive evaluation.

It turns out that the entire video is up on Google Video as well so it can be watched online. I’ve embedded it below for people viewing my blog locally. Go give it a watch if you’ve got time to kill (and, if you’re reading this, you probably do…).

Ace Monster Toys - a Hackerspace in Formation

2010-05-30T15:45:25-07:00

It is about time that I posted something that isn’t entirely Buddhist related. I did update the description of this blog to “Open Source Buddhism, Technology, and Geekery” recently. I’ve been posting mostly about Buddhism for quite a while given my focus on “open source” Buddhist efforts but I am a geek that works professionally in Internet technology and I do have non-Buddhist interests! In any case, I have interesting news to report. There is a hackerspace-in-formation in the East Bay now. (For those that don’t know, the “East Bay” is the area across from San Francisco that contains Berkeley, Oakland, and a few other cities). There has been a hackerspace in San Francisco for almost two years now, Noisebridge. I was involved in its founding but immediately after we got the space for it, I went to Egypt. When I came back from that trip, I developed a viral illness that laid me up for three months and put me in recovery for at least six after that. Needless to say, I found that a hackerspace in San Francisco was not ideal for me since I live on the Oakland/Berkeley/Emeryville border. I found myself less and less inclined to go when I wasn’t feeling well and it took me an hour or more to get there. It is hard to feel connected to a space that isn’t nearby, especially when you aren’t feeling connected to much while being ill or recovering. I have been wanting to see about getting a hackerspace going more locally and since many Noisebridge members live in the East Bay, it has seemed like something that would be doable. Once I dropped out of my doctoral program (abandon ship!), I even had time. I started an e-mail list a year ago but didn’t do much with it, lacking motivation. I ran into a number of people in the last few months who were Burners, engineers, etc. who seemed find a local hackerspace to be of real interest. I got a few of them to sign up to the e-mail list and on April 21, I sent out an e-mail to the list to kickstart things again. It turns out to have been a resounding success. I think it has been just the right time for a bunch of people and the reaction has been quite positive. A few people are Noisebridge members but more than half of those currently involved are not, being local engineers, geeks, and makers. With the positive response, people decided that we should start meeting in person instead of just online. During the first physical meeting, we decided to meet every week in order to try to coalesce a critical mass of people. This has worked very well and we’ve had three meetings so far with the next being tomorrow. Each meeting has had a revolving cast of people but we’ve had a pretty consistent turn out of 15 or so people. We have an e-mail list (soon to move to a new location), a wiki, and an irc channel (#acemonstertoys on Freenode). We were using the HackEastBay.com domain that I’d set up last year but last meeting we voted on an official name. We’re now “Ace Monster Toys,” which is an anagram for “Setec Astronomy” and “Too many secrets”, both used in the hacker film, Sneakers. (Sneakers was filmed right here in Oakland.) We’ve taken over AceMonsterToys.org now and are gradually moving our infrastructure to that location. The group has decided to put a pro tempore structure into place, until the end of August, so we can have time to determine how we wish to organize. We’re specifically avoiding the anarchistic (literally) model that Noisebridge decided to use for governance based on consensus. We’re likely to go for a much more traditional model of dues paying members electing a board who, like good Roman senators, decide things for the good of the organization during their limited terms. Our next steps are to determine what this structure will be, incorporate as either a non-profit (preferred by many) or standard organization, and find a space to rent. Realistically, we’ll probably talk and talk until a good space turns up and then we’ll quickly scramble to incorporate and then lease it. When Noisebridge was organizing, it met in coffee shops a couple of times a month for more than a year before, suddenly, a good space was found in the Mission, and we scrambled, over the course of about 48 hours, to get the funds together to get it. When groups have spaces, potential members tend to start appearing, probably because the group seems more “real” than it did when it was just a bunch of people meeting in a coffee shop. Right now, the membership of the group seems to be heavily interested in things related to physical fabrication. This ranges from electronics to CNC mills to makerbots and the like. There are already two makerbots in the group, a mill or two, and discussions of what could be built with more. Ideally, we will initially organize as a space for people to have workspaces for projects and share tools and purchase more expensive equipment. From there, we will probably branch out into having classes and working on projects in small or larger groups as interests pull at people. It is all long on ideas and short on details at this time. I encourage people who are interested in becoming involved or even in following our efforts to join our e-mail list or follow us on the wiki. If you are in the East Bay (or anywhere in the Bay Area), feel free to drop by a Thursday meeting and give your ideas. This is a joint project amongst anyone interested in getting their hands dirty and participating.

Unmovable Masters

2010-05-25T17:53:56-07:00

ha ha ha!! I’m laughing as I have just read this quote from One Bird, One Stone:

A senior student who had been practicing with Seung Sahn for many years was walking with his teacher along a hallway. When the master, in response to some item in the conversation, advised his for the umpteenth time, “Only don’t know,” something in the student snapped. Grabbing his teacher and shoving him up against the wall, the student shouted “If I hear you say that one more time I’m going to scream!” Seung Sahn looked at him and nodded. “Very good dharma demonstration!” he said.

I wonder how many great Zen teachers would react this calmly. That did make me think of this interview with Angie Boissevain at Sweeping Zen. In the course of the interview, she said:

Most of what I learned, I learned at Jikoji where, at the beginning, 60 disgruntled people were living on the land as an “anarchistic commune,” and declared that “only God owns the land.” Kobun invited them all to join us in the zendo. There were several tumultuous years when “saving all sentient beings” took on a very different meaning for us. It meant working with Vietnam vets and runaway kids and ex-cons. There was one crazed vet who’d been a helicopter gunner in ‘nam, who scared everybody. He was very tall, and very very angry. One day the work leader called Kobun out of the zendo during sesshin to tell him that Brett was stealing the engine from Jikoji’s truck in the parking lot. “I’ll take care of him,” said Kobun. “Oh, no! He’s dangerous!” “It’s ok,”Kobun said, “I have a knife,” and he opened his robe to show a big knife. Kobun walked up to the parking lot while everyone waited a long time on the zendo porch. Then he was back. “What happened?” “I gave him the knife and I told him he would have to kill me first in order to take the engine,” he said. “Then what?” “He took the knife, got in his car, and drove away.”

Seung Sahn has a story in the Compass of Zen about a Korean Zen master that ignores the Japanese soldiers during the Japanese invasion when they come to his temple to sack it. While the men are threatening him and attempting to intimidate him with words and actions, the Zen master is unperturbed and ignores them, which they find insulting, making them even angrier. As the soldiers become more and more agitated, their general is so impressed by the calm and still mind of the master in the face of this that he apologizes and withdraws his men from the temple, leaving the master unharmed and the temple unsacked. This level of stillness of mind and fearlessness in the face of actions by others is something that I truly admire. Correct situation, correct relationship, and correct function, indeed!

EFF Geek Reading: Cory Doctorow's "For the Win" Audio

2010-05-20T00:49:21-07:00

I attended an Electronic Frontier Foundation fundraiser this evening in San Francisco. Cory Doctorow has been in the Bay Area for a few days on his book tour for his new novel, “For the Win.” He was at Borderlands and Book, Inc. and then a bunch of high schools (it is a Young Adult book, his second). I chose to go to the EFF event as an EFF member to show support for it and because I figured that Cory was more likely to speak about tech related issues there, since he used to work for the EFF and much of the audience would be geeks. Cory spoke for about an hour. He did a short reading from the book (actually reading a section that I had just read last night) and then did a brief talk on copyright and why it matters to more than just authors. It was actually a bit different than the “standard” speech on it that I’ve heard from him before and was classic Doctorow in covering a bit of the current landscape in copyright and why people should care, given that most of what happens on the Internet is affected by this fight.

I freely admit to being a huge fanboy of his work. I’ve been reading Boing Boing since at least 2004 (and I’ve even been boingboing’d once) and have read all of his novels as they’ve come out. Being a professional computer geek that got his start in the late 1980s running a BBS and hacking into the local university’s unix machines and network, I’m probably his ideal audience in many ways. That said, I think that he has a lot to say and the Internet is everywhere today, affecting everyone in our society. FTW is about union organizing amongst third world gold farmers in MMORGs but the economics and the ideas about labor and individual freedom and self-direction are applicable to anyone. I’m planning on getting my daughter a copy of it now that she’s 14 and old enough to be reading his YA works.

I contacted Cory about recording his reading the other day. I’ve previously recorded him at SF in SF with Rudy Rucker and at the late Cody’s Books of Berkeley when he was touring for “Little Brother,” his last YA book. This was the first time that he was heavily microphoned and the audio is clear but hardly ideal quality because it was coming from large speakers and not simply recording his normal speaking voice. He offered to have me plugged into the sound board but, unfortunately, my current Edirol R-09 device can’t handle XLR inputs so I was stuck with it on the table next to him.

I plan to post my review of his book in the next day or two when I finish it. So far, I’m enjoying it quite a bit though I believe that “Makers” will continue to be my favorite by him. I have made the audio available at the Internet Archive.

Cold Mountain: Another Chan Buddhist Film

2010-05-17T10:54:34-07:00

Today I found out about another Buddhist documentary focusing on the Chan Buddhism of China. This is “Cold Mountain: Han Shan” directed by Mike Hazard and Deb Wallwork and it came out last year.

Their is a synopsis on the website for it:

"Cold Mountain" is a film portrait of the Tang Dynasty Chinese poet Han Shan, a.k.a. Cold Mountain. Recorded on location in China, America and Japan, Burton Watson, Red Pine and the legendary Gary Snyder describe the poet's life and tell poems. A trickster, Han Shan wrote poems for everyone, not just the educated elite. A man free of spiritual doctrine, it is unclear whether or not he was a monk, whether he was a Buddhist or a Taoist, or both. It is not even certain he ever lived, but the poems do.

You can watch the entire film on cultureunplugged.com. I’ve also embedded it below for those viewing my blog locally (not through my feed).

I’ve only watched the beginning portion of this so far, since I just heard about it, but it seemed worth sharing.

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Tricycle's Online Retreats and Buddhist Audio

2010-05-10T14:37:56-07:00

Through Tricycle magazine’s website, Stephen Batchelor has been running an “online retreat” called “Buddhism for this One and Only Life.” This seems to consist largely of video presentations by him, rather than some of more interactive online retreats that I’ve seen from some Zen teachers. Examples of teachers doing such things are Dosho Port or Jundo Cohen, who are both doing a lot of good work.

Tricycle wants one to be a subscriber in order to watch the videos so I’ve only seen the first one, which is free. I found it interesting enough to suggest to others as something to spend 25 minutes watching and you can see it here.

I see that Ken McLeod is also running a Tricycle online retreat, The Way to Freedom. You can see the first video here for free as well. (“Hey kid, the first one’s free…”)

Given how much free content, even from both of these teachers, there is online, I’m not sure if there is much reason to pay for a Tricycle subscription or access unless one is interested in Tricycle magazine. I’ve generally found it of only marginal interest but I find a lot of the content produced by the Buddhist media in America to be targeted at a much different audience (cough aging boomers cough) than me and, therefore, pretty boring, often bringing the opposite of awakening.

Ken McLeod has an ongoing, very good, podcast available that includes audio from many of the retreats that he teachers. He comes at things from the perspective of the Vajrayana.

Stephen Batchelor did a retreat recently at Upaya Zen Center. You can find the audio online here for it. Upaya Zen Center maintains a vast archive of audio material from their retreats as well, which you can subscribe to as a podcast. I’ve found their content to be exceptional as well.

Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa

2010-05-06T11:16:41-07:00

I recently watched a documentary, “Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa,” about the community in the untown of Mesa, New Mexico.

You can watch the trailer for it below or on Youtube.

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Reason.com had an article on the film that I read a few years back.

It was an interesting film for me. The people that live in this community, and it really does seem to be a community, are people that don’t want anything to do with “normal” society, for whatever reason. The film states that there are about 400 people on the Mesa. A lot of them appear to be veterans who are pretty alienated society because of the trauma of war, addiction issues, and the like. Some people are aging hippies and countercultural types. Others are runaways and those that just cannot fit into society. These are people that don’t want to deal with society anymore and often feel that the only way that they can live free is to opt out of the world. Of course, they create their own world in doing this.

It would be quite easy to watch this film and judge these people as somehow being really odd but I am actually of the opposite mind on this. These people are really “just folks” like you’d encounter anywhere. I’m of the firm opinion that people overestimate the amount of supposed normality in the people we live around in our neighborhoods or that we encounter in day-to-day life. People are weird, strange, and often troubled or unhappy. This is true in the cities as much as it is true in any off the beaten path community. It is easier for people to hide this in cities since we are effectively anonymous from our neighbors and treat other people as strangers. Just about any of the people highlighted in the interviews in “Off the Grid” could be living in your neighborhood, struggling with their issues. It is just that much more obvious when they remove themselves from the seemingly normal struggle of our consensual reality that call our society and congregate as a community of misfits. I felt an overwhelming sense of compassion for the personal difficulties that each of these people discussed during the course of the film. Like I said, they are just folks and their troubles are really no different than anyone else’s except for, in some cases, degree and in their way of attempting to deal with it.

I definitely think it is an interesting film. I did find myself wishing that some of the Burners (Burning Man folks) that I know would go out there and help these folks out with some infrastructure and building issues. The engineer in me kept thinking “You could have some nice decentralized infrastructure and some quality in your building with just a little work” but then I’m a geek.

I do wish that there were more options for people to create alternate communities without having to build everything from scratch on their own. People are so alienated or isolated from others that they feel online in their troubles and oddness. It would be interesting to see attempts to create places where people were encouraged to make places by Mesa but a bit more organized (internally) and maybe slightly less random and crazy but still leaving space for people to experiment with other way of living than what we tacitly allow. Unless you are the kind of person that can find an existing community or gather people and resources to create one from scratch, it is a daunting task to want to engage in an alternative way of living without knowing how to do so or to find like minded people who may feel the same.

I’ve been fascinated with intentional communities or alternative ways of living for most of my life, all the more so as someone on the spiritual fringe of America, but I’ve never wanted to be a lone nut (or nut with a family) building a compound off in woods or joining one of the rare successful communities that often are organized around a specific philosophy or ideal.

As it turns out, you can watch the entire film online at snagfilms.com, which was a surprise. Feel free to go give it a watch if this sounds interesting to you.

Reprint of "Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism" Available

2010-05-06T10:33:47-07:00

The reprint of “Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism” from the Engaged Zen Foundation is finally available. This is one of a number of guides for people engaged in prison ministry within the context of Zen Buddhism and contains quite a bit of practical information.

As it says on the Engaged Zen site:

Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism: A Sourcebook for Prison Chaplains, Administrators, and Security Personnel is intended to provide valid information to prisoners, correctional and judicial professionals about the practices of Zen Buddhism in prisons and jails. Zen is one of many schools in the Buddhist traditions; it is not the only one. The information presented here is primarialy about Zen but can serve to illustrate, in a general sense, Buddhist practice in prison. The example of liturgy and descriptions of monastic practices contained herein, however, are representative of a Rinzai Zen Buddhist sect and do not necessarily mirror those of other Buddhist sects. Terms used throughout this book originated in the Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, and Japanese languages. No attempt has been made to provide in-depth definitions of these terms other than their usage relative to this text. Buddhism is growing at a phenomenal rate in American prisons, and this trend can be expected to continue for the foreseeable future. We trust this book will help to foster the ability of prisoners to engage in contemplative spiritual practice while incarcerated.

It had been out of print for a while and Rev. Kobutsu Malone led a successful donation effort to gather the funds for a reprint. He has put a PDF document up with details.

Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism: A Source Book for Prison Chaplains, Administrators, and Security Personnel by Kobutsu Malone
Paper, 88 pp. with photos, 5 3⁄8 × 8 1⁄4
ISBN: 978-09677775-0-4
Price: $17.95 USD
Shipping and handling: $3.50 USD

It can be ordered from:
EZF PUBLISHING
Post Office Box 213 Sedgwick, Maine 04676-0213 USA
(207) 359-2555
ezfpub@engaged-zen.org

ALMS: a Chan Buddhist film

2010-04-17T12:01:40-07:00

A fimmaker, Ted Burger, has made a new short film focusing on Buddhism in China. You may know him as the director of “Amongst White Clouds,” which was a film about Chinese hermits that gained some following a few years back. Ted wrote to some people recently about the film. He said:

"It's the first of an on-going series of academic short films I'm producing on Buddhist life in China. It's called ALMS, and it is a portrait of life within a Chan Buddhist monastery, seen from the perspective of the kitchen! The film deals directly with gardening, cooking and ritual surrounding meals in a Chan community, while also serving as general introduction to Chan monastic life."

The website for it is http://www.commonfolkfilms.com/ALMS.html. From the blurb on the web site:

ALMS is a cinematic tour through a remote mountain Chan/Zen Buddhist monastery in Southern China. Student audiences are guided by the community’s Head Chef (典坐 dianzuo) as he explains the traditional cultivation, distribution and ritual offering of food in this traditional Buddhist community. We follow the gathering of local fuels and farmed vegetables, and witness how living members of this community work in harmony with elements of their physical environment to provide the supportive infrastructure surrounding the Meditation Hall (禅堂 Zendo/Chantang), where a group of cloistered monks devote themselves to meditation practice."

The film is short, 24 minutes long, and you can watch the trailer here or download it as an mp4 file. I’ve embedded it below for those that read my blog on the website and have quicktime.

Zen and the Art of Dating

2010-04-09T10:00:31-07:00

This is a guest post by Shane as part of the article swap, part 3 within the Buddhist blogoshphere. I am posting over at Peace Ground Zero today. - Al Hi everyone and welcome to article swap 3. I’m posting here at Al’s house and Jomon is posting over at mine regarding Zen and Food. When I started writing on this post, I was approaching it with a discursive and relative based mind. I wanted to look at how Zen had made me approach dating differently…hopefully better. I wanted to explore how non-attachment and equanimity could be balanced with passion and romance. I wanted to know how I could be equanimous when what I really wanted to do was jump some bones or engage in an argument. I found myself approaching Zen and dating in a very non-Zen way. So I said to myself…”self…what the fuck?” In the practice of Zen meditation, the brain moves toward a state of being very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that it stops it’s normal thinking and perceiving processes. Different teachers and different flavors of Zen have a variety of ways of describing the quiet and it’s aspects…no mind, equanimity, illuminated mind, etc…the problem being that when you are in such a quiet state of no thinking and no language, trying to describe it in words usually comes out sounding kooky as shit (at worst) or somehow inappropriate (at best)…’the buddha is a shit stick’…seriously? More to the point it can be difficult to say how Zen and the art of anything really works out because Zen is beyond words. Talking about Zen and dating is like talking about Zen and the sky. We end up talking about the clouds and weather patterns when what we really want to experience is the sunlight. Here are a few of those clouds chosen randomly for you (some are quotes that caught my eye, some are responses from friends whom I asked for feedback from, some blog post quotes, some book quotes, etc). Fellow Dharma Punk David says “I think a lot of people in Buddhism have this idea that ‘enlightenment’ or ‘non-attachment’ means some kind of automaton, some stoic, emotionless robot that does not want or desire anything. I suspect that it is little more like having a little space between those desires and our actions.” This touches on an idea that I have had as I’ve been going thru this most recent dating experience. Practicing Zen meditation has allowed me the space to see my attachments for what they are and disempower them. I have had a strong “ugly duckling” complex all my life that has led me in the past to gravitate either to men who would make me ok or men who I felt were worse off than me whom I could fix…makes it damn hard to find an equal. For once in my life, my boyfriend and I are on equal ground. Refreshing or scary?…well, depends on how much meditation I’ve had :-) With enough meditation, it’s neither…the situation just is exactly as it is. Fellow blogger Jomon (and also my <a href=”guest post writer for this article swap) wrote me a response which I will include a bit later. What I want to put in this spot is her description of her feelings on her Zen wedding day when she was the most awesome Zen Bride. She says “I was nervous, excited, trembling, tearful, joyful, irritated, tired, panicked and peaceful, sometimes all at once.” Now if that don’t express the experience of being in a relationship at all stages, I’m not sure what does. I had some hope that being a “good” meditator would make me immune to these things, but what I did that was an improvement for me, was to decrease my attachment to the feelings as well as having to make unnecessary meaning out of them. Zen has taught me experientially that meaning making has a shit ton more to do with me than it does with the situation. (as an old counselor, I knew this as book knowledge, but in my old age I finally got it as a practice) My mentor (Zentor?) Flint says “Most men want to find that special partner that will save them - from whatever - and make it all better, as if love really does conquer all. But there is no person, no practice, no teacher, no nothing that will save you from life as it is, and that is what practice makes possible, facing life as it is,” and “Sometimes we meet someone and it is as if we say, one way or another, “Life is kind of a challenge. Want to do it with me?” That’s about it. Everything else is drama. Ain’t that the shit? That’s why when I feel my ass is in a crack, this is the man I email for guidance. I love thinking of a relationship as defined by ‘Life is kind of a challenge. Want to do it with me?’. That is something I can do that allows both me and my boyfriend to be exactly who we are and no one has to fix anybody else. And another from Jomon… “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. Amen sister. From Chan Master Sheng Yen (as one of the OG’s of Chan…Chinese for Zen…he is the shit…I get so much out of his teachings that I had a very hard time deciding what to use, but I think this quote really hits to the core). “When you awaken and vexation (his translation of Dukkha) becomes wisdom, you will understand that the past mind is no different from the present mind. Therefore, there is no need to resent your mind of vexation. Simply practice hard, and quite naturally this mind of vexation will become the mind of wisdom.” I think I chose this quote because it feels like I have come around full circle and dating is still dating but I’ve reduced my vexation about it. (I just love the word ‘vexation’, it feels like using a beautiful antique as if I were wearing a top hat and tails as I write this) To bring this craziness to some kind of close, I want to sum up this random ball of Zen and dating into some short ideas that will help me to keep my head on correct (not straight…you thought I was going to say straight, but fact is I’m a big old fag). Shit is still shit and my Zen shit don’t make shit any less shit than it is Don’t make shit up cuz you’ll probably be wrong and it’ll be your shit and not his shit that’s the problem anyway If shit ain’t broke don’t fix it Don’t worry about your past fuck ups cuz all shit is now Life is kind of a challenge. Want to do it with me? :-)

A Short Talk on the Diamond Sutra

2010-04-04T13:42:58-07:00

This is the core of a short talk that I gave on the Diamond Sutra at the Five Mountain Order’s Spring Retreat in Cincinnati, Ohio. This talk was offered in lieu of a short final paper in our seminary’s class on the Diamond Sutra. Because of this, it is not in the more common “story telling” manner of most Zen Dharma talks. I was conveying some thoughts and background on the Diamond Sutra to a very mixed audience (there were at least two people there who had never read the Diamond Sutra there). I mixed it up a little more and added from some discussion earlier in the day when I did the talk but this is the gist of it. I’ve only spent time studying the Diamond Sutra in any depth recently and I don’t consider myself even vaguely an expert in its content. I’m just a Zen priest, not a master. :-)

Spring Retreat Dharma Talk on the Diamond Sutra – March 26, 2010

by Rev. Jigen Billings

My talk today is on the Diamond Sutra, which is properly called the Vajracchedika-prajnaparamita-sutra. This is sometimes translated as the Diamond Cutter Perfection of Wisdom Sutra or, less literally, as the Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion. The Diamond Sutra is one of the most popular Buddhist sutras revered in the northern school of Buddhism, which includes all Mahayana schools. For those of us interested in Zen, it is a core text and I figure if you’re here for this retreat, you’re interested in Zen. It sits alongside the Heart Sutra, the Sixth Ancestor’s Platform Sutra, the Lankavatara Sutra, and the Avatamsaka Sutra within Zen. It is probably the second most studied and chanted sutra, right after the Heart Sutra.

Hui Neng, who was the Sixth Ancestor of Chan and one of its most important teachers, is reputed to have attained enlightenment upon hearing a line chanted from the Diamond Sutra when he was a child. Hung-jen, his teacher and predecessor as the Fifth Ancestor, later schooled him in it extensively. Hung-jen told his disciples that by cherishing the Diamond Sutra, they would see their true natures and become Buddhas. All Zen lineages are derived from these two figures. A later famous Zen master, Deshan or Tokusan, began his career by studying the Diamond Sutra for 20 years but during a famous encounter with an old woman and her snacks, he realized that he didn’t really understand it and wound up burning all of his commentaries on it before finding a Zen teacher. I expect that many of us are familiar with Deshan’s story or will become so soon enough since it has become part of the koan tradition within Zen. You can find numerous commentaries in the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Zen schools on the Diamond Sutra but most of them have not been translated into English. This leaves us often on our own in trying to study and understand this text.

So what is the Diamond Sutra exactly? Like all sutras, it is a text that purports to be the words spoken by the Buddha. It records a teaching given by the Buddha to his followers near the city of Sravasti. The Diamond and Heart Sutras are two of the most well known texts categorized as Prajnaparamita. Prajna is translated as wisdom or sometimes as transcendent wisdom. It is one of the six paramitas or perfections cultivated as practices by those who receive the Bodhisattva Vow. So Prajnaparamita literally means the perfection of wisdom. Prajna is considered to be the culmination of the six perfections and the Prajnaparamita sutras all deal with this perfection of wisdom. What is perfection of wisdom? It is the development of direct insight into shunyata. Now shunyata is a term that you’ll hear a lot about within Zen Buddhism as well as other Mahayana schools. We often hear people translate shunyata as emptiness or void but these both sound rather nihilistic and negative to people and don’t really give the right sense of things. Popsanim here likes the term, “Boundless” for it. I generally prefer to translate it as insubstantiality. In his commentary on the Diamond Sutra, Mu Soeng relates shunyata to its Sanskrit root, svi, which means, “to swell.” He draws the image of a bubble or a balloon, which can seem large and solid but, when it pops, is seen to be empty of any real substance. Think of a soap bubble if you want to envision this. This is the illusory appearance of all phenomena, empty of any real substance. The premise here is that all phenomena, all concepts, all things in the world or in our minds, are lacking in permanence or an eternal nature. They are transitory and insubstantial when viewed in the ultimate sense, arising, persisting a while, and then passing away. This applies to everything. Ultimately, there is nothing that is permanent or eternal in our experience or in the universe. This often sounds scary or repellent to people but it’s actually quite liberating. All the suffering of life, the difficulties, and so forth are transitory. Conversely, the same applies to the most positive aspects of life but it is taught that our suffering comes from clinging to things as if they were permanent or in grasping after them once they are gone or shying away from those things that we find repellent. The direct realization of shunyata shows us that all things are in flux and the world is unendingly mutable. This is at the essence of the Diamond Sutra and other Prajnaparamita teachings. The Prajnaparamita texts are amongst the earliest Mahayana texts to appear, if not the first. They first show up in written form around 100 years before the beginning of the Common Era or five hundred years after the death of the Buddha. Some scholars believe that those Buddhists who disagreed with the dominant form of Nikaya Buddhism of the time composed these texts in the hundreds of years before their written appearance so they could be quite a bit older. Mahayana Buddhists have traditionally said that these texts were taught directly by the Buddha and then passed along orally until they were written down. We don’t really know for sure where they come from or when they were composed. The Prajnaparamita texts certainly claim to be the words of the Buddha and have been revered as such by those that follow their teachings. Regardless of their origin, they have been an important source of realization.

During the several centuries after the first Prajnaparamita text appeared, a large number of them developed or were gathered. The Diamond Sutra is one of the last of these. It was written down in Sanskrit around the year 350 of the Common Era, probably in northern India. Our experience of it, as a Zen lineage, comes from its introduction into China. This occurred in the year 402, when it was first translated into Chinese. While many of the Prajnaparamita texts are quite long, often tens of thousands of lines, the Diamond Sutra is only 300 lines long and the Heart Sutra is even shorter than that. The popularity of these two sutras over others is often thought to be because they both express the essence of Prajnaparamita but also because they short enough to be easily memorized and chanted by practitioners. In Fact, like many Zen lineages, we chant the Heart Sutra in our own morning service.

So far, this has all been general information. I’ve been talking about what the Diamond Sutra is and when and where it comes from but not really about what is contained in it or what it has to teach other than discussing shunyata a little. I’m going to talk a little about the Diamond Sutra and what is contained in it but this is, at best, just a gloss. We could spend an entire retreat discussing it and I am only touching the surface of it. The Diamond Sutra tells us that the Buddha has been staying at Jeta Grove just outside the city of Sravasti with his retinue of monks, nuns, lay people and bodhisattvas. All of the kinds of the Buddha’s followers were gathered with him there. The sutra describes how one day, the Buddha made his begging rounds for food, returned to the monastery, cleaned up, arranged his cushion and sat down, resting his attention on what was before him. At this point, his followers gathered to hear him speak and one of them, Subhuti, came to him with a question to be answered for the assembled crowd. What Subhuti asked him was, “World-Honored One, in the case of a son or daughter of a good family who arouses the thought for supreme awakening, how should they abide in it and how should they keep their thoughts under control?”

Subhuti is asking how one should follow the Bodhisattva path, keeping the mind directed to the task of supreme awakening, and how to keep the thoughts under control and bent to this ultimate purpose. Obviously, the Buddha agrees that this is an excellent question and proceeds to have a dialogue with Subhuti where he asks various questions of him and then either corrects, explains, or agrees with Subhuti’s answers. This dialogue is what we read in the Diamond Sutra. In reply to Subhuti’s question, the Buddha states that those who follow the Bodhisattva path should produce one thought and that is to lead all beings, regardless of form or origin, into Nirvana and final awakening. This thought is the impetus and ongoing motivation for all of us who practice the Bodhisattva Path. It should be the beginning and end point for all of our practice. We don’t practice strictly for ourselves but to be able to help others in their difficulties. It is in the rest of his answer that the Buddha engages in a pattern of logic that is found throughout the Diamond Sutra and that has confused and enlightened so many generations of students of the text. The Buddha goes on to say that although innumerable beings are led to Nirvana and liberation, no beings have been led to liberation. This seems nonsensical when you first hear this. How can innumerable beings be led to liberation but no beings have been led to it at the same time? In answer to this question, the Buddha says that if a Bodhisattva has a notion of a being, he or she isn’t a true Bodhisattva because Bodhisattvas have no notion of a self, a being, a living soul or a person. The Buddha is answering Subhuti’s question of how a son or daughter of a good family, how all of us, should abide in our desire for supreme awakening and how we should keep our thoughts under control. The answer revolves around perceiving the lack of substantiality in all things, concepts or notions and not being attached to these things.

This is a very important point and one to which the Diamond Sutra returns again and again. Later in the text, the Buddha tells Subhuti that all Bodhisattvas should develop a pure, lucid mind that doesn’t depend upon sight, sound, touch, flavor, smell, or any thought that arises in it. The mind of a Bodhisattva should function without dependence on anything. Ultimately, there is no self and there are no beings as we normally think of them. There is nothing that to support the mind in our question for enlightenment. As realized beings that have achieved the perfection of wisdom or Prajna, true Bodhisattvas has insight into shunyata and can directly experience the insubstantiality of all phenomena. This insubstantiality applies to all things and concepts, including the beings around us as well as our own self-conception as beings. Norman Fischer, former abbot at the San Francisco Zen Center, describes shunyata as a “double-negative” or as an “undoing.” Shunyata isn’t a something that we see but it is an untying of the knot of our conceptual framework. It allows us to take things apart and to see the world as it is. It is the insubstantiality of our framework and concepts that we need to realize. Realized Bodhisattvas know that there is no true self or being for themselves or for anyone else. The idea of a self is just a story that we tell ourselves and that we experience as being real out of ignorance. It is this story that leads to the unsatisfactory nature of existence since we experience ourselves and everything around us as real and crave or chase after things and experiences. When we believe that we have a self, we want to protect it. With insight into shunyata, we can see that there is no one to be saved and nothing from which to be saved. If we aren’t trying to save anyone, what are we doing? This is a conundrum that has perplexed those who have studied these teachings for much of the last two millennia. Think of the first of the Four Great Vows that we chant in our services. It states, “Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them.” On one level, this is an impossible task because if there are truly infinite numbers of beings, there is no way we can ever reach the end of them. With the insight that the Buddha is discussing here, we can realize that there is both no one to save but also no one to do any saving. If we view ourselves and other beings as being separate and distinct, we will be unable to save them or ourselves. Once we can break down our created distinctions and see that all of us have the same essential nature, the liberation of the self is the liberation of all and, in fact, we are already liberated. Enlightenment is not something to be acquired but the inherent state of all beings.

With the relative view that you and I have on most days (assuming that I am not addressing a group of realized Bodhisattvas), this is not apparent at all and is completely counterintuitive. I can seem very real to myself and you all look quite real and separate from me. The world is filled with colorful and distracting things that pull at our attention. The Diamond Sutra, and all of the Prajnaparamita texts, is attempting to deconstruct this day-to-day view of the world and show us the actual nature of existence and all of our conceptions about it through the realization of shunyata. The basic nature of shunyata as something that deconstructs all concepts and experiences is something that the Buddha brings up again and again. Shunyata is a negation of our conceptualization of all things, even our ideas about shunyata.

During the rest of the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha and Subhuti trade questions and answers where the Buddha continues, again and again, to bring up the negation of concepts, pointing out shunyata. The question of merit or a teaching will come up and it will be negated. This negation will then be said to exemplify that which is negated, bringing it full circle. Merit is said to be no-merit and this is given as why it is merit. The realization of arhatship is said to be the no-realization of arhatship and this is why it is arhatship. In a purely logical fashion, it doesn’t make sense. How can something be a thing only by realization that it is not that thing? It does make sense if you realize that this is pulling at our attachment to ideas and concepts, even our attachment to the very idea of becoming Buddhas, of saving people, the Dharma, or of realization. All of these are insubstantial and clinging to these concepts, being attached to them, gets in the way of actual realization. As long as we have any trace of this clinging, we will fall back into the samsaric world of appearances and story making. As the Buddha says in the text, any notion of a self, a being, a soul, or a person leads away from realization. Those that have no notion of a self, a being, a soul, or a person are able to achieve realization. For example, when Subhuti asked the Buddha whether there will be beings in the future ages that understand the truth, the Buddha says that there will be Bodhisattvas who will. He then says that they will understand because they hold no notion of a self, a being, a soul, or a person. But the Buddha also negates this simple negation. For these same Bodhisattvas, he says that if they hold to the notion of the Dharma, they will then seize on to the notion of a self, being, soul, or person but he also says that if they hold to the notion of no-Dharma, the same thing will happen. Simple rejection of an idea, the negating of it, is also a form of attachment. Holding on to or rejecting any notions or conceptions does not, in the end, lead to enlightenment. In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha uses the metaphor from the Pali Canon that says the Dharma is a raft to be forsaken when it isn’t needed anymore but he also says that this applies to the conception of no-Dharma as well. If you are attached to either Dharma or no-Dharma, you are attached to a concept and making a preference for something. You are creating something in the world rather than seeing the world as it is. This attachment will trap you in samsara. It isn’t enough to follow the Buddha’s teachings as an ideology. The teachings are upaya, skillful means to an end, which is realization. The teachings are not the point, the realization is. Our focus should not be on Buddhism but on perceiving the nature of the universe, to the truth as we can experience it. The Buddha says in Chapter 14, “a Bodhisattva, detaching him- or herself from all ideas, should rouse the desire to utmost, supreme, and perfect awakening. He or she should product thoughts that are unsupported by forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangible objects, or mind objects, unsupported by Dharma, unsupported by no-Dharma, unsupported by everything.” In another part of the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha asks Subhuti if the Buddha has achieved supreme awakening and whether he has any Dharma or doctrine to teach. Subhuti replies that there is no Dharma or doctrine to be taught. He says, “The truth is ungraspable and inexpressible. It neither is or is not. How is it so? Because all noble teachers are exalted by the unconditioned.” This unconditioned is the very ground of being, shunyata, but it cannot be described or conceptualized. Even calling it shunyata runs the risk of turning it into a thing that we become attached to. The Diamond Sutra ends with the following verse: So you should see all of the fleeting world;

A star at dawn, a bubble in the stream;

A flash of lightning in a summer cloud;

A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

The goal of realization requires that we eventually set aside conceptualization, set aside preferences, and realize the transitory nature of phenomena, their suchness, as they can be perceived directly, without putting our own wishes, preferences or fantasies in the way. In our own tradition, we see this in our koan practice where we need to be here in the immediate moment, not thinking of past, not thinking of future, not simply following teachings or forms because we have been told to do so. Only when we are present and mindful can we experience what is occurring in our lives and respond correctly and immediately to what comes up without creating a story around it. This is the message that the Diamond Sutra tries to convey to us against the backdrop of previous Buddhist teachings.

I hope that this wets your appetite for the Diamond Sutra a bit and causes you to delve a bit into the text. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the text and I can claim not great depth of understanding. Its study is a fruitful area to return to again and again.

What is Open Source Buddhism?

2010-03-12T16:01:56-08:00

The moniker, “Open Source Buddhism,” has been used on this site for quite a while. What this actually means is easily open to question and it seems worthy of a longer discussion. “Open Source” is something that is generally applied to software. As Wikipedia states, “A main principle and practice of open source software development is peer production by bartering and collaboration, with the end-product (and source-material) available at no cost to the public.” The key idea is that the source code, the programming, is available to everyone, as well as the end result. This means that anyone is free and able to take the this source code and work on a project, create a variant of it for their own purposes, or otherwise be directly involved in the creative process of the project. This is contrasted with closed source software, where the code is not available but held behind copyrights, and people are only allowed to be end users, consumers, of the result. Open source oriented towards empowering individuals and encouraging them to contribute while closed source is really about creating consumers and protecting intellectual property. This latter has been the normal mode for software business for quite some time but there are more and more companies organized around open source projects, such as the Mozilla Project’s Firefox web browser.

A key component of open source is peer production. This is a form of joint collaboration by groups of individuals. It relies on self-organizing communities of individuals who come together to produce a shared outcome, result, or product. This same style of organization, as well as the philosophy behind it, can be applied to Buddhism as well. We are living in an era where we have access to extant forms of Buddhism and the records and documents of many forms that do not survive in a living form today. For those of us who are converts to Buddhism, we do not have a vested national or cultural reason to embrace a specific form of Buddhism over another. If one is Thai, for example, it would make sense that the Thai form of Theravadan Buddhism would be embraced and followed as a practitioner. Thai Buddhism is well established in Thai culture, fulfills a variety of social functions, and is deeply integrated in Thai society in a way that only various forms of Christianity generally are in the Western nations. As an European American, it does not necessarily make sense to embrace a very culturally entrenched form of Buddhism. People do this and, for example, take Tibetan names, where Tibetan clothes, and generally embrace a culturally specific form of Buddhism. This is definitely one possible path. An alternative to this is to look at the various forms of Buddhism, evaluate the teachings and practices of them, and to work with those aspects that make the most sense within a non-Buddhist culture without the history and relationship to Buddhism that other nations and peoples already have. The risk in doing this is shallowness and dilettantism but these can be fought against by deeply engaging with the material and working with Buddhist teachers from these traditions in a wholehearted manner. This is not a call to abandon traditional forms of Buddhism but is, rather, a decision to not necessarily be limited by boundaries or practices simply because the form of Buddhism practiced in a specific region or period had these limitations. While open source is an amazingly democratic or even consensus driven process, this is also not a call to abandon all hierarchy or leadership as an open source Buddhism is developed. It is always recognized that there are individuals with a breadth and depth of experience, knowledge, and ability that place them in a position to teach others and lead them further along the path.

Ideally, an open source Buddhism will have access to the teaching, insights, and practical techniques of all forms of Buddhism. From these, the most applicable, the best, or the most useful will be embraced, followed, and taught to others. I envision this happening in conjunction with working within one or more of the existing Buddhist traditions in the form of teaching and practiced passed from mouth to ear by living teachers to students. This allows us to draw from the best of both worlds, having the unbroken wisdom of over 2,500 years of a living Buddhist lineage available but also being empowered to draw upon other aspects of Buddhism that are not a part of this (or possibly any other) living tradition. This allows practitioners, for example, from a Japanese Soto Zen to work with Zen teachings and practitioners from Korean schools while also studying traditions coming from as far afield as Thailand or Tibet. Historically, this would not have often occurred but we live in a potentially golden age for Buddhism. We have access to resources unavailable to almost anyone in earlier eras when travel and communication were so difficult. We should take advantage of the full range of Buddhism in order to fulfill the overall goal of enlightenment for all beings.

As a part of this, we should also endeavor to establish practice groups, sanghas, and organizations that embrace the principles of open involvement and peer production. While we do not need to democratically elect our monks or abbots, we should embrace equal participation while recognizing the role of expert and experienced teachers as spiritual friends, especially when they have often taken vows to dedicate their lives to this end. There is no need to reproduce historical authoritarian structures of top down rulership in this environment. It is possible to balance the role of experts and leaders with the strength and diversity of our fellow practitioners.

To this overall end of creating an open source Buddhism, I’ve begun adding materials to the Open Buddha website in order to make it more than just my personal blog. Eventually, if there is interest, I would like to add documents and resources from many parties and a forum, if there is interest. This will take many parties to participate to be truly successful but I do believe that this is the direction of Buddhism in the West is heading, whether it is explicitly recognized or not.

Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition this weekend

2010-03-12T14:55:39-08:00

I will be attending the Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition this weekend with a few members of the Norton Memorial Dicemaster’s RPG group, the crew of the airship Arcadia. (This is also the same weekend as our normal playing session, so I expect to see more costuming during our meeting this weekend!) Nova Albion is the regional steampunk gathering and it is occurring about a mile or so from my home. I plan on posting many photos and notes later on. My provisional schedule is below for the local Bay Area people that I know who may also be going to the event. The Neverwas Haul event on Saturday evening is not at the hotel but it about three blocks from my house. It is definitely worth seeing if you haven’t been on the Haul before.

Nova Albion Schedule

Saturday

IT ALL STARTED WITH A PUFF OF STEAM

Howard V. Hendrix (M), Mike Perschon, Alexander Logan, Jean Martin, Liz Gorinsky

The origin and history of steampunk.

Saturday, 10:00 to 11:15, West Room THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE STEAM

GOH James Blaylock, Liz Gorinsky, Francesca Myman, Gail Carriger (M), J. Daniel Sawyer

Steampunk voices in the literary world, authors and editors discuss where steampunk is going and where it has been.

Saturday, 11:30 to 12:45, West Room KINETICS, MOVEMENT & ENGINEERING

Kimric Smythe, George Chlentzos, Patrick McKercher, Dave Nutty, GOH Jon Sarriugarte (who will do a Tesla Coil demonstration)

Saturday, 12:00-1:45, Placer Room STEAMPUNK GARB FOR LIFE ON A BUDGET

Jade Falcon, Ryan Galiotto, Jean Martin, Gail Carriger (M), Heather McDougal

Modifying and adapting everyday wear. Making steampunk gear out of found objects and clothing.

Saturday, 1:30-2:45, West Room STEAMPUNK PHILOSOPHY

J. Daniel Sawyer, Mike Perschon (M), Liz Gorinsky, GOH James Blaylock, Thomas Strange

Is there a philosophy behind steampunk? If so what is it? If not, what should it be?

Saturday, 3:00-4:15, West Room STEAMPUNK TECHNOLOGY GOH Jon Sarriugarte, Patrick McKercher, Alexander Logan, Mark Anderson (M), Heather McDougal

Making and creating past inventions for the future. Discussing the maker mentality, why the rise of steampunk, why now?

Saturday, 4:30-5:45, West Room Neverwas Haul Visit

Saturday, 6:00 PM, 1010 Murray St, Berkeley, CA 94710 (three blocks from my house)

Sunday

JON SARRIUGARTE ON HOW TO USE YOUR STEAMPUNK GOGGLES

Maker Guest of Honor Jon Sarriugarte presents on goggles in action: welding, sparks flying and his various evil genius inventions, as well as the maker mentality, and anything else that strikes his fancy.

Sunday, 11:30-12:45, East Room STEAMPUNK FANS IN ACTION

Chris Garcia, Mike Perschon, J. Daniel Sawyer (M), Jean Martin, Liz Gorinsky

Steampunk zines, podcasts, websites, blogs, and more. For those who are involved and those who want to be.

Sunday, 11:30-12:45, West Room METAL MACHINING & MANIPULATION

George Chlentzos, Patrick McKercher

Sunday, 12:00-1:45, Placer Room

"Completely Become One" by Zen Master Seung Sahn

2010-03-09T11:37:14-08:00

The following is part of a teaching from Zen Master Seung Sahn given at the Cambridge Zen Center on Saturday, July 16, 1977. Seung Sahn is the teacher who brought my lineage to the West and there is great value in what he had to say to his students. I thought it was a good example of relating a very traditional and useful teaching to modern circumstances. I am told that the use of English here is how he often spoke.

When I was in the hospital, the doctors checked my heart. The first time they checked, there were 23-25 mistakes (premature ventricular contractions) in one minute, out of about eighty beats.

Many people have read about research by a Harvard professor who checked people with bad hearts, diabetes, etc. He checked people who did meditation and people who didn’t. People who didn’t do meditation were O.K. with medicine, but not O.K. without their medicine. But, people who tried concentration meditation got better more quickly, and were O.K. without their medicine. The Transcendental meditation people advertised this: “Meditation can fix many sicknesses.” So now, many doctors like meditation. So, my doctors said, “DaeSoen Sa Nim, you are a Zen Master, so you try!” So, I said, “O.K., I will try.” So, I tried this fix-your-body meditation. In three days, my heart was making only five mistakes. Usually, it takes about one month to recover like this, so my doctors understood this meditation was helping my body, so they were very happy.

After one week, my heart was only making one or two mistakes, and my doctors said, “This is wonderful! Most people take two or three months to come down to only one or two mistakes each minute!” So I said, “Thank you very much; you have helped me, so I can get better quickly. But this is only fix-your-body meditation. This is not correct meditation.”

“Why isn’t this correct meditation?” they asked.

“You can fix your body, your heart, your diabetes. In Korea, China, and India, there are people who do yoga. They go to the mountains and do breath-in, breath-out meditation. They can live 500 years and not get sick. Keeping their bodies for a long time is possible; even flying in the sky is possible. Trying this style body meditation, anything is possible. A body is like a car. Use the car a lot, and in three years, it is broken. Only keep the car in the garage, then keeping it for a long time is possible. But finally, after 500 years, then these yoga people die. Then what? Live a long time, then die; live a short time, then die–it is the same! Dying is the same.”

The doctors understood. “What is correct meditation, then?”

I told them, “I always try meditation. Meditation means always keeping one mind, not-moving mind.” They thought meditation meant only concentration and keeping your body still. So I said, “Meditation means keeping one mind. You must understand–What is life? What is death? If you keep one mind, there is no life, no death. Then, if you die tomorrow, no problem; if you die in five minutes, no problem.”

“What do you mean, no problem’?” they asked.

“Maybe you do fix-your-heart meditation. Then, ‘My heart is good; my body is good.’ It is very easy to become attached to this meditation. But, when you get old, and your heart is not so good, then you try this meditation. Maybe it is still not so good. Then, ‘Why doesn’t my meditation work?’ Then your body, your meditation become hindrances. If your meditation cannot help your body, then you don’t believe in your meditation. Then what? So, this style meditation is no good.

“Correct meditation means correctly understanding your situation moment to moment–what are you doing now? Only do it! Then, each action is complete; each action is enough. Then no thinking, so each moment, I can perceive everything just like this. Just like this is truth. Sick-time, only be sick. Driving-time, only drive. Only go straight–then, any situation is no problem.”

The doctors liked this; they wanted to hear more about Zen. So six doctors came to my room, and I talked to them for two hours. One doctor asked me, “I am very busy at the hospital, then going home to my family. How can I keep a clear mind?”

“Clear mind,” I told them, “means moment to moment, what are you doing now? When you are with your patients, only 100% keep doctor’s mind. When you leave the hospital and you are driving home, 100% keep driver’s mind. When you meet your wife, 100% keep husband’s mind. This means, each moment, only go straight–don’t make ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘Me’. If you make ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘Me’, then your opinion, your condition, your situation appear. Then, you have a problem.

“If, when you are with your patients, you think, ‘Where is my wife? Is she spending a lot of money?’ Then, this patient is talking to you, and you only say, ‘Oh, yeah, mmm-mmm.’ So the patient is thinking, ‘What does the doctor think?’ They don’t believe you. If you are talking to your wife, and she is telling you something important, and you are thinking about the hospital, this is just your opinion; this is just thinking; it is not your just-now situation. So, put it all down; only go straight.

“We say ‘jeon il’, completely become one. When you are doing an operation, you and this knife completely become one. When you are driving in your car, you and the car only become one. If you drive on a road with pebbles and you are not thinking, only driving, then you can feel these pebbles under your tires. Only become one means, you and your action completely become one; then you and the universe only become one — completely no-thinking mind. Inside and outside become one. The name for this is, ‘only go straight,’ or ‘put it all down,’ or ‘don’t make anything,’ or ‘keep clear mind.’”

“If you are only in the present, how can you plan for the future or choose a direction? I have to plan for my patients, and for myself, my family,” one doctor said.

So I said, “What is the purpose of life? I asked many old people in the hospital this question, or ‘What did you get out of life?’ and many said, Nothing.’ Maybe they have a good job, good family, good wife or husband, but these things cannot help them now. They want something they cannot have, and they understand this, so they say, help them, so they are suffering. Zen means attaining this nothing mind. The Buddha said, ‘If you keep clear mind moment to moment, then you will get happiness everywhere. ‘

Zen is attaining this nothing mind, and then using this nothing mind. How can you use it? Zen means making this nothing mind into big-love mind. Nothing mind means no ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘Me’, no hindrance. So, this mind can change to Great-Compassion mind, action-for-all-people mind. This is possible. Nothing mind does not appear, does not disappear. So, moment by moment, it is possible to keep your correct situation. Then your mind is like a mirror — when you are with your patients, only become one. Then helping them is possible. When you are with your family, only become one; then understanding what is best for them is clear. Just like this. The blue mountain does not move. The white clouds float back and forth.”

Foamy's take on Western Zen and Marketing

2010-02-26T11:35:52-08:00

I used to be a big fan of Ill Will Press and Foamy the Squirrel a few years back. I have a Foamy coffee mug (with him giving the finger) and a DVD that my wife bought for me. At least one person is convinced that I sound like Foamy when I start ranting (hi, Sean!). I lost track of Foamy as the schtick started getting a bit old but I came across this today. It is Foamy ranting about the use of Zen in American Marketing (your old Dharma Burgers). I just about fell out of my chair laughing but then I love the angry squirrel.

“The Zen of Anger is all you need to master. Arrrgh!”

I encourage everyone to take a moment out for a little decompression with a rant from Foamy. Watch it below or here.

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Reprinting the Engaged Zen Foundation's Chaplaincy Guidelines

2010-02-15T23:17:12-08:00

I’m a big believer in prison work around spirituality. I had both the fortune and misfortune of working with inmates in the Washington State prison system a bit over five years ago. This was with pagan inmates at McNeil Island. The head chaplain of this organization later became slightly infamous for his less than ambivalent relationship to non-Christian groups there (he has since retired). I found it to be very challenging and difficult, emotionally, even though it wasn’t difficult work in other ways. The only reason why it was unfortunate was simply because I was strongly transitioning to my developing Buddhist practice at the time, away from my existing pagan practice and history, but I was thrust into a role as a representative of Wicca and pagandom in general in trying to support the inmates. I had initially agreed to help a friend by acting as his support and backup and he was then, on fairly little notice, deployed to Iraq, leaving me with the bag. I maintained things for a while but had to eventually quit as my heart was no longer within that spirituality and I could not fairly represent it or teach it.

As part of my practice of Zen, I have been planning to work with inmates for some time. I’ve spoken briefly with a few parties about it and have at least one outstanding discussion with someone working at San Quentin waiting to happen as I write this.

For these men and women stuck in these institutions, there is a focus and an immediacy to aspects of life that is often missing in “normal” life. Spirituality comes into a sharp focus for some, with so much time to think, such limited circumstances, and an obvious reason to question what they have done before. I think it is very important to support these people as much as possible as they live an existence that brings so much obvious crap to the forefront. In this situation, even more than many other forms of Buddhism, I think that all forms of Zen have a lot to offer in its directness.

Earlier today, I received e-mail from Kobutsu Malone of the Engaged Zen Foundation. I had communicated with him a few times recently and in one of them, I had asked about the availability of the Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism. This is a book that he produced a few years ago and I had been wanting to read it. Alas, it was well out of print, Rev. Kobutsu told me. Today, he sent out a missive to people to try to raise funds for its reprint. I want to share this with you and strong encourage everyone to give, even a little, to this effort. I have sent in a donation and I hope that others will do the same.

The following is what he sent:

Dear Friends and Supporters,

It has been a long time since The Engaged Zen Foundation has put out an appeal for funding. EZF has been surviving on the donations of a very small number of individuals and frequent infusion of funds from my limited, fixed income. Since most of the work of EZF now focuses on correspondence practice and providing Buddhist written materials to prisoners there has not been an urgent need for the solicitation of funding.

The EZF book; Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism has been out of print and unavailable for a year now and numerous requests for the volume have gone unfulfilled. At this point in time EZF is determined to raise the necessary funds to reprint the volume and requires an infusion of $1800.00 to enable this endeavor. We are calling upon our friends and supporters to assist us in raising the funds for a second printing of Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism. Please assist us in this effort to help make this valuable text available to prisoners, volunteers and interested parties.

Tax deductible donations can be made to EZF via credit card or PayPal by clicking here:

Alternately, donations may be made by check to:

The Engaged Zen Foundation
Post Office Box 213
Sedgwick, ME 04676 USA

Should Mozilla use Freenode for IRC communication?

2010-01-11T22:15:10-08:00

By and large, the Mozilla community uses an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) server operated by MoCo at irc.mozilla.org (IMO). For day to day operations, IMO is used by a variety of groups and projects for communication. For the people that I work most closely with, we use the server for release management of security releases and for overall quality assurance efforts. The development team uses it quite heavily for intercommunication in the #developers channel.

Much of the open source community uses Freenode for IRC communication. The entire Ubuntu project uses it. I know that the Python community uses it quite heavily. The local hackerspace, Noisebridge, even has a channel (#noisebridge). In fact, every project that I know of that has a public face on IRC uses Freenode except Mozilla projects.

Given the cross-group nature of open source, where people often participate in many projects depending on their interests, I really think that Mozilla should move to Freenode. The current situation with irc.mozilla.org feels like a semi-private walled garden. It is a public server, yes, but it is cut off from many of our natural allies. Let’s face it, people are fundamentally lazy in many ways and the extra work that it takes to join another IRC server when someone is already active on Freenode means that many people probably don’t bother to come to the Mozilla IRC server.

A while back, as part of my work in the Mozilla QA organization, I set up #mozilla-quality on Freenode and submitted the paperwork to reqister Mozilla QA as the owner of that channel. We don’t have a lot of people drop into the channel but we get a few irregularly, often looking for help. I have personally seen that when, in response to questions that they want to direct at developers, they are directed to irc.mozilla.org, most of them do not go to the directed channels on the server.

It would be quite easy to register ownership of “mozilla-“ on Freenode and to move the bulk of IRC conversations to that network. I think it would be a win-win situation for working with community there and would make Mozilla a lot more accessible to others.

This is something that will probably need to be debated and discussed in newsgroups but I wanted to post something here before beginning that discussion in order to see what the readers of planet.mozilla.org felt about the matter. If you have thoughts on this, please comment.

Mazzariello Labyrinth

2010-01-05T11:22:01-08:00

This last weekend, R and I were looking for something to do together. I recalled that there is a labyrinth locally in a state park and suggested that we hike out to it. One thing that isn’t readily apparent when you live in the Bay Area is how close some fairly large parks are to the urban areas. R has been making a point of hiking these during the last couple of years but I haven’t seen most of them.

The labyrinth is in the Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, a large park in the hills behind Oakland about fifteen minutes away from my house. It spans the tops of the hills that separate the coast from the more arid inland areas. The labyrinth is in an old quarry (looking like a small canyon) about twenty or so minutes hike in if you know where you are going. If you don’t know where you are going, as was the case with us, it can take you about an hour to find. You can see the labyrinth clearly on Google Maps if you zoom in on the park and know where to look.

The Labyrinth from the Overlook

The Labyrinth was created by by Helena Mazzariello during the spring equinox of 1990. It is a classical (or 7-circuit), left-handed, earthen labyrinth with the lines set out in pieces of local rock. The term, “labyrinth,” dates from Greek legends of Crete and the labyrinth there with its minotaur at the center. As has been pointed out by some, a labyrinth is not a maze (even though the one in the legend is…) in that there is a single, clearly defined path within a labyrinth that leads in winding fashion from the center of the labyrinth to the center. They are seen by many to be sacral constructions that one walks as a form of meditation or pilgrimage. I’ve known many people that made a practice of labyrinth walking, at least on occasion. They have been used by both non-Christian traditions in Europe and the Middle East (and, separately, in pre-contact North America). Grace Cathedral in San Francisco has a well-known labyrinth that I’ve still never visited:

Given my pagan and esoteric background, I’m quite at home with the idea of labyrinth walking.

When we arrived, the location was overcast, with fog nearby. R and I were alone in the space so, after a few photos, we took the opportunity to walk the labyrinth (and its tiny neighbor) while listening to the frogs. It was a bit water logged in places but it is clear that we were far from the only recent visitors, given the objects left in shrine-like fashion at the center of the main labyrinth.

I’ve put a very small photo set online. There is a page devoted to the “Friends of the Labyrinth” as well, who attempt to keep it maintained and protected.

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