Tim and Hannah made some interesting comments to my last posting (see below). Here’s are my thoughts:
So, why do I blog? Why do I send an hour on the web in the evening after spending all bleeding day on the web at work?
I think for me there are a number of motivations.
1) a form of self-therapy
2) a way to create new relationships
3) friends I don’t see often can catch up with my thoughts and activities
4) a way to learn and discover new things
5) a means to start writing again
6) a way for people to discover me and find out just how fab I am!!!
Motivation 1 has not worked, mainly down to the fear of the potentially negative consequences to 2, 3 & 6 if folk start to see just how terrible/mixed-up/dastardly I actually am. 2 and 3 have worked to an extent, 4 has definitely worked, I now have a good list of excellent blogs I visit every day or so. 5 is slowly picking up. 6? Ah well…let’s refer that to 1.
Chugging up and down on the train between Ely and London each dayI get lots of idea for writing stuff for this blog and yet it never gets written down. I really need to carry a notepad, get the idea down and then elaborate on it here, in this blog. So much goes through my mind, the older I get the more complex the world seems, yet on another level, the more complexity I see, the more I see that this complexity is held by something so simple as to be absolutely indescribable...
'What are you talking about?' I hear them say... 'what the hell are you going on about?'...
Ah. I can't tell you with my talk talk talk. Lie on your back, on the grass, on the cut, by the Great Ouse, not far from Little Thetford, on a cold Fen night, and look up at the stars...that's it, that is it.
'What are you talking about?' I hear them say... 'what the hell are you going on about?'...
Ah. I can't tell you with my talk talk talk. Lie on your back, on the grass, on the cut, by the Great Ouse, not far from Little Thetford, on a cold Fen night, and look up at the stars...that's it, that is it.
Earlier this year Dharma teacher Gil Fronsdal taught a five week class on concentration mediation and the entire course is now available for download as MP3s. I’m now on week three and am already feeling the benefits. Recommended.
I tried reading 'Tantra in Tibet' by the Dalai Lama, Tsong-ka-pa and Jeffrey Hopkins but it all got a bit too much. Most of it is pretty incomprhensible to me but I liked the following section on the seven steps (reading from bottom to top) of the process of passing from a mistaken notion to clear apprehension of the truth:
7. direct perception
6. inferential cognition
5. correct assumption
4. doubt ending to the factual
3. equal doubt
2. doubt tending to the non-factual
1. wrong view
One can also present this as:
7. n/a
6. n/a
5. I do not inherently exist
4. I probably do not inherently exist
3. Maybe I inherently exist and maybe I do not
2. I probably inherently exist
1. I definitely inherently exist
In my unmindful way I spend most of the time assuming my own inherent existence, it's only when practicing mindfulness, contemplation or mediation that I find the assumption starts to unravel. Only when the mind ceases its endless chatter, only then can what is real begin to unfold.
7. direct perception
6. inferential cognition
5. correct assumption
4. doubt ending to the factual
3. equal doubt
2. doubt tending to the non-factual
1. wrong view
One can also present this as:
7. n/a
6. n/a
5. I do not inherently exist
4. I probably do not inherently exist
3. Maybe I inherently exist and maybe I do not
2. I probably inherently exist
1. I definitely inherently exist
In my unmindful way I spend most of the time assuming my own inherent existence, it's only when practicing mindfulness, contemplation or mediation that I find the assumption starts to unravel. Only when the mind ceases its endless chatter, only then can what is real begin to unfold.
Well here I am back home from lovely Somerset. The weather was great, spent a lot of time on the beach at Burton Bradstock, which I can highly recommend, especially the excellent fish and chips from the Hive Beach Café.
Spent a day in Glastonbury (new age capital of the UK!) which appears mostly inhabited by new agers, tourists and crusties. It also has three fabby second-hand bookshops from which I purchased books by Trungpa and Nisargadatta (very restrained!).
I read two fine novels - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke. The latter was especially good and has reawakened my interest in Alchemy, so much so that I popped down to the library today and picked up to Jung's Psychology & Alchemy which I started to read this afternoon. Gosh, so many books, so little time...
Spent a day in Glastonbury (new age capital of the UK!) which appears mostly inhabited by new agers, tourists and crusties. It also has three fabby second-hand bookshops from which I purchased books by Trungpa and Nisargadatta (very restrained!).
I read two fine novels - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke. The latter was especially good and has reawakened my interest in Alchemy, so much so that I popped down to the library today and picked up to Jung's Psychology & Alchemy which I started to read this afternoon. Gosh, so many books, so little time...
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