Oh Gobble Green, I love your mission, and your food is delicious, but your form, not so much.
If all the fields on the form are required, you can simply say, “All fields are required.” No need to add the red asterisk. Also, why is Mr. or Ms. required?
This morning, my mom told me that it’s Vu Lan day, the day where Vietnamese pay respect to their parents and ancestors. It’s also the day where “we feed the souls of the dead condemned in hell”.
“It’s the festival your friend Hieu told you about that’s happening at his temple, she said.” “Do you want to go? I asked.” She took a short second to think, and said, “No, the temple is inside you, pointing to herself and placing her palm on her sternum.”
This is the kind of thing that, when I was younger, I would have immediately dismissed as “old people wives’ tales”. People who are dead are dead. There’s no heaven, no hell. Just good ol’ natural process of decomposition with some friendly bacteria. “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
What’s up with all this “tortured soul” returning to earth business, then? How silly is it to put food out to offer for these supposed wandering souls? Even if I suspend my rational mind and entertained the thought that they exist, they still can’t technically eat it. What is the point?
I want to know the point. I want to know where all this came from, and more importantly, what it’s for. How does this help me, an undead wandering soul? And so, relieved that I got out of going to temple, I jumped on Wikipedia to read more.
It turns out that the festival is called The Ghost Festival, or the Hungry Ghost Festival. You guys can read the Wikipedia entry for the full gory details, but this festival essentially boils down to this:
On the fourteenth day the realms of Heaven and Hell and the realm of the living are open and both Taoists and Buddhists would perform rituals to transmute and absolve the sufferings of the deceased. Intrinsic to the Ghost Month is ancestor worship, where traditionally the filial piety of descendants extends to their ancestors even after their deaths.
Are we Buddhists? I asked my parents. “70%”, said my dad. I smiled, because of this semi-random number my dad came up with, and because “being Buddhist” is not a binary thing in his mind. It’s a liberating thing for me, because what it means is I don’t have to be Buddhist to celebrate, or not to celebrate this festival.
“Is it to celebrate mothers or fathers?” I continued my inquiry. “Well, mothers and fathers are both Mothers.”, said my mom. Whaa? This is the kind of koan that I get from talking to my parents sometimes. I don’t know what that really means, but I wonder if the reference to “mother” goes beyond gender, instead referring to the archetype of mother, like Mother Earth.
I still don’t know what to make of the intertwined rituals and myths and traditions behind all this. But I’m willing to accept the gesture of Remembrance for those that have gone before me, and all those suffering, living or dead. If you feel the same, wherever you are and whomever you may be, have a good Vu Lan day, or Ghost Festival day, and if you don’t care for any of this, may you enjoy the full moon.
Moonrise over Richmond Beach, Washington.
“Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don’t know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It’s that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don’t know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really.
How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.” — Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky)
Oh, et tu, apple.com? I done broke the apple movie trailers site (http://trailers.apple.com/). When it couldn’t find what I was looking for, the copy asks me to use the search box above. Trouble is, there’s no search box above.
I just got back from the first ever Buddhist Geeks Conference held at University of the West in Rosemead, a suburb of L.A.
It’s four minutes past midnight, and in 6 hours I will be on the road, in everybody’s least favorite jam: traffic. I really shouldn’t be up blogging, but, 1) I just had a big bowl of pho, 2) Hokai told us to (you don’t say no to Hokai), and 3) I want to capture a few things while they’re fresh on my mind before I procrastinate and *think* about writing but actually never do.
What are those things? In no particular order, they are:
The two groups, or sub-cultures, I frequent the most are Design/Technology and Yoga/Buddhist. To break it down further, in the Design/Tech world, I feel most comfortable in the Internet culture of memes, web 2.0, and startups. In the Yoga/Buddhist world, I’m a mutt with a Vipassana bent. Without telling you my practice history, suffice it to say that I have been following Shinzen Young’s teaching closely for about 5 years.
I don’t, or at least didn’t, think there’d be a group of people who are so interested, informed, and invested in both of these worlds, that I could meet up and banter with. I know they are out there, but they are far and few in between. There are two others in the Seattle area that I’ve found who fit the bill: David Tolmie (@dtolmie) and Rommel de Leon (@c4chaos), and the three of us made the trek to Buddhist Geeks together. But really, that’s 3 of us, in a metropolitan area of 600,000+ people. That’s roughly 0.000005% of the population.
I even have two separate Twitter accounts, @yogageekgirl for all yoga and spiritual related stuff, and @dragonc for all occasions, including my life, technology, entrepreneurialship, design, rock climbing, soccer, etc. I have two blogs, one at nikkichau.com and one at nikkiyoga.com, and I actually had a hard time deciding where to publish this post (#firstworldproblems).
When asked why, I often say that it’s to not inundate one group of people with something that they at least don’t care about and at worst offended by. (Insert your duality, non-duality jokes here.)
At Buddhist Geeks 11, however, my system fell apart, because the conference was a collision of the circles that I’ve drawn apart. It was now a Venn Diagram. David asked me what Twitter account I would be tweeting from, and I said I didn’t know. My confusion reached its height when Rohan Gunatillake mentioned the Satipatthana Sutta *and* Y Combinator in his talk. Mind. blown.
To demonstrate this to you, I sent a tweet earlier tonight asking if it would be obnoxious to have a shirt that says “Meditation, it works, bitches” in the same spirit as xkcd’s “Science, it works, bitches“. I tweeted as @yogageekgirl, and in hindsight, I should have tweeted from @dragonc. I should have known that some of my followers on @yogageekgirl would object to my use of “bitches”, but I was afraid that some of my followers on @dragonc would roll their eyes at the idea that meditation works (it does, bitches).
The results were what you might expect, from Works For Me (abbreviated, of course), to, “Omg so offensive and not yogic!”
In any case, being at the Buddhist Geeks conference, I felt… relief. I still had to figure out whom I was talking to, to some degree, but I felt more free talking about Ceiling Cat and Double Rainbows in the same sentence as dharma, and that, is a really great feeling. It’s like when Diane Musho Hamilton said, “It’s good I can say karmic in this room without explaining or apologizing.”
I’m thinking of that scene in X-Men, First Class, when the mutants found each other and realized that they didn’t have to hide who they are, or a part of who they are, and that they did belong to something.
I have never considered myself to be a Buddhist, and it’s possible I’m simply in denial. I’ve listened to Joseph Goldstein’s “Abiding in Mindfulness” in the past year in my car commuting to and from work until the CDs scratched up. Rommel and I once played a game where he asked me to identify when Shinzen Young said what in his 20-hour lecture: The Science of Enlightenment.
I’m not saying that listening to some MP3s is analogous to doing or putting anything to practice, and I have, as Robert Frost would say, miles to go before I sleep (or wake). I’m saying that I’m highly influenced by the teaching of the Buddha, and I’m committed to not merely treat it as intellectual entertainment, but train and put it to good use. Does this make me a Buddhist? Well, if walks like a duck…
I think I’m afraid of calling myself a Buddhist because I don’t want to be thought of as being religious, or rather, a religious fundamentalist. I’m deathly afraid of being clumped with the dogma of the church, of the temple, or the mosque.
One of the most impressionable things I’ve ever read is Voltaire’s Priere a Dieu, Prayer to God, where he asks God that “those who cover themselves in a white robe to say we must love God do not hate those who say the same thing under a black coat.” “que ceux qui couvrent leur robe d’une toile blanche pour dire qu’il faut t’aimer ne détestent pas ceux qui disent la même chose sous un manteau de laine noire”.
I’m quite aware that religions, at their roots, teach the same thing, for us to love one another. But I’d rather not be associated with their antics, with their ways about doing it. I’d rather be Godless and try to live as a sane, decent human. Besides, I worshipped Alanis Morisette plenty in my teenage angst in the 90s already.
But back to Buddhism, is it a religion? Am I a Buddhist? If I went to a Buddhist Conference, does that turn me into one? Does it out me from the Buddhist closet? Needless to say, I had my reservations about going. But, I saw that Shinzen Young was going to be there, and it was going to be my chance of finally meeting him in person (or, meatspace), so I thought, what the heck. And I’m really glad I did.
Have I resolved my Atheist-Buddist Complex? I don’t know. But I do know that tomorrow, I’ll be more comfortable telling people how I spent my weekend, maybe while blasting Nina Simone, “I’m just a soul whose intentions are good. Oh Lord, don’t let me be misunderstood.”
This is what Shinzen Young said in his opening keynote when he was referring to the beginning of the convergence of Buddhist thoughts and scientific discovery. For me, this also means that it’s good to get in on the ground floor of the Buddhist Geeks Conference.
The conference was impeccably planned and executed. The organizers, the volunteers, everything worked like clockwork. The whole thing was seamless. Even the “Time Machine could not complete backup” message that popped up in the middle of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche’s closing keynote seemed serendipitously, or suspiciously, planned.
Jonathan Ive once said, “We try to solve very complicated problems without letting people know how complicated the problem was.” The Buddhist Geeks team seemed to have embodied that spirit in hosting us. Major kudos to them.
I appreciated the small and intimate size of the conference. There were only about 160 or so of us. It was possible, if you were really motivated, to talk to everybody, or nearly everybody. There was a distinct lack of commercialism, which was a breath of fresh air. There was a small room where you could buy Buddhist type books, sure, but it wasn’t blatantly in your face. You didn’t have to walk through lines of “new, specialized, temperature-sensitive zafu”, or “jade mala beads blessed by the priests in the lost mountains of the Himalayas” to get to the auditorium.
This conference is fantastic, and I do hope Vince and Co do it again, and again and again and again. And yet, I already mourn the seemingly-inevitable exhibition hall that one might see at a Yoga Journal conference, where “superstar spiritual teachers” came with an entourage and didn’t stand in the same coffee line as you talking about where they grew up.
Hey, I’m no fool. I’m just a girl standing (sitting?) next to another girl chasing after a dollar like most of us. (Well, maybe I am a fool after all). I’m all for capitalism and investment and sponsors and whatever it takes to get something like this going long and strong (TWSS).
I’m saying that it is nice to witness the first incarnation of the conference, because one of these days, it just might well be held at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco, where thousands and thousands of people will come, and we will look back and say, remember when this rock band used to play in a coffee shop in the burb to an audience of five? Yeah, those were the days.
In the meantime, did I say I’m glad I went? Yes, only 50 times, Nikki. Hey, it’s almost 3 a.m., and I’ve been listening to people argue about Vajrayana and Mahamudra and Tantra and whether we should or should not mention the E word the past two days, give me a break.
What I would say is the most important thing I got out of the weekend is renewed vigor to practice. Once in a while, I need a kick in the pants, something to rouse my practice, and I’m really starting to understand why the third jewel is the Sangha. If nothing else, they keep you accountable, they keep you going.
When asked if the audience could hear no other teachings, what three things should they hear, Shinzen Young said, “Practice practice practice.” To that I say, Amen. How’s that for cross fertilization of Buddhism? (And now I want to go play FarmVille.)
P.S. next time, let’s do some hacking, like this! Hey, maybe like a Buddhist Geeks “B Combinator” Hackathon? (Hugh would approve.)
As I get older I’m less squeamish about talking about creativity in spiritual terms, rather than just “because it’s cool and sexy” terms. – Hugh MacLeod
I bought a couple of audio lectures on Sounds True, a company that publishes awesome woo-woo stuff I’m into.
Sounds True no download all
I’m super excited to listen, but what a buzz kill it was to find out I could not just hit, “Download all”, leave my computer, come back, and, tada! Nope. I had to sit there, click “Go to Files”, download, wait, and repeat.
Sounds Cumbersome? It is. Not an enlightening experience, guys.
I’m setting up my timezone for a webcast in Webex:
Webex time zones
The time zones are listed in order in time difference from Greenwich Mean Time, like GMT -1, GMT +1, etc. Except, I don’t necessarily know right off the top of my head what that is for my city or time zone. I try to find Seattle, but the cities aren’t in alphabetical order. I try to look up my own GMT, but that’s not what this list is organized by. The only option, really, is to scroll up and down. Awesome.
I’m heading to LA at the end of this month (July) to Buddhist Geeks 11, and I’m going all out baller style booking rooms at the Motel 6 nearby. I love their full description.
In case you didn’t catch it, clicking on the “Full Description” link reveals the same text. The.same.text. Yes, awesome, so helpful. Thank you Motel 6.
Despite some effort to resist, I fell for a Living Social deal for 7 days of gluten-free vegan meals, delivered to my doorstep! (It was out of morbid curiosity, alright? Oh… ok, who am I kidding. I do dig the gluten-free vegan stuff. Hold your hippie jokes until the end.)
I went on the website to redeem. Holy mother of all instructions. I had to memorize all of this or open a new window and refer back to this for instruction on each step of the way. Like Mr. Anderson would say, “Whoa”.
Got it?
Options are awesome. Jake Gyllanhaal or Sam Worthington? Gaspard Ulliel or Takeshi Kaneshiro? E! All of the above, please. (After all, there are seven days in a week.)
Except, sometimes too many options lead to a lot of confusion. To wit: Shuttle Express wants me to choose just one pickup location. But alas, which one? I don’t know, committing to one doesn’t restrict me from all the other choices. It’s like a Congressman’s dream!
Pick up location options, lots of em.
Now if I put in my zip code here… can I still choose another one? Should I be able to?
Once a week I have to use Internet Explorer for something that pays my bill, so it’s pretty important, but I don’t look forward to it. Every single time, I get this lovely Welcome Screen. There are two options: 1) “Next”, to explore new features in Internet Explorer 8, and 2) “Ask me later”. I choose “Ask me later” because that’s the lesser of two evil. God knows how long “Next” would take, and I just want to get in and get out and be done. Unfortunately, “Ask me later” would inevitably come up again the next week.
Why isn’t there a “Never Ask Me Again” option? Sometimes, that can be the most polite option.
Where's the "Go Away and Never Come Back" option?