Author's posts
Aug 18 2008
Muse in the Morning
 Muse in the Morning |
whether a thing is pleasant or unpleasant.
The love of pleasure begets grief
and the dread of pain causes fear;
he who is free from the love of pleasure
and the dread of pain knows neither grief nor fear.
—Paul Carus, Chapter XLVIII: The Dhammapda, verse 29
The Gospel of Buddha: Complied from Ancient Records
Phenomena XXIII: dreading
 Sky Ensnared
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Aug 17 2008
Café Discovery: predators and prey
I was busy cropping and resizing pictures for the next photo extravaganza. I inserted a little levity into the piece by labeling a cheetah as “Predator” and some antelope-like creatures as “Assorted Food” (see inside). In the way of these things that thinking started gnawing at me a bit at a time throughout the day. Was this fair to the cheetah? Was it fair to the various springbok and gerenuk, blackbuck and wildebeest, and their kin?
Maybe this was a time to learn something. And maybe it was time to search for some sort of mythical center.
Needing something to talk about for this edition of Café Discovery, I turned to the Online Etymological Dictionary, from which I quote liberally, while adding my own comments. The etymologies given are a mixture of that, so don’t hold them responsible for my thoughts. 🙂
What I discovered is that we had it backwards…
Aug 17 2008
Some mountain photos
To the left is a photo out the car window one of the times we passed through Cajon Pass. I think we passed through it a total of three times each way, for our ear-popping pleasure.
On the Saturday before we went to San Diego, we took a trip to Lake Arrowhead, which is 19 miles or so as the crow flies and about twice that far driving. Debbie’s parents had a house cabin near there at one point. Picture driving up one of the hills in the Tour de France. I became quite nauseous, but managed to stay just this side of car sick.
Inside are a few pics from that trip.
Aug 16 2008
The High Desert
We spent the first four nights and the last two in Hesperia, in what’s called the High Desert (the Cajon Pass is at 4190 feet and the southern part of Hesperia where we were at nearly 4000). Jim’s lawyering meant that he would only be available the second weekend of our time in southern California.
There were five of us humans: me, Debbie, her cousins Laurie and Mike, and Aunt Lee. And there was an assortment of animals: three dogs, a cat, 5 adult turtles and three clutches of 5 turtle eggs each, buried in the hard-packed sandy soil of the desert. And I should mention the assortment of avian life as well: some ravens who would love nothing less than to feed on baby tortoises, a family or two of quail that I could never get a shot of, various smaller birds, no shortage of neighborhood dogs who barked endlessly, a noisy neighborhood rooster, and the usual assortment of desert invertebrates.
[Note: 17 photos inside. I did try to minimize file size.]
Aug 16 2008
Friday Philosophy: An Underview of a Trip
So I spent two weeks wandering in the deserts, mountains and valleys of southern California…and another family. The difficulty of living an examined life is constant monitoring the levels of context and metacognition roiling beneath the surface of every interaction. One fences one’s in-laws at one’s peril when one knows that ultimately to the majority of them, for one reason or another, one is not family. I’m welcomed because they love Debbie…who they still call Linn. That’s enough to separate us right there.
The deeper level asks, whether for good or for bad, for happy or sad:
Step one is to establish locations and state of mind.
[Note: Contains photos. I have tried to minimize their file size as much as possible.]
Aug 15 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
who are fully aware of the nature of food,
whose dwelling place is an empty and imageless release
the way of such people is hard to follow,
like the path of birds through the sky.
— The Dhammapada, 92.
Phenomena XXII: perceiving
 Window
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Aug 14 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
comprising useless words,
is one single beneficial word,
by hearing which one attains peace.
Better than a thousand verses,
comprising useless words,
is one beneficial single line,
by hearing which one is pacified.
—Sahassavagga, The Dhammapada, 100-101
Phenomena XXI: hearing
 A Thread
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Aug 13 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
but learn to listen to the voice within yourself.
Your body and mind will become clear
and you will realize the unity of all things.
Phenomena XX: Belief
 Etching
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Aug 12 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
the innocent and blameless one,
upon that fool does evil fall
as fine dust flung against the wind.
–The Dhammapada, 125
Phenomena XIX: comparing
 Groove Thing
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Aug 11 2008
Muse in the Morning
| Muse in the Morning |
look upon it as a mirage:
the king of death does not see him
who thus looks down upon the world.
–The Dhammapada, 170
Phenomena XVIII: altering
 Half Twist
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