But beware, the posts I found may have fallen out of the date range I set for this roundup by a few handfuls of hours. "What the Dickens?" you say. So be it. I'm an artful dodger.
On with The Stream, already in progress, flowing as streams do ...
The whole of Jiki Sen Peg Syverson’s post “swimming with the fishes” in Zen Odyssey will explain this excerpt:
… our thoughts and emotions, which dart here and there, swim together in schools, and compel our attention. But we need to be aware of the medium from which the thoughts arise and in which they are held, or we will drown in our own lives.William of Integral Options Café uses Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development to begin an exploration of spiritually-advanced intimate relationships. He then proceeds to do the same using the stages of Spiral Dynamics. Interesting (and convincing) stuff this exploration of Will’s. Further, this is only Part 1. More must be acomin'.
All of William's posts this week were extraordinary. One was called “Equanimity and Compassion.” Here’s a paragraph:
Equanimity is the act of aligning ourselves with that movement of Spirit, that drive, the Eros of evolution. When we are aligned with Eros, when we feel compassion for all beings, when we are no longer attached to the pettiness of ego, we are free in the truest sense of the word.Vincent Horn in his eponymous blog does something unusual for him: He shares a quote he likes. It’s a good one, explaining the “form is emptiness; emptiness, form” conundrum. Here it is:
In a post titled “What’s wrong with Suffering?” Amadeus of Dharma Vision writes, “The only thing we can do is control our actions and speech and treat others in the same way in which we would like to be treated. This may not stop suffering, but it may just make life a little more bearable for those we are in this life with.”Avalokita looked deeply into the five skandhas of form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness, and he discovered that none of them can be by itself alone. Each can only inter-be with all the others. So he tells us that form is empty. Form is empty of a separate self, but it is full of everything in the cosmos.
– Thich Nhat Hanh in The Heart of Understanding
John of Inveterate Bystander posted a terrific essay on Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem which shows the limits of logic and seems clearly to disprove the idea that a computer could ever have the qualities of humans [or, I might add, other sentient beings]. The essay then beautifully veers off into quantum mechanics, Bell’s Theorem, Schrodinger [without his cat] and ancient Sanskrit teachings of the Vedanta. Here’s a snip:
It's just that we are part of the system trying to find out what we are. That's where Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem comes into play. We are what we are looking for, as St Francis of Assisi is alleged to have said. Or, the eye cannot see itself, nor can consciousness.Why Blog?
Michael of One foot in front of the other begins his post “Yoo-hoooo … we’re all in here!” with the sentiment that the Buddhist blogs he’s been frequenting are a near-complete waste of time. “Dogen … said that calling someone a ‘Buddhist scholar’ was a supreme insult. I think I'm beginning to understand why.” he writes. But in the last line in his post he says “Mea culpa. Rather than being above this criticism, I’m right in the thick of it myself.”
Sean of Wandering the Pathless Land, in a post titled “Back to Narrative” questions himself about where his writing (including blogging) is going. He writes, “[The blogs I love] to read are always ones that provide insightful stories into people’s lives. … You can see the wisdom just naturally emerge. It’s amazing. … I don’t know why I stopped doing that here. I far prefer to write small narratives and stories over political or philosophical mini-essays.”
Nacho of WoodMoor Village Zendo’s post “What do we Blog About?” reacts to Sean’s entry and discusses the beauty of Kimberly’s narrative blog this zen life and then writes, “Regarding what I blog about and how so, I'm happiest when I post things that in the process of writing and blogging spark insight into my life. Those can be of any type, but mostly they stem from genuine confrontation with stumbling blocks, with practice, with the daily ‘grind.’ Typically, I encounter a situation that just stops me, and makes me sit and embrace the issue, myself, and others with mindfulness.”
After a month of not posting to My Zen Life, John posted “Crisis,” an open letter to his readers. “I am currently in the midst of what you might call a ‘crisis of faith.’ That’s the reason for the sporadic updates to this website. I don’t know what I’m doing with this website anymore. I just feel so lost.” he wrote.
Platypus Moves on Down the Road
Chris of Cycling Platypus [aka, I am Cycling Platypus] has pulled up stakes at Modblog, moving his blogging operation to a new web location with new everything and a quite handsome display. Reset your bookmarks and RSS feed, y'all. In a Jan 23 opinion post, Chris has interesting things to say about the two types of online personas. You can read that post now -- but Blogmandu will wait till next week to write up a proper intro [this paragraph being added well after most readers will have read this post].
