I'm a former Microsoft employee but I've never gotten around to joining the Microsoft Alumni Network. That is kind of silly in a way since there are a number of benefits of being a member, not the least of which is cheap Microsoft software.
I'm also currently running Ubuntu Linux on my main PC at home so I've spent a bit of time on the Ubuntu website recently.
I noticed something odd today. Check out the logos for each site:
The causes for this are many but it is commonly reported in people who have been sick with the cold or flu in weeks previous to it. I had a rather bad cold a couple of weeks ago so this fits. Basically, a virus or something has probably inflamed a key nerve in my ears, upsetting my balance and giving me mild vertigo. Radical head motion seems to make this worse, which means it probably is in my ears and not my central nervous system.
The power of the Intarweb!
In any case, barring bad luck or more serious causes, this usually goes away within a few weeks and gets better to a great degree after the first few days.
I probably shouldn't try climbing on my roof until then though.
I just found out about the execution of everyone's pal, Saddam.
While I agree that he did anything and everything that could be done to deserve death without getting his hands personally dirty, I find the whole thing barbaric, especially the ghoulish attention paid to the images and even cellphone recorded footage of his hanging.
How we act towards our enemies, especially in victory, says a lot about our nation. I don't care that we're playing "let's pretend" and that the Iraqis technically executed him. This was orchestrated by us.
This is not a defense of Saddam Hussein. He was as evil of a dictator as there was in the 20th century and a perpetrated genocide. That doesn't mean that things had to work out this way.
She's been in town visiting family. Out of R's old friends, she's probably the one I like the most. She's crass, vulgar, and tells off color stories in an amusing way. I like that. Apparently, she used to be over the top that way but has become much more...diplomatic...over the years. Still, she had some screamers that she got into conversation over dinner.
It is too bad that she's not around more often.
I thought it was lack of sleep or something making me very tired and I have felt unusually tired at times but I slept more than eight hours last night and still woke up with it (though it was milder than the night before). I'm wondering if I'm ill with something but I can't think of anything that would cause these sorts of symptoms.
I'll have to watch it and see if it gets any better over the next few days.
This is a trivial task in Windows XP or Windows Vista but getting both of my monitors to work at the same time in KDE or Gnome is a a nightmare task. I managed to completely screw up my xorg.conf file yesterday. Luckily, when Kubuntu can't start KDE, it just drops to a command line. I copied the old xorg.conf back and then I could run KDE again (on one monitor).
*sigh*
Many American practitioners and groups are trying to define the role for both themselves as well as their organizations in American society. In Asia, traditionally, support mechanisms, both socially and financially, for Buddhism have been radically different than they are for American religion in general. Western culture does not have a tradition of support for monastics and monastic organizations, which makes it quite hard for those that try to embrace the monastic lifestyle taught by the Buddha as an ideal. My own teacher encountered this during the period that he was a monk and I have had friends that have encountered this otherwise. Monks are not supposed to handle money or live as householders but American society has no option for this sort of existence (unless "street homeless" counts as an option). Most people that I know gave back their monastic vows and, depending on the tradition, took vows as householders which allowed them to work. A number of them work part-time or, more often, full-time but on contracts or temporary jobs. They then spend the rest of their time going on retreats or working in other countries with teachers. For an American, this is a difficult lifestyle. Leaving aside the stress it causes and the possibility of winding up on the street, it does not leave room for such simple things as health insurance (or the option to pay out of pocket for health) and can be very alienating from community. This is ironic, in a way, because community, in the form of the sangha, is one of the three jewels of Buddhism and the expectation is that monastics or even practitioners are associated strongly with a community of the same. Where all of this leaves dedicated practitioners is quite up in the air.
In Japan, which is the topic of the book, these issues have arrived partially due to the cultural changes that have occurred with the abandonment of families of many generations residing together (the embrace of the Western nuclear family) and the dislocation caused by people relocating themselves to the cities for work, schooling, etc. Buddhism and daily practice, once a part of large families and passed from older generations to the younger, have been replaced with visiting of the temples for funerals and memorial services but little else. This, in turn, affects how the temples operate. In combination with this, many temples are passed through immediate family because priests in Japan are allowed to marry, so you have a situation where many priests are members of family lineages serving a public that is largely disinterested and with large financial holdings in the form of the temples and properties they sit upon. Then there are those who become Buddhist priests who aren't from these families or who want to make Buddhism more relevant to the current generations, who are only vaguely educated in their own religion. It seems to be quite a problem.
In any case, I expect that the book will be a thoughtful read.
It was nice to have a four day weekend. R and I mostly stayed at home, since we only moved in a week ago, and unpacked. We did have dinner with her family on Christmas Eve but that was it. Otherwise, it was the marathon of Season 3 of 24 and emptying boxes.
I had lunch with my friend, Mark, today. He's just returned from a Kundalini Yoga retreat in Florida over the solstice. As someone who practices both Kundalini Yoga, which is largely Sikh oriented, and Thelema, it is always interesting to chat with him about spiritual perspectives. He has a valuable viewpoint.
We also discussed, yet again, whether I am going to go for my PhD in a couple of years or not. No decisions have been made, especially when I'm just now doing my thesis for my Master's degree. I'm not convinced that the job prospects and the personal fulfillment of spending six to eight years working on a degree (putting me in my mid-40's when I get it) are more than just stopping with my current degree (or even a second MA) and writing or otherwise working on things. A PhD is a professional degree but when your interests are in Religious Studies and Buddhism (or Western Esotericism), it is not a very employable degree. I also have the misfortune in being interested in an area (Japanese Buddhism) that ideally requires a reading and speaking knowledge of modern Japanese, Classical Japanese, and Classical Chinese. Given that I've learned and forgotten Russian and had a year each of German and Latin and I'm in my mid-30's, I'm not sure I'm set up for success there.
Time will tell...
http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/214At 8:30 PM on Tuesday, December 5, 2006, while Becca and I were watching a movie, I had a grand mal seizure that was quite severe. Although these are common with CFIDS/REDD/ME, it has only happened once to me before, as far as I can tell. A really major grand mal seizure can kill you. Although this one didn't do that, it came damn close, and was in any event severe enough to precipitate ten more equally severe seizures-one after another after another. By the time they got me to the ER and stabilized-about 12 hours later-not only had I suffered around a dozen grand mal seizures in a row, I had essentially flat-lined three times and had the electric paddles applied to my chest three times-overall, a pretty gruesome ordeal.
