Monkey See, Monkey Do

a clever geek made his own segway for half the price.

UPDATE: said clever geek works somewhere near where i work, i keep seeing him tootling around on this thing. he always looks like he’s going to barrel someone over though.

yay, i found a buddhist cartoon about dharma the cat.

i’m sitting on my meditation pillow as I type this, and my adopted kitten has been sitting on it as well just behind me all afternoon.

gosh darn it, i don’t think i can make it to the world beard and moustache championships this year even though they’re in nearby carson city, nevada. the dominant german team is sending eighty competitors!

on a related note, it’s time to start thinking of halloween costumes. any good ideas for this year?

max just sent me this interesting article in the christian science monitor about law enforcement officers going on a meditation retreat. The message of the retreat: the futility of meeting violence with violence.

and cheryl sent me this nice quote from His Holiness:

At the end of a talk someone from the audience asked the Dalai Lama, “Why didn’t you fight back against the Chinese?”

The Dalai Lama looked down, swung his feet just a bit, then looked back up at us and said with a gentle smile, “Well, war is obsolete you know. “

Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he said, “Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back… but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you.”

on a related note, Israeli fighter pilots recently refused to bomb targets in the West Bank and Gaza on moral grounds.

now whenever i come home she’s waiting for me on the front door welcome mat. she says hi. if i sit down next to her, she curls up in my lap and stretches.

i’ve been adopted.

(click picture for full size)

last night was the third time i was greeted on my door stoop by a slight and very soft grey kitty. she looks soft, i can’t get close enough to pet her yet. but i think she likes me even though she’s afraid of me.

this all started sunday night. the neighbor across the street was yelling at her daughter so loud i couldn’t help but listen to it all. her son was playing peacemaker, but it wasn’t working. she was screaming, her daughter was screaming. it didn’t sound like it was going to get violent, so i didn’t call the cops, but my heart ached. i heard things like:

- why do you make my life hell!
- you’re having sex with the devil!
- i wish i never had you, either of you!
- tomorrow the cat goes!

that last one makes me wonder if this little, soft thing on my stoop is a result of that pain and anger. i’ll take care of her as much as she’ll let me.

i took a class this weekend called “the art of being human”, sounds easy right? it was tough, myself and sixty other students sat in meditation for hours and hours. i usually don’t have trouble sitting for long stretches but my knees were killing me by the end.

this was a restart for me. i took this class once before, fifteen years ago. that was my first retreat in this lineage, but i feel a much stronger connection to it now. jesse miller taught the class. he was a student of chogyam trungpa rinpoche, one of my favorite buddhist teachers.
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last night I went to see Lama Surya Das speak. he just started a tour for his latest book. i know him because i’ve been curious about dzogchen tibetan meditation for awhile and I listened to his book on tape about it. he teaches that, lucid dreaming practice, and other things around the US. you can visit his web site for more details.

the talk was short but very sweet. he’s hilarious. a long island accent, super dry delivery, and a zinger every minute. he does a great stand up comic version of ancient tibetan philosophy… he encourages us all to lighten up as we enlighten up, and take things less seriously. i certainly can use that advice.

last friday I attend a lecture from his holiness the fourteenth dalai lama, tenzin gyatso. i was lucky to see him two years ago when he taught a class on the heart sutra. i felt really fortunate to see him a second time. (photo to right by jeff miller - 1998) he just started a tour of the US with a talk titled “a human approach to world peace”.

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yay, all my burning man pictures are up now including a cover page. check ‘em out!

i’ve divided my photos up into sections with some journal entries interspersed. this may make it harder to see them all quickly. but you can also skip directly to photos about

- setup
- art and art vehicles
- rob and laini’s wedding
- people and play

if you’re not sure, start with setup. Some sections have more than one page.