"REALITY"

AN UNDERSTANDING OF REALITY
AN UNDERSTANDING OF REALITY
AN UNDERSTANDING OF REALITY

I will have to paraphrase Pontius Pilate here:

WHAT IS REALITY?

Why do I sense a little bit of conceit and self-righteousness in this expression?

Reality!

Truth!

Wisdom!

Call it what you will but it is all a very SUBJECTIVE concept 

if it exists at all.

Buddha's "reality" and Jesus's "Truth" are 2 different things
and everyone's understanding of either is altogether a different and unique thing
for each individual: 

billions and billions or "realities" and "truths"

People boasting of truth and wisdom and an understanding of reality should probably be avoided like the pest.

You shall know the truth and HERE COMES TROUBLE.

Unfortunately my fav monk does not allow commentary on his YouTube channel lol.

Mind you I do admire the "young" man.  

Exactly my son's age, born in Canada in  May 79 and with a history one could qualify as different I guess and certainly COMMITTED for sure:  

A determination rare in these days.

But STILL I cringe at concepts like Karma and Reincarnation and accepting those ancient myths a "REALITY". 

I am also in my iconoclast habit inclined to doubt and question everything and especially when big names try to promote it.

I have said previously that it annoys me to no end that some many so-called sceptics, rationalists, and atheists seem so inclined to separate Buddhism from all the other thousands of myths out there.

How many times must I say it?

A MYTH IS A MYTH IS A MYTH.

Sure I don't mind trying a bit of meditation for peace of mind
but I will not take the robe, beg for my food
and least of all having people BOW DOWN to me. 

That is outrageous in my book.

And we haven't talked about sex, drugs and rock and roll and coffee YET. :P

Anyway my knee jerk reaction again to my fav monk on the block so far.

FIIK

 'Less restrictive future lockdowns' rely on more people getting vaccinated for COVID-19, experts say.

Of course MY COGNITIVE BIAS AGREES WITH THAT :)

Other things my COGNITIVE BIASES think:

Vaccines are good.

There is no god. The is no devil.

There is no heaven, no hell, no karma, no reincarnation,
and many other current myths
created only for greed and control by people with no power at all.

I am beginning to think that hell there is not even "TRUTH" 

and that us complex apes have just rendered thinking and consciousness FUBAR.

No one is right, no one is wrong 

or even better ALL are wrong 

including yours truly which does not reverse the previous statements.

Looking at the misery and complexity of the world and its now exponential growth it is clear to me that life is just a

Merciless Random Number Generation (RNG)

and it is futile to seek a meaning into it all.

IT IS WHAT IT IS 

as my wise dying daughter used to say.

It is getting quite clear that with nearly 8 billion people on earth soon the demand for new souls for reincarnation
and the very basic maths of reincarnation itself don't compute.

Anyway it is just ONE form of delusional mythical thinking 

among a plethora of myth after myth after myth in history: 

each local group having its own insular favourite myth to cling to with a vengeance,

 ready to kill anyone else who is not the CHOSEN.

Add to this today on top of the gazillion myths all over the world the exponential growth of conspiracy myths growing pandemically.

Dunning Kruger Syndrome being also an epidemic exponential growth of certainty among the ignorant coupled with arrogance and there you go: TNT / Dynamite / C4 or some other explosive mix.

So wherewithal shall an old man find his way?

My usual answer to all is:

FUCKED IF I KNOW  

Let's start a new acronym now  FIIK 

not new apparently

Office Girl : Oi, there you are. So what does this F.I.I.K you keep putting in the delivery time column actually stand for?

Truck Driver: Fucked if I know.

Office Girl: No need to be rude about it ya prick.

Qualms with Buddhism

 

venerable?  prostration?

Colossians Chapter 2

why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,

21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not;

22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?

23 Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body: not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.  KJ

21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. NIV

I should refrain from attachment to my cat / rabbit / pet so I don't suffer when my cat / rabbit / pet  shows its impermanence and carks it?????

Eat and Drink and Be Merry?  Buddhists: Fuck Forbid!

It has a STENCH to it that I cannot identify. 

Yet it attracts the greatest minds and some scientists: 

Sam Harris, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Marsha Linehan etc.

Speaking of Harris and Kabat-Zinn 

There is a high form of idolatry attached to it which should be stinking to atheists or any rationalist and even Christians and Muslims: all these images of Gurus and Buddhas everywhere and all this prostration and offerings etc

It sure IS a GOOD SHOW of wisdom and what not and I have been attracted to it for a long long time beginning with my worshipping of Lobsang Rampa in my teens:
a well known scam artist and fraud
but hell Astral Projection sounded like pure heaven and a pure haven for this battered kid who was looking for an escape from a cruel reality.

But I do have to admire the commitment of some though. 

This amazing Canadian monk is fascinating to watch: his determination and his zeal are unreal. Monk in early 20's, learning Pali and what not.  I have always admired one who studies languages in order to understand as so many things are lost in translation.

I think I might have said earlier that I admire people who study ancient languages like

Dr. Miles Smith was a student of classic authors from his youth, was well acquainted with the Rabbinical learning, and well versed in Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac and Arabic. He was often called a "walking library." Born about 1568, died 1624.

John Boyse, or Bois, at six years of age could write Hebrew elegantly. He was for twelve years chief lecturer in Greek at St. John's College, Cambridge. Bishop Andrewes, of Ely, made him a prebend in his church in 1615. He was one of the most laborious of all the revisers. Born 1560, died 1643.

Rowan Williams speaks or reads eleven languages: English, Welsh, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Biblical Hebrew, Syriac, Latin, and both Ancient (koine) and Modern Greek.[25][26] He learnt Russian in order to be able to read the works of Dostoevsky in the original.[27] He has since described his spoken German as a "disaster area" and said that he is "a very clumsy reader and writer of Russian"

But still sure the Laplace's Demon in me wished he knew
ALL the languages and had read
ALL the classics and
ALL the so-called sacred texts

but to what purpose I know not.  

Even Buddha himself would say that wisdom and "reality" are not in reading or 'knowing" but in DOING.

I am glad I have watched  the report of Solange / Ina in French on her visit to the VIPASSANA  Centre, we have one near here also and I was always curious but obviously it will never happen me getting old and all.

Anyway Debussy is not helping much to clear my mind in order to better explain my love / hate relationship with Buddhism.  

I have expressed before that A MYTH IS A MYTH IS A MYTH and Buddha after all is just that: another myth.

Sure I liked my moderate meditation week this week
but as Solange said so well all these things that depend on will are bound to fail in time.

The idea of overcoming pain with practice is also interesting
but then again nothing a good dose of oxycodone wouldn't do  

so the Middle way may not be reality / dhamma after all.

One thing also that bugs me a lot is that it is almost impossible to learn about Buddhism in your own language.

They all use these mystical phoney words and air and one has to totally learn another language before one begins to understand.

So all this talk to myself now I wish I had a bouncing wall somewhere to trigger some more thinking in this tired head.

So this is it then and there it is, it is what it is :P

Wherever you go there you are.

P.S. this Linehan guru looks quite fishy to me according to her Wiki profile. 

But the science world is chock full of these big egos and super professors flying high on pride and respect but low on facts and reality.

Voila for now

Places I have been

Montreal 

Quebec

Vancouver

everywhere in between

Winnipeg

Roseau Minnesota where I played a round of golf 91 IIRC

Not bad for a 9 holes. 😂

North Dakota where they had chickens in a barn so long you couldn't see the end and the first human to touch the eggs was the buyer at the grocery store,
chickens packed 4, 5 stories high with eggs going down a small elevator between Styrofoam pads

San Francisco CA  Mountain View Santa Clara Santa Cruz

Chattanooga TN

Evanston IL where my son spent 7 days in ICU basically the 2nd week of his life

Paris twice

North of England , Lake District, Morecambe etc bis

South of France Arles, Avignon, etc Nice, Marseille

Perth WA Australia 

Yanchup north to Augusta south 

where the 2 oceans meet: Southern and Indian 

and I have been to Warwick too :)

me taking the train back home to Rockingham from Perth or so I think ...hopped on the train with sunglasses on cap deep down earphones on and not watching not hearing anything until I looked up and expecting something like Warnbro I saw WARWICK.
WARWICK???
WHERE THE FUCK IS WARWICK?
I had taken the train in the wrong direction, north instead of south,

Kuala Lumpur Tokyo Frankfurt mostly airports with Frankfurt being a mad dash as our plane was an hour late and we had 1h20 mins between flights made it just as they closed the door never had time to buy a giant pretzel.

Melbourne Sydney 

New Caledonia too: a quick bottle of Gaillac at the grocery store on a quick stop over on a cruise.

I had to smuggle that bottle back on the ship :)

and many more I forgot now  I am sure Google Map could tell you much more since it doesn't forget mind you many of these were before smart phones and the internet

non skip albums

First one to come to mind is

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band

This album was so revolutionary and claims to be

the first album meant to be listened to

as opposed to danced to.

Those were the beginning of heavier drug use and one

did not feel much about wiggling around on weed or LSD

so while we're on the Beatles subject 

Abbey Road  and

Let It Be

would prolly be 2 non-skip albums as well

I remember in our foolish youth how we formed clans in high school

the "cool" kids upping their noses at those who liked the "commercial" side of Abbey Road as opposed to the enlightened one who much prefer the B side ( the white half apple).

If I had to name a few more album of this era

Wing's Wild World was pretty good

and Babe Ruth's debut album also.

Come to mind now 

Tea for the Tillerman should be on that list for sure 

much more than any other Cat Stevens album.

Carole King's Tapestry also and CCR's Cosmo's Factory as 

I mentioned previously in a FB post

Amos Lee's debut album comes to mind also

Some albums ALMOST make it to this list

Tom Waits and Alanis Morrissette come to mind here with

a habit of ruining the start with Track 1 and "redeeming" themselves with the rest of the album. I would have to dig and Google here to pinpoint which album.

Alanis's 2nd album and I seem to recall not being a fan of Tom Waits' Big in Japan

OF COURSE one CANNOT NOT mention : 

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

even though I would be reluctant to add more Pink Floyd album to this list maybe Division Bell of all choices strangely enough.

Correction here maybe with Pink Floyd's Meddle which is quite enjoyable especially the side B with the classic Echoes and who doesn't love Seamus? :P

Contrary to popular opinion I don't consider AC/CDC's Back to Black to be part of the non skip. 

I am not an unconditional fan of Alice Cooper or Deep Purple or even Led Zeppelin 

George Michael's Faith should also have a special mention here

oh and I forgot two of the best albums ever:

King Crimson - In the Court of the Crimson King

AND

Supertramp - Crime of the Century

Voila for now 

All that my old brain can bring back to life for the mo,

Ciao for now

Ecce Homo

 

Words, Words, and more Words.

I was just listening to a short Jordan Peterson videos and he kept using two words that made me cringe every time:

TRUTH and REDEMPTION.

Words that have been massacred over the millennium beyond errrr

REDEMPTION 😂

So many religious words used in today's vernacular.

Words devoid of meaning by the very fact that everyone has a different definition of their meaning.

The good old proverb:

He who has a watch knows what time it is

He who has two watches knows nothing at all.

7 billion gods out there, 

7 billion devils, 

7 billion hells,

7 billion devils,

7 billion truths and 

7 quadrillion lies if not more.

In the days of COVID the word truth is becoming more and more sickening.

All I wanted to say to JP is the older I am getting the more I stand with the fictitious story of Pontius Pilate:

WHAT IS TRUTH?

Same with redemption and such other words: atonement, sin etc.

Words all created to CONTROL others in what I would call an evil manner: another word used and misused: evil.

The idea behind redeem in French is to buy back, RACHETER, to pay some sort of ransom established by some vengeful holy god and administered of course by god's accountants aka priests and imams and what not. The only voice this non existent god has.  Religious leaders waving a huge big stick made out of air. (after all the words soul and spirit mean nothing but that: AIR)

WHAT IS TRUTH INDEED?

WHAT IS TRUTH?

I could go back to my old ramblings of course saying again that in the original New Testament Greek TRUTH is NOT a WORD.

It is a negation.  

And yes if there was less, much  less, concealment and hiding and devious deception it would be a better world I guess or would we just kill each other faster now?

But in my not so humble opinion JP being a great great mind don't get me wrong is as far as the truth as possible because again in my not so humble opinion the truth begins with the simple acceptance that obviously 

THERE IS NO GOD.  

I would consider Stephen Fry in this case closer to the truth than Jordan Peterson even though bottom like is prolly that we are all each of us FULL OF SHIT.

But when you start mixing and confusing your truth with myth you get a very muddy, unhealthy mixture.

If I wasn't so deflated this week I'd go on also on redemption and all these songs and stories when the male ( and it is always the male) says I'll make it up to you, i.e. I'll redeem myself

Cynical translation: 

I fucked up, I really fucked but I want to get laid again.

The scars of lies and deception are usually very hard to completely erase.

The religious language is too invasive to cover properly.

Hell the Americans even call their war instruments: HELLFIRE.

Talk about self-righteousness when they are used to blow babies arms and bodies up to smithereens. 

so to use the same old semantics again

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? 

or even FIND his FUCKING  way?

By taking heed to whose words???? 

Please try to name a real EXISTING person.

As a matter of fact of course there is NO SUCH person the truth if there was one is scattered in a quadrillion pieces a little piece here and there in each one of us but usually as I said often buried under a ton of shit like a pearl in a fuckton of manure.  By the time you get to it you stink to high heaven. (more religious language)

So go on Pontius and keep asking

WHAT IS TRUTH?

more of the same

 

it took us 1000 years to make it to 275 millions

the next millennium brought us to 6 billion

when I was born there was 2.8 billion people on earth

now the last 20 years have brought us really close to 8 billion

Numbers all too big for us to handle.

I just past the 2 billion seconds and it would take 4 times that roughly 260 years to count all the people on earth now (at one per second) , 

thing is by the time we would be done most of them would be gone and we'd probably need another 100 years to count the next 3 billion.

Now that is JUST counting them at 1 a second. 

Deciphering all their delusions and lies they've been told and mythologies would need Laplace's Demon to compute it all out.

so basically we just are an exponential entropic ginormous MESS. :)

I have often express the foolish desire to know it all, to understand it all but all I understand is that our puny simian brain will never be able to comprehend it all or just even to comprehend a microscopic part of it.