On Common Ground

Where is the common ground but the human condition?

There is a lot to be said of 'choice architectures', surrounding oneself with elements of positivity, energy, and potentiality... but also in re-engaging one's roots and meeting the current reality with as much neutrality and equanimity as one can muster.

To be intimate with and embrace ephemeral feelings, to transcend and include, yet engage the impermanent… to be human?

Collaborative solitude. Borne of a box.

Where is the balance of focus to be found? In lessening attachments to facilitate action and mastery where are the fundamental lines drawn?

Deepening and widening: Inextricably linked, yet too fast in either direction and the other suffers.
Distracting and numbing: So much energy wasted in pursuit and attainment of escapism from the unbearable lightness of being.

Yet in novelty, adventure, and social interaction new patterns are found/formed… patterns perhaps so unlike the previous ones that higher order states are attained which include a freedom from foundational patterns. There is another pathless path, one of omission, abstinence.. which leads to a different asymptotic purity.

There will always be background noise. There should always be background noise whether internal or external.

This entropy in emptiness is where creation lives.

Ahimsa

I don’t smush snails or spiders and such...
I avoid ants.
A while ago I think I woke up!
This week I learned of Russian wolves, nature or nurture,
More plastic communities breeding sterile foxes and rabid rabbits,
There are many layers ingesting each other.
Sometimes I maintain silence and omit others, maybe for their good or mine,
Whether my heart beats with ectropy or entropy, patterns emerge...
Two things, or is it three, that let me see from a multitude of angles,
The hornets nest inside is nearly empty,
Room for novelty or commitment?
I think something is living in my beard,
Another new home.

When Nature Conspires For You

Dave picked us up in Byron Bay (minus his female companion who originally was supposed to come on this research trip) and we proceeded to drop Wade (another Buddhist networker) at Ballina airport. Luckily the Chilean volcano’s ash cloud had only slighlty affected his flight departure home. After a brief local supermarket trip we hit the road in earnest; me with my busted knee and him with his 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser. I had just spent 3 full days at a computer camp at Lake Ainsworth, Lennox Heads. There had been a confluence of our Australian ‘tech brethern’ of 150 strong Ruby on Rails(RoR) programmers and assorted digital makers who had met for some serious fun, learning and collaboration (unfortunately there was a pronounced lack of ‘tech sisters’).

There was intentionally no Internet at camp and albeit I didn’t write any new code, I did make plenty of new connections and learned a helluva’ lot (including some barrista skills) all while my Ruby robot continually nudged the rest of the sangha in cyberspace. The camp was an eclectic environment which supported and welcomed ‘n00b’s (also known as newbies or anyone new to a discipline or topic) which was great as I am a huge supporter of the concept and practice of both ‘beginners mind’ and peer learning in all walks of life. This ‘shoshin’ or beginners mind would also be applied to the next part of the trip as our mission was to delve deeper in to self-sufficiency, permaculture and alternative community models. Our goal was to be achieved by doing and interacting (rather than just reading about), and the destination was a little farm just west of Bellingen, New South Wales.



It was Monday around 9pm and decidedly dark on Darkwood Road when we finally arrived at the property. Having just snuck in across Hobart’s bridge, which was only a few centimetres below water at the time, we realised we were now trapped by the Bellinger river on a 4km strip of beautiful fertile valley. It was inadvertently perfect for a technical ‘cold turkey’ and some surreptitious solitude... though not an intentional goal, neither packets nor humans were coming or going for the next few days. A research trip begun with a reminder by Nature that she was always in control seemed fitting, as did an emphasis on food and energy security. Human and machine redundancy and preparedness, it seems, is crucial (especially when not suckling from a centralised supply chain).

After 36 hours solid rainfall there was a brief respite into which we ventured forth to see the extent of the flooding. The bridge was indeed deep under a torrent of water thus we took the opportunity to call on the neighbours for an informal chat and were taken on an impromptu tour of their garlic farm and homesteading efforts. It also turned out that we were around the corner from the infamous ‘Homelands’ commune (and others such as ‘Patanga’ and ‘Khandahar’) where only recently land divisions which were previously sub-divided and designated as multiple occupancy(MO) are done so no more, and all the land has been classed as environmentally protected.

Two days in and apart from some internal cleaning and sweeping, not much outdoor activity had taken place yet... so when the sky cleared on the morning of the third day it was out with the petrol ‘whipper snipper’s, chainsaw, rakes, gloves and buggy. At the end of the fourth day we dropped tools and headed in to town as the waters had finally receeded enough to get back over the bridge and have a poke around the main street in Bellingen. It remains to be seen how to engage fully with commune and collective members other than that of fostering more connections while volunteering locally or embedding oneself for a longer period of time. Intimate and direct experience of a thing is the only way to truly know something and as only fools rush in, we will tread lightly, cultivate our karma, and continue to do our practical and theoretical homework. Big thanks to @bmatt.

A mixture of brought and local reading material kept the neurons firing during the evenings and rainy days:

The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide, John Seymour : ISBN: 978-0-7894-9332-3
Building Green: A Complete How-to Guide To Alternative Building Method: Clarke Snell & Tim Callahan: ISBN 978-1-60059-534-9
Walden and Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau: ISBN 978-0-14-039044-5
Ramana Maharshi and The Path of Self-Knowledge, A biography by Arthur Osbourne: ISBN 0-87728-071-1
You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment, Thich Nhat Hanh: ISBN 978-1-59030-838-7

Chrome Yellow, Aldous Huxley: ISBN 0-14-000041-0
Grace and Grit, Ken Wilbur: ISBN 0-7171-3234-X
The Glass Bead Game, Herman Hesse: ISBN 0-14-003438-2
Eyeless in Gaza, Aldous Huxley: ISBN 0-14-001050-5
Who is the Buddha?, Sangharakshita: ISBN 1-899579-51-6
What is the Dharma?, Sangharakshita: ISBN 1-899579-01-X
What is the Sangha?, Sangharakshita: ISBN 1-899579-31-1
Be Love Now, Ram Dass: ISBN 978-1-84604-291-1

Proximity

Why is proximity important? More so, why is human proximity important for pods, tribes and long term social cohesion? In my mind nothing can yet replace the smörgåsbord of signals seen and unseen, felt and unfelt that are transmitted between entities when they are physically close especially when they directly and voluntarily interact with one another. From the primary sense gates there is an influx of information via sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. These primary inputs reach us and are perceived as energy vibrations, particles bumping up against us or even passing through us. I breathe your stardust when I am close. Your mass attracts me and your energy can do the same too. There are other senses but we’ll save them for later or subsequent debate.



For any form of information exchange to take place there must be a medium (even a vacuum or the quantum foam) and some energy. Energy moves. Proximity is important because of attenuation (signal degradation) in most mediums. Proximity is important because it allows one to observe and learn about another with less attenuation. Proximity is important because more signals can generally be sent in a shorter space of time between two entities. This promotes understanding, empathy and entrainment between two or more beings.

There are vibrations made by each entity in the act of thinking, breathing, moving or just being. Air is exchanged. Energy is given, drawn or shared. Gravity exists between any two things with mass. With proximity to another there is no substitute for full spectrum engagement enhanced further by presence and awareness.

Technology is a wonderful bridge however... the smell of your hair in the morning, the taste of your skin, the specific momentary look of insecurity followed by a rush of endorphins that cause your nostrils to flare and the hair to stand up on your neck and arms, the timbre of your voice in the quiet of the night and the oneness of form when interlocked in the throes of passion... this all degrades with distance and the co-evolution fades further away irrespective of the initial strength of the connection. Proximity is mindshare and heartshare whether you like it or not. Trajectories must converge regularly enough to enable long term cohesion. From the smallest cluster of two to the largest cohesive tribes, we share signals and synchronise... the strongest signals literally come from the closest.

If one was to introduce quantum holism/non-separability and the spiritual realm in to the debate I would not disagree but would point out that the cultivation of personal depth and the subtlety required to access these mediums are not readily accessible to everyone though we may feel the effects or notice them at different times in our lives.

Soul Islands

The mundane motel served its purpose well, too well perhaps... it was nothing like the cabin.

The cabin was surrounded by dense forest and nestled on the edge of a huge canyon. That night there was a new moon and between bouts of deep sleep I had awoken repeatedly from dreams of past, present and future. There was fresh water, a fire, logs, fresh herbs and comfortable furnishings. The dappled sunlight drew many contrasts and the latent energies and stories left by visitors formed part of the fabric of the space and time.



How I arrived there was not by chance, there was karma in it, there was intent in it and there was peace in it. The peace was as much cultivated and brought as it was a reflection and enhancement of the environment.

It’s more apparent to me each day that the energy, focus and attention I bring to my body, heart and mind, the better things become for those I interact with and also for myself. As I dropped one of my Dharma brothers off at the Blackheath Vipassana centre to serve again, I was reminded of the reticence by many in their daily lives to stop and investigate deeply that which they are. It is perhaps a luxury, though some would say a necessity to take time to be fully present within oneself. Presence may be cultivated through direct experience and investigation of oneself. This process benefits from a reduction and preferably a temporary cessation of external stimuli. Many of us numb reality and gravitate towards information rich and stimulating environments all the while ignorant of the subtle and even gross effects on our bodies, hearts and minds. As we stream experience in to our consciousness we also ingest air, water and food which constitute our being. It is not until we fast or shift large portions of these many diets that we have the ability to experientially compare and contrast different states of being.

There is indeed a certain dualism and test driven mentality that leads to a more holistic physical, mental and spiritual approach to life - but unfortunately not many have the awareness, will, time nor resources to indulge in such experimentation. Some continue seeking elsewhere or get trapped in the seeking itself (all the while believing something better is just around the next corner). Some never realise that a process of 'selective watering' is available to them internally at any moment. A process which does not require external journeying to elicit calmness, contentedness, tranquility, empathy or compassion. Once the choice is made to explore the inner world and not exclusively the outer world, a profound shift entails. The inward journey has no destination and is founded upon a constant arriving in the present e.g. the here and now. A new awareness is born and the life stream is never the same again.

Our relationships with people and things are predicated upon and evolve based upon our perceptions, emotions, consciousness and form. We find ourselves in certain environments, clusters of people or events due to complex yet simple connections and the conscious or unconscious choices we make every second. For the most part, that which we sow we reap. On each persons journey there may be fear of loss or that of a void, however the void is not empty, it is full of potential and there are many islands if required. These islands are those of other people and communities also on the path (sometimes encountered in the most unexpected of spaces).

As a liquid lifeform some of the most important things beyond basic survival may be:
- realising the control and potential you have to shape your own substance and that of others
- how you relate to, interact with and affect other entities and your environment
- which environments and entities to share and grow your energies with

Simian Seas

This morning a small monkey climbed up my leg.

I did not react. I observed. I bore the monkey no ill will, nor he I. He was asking me for something, wanting a thing, trying desperately to see inside the cap I was carrying. There was nothing in the cap but pen and paper - no food, no sustenance... perhaps a thing of novelty value but nothing worth clinging to. A warden waved the monkey down and the bewildered monkey went off to harass a little japanese girl with a backpack and a NintendoDS.

Two monkeys - subject/object, object/subject. He and I, not much difference overall. Both monkey minds, both with base survival needs, both driven to explore, procreate, protect and survive. There in the forest was a microcosm of human society (though I not part of their troupe), me perhaps only in possession of a better understanding of fear, love and self. Welcome to the blessing and curse of consciousness; the ability to think about thinking, to symbolise, codify and to abstract, to transmit via language and stories over and above basic mimesis.

Post the simian encounter my mind focused on mind, mastery and flow. From whenceforth does ‘source reality’ and the perception thereof spring? What layers, means and methods can one either use, distill or dispense with to access it neutrally, fully, and in all its ‘oneness’. In either the act of commission or omission we utilise duality to come full circle and approach holism. When can there be a non-contradiction of opposites? And what is the state before and after meaning is made?

Later in the day a random girl tapped me on the shoulder as I explored Yoga Barn in Ubud and advised I go to a special Yoga workshop led by Mark Whitwell beginning in 30mins, so I did. He spoke of the most basic ‘practice’ with breath encompassing the whole body and mind, a practice that cultivates a loving intimacy with reality. He decried the conventional concept of guru as teacher but rather that of being a friend, “no more than a friend and no less than a friend” (Incidentally he is coming to Melbourne this week, a fact garnered after a serendipitious shared exit from Yoga Barn). We practiced overlooking rice paddies, the air rich in oxygen and love.



As I sat quietly after the workshop I thought about Zen practice and other similar disciplines. I thought about practices which investigate reality via direct experience and focus on shedding societal programming and pre-conceived ideas. These practices are test driven approaches that require discipline, effort and commitment from the participant. They ask to be rigourously challenged, doubted and debunked, and herein lies one of their strengths. It is interesting that in the same way I cannot explain the minutiae and autonomic process of walking, I can do it and experience the results e.g. locomotion. Some of these mind/body techniques and technologies to access reality more fully do indeed demonstrate results (in many cases science is only now catching up).

So I ask you, if snorkelling was ‘spiritual tourism’, open water scuba diving was a hierarchical ‘organised religion’, what would ice/night/cave/deep/rescue diving be?

In my opinion Zen would be free diving... would Yoga be swimming?

Compression

Currently there are only 3 people on this planet I know of whom I can talk to in the manner below. We each share history in building and operating global computer networks, an alignment with Buddhism and having seriously detached+reattached to reality.

(One is currently sitting under the Bodhi tree right now / or about to bring his own Zen up a mountain in Nepal... and the other is back in Sydney from San Francisco; meet @wadeis )

Note: Of the three of us, I am the middle brother by age however we are all both little and big brothers to each other!

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Donal irldexter@gmail.com wrote to wadeis@gmail.com:

BASE überplasticity (Basically Available, Soft state, Eventual consistency)
Depends upon speed of convergence, integration and lifetime of the
conscious organism (meme horizon, ectropic, loci)
Would it entail singularity, death, punctuated equilibrium? Ectropy/Extropy?

Do we always need a trailing edge of entropy and a slipstream for the
successful memes/tech/moves for the mainstream, including a lagging
structural legacy to slow us enough for coherence?

Must we be dispersed and diverse to survive and prevent a monoculture
which is weak?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochemical_evolution

Donal

Response:

the re-branding of indra's net as uberplasticity is cool, I find it harder to grok, but it has better language origins :).

BASE to me sounds like Hadoop! There's something to be said about the concept, and again, tying it back makes it easier to work with ;).

We're all different people with different experiences and understandings, always will be different levels and stages of acceptance and understanding. Nothing happens all at one. BASE just pushes that concept to it's maximums.

Keep in lalaland, BGP Peers required, perhaps multiple border routers, then propagate the information down/upstream. The idea of self-elected control/speaking points (both tech and real world) sounds fun to me. Allow nodes to change state based on environment. Reminds me of the dcpromo command, converting a server to a domain controller. escalate privileges. Backbone networks/links required to disseminate information. I LOVE sneakernets. (world a)-----walks to/meets------(world b) and we have convergence :).

Took a while to reply From Australia Day no less!

Kindly,

Me

--
wade.is

Question: Who in your life do you have the highest bandwidth conversations with?