Welcome to my Online Home!

Hey, here's an article I really enjoyed much of by one of my favorite
authors and zen teachers, Brad Warner. I love the precepts, and I love
lgbt communities, and spiritual practice/social justice lines together.
Check it out if you're interested.

You're going to have to navigate to a "porny" site for the article.
Fair warning, in case you... well, wouldn't want to.

http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/23007/

"One of the biggest hurdles for anyone of non-standard sexual
orientation interested in Buddhist practice is the Buddhist precept of
not misusing sexuality. Just for reference to those of you who may not
know, in Zen Buddhism there are ten precepts, or standards of moral
behavior, which are:

1) Not to kill 2) Not to steal 3) Not to misuse sexuality 4) Not to lie
5) Not to cloud the mind with intoxicants 6) Not to criticize others 7)
Not to be proud of oneself and slander others 8) Not to covet 9) Not to
give way to anger and 10) Not to slander Buddha, Buddhist teachings or
the Buddhist community.

Other forms of Buddhism have somewhat different precepts. But the first
five are more-or-less standard throughout most forms of Buddhism.

People who are of variously "queer" sexual orientations ? gay, lesbian,
bisexual, transgender, BDSM and so on ? are often especially troubled
when they find out that as Buddhists they should not misuse sexuality.
Given what we usually hear from teachers of our own Western religious
traditions, it's easy to imagine that anything outside of strictly
vanilla, monogamous, one-on-one heterosexual relations in the standard
missionary position might constitute a misuse of sexuality in the eyes
of religious authority. And, unfortunately, there are those in the
Buddhist community, including some of its teachers, who do seem to hold
something akin to this belief.

..."

I'm in a pretty good Masters in Social Work "macro" class (the social work version of community organizing - activating folks for change, basically). The teacher's great, the conversations are pretty good...and the readings are consistently great.

Social Workers at UNC hear "use a strengths-based approach, not a needs or deficient based approach" enough to make it ring in our ears. That's a good thing. But we've gotten very few actually tools (well, to this point - maybe cuz I'm only half-way through?) to practice that. This week we got one of our first, and I'm a fan. If you do community work, this is a good "checklist" to help you brainstorm assets.

The folks at Northwestern are somewhat famous for their program and theory of ABCD: Asset-Based Community Development. Public Allies (alum '04 baby!) uses this model very explicitly in their community organizing work, so I became familiar with Northwestern then. I'm sure it's not new to them (though perhaps the term is), but it's good stuff nonetheless.

If you do community work - which I define loosely as anything from volunteering, organizing, even working in your neighborhood - I highly recommend a quick peruse of this. If you are explicitly involved in defining or deploying projects that impact communities positively (you hope! they hope!), definitely check it out as a FREE PUBLICATION from the ABCD institute at Northwestern:

http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/images/kelloggabcd.pdf

Use the (ABCD) force, and use it wisely!

Labels: community

This is fun!

So I was tired of some weird blogger errors with mysterious characters, logging in took too long ("took too" looks weird, huh? anyway), and I like to do things I do a LOT in a few character strokes. I love autohotkey: http://www.autohotkey.com/ (warning, not for n00bs! lol). I use it every single day, all the time. So that creating a new categorized task (GTD "Next Action"), a waiting for with a reminder date, whatever is a single key stroke.

For blogging, I'm using this:

;============BLOG EMAIL==================
#b::
Run C:\Program Files\Mozilla Thunderbird\thunderbird.exe -compose
Sleep 600 ;cuz Thunderbird doesn't always catch keystrokes on start-up
Send !rmm{Tab}{Tab} ;specific to the number of accounts I have, obviously (heh, obviously if you read autohotkey script! lol)
Send aspiringbodhisattva.secretword@blogger.com
Send {Tab}{Tab}{PgUp}{enter}{#}end{PgUp}
;Send ^a
Send !s
return

To give me my correct sending smtp account, my secret sending account (not "secretword", but you get it), the termination set so it doesn't pick up my signature, and set me back on the subject. I like it, though you'd have to modify it obviously.

I also added blogger.com to my "text only" domains, cuz I was tired of the weird formatting. Not great for links, but I'll just post 'em in like I did with the autohotkey link.

And if you DO use blogger and you've got weird stuff in your text, try this: http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/ . I love it.

Labels: GTD

So I've set up a macro on my computer to make writing a blog a 1-step process for me. Just press it and start typing, then press another key stroke and it's sent to the blog. No more logging in and toolin' around. I hope this'll make me more likely to do it.

I've been thinking about posting questions every once in a while. Questions of a specific flavor, actually. This statement came to my mind (after a thought train) when I was sitting in a class on internalizing racist inferiority or supremacy:

Questions point to an experience people have had, but haven't named themselves (because they hadn't a language yet, mental space, etc.) are very, very powerful. In essence, questions that name the already existing question of "what is this?" are a spiritual practice and good for community...especially in a culture that emphasizing knowing IMMEDIATELY with no effort and an unwillingness to hold not-knowing. (and at this point I laughed at how quickly KNOWING that came to me. lol)

And here's the first, out of a conversation with Dana Turner, a rockin' person in NY who's becoming even awesomer.

"If you were the kind of person that really, really liked yourself and was happy with what you'd been involved in in your life (like you took time to go do all the awesome things you might be putting off), how much cooler would that make you to people who ALREADY think you're cool? What would your honoring your interests deeply do for them and their ability to be more that way themselves? What would that do for community?"

Well?

Labels: questions

Apart from "ugh, this feels horrible," there's not a lot for me to DO when I feels sick. And when I've got a case of flu in the top three worst sickness of my life to date, there really nothing to do apart from wondering if I can drink water without vomiting. Well, that and think, between "ugh, this feels horrible."

So yesterday I managed to somehow get Really, really sick. I found my thoughts entertaining though, and wonder what it's like for other folks to get sick.

A part of me was concerned about becoming so sick and dehydrated than I'd have to go to the hospital in some way. After violently vomiting for the 8th time in 6 hours, clearly unable to keep water, I was, well, a bit concerned. See, I don't have insurance at this point - haven't for about 6 months now - and generally keep really healthy. I've a number of social justice minded folks that don't keep insurance, and certainly can see both sides of the issue there... but regardless, I don't. I probably could afford it... but again, I didn't have it. That reminded me of an important article on classism (a fun thought to have while vomiting) called "can't afford to get sick." I knew I'd probably skip my grad classes friday morning, reschedule hanging out with friends, and reschedule or say I can't attend the community meetings I was going to attend today. And if I had a more traditional "job", I'd probably be able to call in sick.

But not everybody can reliably do that. Some folks, especially with lower paying jobs, with no health insurance available or affordable, can't afford to get sick the way I can (and am). It's a lucky spot to be in, and I have responsibilities associated with being in that spot (this as I was dry vomiting into the toilet).

Another thought I had - isn't the body amazing!? Some of my upper core muscles actually developed cramps from all the throwing up, so that they just seized up and added to the queasiness. After vomit number 7 or so, I had this strong feeling of needing to do some full body chanting to kinda vibrate some of the tension out. I hadn't really been able to speak for hours without throwing up, but pushed through a round of "om" and "gam" for about ten minutes, then a loud chant from Ashtanga yoga, then sat on my cushion and paced a very loud and vigorous heart sutra. For me, loud chanting really vibrates my core... I threw up pretty soon after that for the last time, and have been at least able to walk around and talk yesterday. The chanting seemed to generate a dramatically different kind of energy than I had had to that point,particularly adding some specific aikido body relaxing techniques that helped concentrate the vibrating feeling in my body like really relaxing my "outside" - stuff I'm still learning myself, but specifically the idea that the outside must hold shape, but not be rigid to let ki flow out. In a less airy sounding sense, stiff muscles retard internal muscle movement flow and connectness. Just like it would be hard to breath with a stiff stomach and shoulders (or a cramped diaphragm, in my case last night), moving intentionality and muscle energy through the body to translate it into someone else takes a certain kind of relation as well. Anyway, those practices (not perfections, for me, but things I practice) were really helpful to "shake out" some of the flat-out dead feeling I had from throwing up so much.

More on the subject of the amazing-ness of the body, as well - vomiting (as well as chanting) is pretty amazing. The body really takes over and realigns the musculature to push things out. I'm pretty body aware, so my body and I had a very intentional "conversation" about me trying to breath, and it trying to vomit, using very specific tensions and relaxations to communicate. Fascinating! And Really Really crappy, but still interesting.

Also, it's nice to have friends. Steve & Jesse have both been very helpful, as has Sarah. Being sick by yourself would be much more difficult.

Also again, with the kind of sick that I was last night, I can see how a violent flu can be deadly dangerous to seniors. Doing work with aging issues this year definitely has brought that population (which I may be of someday!) to my mind more often... which is good! Until this year, when I'm sick I haven't thought about older folks and how dangerous illness can be. That's telling in a more general sense: without experience, contexts that SHOULD "ring a bell" reminding you of other people's experiences don't. If you don't have any experience with folks who have physical disabilities, you're not going to think twice or appreciate being able to do something like walk to the phone, or reach a high shelf. Knowing intimately and valuing as essential each other's experiences allows the mind to see the wider contextS (plural!) that all situations represent. A dark street is dark to me... but is moreso a dangerous, potential sexual assault context to many women. Not that it isn't dangerous to men, but that the context has a special particular meaning for many individuals from one group in a very different way to another.

And if that isn't a reason for democratic, diverse leadership, I don't know what is. A powerful, simple comic I really like had a cartooned George Bush and a bunch of men signing an abortion bad treaty. No women involved. Either that's because those men understand women's issues around abortion and choice deeply at the same level as women (doubtful), or they feel there is nothing to be gained from the perspective of those women and their perspective on abortion is enough to make a "right" decision.

And actually, I think there's a third aspect, also on my mind. I think many folks feel that situations aren't essentially experienced based on perspective, but exist inherently, instead. In essence, this is an aspect of the core Buddhist teaching of emptiness - situations (and people, things, etc) are devoid of any inherently existing "self" apart from karmically determined perception of it. Knowing this deeply, if you value the lives and experiences of others (and yourself), making good decisions means doing so in a way that accountable to the experiences (and perceptions) of many. To me, that can actually help sidestep some of the karmic conditioning of being only one person and making less than great decisions based on that. Collectivity, diversity, and valuing an intimacy with each other's experience can really can help protect all of us, to me.

Lastly, having not felt this horribly in a long time, I actually went through some significant life-review. While feeling horrible and chanting the heart sutra, I had this strong feeling of needing to recommit to my practices and training, recommit to those things I value. While distractingly sick, it would be hard to practice. As the lines in the Bodhicaryavatara say, this moment is a precious opportunity. Here as a human, particular a human with the temporary privileges of health, means to practice, enough time for meaning in my life... I would be short-sighted to put off practices I can only do when healthy, etc. One day I'll be dead - and before that I may be incapacitatingly sick as I was yesterday... or just distractingly unable to eat, queasy, light-headed, etc. as I am now. Truly, the moment of opportunity for meaningful activity when we are capable is so precious in the light of illness or other inevitable and incapaciting things.

Still sick and these things are on my still mind.

Sometimes I have to prove to myself I'm doing too much. :-) Here's a good way for me to do that.

I was motivated by this question, in a few forms: what would it take (how much time) to do a SOLID job with all my commitments, per week? So, if a project is due in two months and will take 8 hours, that's about 30 min/wk... etc. If I totaled all those per week, is that possible? What HAVE I committed to?

I started with this estimate:

I wake up around 6 or 7 sleeping in at this point (but have gone through VERY late morning times...), and go to bed around 10 or 11. That's 16 hours about per day, or 112 hrs/wk (hereafter h/w).

Now I'm totaling my project categories, which are roughly my areas of responsibility. Here's that layout.
(nice that it's SO easy to do, since I have an up to date - well, at about 95% - project list!)

[project list as of Feb 12]

That gives me about this:

_	4
_Aiki-Doing	9
_Aiki-Doing Radar	1
_Basic Personal Stuff	16
_Body Training	26
_Community Engagement	4
_Community Radar	1
_Education	14
_Family	2
_Friends	4
_Home	2
_Homework	3
_Magic	5
_SAS	16
_Zen	7
	114

114 hours per week to do my commitments well. That would mean I'd have to work on SOMETHING or "be productive" from 6am to 10pm with no breathers and then find two more hours. I shouldn't be surprised that sometimes I feel behind in an area! lol. Time to cut back. And some of these things are going to INCREASE, not decrease - when the Beyond Belief magic show starts up in earnest, practice times plus show times are going to be around 20 hours per week. I'll be cutting out some aikido...

Oh, and here's how I did my calculations, which I consider important. Whatever it takes to do the project is included. So, for instance, body training includes my aikido classes and teaching, as well as my yoga cross training twice a week and my tai chi practice. It ALSO includes transportation and getting ready time - the REAL numbers.

And it turns out I'm doing too much. lol. Time to make some adjustments!

Do you have an updated full project list? Could you group them by areas of responsibility and tell if you're having to shortchange things because of your commitments? This isn't the only way to do it, of course (a lil' thing called intuition would do, too!), but sometimes having numbers helps job the mind with what you are and aren't spending wherever. That sentence made a WHOLE lotta sense, I'm sure! :-)

Labels: GTD