He referenced Seng-Ts’an, a zen master who died in 609 AD. Here are some transcriptions of his work Hsin Hsin Ming. I’ve copied a piece of it below to make it easier to read, but the words in total are worth reading.

Hsin Hsin Ming (The Mind of Absolute Trust)

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

It is a fascinating concept to be able to remove yourself from all the concepts you hold dear and have a true open mind.

I am proud of this movement simply for the conversations that it creates. For those camping and maintaining the movement… for the noble motives of representing democracy in the face of communities that have a great deal of extreme members including radicals and homeless… for the media coverage engaging the world and the opinions of Yea! or Nay! that come from it.

As a person that has been mostly a bystander, I will say the idea that draws me more than any other is the potential for this movement to create a new political party… one that is not left or right, but one of moral humility, that instead of being in a haste to represent a side, represents a middle and retains its total awareness, in the face of opportunities to be bought, or sell out, or compromise humanity.

I was checking into it, and it appears that there are actually numbers created just for this… the 555 numbers. I don’t know how accurate the Wikipedia page is on it, but it says “only 555-0100 through 555-0199 are now specifically reserved for fictional use – except for the 800 area code where only 800-555-0199 is reserved” which is AWESOME.

Wake-up, brush teeth, get in car, listen to NPR, arrive at work, attend meetings, go to lunch at corner cafe, have an afternoon cup of coffee, watch the clock, walk by the same folks on the way to the car, sit in traffic, listen to NPR, pull in the driveway, put your briefcase on the ottoman, hope someone made dinner, decline other activities because work wore you out, stay up too late fooling around on the web, crawl into bed wondering were the last three years went.

I have goals and dreams; I have to make them happen…but instead I am a functioning cog and it seems like I am encouraged to be just that —> have a good job, nice things, great credit, kept appearance —> an all-around non-loitering, functioning member of society… and I do not know how to break free to follow my dreams.

The problem is, I have to loiter if I’m going to make my very worthwhile dreams come true. I have to sit and think, I have to have time to sit and think, and I have to have my necessities taken care of so I can think and perform the tasks that it takes to achieve my dreams.  As a thirty-year-old, I can move into my parent’s shed for the next six months and actually make my dreams come true… but my parents would not understand the value in their child living in the shed and most everyone else wouldn’t see it either. But it doesn’t matter, even if I had a place to exist without having to pay for basics, I have to pay back loans for an education and I have to insure everything I own in case of accident or malfunction… got to make the cold, hard cash.

So, I can save up so that I can handle my “idling” expenses while I pursue my dreams, I can double up on work so that I  can make progress on my dreams at night (which would make 16 hours of computer staring), I can loose everything I own and go into default and bum off of soon-to-be-ex-friends, I could find a higher paying job and pay someone to make my dreams materialize, or I could just give up and go to work, come home, have a beer, sleep and do it again, all the while feeling like all I really need to do is be more productive than I already am.

Dear person, you are the only one who will make your dreams come true; here is some happiness advice.

The video talked of a planet “like” earth named Gliese 581g that I have since been slightly fascinated with… since potentially, in thousands of years, we might possibly inhabit it… who knows.

Why do them if they are not really an encore… because it is expected? It used to be an uncontrollable display of desire by the audience to just get one more taste of a performance!!!, now just a regiment, lackadaisical clapping will do.

More on this last one, “our eyes are the cave”: In the eye, light rays are projected through a dark space onto a surface. We can only see waves in the “visible spectrum.” We can only see such a limited version of what’s going on around us. We’re missing out on x-rays and gamma rays and radio waves!

In a way, the story is like the story of your birth:

For a long time you were trapped in a cave. You felt restricted there, but you were totally taken care of.
Then one day you had to get out. You just couldn’t take it anymore. That day was the day you were born.
Coming out of the womb was the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to you. You’ve basically blocked it out of your memory.
But afterward, you learned that there’s a lot more to life. You could never go back into that cave.

So you were literally born with the story of Plato’s cave… that fascinates me!

(read more by Spozbo Moswell)

I have a fancy iphone and I thought it would be a standard feature… course not… but there are iphone apps that do it. The only problem is every app seems to have a limited amount of time they will record for (usually 20 minutes) at which point you must give the creators money and the quality is horrible and breaks up.

I did several test runs with a famous comic book artist using the app called call.rec which I was pretty unimpressed with but could have used out of need. Turns out there is a 20 minute limit… go figure.

So I did a bit more research and found out that my Google Voice account could handle the situation as long as it was an incoming call. I already have a fancy Google Voice number that routes to my iphone so I had said comic book artist call that number… it magically routes to my phone… and then during the conversation when I want to start recording, I press 4 on the number pad and tada! A voice announces that the phone conversation is being recorded to both parties and once the conversation ends, I can log into my Google Voice account and listen over and over to the conversation. It was a NY Times blog that actually reminded me to check with Google, cause as usually, they probably have it covered.

Here I am, about to enable my “web history” with Google so they can effectively serve me the best quality websites for free and award me shiny gold stars for all my worthwhile mind blurbs… and I can’t get past the enable web history step (an Internet marketer could potentially benefit by having G-badges related to their verticals).

Let’s just make it clear that regardless of whether I choose to enable my web history or not, Google is still tracking how I interact with the web… especially in Chrome or when logged in to any of my Google accounts or perks… ***I can’t wait for my next post on uncomfortable Chrome screenshots*** but anyway, enabling web history at least lets me access it too!… but probably connects “me” directly to it instead of it being a little more anonymous… I don’t know at what level but here is a post on Google Anonymizing Search Records To Protect Privacy from 2007.

For some reason I want to tell the story of Rumpelstiltskin… through Rocky and Bullwinkle (yes Google, it is a burn from a little ol’web ant you could squash at will).
(here’s the link: Rumpelstiltskin as told in Fractured Fairy Tales of Rocky and Bullwinkle )

Did I mention how much I love the Electronic Frontier Foundation! If you were looking for a place to give all your money to when you die… Net-freeing organizations like the EFF need the funds and make a big impact on your digital private side.

Helena Blavatsky

Ever heard of Theosophy? Now you have. I don’t really want to comment on it much since I am new to the subject and don’t know much… pretty much just read the Wiki… but nothing bothers me so far.

I do like looking at pictures of Helena P. Blavatsky; she is intense. Considering that in the 19th century women’s views on much were not exactly respected and backed… I’m surprised she was such a recognized member of such a “secret”ish society. Here is a book she wrote: The Secret Doctrine available online for free! (yea, it was written in 1888).

Here is the first couple paragraphs of the “Introduction” to “The Secret Doctrine”

“Gently to hear, kindly to judge.”
— Shakespeare.

Since the appearance of Theosophical literature in England, it has become customary to call its teachings “Esoteric Buddhism.” And, having become a habit — as an old proverb based on daily experience has it — “Error runs down an inclined plane, while Truth has to laboriously climb its way up hill.”

Old truisms are often the wisest. The human mind can hardly remain entirely free from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough examination of a subject from all its aspects has been made. This is said with reference to the prevailing double mistake (a) of limiting Theosophy to Buddhism: and (b) of confounding the tenets of the religious philosophy preached by Gautama, the Buddha, with the doctrines broadly outlined in “Esoteric Buddhism.” Any thing more erroneous than this could be hardly imagined. It has enabled our enemies to find an effective weapon against theosophy; because, as an eminent Pali scholar very pointedly expressed it, there was in the volume named “neither esotericism nor Buddhism.” The esoteric truths, presented in Mr. Sinnett’s work, had ceased to be esoteric from the moment they were made public; nor did it contain the religion of Buddha, but simply a few tenets from a hitherto hidden teaching which are now supplemented by many more, enlarged and explained in the present volumes. But even the latter, though giving out many fundamental tenets from the Secret Doctrine of the East, raise but a small corner of the dark veil. For no one, not even the greatest living adept, would be permitted to, or could — even if he would — give out promiscuously, to a mocking, unbelieving world, that which has been so effectually concealed from it for long aeons and ages.

“Esoteric Buddhism” was an excellent work with a very unfortunate title, though it meant no more than does the title of this work, the “Secret Doctrine.” It proved unfortunate, because people are always in the habit of judging things by their appearance, rather than their meaning; and because the error has now become so universal, that even most of the Fellows of the Theosophical Society have fallen victims to the same misconception. From the first, however, protests were raised by Brahmins and others against the title; and, in justice to myself, I must add that “Esoteric Buddhism” was presented to me as a completed volume, and that I was entirely unaware of the manner in which the author intended to spell the word “Budh-ism.”

There are all sorts of reasons for it; I tend to think some of it simply occurs cause we’re lazy… the non-ADD type who have to smoke things to get that burst of inspiration and creation. Or, those that care but are resigned to putting the right shape into the right spot (it’s called being a good girl and boy but that’s rarely progressive).

So, here are some things to help mitigate the situation:

——->Rethink Your Presence. All of it, physical, digital, impact on friends, impact on earth, impact on now.

————>Communicate Change. It always seems like you come to an agreement and you’re so happy about it cause it works, but my, do things change*… small, big, whatever… propose the changes that need to happen (almost weekly… biweekly?). *rethink your presence

——————->Stay Relevant. Avinash Kaushik said once at a conference (or twenty and his blog Occam’s Razor) to stay relevant. Can’t just keep up (unless its with the innovators, and even then you got to throw in!!! just like buying beer… you can do it…). I also just want to add, that I got to sit directly in front of Mr. Kaushik once and it made me happy. Hi Avinash (if you happen to check this fascinating backlink).

——————————>Don’t Be Lazy. It’s all work… yea, or like Danny Baker (former boss and GM of KTBC and TAB chairman) use to tell me in the elevator, it’s all about attitude!!! meaning, it’s work if that’s your headspace (so brainwash yourself, fun fun fun!). Just make it happen and lay off the excuses except for that special 10% of time, cause hey, we work…errrr have fun to much.

Alrighty, the thing to remember through it all is that it is all a circle… it will all come back around, even the circles that are bigger than our lifespan. If you can imagine something bigger than you… then you got no worries… or do you, hahaha, ha. Also note, fascinations are just that .