"The Vampires Are Coming, but Only After Months of Warnings"

I read about this new show with a mixture of feelings. The primary one was "How cool Alan Ball took (well took is the wrong word clearly) my idea of vampires trying to fit in society and made a HBO series out of it."

The next was "very cool marketing campaign! I wish i thought of it, and wouldn't it be fun to do that kind of advertising work? I never should have left the business!"

Feelings of ingratitude washed over me.

But then I looked at the title (also the subject of this email), which is funny.

"The Vampires Are Coming, but Only After Months of Warnings"

Usually vampires prefer to be anonymous and sneak up on you. but "months of warnings" refers to the folks at HBO are spending lots of money to "warn" you - and began to think about how advertising is - as we know

"trying to get people to do stuff"

I am dabbling in that with my youtube videos (will share them in the future with you but still experimenting now), how to package things to get more interest from folks, but I really don't want to do that any more - and I think if you don't want to convince people or feel the need to convince people of anything that is great from a Buddhist perspective, but not so great for a filmmaker or marketer.

Eckhart Tolle, Genpo Roshi, Ken Wilber all those guys (especially the $%**^# who made up "The Secret") have to be focused on sales. Even if they have a great staff helping them, it has to effect them.

And sure, Genpo would never have come up with "big mind" and "shadow voices" and "the triangle" if he hadn't been driven by the ego - and he would say the "Ego keeps you meditation cushion" -

BUT my instincts are telling me once you put your face on the book cover, you invite the ego to take over the show and you are shooting your practice in the foot. maybe they have more objectivity and think (rightly or wrongly) they can more effectively observe the ego at work than others, but do I want to take that risk myself?

So I want to be creative without too much thought about popularity/ego - and when i do dabble with it I want to do so with a sense of humor and poking fun at it.

My point - an an insight pot gave me once (need to give credit where credit is due) - ego is fine but only if you can laugh at it as it tries to run the show. (or run the company that is you as Genpo analogizes)

once you start taking it and yourself too seriously, then you are back into illusion.

anyway, sorry for the diatribe, here is the link:
http://www.hbo.com/events/trueblood/

I am sure I will watch this on DVD one day and just like I am GRATEFUL for Genpo and his triangle concept , I will be glad ego drove the team to create and market this show so that I can get to watch.

toilet paper usage as mindfulness exercise

You take four rolls of toilet paper and put a label above each.

I chose "Presence. Wonder. Serenity. Joy" You can choose any four that you wish.

You pick up the one that corresponds to the state you are feeling or want to feel.

Today I noticed that the roll called "Presence" is much smaller.
Is that because people here are more present so choosing the role that corresponds to how they feel?

Or because they want to be more present?

Or because it is the first roll (as you look left to right).

How would I feel if nobody else is playing this game with me? Am I attached to other people doing it too? Am I attached to anyone reading this blog? Why do we do things? If it is to avoid scorn of others, or to get praise of others, are we falling into a trap? Where is moderation in all of this - how can we adopt the attitude that we like others to participate in something, but happy to engage in it even without anyone else?

10 levels of thought

The random image selected was "7 Straws in a Human Brain" - These ten questions I pose about it are an example of apophenia - based on a random image, we can dissect all human understanding / thought on a hierarhical level.



1. why 7?

---The primacy of numbers. One could postulate that human language, culture, emotion is all just fluff, but math is the language of the universe that we happened to stumble upon. math is the most basic. thus the first question has to be why 7?


2. really happening or just a story?

---One level from numbers is the distinguishing of "real actions"
from "imagined actions" . Like Plato's cave, what is real and what is not real can be from our POV, but at this basic level we operate
merely to say is it reality or fiction - as if these are absolutes
(which they may be, but more on this later)


3. whether really happening or not is it a metaphor? if so, what is
the metaphor?
---one level from the real or imagined, is what is the meaning in the
subtle realm - the realm of ideas? The event can transcend to point to a larger issue.

4. whether or not really happening, are the straws in the brain for a
medical procedure?

-- so metaphor tells you about life/existence, but next we try to make meaning of the actual event outside any posed metaphoric function -at level four we seek to understand why on the "Gross" level - the physical world- the thing happened

5. what can straws extract and who - if anyone - is at the other end of these straws?
-- Beyond deciphering meaning on the gross and subtle level - there is the world of action, of "the will" - going from "why does this aspect of the universe exist" to "why is this being done to something in the universe?" In other words to accomplish what aim? this aim can be metaphoric as well as physical. obviously if the thing is really occurring we want to know the effects (harm or benefit) more than the metaphoric significance. On the flip side, if it is fiction then harm or benefit to the character is secondary, the meaning of that harm or benefit, is more important

6. will the procedure kill or harm the brain? What is the effect on
the recipient(s) if any?

-- this will sound much like level 5, but this points more to ethics
and cause/effect - moving to the action of the "will" we then must ask what is the result of the action brought into being by the "actor"

7. Could the straws be there by accident?
-- we have to of course accept that there may be no meaning at all. random chance, no purpose

8. Is the brain a human brain?
-- seems like this should come earlier but it is actually less basic
to get into the particulars, the idea of meaning transcends the
particular details, to use a metaphor: First you would ask the archer why did you shoot me with the arrow? Later at the hospital when they remove it, you might ask the archer about the type of wood and feathers that made the arrow fly so quickly.

9. If not an accident could the straws be put there by something other than a human?
-- we assume higher level actions, like straws in a brain, can only be done by our species. Science fiction is often embraced by the dreamers and the more intellectual - these Sci-Fi fans are open enough to inquire that there could be other "Actors" on the stage who are equal or better than humans. This is an evolution of thought. Belief in deities, demons, faeries, angels and indeed aliens are all an attempt to explain but for the sci fi fan, this goes beyond cosmology to humility as the alien's purpose and power may be amoral as opposed to angels acting for good, demons for evil, and faeries for mischief.

10. Are there straws in my brain, seven straws, and I am simply
unaware of it, and this idea occurred to me out of a dim awareness and if I keep thinking about it will I be able to feel the straws and
trace them to the source?

-- step 10 also unique in that it makes it personal.. as in "is it my
brain?" - as will step 8 the presumption would be that the personal is more basic, that step 10 should come earlier, but to use the arrow metaphor, you need to know that arrows exist - and what they do - before you can process what it means that you have one sticking out of your right butt cheek. but even more important is - taking sci-fi theme further - the humility to accept that I may not know what is going on at all (straws could be in my head and I don't even know it), this acceptance of ignorance (ironically) is the highest level of thought.�