After hearing about Flickr around 10 million times from a good friend, I finally decided to give it a whirl. I created a gallery (or in Flickr terminology, a set) of pictures named Boulder, CO. Lots of pictures of friends in Boulder, or those I’ve met in Boulder (along with my fiance and cat who make it in to about every gallery!) There’s also a couple of shots from the recent IN Rave.

Flickr is an online photo-tool with tons of bells and whistles… It’s in beta mode and is free right now (which rocks), and they definitely have some cool features. The only thing I didn’t like was how complicated the user-interface is. Took me forever to figure out how to view the set of pictures I’d created. Even so, I be a Flickr Fool now!

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Last night Emily & I attended the first official IN Rave! It began with a performance by Stuart Davis and was followed by music and dancing… There were 2 huge projectors next to the stage, and about 100 or so people there (it was open to the public and publicized through IN-Town). The guest of honor was Chantal Westerman, whom Ken is collaborating with, and yes the big dude was there too….

On top of the performance, dancing, and drinking I would love to see an event like this start off with a spiritually and/or cognitively oriented activity, which could then be phased into good rowdy Fun!

Oh yeah, I-I paid for the drinks (which was t-r-o-u-b-l-e).

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A couple of months ago a piece about my launchpad (aka meditation room) was published in The Manifest (the coolest rarely updated Integrally-informed Ezine around!). It is entitled, ‘The Spare Room Ascender.’ Yep, that’s me.

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s recent speech concerning the environment and the changing climate seemed to be pretty skillful.

Just as science and technology has given us the evidence to measure the danger of climate change, so it can help us find safety from it. The potential for innovation, for scientific discovery and hence, of course for business investment and growth, is enormous. With the right framework for action, the very act of solving it can unleash a new and benign commercial force to take the action forward, providing jobs, technology spin-offs and new business opportunities as well as protecting the world we live in.

Seems like he is appealing to both orange and green values (Spiral Dynamics lingo), which seems to be a fairly ‘integral’ or ‘inclusive’ act of skillful means. Thanks to World Changing for blogging about this recent development.

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Watched a killer documentary called Doing Time, Doing Vipassana. In the Tihar prison (the largest jail in India) a new Inspector General of Indian prisons stepped up and initiated one of the first 10-day vipassana retreats ever to be held in a prison (early 90’s). The results were tremendously positive, and since that time perhaps hundreds more have been held in the Indian prison system. Very cool…

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After studying and practicing Buddhism for the past couple of years, the main difference I’ve noted between Buddhism and most other religions is that the focus is on orthopraxy versus orthodoxy. This basically means that there is an emphasis on ‘correct practice’ versus ‘correct beliefs.’ The core of Buddhism is interested in authentic transformation, and correctly practicing the techniques that will lead to that transformative freedom. Apparently though this isn’t the way it’s ‘practiced’ worldwide. From a recent news article:

More than 500 Buddhist monks marched in the Sri Lankan capital Monday expressing outrage and demanding a ban on an upcoming Hollywood movie, threatening to fast—even to death—if their objections were not heeded.

Concerning the movie one Therevadin monk said,

“The film scoffs at lord Buddha, his character and his teaching.”

What would the Buddha do? Well, he’d probably tell them to go sit their asses down under the nearest tree and start meditating, so they can gain some fundamental insight into the nature of their obvious suffering and aversion. You thought ‘Buddhist Zealot’ was an oxymoron? Wrong.

UPDATE (9/22/04): Looks like most of the monks who were ready to kill themselves over this movie actually went and saw it. And they’ve changed their mind:

The unanimous verdict of representatives of Sri Lankan Buddhist temples in Southern California who have seen the controversial movie Hollywood Buddha is that the movie is not disrespectful to the religion and does not pose any threat to Buddhism. [Buddhist News Network]

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I stumbled upon 2 very good articles from Daniel Ingram’s (aka Dharma Dan) site. One is entitled ‘Issues Surrounding Talking about Enlightenment‘ and the other ‘Advice on Retreat.’ Both are excellent.

Wallowing in your issues, traumas, childhood pains, relationship difficulties, work issues and “stuff” on the cushion and without the reference points of ordinary life or ability to do anything about these things tends to make people extremely neurotic and produces very little that is useful except finally, in a lucky few, the dawning comprehension, “Wow, wallowing in my stuff all day long sucks and gets me nowhere!” So true. Ground your mind in physical sensations (e.g. the breath) or the recommeded object of attention (e.g. a mantra, visualization, etc.). - from Advice on Retreat

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I talked to the guy (Eric) who’s taking care of Walker while he’s finishing up his yogic training in North Carolina, and found out that Eric is heading to Denver in November (that totally rhymed). Come to find out Eric got a scholarship to the Integral Ecology & Sustainability Seminar that we’re hosting and is going to be in town for about a week. Looks like I’ll have the chance to meet this friend of a friends. Samsara never ceases to amaze me!

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