Meditation

A calm moment for a chat with a good friend.
 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mission Statement

Image
The "7 Habits" card that popped up today was about "Mission Statement'.  WTF. This will take some thought. I generally think of "Mission Statements" as the BS that corporations put out to pad out their central "mission", which is to make a profit. But let's give it a shot. Prayer of St. Francis (perhaps his "Mission Statment") Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;  Where there is hatred, let me sow love;  Where there is injury, pardon;  Where there is doubt, faith;  Where there is despair, hope;  Where there is darkness, light;  And where there is sadness, joy.  O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console;  To be understood, as to understand;  To be loved, as to love;  For it is in giving that we receive,  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,  And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.  Amen. You could think of this as a prayer or a "promise to yourself". I'm not ...
Read more

A Sermon: Mindful Love

Image
The fundamental flash of insight Buddha had under the banyan tree is that suffering is the result of attachment. The strongest attachment we have is to the "self itself" - fear of dying, fear of letting go entirely. Part of his insight was that all things are impermanent, including the "self".  My comments reference both the impermanence of "self" and the importance of the self-created illusion of self-who we imagine ourselves to be. Attachment to our self-image causes a lot of suffering. Attacks on this self-image (challenges to the story we tell ourselves about who we are) are met with the vigorous defense which attempts to defend our "selves" or re-define them in some way that seems to turn away the attack. This has the effect of strengthening our attachment to our "self", weakening our ability to hold it lightly and detach. This is the wrong direction to take in life - at least according to Buddha - and the net effect is increasing ...
Read more

Oculus Quest

Image
A Peek at Quest App "Star Wars - Tales From The Galaxy's Edge"  A quick " sales brochure " for the Quest is worth a look if you are totally new to the device. The next thing people want to know is - how much? In Canada, from Amazon , it's $399. $299 in US. My own feeling is that this is not a bad entry point if you want to see what it's all about, but it's "pong" compared to what's coming. I expect to replace my Oculus Quest I with the next one, not the Oculus Quest II, which is simply a polished version of I. I look for fundamental upgrades in capability. What else do you need? Just WIFI. No computer needed (most competing headsets are peripherals to a PC application, requiring a cable connection to the PC. Even then, you need a compatible PC graphics card). One thing that's easy to miss in all this is that the WIFI, Quest, the smart phone and Facebook (er "Meta") are kinda bound at the hip. In my view, this combination i...
Read more