I wrote http://bit.ly/cNlarO to try and clarify my own thinking on something: while facts ("truth"?) matter, it's also true that "subjective narrative" matter (truth!) even when it's disregarded.

What I realized after many, many years of partisan politics is that winning the argument often leaves a trail of new conflicts. There's something fundamentally wrong there. Even when we agree on the facts (Let's face it, that doesn't often happen!) the way we go about making decisions leaves a lot of hard feelings. Democratic process? Maybe ... nominally ... but not social. In fact, just plain rude.

So my "GNodal" project is all about that: not just getting the data, not just presenting the information, but getting to what matters ... to people ... as though people matter ... cuz, ultimately, they do.

Very nice to meet you!
@ITGeek | @bentrem

Eeeeeew ... poison berries.
I think I'll nibble a few. I hear they make tail plumes glow wonderfully.
Ah, there: you talked around my point in order to rant about your own. Agenda much?

p.s. it's normal to indulge this sort of hi-falutin' BS here? you're just rude, dewd; I suggest you read up on "hungry ghost". /me passes the poor fellow a bowl of home-made vanilla yog.

Wonderful ... I mean, after all, we share "yoga" ... and a yogin/i by any other name, right? :-) BTW with a bit of a stretch I could compare yoga to the Christian notion of "oblation". A stretch, but there's a commonality.

namaste
Karma Chöpal
__{*}__

p.s. was thinking of talking to drum kidz about getting Krisna Das up here ... I'm sure kirtan would float their boats!

"Actually, he did say exactly that. .... So he is even worse than those who say you will go to hell ..."
Oh my ...
... got to get the details right, don't you agree?
He said, basically, "Check it out; test it by your own experience!"

"These hell realms actually exist." Oh, my ...

I feel myself disbarred from certain activity (kirtan, for example) because of my views as Vajrayana Buddhist. (Exaggerating slightly for the sake of discussion.) I'd really like to see something like the rime movement, where commonalities are the basis for sharing experience. Deity and atman shouldn't be obstacles to people of good will!

Related, sorta / kinda.
Years ago (Someone out there recall the August '85 issue of Scientific American?) things "fractal" were all very new. (I got in on the ground floor, having studied non-linearity before it was a term.) The community was small, so soon after cobbling together a Mandelbrot microscope (using the C=64's BIOS routines, surprisingly effective) I connected with the fellow who was running the Hubbard supercomputer at Ithaca. (Dear Homer ... miss you tons.) He very kindly sent me a set of very, very, very high-res slides. Glorious.

Fast forward slightly.
During a conversation / audience, I pulled out the slides and showed them to the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. (I had been talking with him about Professor Guenther's "From Reductionism to Creativity; rDzogchen and the New Science of Mind".) He peeked at them and huh huh responded with something like, "Yes, yes, it's like that *giggle*"

E.Ma!

ben

p.s. you've tuned into "self-directed neuro-plasticity"? Alaya-vijnana, n'est-ce pas?
:-)

So two monks were in a heated argument on the subject ... seems they both had the same lover.
Buddha told them to look at their squabbling and think about the roots of conflict. heh ... no addiction to soap-opera there!

/me wonders how to proceed
Nice buffalo! We have bison here in the prairies. We call them buffalo, but ...
/me tries another tack
Nice moustache! I don't remember seeing you with that look!
/me isn't sure that was it, tries again
My oldest friend died this past week after a long fight with cancer, a very talented and memorable fellow; I feel I did very little for him, like I failed him ... like I failed myself.
/me is getting nowhere

I'm astonished at how no "subject" or "theme" or "tactic" or "persona" is enough to pluck me out of self-involvement.
Mantra sometimes does.
Supplicating the guru from afar often does.
Paying attention to breath ... ah-lah ... like wind in a hollow reed.

How can I possibly repay my teacher's generosity?
Trying to be good for folk, and my world, I guess.
:-)

Mangalam!

p.s. great to see you here!

Lovely, just so ... Einstein and gedanken, awe and wonder ... "like a child gazing at the paintings on the ceiling of the shrine-room" ... or how's this, from "Zen Forest": "The perfect answer becomes a donkey's hitching-post" huh huh ... cheers!
p.s. I remember 1991 showing a set of slides to Rinpoches, images produced by a friend who was chief programmer at Hubble SuperComputer Center ... fractals and julia sets ... it's all "mandala", no? *grin*

Sure, Bob, all good, I'm sure we're basically on the same page.

I appreciate the poetry of ecstasy (Do you read Rumi?) but sometimes folk use language that (seems to me) amounts to huge claims of accomplishment and realization ... can get to be a habit, that.