Paul Hawken's Commencement Address

Paul Hawken's Commencement Address in Portland Posted by Nipun Mehta on May 17, 2009

Paul Hawken is a friend of CharityFocus, renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, founder of Wiser Earth and author of many books -- most recently Blessed Unrest.

Last week, he was presented with an honorary doctorate of humane letters by University of Portland, when he delivered this superb commencement address.

Commencement Address to the Class of 2009
University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was "direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful." No pressure there.

Let's begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don't poison the water, soil, or air, don't let the earth get overcrowded, and don't touch the thermostat have been broken. Buckminster Fuller said that spaceship earth was so ingeniously designed that no one has a clue that we are on one, flying through the universe at a million miles per hour, with no need for seatbelts, lots of room in coach, and really good food—but all that is changing.

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn't bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn't afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here's the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, "So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world." There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way.

There is a rabbinical teaching that says if the world is ending and the Messiah arrives, first plant a tree, and then see if the story is true. Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity's willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice," is Mary Oliver's description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown -- Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity. Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of
people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history.

The living world is not "out there" somewhere, but in your heart. What do we know about life? In the words of biologist Janine Benyus, life creates the conditions that are conducive to life. I can think of no better motto for a future economy. We have tens of thousands of abandoned homes without people and tens of thousands of abandoned people without homes. We have failed bankers advising failed regulators on how to save failed assets. We are the only species on the planet without full employment. Brilliant. We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can't print life to bail out a planet. At present we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it gross domestic product. We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it. We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And whenever we exploit the earth we exploit people and cause untold suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich, it is a way to be rich.

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams. Literally you are breathing molecules this very second that were inhaled by Moses, Mother Teresa, and Bono. We are vastly interconnected. Our fates are inseparable. We are here because the dream of every cell is to become two cells. And dreams come true. In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours. Each human cell has 400 billion molecules conducting millions of processes between trillions of atoms. The total cellular activity in one human body is staggering: one septillion actions at any one moment, a one with twenty-four zeros after it. In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe, which is exactly what Charles Darwin foretold when he said science would discover that each living creature was a "little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars of heaven."

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body? Stop for a moment. Feel your body. One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it, and wonder instead when this speech will end. You can feel it. It is called life. This is who you are. Second question: who is in charge of your body? Who is managing those molecules? Hopefully not a political party. Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature. Our innate nature is to create the conditions that are conducive to life. What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. Each of us is as complex and beautiful as all the stars in the universe. We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn't stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Posted by Nipun Mehta | comments (75) | permalink | more 'Inspiration' |

The Biocentric Universe Theory

NASA/ESA/A. Schaller (for STScI)

The following is from "The Biocentric Universe Theory: Life Creates Time, Space, and the Cosmos Itself". Stem-cell guru Robert Lanza presents a radical new view of the universe and everything in it. by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman. From the May 2009 issue, of Discover Magazine, published online May 1, 2009. For full article go to: Biocentric Universe Theory.
Figuring out the nature of the real world has obsessed scientists and philosophers for millennia. Three hundred years ago, the Irish empiricist George Berkeley contributed a particularly prescient observation: The only thing we can perceive are our perceptions. In other words, consciousness is the matrix upon which the cosmos is apprehended. Color, sound, temperature, and the like exist only as perceptions in our head, not as absolute essences. In the broadest sense, we cannot be sure of an outside universe at all.
For centuries, scientists regarded Berkeley’s argument as a philosophical sideshow and continued to build physical models based on the assumption of a separate universe “out there” into which we have each individually arrived. These models presume the existence of one essential reality that prevails with us or without us. Yet since the 1920s, quantum physics experiments have routinely shown the opposite: Results do depend on whether anyone is observing. This is perhaps most vividly illustrated by the famous two-slit experiment. When someone watches a subatomic particle or a bit of light pass through the slits, the particle behaves like a bullet, passing through one hole or the other. But if no one observes the particle, it exhibits the behavior of a wave that can inhabit all possibilities—including somehow passing through both holes at the same time.
Some of the greatest physicists have described these results as so confounding they are impossible to comprehend fully, beyond the reach of metaphor, visualization, and language itself. But there is another interpretation that makes them sensible. Instead of assuming a reality that predates life and even creates it, we propose a biocentric picture of reality. From this point of view, life—particularly consciousness—creates the universe, and the universe could not exist without us.

2,500 Year-Old Chinese "Eco-Village" Vision

My vision of an environmentally sustainable future culture is often guided by Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching, composed about 2500 years ago. Next to the last chapter, he envisions a world of harmony between humans and environment; it is an eco-village, a village harmonized with the environment. It's very simple, and expresses how we can live, let live and be happy:

Imagine a small state with a small population
let there be labor-saving tools
that aren't used
let people consider death
and not move far
let there be boats and carts
but no reason to ride them
let there be armor and weapons
but no reason to employ them
let people return to the use of knots
and be satisfied with their food
and pleased with their clothing
and content with their homes
and happy with their customs
let there be a state so near
people hear its dogs and chickens
and live out their lives
without making a visit

Chapter 80
from Lao-tzu's Taoteching: translated by Red Pine with selected commentaries of the past 2000 years.
Mercury House, San Francisco, 1996.

This old verse suggests a world of people content and satisfied with a simple life. A life free of the trills of travel, acquisition, complex financial transactions, or vain displays of possessions. The happiness is inner, but leads to a simple external life.

Imagine: What would a day in this village be like? How would we work? What would our friendships be like? What would family be like? What would we be? What would we think?

(Image from Earth Heart - Tao Te Ching notecards.)

Green Technology is Not Enough

I just don't see it working. I
mean the idea that we can
resolve the global warming issue
by merely installing green technologies.
Even more important is installation
of green culture (i.e., a renewal
of how we act and live in the
world, not just making energy and
gadgets clean green). Yes, let's
have electric cars, but at the
same time organize and re-value
our lives so as to use cars
80% less. That would be
a real change: that we go
all the way to reversing the
devastation we currently face.
So it's
green culture + green technology
that we need. Now, what can I do today
to make culture greener?

Being of Beings

"God" too often feels like
either a taboo or cliche word
in most public circles.
But, for me "God" is God - a word
that points to the Way,
the Mystery, the Source,
the Sense of Presence of All-that-is.
I feel God by turning my
attention to this moment
here-and-now: the wondrous sense
of there being anything at
all! A miracle that there
is a universe with
consciouseness enough to sense
a Universe. That's amazing!
The mere act of sensing
being-present here-and-now is
the essense of what's usually
called worship. To appreciate
existence is to love God; and God
meets our love the more we
enjoy, praise and love the
presence of being-here-now.

Berkeley Bowl

There I was, after a long period of work,
just having fun walking around
Berkeley Bowl. Seeing so many people
buying vegetables and fruit.
Such a miracle!

Always a Beginning

It's always a beginning.
This means that at every moment we have a certain degree of freedom.
On the other hand, we need ritual, so as to appreciate our freedom.
Cycles of day & night, winter-spring-summer-fall. Work & rest make us safe in a way.
Every moment contains BEGINNING/ENDING.

americ azevedo
2009.05.18 7:40am

Already in heaven

When I was a little boy

My head was in the heavens

I did not know I was

already in heaven

Democracy, Earth Rights and the Next Economy

It is only in recent human history that land has been enclosed and the rights of use given to a few people, as opposed to a whole community. Alanna Hartzok points out that individual equality, even in a democracy, cannot exist without equal rights to the abundance of the earth. She presents solutions that have been successful in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, including restructuring taxes so that land value, a communal asset, is taxed instead of wages or buildings.

Alanna Hartzok's life work is embodied in a vision of economic democracy and environmental sustainability. On October 27, 2001, Ms. Hartzok presented her paper on "Democracy, Earth Rights and the Next Economy" at the Twenty-First Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts. You may read the full text at:

http://www.earthrights.net/docs/schumacher.html

Here is the audio recording of her lecture, complete with a moving introduction by the moderator:

Down loadable audio formats.

Economic Depression

A philosophical and spiritual look at the current economic depression (which many only call "a downturn"). What are the possible upsides?

Down loadable audio formats.

As It Is

Recorded shortly after a morning meditation; a worldview expressed shortly after being-at-one for a moment.

Down loadable audio formats.

Tuesday morning at Peet's

Light of consciousness,
an angelic web
holding all with love.

I found my Self
at dawn's light
while awakening.
Soon as I felt it
all the way
down to my feet;
it slipped away

Self is nothing
Not-self is everything
Find the Nothing
Find the Self.
That's all.

All life can be meditation

A few suggestions for meditating right now.

Down loadable audio formats.

As-It-Is Quality of Life

Seeing all-that-is from it's basic "as it is" aspect.
(Recorded outside in the early morning in Berkeley, April 4, 2009)
Down loadable formats For audio stream, hit play button:

Internet Consuming Life

Audio recorded outside after writing and coffee at Peet's Coffee & Tea. It's about the Internet and its power in our life. You can hear background sounds of morning rush hour traffic and the birds!

Two Kingdoms

Oh! To begin again
To do again what I did
with all the knowledge
I have now!

Nothing is ever the same.
Still, I can return again to
this present moment.
It's always the same
Always, always, always

In the Kingdom of Time
this moment never comes again.
In the Kingdom of Eternity
this is the only moment.

(Photo: Under the wisteria near Peet's Coffee & Tea across from Clairmont Hotel, Berkeley. 3/28/2009)

paper scraps

I write on paper scraps
for absolute pleasure
pen, ink, paper touching
like lovers at night

Social robots "with feelings"

The wall between humans and robots is falling. The more robots act like they feel our presense, the more we feel that they are like us. The first video is of Kismit, an early experimental social robot at M.I.T. who interacts with feeling.

The second video is much more lifelike. Many students say this video is disturbing.

Someday it may become hard to tell the difference between a robot and a person. Will social robots change "human nature"? What are the ethical questions raised? What are the possible applications of such technology? Do we want to limit those applications?

Practice of "Getting Ready"

It's extra hard to "be present" when we are "getting ready". You're trying to get out the door; but, suddently anxiety kicks in - and a thousand little details get in the way of getting out. You run around trying to do this and that - while the clock is ticking and the heart beats faster. Getting ready wears you down. What to do?

We could make "getting ready" a practice like meditation practice. Real meditation is to be here ever more deeply; but, it helps to use a feedback system which is meditation practice. It's like dancing. Practicing dancing is not dancing; or, to take another example, practicing thinking is not thinking. Thinking is free and wild; so is dancing when it's dancing. The reason we practice dancing or thinking (using logic, for example) is to perfect certain point techniques or competencies.

We can apply "practice" to getting ready to go out the door. Be aware of "getting ready" and pay attention. Stay present, letting go of the forward rushing feeling that all too often grips us; notice that feeling, stop, breathe, and let go; then proceed again with going out the door. Someday, we just go out the door. There will be no sense of getting ready; just movements. No practice at all! Free and easy it will be.

Victory Garden

Walking by a vacant lot (in front of Evans Hall) on a late rainy afternoon at the UC Berkeley campus; surprised and pleased to find a student initiated victory garden - to grow food for the campus community. Yes, we can change the world one plot of earth at time.

Late aging

Late aging is a slow bit by bit death; nature's way of giving us time to adjust to the inevitable.

Watch days go by

Watch days go by
Watch life go by - for a while
everyday. That is meditation, too.

In the direct experience of time passing by
We glimpse the impermanence of
everything that we love and hate.
This is the high perspective.

Then plunge into action
un-moved by results, goals, or ends.

It's what is.

thoughts flowing

thoughts flowing
like a river
of honey-lightening

going forward
going no where
but home to God

Don't talk

Be quite. Don't talk. Walk around, being with people while not talking. You'll be in your life, not in your head lost in words. A gift you become to all around.

Slow Journey

A slow journey is the fastest way to the present.

Always today

There's only one day. It's always today!

Every yesterday was "a today";
every tomorrow will be "a today".
It's always today!

The quality of today is
like yesterday, like tomorrow.
Therefore, focus on today.
This moment creates today. So,
focus into this moment -
the infinitesimal moment-point
called eternity.

Lecture hall

105 Stanley Hall - a wonderful, new, fresh lecture hall on campus. During the past eight years, I used large lecture halls for teaching "Introduction to Computers"; now it's meditation.

Obama Meets With Dangerous World Leader Without Preconditions

Obama Meets With Dangerous World Leader Without Preconditions

Obama has worldwide support

Ocean of Love

At age two
I lost my way

The next 30 years
a journey back to
the source of Light
the river of Life

The next 30 years
a journey back out
into the marketplace
the Ocean of Love

More Obama pumpkins

Two more mobile pictures of Obama pumpkins. I'm amazed by all the art this campaign has produced!

Obama pumpkin carving

An Obama Halloween pumpkin in Berkeley.
The outline of the pumpkin itself does not show in
mobile phone photo.

Drops of rain

Drops of rain
upon the windowpane

Light of dawn
becoming radiant grayness

World's awake
while reality sleeps

"I" don't exist

'I' don't exist
I'm a construct; made of parts -
atoms, quarks, electrons, forces
Not whole

Still, there's something,
a no-thing
That's here too
It's of another order
Absolutely real, existing always
I want to be THAT.

Idea of happiness

Give up the "idea of happiness" in order to be happy.

Holding to an "idea of happiness" blocks happiness. For happiness is. If happiness strictly depends on this or that, then we are not free. The greatest discovery is that happiness is already within us; we find happiness when we uncover it.

Of course we take joy and confort in our home, family, friends, and lovely things we acquire along the way. But, that which is given to us will be eventually taken away.

There is another dimension of life; call it the absolute, which just is. The ancients called it "Atman" - the imperishable soul that is a spark of the universal Brahman (or God infinite) We are THAT as well as our relative fleeting life. Jesus may have been speaking of THAT when he talked of "Life more abundant".

"I" am the hollow flute

"I" am empty space,
like a hollow flute
Light, air passes
through "me"

Vibrating with Universe
Getting out of the way,
"we" become everything;
we are no-thing

Far is Near; Near is Far

Americ Azevedo & Mike Scott begin with Heidegger's thought on "far and near" and expand to a full range of related subjects:

Phone interviews / no travel / Heidegger / far is near / near is far / human awareness / reality / dimensionality / reality / technology / 3000 B.C. / Dave Bohm / quantum physics /enfoldment / parallel universes / importance of thought / the marketplace / Kierkegaard / skimming life / no purpose / duty / media / news as entertainment / end of thought / duty to think / elections as circus / public philosophy / the duty of freedom.

Podcast

What is the meaning of life? (Aug. 9, 2008)

Saturday, August 8th, 2008. Nineteen people joined me for an hour of talk, meditation, and focused conversation at Elephant Pharmacy in Berkeley. The sound quality in the store makes it hard to hear many of the participant comments; but, I assure you that wisdom was all around in the room! We did not come to any "final" answers about the meaning of life. Indeed, the journey, the exploration was joy itself. Here's the recording:

Podcast

We are all "me"

Everywhere we go we
run up against ego structures.
Everyone of them is "me" or
"I".
Clearly,
"we" are all one.
By cultivating spiritual eyes we
see this.

I've got to wonder

I've got to wonder...
With everything changing so
fast - it's a challenge to
have hope.

If you can't count
on the dollar, the banks,
the schools, the presidents,
your future old age retirement,
the air you breathe, your job ---

What do you turn to?
Become like
Socrates.
Ask lots of questions.

What is the Good Life?

Image from Wikipedia commons

I received a letter from Steven L. Turner, a soldier in Iraq. He wrote:

Dear Sir,

I just wanted to write a short letter thanking you for your contributions to iTunes U. I am currently fighting in Iraq and your lectures throughout the course "Time, Money, and Love in the Age of Technology" have given me something to look forward to when I am not working. Your topics, and subsequent discussions, help me to stay sharp and always keep my brain turning. I just recently listened to your lecture on "The Good Life". I found this one especially intriguing and found myself discussing it with other soldiers that I work with. Anyway, I again thank you for your contributions and look forward to a time that the Internet connection is fast enough here allowing me to download more.

Thanks,
Steven L. Turner

I wrote back for permission to quote him here in the Philosopher-at-Large blog. He responded with:

Dear Sir,

I would be honored. All of the information that I gave you would not be sensitive in any nature. Any interaction via unsecured network should be carefully looked at and I thank you for your concern. Many would take that for granted. I have been urged by your words to write an essay of my own, as I often do, on the topic previously discussed. I have been getting some interesting answers from the guys when questioned "What is the good life?". I think I will write one here in country (given the unique setting and environment) and then write one when I get home. I
think comparison would be an interesting one. Anyway, thanks again and let me know if there are any other lectures available. The Internet connection here still isn't fast enough (or broad enough) to handle iTunes, but I stay hopeful. Have a good one and good luck in all that you do. ...

Steven L. Turner

I personally thank Steven Turner for his letters and comments. He inspires me to go on with teaching! Certainly, makes all this work worth the effort. I feel that people like him are truly making this a safer and better world.

Here's the podcast of the November 19, 2007 lecture on "What is the Good Life?" given at the University of California:

Podcast

Zen, Love and Values

Americ Azevedo & Mike Scott continue their dialogue as they now grapple with the following themes:

serenity / the American dream/ greed/ spiritual materialism/ mastery/ love of wisdom/ value/ Nietzsche / revaluation of values/ market forces as "gods"/ money/ dogmatism / and more...

Podcast

Naked Ladies

A sighting of "naked ladies" upon my morning walk.

Whenever I see these naked lady flowers, it means
that Fall is coming; that it's almost time to be
teaching my university classes on meditation,
nonviolence, technology and human values, and
computers.

Wind & Fire Dialogues - Getting Started

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/konged/87456821/

Lately, I've been calling Mike Scott, founder of ThoughtAudio and XLRQ, on the phone and capturing our dialogues with a digital recorder. We began in a "Zen" fashion - not knowing where the dialogue will take us; for, indeed, the quest for truth takes us where it will.

This podcast ("Getting Started") is under eight minutes long. It touches upon the following themes:

being real / special experience / birth of the church / why institutions distort reality / judgements & spiritual ego / "the right way" / the beginning of dogma / and more...

Podcast

Marketplace Meditation

Saturday, July 13th, 2008. Thirteen people joined me for an hour of talk, focused conversation, and meditation at Elephant Pharmacy in Berkeley. We meditated, practiced inner silence right in the store - with all the sounds of the marketplace around us. The recording unfortunately could not pick up all the comments of participants.; nor could we record the "sound" of meditation! Here's the recording:

Podcast

---

In my talk, I mention the "Ten Bulls" from the Zen Buddhist tradition - especially number ten, representing someone enlightened who has completed the spiritual journey finally return to the marketplace. Below is that the 10th drawing as the corresponding text. It's one of my favorites.


10. In the World

Barefooted and naked of breast, I mingle with the people of the world.
My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.

Comment: Inside my gate, a thousand sages do not know me. The beauty of my garden is invisible. Why should one search for the footprints of the patriarchs? I go to the market place with my wine bottle and return home with my staff. I visit the wineshop and the market, and everyone I look upon becomes enlightened.

from 10 Bullsby Kakuan
Transcribed by Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps
Illustrated by Tomikichiro Tokuriki
http://terebess.hu/english/bulls.html

Beyond objects

True meditation releases mind's identification with objects; mind turns toward the source light of awareness itself without objects.

The purpose of true meditation is to break the mind’s identification with objects – so that the mind simply turns toward the source light of awareness without object. This is the true spacious, skylight radiant quality of mind that we glimpse and sustain as we awaken. Like “being in love” when the whole world seems brighter, more real, more filled with love all around. The difference is that this awakened condition is not dependent upon any object or specific person. It just IS.

Building a Conversation with 500 Students

This article appeared as a Syllabus "Case Study", July 2001, page 10. Even after all these years, I find that it still holds up. It was exciting to create a multi-directional Socratic dialogue with a class of 500 students. What I did not know at the time is that it takes so much energy and attention from the lead instructor! I don't think I could do that now. It would require several well trained co-instructors to make this to work on a permanent basis.

FACE-TO-FACE WITH VIRTUAL COMMUNITIES
Building a Conversation with 500 Students
Syllabus "Case Study", July 2001, page 10

Americ Azevedo has 500 students in his Introduction to Computers course at the University of California, Berkeley. Despite that, his teaching philosophy embodies the principles of the Socratic method. What makes this apparent contradiction possible is discussion software, a technology that enables him to “teach” and interact with his students outside of class in a flexible, dynamic way. Discussion software connects him, his students, and the TAs for the course, and allows them to communicate much more directly and frequently than they otherwise could.

Azevedo, who has taught courses in computers and human/computer interaction at several institutions, has always believed that the Socratic method is right approach to teaching. In courses with smaller enrollments, he has usually relied upon open-ended questions and in-class discussion while simultaneously tinkering with online discussion formats to supplement the ongoing Socratic dialogue. However, faced with the prospect of teaching hundreds of students in a large lecture hall three days a week for 50 minutes, Azevedo knew that in-class discussion would be nearly impossible and that he’d have to rely on online discussions to achieve his goals.

The immediate benefit of using discussion software has been an increase in participation by his students and a chance for him to get to know some of them quite well. “I can call up a list of all of their contributions to the course and see what they’re like quite easily.” Says Azevedo. “Through the use of the software I get a chance to hear the ideas and concerns of a large number of students. It also allows the shy students to participate as actively as the more outgoing ones.”

Flexibility was one of his primary concerns. “Most of the software that exists for course management is content-centered,” notes Azevedo. “It locks you into specific topics and doesn’t allow discussions to grow naturally.” Because it had many of the features he was looking for, Azevedo decided to try WebCrossing in the course. “What like about WebCrossing is that it’s discussion-centered and allows students to generate new topics, or threads, if they want to. It is really an experiment in developing a pattern language, a new way of submitting thoughts.”

Azevedo’s class site had topics that he’s generated, where he can post course information, posit questions, and link to other useful sites. It also includes many student-generated threads. In addition, the course is supported by the full array of UC Berkeley’s technology tools. For instance, through the Berkeley Internet Broadcasting Network, Azevedo has captured streaming video of all of his lectures. Students can link to these from the class site. Coupled with dynamic lecture notes, PowerPoint slides, and online assignments, the site is a rich resource for both discussion and study. “With these resources in place,” he notes, “we could expand the enrollment of the course to a distance learning situation with twice or four times as many students.”

e-mail is a part of Azevedo’s package as well. He is experimenting with the use of e-mail to communicate with his students, posting information about upcoming lectures to a listserv. Based on student responses, he can tailor the lecture to address the material they need specific help with, and skip what they’ve already absorbed. This has led to some interesting student-contributed material. “I asked them to define some terms that are used in the computer industry,” he says. “The students generated some very interesting metaphors that I used in lecture.”

Azevedo’s Introduction to Computers also has a lab requirement. “With 18 sections of labs 4 hours a week, we’re using all the available lab space,” he says. In the future, he hopes to use discussion software to enhance the laboratory experience, allowing the students in each lab section to communicate with each other and with the TA on projects. He’s also planning to experiment with a CyberLab that would replace some of the lab sections.

According to Azevedo, discussion software can enhance not only large lecture courses, but smaller enrollment courses as well. “When I used it with small classes, it generated a lot of excitement,” he notes. “There was more personal engagement than you get with a large course. My students generated hundreds of pages of text, and the themes just grew and expanded organically.”

In his large course, Azevedo has found that students don’t necessarily participate as much, but he has been surprised by the level of response at times. “I started a debate about participation credits: should students get credit for participating in these large lecture courses? This produced a raging debate on WebCrossing. It was a level of expression that you would normally never get in a large class. Students contributed ideas about how the course should be graded, some of which I incorporated into the course.”

He adds, “My co-teachers, Nicholas Cravotta, quickly adopted the new environment. For instance, he was able to give quick public feedback to a discussion topic led by student-generated questions. Normally, students would never get this kind of feedback in a large class.”

Legend of the eagle and the condor

Don Alverto Taxo, a Quichua elder and Iachak (community leader/healer), speaks of the ancient prophecy of the eagle and the condor meeting to bring a new harmony into the world. Don Alverto invites us all to trust the universal human intuition to bring greater harmony into our lives, and to seek after life's deeper meaning.



For more related videos, biography, and links; please go to An Invitation.

Concept Acknowledgment: Marianne Henry

Odd flags and old truck

I love walking around Berkeley. On an after dinner walk this week, I found a street that looked and felt like rural Pennsylvania. First, I found a house with an Obama poster, an Earth flag, and an old American flag converted into a Peace flag. Second, was an ancient rusty truck; still parked on the street! Notice the license plate numbers.

The sunlight had turned an orange-red color caused by smoke from 800 fires north of Berkeley. It was being on another planet with a different sun!

Our work is to awaken

Our work, our labor, is to awaken to our true nature which was forgotten due to false identification with the content of consciousness.

The theory and practice of meditation help us again realize (make real) our true nature. When I speak, write or listen to these words, I am in the realm of theory; when I take in the meaning of these words, I inform and transform myself along the path of self realization.

It’s very, very important to remember that words are not what they refer to. “The map is not the territory.” Speaking or writing about meditation is not meditation. Meditation is in the gaps between the words, between the thoughts. But the word “gap” is not the same as a gap itself as-it-is. Get past the word – allow the great silence to come. At the point of great silence is the great labor of liberation.

Today… be silent…

Today... be silent... let go, let it be. A time for cleanup of our inner and outer life.

Some of the greatest Zen masters were cooks and janitors. Some of our best days are when we do cleaning up; moving around from thing to thing, cleaning, sorting out, and putting everything away in its place. At the end of the day, you look around and feel happy with the sense of clean, clear spaciousness all around.

Unrealized true wealth

Failing to acknowledge our true wealth we keep grasping for more, like hungry ghosts who are never satisfied while constantly eating!

We are born with true wealth, but constantly forget to realize the wealth we already have. Failing to acknowledge our true wealth we keep grasping for more, like hungry ghosts who are never satisfied while constantly eating! Thus, we go about despoiling the earth, corrupting relationships, and twisting societies into grotesque forms that promote needless suffering for ourselves, others, and the earth as a whole. Realizing true wealth leads to personal, interpersonal, and transpersonal fulfillment. Furthermore, the long-term survival of life on earth depends upon true wealth realization.

We need deep psychological and spiritual healing of individuals, groups, communities, nations, and the earth. The bedrock of this healing is a return to this present moment, not in a selfish, narrow way, but in a way that includes the totality of what is here–there as well as past–present–future. It is nothing less than the ancient ideal of enlightenment of all sentient beings.

Light Crosses

These crosses are parking light polls. But they are suggestive of the Cross. I walked by them for over a year without noticing what they looked like. Reminds me that the mind sees so little of what's "out there".

Is time poverty the price of progress?

Computing power doubles every two or less years; yet, our work day gets longer. We’re more scattered with less time.

The idea of "time poverty" naturally came up while lecturing on Moore's Law - which states that computing power doubles every 18 months. Suddenly I asked "Why if computing power doubles every two or less years, is it that our working day does not go down? Why is it that so many people now complain about having too much to do? Why do we complain so much about not having enough time?" For decades we have refined automation, labor saving, time saving devices, and computers do our routine labor and thinking for us. Elusive is the dream of a world with time for loved ones, time for creativity, and time for real self development.

Stall wall writing in Physics Department restroom

A stall wall aphorism found in the Physics Department men's restroom. Good metaphysics!

Hear yourself!

All day, or for just one hour: no radio, no television, no computer, no phone, no reading. Stay with yourself. Hear yourself! Much will be learned.

It’s normal, natural to want to be entertained. We’re all like children. We want to be distracted from ourselves. Our “self” in the sense of the small self, the ego, engages in a painful struggle for against a hostile world. Call it reality. It wants to withdraw from the battle. Listening to the news on the radio; or, watching “reality television” (where we tune into the lives of other “real” people) gives us relief from ourselves. We also keep going to our computers or phones to be thrown outward to somewhere outside our little self.

I’m not saying that radio, television, computers, phone and books are bad – I’m saying that to use these to escape deprives us of the precious opportunity to come closer to our big Self – the ground of our consciousness, which is also everyone else’s consciousness. This is the ultimate reality experience. Life is short; we have no time to waste. Be all you can be. Be here now. Afterwards, take a break; turn on the radio, TV, computer. Remember to come back again to your Self, again and again.

Peet's Tea and Coffee

Walking around in the early morning before the sun comes over the hill. I love go down to Peet's in the morning to pick up a cup. Life is good.

Success not related to time

"Success is not directly related to time", said Mark Allan. Otherwise, internet millionaires could not be rich so fast.

Time moves at the speed of thought! In a flash we can leap into another dimension. Success, money, and time are related in that “leap” like way – which is to say that they are not directly related. In one hour you could make $1, $10, $100, $1,000, $10,000 or more. It’s close to magic how money really is. Close to the true nature of thought. In a year, you could go from middle class to rich levels of wealth. And, wealth has many meanings here. Time moves at the speed of thought, money is a little slower, money is a link between thought and matter.

My first born was only a few years old. He overhead me complaining that I was not making enough money. He said, “Dad! I have the solution. Just make more money every hour.” That was many years ago. If we value our time more than money, we may find ourselves with more time but less money. If we value our money more than time, we may find ourselves with more money but less time. What we value is what we put our attention on. The usual logic is “either-or”. So, the way out of the paradox here is to embrace both money and time.

You are the world

The world comes into existence when you awake and goes out of existence when you sleep. You are the world!

During sleep you live in a world of dreams, and sometimes utter quiet. Of these two states, the dream world is most like waking life. The quiet state is most like the condition of total enlightenment - which is beyond the world altogether. Is not life itself, when recalled (as memories) like a dream? A dreamer sometimes realizes they are in a dream, and thereby breaks the power of the dream.

It's a blessing

It's a blessing when someone asks you about meditation; it supports your own meditation.

A mediation question is a gift. It turns our focus to the fundamental nature of our consciousness. It humbles us, because so much is at stake: the mind of the person asking. Answer carefully from the depths of your heart. Admit what you don't know. Thank the questioner, for they have compelled you to return to mediation in that moment. Only in meditation, can a question about meditation be answered.

On my walk around

Good to be alive. Just walking.

Store Art

Mystical artwork. Seen on Telegraph Avenue near campus.

Party Line

When I was a kid living on a diary farm in Los Angeles, our telephone line was shared by four families. It was called a "party line".

The World Wide Web opened up social networking sites that expose us to each other's private worlds and fantasies. But, when I was a child we had the four line party line. I loved it! When my parents where in another room, I would quietly pick up the phone receiver. Suddenly, I'd hear a phone conversation between two people who where strangers. It was exciting! A glimpse into another personal world. Actually, I was too embarrassed to listen for more than a few seconds. Just to know that they were there - to know that I could hear them was enough. A bridge had been made between two private worlds. Today's technologies provide more and more tools to hear and see each other's private worlds. Even mainstream broadcast television offers "reality TV" - we can look in continuously the life of a family as they go about their days. Now, we've got lots of "party lines"!

"Progress" in meditation

To go for "progress" in meditation makes enlightenment a receding horizon. Effort works against us. Sit and wait. Grace may come.

This issue of progress in meditation comes up often. Students tell me that they are not making any progress at all. But, the problem is that meditation is not about progress - it's about giving up control and surrendering to what is. What is, is what is - both outside and inside. How can there be progress in the realm of surrender. True surrender is giving up control. So there may be no progress in the sense that the ego is controlling how things will go. If the ego must control - that is not meditation. If the ego steps aside - the very idea of progress goes away! That is meditation.

Confused mind

Sometimes the mind is confused & chaotic. Just watch it. Trying to change it, will only add another layer. Just watch it. It passes.

Meditation in the Marketplace

Many escape to a mountaintop to get away from the world's clamor, but in the end the "master's path" requires us to return to the marketplace. How do we stay conscious in this bustling world of business, errands and family life? Audio of talk, meditation, and dialogue presented on Saturday, January 26th 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm at Elephant Pharm:

Audio

Action and stillness

Action & Stillness, Saturday, June 23rd, 3-4 p.m. - presented at Elephant Pharm in Berkeley.
LISTEN TO: Action and Stillness talk (10.8 mb; time 23:40)
Image from Daily Zen Greeting Cards.

Not words, not books

No words, no books
instead
move to love's quiet music

Mitt Romey on respect for many religions

NOTE: I am not endorsing Mitt Romey for President. But, am impressed with his wording on the issue of religion.

Mitt Romey's December 6, 2007, speech on religion contains the following, beautiful passage. Worth quoting:

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.

Remember, remember!

The following verse, constitutes a Hindu prayer uttered at the moment of death and often said in funeral rites. It's a good prayer for living well.

Absolute and relative – he who knows these two together, through the relative leaves death behind and through the Absolute gains immortality.

The threshold of Reality is veiled by golden light.
Reveal It, O Lord, for the guiding purpose of my life is to know the truth.

O Lord of light, the knowing one, the golden guardian, giver of life to all, spread apart your rays, gather up your brilliance, so I may perceive your finest and most splendorous nature, the cosmic spirit that lies at your heart.

For I myself am that!

Let my breath merge with the cosmic breath; may my body be as dust.

Remember, O mind, remember what has been done.
Yes, remember, O mind, remember what has been done!

O Agni, show us the right path, lead us to eternal freedom, You who know everything.
May we not be diverted from our goal, for with all devotion we submit ourselves to You.

from
"Isha Upanishad"
Translated by Alistair Shearer and Peter Russell

Maranda and Steve - on the meaning of life

I interviewed a father (Steve) in his forties and his daughter (Maranda) who is 12 and a half. The audio includes both interviews. We can learn much from this father-daughter team.



LISTEN TO "Maranda & Steve on Meaning of Life" (4.18 mb; time 04:34)

Audio production by Lynette Webb.
Image from iVillage - Family Photo Gallery.

"America" means "rich in love"

A friend of mine once sent me a postcard suggesting the real meaning of my name (actually spelled "Americo"). Having grown up as a Portuguese immigrant in Southern California, I had insecurity about my name. How could I live up to the country that my father named me after? My friend explained it this way:

Americo = Amo, ame (for "love") + rico (for "rich" as in Porto Rico, "rich port"). "Americo" means "rich in love". (In Italian it looks like "Amare ricco" and in Portuguese it's "Amor rico". Change the "o" to an "a" to go to the female form which "America" looks like.)

Perhaps, the real meaning of "America" is: the United State of "Rich in Love". These days, it doesn't look that way, unless making war instead of love is our way. My faith is that when this country gets past living in fear, it will rediscover its roots in love. There is much in a name.

Image from Riding Holidays.

Hubert Dreyfus on "What's the meaning of life?"

Hubert Dreyfus Interview: On the Meaning Of Life by americ

In March 2007, I paid a visit to Professor Hubert Dreyfus at his office in the University of California, Berkeley. He takes the question of meaning of life seriously. You will find his remarks provocative. Wikipedia reports that "Professor Hubert Dreyfus is a contemporary American philosopher. He is considered one the world's leading analysts of postmodern philosophy from Edmund Husserl to Michel Foucault, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and especially Martin Heidegger.."

Audio production by Lynette Webb.