- O hai.
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Welcome to my blug. I’m a Linux and internet geek living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife Candice and cat Rasha. I’m a Zen Buddhist and an amateur cellist, and I work at a little invoicing startup called FreshBooks as their network operations manager. This right here is where I write about whatever's on my mind.
- spotted on the subway
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
mendel- March 1st, 20:56
surprised
... sometime last week, in fact, but I knew you were all watching the Olympics.
I... wow. The pattern right to the left of the grommet is what caught my eye, but...
- generosity
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- mendel
- February 25th, 18:47
Generosity, or dana, is one of the ten paramitas of Buddhism. This quote opens an article on it in this month's Tricycle:
When you are practicing generosity, you should feel a little pinch when you give something away. That pinch is your stinginess protesting. If you give away your old, worn-out coat that you wouldn't be caught dead wearing, that is not generosity. There is no pinch. [...] Giving away your coat might keep someone warm, but it does not address the problem we face as spiritual practitioners: to free ourselves from self-cherishing and self-grasping.
- Gelek Rimpoche
- Guilt
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- mendel
- February 19th, 18:23
"[F]or Nietzsche, the concept of guilt emerges when we draw a distinction between intention and action. 'I didn't mean to do that,' we will say. In this sense, guilt is a total abstraction, for it presupposes that doing is different from choosing."
- Tom Hodgkinson, How To Be Free (which I'm very much enjoying generally).
- Charlotte Joko Beck on striving for breakthroughs
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- mendel
- February 15th, 18:56
awake
I realize it must seem like I'm just posting everything that gets posted to the Meditation Matters blog or Tricycle's Daily Dharma newsletter, but they just have lots of good in them. Like this, from Saturday's Daily Dharma (emphasis and square brackets mine):Each Moment
What primarily concerns me is the necessity for a student to learn to be as awake as possible in each moment. Otherwise it can seem as if the point of practice is to have breakthroughs. The usefulness of these openings exists only if they clarify life and our ability to live it and serve it. But until mind and body - usually through years of patient practice - cease to want an ego-centered life, the openings and their teachings cannot [must not] be distorted into ego successes. Only when mind and body are mostly free of reactivity can a true understanding of what life is become possible - not through a momentary breakthrough, but through an open and compassionate living of life.
--Charlotte Joko Beck, from "Life's Not a Problem" (Summer 1998)
Non-striving is a sticking point in my own practice right now. It's hard to just sit without trying to attain something, whether it be kensho or stress reduction or getting assigned a first koan or what.
("Ceasing to want an ego-centered life" plus mendel equals lots of work to do.)
- artist's survival kit
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- mendel
- February 15th, 0:27
amused
By Keri Smith, author of Wreck This Journal, comes
which is cute and awesome and ONE CLICK AWAY.
- yay ikea
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- mendel
- February 14th, 17:58
Did a run to Ikea today to pick up some storage boxes, and SOMEHOW also brought home a new hall table:
and a well-ventilated storage box/table for the spare room, into which I will put our home server, wireless router, VOiP adapter, DSL modem, etc.:
Both solid wood! I'm really pleased with the hall table. I need to get a basket for the shelf, into which we can throw hats and gloves.
Update: So much for my basket plan. The shelf has been taken.
- No more room for cello!
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- mendel
- February 13th, 22:41
thoughtful
I took my rental cello back yesterday.
I'm a little disappointed that it didn't work out, but hey, it didn't. I enjoyed playing it but it was a time sponge -- I couldn't practice "enough" and while I was pleased with my progress I often found myself stressing out about upcoming lessons. I think there was a couple of things going on there: one, I was determined to become A Cellist, partly because I wanted to make up for not being A Bassist in university; and second, I let it become part of my identity right away, which didn't accomplish a whole lot. I should've said "I'm learning some cello" and not "I play the cello" all along.
In fact there was one conversation in the sheet music department of the Sound Post where the guy behind the counter recognized my name as a tinwhistle player thanks to the forums I used to maintain, and asked if I was still playing if he needed a tinwhistle player for a gig, and I said no, these days it was really just cello -- which was true, but augh, wrong answer.
I kind of felt bad about putting it down because I felt like I never finish anything: flying, playing bass, motorcycling... although really, all of those sort of consumed me and then didn't have staying power. Who knows if I'd have enjoyed them if I'd just taken smaller doses?
But to prove myself wrong, there are things that I've stuck with for a long time: Irish music, Buddhism, and system administration, to name a few. I'm looking forward to getting back into Irish music, and in fact I recorded myself playing and singing "Arthur McBride" in GarageBand. Here's the mp3.
I'm not thrilled with the singing or the mastering but I do like how the instrumental parts sound. It's all me, playing DADGAD rhythm guitar and flatpicking, two or three tracks of flute (on two flutes, my rosewood Sweetheart and polymer Dixon), three tracks of tinwhistle (on three whistles: a cheapy Clarke, an Overton given to me years ago by Colin Goldie, and a Howard low D), and singing poorly. It was a little out of my range, but unfortunately the whistles and flutes don't exactly transpose easily!
And for my own benefit and to power our household with the rolling ofnyxie's eyes, a couple of lists:
Instruments I play and/or own:- Double bass (play)
- Electric bass (play and own one, and nyxie has one too)
- Guitar (play and own)
- Irish flute (play and own two)
- Tinwhistle (play and own a dozen or so)
- Bodhran (play and own, although it needs reskinning or maybe replacing)
- Button accordion (own a toy one, can play a couple tunes)
- Harmonica (just own, can't do much with it)
Instruments I would like to try/buy:- Banjo
- Mandolin
- Ukulele
- Viola da gamba
- Real button accordion
- USB keyboard for GarageBand
- A nice classic blackwood Irish flute
- Fretless electric bass, if I get playing electric bass seriously again
- that's better.
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- mendel
- February 9th, 19:38
I wanted to do something to personalize my new MacBook without doing too much, and this fit the bill!
(My friend Chris sent me some spare Apple stickers -- wrapped in a Power Mac G3 manual to keep them flat in the mail. Dork. Thanks Chris!)
