I don’t know what is activism. I don’t know the meaning of it. But I do want to play. As an adult, playing is to pursue an art for life. As I am pursuing and playing with my art, I also want other people to be able to freely pursue their arts. Seeing too many [...]
Archive for October, 2007
Play, Activism, and Buddhism Practice
Posted in Chan/Zen, Grassroots on October 31, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Filantropica
Posted in Random Thoughts on October 28, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Watched this movie tonight. It is awesome. Although it is a comedy (very good quality in term of comedy) and it happened in another country that I have never been to, it feels so real. It reminded me many things. It made me in touch with life again. Life is complex, which is beyond [...]
Some words on social trends
Posted in Grassroots, Random Thoughts on October 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
The developed countries face problems that are quite different from the developing countries. Free market and democracy, compared with monarchy and feudal system, are definitely a historical improvement. They have been very effective in fighting state powers. But of course, they are not ideal. And people in the developed countries are still far from being [...]
Buddhism Practice and Politics
Posted in Chan/Zen, Grassroots on October 26, 2007 | 2 Comments »
I would like to say something based on a Buddhism discussion yesterday. This is an extremely long and complex topic. I don’t expect I can explain everything clearly here. I will try to make this article short and avoid too many details.
First we need to clarify the meaning of politics. Generally speaking, I guess there [...]
Sitting Meditation, Breathing, and Activity of Mind
Posted in Chan/Zen on October 24, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Responding to some discussion in a Buddhism gathering, here I want to talk a little of my understanding of these things as these are quite common questions of Buddhism practice.
First is the question of whether we should manipulate our breathing in our meditation.
We human being, do many activities. A lot of them are activities of [...]
Dumbing Us Down for Mr. Bush and Politicians in the Congress
Posted in unschooling on October 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I read articles of the No Child Left Behind bill on NY Time, and their efforts to renew it. I strongly recommended them to read Mr. John Tayor Gatto’s book Dumbing Us Down. No one can do a good job on education without reading Mr. Gatto’s books or sharing the same understanding on education.
Compulsory [...]
Dumbing Us Down for Teach for America and Wendy Kopp
Posted in unschooling on October 21, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Read Wendy Kopp’s book One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach for America and What I Learned Along the Way several years ago.
Wendy recently came to Columbia to give a speech, and on NY Times Teach for America was said to be like the peace corp in the 70s.
I would strongly [...]
Space and Learning
Posted in Chan/Zen, Featured Essays, Learning, What is Learning on October 18, 2007 | 1 Comment »
This is a talk I gave in a natural learning group gathering. Most of the stuff in the talk can be found in my other blogs. Here I just put them together under the umbrella of space.
Here I want to talk about two level of learning from the point of view of space. One level [...]
About outsourcing
Posted in Cross Culture Communication, Grassroots on October 14, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Many people in the west assume that outsourcing is bad for the developing countries because of all those sweetshop and environmental things. But is it really bad for the people in the developing countries?
I’ve had some experience of starvation as a kid and in my college. And I have an aunt who couldn’t go to [...]
Everything is relative?
Posted in Chan/Zen on October 13, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I heard people saying this many times during Buddhism discussions. My feeling is that everything is relative only in your mind. If you can drop your mind, then what you see if absolute. What you see, what you hear and what you touch, are already reality.
Lust and Caution (Se Jie)
Posted in Cross Culture Communication, general on October 13, 2007 | 2 Comments »
About half way into the movie, I was thinking this movie was just like its name, only lust and caution (a lot of hatred too), there is no love. Then suddenly I saw something like love sneaking in. And as the story continued, I realized that it was actually a story about love at a [...]
Some words to help you focus before your sitting meditation
Posted in Chan/Zen, Featured Essays on October 12, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Note: Not necessarily you need these words for your meditation. It is just if you find it difficult to concentrate see if this can help you.
As you have made your decision to come to sit here for these 20 mins, please be just sitting here for these 20 mins. You are not doing anything else. [...]
Telling difference
Posted in Chan/Zen on October 12, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
The function of thinking is to tell difference. To be able to tell the difference can be really powerful. For example, be able to feel about the progress of yourself. Or be able to feel about the change or the trend of society. Really being able to feel the trend of society is of course [...]
Breakfast At Tiffany’s
Posted in Liberal Arts, Random Thoughts on October 12, 2007 | 1 Comment »
The wild thing. A pretty girl loves everyone. She is in love with the world.
All the things that moral is trying to teach, most of them are wrong. It just make you more hypocrite. It takes a lot of efforts to find out the truth by yourself. What is life? How do you manifest [...]
Buddhism and social consciousness
Posted in Chan/Zen, Grassroots on October 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I don’t know if it is valid of the criticism of Buddhism as lack of discourse on social consciousness, social ideal or things like that. But if such kind of view is a popular view in the Buddhists communities in the west, I feel it troubling. If Buddhism is going to take root in the [...]
Some thoughts on Insight Meditation
Posted in Chan/Zen on October 11, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Went to a speech by Insight Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg tonight.
My understanding of how Insight Meditation works is that practitioners can use it to work with their own minds. The essence of Buddhism teaching is that people’s minds are often stuck with one side of the view. So I can see it might be helpful [...]
Something to help you learn about China
Posted in Cross Culture Communication, Culture on October 8, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Oversea Chinese students like to put on shows in Chinese new year to showcase Chinese culture. I often feel it laughable. They don’t watch that kind of shows when they were in China. But here they felt those things represent Chinese culture and they want to showcase them to the westerners. Those things are dead. [...]
Burma, China, and US again
Posted in Cross Culture Communication, Grassroots, Random Thoughts on October 8, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Yes, it happens this time it is not US. When it is US supporting the repressive regime or overthrowing the democratically elected government, you probably don’t even hear of it. If China gives up its influence on Burma, who will take over? India, or maybe US. As long as US acts as an imperialist [...]
The Iranian president came to town– Bollinger’s speech
Posted in Cross Culture Communication, Grassroots, Random Thoughts on October 5, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
Just watched the introductory Bollinger. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=tACSopIZVdk ) Honestly, I was stunned by such a speech given by the president of a top university in America. At least, I would expect him to show some wisdom, knowledge, and high mind (not sure how to put this in English). Indeed, such a speech can be given [...]
2008 US presidential election?
Posted in Grassroots, Random Thoughts on October 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
I haven’t spent much time in following the candidates. Just cannot pick up enough interest to wast my time on them. In the past, I would follow them closely. In 2004 election, I had followed it quite closely. But I already lose any interest in it. I don’t think anyone elected will bring out the [...]
