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January 2009


The Semiotics of Enlightenment

The American philosopher and semiotician (one who studies “signs”) Charles Sanders Peirce proposed a helpful model for understanding the way that signs operate. In this case, we’re looking at the signs related to human communication, and more specifically the language related to the communication and interpretation of “enlightenment.” Peirce used a triadic model to explain signs, where a sign is the collection of a representamen (the form which the sign takes, in this case the spoken or written word), an interpretent (the sense made of the sign), and an object (that to which the sign points-the thing itself). Another term for representamen and interpretant are the signifier and signified. The signifier, again, is the the words or symbols which point to something and the signified is the concept which we associate with the signifier. The object continues to be that which, as a whole is being pointed toward.

When considering the semiotics of enlightenment, we can see that the word enlightenment is the signifier and the conceptual understanding that we have of what enlightenment is, is the signfied. The object then is enlightenment itself (i.e. the direct 1st person understanding of “it”). One of the famous sayings in the Zen tradition, makes some use of this distinction, when pointing out that the finger that points to the moon is not the moon. In this analogy that the moon is itself enlightenment and that the finger represents the signifier and signified combined. The finger is both the word “enlightenment” and all the possible notions one may have about it. The assumption here is that by looking beyond all relative notions of enlightenment we can more quickly experience it for ourselves. Zen is rife with this understanding of enlightenment.

Taking this conception of signs a bit further, I’d like to point out and try to some degree to remedy a confusion which appears obvious in the Western Buddhist tradition. That has to do with the confusion surrounding the term enlightenment, as well as other terms that “point to” the goals of Buddhist practice (nirvana, arhant, BuddhaNature, emptiness, luminosity, satori, etc.). The confusion has to do with the observation that people often have very different, and sometimes directly competing, notions of what is being signified by these terms, not to mention the variety of signifiers which seem to be pointing in similar directions.

Daniel Ingram has done an excellent, albeit cursory, exploration of some of the different notions or models that people have when they think about or use these terms. Check out the section of his book, The Models of Enlightenment, for more information. These ideals and notions often come from divergent sources, including one’s tradition, one’s teachers, books (both ancient and contemporary), other practitioners, other religious traditions, etc. In a very real sense we often map our hidden assumptions (many of which are culturally generated) onto these terms and go around assuming that these what is now signified by the term enlightenment is universally understood. In short we confuse the signified with the object of enlightenment and we take our idea of what enlightenment is, to be enlightenment itself. We often don’t realize that there are many possible signifiers (or interpretents) that people will have in regards to enlightenment.

The first thing to do then, is to recognize that this is the case. Then, we can examine our concepts of enlightenment (and perhaps others) and see which actually hold up to reality-testing, and more pragmatically which actually lead to the goal. Of course, the question arises here, what goal? As soon as we ask this question, and start exploring, then we’ll see that there actually be several different possible goals. Traditionally the Buddhist tradition has used the distinction of the 3 trainings–ethics, concentration, & wisdom–to define three different areas that we can train in. Each of these lead to different goals, and there are in fact different goals within each of these areas (ex. in concentration practice we may attain an initial level of concentration that helps us stay with changing objects of attention, or we may attain a deeper degree of concentration absorption that has very different qualities.)

So the next thing we can do is create a clear language of signifiers, that can accurately describe subtle differences in experience. Being clear about what we mean, when we say what we say, and having a rigorous contemplative language can be much more helpful then running around with only a few, vaguely defined terms. I would argue that much of the confusion, frustration, and argument surrounding the term “enlightenment” has to do with the lack of clarity regarding the semiotics involved. Let’s get clear about what means what, when, and to whom. And let’s do it in the service of awakening to the many dimensions of freedom that have been pointed to in the Buddhist tradition!


Bad News = Opportunity

It's official. Many of the per diem jobs, mine included, are being eliminated, and the ones that remain will be filled by those who want them and have the most seniority. This means that I, one of the most recent hires, will almost certainly be laid off come February 28.

I could feel sorry for myself, but my house is paid for and I have no kids to support. The people I really feel sorry for are those with big mortgages and kids to feed, clothe, and put through school.

I could see my situation as a catastrophe. But, instead, I choose to see it as an opportunity. An opportunity to find another job that offers a higher salary, paid vacation and sick leave, health coverage for me and my wife, and, most importantly, makes more fulfilling use of my interests and talents.

I don't hate my current job. I like and respect my supervisors and co-workers, I keep physically active, and I'm earning money that helps to pay the bills.

But surely I can find and do something better than an entry level clerical job with a low salary and no benefits. Yes, I have my share of weaknesses, but I also have strengths that my current job scarcely taps. I need to focus not on what I'm losing but on what I stand to gain, and to welcome the layoff as a jump start to a better job and a better life.

In his remarkable novel Magister Ludi, Hermann Hesse wrote a poem called Stages. Here is a passage I cherish from that poem and which sums up my view of my situation:

Serenely let us move to distant places
And let no sentiments of home detain us.
The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us
But lifts us stage by stage to wider spaces.


Don't Use Mac OS X as a Server

I'm not a Mac, Windows, or Linux zealot. They each have their niceties and their quirks. But I would argue though that the Mac is not good to use as a web server:

  • The PHP software that comes installed with Mac OS X doesn't include the gd module, which is very commonly required by many applications, including Drupal and Moodle. You have to recompile PHP with the gd module yourself (which is very tricky on 64 bit systems), or use a third party binary. Other standard php extensions are also disabled in the Mac OS X version.
  • Many servers and web applications also require cron jobs (crontab), tasks which run repeatedly at various intervals. Drupal and moodle require this as well, for example to send out emails, to fetch rss feeds, to create backups and run statistics. On the Mac, cron jobs can stop working after the server is rebooted. See this story and this workaround hack.
  • LDAP on an OS X server is not standard, and does not work with the php-ldap module, again required by any PHP application that supports LDAP authentication. We had to code our own workaround to call Apple's dscl tool to handle LDAP operations.
  • I don't consider this major, but all the standard folders and configuration files are in non-standard locations. Some of the renames are improvements over the standard I think, like Sites instead of public_html. But for example instead of /var/www, the main apache web home folder is /Library/WebServer/Documents. It takes much longer to type on the command line because you can't tab-autocomplete "WebServer" - there is another folder there called WebObjects which interferes.
  • It becomes a bigger problem when for example you want to edit the php.ini file, which most everyone invariably needs to do, in order to change things like the maximum supported file upload size. /private/etc/php.ini ?
  • Apple is slow to update their software, not to mention you have to pay for upgrades. Their version of PHP had a security hole for many months last year. Some mac servers on our campus were blocked because of it.
  • The Macs have long been way behind with respect to Java as well. You have to use a special 3rd party 'SoyLatte' build now to get the latest version. It didn't help when Steve Jobs disavowed Java a few years after marketing OS X as the premier Java development platform.
  • There is no official package management system for the Mac, like with apt-get for debian/ubuntu to make it easier to update software and install new software.
  • The Mac uses cryptic XML files to store configuration information for its non-standard services like launchd.
  • This is not server-specific, but often times there are a lot of duplicate files that start with a period when you copy stuff from a mac to another computer.

Related:


Whistleblower Says NSA Monitors Everybody -- dailytech.com

Massive dragnet sweeps up communications metadata, and financial records, while targets have all of their communications recorded.

So much for USSID-18...


Happy Niu Year!

I certainly was not preparing to write about the Chinese New Year at 8 in the morning, not after a night spent chasing fireworks around town until two booming in the Niu year (Niu =牛, which means ox, or cow.) Add in jet lag from arriving here in Beijing two days ago, and you could understand why I’d be excited about getting a real nice night’s sleep. I should have known.
It’s hard to describe the sound, though I’m sure any one reading this has heard fireworks. Imagine the end of a gigantic fireworks display, except you’re in four corners Arizona and each state has their own display for their respective corner. Add in the “cracklers,” which are as to our little cracklers like a tarantula is to a picture of a spider drawn by a four-year-old, and you have a foothold. Loud, continuous. Our fireworks displays have the pace of moderate rock, with some climaxes of sixteen notes on the snare drum. This is more like jungle trance: 240bpm, and all sixteenth notes, directly next to your apartment building, which is a concrete wall in a giant sound rebounding maze. In war, sitting under a tin roof in a furious hail, while shots from automatic rifles scream around you mixed in with an occasional chorus of mortar fire, you would hear that same mix of percussion, but the anxiety would likely not give you space to listen, or hear.
Hear, as opposed to see, being operative. Despite the night bringing out all varieties of exploding colored lights and streaming jets of sparks, in the day, it’s all about the noise. Vaguely, and I don’t at the moment of writing have the internet so I will not confirm this, I remember that fireworks in the superstitious mythos that is the Chinese motivation for doing all things are supposed to frighten off evil demons, and so their powers are needed the most at the end of the old/beginning of the new year, I suppose because demons have off from work during this time as well and are disposed otherwise at their offices. Most of the fireworks that go off during the day are either the aforementioned cracklers, or large M-80 style noisemakers, which is not to say they are not present during the night, merely that any association of “fireworks,” with “pretty,” or “majestic,” is purely a nighttime phenomenon.
As is the association of “fireworks,” with “children.” While kids certainly enjoy the fireworks, they’re not setting them off. Most of what I have seen in the last two days of setting off fireworks has been single men, by themselves, usually in their forties or beyond. It’s a little creepy, their approach to the task eerily robotic. But that is not to say there is nothing childlike about it.
In fact, one of the greatest things about being here at this time is the sense of wonder and simple joy on people’s faces, from the young to the old, as they watch and hear fireworks blast off all around them. It is as if the stodgy no-fun discipline of the rest of the Chinese year were simply a show, and the time off (just about everyone has a week off, at least) and periodic unexpectable bursts of sound act as just enough of a counterweight to keep everyone aware that life is fun, the burst of sound behind a young woman making her grasp for her ears in her winter coat and turn her beaming laughing face towards her companion, blurting out something like “oh that surprised me!” If this seems like an extreme reminder, it should only go to hint at what the other 360 days of the year are like.
There is, after all, a reason this is a tradition held so strongly. If (and I think this is true) the more rigid a society is, the more unflinching its rituals must be honored, each holding up its own inch of the society, then the Chinese adherence to tradition becomes clearer. I realized this week an interesting way of putting the difference between American and Chinese culture. In America, if we say, “it’s just a tradition,” we mean that there’s no solid reason to keep doing it, and if for one or another reason, we have to or want to do something else, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a tradition, after all. In China, “it’s just a tradition” means, “even though no one knows why we do it this way, this is the way it is done, so it is how we must do it.” This became clear for me when I asked my girlfriend why it’s so important to eat dumplings the first day of the New Year, (and noodles the second, and on and on…that’s how specific some of these are) and she responded, “I don’t know, it’s just a tradition.” There’s a great pride in the Chinese traditions, and the sense that this is what brings Chinese together as a people, something that not only creates but also in a sense is their cultural identity. Evangelical Christians have the literal word of God in the Bible; this is what gives them their identity. But the Chinese have only Chinese-ness, and so all of these rituals, all of the history, the shared sense of hard work and study as children, and the reverence for their ancestors come together to create the sense of identity. While all these internal factors are true for Evangelicals as well, at least they can point to the book to cover it all up. Chinese only have this, which is likely a factor making them so aware of the boundaries between “us,” and “them.” You’re either Chinese, or you’ll never be, and will never understand. (Because you don’t eat dumplings on the New Year?)
There’s another interesting contrast between our two societies I have noticed but have not so far been able to find an example for: the difference in degrees and places of freedom that society allows. One might think that China and America are simply at two ends of a spectrum, Americans being more or less “free,” and Chinese not, but this is a gross over-simplification. Exhibit A: in the public square last night, there were probably 2-3 thousand people, all setting off fireworks, and very very few cops, or authorities of any kind. In the square, it was absolute anarchy, which is not to say chaos, only that the crowd had its own logic. In the middle was a huge open space, around which people were gathered. Most of the fireworks were set off in the middle of the square, and all went well. It was all done privately, by the people. Juxtapose this to a fireworks display in America, where people aren’t involved in it at all, except as spectators. The point I’m trying to make is that while in America the range of activities allowed people (by society, I’m not exactly saying by law) is broader, there is almost always still a set of rules one must abide by. In China, the range for free activity is greatly circumscribed: 360 days of the year, there is no spring festival, and you can’t choose when to have off. However, within this circumscribed area, when allowed, you can do 100% as you please. I had noticed something similar when teaching in a primary school: between fifty- minute classes there is a ten minute break of complete chaos you’d never see in America, and students run as fast as they can wherever they’re going, unless it is with the whole class. In America, you don’t run in school, only on the playground. In America, if the students were allowed to go ape for ten minutes between classes they might never calm down. But, this is China. As soon as that class bell rings (actually a twenty second song) kids are in their seats, if not ready to learn, then at the least orderly. Again, I don’t quite have an explanation for this, other than to say perhaps it is the tradeoff for circumscribing free space so totally: within that space, freedom is also total. But they’re trained well: when the bell rings, kids are sitting, when the lights in the square went off (at 12:10) people began to filter out in droves.
Another fascinating social phenomenon is the yearly four-hour pageant, broadcast all over the world, and without commercial interruption, that precedes the 12 AM turn of the year (in a way it’s odd that they’re so westernly precise about the exact time the year turns when they are using the lunar calendar, but, such is modern China.) This year the theme was overtly a celebration of the last thirty years of economic reforms, which have brought the country great wealth. In this generally tame and traditional setting (one song featured the lyrics “Mao ZeDong has to lead us” over and over again…actually that may have been the Beijing pageant the next night, but same idea) where the comedy acts were snow-white and everything family friendly, one act stood out: a dance/rap routine featuring a man, a woman, and a ten-year old. It was overtly hip-hop inspired in fashion and in music, and it stuck out precisely because the older generations find the hip-hop fashions of the youngest generation revolting. Far from an embrace of hip-hop, however, this seemed to be far more a way of acknowledging the youth culture and bringing it in ever tighter into the fold of society, defusing any element of rebellion and individuality. It was, after all, only a display, lasting ten-minutes in a four hour program, a way for China to say, “don’t forget, kids, what’s underneath the adidas pants.” Oh, there was break dancing. But the kid was wearing a helmet.


wilber on obama

please check out the link below to a blog post by ken wilber on what he thinks about president obama. i have to agree with wilber's non-commital assessment, especially this line: '...a major watchdog organization ranked obama in the top 1 or 2 most liberal senators in congress—hardly a badge of integral inclusiveness.' still, i believe that obama has some incredibly strong integral leanings, and maybe the fact that he still has a lot of liberal tendencies within him as well still has to do with the fact that maybe he is still crossing over from green into teal. at any rate, i'm happy about finally having a president of color, but his skin color really has nothing to do with his ability to govern integrally. that's what's important to me (and really to this country and world), and that's what i'm waiting to see.

http://www.kenwilber.com/blog/show/491


Quote of the Day

Haggard's betrayal, his lies, his compulsions, his deceits are the excruciating function of this human dead end. What we have to do as Christians is open up this always-closing door, to find a way past the abstractions and neuroses of fundamentalism to a more honest and more human acceptance of gay people as God-like. Gay people, like all people, need love. We need family. And yet we are uniquely and cruelly denied these things. And no love and no family can be genuinely based on the deceit or self-hatred that are the alternatives.
--Andrew Sullivan


Ok…so…yes…compassion is something I tend to fail miserably at…

To be perfectly honest….I dont have problems with that many people. But, sometimes it seems that consistency is hard to find when your dealing with most folks. For one reason or another…I find that to be the case.

I find that a very curious thing.

I dont know. I was dealing with some people at work today and very suddenly the situation became a little vicious and angry. I work at a Sprint Store that doubles as a service center….yeah kinda in the belly of the beast i know lol…

But the tech, who I usually enjoy dealing with, got very hostile. And, I reacted in the same manor. For all my talk of awareness and conciousness and the whatnot, I supposed I failed pretty badly.

I was taken in the office and questioned. As always, I gave an honest assessment of the situation and then went to lunch after that was over.

As I was walking back to work, I was thinking that if I was truly aware of myself and my reactions I wouldnt have returned the hostility. But, you know, in the back of my mind was the thought that….I was very annoyed! And, you know, thats a perfectly human reaction.

In going over it with myself, i realized that compassion would have fit in perfectly at that moment. If, for instance, I had considered that his day could have been giving him more headaches that mine was. Or, even, that his level of growth had not been developed enough to enable him to stop himself.

A state of mind worthy of great sympathy…

Albeit, that sounds like I would have been looking down on him….but, I guess if it brings out a more compassionate stance within me, I could have easily risen above the muck of the moment.

Well, I just thought that was a pretty good insight.

If you see everyone…and I mean everyone…as perfect and as constantly evolving….and you understand that no state of growth is a perfect one…and that the process of growth can be very difficult….than I suppose compassion would be a natural reaction.

It is difficult to get upset at anyone if you feel compassion for them….maybe even overwhelming compassion?

Im certainly no expert on the subject of compassion, but I have felt a need to develop a deeper sense of it in recent months. I can tend to be a little expectant towards others when I really shouldnt be.

If this rings a bell for anyone, please let me know of your experience.

Comment and Subscribe.

Peace, Love, Light!





The Meeting

I and my co-workers have been concerned for some time about the faltering economy combined with our ever-diminishing workload in the main file room of the medical records department of a major metropolitan health care system. We primarily process paper medical charts that leave and come into our department. But as more and more of these charts are being converted into electronic form, there are fewer and fewer paper charts for us to handle. This means that our department needs fewer and fewer clerks such as myself to do the work that needs to be done, unless we can be trained to perform new tasks. Yet, even if we could be, it seems that our department won't need as many of us as it has in the past. When thousands of paper charts are moving through the department every day, many clerks are needed to pull, toss, scan, bundle, un-bundle, repair, file, and transport them. But when this daily flow of paper charts reduces to a comparative trickle of hundreds or fewer or ceases altogether and most or all patient information is processed by computer, a virtual skeleton crew can probably take care of business.

So my co-workers and I have been waiting for months for the bad news, and we just learned yesterday that it may well come tomorrow, Friday. We relatively new per diem clerks, as opposed to the "career" clerks who've been there for many years, have been asked to come in to work thirty minutes early tomorrow for a special meeting concerning "future plans" for our department. We all think this means that we're going to be told that some, if not many, of us are going to be laid off immediately or in the near future. We could be wrong about this, but I suspect that we're right and that it's time to start looking seriously for another job.

This can be a daunting task for just about anyone in today's economic free fall. For a guy like myself, it can be even more so. But a guy's got to do what a guy's got to do, and so I will.

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