We Dug Out a Cradle
Sep 19, 2024
The first thing I noticed was the deathly silence. Even the birds had stopped
singing and there were no idling cars or motorcycle rumblings and there was no
music nor were there street vendors anywhere to be found. I could hear our
footsteps going that way and some other footsteps coming this way and when the
footsteps met we said, “Hey, we’ve got equipment. Do you know where we should
go?” And the other footsteps said, “We just came from that street over there but
it seems like they’re already full. We heard they might need help at the
supermarket—someone that needs to be dug out, maybe?”
What Was Jhāna, Really?
May 20, 2021
Last night, during Uposatha, I took the opportunity to start a book I had
been wanting to get into for a while, Reexamining Jhāna: Towards a Critical
Reconstruction of Early Buddhist Soteriology. In it, Grzegorz Polak argues
that the Theravada tradition has misinterpreted the role of Jhāna as an
optional attainment, when it is in fact presented as necessary for enlightenment
in the Sutta Piṭaka. According to him, it’s simply a matter of
misinterpretation by later Buddhists, who had difficulty grasping the meditative
practice of the Buddha as separate from the Yogic tradition. One compelling
piece of evidence is the Sandha Sutta (AN 11:10),
in which the Buddha condemns Jhāna practiced as absorption on a single object,
leading to the cessation of the senses, etc; and instead, praises Jhāna not
dependent on anything.
Products and Toys
Feb 14, 2021
A few years ago, a friend of mine recommended a fantastic essay by Greg
Costikyan to me, I Have No Words & I Must Design, in which he proposes a
basic shared vocabulary for game design, and through which I was introduced to
the illuminating distinction between toys and games. Costikyan argues that games
are organized behavior with well defined goals—an end-game, a victory state;
whereas toys are merely interactive objects through which play may be
constructed.
Think of a basketball ball: the ball is a toy (and what a wonderful toy it is),
but by itself it provides no structure. The ball needs the game of basketball,
with all of its rules and complex subtleties, if organized fun is to be had.
Mujer de Fuego
Feb 04, 2021
Strange, that we don’t know each other
and yet in dreams you show me color.
Constellations
Dec 27, 2016
Send me something I’m not looking for
to help me sleep at night, when
I wake looking for your fingers
running on my back.