Bees

Like a bee taking honey from flowers only to the extent it needs for her holy purpose, I shall roam everywhere as an unknown stranger like the new moon.

The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.

Circles

The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already deduced, in considering the circular or compensatory character of every human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.

Wise men have tried … to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.

(If you read this book, which I don’t particularly recommend, you will discover that he starts with frogs.)

The circle of powerlessness is always already there: it is the very workings of the social world, hidden in the evident difference between ignorance and science. The circle of power, on the other hand, can only take effect by being made public. But it can only appear as a tautology or an absurdity. … Those excluded from the world of intelligence themselves subscribe to the verdict of their exclusion. In short, the circle of emancipation must be begun.

Community

I am not ‘against technology’ so much as I am for community. When the choice is between the health of a community and technological innovation, I choose the health of the community. I would unhesitatingly destroy a machine before I would allow the machine to destroy my community. I believe that the community—in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures—is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms.

The world we are fighting for is already here. It exists in small spaces, places, and communities. We don’t have to deal with the insurmountable burden of coming up with novel solutions to all the world’s problems. Much of our work is about scaling existing solutions, many created by small committed groups of people, that others haven’t seen or don't even know are around the corner. So while we can’t change the world in a day, we can and do have the power to make our own world within our four walls, or our own blocks. We can grow from there with the faith that somewhere out there, everywhere, others are doing the same. And we will come together. That’s why if you’re a parent, how you parent matters. If you’re a neighbor, how you are a neighbor matters. Many of our biggest problems are results of massively scaled up isolation from others. That means many of our solutions can be found in creating community.

Continuous improvement

The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people. Put in a negative way, the aim of leadership is not merely to find and record failures of men, but to remove the causes of failure: to help people to do a better job with less effort.

Page 21:

Everyone doing his best is not the answer. Everyone is doing his best. It is necessary that people understand the reason for the changes that are necessary. Moreover, there must be consistency of understanding and of effort.

Page 157:

Joy in work comes from understanding why your work is important. Not from the work, but from knowledge of who’s going to use it. Whom are we working for, who is our customer? Who depends on us? Whom do we need to depend on? That’ll provide motivation. All that people need to understand is why the work is important.

Pages 167-168:

The secret of reduction in time [in development] is to put more effort into the early stages. And to study the interaction between stages. Each stage should have more effort, more time, more expense, than the following stage. The Zero Stage, the most important of all, the costliest, if you want to get ahead. … It will be necessary for top management to block the privilege of anybody in top management or in any other level to come along at the end of the line with a bright idea. He belongs in the Zero Stage, now, not later.

Effort

Behind everything some further thing is found, forever; thus the tree behind the bird, stone beneath soil, the sun behind Urth. Behind our efforts, let there be found our efforts.

Existence

Monks, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, this aspect of the world remains the same—this stable truth, this fixed truth: Sabbe sankhara anicca. All conditional things are impermanent. A Tathāgata awakens to that and realizes that. Having awakened to it and realized it, he announces it, teaches it, describes it, expresses it, reveals it, explains it, and clarifies it: ‘All conditional things are impermanent.’

Monks, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, this aspect of the world remains the same—this stable truth, this fixed truth: Sabbe sankhara dukkha. All conditional things are unsatisfactory. A Tathāgata awakens to that and realizes that. Having awakened to it and realized it, he announces it, teaches it, describes it, expresses it, reveals it, explains it, and clarifies it: ‘All conditional things are unsatisfactory.’

Monks, whether Tathāgatas arise or not, this aspect of the world remains the same—this stable truth, this fixed truth: Sabbe dhamma anatta. All things are impersonal. A Tathāgata awakens to that and realizes that. Having awakened to it and realized it, he announces it, teaches it, describes it, expresses it, reveals it, explains it, and clarifies it: ‘All things are impersonal.’

Imagination

The human capacity to think provisionally, to do thought experiments, to form hypotheses, to imagine what may happen before it happens, is fundamental to our nature and to our spectacular biological success (so far). I think the cleverest thing Sir Karl Popper ever said was his remark that our hypotheses ‘die in our stead’. The human race has found a way, if not to abolish, then to defer and diminish the Darwinian treadmill of death. We send our hypotheses ahead, an expendable army, and watch them fall. It is easy to see how the human imagination might begin to exhibit a need, in art, for a death-game, a game in which the muscles of psychic response, fear and pity, are exercised and made ready, through a facing of the worst, which is not yet the real worst. ‘The worst is not so long as we can say “This is the worst!”’ (King Lear)

I said earlier that we are all poets, though not many of us write poetry; and so are we all novelists, that is, we have a habit of writing fictional futures for ourselves, although perhaps today we incline more to put ourselves into a film. We screen in our minds hypotheses about how we might behave, about what might happen to us; and these novelistic or cinematic hypotheses often have very much more effect on how we actually do behave, when the real future becomes the present, than we generally allow.

Interconnectedness

Everything, as they say, is connected to everything else, and not neatly. There is no clearly determinable boundary between the sea and the land, between sociology and anthropology, between an automobile’s exhaust and your nose. There are only boundaries of word, thought, perception, and social agreement—artificial, mental-model boundaries.

Learning

Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss. As we go gladly to Faneuil Hall, to be played upon by the stormy winds and strong fingers of enraged patriotism, so is a fanatical persecution, civil war, national bankruptcy, or revolution, more rich in the central tones than languid years of prosperity. What had been, ever since our memory, solid continent, yawns apart, and discloses its composition and genesis. We learn geology the morning after the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved plains, and the dry bed of the sea.

In our life and culture, everything is worked up, and comes in use,—passion, war, revolt, bankruptcy, and not less, folly and blunders, insult, ennui, and bad company. Nature is a rag-merchant, who works up every shred and ort and end into new creations; like a good chemist, whom I found, the other day, in his laboratory, converting his old shirts into pure white sugar. Life is a boundless privilege, and when you pay for your ticket, and get into the car, you have no guess what good company you shall find there. You buy much that is not rendered in the bill. Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when working to another aim.

Meditation

Don’t recall.
Don’t imagine.
Don’t think.
Don’t examine.
Don’t control.
Rest.

Obligation to survive

We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.

Optimism

2 zingers from Elbert Hubbard (founded Roycroft; died aboard Lusitania):

The sad thing about the optimist is his state of mind concerning himself.

A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.

The purpose of life

May I be a protector for those who are without protectors, a guide for travelers, and a boat, a bridge, and a ship for those who wish to cross over. May I be a lamp for those who seek light, a bed for those who seek rest, and may I be a servant for all beings who desire a servant. To all sentient beings may I be a wish-fulfilling gem, a vase of good fortune, an efficacious mantra, a great medication, a wish-fulfilling tree, and a wish-granting cow. Just as earth and other elements are useful in various ways to innumerable sentient beings dwelling throughout infinite space, so may I be in various ways a source of life for the sentient beings present throughout space until they are all liberated. Just as the Sugatas of old adopted the Spirit of Awakening, and just as they properly conformed to the practice of the Bodhisattvas, so I myself shall generate the Spirit of Awakening for the sake of the world; and so I myself shall properly engage in those practices.

Rafts & piano tops

The Blessed One said: “Suppose a man were traveling along a path. He would see a great expanse of water, with the near shore dubious & risky, the further shore secure & free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. The thought would occur to him, ‘Here is this great expanse of water, with the near shore dubious & risky, the further shore secure & free from risk, but with neither a ferryboat nor a bridge going from this shore to the other. What if I were to gather grass, twigs, branches, & leaves and, having bound them together to make a raft, were to cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with my hands & feet?’ Then the man, having gathered grass, twigs, branches, & leaves, having bound them together to make a raft, would cross over to safety on the other shore in dependence on the raft, making an effort with his hands & feet. Having crossed over to the further shore, he might think, ‘How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don’t I, having hoisted it on my head or carrying it on my back, go wherever I like?’ What do you think, monks? Would the man, in doing that, be doing what should be done with the raft?”—(“No, lord.”)—“And what should the man do in order to be doing what should be done with the raft? There is the case where the man, having crossed over, would think, ‘How useful this raft has been to me! For it was in dependence on this raft that, making an effort with my hands & feet, I have crossed over to safety on the further shore. Why don’t I, having dragged it on dry land or sinking it in the water, go wherever I like?’ In doing this, he would be doing what should be done with the raft. In the same way, monks, I have taught the Dhamma compared to a raft, for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of holding onto. Understanding the Dhamma as taught compared to a raft, you should let go even of Dhammas, to say nothing of non-Dhammas.”

A man walking along a highroad sees a great river, its near bank dangerous and frightening, its far bank safe. He collects sticks and foliage, makes a raft, paddles across the river, and reaches the other shore. Now suppose that, after he reaches the other shore, he takes the raft and puts it on his head and walks with it on his head wherever he goes. Would he be using the raft in an appropriate way? No; a reasonable man will realize that the raft has been very useful to him in crossing the river and arriving safely on the other shore, but that once he has arrived, it is proper to leave the raft behind and walk on without it. This is using the raft appropriately. In the same way, all truths should be used to cross over; they should not be held on to once you have arrived. You should let go of even the most profound insight or the most wholesome teaching; all the more so, unwholesome teachings.

If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem. Our brains deal exclusively with special-case experiences. Only our minds are able to discover the generalized principles operating without exception in each and every special-experience case which if detected and mastered will give knowledgeable advantage in all instances.

The silent world

This is the account of when all is still silent and placid. All is silent and calm. Hushed and empty is the womb of the sky. These, then, are the first words, the first speech. There is not yet one person, one animal, bird, fish, crab, tree, rock, hollow, canyon, meadow, or forest. All alone the sky exists. The face of the earth has not yet appeared. All alone lies the expanse of the sea, along with the womb of all the sky. There is not yet anything gathered together. All is at rest. Nothing stirs. All is languid, at rest in the sky. There is not yet anything standing erect. Only the expanse of the water, only the tranquil sea lies alone. There is not yet anything that might exist. All lies placid and silent in the darkness, in the night.

At this point of his effort man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. This must not be forgotten. This must be clung to because the whole consequence of a life can depend on it.

The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that. The realization that the world does not tell us what language games to play should not, however, lead us to say that a decision about which to play is arbitrary, nor to say that it is the expression of something deep within us.

Wooden chair as exemplar of emptiness

I was teaching about emptiness and I did not have a sheet of paper with me to illustrate the point, so I used an empty wooden chair. I invited everyone to look carefully into the chair to see the presence of the forest, the sunshine, the rain, and the clouds. I explained that the chair was not subject to birth and death, nor could it be described in terms of being or nonbeing. I asked them whether there was a word in French or English that could describe how the chair existed along with all the other non-chair elements. I asked if the word ‘togetherness’ would do. Somebody said that it sounded strange, so I suggested the word ‘interbeing.’

A thing is ‘empty’ of its seemingly real, independent existence. And all things are this way, are empty. This voidness is what is also sometimes termed the ultimate truth or reality of things. To illustrate this and begin to get a hint of what it means we could consider a wooden chair thrown onto a big fire. The chair begins to burn, then gradually deform and fall apart, slowly turning to ashes. At what point exactly is it no longer a chair? Is it not the mind perceiving and conceiving of it one way or another that determines whether it is ‘a chair’ at a certain moment in time after catching fire? Its chair-ness is given by the mind, and does not reside in it independently of the mind. The lack of an inherently existing ‘official’ time when it stops ‘being a chair’ points to a certain emptiness, its lack of inherent chair-ness.