to napa and back
the day was full of warm sunshine, pleasurable driving, and not enough pictures :). i was up at napa and petaluma visiting c and her family. it was a day well spent, and i am touched to have been able to share this day with her in the first place.
as i mentioned in my previous post, i thought long and hard about striving to achieve permanence. at the end of the day, i lean toward believing that there is no single way to ascertain that we achieve this permanence; at best there are heuristics that we can use. with time and vigilance, we will hopefully be able to decide for ourselves what works and what does not. a mantra, after a day of thinking, seems hard to come up with. for now, i will humbly accept that it may not even exist. (other ideas are welcome.)
humility remains at the core of my thoughts. to be in touch with oneself, one's spiritual goals and aspirations, it is critical to ever be humble - to never lose sight of the big picture. only if we realize the largeness of life outside and beyond, can we then realize how small we really are and how much we have to learn. only when we become aware of how much ground we still need to cover, can we appreciate that we are not quite 'all that'.
how do we ensure that this humility stays with us and does not disappear when times are 'good'? i believe that for a lot of us, religion plays that role. when we believe in god, we believe in a great supernatural force that is much larger than us all. in believing that each of us is god's child, we can bring ourselves to reinforce an acceptance of how small we really are. for many of us, nature also has that effect. a tryst with nature that involves any of the ocean, the california redwoods, the himalayas, etc. leaves us reasonably convinced of the ephemeral nature of our lives, and that we are but a mere speck on the face of this earth. different beliefs that work for different people. do they work without fail?
i also considered developing a mapping between our inner vices and this humility. could we not, with some training, develop an inner response system that detects the presence of a vice - be it greed, jealousy, laziness - whatever you consider a vice - and sends an alert to the brain that processes the issue and accepts fault, along with activating a realization of humility. it seems like a rather uncomplex system, given the significant importance of the desired effect. perhaps the best thing to do is to try each one of these out, and truly assess the effect each has. this will require considerable awareness and much unending introspection... but i'm beginning to get the hang of it now.
as i mentioned in my previous post, i thought long and hard about striving to achieve permanence. at the end of the day, i lean toward believing that there is no single way to ascertain that we achieve this permanence; at best there are heuristics that we can use. with time and vigilance, we will hopefully be able to decide for ourselves what works and what does not. a mantra, after a day of thinking, seems hard to come up with. for now, i will humbly accept that it may not even exist. (other ideas are welcome.)
humility remains at the core of my thoughts. to be in touch with oneself, one's spiritual goals and aspirations, it is critical to ever be humble - to never lose sight of the big picture. only if we realize the largeness of life outside and beyond, can we then realize how small we really are and how much we have to learn. only when we become aware of how much ground we still need to cover, can we appreciate that we are not quite 'all that'.
how do we ensure that this humility stays with us and does not disappear when times are 'good'? i believe that for a lot of us, religion plays that role. when we believe in god, we believe in a great supernatural force that is much larger than us all. in believing that each of us is god's child, we can bring ourselves to reinforce an acceptance of how small we really are. for many of us, nature also has that effect. a tryst with nature that involves any of the ocean, the california redwoods, the himalayas, etc. leaves us reasonably convinced of the ephemeral nature of our lives, and that we are but a mere speck on the face of this earth. different beliefs that work for different people. do they work without fail?
i also considered developing a mapping between our inner vices and this humility. could we not, with some training, develop an inner response system that detects the presence of a vice - be it greed, jealousy, laziness - whatever you consider a vice - and sends an alert to the brain that processes the issue and accepts fault, along with activating a realization of humility. it seems like a rather uncomplex system, given the significant importance of the desired effect. perhaps the best thing to do is to try each one of these out, and truly assess the effect each has. this will require considerable awareness and much unending introspection... but i'm beginning to get the hang of it now.
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