Khan's Castle

I've been watching and listening to The Real Folk Blues, written by Yoko Kanno, used as the closing song for Cowboy Bebop. It brings up an interesting subject, which is the turning off of perception so that one can sense what is really there.

The song is sung in Japanese, except, interestingly enough, the first line of the chorus, which is "the real folk blues" sung in English. This anomaly of a line is part of a delicious contrast between not understanding the Japanese and understanding the English. Stated more directly, the contrast is between sensing and perceiving. I can only sense the Japanese and so it's easier to observe nuances in note articulation, that is, to hear the music as performed. With the English part, I have to turn off my interpretation of the words to do the same thing.

A good friend tells me the same thing is in play when drawing. The concept is key in Buddhism, too, where we're taught not to judge things and to let go of preconceived notions about things so that we can accept them as they are.

It's an important idea for me to stay connected with and use.

It's also another great example of how our minds get in our own way.

And the comical item from the morning?

When programmed properly, an hp-48g makes a great waffle timer!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US. How about some things I'm thankful for?

• My health.
• Three children that I not only love but like, something that I've come to understand is not a given.
• A wife that I still love and that still loves me even as we shape a new future much different from the past.
• A very dear woman who has helped me know to myself better and to be a better man.
• Zen and my meditation practice.
• My support group and my sponser.
• My job, especially in these times.
• Climbing.
• Enough money to pay the bills.
• Lime sherbet.
• Sardines.
• Nice guitars and amps.
• Orange sherbet.
• Nice bowls—for lime sherbet.
• A nice little apartment in a great location.
• Lime sherbet.
• Futons.
• My bike.
• Did I mention lime sherbet?
• The Internet and computers.
• The fact that this didn't take all night to write because my typing is coming along.
• Lime sherbet.

I could go on and on, really. And there you go.

Pumpkin pie tomorrow, but for now: Where's my spoon?

Just as a personal marker, the last few days have seen meditation without various muscles in my back knotting up, a most welcome change, and one that brings hope, too, that I can attend another sesshin without it being torturous. My fingers are crossed on that account. As for doing it at all, it's a delicate balance to apply enough force with the right muscles—the inner ones—to sit erect while leaving the other muscles—the outer ones—relaxed, something harder for me than I would have imagined. I find that to get it right I must be calm and well centered. Imagine that.

And while on the subject of meditation, I can't recommend it enough. It doesn't take any money or equipment to speak of and it is helpful, both to oneself and the people one comes into contact with. There are many kinds; I practice shikantaza, a type of meditation closely associated with Zen. With this, as in all things as I'm coming to understand, we all have to find our own path.

And speaking of paths, I could really rip one up on one of these things. Hah! I refuse to age out of this stuff!

Ah, the typing saga continues...

And isn't awareness the key to all things, really, even typing?

Like:

• Where my fingers are when I'm typing because the letters on the keytops, except for 'a' and 'm', don't match reality.
• Getting some letter combinations to roll off the fingers by letting go instead of holding on tighter.
• Not digging too deep with the pick while practicing scales on guitar.
• Paying attention to the speed and volume of air while working on flute.
• Watching the tension in various muscles in my back when in meditation and adjusting them without verbalizing a word.
• Feeling my emotions arise during difficult conversations and being able to name them, but not let them take me over.
• Seeing my behaviors that cause harm and putting a stop to them before they go too far.
• Feeling anger flash and looking underneath to examine the primary emotion.

The list could go on and on.

Paying attention, being aware, being awake.

Being in the moment.

Alive.

My definition of serenity has changed over these months: Instead of thinking of it as pain-free living—clearly incorrect at this point—I see it now as the ability stay centered in the midst of emotional turmoil. The feelings come and go. I—whatever "I" is—stay. I am not my feelings, I experience my feelings.

((Of course, true serenity can be bought at select bike shops across the country...hehe))

An excerpt from an email to an friend:

My curiosity got the best of me and thinking about keyboard layouts, and since I hadn't written any programs in a while, I figured I'd look into the real differences between Qwerty and Dvorak, without giving any judgment about the results.

A few definitions:

Home row words: All the letters are on row 2, that is, where the home keys are.
One row words: All the letters are the same row.
Stretch: A stretch of 2 key rows between two adjacent letters in a word, e.g. "m" and "o" on a Qwerty keyboard.
Stack: When two adjacent letters in a word are keyed by the same finger, e.g. "e" and "d" on a Qwerty keyboard. I do take into account that the index fingers do double duty with columns 5 and 6. I do not account for a little hand shift that might unstack the letters as for "h" and "u" on a Qwerty keyboard.

I ran the analysis on the first 10 chapters of Joyce's Ulysses (taken from this site: http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/) all pasted together in a single file. Non-letter characters were changed to white space, all letters were converted to lower case.

And the counts came out like this:

$ cat ulysses.txt perl keyanal.pl
Dvorak results:
Total words (12984) and chars (388403)
One row words (627) and chars (76495)
Home row words (564) and chars (75442)
Stretch words (1907) and instances (2109)
Stacked words (2202) and instances (2413)

Qwerty results:
Total words (12984) and chars (388403)
One row words (287) and chars (25529)
Home row words (60) and chars (7406)
Stretch words (8095) and instances (14875)
Stacked words (4975) and instances (6333)


The differences in the numbers do seem reflected in the way the typing feels, something subjective for sure.

You know, doing things like changing one's computer keyboard layout does wonders for one's powers of concentration. I haven't worked this hard in years! And I did it on purpose! I think it might take this time, though. More letter combinations are starting to roll off my fingers without thought. It's an interesting process to revisit—learning how to type, that is—twenty years after doing it the first time.

The holidays are coming and for me and many others, it is a time that can be filled with tension. I have to watch out for feeling a) like I'm being told what to do and b) feeling like someone's trying to take something from me. That's all me feeling ignored and threatened. I also need to be aware of my emotional state, be honest it, and have the courage to make it known when appropriate.

My spiritual training teaches me to let go of pre-conceived notions about how things should be, to let go of the clinging to desires and aversions around wanting or not wanting to do things, and to let go of judgement of things.

Tactically, I may need a time out here and there, but that's OK. Things are what they are. I'm OK.

Zen and the Christian Holidays. Who'd a thunk it?

I find myself and my engineer's mind lusting after one of those $2000 plus mountain bikes—say, the Trek Fuel Ex 8, for example. I rode one the other day for a few minutes. Big mistake! I must have grown up poor, I guess. It sure seems like a lot of money for a bicycle, but man, what a ride!

A few old things are continuing still:

Working out yesterday, I held a straddled lever—a little piked, but the best I could manage—for almost 10 seconds three times, proof that regular workouts actually have a positive effect on strength and endurance. Hehe... Imagine that!

Nice bike ride yesterday, too, a touch over an hour, somewhere between 8 and 10 miles. Legs not even sore today. Nice.

Flute and guitar have been active of late, also nice. No real skill progress, just maintenance really.

I can also feel my typing coming along as well. Different from last time, I removed the regular layout so I have no choice. Perhaps it's working.

Silly blog entry, all about typing...

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ahhh starting to got get get get get get get get gte cu get te get it..


hehehehe...

Well, maybe it's time to resurrect this thing, eh?

A couple odds and ends:

Got my keyboard set to Dvorak again. Typing real slow... Hehe... Using it as a sort of awareness tool, to bring my mind into the moment and keep it there. What can I say?

Election over, things such as they are, we'll see how they turn out.

Good anime lately, "Cowboy Bebop" is the latest. Fun stuff.

Once my typing speeds up, I'll like it a lot more. Sheesh!