Kathie, when you sent me that link in an email, I first put it aside because I though that it would be something deeply spiritual or philosophical and I wanted to have time enough to spend with it.
But, if I would have known how deep it really was, I would not have waited a minute…
I always equated Charlie Chaplin with comedy, but when I look back, the most memorable scene I remember, is a bitter-sweet scene from City Lights. In fact, beside some shorter clips on TV I did not actually see much of his work.
But after seeing his speech in The Great Dictator I have to change that. I was surprised that this movie is actually not available on Netflix.
Some 25 centuries ago, on the morning of December 8th, by the Japanese Buddhist
calendar, one Siddhartha Gotama Shakya, while sitting in meditation under a fig tree, woke up to the reality of life and the world.
This waking up to reality made him the Buddha Shakyamuni, the “Awakened Onesage of the Shakyas”. The specific type of fig tree under which he sat became known as the Bodhi Tree, in good old Latin – ficus religiosa.
In the good old tradition of Tony Robins many people then tried to imitate the Buddha’s actions and sat under a Bodhi Tree for hours on and, often falling asleep instead of waking up. One of the problems with sitting under THE Bodhi Tree was simple logistics – there is just finite space under one fig tree, even a special one.
So what to do?
The principle of homeopathic was adopted that the essence of this tree could be passed on even in very high dilutions. So, the essence of this one tree in Bodhgaya, India was taken, in form of a leaf, and planted in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. A branch of that tree was then given to a Mary Foster to be planted in the Foster Botanical Garden in Honolulu, Hawaii.
A branch from that tree was given to the University of California, Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.) and grew joyously in its botanical garden.
Now the camera zooms in on Max, who, some dozen years ago, was in charge of part of UCLA’s computer systems, and who enjoyed his lunch break in that very UCLA botanical garden. This is how one little branch of that 4th generation bodhi tree ended up in a glass of water in your’s truly house – with the plan for this branch to sprout some roots so that it could be planted and supply the space – in some twenty or thirty years – to mediate under, in order to finally awake.
It was a very difficult birth and early childhood for this fifth generation of bodhi tree indeed. Only with the greatest care was there finally a five-inch baby tree growing in a planter – only to be used by painters as a weight for their tarp when slapping paint on the house. The poor baby tree was beaten up, splattered with paint and almost died.
I nearly gave up there, but we started one last attempt, and this attempt coincided with the birth of our son Zen, who apparently chose his name because he had none of it and it was the goal of this life to gain some – Zen, I mean.
Surprisingly, growing up together, Zen and the bodhi tree, worked like a charm and after two years the tree had already surpassed the child as the picture above shows. The gap in size increased over the years and ten years later the child made to a bit over five feet but the tree grew to at least twenty.
I now have doubts that I will ever sit under this tree to suddenly awake, as the house might have to find a different owner and this tree can certainly not be transplanted. We also learned that by the type of Buddhism practiced in Thailand we made a mistake in planting this tree in our yard – these trees are reserved for temples and monks! But we did some ceremony/exorcism so smooth the waves. The tree is now wearing come colorful clothes around its trunk and all is OK.
Now your call to action – if you always wanted to have a house with a Bodhi Tree to sit under and meditate, now is the time to get in touch with me – going once, going twice, …
I could not possibly imagine a kid that is not dreaming of a tree house. I certainly was, but I never actually had one.
Some of us remain this kid and can’t wait to have a kid with the same dream and then finally fulfilling that dream, as now the resources are available.
The closest I ever was at a tree house was actually a tree deck – the dad of one of my son’s friends, a welder, had built a deck for his son – maybe himself. As a welder he used the materials he was familiar and so the stairs going up the tree were a steel spiral staircase. And the deck itself was constructed from steel as well. So, I was not quite sure if it was actually the tree supporting the deck/house or vice versa.
Deep down inside me, the idea of a tree house must have always been in a slumber, because when the pictures below reached my inbox – thanks, Beverly – a dream woke up…
A very early exposure to the idea of living under water came through a German science fiction series “Space Patrol” in the 60s, just a tad before the original StarTrek. Mankind had settled on the floor of the ocean and space ships took off from underwater bases through water funnels.
And after an adventure in space the crew met in the Starlight Casino for a drink and a round of futuristic dancing. Commander McLane’s apartment was obviously also located at the underwater city.
Something a bit more tangible was then envisioned in 2006 with the Hydropolis Underwater Hotel and Resort, but at this time it seems as if this project is at least on ice if not completely scrapped.
In other words, currently we still have to live with just the imagination of living under water. These imaginations are made a bit easeer through the pictures of Elena Kalis.
(from her Google+ Album)
This is a number that nearly blew my mind but after serious consideration and a bit of research and good old fashioned investigation I have come to the conclusion that this number is not an understatement: 30% of internet traffic IS cat videos!
After finding the main source of all this traffic through this ground breaking documentary…
… I now believe that this is actually a great justification for the existence of the internet at large.
We have heard rumors that porn is driving innovations like home movies in the 50s and 60s and the VHS tape in the 70s and 80s, followed by the internet – but this smut can not stand up to the clean enjoyment of cat videos reaching each and every house on this PLANET. I am convinced that we would also find cat videos behind the wide spread of the VHS tape in the 70s and beyond, and not the porn!
Without doubt, cat videos are even the main trust behind bringing the internet into 3rd world countries.
Today I started reading the book “The Art of Non-Conformity” and right there on the first page. Not that I wanted to stand out! – No Way!
But reading a book on how to do things are often a good source of ‘How to do the opposite.’
And right there on the first few pages I find invaluable information, that I just had to share.
11 Ways to be Unremarkably Average
There you have it!
“Whenever I get mad at you, you never seem to get upset. How do manage to control your temper?”
“I just go and clean the toilet.”
“How does that help?”
“I use your toothbrush.”
I ran into this video teaching us how to use a dial telephone…
… and that got me to think.
From today’s point of view, this is obviously funny; but I tried to imagine what things that we consider high-tech today will look really funny to my son when he is my age.
Speaking of my son – I have noticed one piece of technology that I grew up which he already has no personal experience with: the tick-tock of a clock. He might still know that a clock in the distant past did make such sounds but he has never heard that himself.
Or the first super-high-tech wrist watch I had – with red LED segmented numbers. These LEDs used so much power that I switch had to be pressed to turn then on – and off right away – to see the time. Very inconvenient at a party where you were fondling a glass of whiskey on the rocks trying to look as cool as your watch. Very uncool to put the glass down to be able to push the little button on your other wrist to realize that after two hours of looking cool you still did not have the nerve to talk to the cute brunette.
So, what’s the item with the biggest cool factor today? Maybe tablets like the iPad. I believe this is a good candidate to look ridiculous in 20 or 30 years. Imagine you lugging around a book sized slate – just like Moses did when he came down the mountain – just to access some information, or look up an address, while today (tomorrow) you just say your search term into the ether and the information materializes right in front of your eyes, or even better, you just pose the question in your mind and the answer is directly delivered to your own synapses via a synaptic interface – – who needs eyes – – maybe we have them closed at all times as all the experiences we have are virtual anyway. While we experience a rich virtual world our bodies are securely stored and fed through some tubes while at the same time acting as a power source for the computer system that runs the whole virtual world, and …. hold on, doesn’t that sound somehow familiar?
During my flying career, I have only once been really scared for an extended amount of time. Coming down from very calm air over Lake Isabella for a landing at Kern Airport I was hit by some serious turbulence.
I had the hardest time to keep the dirty side of the airplane down and at the same time initiating a very gently 180 degree turn – I knew where the air was calm and needed to get back there. As I write these lines clearly I did make it, but after coming out of that turbulence I had to land at the next available airport and get my shaking knees under control.
I am contrasting myself to the professionalism and calmness of the pilot of the US Airways Flight that went down in the Hudson river some two years ago, and I don’t look that good. Sure, he is a professional and trained for situations like that, but it is, nevertheless, admirable how he stayed calm in the face of his own possible death. From a very detached point of view clearly this was the correct thing to do, to have the best chances for survival. The outcome proved him right.
From this day forwards, as we all understand now, we will always ask ourselves, when we are getting upset about something – “how will this upset help me in this situation?” If you just remember to ask yourself this question, I am sure it will get you over this upset immediately.
Here, for you to admire, the events of the ditching of the US Airways flight in the Hudson River…