I notice that I hesitate publishing most of the posts I write here, and leave them as unpublished drafts.

When I look further, I find two reasons, two unexamined beliefs.

I need to be careful about what I write. Yes, that is true. Some folks will take whatever they read or hear as true, just because they want to. It is good to be responsible, try to be as accurate and consientious as possible, and make it as useful as possible. But I can also trust that just like me, most people are discriminating and actively wrestle with and process what they read and hear. And whether we actively digest or not, life will hold up a mirror to us and present us with feedback and opportunities to notice, learn, and grow.

I need to be better informed, more experience, and further digest the material before I put it down. Yes, that is true as well. I write about things I am not trained in, and have not explored nearly as much as I could. It is good to notice and acknowledge to myself and others. And yet, these are just personal explorations. And it is fine to write from a place that is somewhat uninformed, inexperienced, and half-digested. It is inevitable in a relative and conventional sense, since someone – usually a large group of people - are more experienced, better informed, and have digested whatever it may be far more thoroughly than I have. And it is inevitable in an absolute sense in that we all, even the most experienced and insightful, just barely scratch the surface of what is there.

This is all part of my conscious view on the world. But somewhere in me, it hasn’t quite sunk in. It is still not quite processed and there is still some lack of clarity. there is room for allowing it to sink in, and for more parts to reorganize and realign.

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Very occasionally, I go to my Feedly and enjoy taking a look at a variety of blogs, including some on integral and Buddhist topics.

It is a good reminder that all blogs find their own niche. Many Buddhist and integral blogs do sophisticated and in-depth analysis of a variety topics, and offer an important and compassionate service that way. I enjoy reading it, and find a great deal of appreciation for what they do.

And in some ways, it makes it clearer to me that this blog is more about simplicity. Simple and often obvious reminders, which is what I need in my own life right now.

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Why am I writing this blog?

The honest answer is that I don’t know. So it is good I don’t really need to know.

I used to have a paper journal, and then decided to move it to this blog to see what would happen. Would I connect with like minded people? Would I get “hey stupid” type comments, or at least alternative perspectives, which would help me recognize something new about a topic or myself? Would it help me move beyond where I am?

I did make some connections. Disappointingly few leave “hey stupid” type comments, so not much to learn there. And I am not sure if it has helped me move beyond where I am, although it may have in some areas.

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All here is tremendously silly. (All here in this journal.)

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A rambling post…..

Blogs – including this one – can easily be seen as self-indulgent and self-absorbed, an expression of our individualistic and navel-gazing contemporary culture, and so on. All of that may be true. I often have the thought that this blog is way too self-absorbed.

And yet, if it also is universal – a mirror for what is going on here and for also for others – it may be interesting and even at times helpful.

It also seems that there are two ways of being self-absorbed.

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MoE mysteriously went down last night, and it turned out to be a simple problem: 

After several years of use, the MySQL tables needed repair.

I had neglected doing this (even if I do it regularly when I work on desktop databases), problems accumulated behind the scenes, and something eventually broke down giving me a message to upgrade the database…

Database Upgrade Required. Your WordPress database is out-of-date, and must be upgraded before you can continue. The upgrade process may take a while, so please be patient.

And then a long list of error messages when I did…

WordPress database error: [MySQL server has gone away]

The fix is simple and explained here: How To Quickie: Repair MySQL Tables.

(Thank God for friendly and helpful folks at the WP user forum.)

From my days in the non-profit world, I learned that there are many out there who have surplus money and look for somewhere to invest it. So here it goes: an opportunity to donate to Mystery of Existence. And I thought, if I am going to welcome donations, why not offer a wide range of options.

I should be honest here and say that I although I live frugally (by choice), I have what I need materially. Which is not to say that I wouldn’t appreciate a surprise which pays for another year of blog hosting, a cup of tea, or a retreat…!

I am upgrading to WP 2.7 so things may go out of whack for a few hours.

I did a manual upgrade this time (have used Fantastico in the past), and it was painless and quick. Was able to do it while waiting for the dinner to be ready, with time to spare. And the new admin interface looks great. 

If you are looking for a blog platform, you can’t go wrong with WordPress – either using their free hosting system at www.wordpress.com or installing WP with your own domain name and using a paid hosting service.

When I first decided on the URL for this blog, I saw it as refering to an absence of a sense of I.
 
I now realize that a simpler and more clear way of looking at it is as absence of i-dentification.
 
If I look for an absence of a sense of I, I am looking for something happening within content of experience. There will be times when there is no sense of I, but it is within content of experience. And as any content of experience, it comes and goes as a guest, on its own.
 
So absent of i-dentification is a little simpler and clearer. There is an absence of identification with content of experience, whatever that is, because what we are recognizes itself in all of it.
 
For me now, there is a vague sense of an “I” here. It is a gestalt made up of a set of sensations in the head area and the images of a center and an I with an Other. But when I look at it, I see that it is just like any other content of experience. It has form but no substance. It is the Ground of no-thing taking a form while never being anything else than no-thing. It is awakeness itself taking this particular form.
 
There is still some identification with this gestalt, but that too is awakeness itself.
 
Identification or not are both expressions of awakeness. When there is identification with experience, it doesn’t quite notice itself as awakeness and all forms as itself. And when it is awake to itself within and as whatever happens, there is a release of this identification. Either way is fine. Both are expressions of this awakeness. Awakeness exploring itself in a richness of ways. Although one tends to bring a slight sense of dissatisfaction and an impulse for a shift into the other. 
 
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I finished migrating the blog to a new server and it looks OK from this end. If you see anything that doesn’t seem to work, let me know. Also, it would be fun to hear from readers in general – about anything at all or just a simple hi!

The host is now a small orange, which have good prices, reliable service and excellent tech support. And as before, it is run on WordPress and uses the Foliage template.

The blog is on vacation again

Everything seems to work now. I added a rating feature on the single post pages.

I am updating WordPress so plugin related parts of the site may go out of whack for a day or two, until I get around to fixing it.

The journal is still on vacation, apart from possibly finishing a couple of draft posts. My sense is that something needs to shift (not necessarily anything major), so it seems right to go in “neutral” for a while. There is still a great number of posts here to look through, if you find it of value.

Update: There will be some occasional posts from now on, although less frequent than before.

The Blogisattva Award winners are announced! Go to their website to check out a range of excellent and interesting Buddhist themed blogs. Well worth taking a look.

The Blogisattva Award Nominees have been announced!

Here are the blog of the year nominees:

• American Buddhist [the combination of American Buddhist Perspective (1/1-9/23/07) & American Buddhist in England (9/23-12/31/07)]; Justin Whitaker
• Danny Fisher; Danny Fisher
• Dreaming of Danzan Ravjaa; Konchog Norbu
• Integral Options Cafe; William Harryman
• One foot in front of the other; Michael

Michael died last month, so I find it especially poignant to read through his blog… a good reminder of impermanence, and of the courage available to us even in difficult times.

I also see that Mystery of Existence is honored with four nominations! Best achievement blogging on Buddhist practice or Dharma, best achievement blogging on matters philosophical and psychological, and twice under best philosophy or psychology post.

Thanks to Spiritual Blog Reviews for a very generous review of this blog! That blog itself is well worth a look.

It’s funny to read quotes from what I have written. Most of the time, I am shocked that it actually makes some sense!

A few things about this blog…

I write it for my own sake, to get down on paper whatever comes up for me so I can move on, so I don’t have to try to think about or remember it anymore. I use it as a way to explore topics. A way to describe experience and (temporary) insights. A way to, hopefully, notice where I am stuck. I way to record whatever comes up when I plant seeds for myself in the form of questions or a topic.

And as for whomever may read it, it may serve as a pointer for something they can investigate for themselves. It may help clarify what is true for them, in experience or beliefs, even if it is very different from what is here. It may point folks in the direction of practices that work for them. (Any of those would be great.)

And most importantly, whatever is written here is only a question. Something to explore further. A starting point for investigation.

And from limited experience.

For a long time, there has been voices whispering in my ear about this blog… it is too repetitive, too serious, too obsessive, too much about figuring things out which cannot be pinned down, too narrow focus, too much of an isolated island, too much of an attempt to be balanced which also takes the spice out of it…

It is of course what comes up, and I am just the scribe… but now, the impulse to break out of it is coming up stronger.

And since I also want to break out from the island, why not include others? Maybe others want to break out from their islands as well?

Here is an idea that came up in a chat with deepsurface last night:

Set up a blog that is specifically for taking other perspectives than the ones we usually take… it will be an exercise in letting go, in finding valid points in what are usually the opposite views, for some it would be an exploration of different addresses in the aqal model, and could even be a good deal of fun.

Some ideas for guidelines:

• Take a different view from your usual one (a reversal, or if you want to be more specific, then as defined by the aqal model… decide on a level, line, quadrant and/or type)
• Find good points, and keep it short (write intelligently and succinctly from the perspective)
• Have fun, remember it is only a game.

And as a side-discussion, we can talk about our experiences with it, what we discovered, how well we stayed with the chosen perspective, and so on.

I moved the blog to WordPress. If you have the old address in your bookmark, links or feeds, please update to http://www.absentofi.org and http://www.absentofi.org/feed/

The look and feel is much the same, although there is a nice little tag cloud here, and some basic functionality restored (previous/next links, etc.)

WordPress is open source blogging software, and you can host your blog for free at blogpress.com, or at your own space. This blog is using the following plugins:

• Enlarger… for photos
• fArch… for the archive
• Organizer… for working with files
• Simple Tagging… for tags and tag cloud
• WP Database Backup… for just that

I am curious about who is reading this blog, so if you’d like to post a comment or feedback here – whether you are a new or regular reader – please go ahead!

Anything goes, including thoughts you have along the lines of “he’s …” and “this is …” Chances are, you are right, and seeing it may help me find it for myself as well. What is it that I am not seeing?

Also, what – if anything – do you find helpful for yourself? What would you like to see more of? Less of?

I am writing this blog mostly for my own benefit, although if someone gets something out of it beyond that, even better! You may discover something by exploring for yourself something referred to in these writings, or you may realize that “no, that’s definitely not how it is for me” which also helps you clarify it for yourself.

(With this new design, to place a comment click on the title of the post, and then on Comment in the green box appearing to the right.)

Note: this is outdated information.

I plan to move this blog to WordPress which should resolve some current shortcomings, including the limit of 20 posts shown when you select a label. For now, if you wish to read posts with a particular label…

1. Click on the label
2. Add “?max-results=200″ to the URL
3. Enter

For instance, to read all posts on inquiry, the URL would look like this:

http://absentofi.blogspot.com/search/label/inquiry?max-results=200

Reality periodically comes up against my beliefs and ideas of how this blog should be, and when it does, it is time to revise my attachment to those ideas. This blog is already more of an online journal than a blog as I think of it (frequently linking to other sites and posts, a place for lively comments and discussion and so on), so I’ll just settle with having it be a log of one person’s journey.

What this blog is, for me…

• A journal of some aspects of one phase of one person’s journey (leaving out most of my life, but including the parts I find more interesting to explore in writing.)
• A way to explore some select and few parts of my life more in detail.
• A depository for some of what the mind produces, allowing space for something else to come in (if it wants.)
• Only temporary and limited insights, at best.
• Allowing for repeated themes, as long and as often as they come up on their own (it means there is more processing to do there.)
• Written for my own benefit, mostly.

What it is not…

• A comprehensive journal of my life (obviously.)
• Reflecting any final insights (any insight is only temporary and limited.)
• A blog that links to a great deal of other blogs and sites.
• Written for others (although if anyone finds anything interesting or helpful to them here, they are of course welcome to read it…!)

After sticking with the not-so-attractive blogger templates for a while, I decided to go for a more earthy and simplified look. This template was developed by Derek Punsalan at 5thrityone.

(I hope the text is not too small? Will take a look at the source to see if I can make the default size a little larger.)

The Blogisattva awards for 2006 have been announced. The winner of the blog of the year award is Integral Options Café, which is well deserved for its quality, consistency and comprehensiveness (it is one of the few blogs I regularly read.) The rest of the list is also worth taking a look at.

The premier award, Blog of the Year, Svaha!, goes to Bill Harryman’s Integral Options Café [link] the fulsome and intellectually hefty — yet fun, smooth, easy and delightful — carnival of information and insight. Bill has a broad and sophisticated palate of what is worthwhile and interesting and has an ability to sweep his readers in to his world of treasures and responsible living. We learn to stay fit; eat right; take care of body and mind, but we are not being lectured to by a finger-wagging nag. Bill gives us things to do, fun to find and insights that come from his challenging, interesting life and then adds thoughtful essays that are finely crafted, masterfully done, about Buddhism informed by Integral theory.

The new issue of Holons has a selection of integral blogs, and the annual Blogisattva award nominees (including this blog…!) for Buddhist blogs has been announced. Lots of good blogs on both lists, and worthwhile checking out.