It's just life

I've had a couple of pretty mad days at work. As the Web team ended up in the unenviable position of handling two big releases in the same week, our resources were stretched too thin. As a result, I ended up working almost 40 hours in "two workdays". I was responsible for the launch of the Wii's Internet Channel while my colleagues handled the Opera 9.2 release and worked on the My Opera Wii landing page among other things.

I have a confession. I'm annoyed that people around here, elsewhere in the organization, can't communicate enough to make sure that releases like this don't crash. It creates problems in our messaging and in our work flow. Communication. That most rewarding yet most difficult part of our lives. And it's hard sometimes to accept for me that people don't talk together. Why can't we just talk together? Why is it so hard sometimes to just take five minutes to check in with someone if they're okay. Is it because it's scary? Or is it because most of us, deep down, are just plain lazy?

Speak to one another. I beg you. Take care of your relationships, be it with friends, loved ones or colleagues. If you're in doubt, ask. If you feel strongly, say so. And if you hope others act on your behalf, don't. Be responsible. Have integrity. Be well. And relax.

After all, it's just life. (Which doesn't change the fact that I'm really tired)

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Damn it, the African mafia has landed on My Opera Community. Check the e-mail I just received.

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Righty! Going off to India on a pilgrimage in a couple of hours. See you in a month. With pictures :-)

E

My retreat is over and it's been an illuminating experience in many ways. First, I experienced that I'm no longer a novice meditator, but have moved on to being of middling capacity. That means less attachment to good experiences, less aversion to bad experiences, and a taste of deeper states of mind than what has come before. At times, I would look at the world around me and something didn't feel quite right, as if somehow there was more to it than I've always thought. Am I arising in the world or is the world arising in me?

Second, I had an intellectual illumination reading Ken Wilber's One Taste between my meditation breaks (I meditated 9 hours a day, did reading, eating and taiji/qigong/yoga/meditative walks in the woods the rest of the time) and my world view finally really clicked into place. Visions for Peace Point are arising, and I go public as the leader of Peace Point Youth Council on Monday. Appears some important people will be there, a former US ambassador among others. God, what am I getting myself into...

Then I had an emotional breakthrough, for the first time really connecting meditation and emotion in a very deep way. I'm a big guy so I'm not afraid to tell you I did a lot of crying by myself in the woods last week. This breakthrough empowered me to have a confrontation with my dad yesterday, where I laid down all the meaty details of the trauma our relationship has produced, but also the amazing strength it has given me. Such a paradox.

I feel purged. My ghosts of the past are fading away, the poison that's been running in my veins for most of my life gone, turned to medicine. Truly I have died and been reborn. I know this sounds strange. Because it is.

And with being reborn, finally having saved myself [enough], and my destiny awaiting just around the corner, I think it's time to take my blogging elsewhere. I have mostly been speaking about spiritual stuff anyway, and even though I have received lots of input that I'm very grateful for, I feel now I must take my business to a community where I'm not the strange one, where meditating, talking about states of consciousness and the very fabric of reality, divine states of mind and the very Essence of your being as none other than the ground of all manifestation - Godhead, Shunyata, Brahman, the Tao... where all of that stuff is normal.

I will go to zaadz. Because there's a world out there that needs saving - and I cannot do it from here. Feel free to join me. I'll post the URL to my new blog when I get there.

But of course, I still work for Opera Software, so I may occassionally post about that. Web Design is fun after all and I want all the best for this company.

But for all intents and purposes, this is goodbye.

So long everyone

Much love
Eivind

Now, I just had a minor flash of insight while watching a dialogue between two of my heroes, Father Thomas Keating, a cistercian abbot and contemplative, and Ken Wilber, philosopher extraordinaire and integral Buddhist meditation practitioner. What suddenly became obvious to me was that the spirituality of Christian and Buddhist teachers take different perspectives to the same truths - or more like, the path is expressed in different ways. The Christian path, it seems to me now, is described by its immense presence of heart, while the Buddhist path is more characterised by its immense presence of mind.

Now as Buddhism will tell you, you need both wisdom and compassion to make the bird of enlightenment fly, but anyone who's ever come into proximity of Buddhist philosophy, including those that practice it (myself included) will, I believe, find that the philosophy, at least on the surface, puts more emphasis on mind than heart. The Buddha discovered Ultimate Truth through conquering Maya (illusion), thus breaking through into the ego-shattering light on the other side. It's epitomized in his battle and ultimate victory against Mara, the symbolic demon that makes the world of Samsara (suffering) turn, keeping us all as perpetual prisoners of attachment, aversion and ignorance. In the Christian teachings on the other hand, the story is a little different - Jesus' ultimate sacrifice was His love for humanity - He had so much love for the lost souls He saw around him that He willingly gave up His life as a symbol of the path they were to follow. Undoubtedly, He had a lot of presence of mind, but the wisdom aspect of Christian teaching is rarely touched upon, it's all about loooove.

Now this comes out in the teachers of these religions as well. The deeply realized Christian teachers have a sort of fragility to them, a sort of suffering that they've taken on for all humanity, full of love, full of compassion, and with an air of what to me seems like melancholy. These are the people who are so intimate with God that they will happily take on whatever suffering life brings only to transform it into bright and shimmering love for the rest to soak up. They're like a refinery, with suffering as the raw material and love as the end product.

Buddhist teachers on the other hand have a presence of mind that is unparalelled. Just being in the presence of a highly realized Buddhist practitioner is like having ten lightning bolts of awareness shoot sober you up and get your act together. You will be brought kicking and screaming into the present moment and there find the peace that you seek. They cut through all the bullshit like a laser beam and lets you get away with nothing. Being intimate with such a person is like standing in the fires of purgatory, coming in as a diamond in the rough, and being pushed out on the other side as a shimmering beacon of truth, of diamond awareness.

Genuine Christian teachers, like Father Thomas Keating, fidget, sometimes appear restless and frustrated. And at the same time they shine with immense beauty; you know right away that this is someone you could tell anything, confide your deepest secrets to and be embraced by a heart beating for the presence of God that resides in you both.

Buddhist teachers, in this case somewhat inaccurately presented by Ken Wilber (inaccurate as it would not be fair to consider him a Buddhist teacher, but he has done most of his practice in the tradition), tend to be much more stable, with a different sort of cutting presence, speaking with extreme accuracy and never hesitating about anything. They've got it so together that it's almost annoying (yet leaves you in awe).

I'm painting with broad strokes here, but I believe they're reasonably accurate. Now the interesting part of course is that Christian teachers have wisdom in spades, and Buddhist teachers have love in spades. But this is my take: Christian teachers use wisdom as a vehicle for love, whereas Buddhist teachers use love as a vehicle for wisdom.

And now it gets really interesting. If the religion of the West is based on the heart and the religion of the East is based on the mind, howcome Western culture is primarily mind and Eastern culture primarily heart? I propose it is because mind and heart must always exist in harmony - they're like universal principles, like yin and yang. And if there's too much focus on one in religion, it will be emphasized in culture. There is no other way to maintain balance.

And this my friends is why the meeting of Christianity of Buddhism was I think correctly described by someone as the most significant event of the 20th century. This meeting is in fact, I believe, the lifeline of the human race, the coming together of yin and yang - harmony at last. What has come and keeps coming out of this ecstatic friction is a source of tremendous excitement. Ooh, hey hey, very good indeed!

Now, I thought these were kick-arse thoughts, thoughts that I'm very happy with as they're clearing up some confusion for me.

I hope it can help others too. Tada

Love and blessings,
Eivind