Month: June 2013

Book Review –

On By myunfablifeIn Books, My Rants and Ramblings, reviewsLeave a comment

Dan Brown – Inferno

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Dan Brown is always kind of fun to read. Like a cross between James Patterson and   a *Blank* -for-Dummies book. Short chapters that give you a Cliff Notes version course in the topic of the day.

I mean he always takes some (relatively) obscure cult and crosses it a fairly well-known Painter/Author/Whatever and 104 chapters later there you have it.

Inferno is no exception.  Take a little bit of Durante degli Alighieri, more commonly known as “Dante” ( of the high school AP English or College 101 lit staple Dante’s Inferno )  ,  add a bizarre ideology called the Transhumanist Movement, throw in a cross-Europe chase and possible case of amnesia for Brown’s antagonist/hero Robert Langdon, and you have a book that very rarely let’s up in the narrative. That is  until the last 3 or 4 chapters which are just the literary equivalent of the Scooby Gang’s ” Now we’ll tell you why Old Man Smithers did what ever he did”.

I did enjoy this outing much more than his last,  The Lost Symbol, and I’ll most likely pick up whatever book he puts out next. Who knows maybe a combo of Botticelli and fake moon landing conspiracy  …. ?

Daily Tao / 161 – Truth

On By myunfablifeIn Daily Tao MeditationsLeave a comment

truth on hands

 

There are three levels of truth :
Experience, reasoning, and knowing.
All other assertions should be rejected.

The first type of truth is experience. Once you have experienced something, you know it. No person can persuade you otherwise.

The second type is truth gained by reasoning. In this case, the truth cannot be immediately verified because the subject is too small (like atomic particles) or too large (like the movement of planets through time) or too abstract (like ideas). Something may be true, but its truth is borne out by analysis rather than physical testing.

Either of these two types of truths has a range of validity. They are relative. Therefore, though truths are superior to falsehood, opinions, beliefs, and superstition, they each have limits. There is a third type of truth that is different from these two.

This is a way of direct spiritual knowing. Wholly internal, this mode is the direct experiencing of truth through the opening of higher faculties. Meditation gives one perceptions of absolute certainty. There is no doubt or need of other investigations; this knowledge is beyond words, descriptions, and rationalization. In fact, one must be careful not to let the fruits of one’s meditations pass into the realm of rationalization. This will subject you to the relativity of external truths and ruin your confidence. To avoid doubts and conflicting opinions, followers of Tao keep their revelations secret. Then what is known directly is absolutely yours.

Summer Reading –

On By myunfablifeIn Books, My Rants and RamblingsLeave a comment

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It’s time to get my summer reading list going.  This summer I am going ( to try ) and (re)read the Song of Ice and Fire series.  I have already read A Game of Thrones , A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords, so those will be my re-reading to bet back into the series. I will then get to A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons…

Now I don’t read really fast, I tend to view reading like walking down a mountain path. I stop at a particularly nice flower ( sentence or even paragraph ) and read it two or even three times.  I have even been known to go back and read a really good chapter again; or I might get distracted and wander off the main path entirely and search out stuff related to what i’m reading.  Reading on an iPad makes this particular sojourn  even more easy and appealing since all I have to do is highlight something and voi-là I’m magically taken to what/where ever i was distracted by ….

So …. I will keep you apprised as to my progress as I venture back into the lands Westeros and all happiness and tumult that that can inspire ….

Daily Tao / 160 – Superstition

On By myunfablifeIn Daily Tao MeditationsLeave a comment

ghosts

The voices of ghosts are so familiar,
They whisper to me every day.
You, so young and rich,
Make assumptions with absolute assurance.
I vacillate between superstition and tradition.
You don’t need to question.

Tradition is the oral delivery of rites and customs from generation to generation. Superstition is belief inconsistent with what society generally considers true and rational. When tradition and superstition become bound together, it is a sign of trouble. For example, a woman was once taught not to wash her hair on anybody’s birthday. Whenever she protested this, the answer was “Don’t question!” Years later, she learned that in the old country, letting one’s hair down was a sign of mourning and thus inauspicious on a birthday. What was etiquette in one generation became superstition in another.

Those raised with traditions and superstitions are often torn between the extremes of biculturalism. Their inbred beliefs conflict with current knowledge and quickly changing culture, creating doubt and uncertainty.

There has to be informed revision to all tradition if it is not to degenerate into superstition. The true substance of any tradition will take new form without compromising its inherent character. If not, it will just become the outmoded beliefs of old people, and it will fade into ghostly whispers.

Daily Tao / 159 – Writer

On By myunfablifeIn Daily Tao MeditationsLeave a comment

writing

She withdrew into herself,
First writing just for one,
Then touching thousands.
She incarnated ghosts, hurt, and joy
Into paper-and-ink stories of wonder.

One author said, “I can get rid of anything by writing about it,” meaning that the process of externalization could liberate him from the pain in his soul. That realization produced a delicious dichotomy : to free himself, or to hold on to both joys and tortures by remaining silent about them.

Writer write because they must : They need to express something from deep within themselves. They hear voices that others do not. They listen urgently, and they must communicate what they hear.

People feel Tao in the same way that writers feel something unique. In the process of listening for mysterious voices and expressing the wonder that comes is a magic akin to the perfection of Tao.