UFO sighting at Mount Mosiné in July 1983.

In July 1983 while taking the night train to Italy I saw a UFO about 15 minutes after leaving the French/Italian border at 2am and before it arrived at Turin.

I have never seen one before or since. This was a one off. Seen by the 5 other people in my couchette.

It was a bit like this picture, but its was all glowing white. The edge was not vertical strips like this, but small port holes. I had time to study it in depth as it flew up the valley and then over the train.

Now I have thought about this a lot since. There are anomalies. It seems that I was guiding people in a group hallucination. People in the couchette next door said afterwards that they saw a glowing cloud from the valley below. But it was not a UFO. The guards on the train just ignored us and got us to go back in the couchette when we rushed out to see if after it crossed the train. But things were slightly weird in retrospect and perhaps it was all an hallucination. It was late and we were after all very excited and young.

So I did a check the other day to find out exactly where were were. It was the Susa valley. And then while looking up to see if there were any UFO sighting in the area in the early 1980s found mention of Mount Mosiné. "The place is famous for its countless sightings of UFOs" says this article. And it is described as "the most mysterious mountain in Italy." It is also linked since ancient times to occult.

Now that seems quite a coincidence. There can't be many mysterious mountains famous for UFO sights that I have had UFO sights in the valley of.

Perhaps then UFO sights are like Ghosts. They do not have "objective reality" in that people see different things. Or perhaps cos they are weird experiences people don't know what to see. Flying saucer or cloud of glowing gas.

Anyway a definitely odd experience.

America is the mode worst country. Make your country anything but like America

US likes to think it is an exceptional country. But its a lie. Want to make a long list of how America is amongst the most failed countries. But will take some time and time is short so many edits coming.

US Homicide Rate: 5/100,000. #74 (#1 worst)
UK by contrast is 1.2/100000 #146

US Rape Rate: 27/100,000
UK is actually the same

US Literacy Rate: 88% #102 (#1 best)

UK has 99%
This places America near the bottom of global literacy. Socialist countries do very well. Russia 99.7% and Ukraine 100%. Lets see what happens to Ukrainian literacy once the US takes over.

Capitalism is the disaster of being Human, and represents the forgetting of Happiness.

Why don't environmentalists ever mention Capitalism?

Its the single biggest threat to life on this planet. Its the economic system that organises itself around profit and investor returns. That means we no longer work for our welfare, we just work to make profit and that means an unlimited exploitation of the planet for no other reason that to make an arbitrary and meaningless spectrum of wealth. Companies have to delivery profit and dividends above all other considerations. That means their primary objective is to increase sales and cut costs. It doesn't matter whether what they are doing serves any purpose as long as it makes money. That means any whimsical spontaneous act of consumerism is a reward, and people are encouraged to work not for what they do, but just to make money.

Consider: however rich you are today, your children will be richer.. everyone must always accept being poor thus making progress pointless... unless you learn to appreciate what you have today in which case there is no difference from 10,000 years ago or 10,000 in the future also making progress pointless. Capitalism IS POINTLESS. But it destroys the planet and all life in the process.

So why is the media not full of this? Same reason the media is not full of the evils of America. We are brainwashed. This is entering anthropology as human evolution is seen to have gone down a blind alley of attachment to material possessions which has steadily got them trapped in an epic "sunk costs" fallacy. Being unhappy with what we have (stimulated by capitalists pushing new products) we buy more to try and regain that happiness, but this requires work so we invest more and so expect more and we steadily getting ever more stuck in Capitalism and eventually forget what happiness is (like all Americans from what I can see).

What does a Buddha Statue mean?

 

Many religions have images of their gods. Many do not. How are we to interpret the image of a Buddha?

Well the problem at least for Buddhists is that Buddha's are neither "out there" in the world, nor "in here" within me.

That may come as a surprise. Its customary to believe that Gods are either "out there" either "in" the cosmos or "outside" the cosmos as creators. Or Gods are inside us and we discover our "true self."

In the film Human Traffic, Danny Dyer makes this apparently profound realisation:

The emperor wants to control Outer space. Yoda wants to control Inner space.

The problem is that Buddha teaches "middle path." If you go to extremes you have walked off the path that leads to enlightenment. If you think the Buddha exists out there in the universe, you have walked off the path. If you think Buddha lives inside you, you have also walked off the path.

I don't know why this video ends at the interesting part but when Monkey tries to get outside Buddhas palm he flies to the 5 pillars at the edge of the universe and in typical disrespect urinates against them. Only then does the Buddha reveal they are just his fingers. You cannot get outside the Buddha. We are therefore inside Buddha, which suggests Buddha is at least outside us, if not throughout the universe. 

I remember in a Zen film someone asking about the Buddha. The Zen master referring to a handful of sand, said that Buddhas are as numerous as the grains of sand, and yet the handful was also Buddha. An Indra's Jewel Net like analogy. Both inside and outside.

Ok all these analogies only really make things confusing. Which is not bad, its better to be unsatisfied with confusion than to become satisfied grasping at the wrong thing.

The thing about the Buddha statue is that Buddha is outside you. He is to be respected and admired as the attainer of complete and perfect understanding and wisdom. As Buddha said on his enlightenment "I realised that the spiritual path was at an end, there was nothing left to attain." A complete resolution to the struggle of life. Go Buddha!

But that is only half. On the other hand each of us is Buddha. We are all connected to Buddha in that we are cut from the same block as him. We all have the seed that will grow under the right conditions into perfect resolution. The statue of Buddha is a mirror reflecting our own true self.

But we mustn't go to either side. That self that is reflected is not realised yet. There is work and growth to do.

Now even that isn't quite true. Our suffering and state of ignorance is itself not entirely real. It is only a belief or false vision that "I am ignorant" or "I am enlightened" that persists. When we stare in the mirror and see a sad and suffering being looking back, that is not really us. Its not that there is someone else hiding underneath either. Its that this being we see in the mirror, which is very real, has no "us" inside! The suffering only arises because we hold onto a self upon which the suffering can manifest. When life is difficult it is difficult for "me." When life is good, it is good for "me." When we are happy in a mundane way, suffering hasn't ended in a big way, its just that a particular suffering has ended. No holding onto "me" then there is nothing there to find life difficult or good. Life can be difficult or good, without it belonging to any thing.

And this really is how is the issue of "inside" or "outside" occurs. It really means inside or outside "me". Me is the issue.

But we seem so sure about "me". Where is "me"? "I am over here" we say. But isn't that a circle? Isn't "here" where I always am. Have we ever been anywhere else but here? If we are always here then it is pointless to say I am here. We shout to someone "I am here" but its not saying anything, we could just shout "Hear me" and the person would still look over and see us regardless what we say. So we are not here. That may be surprising. Things just are. Adding "here" adds nothing. Adding "me" adds nothing.

And that is getting to the middle.

When we look at a Buddha statue it reminds us of Buddha. Buddha means something indefinable and ungraspable. We may have attached to it being a perfect version of "me" and feel it imbued with our own personality and reality. Or we may have come to think of Buddha as some untouchable supernatural entity far off in the universe. We look at the statue and we drop both views. Around the perfect Buddha we see the clothes we have been trying to dress him. The wrong views of personal identity, or objective supernatural being. The statue should cause us to drop all these views and let all grasping for solidity and certainty fall away. How ironic when the statue is built of the most solid thing: stone! The certainty is that whatever solidity we are grasping for is wrong path.

   

There will always be war.

In its great evil war actually reveals the greatest truth.

That one man may make the greatest sacrifice and lay his life down for one side, and another man may lay his life down for the other side proves that there is no dualistic truth.

Who is to say that one is right and the other wrong?

Usually we solve this by saying that the people on the "good" side are acting rationally, and the ones of the "bad" side are brainwashing, not thinking straight, are mad, or they are being forced to fight.

Unfortunately the "bad" side say that about the "good" side too. No one lays their life down for the "bad" side. It is entirely relative.

In the West our military and governments spend a huge amount of time and effort brainwashing us. For example we like to think our brave soldiers fight freely for the side of good. Unfortunately it turns out a western soldier fighting freely for the side of good can be executed if they desert their post in battle.

There is no difference between the "good" side and the "bad" side. At the end of the day soldiers on all sides must lay their lives down for their governments. How can that ever be good for anyone?

But it illustrates a powerful point about the world. In a war of 2 sides A and B. Looked at one way A must succeed, and looked at the other way B must succeed. And its not a trivial disagreement, people are prepared to give up the biggest thing they have, their own life for this.

It means that "a point of view" can never be absolute. There is no way to get to the bottom of the world and find the bedrock of truth. There is no bedrock of truth!

All there is, is a realisation that we are adrift in an ocean and our feet will never touch the bottom. So better get used to being adrift.

What an apparently disappointing result.

Well yes and no. Disappointing for the person who was struggling against the ocean trying to get to shore, trying to grasp for some bedrock and a fixed view of the world.

But suppose our feet did touch the bottom and we walked ashore. Are we not then beached forever, trapped on the desert island that we crawled up onto? One day we are going to enter the ocean again, perhaps on a raft we have built, to search for land somewhere else. In many stories the castaway gets rescued and is reunited with their wife. Their feet touch the bottom. The story ends before we find them falling out of love and being reminded just how much their wife annoys them. There is the divorce and they are adrift again looking to find a new island om which to shipwreck. And so life goes on. Finding shore is never the end, it is always just the start of the next struggle.

So we remain adrift and give up this idea of putting out feet down on a beach.

Well eventually the ocean will wash us ashore. So we get out of the water and do whatever we are going to do. And a passing ship picks us up and we get home. And then we go sailing again. And the ship wrecks and we are adrift again. And then washed ashore. etc etc. While we may set foot on bedrock, we are just as happy and accepting as when we are adrift.

And so in war we find our country at war. We do nothing. Our side loses and we end up being ruled by a new government. We do nothing. The government doesn't trust us, thinks we are disloyal. Forces us to take part in its activities. We do normal things. Perhaps they get nasty and ask us to carry a gun and fight. We must chose whether our life is more important than other people. In this instance we do nothing. Perhaps we get shot by the government. Well we were going to get shot by someone, better we didn't shoot anyone first ourself. Small window of possibility that someone will copy our example. If everyone did not fight then the war would end anyway. If we survive perhaps eventually a new war starts. We do nothing. Perhaps our government wins and we get paraded around as an unpatriotic traitor. Sometimes governments and people can be unpleasant. But better to be a called a coward than to die. "Stick and stones may break by bones, but names will never hurt me" we were taught at school as a way to ignore bullies. Governments are often bullies to their own side as much as others.

But the problem is that, somewhere sometime somebody is going to struggle to get to shore and put their feet down and decide to belong on this island. And someone else is going to struggle to a different shore and put their feet down on that island. And the two people with their feet firmly set on different islands are going to come into a disagreement. And because their feet are so firmly set on their islands they are going to fight. And simply because of this innate weakness we have of forgetting to just drift with life and take things as they come (Jim Morrison was absolutely right we are all "riders on the storm") and we step up and our egos make a stand and we decide to make things a certain way and to hell with anyone who gets in my way, and we meet other people with different ideas who are "to hell with you" and it will always end up in war. This is the way of the world.

Great people have gone before us who have taught is not to fight, at least Earthly fight, and yet wars still happen. Jesus was not against conflict, he said we would be torn apart by his name, but he never condoned violence. We have no right to take another's life, God made that life it is not ours to take! Yet in the name of Jesus how many have been killed.

Now a very subtle side of this is that Violence and Peace are sides of the same coin. 

Consider a world where there was no violence. No one ever bulldozed another person out of the way. we all had indefinite time for each other. When there was disagreement, people were respectful and helpful. People didn't try to win at another's expense, people were not harsh, aggressive, greedy and only spoke helpful and supportive words. People sort to see all sides of a situation. Suppose people took no pleasure in the misfortune of others. Suppose people did not harbour resentment at other people succeeding. Suppose we took pleasure in people's progress, success and happiness. In such a world there would be no Violence. And in a world of violence where is the Peace? People just behave sensibly. There is no war or peace.

By contrast we do not live in such a world. We live in a world where we are often greedy for success. When others beat us to it, get the things we want, we harbour resentment. We celebrate when they fail because it means opportunity for us. we value our own happiness before that of others. We do negative things that look good from our perspective but bad from the perspective of others. We spread lies and try to persuade people toward our case, even while we hide the harm we have done and ill intention we have been motivated by. We divide people, we seek disharmony, we relish untruths that benefit us, and dislike the truth that hurts us. We are small minded in every way. And we meet other small minded people who we can control and war against. And the good people who seek to show up our machinations we seek to bring down too. And so the poison of the world spreads and we habitually fall short of the best and fuel conflict.

Now we can wish we lived in the first world, but why really do we wish this? If we are honest weakness is a living part of the world. It will not go away. It is from this poison that we are born. But it is not a poison we cannot feed on. The poison of the world can inspire us to change. This poison reminds us our faults and what we need to do to become well. This poison is in fact the same fuel of our growth and goodness. It is from war that we learn the value of peace. and unfortunately periods of peace make people complacent, lazy, greedy and uncaring and this leads to war.

Now the question is whether we can strive for a Peace that is not born of War. Well we can, but it is exceptionally subtle. How many people when a person bursts into their room in the middle of the night with a gun to kill us do not wish they had a gun to fight back with. But the moment we pick up a gun to defend our self we are creating war. That is how easy we become an instrument of War and not Peace. When Jesus died on the cross he was showing us what Peace really means. If you are not readily willing to carry an unjust cross then you are the soil of war.

This is why war will always exist. And knowing that war will always exist then do not get fooled into thinking that "this is the last war". "If we win this one, it is over." The only way to end war obviously is just to stop fighting, and all the self sacrifice, self suffering and abuse that this inevitably entails we must take onto our self and not throw onto other people. We must carry the cross for everyone else, and expect anyone else to do it. But we do this and soon we are filled with the poison of resentment that other people get life easy and ours is hard, or we get imperious because we are superior because we are carrying their cross. To not be an instrument of war is the hardest thing. That is what Peace actually means.

How to Meditate

 Watch the breath is what they say. But how?

A meditation master I had broke it down like this:

1) Find a sensation in the belly or chest. Watch this.

2) As this become steady find a sensation in the nostril with the air coming and going. Watch this.

3) When this is steady find a sensation on the lip. This is much more subtle. Watch this,

4) When this is steady start to search around sensations closer to the philtrum (that is the middle of the upper lip) and move closer to the middle of the lip. Watch the sensations of the coming and going of the breath as you go.

5) When you get to the middle of the lip hold the attention there as long as possible.

From the previous post and the Tibetan list of stages of meditation there are 2 things to notice. First the steadiness of the concentration and how easily it gets distracted. Secondly there is the brightness of the object.

Even after reducing the length of time distractions take hold, and being able to bring the mind back to the sensation quickly, or even not become distracted I notice that the sensation comes and goes. It is like sunlight on a patchy cloudy day. Sometimes the sun is bright, but then it fades as a cloud covers it.

So the First stage of meditation is to deal with distraction to keep the mind on the object. In this case the sensation of the breath.

The second stage is to hold that attention on the sensation through the coming and going of the sensation itself. Obviously the breath comes and goes so the sensation is a constantly changing thing, but out awareness of that sensation is also changing.

The final stage of this practice of meditation is when we are able to hold attention on the sensation of breathing without it wandering in distraction, and also have the sensation strong and present in our awareness without it wavering.

This I final achievement believe is called "Access Concentration." From access concentration we have the power to see the world as it is without things being obscured. It overcomes all our karmic hindrances, and the impact of memories, thoughts, beliefs, emotions and identity that distort they way we normally see the world. We can now start to examine the truth of the teachings of the Buddha (which are derived from this close examination of the world) in fullness now.

Also from the previous post "Access Concentration" enables us to cast off the Ego. What is going on here is not that "we are attaining" anything, but rather the reverse. We are dropping off all the layers of attachment that we normally surround ourselves with. Greatest of all these is who we think we are. This includes the whole bundle of memories and beliefs we and other people have formed around us. All of them certainly untrue. This very process of surrounding our self with an identity is false from the start. In "Access Concentration" we can see that this is just a shell that we can drop as easily as a jacket. The loss of all these things that unwisely weigh us down is the process of liberating ourselves from suffering.

Holding our attention to the breath then is just letting everything else go. The breath is good, true and real and it is all we need to see the truth. Everything else we can drop.

Once the truth is seen we will have a much more carefree attitude to the layers of clothing if we wish to put them all on again. Our identity now seems more casual and not so essential to us.

How does Meditation work?

It seems ridiculous that watching the breath has the power to unzip the universe. Seems like complete nonsense. And already we have a huge insight into the Universe. The Universe is trying to stop you meditating!

Why are there so many hindrances to meditation from can’t be bothered, to got better things to do, to depression that it doesn’t work, or fear that it might work. And even once we start to watch our breath the universe conspires to drag our attention away by raising thoughts or day dreams or external stimulus.

If meditation is the key to the universe why is it so hard? The answer is Ego or Self.

So I blogged on Self a fair bit last summer. To understand some more on Self I’ve come to look at Jesus on the cross. What stops us from sacrificing ourselves for others like Jesus. All sorts of reasons like Self preservation, and why should I suffer rather than someone else especially when they are more deserving of punishment than me. Jesus so Christians believe was sinless, he was the last one who should hang on a cross. So what was he doing there? Well to do what Jesus did requires that we ignore ourself in a completely profound way. Not in a crazy way, he didn’t die for no reason. He died to save everyone from sin and death. Regardless whether you believe the Jewish mythology it was an incredibly selfless thing he did. Who else could abandon themself like this for someone else. Perhaps a mother for her child or a soldier for their King or nation.

That level of sacrifice is what is required to follow our breath to the end! And while we try to keep focused on it, the Ego, just as we would find on a cross, is constantly trying to save itself by disrupting the meditation.

The very first thing someone said to me about Buddhism was that Buddha taught that the Ego was bad. I asked why and he said because it defends itself even at the cost of the rest of us.

We see that in Meditation. Surely unlocking the universe is a good thing. It ends suffering. But not for the Ego. When watching the breath the Ego becomes just a useless shell. It is just a name, some memories, some reputation, some thoughts about a distant entity. As questioned last summer this entity is just one of billions it is not special in anyway, it joins the human race as a pure equal and it isn’t mine. As we focus on the breath the self becomes far away, we stop noticing it or even think about it.

But it fights back. A sound starts up. The Ego grasps it and says I don’t want that. It starts to push against the sound wishing it would stop causing stress and disrupts things. Soon we are listening to the sound not watching our breath. Likewise some thought or idea pops up and it grasps it cos we like our ideas. As Descartes found ideas are a great proof of ego. The Ego uses them a lot to validate itself. But we aren’t watching the breath now. Some nice feelings come along and we grasp those. Some of these feelings are in fact very good. But if we grasp them and use them to support the Ego we undo the progress of meditation. Oh look I get colours in meditation, or I get Jhana I am better than other people. And so the Ego can claim ownership of even the highest attainments of meditation and sour our minds.

In all cases we return to the breath as the anchor. This breath simple and perfect is the heart of the universe, it unlocks everything amazing though that may seem. So as Thich Nhat Hanh made central to his teaching we need only keep our mind on this simplest most perfect of things to let the darkness of illusion of even the most polluted of minds become distant and dissolve away leaving only the brightness of now.

But it takes earnest practice until we have become wise to the tricks the Ego plays to keep itself relevant and in our lives.

In Tibetan Buddhism I read they have a 9 point scale to check how well our meditation is going.

1. Try to concentrate. Find yourself distracted.
2. Occasional brief concentration. Distraction prevails.
3. Mindfulness improving. Vigilance improving. Distraction immediately recognized.
4. The object is never lost, but little parts of the mind wander (subtle excitement) or the object gets dull (subtle laxity).
5. Distractions start to drop off, but laxity is a problem and the object is dulled
6. Laxity is remedied but very subtle excitement threatens
7. All problems are remedied when they arise, but they do arise.
8. Once the mind is fixed at the start of the session, no problems arise
9. Perfect concentration arises without effort.

So it would appear by stage 9 we have overcome the Ego’s attempts to stay relevant and we have a mind that is free from attachments and therefore also suffering. I believe this is the launch pad for Jhanas if we wish to explore but more importantly contemplation of the Buddha’s teachings to fully see the nature of the universe.
But obviously the moment we start owning any attainments and think I have done good we have already got tricked by Ego reinstating itself. In church this weekend it was said well. When good things happen we appreciate our good fortune but we do not use them to think we are better than others.