“Open Source” is something that is generally applied to software. As Wikipedia states, “A main principle and practice of open source software development is peer production by bartering and collaboration, with the end-product (and source-material) available at no cost to the public.” The key idea is that the source code, the programming, is available to everyone, as well as the end result. This means that anyone is free and able to take the this source code and work on a project, create a variant of it for their own purposes, or otherwise be directly involved in the creative process of the project. This is contrasted with closed source software, where the code is not available but held behind copyrights, and people are only allowed to be end users, consumers, of the result. Open source oriented towards empowering individuals and encouraging them to contribute while closed source is really about creating consumers and protecting intellectual property. This latter has been the normal mode for software business for quite some time but there are more and more companies organized around open source projects, such as the Mozilla Project’s Firefox web browser.

A key component of open source is peer production. This is a form of joint collaboration by groups of individuals. It relies on self-organizing communities of individuals who come together to produce a shared outcome, result, or product.

This same style of organization, as well as the philosophy behind it, can be applied to Buddhism as well. We are living in an era where we have access to extant forms of Buddhism and the records and documents of many forms that do not survive in a living form today. For those of us who are converts to Buddhism, we do not have a vested national or cultural reason to embrace a specific form of Buddhism over another. If one is Thai, for example, it would make sense that the Thai form of Theravadan Buddhism would be embraced and followed as a practitioner. Thai Buddhism is well established in Thai culture, fulfills a variety of social functions, and is deeply integrated in Thai society in a way that only various forms of Christianity generally are in the Western nations. As an European American, it does not necessarily make sense to embrace a very culturally entrenched form of Buddhism. People do this and, for example, take Tibetan names, where Tibetan clothes, and generally embrace a culturally specific form of Buddhism. This is definitely one possible path. An alternative to this is to look at the various forms of Buddhism, evaluate the teachings and practices of them, and to work with those aspects that make the most sense within a non-Buddhist culture without the history and relationship to Buddhism that other nations and peoples already have. The risk in doing this is shallowness and dilettantism but these can be fought against by deeply engaging with the material and working with Buddhist teachers from these traditions in a wholehearted manner.

This is not a call to abandon traditional forms of Buddhism but is, rather, a decision to not necessarily be limited by boundaries or practices simply because the form of Buddhism practiced in a specific region or period had these limitations. While open source is an amazingly democratic or even consensus driven process, this is also not a call to abandon all hierarchy or leadership as an open source Buddhism is developed. It is always recognized that there are individuals with a breadth and depth of experience, knowledge, and ability that place them in a position to teach others and lead them further along the path.

Ideally, an open source Buddhism will have access to the teaching, insights, and practical techniques of all forms of Buddhism. From these, the most applicable, the best, or the most useful will be embraced, followed, and taught to others. I envision this happening in conjunction with working within one or more of the existing Buddhist traditions in the form of teaching and practiced passed from mouth to ear by living teachers to students. This allows us to draw from the best of both worlds, having the unbroken wisdom of over 2,500 years of a living Buddhist lineage available but also being empowered to draw upon other aspects of Buddhism that are not a part of this (or possibly any other) living tradition. This allows practitioners, for example, from a Japanese Soto Zen to work with Zen teachings and practitioners from Korean schools while also studying traditions coming from as far afield as Thailand or Tibet. Historically, this would not have often occurred but we live in a potentially golden age for Buddhism. We have access to resources unavailable to almost anyone in earlier eras when travel and communication were so difficult. We should take advantage of the full range of Buddhism in order to fulfill the overall goal of enlightenment for all beings.

As a part of this, we should also endeavor to establish practice groups, sanghas, and organizations that embrace the principles of open involvement and peer production. While we do not need to democratically elect our monks or abbots, we should embrace equal participation while recognizing the role of expert and experienced teachers as spiritual friends, especially when they have often taken vows to dedicate their lives to this end. There is no need to reproduce historical authoritarian structures of top down rulership in this environment. It is possible to balance the role of experts and leaders with the strength and diversity of our fellow practitioners.

To this overall end of creating an open source Buddhism, I’ve begun adding materials to the Open Buddha website in order to make it more than just my personal blog. Eventually, if there is interest, I would like to add documents and resources from many parties and a forum, if there is interest. This will take many parties to participate to be truly successful but I do believe that this is the direction of Buddhism in the West is heading, whether it is explicitly recognized or not.

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Nova Albion is the regional steampunk gathering and it is occurring about a mile or so from my home. I plan on posting many photos and notes later on.

My provisional schedule is below for the local Bay Area people that I know who may also be going to the event. The Neverwas Haul event on Saturday evening is not at the hotel but it about three blocks from my house. It is definitely worth seeing if you haven’t been on the Haul before.

Nova Albion Schedule

Saturday

IT ALL STARTED WITH A PUFF OF STEAM
Howard V. Hendrix (M), Mike Perschon, Alexander Logan, Jean Martin, Liz Gorinsky
The origin and history of steampunk.
Saturday, 10:00 to 11:15, West Room

THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE STEAM
GOH James Blaylock, Liz Gorinsky, Francesca Myman, Gail Carriger (M), J. Daniel Sawyer
Steampunk voices in the literary world, authors and editors discuss where steampunk is going and where it has been.
Saturday, 11:30 to 12:45, West Room

KINETICS, MOVEMENT & ENGINEERING
Kimric Smythe, George Chlentzos, Patrick McKercher, Dave Nutty, GOH Jon Sarriugarte (who will do a Tesla Coil demonstration)
Saturday, 12:00-1:45, Placer Room

STEAMPUNK GARB FOR LIFE ON A BUDGET
Jade Falcon, Ryan Galiotto, Jean Martin, Gail Carriger (M), Heather McDougal
Modifying and adapting everyday wear. Making steampunk gear out of found objects and clothing.
Saturday, 1:30-2:45, West Room

STEAMPUNK PHILOSOPHY
J. Daniel Sawyer, Mike Perschon (M), Liz Gorinsky, GOH James Blaylock, Thomas Strange
Is there a philosophy behind steampunk? If so what is it? If not, what should it be?
Saturday, 3:00-4:15, West Room

STEAMPUNK TECHNOLOGY
GOH Jon Sarriugarte, Patrick McKercher, Alexander Logan, Mark Anderson (M), Heather McDougal
Making and creating past inventions for the future. Discussing the maker mentality, why the rise of steampunk, why now?
Saturday, 4:30-5:45, West Room

Neverwas Haul Visit
Saturday, 6:00 PM, 1010 Murray St, Berkeley, CA 94710 (three blocks from my house)

Sunday

JON SARRIUGARTE ON HOW TO USE YOUR STEAMPUNK GOGGLES
Maker Guest of Honor Jon Sarriugarte presents on goggles in action: welding, sparks flying and his various evil genius inventions, as well as the maker mentality, and anything else that strikes his fancy.
Sunday, 11:30-12:45, East Room

STEAMPUNK FANS IN ACTION
Chris Garcia, Mike Perschon, J. Daniel Sawyer (M), Jean Martin, Liz Gorinsky
Steampunk zines, podcasts, websites, blogs, and more. For those who are involved and those who want to be.
Sunday, 11:30-12:45, West Room

METAL MACHINING & MANIPULATION
George Chlentzos, Patrick McKercher
Sunday, 12:00-1:45, Placer Room

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

When I was in the hospital, the doctors checked my heart. The first time they checked, there were 23-25 mistakes (premature ventricular contractions) in one minute, out of about eighty beats.

Many people have read about research by a Harvard professor who checked people with bad hearts, diabetes, etc. He checked people who did meditation and people who didn’t. People who didn’t do meditation were O.K. with medicine, but not O.K. without their medicine. But, people who tried concentration meditation got better more quickly, and were O.K. without their medicine. The Transcendental meditation people advertised this: “Meditation can fix many sicknesses.” So now, many doctors like meditation. So, my doctors said, “DaeSoen Sa Nim, you are a Zen Master, so you try!” So, I said, “O.K., I will try.” So, I tried this fix-your-body meditation. In three days, my heart was making only five mistakes. Usually, it takes about one month to recover like this, so my doctors understood this meditation was helping my body, so they were very happy.

After one week, my heart was only making one or two mistakes, and my doctors said, “This is wonderful! Most people take two or three months to come down to only one or two mistakes each minute!” So I said, “Thank you very much; you have helped me, so I can get better quickly. But this is only fix-your-body meditation. This is not correct meditation.”

“Why isn’t this correct meditation?” they asked.

“You can fix your body, your heart, your diabetes. In Korea, China, and India, there are people who do yoga. They go to the mountains and do breath-in, breath-out meditation. They can live 500 years and not get sick. Keeping their bodies for a long time is possible; even flying in the sky is possible. Trying this style body meditation, anything is possible. A body is like a car. Use the car a lot, and in three years, it is broken. Only keep the car in the garage, then keeping it for a long time is possible. But finally, after 500 years, then these yoga people die. Then what? Live a long time, then die; live a short time, then die–it is the same! Dying is the same.”

The doctors understood. “What is correct meditation, then?”

I told them, “I always try meditation. Meditation means always keeping one mind, not-moving mind.” They thought meditation meant only concentration and keeping your body still. So I said, “Meditation means keeping one mind. You must understand–What is life? What is death? If you keep one mind, there is no life, no death. Then, if you die tomorrow, no problem; if you die in five minutes, no problem.”

“What do you mean, no problem’?” they asked.

“Maybe you do fix-your-heart meditation. Then, ‘My heart is good; my body is good.’ It is very easy to become attached to this meditation. But, when you get old, and your heart is not so good, then you try this meditation. Maybe it is still not so good. Then, ‘Why doesn’t my meditation work?’ Then your body, your meditation become hindrances. If your meditation cannot help your body, then you don’t believe in your meditation. Then what? So, this style meditation is no good.

“Correct meditation means correctly understanding your situation moment to moment–what are you doing now? Only do it! Then, each action is complete; each action is enough. Then no thinking, so each moment, I can perceive everything just like this. Just like this is truth. Sick-time, only be sick. Driving-time, only drive. Only go straight–then, any situation is no problem.”

The doctors liked this; they wanted to hear more about Zen. So six doctors came to my room, and I talked to them for two hours. One doctor asked me, “I am very busy at the hospital, then going home to my family. How can I keep a clear mind?”

“Clear mind,” I told them, “means moment to moment, what are you doing now? When you are with your patients, only 100% keep doctor’s mind. When you leave the hospital and you are driving home, 100% keep driver’s mind. When you meet your wife, 100% keep husband’s mind. This means, each moment, only go straight–don’t make ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘Me’. If you make ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘Me’, then your opinion, your condition, your situation appear. Then, you have a problem.

“If, when you are with your patients, you think, ‘Where is my wife? Is she spending a lot of money?’ Then, this patient is talking to you, and you only say, ‘Oh, yeah, mmm-mmm.’ So the patient is thinking, ‘What does the doctor think?’ They don’t believe you. If you are talking to your wife, and she is telling you something important, and you are thinking about the hospital, this is just your opinion; this is just thinking; it is not your just-now situation. So, put it all down; only go straight.

“We say ‘jeon il’, completely become one. When you are doing an operation, you and this knife completely become one. When you are driving in your car, you and the car only become one. If you drive on a road with pebbles and you are not thinking, only driving, then you can feel these pebbles under your tires. Only become one means, you and your action completely become one; then you and the universe only become one — completely no-thinking mind. Inside and outside become one. The name for this is, ‘only go straight,’ or ‘put it all down,’ or ‘don’t make anything,’ or ‘keep clear mind.’”

“If you are only in the present, how can you plan for the future or choose a direction? I have to plan for my patients, and for myself, my family,” one doctor said.

So I said, “What is the purpose of life? I asked many old people in the hospital this question, or ‘What did you get out of life?’ and many said, Nothing.’ Maybe they have a good job, good family, good wife or husband, but these things cannot help them now. They want something they cannot have, and they understand this, so they say, help them, so they are suffering. Zen means attaining this nothing mind. The Buddha said, ‘If you keep clear mind moment to moment, then you will get happiness everywhere. ‘

Zen is attaining this nothing mind, and then using this nothing mind. How can you use it? Zen means making this nothing mind into big-love mind. Nothing mind means no ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘Me’, no hindrance. So, this mind can change to Great-Compassion mind, action-for-all-people mind. This is possible. Nothing mind does not appear, does not disappear. So, moment by moment, it is possible to keep your correct situation. Then your mind is like a mirror — when you are with your patients, only become one. Then helping them is possible. When you are with your family, only become one; then understanding what is best for them is clear. Just like this. The blue mountain does not move. The white clouds float back and forth.”

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I lost track of Foamy as the schtick started getting a bit old but I came across this today. It is Foamy ranting about the use of Zen in American Marketing (your old Dharma Burgers). I just about fell out of my chair laughing but then I love the angry squirrel.

“The Zen of Anger is all you need to master. Arrrgh!”

I encourage everyone to take a moment out for a little decompression with a rant from Foamy. Watch it below or here.

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I had both the fortune and misfortune of working with inmates in the Washington State prison system a bit over five years ago. This was with pagan inmates at McNeil Island. The head chaplain of this organization later became slightly infamous for his less than ambivalent relationship to non-Christian groups there (he has since retired). I found it to be very challenging and difficult, emotionally, even though it wasn’t difficult work in other ways. The only reason why it was unfortunate was simply because I was strongly transitioning to my developing Buddhist practice at the time, away from my existing pagan practice and history, but I was thrust into a role as a representative of Wicca and pagandom in general in trying to support the inmates. I had initially agreed to help a friend by acting as his support and backup and he was then, on fairly little notice, deployed to Iraq, leaving me with the bag. I maintained things for a while but had to eventually quit as my heart was no longer within that spirituality and I could not fairly represent it or teach it.

As part of my practice of Zen, I have been planning to work with inmates for some time. I’ve spoken briefly with a few parties about it and have at least one outstanding discussion with someone working at San Quentin waiting to happen as I write this.

For these men and women stuck in these institutions, there is a focus and an immediacy to aspects of life that is often missing in “normal” life. Spirituality comes into a sharp focus for some, with so much time to think, such limited circumstances, and an obvious reason to question what they have done before. I think it is very important to support these people as much as possible as they live an existence that brings so much obvious crap to the forefront. In this situation, even more than many other forms of Buddhism, I think that all forms of Zen have a lot to offer in its directness.

Earlier today, I received e-mail from Kobutsu Malone of the Engaged Zen Foundation. I had communicated with him a few times recently and in one of them, I had asked about the availability of the Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism. This is a book that he produced a few years ago and I had been wanting to read it. Alas, it was well out of print, Rev. Kobutsu told me. Today, he sent out a missive to people to try to raise funds for its reprint. I want to share this with you and strong encourage everyone to give, even a little, to this effort. I have sent in a donation and I hope that others will do the same.

The following is what he sent:

Dear Friends and Supporters,

It has been a long time since The Engaged Zen Foundation has put out an appeal for funding. EZF has been surviving on the donations of a very small number of individuals and frequent infusion of funds from my limited, fixed income. Since most of the work of EZF now focuses on correspondence practice and providing Buddhist written materials to prisoners there has not been an urgent need for the solicitation of funding.

The EZF book; Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism has been out of print and unavailable for a year now and numerous requests for the volume have gone unfulfilled. At this point in time EZF is determined to raise the necessary funds to reprint the volume and requires an infusion of $1800.00 to enable this endeavor.

We are calling upon our friends and supporters to assist us in raising the funds for a second printing of Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism. Please assist us in this effort to help make this valuable text available to prisoners, volunteers and interested parties. Tax deductible donations can be made to EZF via credit card or PayPal by clicking here:

Alternately, donations may be made by check to:

The Engaged Zen Foundation
Post Office Box 213
Sedgwick, ME 04676 USA

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Much of the open source community uses Freenode for IRC communication. The entire Ubuntu project uses it. I know that the Python community uses it quite heavily. The local hackerspace, Noisebridge, even has a channel (#noisebridge). In fact, every project that I know of that has a public face on IRC uses Freenode except Mozilla projects.

Given the cross-group nature of open source, where people often participate in many projects depending on their interests, I really think that Mozilla should move to Freenode. The current situation with irc.mozilla.org feels like a semi-private walled garden. It is a public server, yes, but it is cut off from many of our natural allies. Let’s face it, people are fundamentally lazy in many ways and the extra work that it takes to join another IRC server when someone is already active on Freenode means that many people probably don’t bother to come to the Mozilla IRC server.

A while back, as part of my work in the Mozilla QA organization, I set up #mozilla-quality on Freenode and submitted the paperwork to reqister Mozilla QA as the owner of that channel. We don’t have a lot of people drop into the channel but we get a few irregularly, often looking for help. I have personally seen that when, in response to questions that they want to direct at developers, they are directed to irc.mozilla.org, most of them do not go to the directed channels on the server.

It would be quite easy to register ownership of “mozilla-” on Freenode and to move the bulk of IRC conversations to that network. I think it would be a win-win situation for working with community there and would make Mozilla a lot more accessible to others.

This is something that will probably need to be debated and discussed in newsgroups but I wanted to post something here before beginning that discussion in order to see what the readers of planet.mozilla.org felt about the matter. If you have thoughts on this, please comment.

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The labyrinth is in the Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, a large park in the hills behind Oakland about fifteen minutes away from my house. It spans the tops of the hills that separate the coast from the more arid inland areas. The labyrinth is in an old quarry (looking like a small canyon) about twenty or so minutes hike in if you know where you are going. If you don’t know where you are going, as was the case with us, it can take you about an hour to find. You can see the labyrinth clearly on Google Maps if you zoom in on the park and know where to look.

The Labyrinth from the Overlook

The Labyrinth was created by by Helena Mazzariello during the spring equinox of 1990. It is a classical (or 7-circuit), left-handed, earthen labyrinth with the lines set out in pieces of local rock. The term, “labyrinth,” dates from Greek legends of Crete and the labyrinth there with its minotaur at the center. As has been pointed out by some, a labyrinth is not a maze (even though the one in the legend is…) in that there is a single, clearly defined path within a labyrinth that leads in winding fashion from the center of the labyrinth to the center. They are seen by many to be sacral constructions that one walks as a form of meditation or pilgrimage. I’ve known many people that made a practice of labyrinth walking, at least on occasion. They have been used by both non-Christian traditions in Europe and the Middle East (and, separately, in pre-contact North America). Grace Cathedral in San Francisco has a well-known labyrinth that I’ve still never visited:

Given my pagan and esoteric background, I’m quite at home with the idea of labyrinth walking.

When we arrived, the location was overcast, with fog nearby. R and I were alone in the space so, after a few photos, we took the opportunity to walk the labyrinth (and its tiny neighbor) while listening to the frogs. It was a bit water logged in places but it is clear that we were far from the only recent visitors, given the objects left in shrine-like fashion at the center of the main labyrinth.

I’ve put a very small photo set online. There is a page devoted to the “Friends of the Labyrinth” as well, who attempt to keep it maintained and protected.

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All of this makes me a good candidate to go all digital, along with being a complete computer geek. I spend most of my time reading words on a screen for my day job. When the Kindle DX came out, I bought one because the high DPI screens are much nicer than reading an LCD (you do really have to see one to appreciate it) and because the DX had native PDF support. For my school program and scholastic interests, I wound up with a lot of PDF files of articles to read and this way I didn’t have to print them out. I’ve bought a lot of books for the Kindle since I got mine and I really have enjoyed using the device. One of the big problems of the Kindle and similar devices is the non-transferability of the books. I’d rather have books in an open format like EPUB or even PDF than the DRM-laden Kindle format. As has been pointed out, when you buy a Kindle book, you are really long-term leasing the book, not owning it. I’ve worked around this to some degree by seeking (and often finding) pirated versions of the same books that I own in more open formats. I don’t even feel vaguely bad about this. After all, I have already paid for the book. I’m just getting a more suitable archival copy of it. In fact, I’ve been doing this for paper books that I own as well. This gives me more room to clear out my shelf space from many pounds of dead tree.

I have been expecting for a while that the Kindle format would be cracked. Given the cracking of DVDs and even Blu-Ray, I knew it was only a matter of time. No DRM scheme will survive the interest of enough talented individuals. Only one person has to be smarter than the creators, as Cory Doctorow has pointed out, and then everyone else can learn from that person. Well, that day has come, at least partially. It has been reported recently that the Kindle DRM has been hacked. As it turns out, this is not entirely true. Kindle books, while externally looking the same, come in more than one format. The Kindle supports (and Amazon sells) books using the Mobipocket format without DRM (.mobi), Amazon’s topaz format books (.tpz), and Amazon’s DRM-restricted Mobipocket format (AZW). The Amazon topaz format has not been hacked yet. What has been hacked is the Kindle form of the mobipocket format that added DRM. This format is a format based on the Open eBook standard. Most Kindle books are actually the same .mobi books that you can possibly by from other retailers but tweaked for Amazon DRM. (Well, actually, Amazon has a LOT more than any other retailer but they are still mobiformat books for the most part…) Some publishers use the topaz format but it seems to entirely be up to the publisher to choose what they want to create based on the instructions for creating a Kindle book that I’ve read. There are a lot of tools for working with mobipocket format, which is basically just HTML with some special additions and tweaks.

The hack uses a combination of the Amazon for PC application for Windows and two python scripts. One script extracts the books from the Amazon for the PC application when it creates a session for reading the book and the other script strips off the mobipocket DRM, leaving an unprotected mobipocket format book. I tested this out by firing up a Windows XP virtual machines (since I run OS X), installing python and the Amazon for PC, and downloading the two scripts. You fire up the main script (called “unswindle“), which then starts the Amazon for PC application. You then open the book that you want to extract and close the application, unswindle grabs the book and fires up the mobidedrm script to strip off the DRM. I looked at my bought content, as an experiment, and it turned out that out of more than 50 books that I owned, only five or so were in topaz format. The rest were mobipocket books with DRM. I was able to extract a book that I had bought and then fire up Calibre, an open source ebook reader and reformatting tool, and view the book completely outside of any Amazon application.

It will be interesting to see what Amazon will (or can) do to stop this. They’ve updated their PC application once but the author of the script simply made an update and it worked again. While the Amazon application updates by default, users can turn this off. At that point, Amazon will have to make a choice between cutting off users who haven’t updated the application or letting the hack continue to work (since they can’t change the way they do DRM without cutting off users unless they update the application).

It is an interesting problem. As a number of people have pointed out, having no ebooks doesn’t really get rid of piracy either. There have been text file or PDF versions of popular books floating around the net for more than ten years. You can’t really stop a dedicated person from either typing a book in or scanning a book and running OCR on it. For a lot of people, a scanned OCR’d book is “good enough” for them. There is no DRM in the world that can stop that from happening, which makes books an entirely different problem than say music or movies. The printed book is not an analog hole that can be plugged. I’ve ripped the spines off of paperbacks and scanned them before, not for distribution but simply because I was tired of having the paper copy of a reference book on my shelf taking up space. I never bothered to OCR mine, just leaving them as high dpi image-based PDFs. Most books are still under 10 megabytes in size and this isn’t much in an age when people have giant music collections where a single song is easily three to to eight megabytes in size. Print is cheap. I found the process to be tedious but pretty easy if you own a scanner.

Like I said, it was only a matter of time until the DRM was hacked and this is probably the first salvo in what will be another ongoing DRM war between publishers of media and their own customers.

Update: Updated to clarify that there are two book formats, not three. I was confusing Amazons mobiformat with DRM with unprotected mobiformat. The only currently uncracked format is topaz.

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Last night, R and I went to Float: The Flotation Center and Art Gallery nearby in Oakland. Float is, as the name implies, a place to float. In this instance, it is floating in a flotation tank aka a sensory deprivation or isolation tank. (Apparently, the older names are now no longer commonly used with their odd associations.)

This is something that I’ve wanted to do for more than 20 years, ever since I read the slightly whacked-out writings of John Lilly when I was a teen. John Lilly (not the same John Lilly as my employer, Mozilla) invented the tank in 1954 and proceeded to use it while whacked out on drugs like Ketamine. (Remember kids, a horse tranquilizer is not for fun!). In spite of these odder connotations, it struck me that the odd isolation would be an interesting thing to be experienced and something that is a bit hard to replicate in one’s day to day life. As it turns out, while flotation tanks are fairly uncommon in the United States, they are quite common in Europe, being associated with spas and relaxation. The co-owner of the facility from last night stated that there are more tanks in London, alone, than all of the United States.

The procedure for the tanks involves, like a Japanese bath, a complete scrub down before getting into the tank. The tank has roughly 10 inches of water with 1,000 pounds of medical grade epsom salts in it. This provides a very odd, oily, consistency to the water but causes it to be slightly denser than a person, making one float on it kind of like an skater bug. The water is heated to around 93 degrees and the air in the tank is pretty warm and humid (I think R called it “fetid”) as well. As experienced by me, you climb into the tank (mine pictured above), turn around to face the outside, sit down and, when ready, swing the door shut. You then gently ease back and find yourself floating pretty naturally. I’m slightly claustrophobic (let me tell you about my attempt to go into the burial chamber under the main pyramid at Giza sometime) and the air is pretty warm and muggy. I had been assured that it wouldn’t set off my claustrophobia, which wasn’t entirely correct. You don’t feel boxed in since the tanks that we were in are eight and a half feet long but the close and warm air in the darkness caused me twinges for a few minutes. I put on my zen game face and just “sat” with it and it went away as I relaxed.

Initially, we were encouraged to play around a bit when in the space, to get a feel for it and because it is the closest to a weightless environment that most of us are likely to get. It also takes a little unlearning to let one’s neck fully relax in the water and not to try to hold the head out, as we have all been trained for pools and the like. As the minutes went by, I gradually lost the sensation of my arms and legs, except when I moved them. The only things I felt were the sensations of water around my face (as the rest of my head was submerged) and my heartbeat pulsing through my chest and limbs. R reported feeling her heartbeat in her neck and the same sensations around the face as well. As an aside, ever since my illness, I have had a fairly strong sensation of my heart beating and my skin or muscles moving in time with it at most times (no one knows why) so I was pretty prepared to feel that. I relaxed, gently feeling like I was kind of spinning or floating in space. Occasionally, a hand or a foot would bump the wall as I kind of drifted about. My mind drifted and I relaxed. Lacking anything in particular to “do” in the tank, I did my shamatha meditation thing and watched my mind and letting my physical body relax since it had no need of support and almost no sensation.

Toward the later part of the float, I had a myoclonic jerk (a sleep start such as when your leg kicks) and then, later, a couple of more. Now, I have these whenever I transition from waking to sleeping since my illness. We had been told that we might fall asleep in the tank and I was skeptical since these jerks have kept me from daytime sleeping for a year. As it turns out, R had them as well and the co-owner mentioned that she has them in the tank. Apparently, they are pretty common as people transition into deeper brain states in the tank. I did find myself in a very relaxed state without much of a sense of time or place with some dreamlike mental churning at that point (I’ve been watching too much Venture Brothers so I saw dreamlike imagery inspired by it). I did not see much in the way of visual effects from my bored optic centers, just some mild colored traceries, such as you see when you rub your eyes lightly when closed. (Note to self: when you see odd things, if they don’t change or go away when you open or close your eyes, they aren’t really “there.”) I had no great bouts of creativity or problem solving occurred (though I did have the epiphany of going to In and Out Burger for burgers after the session while floating, which we did).

After an hour, the co-owner gently rapped on the tank three times (which is the least jarring way of letting people know that they need to get out) and I exited. Following a float, one has to shower as you exit covered in a pretty large amount of powdery salt particles. I rounded out the experience with an hour massage, making it an all-relaxation Christmas Eve.

I would definitely say it was an interesting experience, hype and history aside, and I want to do it again at some point now that I know what to expect. I found it pretty relaxing, though hardly life changing. Apparently, there are some people that arrange to do six hour overnight floats where they sleep in the tank, as well as longer, two hour or more, floats.

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My mother, dear sweet mum, has pointed out that I don’t blog anywhere as often as I once did. Yes, this is one of those perennial “I haven’t been blogging much posts.”

As long time followers know, I had a serious illness about a year ago. I picked up a virus (they guess) in Egypt or England during our trip in the fall of 2008. When I came back, I was sick for three months, barely able to work, with hypertension and tachycardia (along with fever) during the illness. I didn’t really begin to recover until sometime in January and it is clear, in retrospect, that I wasn’t very well recovered until the summer. In the course of the illness, I developed a sleep apnea-like problem in which my breathing doesn’t stop during sleep but slows down, causing my body to freak out and try to arouse me. This is probably a latent issue that I had for years but which the illness brought to the forefront. As a result of this, ever since the illness, I’ve been unable to fall asleep very easily and wake, often, ten or fifteen times a night, resulting in fatigue and headaches daily. This has gradually gotten somewhat better to the extent that it isn’t completely destroying me anymore but it is still quite bad. They had me start sleeping with a CPAP machine in the last couple of weeks to see if that will help things since medication and a mouthpiece (to help my breathing be smoother) has not.

Needless to say, no one wants to read about this all of the time so I haven’t said as much about it since spring. The problem is, as my mom pointed out, that I used to do much of my blog posting late at night, when I am no longer up. I’ve switched my schedule around because sleep issues require you to give yourself a predictable and solid sleep schedule. Between that and often feeling just worn out due to lack of sleep and headaches, I just haven’t felt as compelled to write much this last year or had the energy to do so when I have felt the urge.

I am hoping that this will change now in the next couple of months since things seem a bit better but we shall see.

I was also ordained as a priest in my Zen lineage earlier this year during the spring retreat. I haven’t quite figured out what, if anything, this pulls me towards doing beyond a dedication to the study and practice of Buddhism in my own life. I continue to participate in the Five Mountain Buddhist Seminary. I have been and am teaching a few of the classes there and am taking courses this next term, including one on how to write and give Dharma talks. It should continue to be interesting and I’m looking forward to continuing to contribute to the seminary. Over time, the seminary continues to improve and evolve as we learn more about what we are doing there.

Also, on the spiritual front, I joined the Grand Tsubaki Shrine when visiting it earlier this year. Beyond joining and receiving the newsletter, I have not really participated in it, not being local, but I continue to find Shinto fascinating though odd given my general stance of non-theism or friendly agnosticism on spiritual matters these days.

On other fronts, I started and abandoned a doctoral program this fall as well. I decided that the return on the massive amounts of time and money involved were not really worth it. Getting a doctorate in the humanities just wasn’t worth it compared to continuing my Silicon Valley technology career at Mozilla (or otherwise). Frankly, putting myself in debt and working my butt off for six or so years in order to get a job paying half as much (if I’m lucky) in the middle of nowhere (if I’m really lucky and actually can find a job) just isn’t worth it to me. I’m refocusing on my career but I need to make some changes there. Much of my current work, while interesting enough, is a bit of a dead end. I’ve been doing much of the same work in QA for the past few years. Briefly, at Microsoft, I’d managed to transition out of QA for a new career path but I had to return to QA when we moved to California. I need to either improve my coding skills, to open up more options in QA, or do something else within technology or I feel that I am just going to stagnate. (If anyone has any feelings on the Python 2.6 versus 3.0 debate, let me know!)

I am also working on improving some of my real world skills related to technology of the non-computer sort. I took a class in basic welding this last year. I have signed up for a multi-month class on metal milling and lathing at The Crucible and I plan on taking some of the computer-controlled milling classes at the TechShop. I want to be able to work with and fabricate metal components or otherwise create physical objects. I should also have a MakerBot within the next few weeks, which is a 3D printer for making parts out of plastic. My goal is to eventually have a CNC mill as well so I will be able to fabricate metal and plastic components for things as needed. The area of 3D printing has a lot of promise but we are at the very beginning of the mass adoption of the technology. It’s only gotten “cheap” recently (as opposed to being tens of thousands of dollars). I’ve attached a recent video below about the MakerBot:

Beyond all of this, at the union of the technological and the spiritual, I still want to develop more Buddhist resources online. The Zen Community aggregation blog is still going strong, though it takes little work. The One Sangha group blog was effectively stillborn. My attempts to get four to ten bloggers who want to write, at minimum, a single post a week has gotten nowhere. I’d still like to do the group blog but cannot really do it alone. On the “Open Source Buddhism” front, I’d really like to get more resources for sutras, liturgy and other material online but it feels likely to be an uphill struggle on my own. Anyone interested in such projects should e-mail me as “albill” at this domain.

This is my year end update.

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