Dear Saturday House,
(and friends,)
These are the discussion notes from the Sacred Books
gathering we had at Saturday House, 2008-09-13.
Enjoy!
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Sacred Books Gathering
2008-09-13
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#1
Margret Barkley
"Tales of the Sufis," or "Sufi Tales"
Fairy tales from 1,001 Knights; A way of teaching by telling
stories. Like Aesop's Fables, which are 1st level teachings from
the stories.
We talked of the roles that fairy tales have in a society. Modern
myths are on the order of the search for love, or good against evil.
But these are not common themes in indigenous cultures -- histories,
walkabout stories, creation stories.
There was talk of fairy tales corrupted by Disney, mythologies of
Europe as pagan stories overlayed by Christianity.
Alladin's Lamp as a symbol of our lives: We get three wishes; How
will we spend them?
Training to follow Spirit? Or training to follow Earthly authority.
Margaret says that lack of tradition is a major problem in our
society. Child abuse, suffering, being conquered.
The phrase "walking zombie-ism" came up.
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#2
Brian Rue
"Sandman," by Neil Gaiman
"Thus Spoke Zarathusthra," by Nietchze
"Sex and Bacon", by Sarah Katherine Lewis
Brian worked at a comic store in the past. He likes multilayered,
deep stories.
"Are sandman stories deep, or superficial," Margaret asks.
Definitely deep. "Does sandman change?" Yes.
It's not clear wheter the divinities are corporeal or not. Do they
create humanity or vice versa? It isn't clear.
A magical reality.
Thus Spoke Zarathusra: A series of short stories. A hermit in a
cave comes out, and addresses the public, thinking he knows
something. "I have spoken!"
3 stages of a hero journey:
1. to become a Camel, collecting things for the journey, and moving
forward
2. to become a Lion, a strong beast- "thou shall, thous shalt not;"
to slay a Dragon; what you can & cannot do
3. to become a child -- things you didn't know, a multitude of ways
or perspectives, seeing difference & diversity -- not an end
destination.
The Uberman: Difference in society; Common people vs. an elite.
An appeal to people to form elite, to construct societies, a
government, from these concepts in this book.
It was about 12:40 at this time, so we skipped "Sex & Bacon."
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#3
Sarah
"The Meaning of Life from a Buddhist Perspective,"
by the Dalai Lama
"The Serpent and the Rainbow", by Wade Davis
"Skinny Legs & All", by Tom Robbins
The Meaning of Life from a Buddhist Perspective is written from a 5
day seminar with the Dalai Lama, including a Questions & Answers
session with the audience.
Someone had asked about attachment and personal affections - is
romantic love (for example,) or married love an obstacle to the path
of love for all people.
I'm not sure I'm recording this right, but my memory is that the
answer in the book was about extending attachments out to everyone;
viewing it perhaps not necessarily as dropping attachments, but
another way of thinking about it as extending attachments to all
people.
Love towards all, manifesting in different emotions: love,
compassion, faith.
"To what extent does the lack of a creator God limit our ability to
work with people who do have a personal, creator God?" Not sure
what I remember being said; Something on the order of exalting the
differences of the other, respecting uniqueness, these all being
different ways of experiencing the ultimate.
The Serpent & the Rainbow is by a guy who does Ted Talks. The book
(or Ted talk?) involves Haitian Zombies; Another involves an
indigenous culture in the "Sierra Madres," somewhere around South
America (?).
"You say you went to the moon, we don't believe you. You say we
don't reach enlightenment, but we do."
Skinny Legs & All by Tom Robbins is different. Mention also of
"Dance of the 7 Veils." A woman is clothed in 7 veils; As parts of
her philosophy that have blinded her fall away, so goes a veil.
Duscussion of religion, dogma, and tradition being a blinding force,
an obstacle to humanity. "Religion is not just an opiate of the
masses, it is cyanide."
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#4
John Lynch
"The Alchemist," by Paulo Coelho
A young shepard, studying Alchemy. Undergoing hardships, working
towards a dream. He literally transforms his soul into goal, making
real gold. A story about following your bliss & striving to follow
things through.
The book describes different ways of getting on track. (Other two
[somethings] didn't work.)
Does it rely on divine intervention? Not really; But there is
serendipity. Something about high ethics.
Brian Rice asked about methods of meeting challenge. John: Sticking
to. And if you follow your heart's desire, the world will
co-conspire with you to make it a reality.
John described being a painter -- not an easy path.
- - - - - -
#5
Will Beaty
"The Amateur Scientist," C.L. **STONG**
"The Complete Crumb Comics Vol. 17", Robert Crumb
The theme is science and modern culture.
Will described The Amateur Science as the "Dark Bible of American
Culture," and connected Science with Materialism.
Will asked, "Where did technical culture come from?" And he'd talk
with scientists, and "The Amateur Scientist" kept coming back up.
All of our material world power, put into one single place.
Dangerous teechnologies. How to make X and Gamma rays. Cloud
chambers. Every field.
"If you want to corrupt a culture, give them this book. Then come
back in a few years, and their world will be covered in concrete."
Strong ambivalence about science. "This is how the downtrodden nerd
type gets power-- 'I'll show you.'" Downtrodden nerds, the dark
sorcerers of the world. "How to create the modern technical world."
This book totally altered society. Make your own geiger counter.
The childhood of technical people in the 1950's, 1960's. "The
spells have escaped."
Life lessons as lessons of power? Spiritual development required,
the problem is that we get technical power without accompanying
spiritual development. "You could do good with it, but people use
it for all sorts of things."
"I'm a dilettante, and my [?] doesn't matter."
"I'm just a technician, I'm just..."
If something could cause people to be non-materialistic, would it be
good?
Nerd fantasies of power from below.
Then, The Complete Crumb. An important book in "What made you who
you are today?" Crumb was the wimpy guy all the women hate.
Portrayal of the ugly. Drawing/writing a self-therapy: Crumb really
started that.
- - - - - -
#6
Brian Rice
"Trilogy," by H.D
"Understanding Computers and Cognition"
"Backwards down the Path"
"Introduction to Metaphysics," Heidegger
"On the Way to Language," Heidegger
"Ghost in the Shell (1+2)," by Masamune Shirou
"The Way of Chuang Tzu"
"The Zen Way to the Marshall Arts"
"The Book of 5 Rings"
"Battle Angel Alita"
"The Art of the Metaobject Protocol"
"The Kin of Ata"
"Exterminator!", by William Burroughs
Brian Rice, by far, brought the most books.
He layed them down in an arrangement on the floor, and then began
working through it.
First was "Backward down the path," which he described as a very
dense, very difficult translation of the Tao Te Ching.
He also had "The Way of Chuang Tzu," a more approachable read.
Brian Rice had some books on mathematics, abstract algebra, and
topology. "Computer Science is as much about computers as Astronomy
is about telescopes."
"The Zen Way to the Marshall Arts," and "The Book of 5 Rings," by
Misashi Miyamoto.
We talked about hacking language.
We talked about emptiness providing form in the Tao, and we talked
about "fixed is dead," that fixation or unchangingness is death.
There is a sense of something evolving within science, and
technology -- "Ghost in the Shell" speaks to these intuitions. It's
rather deep, though, and difficult to express in conversation, much
less 5 minutes.
"Battle Angel Alita" is in a similar way. "Can human beings escape
their karma," a professor asks in the story? But his experiments
end up turning people into monsters.
"The Art of the Metaobject Protocol." It's "computer science
metaphysics," or "metaphysics for programmers." Difficult to
describe to a general audience, but it's about mutable object
systems.
Then there was "the Kin of Ata," on the role of dreaming in life.
(Margret, I think, said something about the basis of the dreaming
visions coming from Greenland or Iceland? A suspicion of
plagerism.) Brian described it as "New Age," (and thus with some
suspicion,) but said that he also found a lot of value in it, even
though he said it doesn't obviously fit in with the rest of the
books he brought.
Then there was "Exterminator!", by William Burroughs. He
recommended "Exterminator!" *instead of* Naked Lunch. It's about
the ugly soul of materialist white culture.
The ease of automation, of absolute control, leading to a sort of
evil.
"William Buroughs would sense dark evil in things like,
... ...washing the dishes," Brian said. "The brutality of common
things."
Now, I wrote down "Freedom Ghost of Change" in my notes, and I have
*no idea* what I meant when I wrote that.
ENDING:
I took the policy of going in a session for a sense of "fullness,"
rather than "maximum words for unit of time." This is, "Quality
over Quantity." However, it did mean that not everyone got a turn.
I apologized that I had not reserved enough time for everyone. It
worked out to about 20 minutes per person, for 6 people, over two
hours.
In the future, it may be better to just say, "20 minutes per
person," and base the duration on the number of participants, or cap
participation at 6-9 people (2-3 hours.)
Finally, a thank-you to everyone for coming!
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