Duverger's thesis analyzed: Crónica de la Eternidad

(In 1521 Cortez and his band conquered the New Spain. The best eye-witness account is that of foot soldier Bernal Diaz del Castillo. What if the real author is not he, but Cortez himself? I am hosting what follows as is on behalf of certain someone who is too lazy to translate it)

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Type 'zen' in the search bar of your favorite online bookstore and chances are that Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is near the top of the search results.  It is the first book I read on this area, but as you can see from my previous zen post, it is the book that I recommend last.

The contents are good and substantial, not that long, and helps one to know 'what is expected' of oneself from the practice which helps narrow the focus to the practice and let go of preformed misconceptions.  However it is written in that oblique, paradoxical  'zen style' of instruction that doesn't lend to immediate grasp.  That's why I would recommend it after at least some months practice and after the Dummies books or other Western oriented introductory manual. The Mind And the Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz, which I'll mention again some time, has helped me disentangle some of the paradoxes as well, ("Oh, so that's what he means"), so I'll recommend that as well.

In similar fashion to Zen Mind, there's Zen Essence ed. by Thomas Cleary which is a collection of opinions by different masters on various practice aspects. The multiangle approach is beneficial because it triangulates to what all are trying to convey at each point.

The Game From Mars

(I've been toying with this idea for the better part of the last five years and decided that it was ripe enough for this year's Halloween special. I think that it works on its own and could serve as the basis for further development)

The future did not turn out as was expected.  Sure, there had still been some progress technologywise but that had been even more tepid than the most conservative futurologists had predicted.   However, the most notable change had been the great strides in world peace and international cooperation and arbitration.  For the first time in centuries, if ever, several months could be threaded without international strife.  There still remained some internal disputes in some countries but those were of pretty no impact.  This climate of concord had been rightly hailed as mankind's greatest achievement and reasonably made up for the low technological change of the recent decades.    We still did not have jet packs or flying cars, and but at least we had a livable world.

This all changed with the successful completion of the Mars 3500 Mission.  The mission had been the result of very small incremental advances that had accumulated over time.  The space agencies had found early on that a manned round trip could be done without having to turn the mission into a suicidal one.  The catchphrase at the time had been: "Mars and back!" A few efficiencies in hull design, tiny advances in fuel chemistry, and material overhaul that had been cooking for some time was all it took for a safe Mars mission.

The landing site was chosen for no reason other than it "afforded a nice view of the Olympus Mons" as one official quipped.

Positive material proof of a shared universe was already old news by then. Notwithstanding, bringing some back in quantity wasn't. With the mission's completion and analysis the agencies published commemorative tome with the most important findings.

The story that would have the most impact was told in a sidebar in the same tome however.  It dealt with what was entitled "The Game From Mars".  Among the refuse and whatnot, an iron plaque was found etched with a few pictures.  The meaning of it was quickly deciphered as to be a game, mostly because of its eerie resemblance to Chinese checkers.  As best as it could be gathered, the object of the game was to advance your marble through a series of grooves from your side, colored red, to the far side of the board colored green.  Nothing quite out of the ordinary, but it offered a nice kicker to the whole mission.

Within a few days of the printing a few enterprising programmers wrote an app of the game for download.  It was a mild success due to the novelty and to the afterglow of the mission, but most of who downloaded it for $.99 gave it up after mastering it in couple of weeks in favor of something else.  In the charts it peaked at #6, just behind the Toyo Singing Calculator.

This situation would not last for long.  A small company made up of two brothers literally turned the game up on its head.  They programmed their own version of the game with the difference of starting backwards: getting the ball from the green camp to the red camp.  Thanks to the layout of the pits and grooves this made the game much, much more interesting than the original red counterpart.  The combinations and patterns that resulted from a well-played game were fascinating, and with each game, the players tried to find out new and more intricate patterns.  They called their game "Green Mars".

Green Mars

Green Mars took the world by storm.  Within a few days it topped the charts never to leave the spot ever again.  Ports to social sites were illegally made by third parties and condoned.  Users even demanded them.  Loudly.  No one was willing to wait for an official port.  Whole new communities emerged dedicated to Green Mars.  Servers crashed under the traffic load. Even printed magazines, of all things, were rushed for printing.  No one could get enough of it.  Merchandising went even beyond the usual suspects of cereal boxes and happy meals.  Magazine articles, special news reports and in-depth coverage, adoption by celebrities added fuel to the raging fire and brought attention to the game far and wide.  So the game's intrinsic appeal (considering the word 'appeal' as a far, far understatement), ease of access and wide publicity resulted in an unstoppable force.

A few psychologists interested in the phenomenon, to their credit sounded the alarm before the real trouble began.  Studying the impact of the game on behavior they quickly concluded that Green Mars' index of addiction was unlike anything seen before.  It just went over an over-optimistic scale that never assumed such a degree of hookup.  Mind you, the players didn't suffer from any physical impact from playing the game different from the already known effects of playing any game too much.  The thing was that the players couldn't help themselves playing on.  Food and hygiene still had some power over the players for a while but as soon as those were satisfied these faded into the background as well as anything else.  The study subjects even went aggressive towards the researchers when deprived of the game medium.  On average it only took four hours for withdrawal symptoms to surface and the threshold diminished daily.  The results didn't quite really get to see the light of day, since these didn't have the time to do so, but the few strenuous warnings that did come out went unheeded.

Things did change and for the worse 22 days after the release of Green Mars.  What at first had been interest, fancy and healthy dedication turned to wild fixation.  All of a sudden, as if falling from an unseen cliff, players found themselves unable to get away from the game.  It was still pleasurable, very much so, and that was the problem.  The first signals came with the skyrocketing of petty traffic accidents.  Then came the more serious ones with trains skipping the rails and passenger-filled planes  dropping from the sky.  The day that air traffic was canceled, the 24th, regulators expected this a temporary measure.  Then came the meltdown of two nuclear reactors the next day, and a dozen more during the week around the globe.  Goods delivery came to a standstill.  Doctors at hospitals became inefficient at best.  Uncaring, yet entertained, trauma victims were rolled to the ERs with their devices in tow.  Food and drink became a thing of the past with the present being all that mattered.  By the 30th the dead began to pile unburied and pestilence began to circulate at an accelerating pace.  States and governments became powerless, then silent.

This is how civilization ended.

(Check out last years Halloween special here and 2012's here )

Hoyle's Black Cloud

I'm not really into science fiction books (I'd rather watch movie adaptations), but last year my older brother gave me Fred Hoyle's Black Cloud as a must-read. I obliged and found it a bit contrived but good on the suspense and premise. The author focuses, however, on the decision-makers in their bunkers, leaving out a wide arena of possibility within his setting. Sure, its interest and the main purpose of the book to see how the higher-ups resolve the crisis at hand, but not that much is said of we, the regular people. As with a good disaster setting this is what I'd like to have read, in addition to the existing storyline, maybe by the hand of a different writer:

• A set of characters, independent of the scientists and politicians, carrying out their own lives, trying to solve their own particular affairs when events begin to unfurl.
• How they begin to suspect something's amiss and how news begins to trickle in.
• Transcriptions of the newscasts. Probably these hiding the truth.
• The official crisis plan by the government
• The ways the different new characters prepare themselves for the upcoming bad times, on their homes, work and family relations while still trying to achieve their preexisting goals.
• The inevitable panic and looting
• The reactions of religious groups
• Life during the  hot and cold periods, especially during the dark days. The fear,the marauders, the screams from without the shelters
• Reconstruction

There is ample room to still work within Hoyle's universe. I mention all this as a prelude for this year's Halloween special, in which I post a really modest sci-fi short story of my own, that kind of belongs to same vein to see if it goes anywhere. This, next time.

Three Pillars of Zen book review

If you ever take up Zen, there's a hidden benefit: you really don't have to learn much. Just sit, focus on your breathing or your koan if you have one, and not much else. This makes it easy to get into. Zen is notoriously refractory to philosophy so there's no accumulation of knowledge that has to be learned to practice. In fact, knowing more may be a hindrance and knowing less might be part of the key. (The only other field I've seen something parallel is futures trading: knowing more doesn't necessarily mean better results). That said, one might get some benefits by learning how others have made it, their, goals their experiences. Some of these are gathered in the Three Pillars of Zen. 

As said this is not required reading. This is more like a guided tour through the mechanics of enlightenment and a showcase of experiences of others on their way to it. If the Zen Life shows Zen from without,  Three Pillars take a more intimate inside view. It could be divided into roughly three non-continuous parts. The first consists of a series of talks of by a Zen master of different practice aspects. These are followed by transcriptions of from the private interviews (dokusan) between the seeker and the master. The second is a small collection of letters from the monk to those who have sought him for guidance and from a girl who went through the higher stages in just a few days. The last part contain sample accounts of present day seekers who who have achieved enlightenment written in their own hand. Each section is prologued by the author with general context and concepts. There's a brief annex on practice troubleshooting, but I did not find it terribly useful (better Meditation for Dummies). A welcome addition is the glossary as sometimes terms sometimes get jumbled up.

My favorite part is the private interviews where the seekers try to make sense of their koans. This single part is the next best thing (I feel) to getting hold of a flesh and bone master who's willing to take you on. Feedback’s the name of the game. My other favorite section was the diary of the American businessman seeker in the third part; his account is so close at home that one can relate to him and so clear that I can picture a short film being made out of it.

Recommended, yes, for the inner look and for the clear view of the whole field.

(If you are a Catholic, some, perhaps all, meditation practices might be harmful to you spiritual life. Check out Women of Grace or read what Sue Brinkmann has to say by googling her)

(After a brief hiatus for this year's Halloween special, I'll come back to close this series on meditation with another review)

First time group meditation

So I joined the gym of my local college campus. Pasted on the entrance one day I happened to catch a schedule for a previously unknown to me meditation hall annex to the sports center. I decided to check it out.

I've been meditating for myself over the previous year. Frankly I would have never started had not physical troubles pushed me to it. Meditation as alternative medicine was frequently mentioned in the books I consulted and decided to give it a try. If nothing else as a way to take over my own recovery. Well, I had been meditating with more or less success in a standing posture, but felt I could do even better with some guidance. My first impetus was posture itself. Though not prohibited by any means, standing straight is not mainstream. Maybe some regular time tested sitting might help.

The first couple visits to the meditation hall were unsuccessful as it was they were sessions already going on (yoga I think) and didn't want to distract the girls there. On the third go, I chanced on a general meditation workshop. Being a slow day, there was only the instructor and a student. As I entered the teacher was explaining the concept of koans to the student. The instructor invited me to join, but startled at the unexpected welcomeness, I decided to let them be and left. Undaunted, I tried yet once more, and finally caught the instructor by himself the following week.

He was sitting there by himself already on meditation with three more unoccupied cushions at his sides. He stopped and kindly asked me to come in. He turned up to be a soft spoken Westerner with 35 years of meditation experience.I explained that I was there to try the cushions out. He said that by all means and promptly proceeded to induct me. He asked me if I already meditated and which meditation school I practiced (makeshift zen). He gave me a crash course anyway: how, to sit,  where to feel the breathing (2 inches below the navel), keep the eyes open, focus on no point, think on nothing (he did say that) and to just return the awareness to it.

With that he told me we would go for 20 minutes. He laughed when I tried to negotiate it down to ten, my then maximum, set some meditation timer app and then we were at it. Before long two more persons came into the hall, one sitting on the line of cushions and the other behind us three.

Well, those twenty minutes were not so bad as I expected. Actually, far from feeling any pressure from the others I felt motivated by them. The practice felt more flowy, easier and at times, deeper. Nothing dramatic, but the momentum did build upon itself.The time for its part flew, but unlike my own practice I wondered from time to time how much we had left, not out of anxiety, but of curiosity. Despite trying to get into a proper posture (Burmese style) at the onset, I still felt my right knee was off the floor. A bit uncomfortable on the whole, but not painful.

So when the digital bowl rang from the phone, the instructor bowed forward, took a silent pause and took a look 'round. One of the latecomers I recognized as the koan guy from before; the other a female student. When I tried to stand up I found that my right leg had numbed over; the koan guy seeing that, good naturedly chuckled and said that it happens but over time it gets better. The girl, I saw, had pulled a meditation bench from somewhere and on the spot I decided to try that next.

The instructor proposed that we now switch to a five minute walking meditation. Same thing, just fist over the thumb on the right, left hand. We went single file behind him round the hall, although I had to stand there for the first few while sensation came back to my leg. On the whole I liked this change, although it was hard to focus on my breathing or on anything for that matter. Just the circuit again and again. Probably that's the point if there's a point at all. Maybe that's how the whirling dervishes, on another scale, get their kicks (Update: from the 3 Pillars of Zen I learn this is called kinhin and its for its own sake, to allow variety and to allow longer sitting periods) .

After another bowl ring, the instructor invited us to another 20 minute sit to close the allotted time. I politely begged off, having had my fill for the moment, but promised to come back next week.

And so I did on the weeks following. Same dynamics: sit around 20 to 25 minutes, walk five, sit another 20. Different persons came and went, but we averaged three or four consistently. The benefits I had noticed on my first try were still there with differing intensity. I tried the bench and found it even better and eventually bought one for myself on an auction site. The teacher gave a few pointers here and there ("your posture is good, but you must let yourself drop"). My own solitary practice has strengthened. If you ever have the chance to try to group meditate with a handful of people, I'd encourage you to to not let the opportunity pass.


(If you are a Catholic, some, perhaps all, meditation practices might be harmful to you spiritual life. Check out Women of Grace or read what Sue Brinkmann has to say by googling her)

More next time

Meditation AND Mindfulness for Dummies review

Starting this week a small series on meditation

In order to solve some issues  I have, I decided to take up meditation. I had already read and enjoyed Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, but felt I needed more step by step instruction. To sift through the mounds of books on the subject, I established that the book I'd read had to:

• Be Western oriented. I knew that the techniques had already been distilled for Western consumption. I did not want to learn any Eastern philosophy to practice, if I could help it. Thus, it also had to have:
• No oblique language. Hand me clear, precise concepts and instructions. No mumbo jumbo. Straight forward lingo for me. Thank you very much.
• Cover the basics and offer alternative approaches for me to try or adapt.
• Address mindfulness. Felt that I needed this, so it had to be in there too.

Looking around I almost settled for Mindfulness: an 8 week plan… by Williams et al. and the Mindfulness Solution by Siegel.  While considering these and others, Meditation for Dummies by Bodian made its way into the list. Whittling down the choices by comparing the contents, Bodian's finally beat all the other contenders despite being the most expensive of my choices. It delivered.

It is chockful of goodies and with it one is unlikely to need anything else for many many months. Starts with general aspects such as the different meditation traditions, the benefits of and research on meditation and so on. Meditation instruction doesn't start until chapter 6 but the author encourages the reader to jump around if she feels like it. Practical aspects, such as what to where and where to sit, are explored and troubleshooting section for more challenging problems. Chapter 14 is a godsend as it recaps the material and offers suggestions to build one's own practice.  In the Dummies tradition, it has a Further Steps section towards the end for even further exploration.

The book's meditation style leans towards Buddhism, but offers plenty of meditation alternatives from different traditions for one to try if one feels like it. Some Jewish and Christian meditation is in there as well.  An added bonus is that the author has a psychotherapy day job, sothats a bonus as I feel he writes with experience.

When I placed Meditation In the shopping cart, I was also recommended to also check out another Dummies book, Mindfulness for Dummies (2010 edition) by Alidina. Did so, and saw that it also covered my requirements and gave another look to about the same topics. Decided to  bite the bullet, get these two and draw from both. I was astounded  that it were Dummies books, two of them, who trounced the competition.

Mindfulness for also is is quite agnostic and doesn't try to get you adopt any spiritual beliefs. It even warns against joining cults and stuff (unless you want to). Both are good, but Bodian's has an edge over Alidina's. Now, there's nothing wrong with Alidina, only that it is more constrained in its scope. If Mindfulness is the only one you can get, that's fine as it's oriented to beginners as well and covers about the same material, but I kinda felt it as a second course. My original plan of reading them both concurrently didn't pan out as despite their similarity, in my experience they don't quite reinforce each other. Better stick with one at the time, and if possible, make that Meditation.

Both 4 stars

(Both print books include meditation Cds which I've skipped for now)

(Despite their apparent agnosticism, If you are a Catholic, some, perhaps all, meditation practices might be harmful to you spiritual life. Check out Women of Grace or read what Sue Brinkmann has to say by googling her)

More next time