Clarity’s blog

tomorrow is Day of the Dead (sheesh, sounds like a horror movie title) here in Slovenia and I have to say it’s not my favorite - hmm, holiday? celebration? none of the words seem to fit. I really like the idea of at least once a year confronting our own mortality and remembering those that are not among us anymore. However, as usually seems to be the case in this setting sun world, which Trungpa Rinpoche described as the one that would do anything to ward off death, what usually happens is quite far from it. I don’t think I remember even one Day of the Dead where in the family we would sit down and actually talked about those that died, remembered them, keep them in our hearts. No, we would worry how to prepare the grave, what flowers to put where, and just generally keep extremely busy. We’d dutifully go to the ceremony to the little graveyard, not because we’d liked it or it was meaningful, but because it was the thing to do. People would wonder if you didn’t show up. Or if your flowers or candles were not up to the latest fashion.
So, tomorrow we will go again, at least this time not for the horrible ceremony (imagine wailing songs, interspersed with bad poetry and more somber songs, stuff from the local priest that is the same every year, and then throw in some sad war songs - no kidding). But as I write this, I realize, well, it’s really up to me how I take this.
Perhaps I can use it to remember those who died, perhaps on the way to the graveyard I can start a conversation with my mum about it. Though she hates anything connected with death, she’s actually quite terrified of it. She thinks it will draw death nearer if we talk about it.
It is hard for me to think about it too. Death has been one of the hardest contemplations for me. And here, on the graveyard, it is not just about death, but also about my relationship with those that died.
My father, who died when I was 8. I used to completely ignore his existance, pain being too strong to face. Then I used to hate him, thinking I could never forgive him for his drinking and what it did to our family. Now I don’t know. There are times when I feel I understand him somewhat. And I wish him well wherever he is now. There are times when I wish we’d spend more time together, where I could have a father and he could have a son. I miss him.
My grandmother who loved me dearly and was loved dearly by me. Towards the end of her life I was the only thing that was left for her. I remember her gray hair and elderly gentle hands. How many times I would hold those hands in mine, feel their warmth and their love. I miss her stories and I miss her love. I miss telling her of my travels, how her eyes would lit up listening to me, traveling with me to distant places that I visited. And how then she would start including all those people in her prayers. Before my travels she’d tell me, you know, now when I pray, I pray for you and your mother, I ask God to keep you safe. Then after a while, she’d say, now I also pray every day for the Tibetan people and the Indians. And later, after telling her of my life in the Vietnamese monastery, she’d start including Vietnamese refugees as well.
And then one day when I would visit, she’d say, you know, now I pray for you, and your mother, and the Tibetans and Vietnamese and Indians, and then I pray for all the sick people in the world, and all the hungry people and all in need.
I was just smiling at her. She used to be a very bitter woman, she’d complain a lot, and so enemies everywhere. She didn’t get along with many people, and was in fights with most of her neighbours. Yet, when she was telling me this, a doorbell would ring, and a neighbours kid would come in asking if she needs anything from the store.
Then half an hour later another naighbour would come, asking if she needs her trash taken out. I was completely amazed.
When she died, on her funeral, I did something that is rarely done here. In fact, people tried to stop me from doing it, of course in the name of that they’re taking care of me. After some guy I did not know read a eulogy for her, that was so negative, all about the things that went wrong in her life, how she was lonely, had noone, blah blah blah. I was so angry, I could hardly contain myself not to get up to him and punch him in the face.
Instead, I went up to the microphone and told everyone of her love for so many beings. I told them of my love for her, and I still remember the church walls echoing the words ” I love you, grandmother” again and again.
I miss you.
The and there was grandmother’s sister, who died very recently. She had such a bitter life, at the end, bitterness would all that she could see. It was so painful to see that, to see the walls around her so strong, hardly anything came through. Her eyes would lit up though, whenever I came to visit. I would hug her and kiss her on the cheek and I would hold her hands all the time while I was there. I love you and miss you. I wish I would visit more often. I still remember last time I saw her. I somehow knew it was the last time. She could barely speak, and she would go in and out of lucidity. I’d just sit on her hospital bed and hold her hands. At one point she would pull me towards her, so my head was on her chest and she would just cry and cry and cry. My mother tried to comfort her. Why couldn’t she just let her cry? That was what she had left, can’t she have even that? I miss you and wish you well.
And then there’s a death that is still so raw and painful I can’t even talk about it. I don’t know if or when I will be able to.
But I think of you often. words are completely inadequate here. I am sorry and I wish you well.

it’s a broken-hearted world we have, you know…

No Comments »

I’ve spend a few hours tinkering with Typo, a blogging software than runs on Ruby on Rails - something i’ve wanted to try for some time. The install didn’t go quite as easy as I’d liked, there was a bug in the latest version that had to be fixed, and my Apache configuration didn’t like it at all, but after some hours, it’s finally working. You can see the test blog here.
The design is the default that comes with Typo and I’d like to tweak it some more and Live Search doesn’t seem to work for some reason. I’ll leave that for another day.

It looks quite pretty, I have to say.

No Comments »

it’s funny how romanticism and depression seem to go together…

No Comments »

(I’m on a roll here…)

There’s one hundred percent art in everyday life happening all the time. Where you are properly sitting down and doing nothing or you are doing lots of things, it becomes a warrior’s world all the time.

VCTR

No Comments »

Well, I think one should always smile

VCTR

No Comments »

We can’t create a new cocoon in the Great Eastern Sun and sun-bathe, lying in the dirt and stupefying ourselves, which is a setting sun kind of holiday. In that approach, casualness is regarded as relaxation, which is practically bad manners.

VCTR

No Comments »

We have embedded ourselves in a cocoon where our only companion is the smell of our own armpits and sweat

VCTR

No Comments »

Pred kratkim sem imel predavanje v okviru Šambala skupine v Ljubljani o budisticni meditaciji umirjanja uma - samati.

Predavanje na kratko povzame kaj je meditacija in kaj ni, kaj je namen te meditacije in kako jo izvajati.
Za tiste, ki bi vas zanimalo kaj vec zvedeti o tem, lahko predavanje poslušate v WMA ali MP3 obliki.

(sorry my English friends for slovene only post… )

No Comments »

I did my kagyu ngondro this morning, even managed to do one mala of prostrations. I’m happy that I finally did something in connection with it, and surprisingly I haven’t snapped yet at anyone, nor had any surprising mood swings.
I wish this was something that didn’t require a blog entry to celebrate. mundane ngondro, I’d go for that any day!

No Comments »

I’ve been procrastinating about writing anything here, and it is starting to follow a similar pattern. oh, i don’t have anything to write, but i guess i should. and i don’t. then there’s a slight tinge of guilt.
perhaps i should just write a completely mundane entry. for some reason, i really like reading them, perhaps it would be fun to write them?

No Comments »

well, the story with these hackers continues. I still haven’t found how they got in, but it seems it might’ve been through Webmin. As I was looking at things I noticed that a lot of software on my server is old, and there have been various security issues fixed in new versions (like apache, webmin,ssh).
I’m hosting on Adiungo and they have been mostly ok, except for when a similar thing happened about a year ago and now.
If you look at their hosting page you will see the following sentence:
Our service includes 24 / 7 support, proactive managed security updates and permanent server monitoring.

You want to know what “proactive managed security updates” mean to them?
response from support no. 1:

We would reccomend to reorder a package completely to one of our current packages: http://www.adiungo.com/hosting/. There you will be provided with latest versions of software.

That means starting fresh, setting everything up for all my sites, databases, creating new emails. Plus it’s almost 3x as expensive as what I have right now.
I tell them that this is not the best solution and this is not what I imagined managed security updates look like.
respone no. 2:

Yes, it would be a case in a standard situation, but the software on your VPS, including kernel is outdated and requires a complete update.

Ok, so then I say why are you advertising this if you’re not providing the service? At least then provide me with a new server but let me keep the same price - as it was done a year ago.
their response is a true gem:

Thank you for your request.

Please let us know what you feel,

Guess how do I feel about it? If I wanted to update everything myself I would not go for a managed package I would be running my own server. Hmm…

19 Comments »

My server is being hacked… Wonderful, just what I need…
I’m not yet sure how they’re getting in, but it seems it’s through apache somehow. They deleted all the logs, so I can’t trace them and since I don’t know how they got in I can’t plug the hole.

this completely sucks. I might have to take the server offline for a while until I figure it out.

No Comments »

you know, i really had best intentions about blogging today. But my mind is so fried right now, I can barely make sentences. Written English somehow seems to suffer most when I’m tired. Anyways, I had a few topics in my mind, but have to let them go for now. Enjoy your day, whatever day you’re having.

I’m off to bed.

No Comments »

Today a friend wrote to me that he tried to sign up for a Dreamhost account via my link and noticed that if you enter the promo code 888 as I suggested, you do indeed get 80% off - so the whole year of hosting comes to 24$!!!, but that voids my referral fee so I don’t get anything. He suggested that perhaps it would be better to take off the promo code.

Hmm. What to do?

I thought for a while and then came up with this: Dreamhost allows you to create your own promo codes, where you specify how much discount the customers get, but the amount goes from your reward money. So, I thought, ok, let’s leave the 888 code up and create my own code that would split the fee 50/50. That was fair, right? After 888 code won’t work anymore, you can still use my code and get 50$ off. Not bad. But then I thought, hmm, why not make this into a practice a bit. 50/50 is comfortable, what about giving a bit more. Hmm… Tightness in my throat… ok,well, I guess I can give you guys 60$ off. So interesting to see where my limit would be and how tight I can be with money that’s not even mine, which I might never get (since there isn’t much chance of anyone signing up from my blog). Oh, and I can’t cash it anyway since they only use Paypal, I can only use it for hosting fees.
Guess what I ended up doing? Well, use promo code BUDDHA and you’ll see!

Hehe, ok, I’ll tell you - it gives you $97 discount which is all of my reward money. What do I get from it? Well, nothing. Isn’t it great?
And in case for some weird reason you would WANT to give me some money and you yourself pay MORE for your hosting, use code CLARITY which will give you $50 discount and I get the rest.

5 Comments »

good and bad, happy and sad, all thoughts vanish into emptiness like the imprint of a bird in the sky
from Sadhana of Mahamudra

that might be so, but they sure feel vivid and real. like me missing somebody right now.

No Comments »