tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-303546542024-02-18T20:03:13.857-08:00Random ThoughtsA middle-aged guy in Berkeley CA, interested in exploring the mind through formal Zen practice, entheogens, or any means necessary. I'll be blogging about meditation teachers, groups, techniques, and whatever relates to the Big Questions of Life. With maybe some politics, gambling, and pop culture thrown in.stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.comBlogger170125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-33928607874362107792022-11-10T06:31:00.000-08:002022-11-10T08:20:37.439-08:00More on the Death of Adi DaDiscussion about the death of Adi Da continues at the Nonduality Blog. (Adi Da is the controversial guru who has also been known as Franklin Jones, Bubba Free John, Avatar Adi Da Samraj, etc etc.) About 60 comments have been made to that blog so far; below is the comment I added there this morning.
Part of my comment is a reaction to the debate over Adi Da as a "Realizer." It's often seemed to stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-43885575597653673262015-10-04T15:07:00.000-07:002015-10-04T15:14:18.344-07:00Gunnison Colorado Balloon Rally with Raul
July 4, 2011
Hiking above nearby Crested Butte.
Start of the drive back West. Stopping on road from Gunnison to Hotchkiss.
Earlier Balloon Adventures: Colorado 2004, Utah 2007.stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-12140357906371294832015-10-04T15:04:00.000-07:002015-10-04T15:04:05.705-07:00Steep Ravine Cabins
April 2012, Mt Tam State Park
Watching sunset with guys from neighboring cabin
Walking by the shore
Twilight
Sunset
Morning view from the cabin
More photos from the trip, courtesy of Bill:
Walking up Steep Ravine Trail, courtesy of Horton:
stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-51888491647155270142015-10-04T15:00:00.005-07:002015-10-04T15:00:40.872-07:00My One Memorable Chess Game
From the 1985 San Francisco Class Championship
White: ChaBlack: Resnick
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bc4 Nf6
4. Ng5 Bc5?!
This is called the Wilkes-Barre Variation, named for a city near my hometown of Havertown PA. It may be unsound, but has definite shock value. One point is that after the tempting 5. Nxf7, Black gets an attack with 5. ... Bxf2+, 6. Kxf2 Nxe4+ and 7. ... Qh4.
stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-28919039946788859692015-10-04T14:53:00.002-07:002015-10-04T14:57:37.407-07:00Free Sudoku for ExcelHere's a little Sudoku game I designed for MS Excel. It will generate games for you to play, or solve games that you enter, and offer hints on request.
DOWNLOAD EXCEL SUDOKU GAME
When downloading the file and opening in Excel, if you get a security warning, choose to "enable content" in order for the game to function.
stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-29441111338068448242015-10-04T14:44:00.001-07:002015-10-04T14:48:00.064-07:00Correspondence with Ray Kurzweil
From: Stuart Resnick [mailto:sresnick2@comcast.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 04, 2006 6:42 PM
To: ray@singularity.com
Subject: Buddhist perspective of Consciousness
Mr Kurzweil:
I'm writing regarding your
debates with John Searle and others regarding the
nature of consciousness,
specifically whether biological entities alone can have
this property, or whether
a sufficiently complex stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-89574218005811325842015-10-04T14:34:00.000-07:002015-10-04T14:34:36.681-07:00Autobiography of a Boo Boo
A Mini-Memoir of Spiritual Adventures
Links on this page lead to blog posts from 2007. They’re an attempt to make sense of the decades I’ve spent pursuing meditation and The Big Questions of Life. They touch on experiences with childhood ponderings, academic and personal philosophizing, psychedelic trips, and traditions in the spiritual sub-culture, including the “Siddha Yoga/SYDA” stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-38499110881821429552015-09-30T11:52:00.000-07:002015-09-30T11:52:25.465-07:00Zen VideosComcast is soon discontinuing its "Personal Web Page" service. I've got a bunch of stuff I put up there over the years, which will disappear when the service ends. I'm transferring some of it from there to this blog, for the benefit of future generations...
Video below contains excerpts of interviews and teaching talks from Zen Master Seung Sahn (Dae Soen Sa Nim), founder of Kwan Um Schoolstuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-4548933794421351432015-09-28T18:47:00.001-07:002015-09-30T11:57:37.486-07:00My Dharma TalksComcast is soon discontinuing its "Personal Web Page" service. I've got a bunch of stuff I put up there over the years, which will disappear when the service ends. I'm transferring some of it from there to this blog, for the benefit of future generations...
Following are transcriptions of some short talks I've given at Empty Gate Zen Center:
HOT TUB ZEN
There was once a "Parliament of stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-1175566313220407062015-09-21T15:44:00.002-07:002015-09-21T16:11:32.045-07:00Adventures in EntheogensComcast is soon discontinuing its "Personal Web Page" service. I've got a bunch of stuff I put up there over the years, which will disappear when the service ends. I'm transferring some of it from there to this blog, for the benefit of future generations...
Entheogen is the currently popular term for mind-altering substances. The older term hallucinogen has been rejected, since itstuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-58827569317661663942015-09-21T15:13:00.001-07:002015-09-21T15:15:48.316-07:00Salvia Divinorum Stories Comcast is soon discontinuing its "Personal Web Page" service. I've got a bunch of stuff I put up there over the years, which will disappear when the service ends. I'm transferring some of it from there to this blog, for the benefit of future generations...
Salvia Divinorum Stories
Experiences with a mind-expanding herb
Salvia is a visionary plant, long used by shamans in stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-41995705578112302352015-09-21T15:04:00.001-07:002015-09-21T15:16:13.669-07:00The AvadhootComcast is soon discontinuing its "Personal Web Page" service. I've got a bunch of stuff I put up there over the years, which will disappear when the service ends. I'm transferring some of it from there to this blog, for the benefit of future generations...
The Avadhoot
Naked in San Bruno
[The teacher we refer to here as "the Avadhoot" still holds court in Santa Cruz under thestuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-3507971934115619802015-09-21T14:49:00.000-07:002015-09-21T15:16:25.436-07:00The Cookie Monster in the Palace of GoldComcast is soon discontinuing its "Personal Web Page" service. I've got a bunch of stuff I put up there over the years, which will disappear when the service ends. I'm transferring some of it from there to this blog, for the benefit of future generations...
The Cookie Monster in the Palace of Gold
Hanging with the Hare Krishnas in West Virginia
[We're discussing here our stay at&stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-2864768689132557312015-02-24T14:52:00.000-08:002015-02-24T14:53:24.151-08:00The Most Important Thing About Zenstuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-14300150951506960052014-10-13T20:43:00.000-07:002014-10-13T20:43:06.312-07:00Zen Master Dae Kwang on The Meaning of Lifestuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-36429336169849093632014-09-25T09:15:00.000-07:002014-09-25T09:15:15.974-07:00ObsolescenceMy friends and I are watching a war movie on TV. One of us says something like, "That actor looks familiar. Who is he? What else has he starred in?" or "The general he's portraying... is he historical or fictional? If he's real, what happened to him after the war?" Then we'll perhaps pause the DVR, quick draw our smart phones, and get the answer.
Now consider people who are great trivia experts stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-88556721757370154782014-07-15T18:33:00.003-07:002014-07-15T22:58:41.134-07:00Experience, Belief, and Science
Consider an ancient man seeing the sun cross the sky. It's so much brighter than anything else; it fascinates and frightens him. He hears this story that a god named Apollo drives a chariot across the sky each day. There's a big fire in the chariot, and that explains that super-bright light we see during the daytime.
The ancient man feels better, because it's comforting to have an explanationstuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-48119997444951520112014-06-26T14:37:00.000-07:002014-06-26T14:37:00.058-07:00Economics LessonA college Intro to Economics book began, "Man's desires are infinite. But the means necessary for satisfying these desires are limited. This is what gives rise to value." The first sentence was enough to inspire me to leave school and look into the big questions of desire and suffering.
Today I found further evidence of the Buddhist wisdom within Economics, in the form of this quote from stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-60090877706659272542014-05-05T12:06:00.000-07:002014-05-05T12:06:33.767-07:00Caution"A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve."
-- Confuciousstuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-54585324038875399712014-04-25T20:18:00.002-07:002014-04-25T20:18:44.362-07:00Self ImprovementWe often say Zen is not really about self improvement. What is the self that you want to improve? Who are you really? That's the fundamental point. And until we really deal with that question, we are not really getting to the base of practice. Because our desires, our beliefs, and our opinions drag us around. Until we doubt them, investigate them, and use the moment as an investigatory tool, stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-44367914143970738302014-03-26T14:32:00.001-07:002014-03-26T14:33:21.559-07:00Zen Master Bon Yeon on How to Meditatestuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-44791293506833732432014-03-24T12:25:00.001-07:002014-03-24T12:26:59.021-07:00PessimistWith the possible exception of Groundhog Day and Kung Fu Panda... HBO's True Detective includes the best Zen teaching ever presented on film or TV.
stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-13067074145418519712013-09-20T19:10:00.000-07:002013-09-20T21:29:21.513-07:00That's Life"I came into this world naked and confused. Now I have clothes."
-- Charles Baker (Skinny Pete)stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-18838744423741765782013-09-20T19:01:00.000-07:002013-09-20T19:01:26.496-07:00Breaking Bad PredictionTodd's neo-nazi ex-con Uncle Jack will surely share some of the $70 million with him. So why is Todd bothering with cooking meth (and keeping Jesse alive to make it 99% pure)? It must be part of Todd's plan to woo Lydia. And what's Lydia's tragic flaw? Her addiction to Stevia.
Walt will poison Lydia by disguising ricin in a packet of Stevia. It will be part of a plot (a la Brock) to flush stuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30354654.post-83308817600686477092013-07-01T13:04:00.000-07:002013-07-01T13:04:05.304-07:00Karmastuartresnickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16879896068458013439noreply@blogger.com0