The Zen methodology of education: immersing oneself totally in whatever one is occupied with. This method follows the central concepts of mindfulness and awareness and it is also the antithesis, in a way, to our way of life in the West. We value multi-tasking and divided attention, and the more divided one is able to make one's attention, the more skilled or capable we estimate them to be. This multi-tasking value system comes from an exclusive focus on quantity, production and function as the path and purpose of human life. Such a philosophy and way of life leaves quality, meaning and purpose, along with authenticity, in a secondary position, if they even come to occupy a position at all. Such a philosophy turns each individual into nothing more than parts in a machine, automatons and sleepwalking slaves whose self-awareness is grossly and severely impaired; for after all, self-awareness only gets in the way of productivity. As a result of this imposed and willful impairment of self-awareness, the suppression of authenticity, creativity and expression, and the fragmentation of the attention, and therefore the splitting of the personality, there rises in the individual and the society of people a great variety of illnesses and repressed feelings manifesting themselves in shadowed and distorted forms as a result of their frustration and burial. And though we may come to awareness of such illness states, crises and distorted behaviors once they become severe enough, our self-awareness has been so terribly blunted that we haven't any idea where such conditions have come from or have a clue what their true, underlying nature might be. So the cycle of sedation, ignorance and suffering continues. But awareness is the universal antidote, it is the most true foundation and the ideal starting point. If we can strip down our identity and perceptual filters (i.e. beliefs, preconceived notions, presuppositions, habitual patterns and conditioning, etc.) to the very center of Consciousness, we can begin to see with clear vision and open eyes both the field without and the field within and never really be fooled by the grand illusion again. I have always had an issue with hunting as I viewed it as being a cruel and unnecessary display and encouragement of the baser drives of man. I still feel that it is mostly unnecessary and does encourage those baser drives but when I compared it to factory and industry farming, my views were somewhat amended. When someone goes out to hunt, a responsible person, and they are doing so as a way to sustain oneself and one's family, they are choosing to take control of the process of consumption in a respect for basic economy (i.e. only taking what one needs) and opening themselves to the opportunity to respect the animal as much as possible. Of course, it frequently isn't so honorable, but in the cases of mature and responsible persons it is. If one compares such an approach to the cruelties, irresponsibility and waste of factory farming, it is abundantly clear that personal hunting is the better choice, among meat-eating choices, that is. Another thing that personal hunting accomplishes is the engagement of one's conscience. It is easy for us to participate, and by that I mean the enjoyment or use of the end products of a process, in an industry or process which is involved in cruelty by its nature, even extreme cruelty such as war or genocide, when we don't have to see it. We can see this principle very well illustrated in weapons development. Centuries ago, people had to get up close and personal with someone if they wanted to injure or kill them because the weapons that they had were of the bladed variety and had a range of six feet or so at the maximum. Being that close to someone it is very difficult not to have to go through the arduous process of engaging one's conscience and really considering what must be done. But as time went on, the weapons became more powerful and could be used at a greater distance from the victim. Guns, bombs, missles, until one could be so far away that they didn't have to see the victims at all, either ante- or post-mortem. Pushing a button from a thousand miles away and not having to see the destruction one has helped to bring makes it easier to do it, and easier to blind oneself with denial. This is one of the methods of disengaging the conscience, but there are others, like the artificial enhancement of power as a reward system and the encouragement of the lower brain and baser instincts through controlled cruelty, the dehumanizing (or in the case of animals and other lifeforms, the de-significancing, of one's intended victims), and so forth. But the point here is that we are encouraged not to think about what is going on behind the curtain, and just viewing the product, whatever it may be, as the only thing of value (which is a form of the 'the ends justify the means' philosophy). My view is that if we couldn't participate directly in a given process, knowing full well what is involved (i.e. getting our hands dirty), if having complete awareness of the nature of a method, we couldn't enjoy or indulge in its fruits, then we shouldn't be involved at all. Awareness and responsibility are inseparable. I was watching a little bit of the film Munich yesterday. I enjoy watching films repeatedly because I find that the higher the quality of film, or any experience for that matter, the more opportunities there are for learning. Looking at such a practice from an objective view, clearly one would wonder why one should return to something already experienced, when the object clearly doesn't change significantly, when we could just as well spend our time involving ourselves with something new. I would say that we are always changing, our clarity of perception, our preconceived notions, as well as our range of experiences are always in flux, and each new experience that we have is associated and compared with those that we have already accrued, and the knowledge and wisdom which we have gained from them. So each time we have an experience, it is being associated with a different context of other experience, thereby giving the present experience a fresh context upon which it can be interpreted and understood. It is amazing, the sources from which we can acquire wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom, though related, are quite distinct from oneanother. Knowledge is a quantitative process whereby one collects units of data in cohesive structures; it is additive. Wisdom, on the other hand, is a central and timeless truth which remains yet as time and evolution progresses, it is more and more deeply revealed, and can be expressed in a seemingly infinite number of forms. Wisdom forms the foundation, while knowledge forms the structure itself. I feel there is a relation between this and Einstein's quote about 'religion without science' being 'lame' and 'science without religion' being 'blind'. It seems that one could replace the word 'religion' with 'wisdom', and the word 'science' with 'knowledge'. Anyway, so I was watching Munich and noticed a scene which revealed a stunning dialogue. In this scene one gentleman said to another that he 'knew guys like him in the Army. Men who would do any horrible thing that they were asked to do, as long as they could do it running. The only thing that really scares them is stillness.' It struck me what an elegant and profound description that is of the suffering-denial-awakening process, and how it relates to the life of my father in particular, as well as myself. My father was thoroughly conditioned in the Marines to push himself beyond any resistence, even and especially his free will and conscience. These men of power know that they need other men to do terrible and cruel things in order to excercise the will of the warmongers. But we all have a conscience, an inner guide which informs us when something is off. In an effort to short-circuit this inner guide in the tools that they are building, the military trains one to function without thought or consideration, to keep moving no matter what. And as long as they keep moving, none of that nasty and useless self-awareness or sense of decency will get in their way. The whole suffering-denial-awakening process is like one who is sitting in the window seat on a very fast moving train. The train screams down the tracks at 100 miles per hour and we stare out the window. The world outside is visible but terribly blurry. As we look we get the impression of objects and events. There is a sense of something enjoyable or beautiful here, a sense of something ugly or terrible there. But before we have a chance to focus on the objects and events outside, we are already 1000 yards down the track. As long as we keep staring out the window, transfixed and distracted by the movement, we can't really see what's going on. The only option is to turn around, realize that one is on a train, and then stop the train and get off. That is our path to awakening. The train is our habitual tendency to distraction and movement, and avoidance of stillness. (just imagine a piece of music that has no rests or silence between the notes. this is modern life.) The blurry scenery outside is the deceptive cover of reality that is represented in all of the various forms of false worship and addiction that we are provided with: television, film, music, celebrity phenomena, intoxicating substances, emotional dependence, sedation, material craving, etc. There is only one way out: get off the train: Awaken. But as simple as this is in theory, it is exceedingly complex in practical life. So difficult in fact that almost everyone who lives only ever Awakens for mere moments at a time before the illusion gets its claws in them again. Most people live their whole lives asleep. The beauty of this process is that every moment in our lives offers us a chance to wake up, to begin to unravel the veil over our eyes and open them to Reality. Like someone who for their whole lives has been held in a darkened room with no access to the light, the longer they are captive, the more painful and difficult it will be to enter into the presence of the Light. But as painful as it is, it is still Light. And after a time, it will feel more natural, it will get more manageable until one day, one moment, a critical mass is reached, a point of no return, so to speak, after which one cannot be put back to sleep. I hope that we all take maximum advantages of the choices that we are given.