Tonight, I journied to Boulder, where I attended the Shambhala Buddhism class. (Always public, but never static, except when you're still in sitting meditation, but even then, each participant is a separate instance; oh nevermind.)

The topic of the evening was the concept of faith in the context of Buddhist thought. After the teacher talked about it for a while, a fascinating discussion ensued.

As anyone with knowledge about Buddhist philosophy might guess, faith in this context does not imply a belief in any specific deity, entity, or concept. Faith, as we say it, is an opening up, an understanding, a surrender to the universe as it exists. A better word might be trust, or confidence. A confidence that a fundamental level, everything is as it should be, and every being (self included) is basically good. (However, we do not make value judgements regarding "good" and "bad". I love the paradoxes.)

Eventually, it was proposed that perhaps the word "faith" might not be the best word for what we're talking about, as it has so many other connotations in the western world. Oh, for the joys of translating between languages born out of totally different cultures. I begin to understand why many Buddhist books and speakers simply default to using the original sanskrit words (phoneticized into English) when referring to things. Better to use a foreign word that might require some initial explanation than to muddy up the concepts by translating into words that don't really quite equate to what is meant.

I've decided that I like what I've seen so far enough that I might be interested in taking some more classes from the Shambhala Center beyond the normal weekly informal public Buddhist intro class. Some of the courses to learn more of the Shambhala (secular) path could be especially cool.

At this point, due to so much uncertainty regarding both the money situation and where I'll be living in a few months, I'm not prepared to make monetary or temporal commitments just yet. But if it should happen that I find a "real", self-supporting, long term job in this area, I want to get into more of the evening courses, and possibly attend one or more of the weekend retreats. This Shambhala Center is a Good Thing, and I would like to take advantage of more of what they offer.

As it is, as long as the current situation persists, I'll keep going to the Monday night sessions while feasible, and let the future bring what may.

The job situation. I have surmised that of all the varying inputs, my employment situation is currently the #1 contributing factor to the feeling that my life is simply out of control. When I say "out of control", I don't mean it in the sense of careening down Flagstaff Mountain at 90mph and might hit a tree at any moment. No.

My "out of control" right now is more like this: Stuck in a 6 ft snow bank, spinning the wheels, making lots of noise revving the engine, slinging up mud and slush, digging, shoveling, huffing and puffing, rev and repeat. And I get NOWHERE. Every healtfelt effort to improve matters just seems to make things worse. More slippery. A deeper rut. And sometimes I try harder, and sometimes I give up for a while, and then I try again. But I'm still here.

Maybe it's time to call a tow truck. Whatever that means.

Or maybe it's time to get out of the car and walk the rest of the way.

Anyway.... Resumes to send, phone calls to make, blah blah blah.

Strangely, despite what I just wrote, I find myself fairly optimistic about the future, if for no other reason than the theory that if one goes down far enough, then eventually, the only direction left to go will be up.

...

I've been finding myself altogether too tempted to volunteer myself as a guest amateur pseudo-DJ for one of next month's open nights. My hesitation stems from this strange fear I have of of making an utterly humiliating embarrassment of myself in public. Not only am I a rank amateur; I have absolutely zero experience in conducting such an operation. My nightmare is seeing myself step up to the controls while the crowd waits expectantly, and having not a clue what button to push first. "Where's play?"

Nevertheless, the potential positives (even in failure) are enough to keep me thinking about it. This idea of spinning up a wicked combo of dance tracks for people -- even if only a few -- to dig and get into holds a certain fascination. I want to affect other people in the same way I am affected when a really good DJ takes the helm, and morphes the mind and body into a whole other realm.

I also like to think that, thanks to the power of the net, I have assembled a fairly decent (though not huge) collection of good quality lesser known tracks and artists of genres that would work well in that setting, with that crowd. Enough to pick from that I get a good set in, for sure. And goddamn me if I don't take an opportunity when it's there, even if it's just a one night experimental gig which would most likely end in utter humiliation. (And me buying the people who really know what they're doing a drink.)

So it was that I last night downloaded this cool little program, and started messing around for an hour or four, experimenting with how various songs could be beat matched against one another. Just taking things for a little spin. All hypothetical, of course.

And even if I suck far worse than I think I do, wouldn't it be fun, just for a few minutes, to try a little of that on some real professional grade equipment?

But goddamn me, I still haven't put a request in. But I think I might. Maybe. If I'm a complete nutso lunatic. Out of my mind. Crazy for a day.

Then, if I did, I'd have to actually start doing some serious preparation. Oh dear. The choices, the dilemmas. Maybe now I'll just go mess with mixxx a little more first.