You're Here, Now

On the present

Excerpt from Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius Feb 12 2024

Even if you're going to live three thousand more years, or ten times that, remember, you cannot lose another life than the one you're living now, or live another one than the one you're losing. The longest amounts to the same as the shortest. The present is the same for everyone; its loss is the same for everyone; and it should be clear that a brief instant is all that is lost. For you can't lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don't have?
... the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.

Static Hosting on S3

Utilizing CodePipeline May 2022

Well, I used AWS CodePipeline to automatically deploy new changes pushed to my git repository. Pretty easy, actually! Recently added music (hit play!), a sweet picture I took, and cool background art that is not my own (credit to The Smile). Hope you enjoy. None of the buttons on this page work, btw. May or may not fix that in the future, but probably not in all honesty.

Heart Sutra (般若波羅蜜多心經)

My favorite sutra, essence of Buddhism distilled! Feb 2024

Translation courtesy of CTTB

觀自在菩薩，行深般若波羅蜜多時，照見五蘊皆空，度一切苦厄。

When Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva was practicing the profound prajna paramita, he illuminated the five skandhas and saw that they are all empty, and he crossed beyond all suffering and difficulty.

舍利子！色不異空，空不異色；色即是空，空即是色，受想行識亦復如是。

Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness; emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness; emptiness itself is form. So, too, are feeling, cognition, formation, and consciousness.

舍利子！是諸法空相，不生不滅，不垢不淨，不增不減。

Shariputra, all dharmas are empty of characteristics. They are not produced. Not destroyed, not defiled, not pure, and they neither increase nor diminish.

是故，空中無色，無受想行識；無眼耳鼻舌身意；無色聲香味觸法；

Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, feeling, cognition, formation, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch, or dharmas;

無眼界，乃至無意識界；無無明，亦無無明盡，乃至無老死，亦無老死盡；

no field of the eyes, up to and including no field of mind-consciousness; and no ignorance or ending of ignorance, up to and including no old age and death or ending of old age and death.

無苦集滅道；無智亦無得。以無所得故，菩提薩埵。

There is no suffering, no accumulating, no extinction, no way, and no understanding and no attaining. Because nothing is attained, the Bodhisattva

依般若波羅蜜多故，心無罣礙；無罣礙故，無有恐怖，遠離顛倒夢想，究竟涅槃。

through reliance on prajna paramita, is unimpeded in his mind. Because there is no impediment, he is not afraid, and he leaves distorted dream-thinking far behind. Ultimately Nirvana!

三世諸佛，依般若波羅蜜多故，得阿耨多羅三藐三菩提。

All Buddhas of the three periods of time attain Anuttarasamyaksambodhi through reliance on prajna paramita.

故知：般若波羅蜜多是大神咒，是大明咒，是無上咒，是無等等咒，能除一切苦，真實不虛。

Therefore, know that prajna paramita is a great spiritual mantra, a great bright mantra, a supreme mantra, an unequalled mantra. It can remove all suffering; it is genuine and not false.

故說般若波羅蜜多咒，即說咒曰：揭諦揭諦，波羅揭諦，波羅僧揭諦，菩提薩婆訶。

That is why the mantra of prajna paramita was spoken. Recite it like this: Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha!

Current Projects

Devops January 2024

Current interests include high-availablility design using AWS, I am Solutions Architect Professional certified. Efficient and dynamic design using containerization technologies such as Kubernetes is the future! Future interests include art, acrylic painting, yoga, shuffle dancing, burning man, self-improvement and expansion of the mind. Alcohol is a poison! I don't know why its casual use is so accepted, it brings so much harm. I wish abstinence from alcohol was more normalized. Join me friends in turning away from this substance.

The Smile

By Ted Hughes

Began under the groan of the oldest forest It ran though the clouds, a third light And it ran through the skin of the earth

It came circling the earth Like the lifted bow Of a wave's submarine running Tossing the willows, and swelling the elm-tops Looking for its occasion

But people were prepared They met it With visor smiles, mirrors of ricochet With smiles that stole a bone And smiles that went off with a mouthful of blood And smiles that left poison in a numb place Or doubled up Covering a getaway

But the smile was too vast, it outflanked all It was too tiny it slipped between the atoms So that the steel screeched open Like a gutted rabbit, the skin was nothing Then the pavement and the air and the light Confined all the jumping blood No better than a paper bag People were running with bandages But the world was a draughty gap The whole creation Was just a broken gutter pipe

And there was the unlucky person's eye Pinned under its brow Widening for the darkness behind it Which kept right on getting wider, darker As if the soul were not working

And at that very moment the smile arrived

And the crowd, shoving to get a glimpse of a man's soul Stripped to its last shame, Met this smile That rose through his torn roots Touching his lips, altering his eyes And for a moment Mending everything

Before it swept out and away across the earth.

Meditations

By Marcus Aurelius

Don't ever forget these things:

The nature of the world.

My Nature.

How I relate to the world.

What proportion of it I make up.

That you are part of nature and no one can prevent you from speaking and acting in harmony with it, always.

Meditations

By Marcus Aurelius

Then what can guide us?

Only philosophy

Which means making sure that the power within stays safe and free from assault, superior to pleasure and pain, doing nothing randomly or dishonestly and with imposture, not dependent on anyone else's doing something or not doing it. And making sure that it accepts what happens and what it is dealt as coming from the same place it came from. And above all, that it accepts death in a cheerful spirit, as nothing but the dissolution of the elements from which each living things is composed. If it doesn't hurt the individual elements to change continually into one another, why are people afraid of all them changing and separating? It's a natural thing. And nothing natural is evil.

Moving Forward

Thoughts? January 27, 2024

Wow. It's 2024. Everyone is dead, but you're here, now. What should I do with this site? 🤔 Perhaps it will be a space where I can share music and art projects, things that inspire and make me think! You met me at a very strange time in my life.