How to clean the blackboard of your mind!

** SLIDE 1, Opening** Haven’t we all from time to time, struggled with our brains, flitting between one thing and another, or stuck in a annoyingly repetitive whirlpool of unproductive thought? The mind is such a beautiful thing when it’s working well and such an obstacle-littered steeplechase of difficulties when it’s not. It can be the key to success or the barrier to success. This incredible limitless Swiss Army pocketknife **SLIDE 2, knife**  that we have in our possession doesn’t come with a manual. We don’t really get taught in school how to drive this powerful tool… and yet people are let loose in the world with it and they don’t even have a provisionary license! 

Wouldn’t it be great to more clearly understand and work with our own unique internal model of the universe, our mind? With its productive force, working with it like a friend, being able to occasionally take our busy brain and, like a blackboard, wipe it cleaner, to see more clearly, every so often. Toastmaster, and fellow TMs and guests, meditation is that blackboard cleaner.

1 minute

Back in 1992 I was 20 years old, at university. The shackles of year 12 and family life, had been cast away and I was in my first share house with friends, loving my first car. Uni allowed me to meet people from other disciplines other than fellow Engineering students, who seemed to mostly be boring nerds or boorish blokes, or in some odd cases, both.) 

Tertiary life also brought self-directed reading, a time when the foundations of knowledge were questioned with more confidence. This happened with some travel, too, to France and the UK, getting out of the comfort zone to unfamiliar landscapes. Perhaps you can recall a time in your life when the freedom to explore new knowledge or foreign places really came alive for you? During this time I found some important books which helped inspire me.**SLIDE3, Books**

2 minutes

What I noticed from the reading I'd been doing was that a number of traditions emphasised that an important thing, was not to focus on the voracious demands of the ego, since it represents a hungry and somewhat selfish beast! But to think more widely - what can we do to understand others and meet their needs? If everyone did that, wouldn't life be radically different? Less materialistic, less violent, kinder? It's easy to say Do Unto Others as you would have them Do Unto You, but how do we practice this?

My readings led me to Buddhism, that misunderstood belief system which is known as a religion and yet doesn't have a god, but does have spiritual depth. What I liked about it was that it was consistent with science, its spiritual leader the 14th Dalai Lama enjoying fixing wristwatches in his spare time, **SLIDE 4, Dalai Lama** and debating with eminent physics researchers and psychologists. One of the main things he enthused about, was meditation. Perhaps I should give it a go. I was struggling at the time with a lot of pressure around family conflict, uni difficulties, and issues around depression, also some mania, and it was before stigma had largely dissipated around discussion and treatment of them. (I didn't particularly want to go onto medication.)

3 minutes

So I wandered with a friend, into Buddha House, in suburban Glen Osmond. It surprised me, because it looked from the outside to be just a house, but with a bedroom converted into a library, and a large lounge room adorned with marone and orange cushions, flowers, incense, etc. Despite being slightly underwhelmed, I do remember feeling calmer just walking into the place, and there seemed to be less chatter or bustle in my head already.

I was there to attend a meditation introduction. I was very self conscious, and concerned that I didn't know the rituals and would make a fool of myself. It was a similar feeling to the occasional times I'd been dragged along to church, usually once a year at Christmas, with my family, before we were allowed to ravage the Xmas presents; which kid is going to say no to anything standing between them and a skateboard?!

But, the idea of sitting quietly with your eyes closed is to most people as terrifying as watching Ridley Scott's Alien movies, or being asked to reach into a dark hessian sack not knowing what slimy or dangerous objects lurk within. It can be a scary proposition, somewhat at odds with the image of the serene cross-legged, eyes closed Buddha, a slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth. 

The teacher gave some simple but thought provoking instruction and continued the gentle and welcoming words. I took some notes. Buddhist meditation is partly about mindfulness, staying with the serial presentation of internal and external phenomena, or "the moment" but that is only a subset of the practice. Generally there is more contemplative meditation. That could mean taking a part of the Buddhist teachings, for example the concept of impermanence, how things don’t last forever, and looking at how it relates to our experience. Here's a picture to illustrate how things change, fast and slow **SLIDE 5, Impermanence***. 

That's a useful set of teachings in this era, where things we took for granted have changed - bushfires and Covid quickly reshaped our environment, economics and our relationships. It might sound difficult but it's also very freeing to contemplate quietly, it means that a state of suffering also won't last forever. 

Meditation became a part of my life, making time in the morning or before bed to sit for twenty minutes, and I have practiced more or less daily since about 1995. At first it was an effort, it's said that you need to do an activity an average of 66 days before it becomes a habit! Not easy, and a hundred things can distract us, not least the mind's shifting moods. But the best way to think about it is - perfect is the enemy of the good.  I've found out that there are so many types of meditation **SLIDE 6, Types** and that many have value depending on what you need. It's not so much about perfection as working with what is there, and inevitably it brings you insights into your own mind and the world around you.

5 minutes

I'd also like to show some of the benefits and issues I found **SLIDE 7, Benefits** and I am happy to talk with anyone who is interested in meditation practice if you feel it could be of benefit.

(I track my meditation sessions by a timer on an app, called Insight Timer. This does a gentle chime sound at the end of a session. It also lets you see how many people are meditating with the app around the world - there are generally 7,500 when i use it. I've just clocked up 150 concurrent days with at least one session.)

I now practice Transcendental Meditation, which is a whole other topic and is a simple technique which is more direct and profound than most, and has the benefit of being easier too! 

So what does it feel like when you sit down and get into meditation for the first time? This is perhaps one typical session.. **SLIDE 8, Blackboard**

Argh, suddenly my blackboard is having all sorts of colourful chalk writing popping up where I was hoping it would stay clean! Now there's a drawing of a cute pig in the corner, and I can't look away! Now there's a big smudge of different colours right where I want it to be nice and clear! Stupid Brain! I wonder what's for dinner. Oh that's right I'm supposed to be meditating... but gradually.... it slows down... 

The twentieth and now 21st centuries have been successful for humanity at external exploration, setting out to boldly go where no man has gone before - whether into the inky depths of space, underwater, or on a microscopic level.  Striding outward with wind in the sails, ready to explore what's out there, is a very necessary step in the exploration of the world. But the introspection, the chance to go deep to understand the complexity and wonder of the internal world, using the great inheritance of this complex mind we all steward, is what will drive this forward. The coronavirus is forcing many people to maintain a retreat at their homes. What a great time to orient towards the mind, to understand our motivations and shine some light inside, which meditation does, better than anything external.

Poem for Hugh, on his 40^th – from Matt.

It’s time, my droods, to speak of Hugh

To mull on the man, just here before you

For he is why we degustate tonight

He’s why our taste buds are renewed.

Our fearless urban explorer, the challenges he sets

The love he has for his lovely lass, & all of us I guess

Let’s see the arc that his wide life has taken, to get to Assiette

So point the spot on Mr Boyd, play trumpets, cue cassette.

I do not know where he was born, Israel or Adelaide

It’s an inauspicious start, you’re right, not all my facts are straight

But the Earth’s been round the Sun, some forty times to the day

& if I had known Hugh back then, he’d have a few less words to say (anyway.)

So for entertainment purposes, the next 30 years I’ll skip

I wasn’t there, the formative years, chip in yourself for this bit

Or better still, let’s take ten seconds out – come on, cease your chew

And sit with whatever your earliest memories are of Boyd, comma, Hugh.

Right, that’s enough, we’re not all here, to sit in sentimental drear

There’s far too many chucks to have, embarrassments to hear

A veritable twelve golden country greats of joy and woe

Events too full of colour and verve, mixed with a few of D’oh!

O many moments being gloriously out of step with the times

The early 90’s, the long haired hippy, who also loved Ramones

Around this time, Hugh and I met, with Mark E Mark, all bent

But it wasn’t love at first sight, perhaps just bonged-out mild amusement.

But when we straightened out & talked, of politics and music

Here was someone that much more thoughtful, kind and lucid

Than I’d really given credit to, through long hair and bong smoke

But then I saw him on stage, Choose Groove, & had to take another toke!

Hugh sang & hyped the party up, from O’week till exams

Front man with guitars & horns, & such an energetic dance

Like Motown, via Wham, they played prestigious joints and bars

The thinking person’s Party Boys, they inspired such drunken romance.

So as I got to know Hugh Boyd, & all of you have seen this

He’d point out a disgusting bug, and precisely denote its genus

Its sex, its size, its lifespan, mating rituals as well

& at least six other facts, like the thickness of its shell.

And I thought entomology, was just the study of words

But of course, I got my logos mixed up, and this was quite absurd

And to this day, I still equate the Oxford Dictionary

With Hugh & Ben & Mark & Jo, discussing something small, dark and hairy!

But quite apart from buggy knowhow, and musical aplomb

When it comes to the size of his CV, Hugh really is the bomb

If there’s a job in this fine land, he hasn’t done as yet

It hasn’t been invented, or doesn’t have a pay packet.

Now, it’s not just that Hugh & you (Miss K) are two

It’s the type of two, a two with much ado

A two who just today on King St, it’s true

Saw Hugh revel in buying sexy underwear for you! (Cute!)

I would like to prove to you, the colours that Hugh suits

The shades of spectrum we all know as he and not so many others too

In fairground tent, imagine Hugh & all of us lot crammed in there too

While the hippy bleats of resonating hues – only $50 it’ll cost you!

The colour blue, with Hugh, does not quite do

He very rarely gives the view, there’s time for darker blues

Melancholy Hugh, swaying fro and to

Is an oxymoron you & I have not until now, used.

Black & white, brings Hugh to mind, in yin-yang tandem, right?

The written word, discriminating intellectual bite

Perhaps his salt-&-pepper coiff can add the metaphor some weight

But the black pepper in it I must say, is giving way to white.

Shrinking violet, I don’t think so, nor a shocking pink

Perhaps a dash of fluro orange, the ghost of Choose Groove, I think

A grungy aeroplane gun metal gray, that fits the bill methinks

But when I asked Celine today – her answer “burgundy” just like we drink!

A plummy red, oh yes indeed, like vibrant blood in veins

Certainly not a pastel, Celine said, no gentle shades of lame

This man’s man represents the shades from crimson through to orange

Hang on, entomologists, help me out…

I’ve painted myself into a corner trying to rhyme with the word orange… daim

So anyway, as you all no doubt lose interest in my pome

I’m just here to say on behalf of us: parties, you know how to throw’em!

You’re generous, we think, to a San Andreas Fault

Hip-hop-hooray, good cheer, happy day Hugh, Long May You Be Spoilt!!!

Last 20 albums I listened to in their entirety
This is partly for my own benefit to see what I now listen to in its entirety. More often than not these days I find I am listening to compilations of my hand or someone else's.

Metal Machine Music - Lou Reed (and I won't need to hear it again for a while)
Playtime is Over - Wiley
Tant de Belles Choses - Francoise Hardy
God Save the Clientele - The Clientele
If You're Feeling Sinister - Belle and Sebastian
Curtains - Tindersticks
Wincing the Night Away - The Shins
Earth - Hex (or Printing in the Infernal Method)
TNT - Tortoise
Naqoyqatsi soundtrack - Philip Glass

Night Ripper - Girl Talk
Neon Bible - Arcade Fire
6 Shards for Love - Longhorn
Sound of Silver - LCD Soundsystem
The Brave and the Bold - Tortoise and Bonnie "Prince" Billy
On the Beach - Neil Young
Symphony #5 (Describing Planes of an Expanding Hypersphere) - Glenn Branca
Radio Amor - Tim Hecker

I'm stuck!!! The albums listed here have been listened to in around the last 2 weeks, but I can't for the life of me think what another 2 are... I have to go way back. I am sure Jim O'Rourke was played through a while ago, but talk about going from a "3 main meal a day" size music diet to a bite size grazing diet. If my musical appreciation was a body I'd be overweight with all the snacking...

Is this typical? Why is it that I have changed away from my old habits of listening to records and albums the whole way through? Looking at the above, many of the albums have been listened to from computer, where playlist selection means it's too easy to turn away or off something temporarily offensive. Only a few have been listened to on MiniDisc (I have no iPod nor equivalent MP3 player) and I'm more likely to give a full album a go on this medium. Maybe that's why I doggedly stay with it instead of iPlodding along...

Anyway I'd be interested to know if others were the same. I can't believe I'm stuck on 18 albums. Quel dommage. Doesn't anybody stay together anymore?

Slap and Tickle party...

Miss Zammit and Miss Wilkinson put on a rather fine party... I'm sure you'd like to see some photos... well OK..

Well I just went and got a bottle of 12yo Glenlivet!

Since visiting my good man hUGH on the weekend with bEN we enjoyed a tasting of 5 scotches, Speyside malts they were, and all slightly different characters, some jocular and gentle, some like a velvet gloved truncheon, but all worth the price of admission. Seemed to encourage us to drivel and laugh and think that we were being smartpantses. I took over my Dalwinnie courtesy of Dredgey, and it was a darker less subtle kind of drop, but lovely still. hUGH's knowledge seemed to know no bounds, it's a very new world which throws up unfamiliar nuances and there's quite an excitement with each new taste...

And the feeling dropping it slowly down the throat, it's a nice warming, very right for the wintry nights we have had here, in fact it's cheaper than running a kero heater and smells better too, plus you can feel flushed with the red cheeks, knowing you're being green too.

So, the Glenlivet:

First glass – left it with a dash of water in it for 12 minutes (no I wasn’t timing…) and it made me rather glad and all these smells started to emanate…

My freshman palate could only get lots of honey, such a gentle warmth on the palate and down the gullet, some pepper and a lovely richness with some savoury note there I couldn’t quite put the finger on.

Actually I related the experience to my father in the UK - him being rather partial to the odd tumbler of the single malt.

As the shot went on, suddenly I was less daunted by the scotch, decided that it is more gentle than JB or cougar or the bourbons.

So, go Scotch go!

Rant regarding extreme/ultimate fighting and how it contributes to fear and nihilism.

Why would you want to contribute to this vile opposition to life and limb, brain cell and bone? Ultimate fighting seems to me to be a more violent and ill pastime than anything else I can think of.

Tell me, is sanctioned mugging your cup of tea? Survival of the meat-headest, the burying of buddahood and the blossoming of blood? Well you're gonna love this craze, which seems to be sweeping our Americanized culture with its steroided biceps and low cut, flirtatious (or fightatious?) singlets.

I keep encountering this blight the more I stumble through recent sport and entertainment references, and this convinces me that the MEC* has really hit its stride, while us peaceniks can only blog and remind the world of melody and the idiocy of flags.

A few Friday nights ago, I took a trip to the local library of video discs and tapes, yon Broadway Blockbuster, where on the large plasma screen up above us all, a different kind of plasma was starting to flow. Sure, it was only drips, but had been started by the fists of two slow moving, large men (rather homoerotically however in that Greco-Roman way.)

Being prime-time Friday night and the store filled with every age from seven to seventy, folks renting that Woody Allen they hadn't ever seen or deliberately forgotten, folks escaping from the week with some Spiderman, folks looking for a 'romantic comedy' and hopefully picking something not quite as mind-numbing as what was on the plasma screen, all were assaulted by the tough display up there

Many were not dismayed, even the parent of the seven year old boy seemed not to mind the round after round of bare-fisted melee with no rules. Suddenly one of our unlucky contestants had himself held down by his adversary, receiving repeated knuckle and fist blows to the back of his head. At this stage, I must admit to feeling a little indignant, a little surprised at a video store with over 5000 titles, concentrating on one so narrow and specialised, apart from the actual subject matter which was more violent than any R rated movie, because it was real unlike WWF wrestling or even boxing which seems to be stopped on KO or near it.

How was this in any way an appropriate thing to show at family time on Friday night?

Behind the counter there was a very well-built young adult who looked like he had necked his entire family's weetbix for the last 10 years breakfasts. He actually seemed to be cut from the same cloth as our stars up on the screen. I asked him what this stuff was that they were showing.

"Ultimate Fighting. Why, you got a problem with it?" He said to me.
"Yes, actually I think it's really inappropriate to show something this violent in your store, when you have so many other videos to choose from"
"Well we show it because it's popular. People rent it."
"I would think they would rent whatever you show on the screen more often..."

He rather threateningly asked me if I was threatened by it. I told him no, and that I thought it was very wrong.

The two men on screen had now graduated to a tennis-court-fence bound battle, and the inhumanity continued in a new and more imposing forum. I couldn't talk to this guy and get anywhere, and I wondered where the usual friendlier, glasses-wearing, cool nerds were who normally gave away their opinion of my newly rented titles with an almost imperceptible little glance at the cover or disc.

And how far is this very brutal and voyeuristic craze going to reach, into the minds and hearts of the young lads at that video store, able to rent real M-rated human brutality easier than R-rated computer generated horrors? Into Mike Tyson inspired family leaders, into brain damaged street fighters moving ever further from dealing with their own or anyone else's suffering...

That's a rant.

*Military Entertainment Complex - they bring you wonderful patriotic statements of anti-kindness such as Black Hawk Down, Independance Day, a thousand adverts and movies and poison PR. The companies that are supposed to kick start the US economy after the "wars" they blunder into, want to make sure that violence and fervour of a red, white and blue kind, are generating some good press and interest. Ever since Elvis donned military garb and harmonised with the US forces, since Cher perched astride a cannon on an aircraft carrier wearing a seatbelt in a less common fashion, right up to Saddam's statue draped in a flag, these images are all fulfilling grave and blunt aims of the MEC. Oh yeah.

We interrupt this wedding description to bring you... A different wedding description...

Rod and Anna - what can I say - if you were there then you had fun. If you weren't there you missed a rambling rap of a speech which I gave at the reception. In case you want to read it (in an appropriate Rap Hero voice) this should also be accompanied by mad hand gestures and your sidekick beatboxing. Jam!

It’s the R to the A yeah you know they be

Comin’ down to hitch real officially

Gonna tell tall tales how they roll with we

Spend some spare change it’s celebratory

20 years of history, line it up

Taking vintage memories for to pour in your cup

Better get ready for dis-narrative-play

Might learn suffink man, so just don’t look away

Now I know this cat from so way back

Introduced by our mothers and that’s a fact

Way back right before balls even dropped

Rod Tom & I played till the light done stopped

Lived in the hills, no we wasn’t robbin banks, sir

But knockin around, we was effectively gangsters

Takin bikes out to roll in Arbury Park

Mostly staying out till almost dark

From lamp-post to lamp-post, we ran those roads

Listenin Beastie Boys, PE, De La Soul

Rod tha odd bod yo always be shod

In da Vision Streetwear full skaty mod(e)

It’s the R to the T yeah to tha A to tha G

Comin’ all the way to tha Antipodes

Gonna tell tall tales how we roll with thee

Poetic license to drive in 27 countries

Now you can trust me down to my word

He’s come to profess the love for his bird

But there was the time for better or worse

Before the man knew the woman, so here come da verse

Cos we joined up da Scouts, dyb dob knob throb

With Mike the cool guy and us impressionable cobs

Used to lash up some towers with rope and spikes

Maybe Rod learned some skills for tha bedroom nights

Went for some hikes, saw some wicked sights

Onkaparinga Gorge was a pure delight

Somewhere around this time we all got a surprise

Our balls done drop and girls entered our lives

Now this meant a lot, to these hills boy grots

Had to buy whole load of hair product from shops

Rod made some choices some good and some strange

Remember once I consoled him cause the girl was deranged

It’s the R to the A yeah you know they be

Comin’ down to hitch real officially

Gonna tell tall tales how they roll with we

Spend some spare change it’s celebratory

Cast your mind back, like a reel on a rod

Summer time Yorke Peninsula, hot as a dog

Rollin in Jefferson, funk in the trunk

Got the boards on the roof, then we heard a clunk

Killer road full o gypsum, white hard like ice

Crazy laughin just stops as the engine subsides

Mother*****er says Rod, accelerator is slack

Nothin doin on the pedals, Volkswagen is cact(us)

We jump from the car, we get under the hood (we)

Then see a lick of flame where the fuel line should be

We panic and the girlfriends done drag us away

As the open lickin flame it continues to spray

On the engine, on the oil, as the radiator boils

By now all our boardshorts are fully soiled

And I’ll never forget, the anguished cry

Not for the car but the board, sending cinders to sky

Five tyres exploded, like mini-granades

Fire brigade, out of range, and this car was not saved

But the lesson was learned, don’t be caught like a fool

Get a coke can extinguisher if your car’s air-cooled

Now Killick is da O.G. through and through

And we drove back in Bryan he was thinking and blue

So a few weeks later, he’s reaped the rewards

Turned the car into cash, with insurance of course…

Tank fly, boss walk, jam nitty gritty

You’re listenin to the boy from the big bad city, this is jam hot. Cos this is Anna’n’Rod.

Been a worldwide romance, Miss Belbin, RK

Jet set from six-thousand miles away

She’s a beauty bright spark, captured his heart

And his soul, imagination, right from the start

Only met her few times, London, Perth, Adelaide

Arr-riffic to a T, Rod’s got it made

She’s no pushover now, keeps my man in line

Got a cool London accent, from time to time

So it’s R O D to the Anna B

Wind that back, that’s a K not a B

Indubitably, unequivocally, unabashedly, absolutely, utterly, completely, enormously, totally and fully in L. O. V. E.