June 28, 2002

random thoughts

The answer seems so obvious, yet the record labels just aren’t getting it. People want to download music. People want the latest songs from the latest artists and they are even willing to search through hours worth of garbage, fight disconnects from their ISP and put up with low quality ripped songs. Hummm… I’m a record label, I see this and think, “Ah-ha! I start a server with my artists available to download for a minimum fee and the hassle is over.” The technology exists to prevent the files from then being shared, but this really would be too big of a deal at that point because for $1 per song (about the current rate of a music CD) who wouldn’t subscribe to a service like that?

Germany beat the United States, so now we will be cheering for Germany on Sunday. The final will be the first and only game of the World Cup that I will have watched. I find that hard to believe myself, but with the 5:30 AM game time… makes it tough when you generally work from 1-10 PM.

This weekend we’ll be traveling to Missoula to check out a teaching by Ven. Robina Courtin. I’m looking forward to this, but at the same time I’m not. Geshe-la always says you have to find a good teacher, one who kicks spiritual butt. I agree that learning face to face with an actual person is about 100 times more influential that listening to tapes or even watching a video, however every time a good teacher passes by our area it is usually a minimum of a two and a half hour drive ($120 in gas for the six days of teaching) and then you have to pay the “dana” (ok, you don’t have to, but…) and the “suggested donation” is usually $25 per person, so for one day you are looking at $50 for two people ($170 for two people to attend all the classes in Missoula). The teachings usually last for several days and of course you want to see them all, but I’m not a doctor or lawyer, so I can’t afford to ($290 total). I know it’s a donation - not a price, but I can’t NOT pay it because it doesn’t seem right to not pay this amazing teacher when everyone else is. I know this is all my karma. Nevertheless, it is still a real situation. How is my karma to improve when I can’t get the teachings that will help me to improve my karma? There is a joke that Buddhism in the United States is the Upper-Middle Way. I don’t mean to criticize the Dharma center because it does costs a great deal of money to have a teacher (especially of this stature) come to town. The fact that I live a two and half hour drive from the center is my problem as is the fact that I don’t make enough money to support my “Dharma habit”. I’m just venting a little frustration over the issue.

posted @ 8:58 AM

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