My G10 broke so now I'm fucking with the Canon S95. It's no 5D or 7D, but the portability of this point-and-shoot rules. Oh yeah, I get played in the rain with my glasses. Haha! Damn I look haggard.
Not sure what's going on here but I guess I'm in.
Ranga.
Potter fans.
Until tomorrow! And if you haven't read this, do so now.
I really don't like posting these things on the blog, but with time against us, I gotsta. I typically love receiving emails from you. I really do. But if you don't fit exactly what we are looking for, please do not respond.
I will repeat it one more time. Unless you meet all of the requirements below, or have the numbers to the next winning lottery ticket, or know where the hell my dad is, I don't want to fucking hear from you. Thank you!
As one of the members of a two-person in-house design team it is crucial that this person be able to perform under strict deadlines with limited supervision. The right person must be experienced in all aspects of apparel design from graphics to cut and sew. This job is only available at our San Francisco office location and can begin yesterday. Pay is based on skill.
Must have strong design, color and conceptual skills based in a deep knowledge of men's apparel, graphics and accessory design.
Thorough knowledge of silhouettes, fabrication, graphics and typography.
Must be well versed in the technical aspect of design and able to create production ready tech packs with sketches, technical flats, fabric information, and trim information.
Strong flat sketching abilities. Must be able to create flat sketches in Illustrator from hand sketches or from garments with high attention to detail.
Must understand the complete printing process and color separations.
Astounding organizational skills, time management, communication, and collaboration skills.
Superior computer knowledge based in Mac. Must have expert knowledge in Illustrator and Photoshop. Must have thorough knowledge in InDesign, Word and Excel.
Good understanding of merchandising as it relates to sales and store environment.
Previous apparel design and graphic design experience required. Minimum of 4 years.
College degree in design or related field.
Send a burned CD that includes your resume and your work to REBEL8 Joshy D. 1661 Tennessee St. #2L SF, CA 94107. Or email me (joshy AT rebel8.com) a link to your portfolio website. DO NOT email me individual files, embedded graphics, or a Zip.
Although I get to work at 8:30AM Monday-Friday, I work best in the late afternoon through the evening. This photo is around when I get into my zone.
It's also a great time to reflect on the day's meals. Gai ka prow kai dow.
Cheesesteak.
I also took a few minutes to visit my friend Lance at his new office. This is Lang's new desk. Los lonely boy.
2011 sounds so futuristic. I bet the Jews said the same damn thing 3,760 years ago.
Part 2. Right Intention
Right Intention is sometimes translated as “right thought” or “right aspiration”. I think of Right Intention as a pro-active commitment to ethical and mental self-improvement. In practice, Right View helps me to distinguish between the wholesome and unwholesome aspects of my moment-to-moment experience, and Right Intention helps me focus my energy on developing the wholesome aspects as they arise and letting go of the unwholesome. Seems simple enough, but quite often in our daily lives we are unwittingly developing unwholesome situations through our own ignorance and lack of perspective.
The Buddha taught that a person should be judged by their intentions, not the outcome of their actions. I think this is a key point in Buddhist philosophy. It simply means that if you go into a situation with the right intention, then regardless of the outcome you can’t be judged to have done anything wrong. However, if you act out of ignorance, your right intention isn’t worth shit.
The Buddha described three types of Right Intentions:
- First is the intention of renunciation. In practice, this means that I have the intention to give up the things that cause harm or suffering in my life. For myself, that means giving up stuff like television, cars, meat, cigarettes, cocaine, horror movies, MySpace, one-night stands, etc.
- Second is the intention of good will. In practice, this means that I always have the intention to act with kindness, especially when faced with anger or aversion. It is important to note that aggression in this sense doesn’t always mean that it’s coming from an outside source. Aggression most often begins in our own thinking minds. It is within the space of your thinking mind that your intention of good will is most helpful.
- Third is the intention of harmlessness, such that you don’t think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively. In practice, this means that I always have the intention to bring love, peace and compassion to any given situation. And again, it is important that we maintain this intention of harmlessness at the level of thinking. It is very important to remember that feeding cruel or violent thoughts only creates more to harm you and those around you. We must be pro-active about letting go of such unwholesome thoughts with compassion, patience and understanding.
By practicing Right View and Right Intention, we can develop the foundational wisdom needed to continue on the Eightfold Path.
The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path:
1. Right View
2. Right Intention
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration
Although this sequence isn’t particularly chronological, in my experience Right View helped the development of Right Intention, which in turn helped the development of Right Speech, and so on down the list.
Part 1. Right View
Gaining a proper understanding of Right View is the first step in realizing liberation through The Eightfold Path. Right View is sometimes translated as "right perspective", "right vision" or "right understanding". It revealed to me a way of seeing life as it truly is in the present moment, rather than experiencing life as conceptualized within the confines of my thinking mind. The practice of Right View helps me understand that I create my own suffering, and happiness for that matter. I learned that I must be personally responsible for maintaining peace and tranquility of mind because nobody else can do it for me. Once I had really established Right View for myself, I was able to free myself from my fear of inevitable sickness, aging and my eventual death. Once I stopped conceptualizing these states of being I was able to make my peace with them and move on. In day-to-day life, the practice of Right View helps me eradicate the moment-to-moment distractions of my thinking mind. In the big picture, the practice of Right View reveals the base nature of human existence and Ultimate Reality.
Right View has also revealed to me the Law of Karma, such that every action in body, speech and mind will have a likewise reaction depending on your intention. To put it simply, if you wish to have a life free of suffering you must act with that intention in everything you do. If your intentions cause harm to those around you, it should be no surprise that someone else intends to harm you. Violence feeds violence. Only non-violence brings peace. I have certainly found this to be the case in my own experience.
Right View also revealed to me the nature of impermanence, such that all things are subject to change. Nothing is absolute, or static. There is no birth, no death, only change. Fear of death exists in all of us, and it holds us back. We weren't designed to last forever. We all have to make our peace with death before we can really live. Take advantage of your time right here right now before it's too late.
As an example of how to understand Right View, consider a leaf on a tree. You may look at a leaf on a tree and allow your mind to create all kinds of distinctions about the leaf. You could compare its color to other leaves. You could compare its size and shape to other leaves. You could think about how old the leaf is or consider how long until it falls from its branch. You could give the leaf a personality and create its life story. You could consider all kinds of “What Ifs”. Like, what if a gust of wind comes along and breaks the leaf free of the branch? What if the tree catches fire? What if the leaf has magic powers?
Or, you could just sit down, quiet your mind and meditate on the leaf. This is how you get to know the leaf as expressed through Right View. With Right View, you can see that the leaf has no beginning and no end. You can see that the leaf is connected to the tree that is connected to the Earth that is connected to the sky. You can see that the rain that falls from the sky is in the leaf. You can see that the leaf produces the oxygen we all need to breathe. You can see that the veins in a leaf grow in the same way that the veins in your body grow. You can see that when the leaf is dry and old, it falls to the ground, disintegrates, becomes fertilizer for the tree, and is again reborn as the tree itself and everything around it. With Right View, you will see that you and the leaf are in fact One.
And once you have established Right View for yourself, you will also see that as a human being you were meant to be happy, content, and loved. Simple as that.
From the Dhammapada:
“All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind.
Speak or act with a corrupted mind,
And suffering follows
As the wagon wheel follows the hoof of the ox.
All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind.
Speak or act with a peaceful mind,
And happiness follows
Like a never-departing shadow.”
Happy New Year, REBEL8ers!
Over the last few months, many of you have been asking me to continue my blogs regarding The Eightfold Path. So over the next week or so I will post my complete writings on The Eightfold Path, beginning with this intro that I hope explains what got me interested in Buddhist practice in the first place...
I was 22 when I moved to San Francisco in October of 1993. I had just landed my first full-time art job at Think Skateboards and I had a room to rent at 1933 McAllister. I was making $7 an hour and thought I had it made. My job rocked, I was hanging out with pro skateboarders, the City was full of the best graffiti I’d ever seen and I was making lots of great new friends. Everything was gold. But deep down I missed my girlfriend who had moved to England for school. I was pretty lonely. So I distracted myself with lots of cheap beer, LSD, MDMA, raves, skateboarding and graffiti writing. But I still felt a deep dissatisfaction with day-to-day life and felt like I actually had to do something about it.
So the first thing I did was save up some money and bought my girl a flight to SF for Christmas break. I really wanted to show her how much I loved her and missed her when she arrived and thought the best way to do that was to improve my lovemaking skills. She was my first lover. All I knew about making love up to that point was what she had taught me, which to her credit was still a lot more than most of my buddies knew. So I strolled to Upper Haight and dug around for some books that might help me. I bought two: “When Things Fall Apart” by Pema Chodron and “The Art of Sexual Ecstasy” by Margot Anand. Both books helped open my heart and mind to vast new possibilities. And for almost a whole month I got to explore these new ideas with my lover. I think she certainly appreciated the effort.
But she had to go back to England and of course my depression and sense of dissatisfaction came back. But now I was on The Path. It had begun. Through Pema’s words I was beginning to see that my thinking mind was creating the discord in my day-to-day experience. And Margot’s teachings about the chakras and deep meditative breathing techniques helped me out right away. So I read lots more books. I filled my head with all kinds of Eastern philosophy and sacred sexuality. The ideas in Hinduism and Buddhism showed their worth right away in my daily life, so I gave my trust to them and continued to read more.
The ideas in those first books became tools for contemplation on my weekly solo LSD voyages and their message was really taken to heart in some very powerful ways. Throughout the mid to late 90s, at raves all over the Bay Area, I felt ecstatic release high on E, dancing all night long with thousands of like-minded humans, “feeling the love.” I was also spending a lot of time walking the streets alone in the middle of the night writing my name on the walls of my beloved City, something I’ve always found to be a deeply meditative and concentrated practice on impermanence.
Through these activities I was able to act on some of the ideas I was learning about in books. And I think that was a really important aspect of the dharma that I needed to recognize. I think the historical Buddha was very clear in stating that you can’t read your way to enlightenment. You have to do it. Nobody can do it for you. A dharma teacher once told me, “Happiness or unhappiness arises from our actions, not outside sources.” In other words, our progress on The Eightfold Path is gauged by our actions, nothing more.
In this way, I think the Buddha wanted us to be players, not fans. Please keep that in mind as you walk with me down his Path.
Ricky and I have been talking forever about a donut eating challenge. It first began when we were listening to AM radio and some chick said it was impossible to eat 10 in an hour. Simple minded bitch, try 24.
And he's off!
Within a couple of minutes Ricky got three down.
Milk helps.
And he kept dunking and powering through.
One by one the donuts left their pink box home and entered Ricky's ever-expanding stomach.
Deep into the challenge Ricky became grumpy and disgusted with himself. Past donut 7 he says is hell.
But he kept at it like a trooper. I was astonished. Dumbfounded, really. I couldn't believe it.
However, even for the man who loves circles and donuts.
Some times you just gotta walk away.
Happy New Years REBEL8ERS! Thank you, thank you, thank you for a wonderful 2010! I wish you, your friends and your family a very happy and healthy 2011!
You got presents. I got fucked up. Christmas '10 ruled.
Things are selling out in the online store. Get it before you regret it. We don't reprint/remake.