Amazon are selling an ebook of Siddhartha by Herman Hess for the Kindle for $3.51 and it appears in different versions for even more. Siddhartha is out of copyright so it costs them nothing for the rights on this book. The $3.51 is all for them.
Does this mean that $3.51 is the cost of distributing an eBook through the Amazon system? That would imply that the publisher (nee the author) would get the value of any ebook that retailed for over this sum. With Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (which retails for $9.58 on Kindle) for example the authors would get $6.07? Somehow I doubt it!
That price tag of $9.58 doesn’t compare very well with $10.19 for the paperback version of Pirsig’s book. The Kindle version can be yours in 60 seconds or less but it is controlled by Digital Rights Management (DRM) so really all you are buying is the right to have a permanent relationship with Amazon who will supply you with a copy to read on an authorised device. For 61c more you could have one made out of real paper that you could hand on to a friend or loved one, sell, donate to charity or even burn to keep warm. Sure it won’t last forever but it still has a residual value. My paper copy is yellowing but perfectly readable. It was printed in 1978 (that is 32 years ago!). It has a price tag of £1 and I bought it from a second hand shop for £1.50 ($2 ish) about 10 years ago. Read more…
It is just past Christmas and the turning of the decade so I thought it would be worth capturing a train of thought on time and space.
- The future doesn’t exist yet.
- The past no longer exists.
- The present moment is vanishingly small.
Consider the sounds you hear in a piece of music. Sound is the changing in air pressure that moves our ear drums backwards and forwards. To hear Middle C we need to listen to a sound for a long enough period to judge that the air pressure is changing around 261 times per second. At any one moment our ear drums are stationary. There is no sound in the now. Read more…
I have just come to the end of “Mindfulness and Mental Health: Therapy, Theory and Science” by Chris Mace. My motivation for tackling such a book is to learn more about the link between mindfulness meditation and the mental health/psychotherapy field.
The book has been an interesting but challenging read. I have a scientific training and I am a regular Buddhist meditator but I have little experience of the world of psychoanalysis/psychotherapy and other talking therapies. I saw the book as a way to glimpse into that world. Having persevered to the bitter end I feel I do have a clearer understanding of the field but that it is not a positive one. Read more…
Recently I have been sitting with the The Community of Interbeing in Edinburgh - that’s Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s students to you. The Edinburgh sangha has a wonderful atmosphere. As part of the Festival of Spirituality and Peace the sangha ran a Mindful Peace Walk around Prince’s Street Gardens. I arrived a little late and took the above snap before joining the 40+ people for forty five minutes of silent, meditative walking. It is the first time I have done walking meditation in a group like this in a public space and it did feel odd at first. There was a definite sense of self consciousness rather than self awareness but after a few minutes that passed and there was a strong sense of moving through the landscape as something of a positive influence. This was particularly true when we went up onto Lothian Road amongst the regular pedestrians at the end of the walk.I must admit it leaves me wanting more.
This programme, in the generally brilliant BBC Analysis series, is a fascinating discussion of a ‘new’ approach to philosophy where researchers actually do experiments and are exploring the relationship between our ‘morals’ and our reason. What is great about it is that one is continuously wanting to chip in and say “yes but…”.
The thesis that how we feel effects our perception of the world and therefore how we feel about the world and therefore our perception of it in some big circle is hardly new from a Buddhist perspective. Putting someone in an NMR scanner seems an expensive and complex way to explore what millions of people do every day during mettā bhāvanā practice – that it is easier to feel compassion and loving kindness for someone close to you. Although I can’t demonstrate it rationally I ‘believe’ (or should that be feel) that a meditator probably has a greater understanding of the nature of compassion than the non-meditating experimental philosopher will ever have – even though they are essential pursuing the same goals. But here I am probably expressing my bias.
You can listen to the programme as a podcast or read the transcript. Certainly worth half an hour of anyone’s time.
