Hi, I'm Cabur Senaar. Ask me anything.

If you could have dinner with any three people (living or dead) who would they be and why?

Also, what would you serve them?

tzb wrote: In terms of your Jedi path...

What have been your biggest challenges?

How have you overcome them?

What is it that keeps you feeling "Jedi" is the correct designation for what you believe (and do)?

Teaching has been the greatest challenge. Thomas Merton said the following:

“Those of us who attempt to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening our own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. We will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of our own obsessions, our aggressivity, our ego-centered ambitions, our delusions about ends and means.”

I keep that in a small box on my desk. As a teaching master, you want to give yourself to your apprentice, to guide them toward the best you have to offer, but you must know yourself well enough, moment to moment, to not simply make it about you.

Lots of things are hard, but that is a clear enough difficulty for me that it has become a core part of my daily practice. Apart from my meditation practice, I have a journaling practice. I know when I lie, generally. I know when I want to lie to my journal. That's the cue that something must be brought into the light of day.

Jedi feels like the right label because the symbols still make sense, because I still have a handful of role models in this community. The Temple is not the Path. The Community is not the Path. Even the torch that lights the way is not the Path. But Jedi still lights the way. Even if, for some reason, it no longer did, I would have to be grateful. Even if it takes me no further, it has done me a lot of good.

rugadd wrote: How do you handle personal discouragement?

How do you train your body?

In what way would you encourage people to handle problems that stem from another's actions?

I do my best to approach every difficulty as an object of practice. That includes the discouragement when I utterly blow it. Failure is natural. No one makes a meteoric rise without stumble. Assume that if you see no errors that someone is spending a great deal of time and energy to hide them.

So, i take a breath. I try to sit with it, to bear it without running from it or distracting myself from it. It can be awful. At some point, my mind stops changing every few minutes. At that point, I look around and I ask the same question my Father asks me. "What is the highest good you can render?"

A lot of my physical training is around managing my arthritis and my treatment. I'm frequently on steroids, which is a drag. I've recently made it to the point where I can use my stationary bike again. That has been a profound victory. When the steroids aren't making me eat like a movie monster, I watch my diet. I've also been thinking about yoga.

What to do with difficult people? I try not to offer advice in areas in which I struggle myself, but here we go!

Before any conflict, I try to ask myself if there is really anything at stake. I try to pick my battles, though I stand by the vulnerable. I try to have compassion for the pain that drives the other person to behave this way, but I draw lines to protect myself.

I prioritize the protection of the innocent over the education of the aggressor, but they often walk hand in hand. I am not the peacemaker I wish I were.

I do recall a conversation with Maitre, right in the beginning of my apprenticeship, when I said something kind of stupid. Well-intentioned, but foolish. I asked Maitre his advice on how I could make it right with someone who was very angry. He said that for this one, the conflict was what was right. I had to let that one go. I made peace later.

I guess that's the best I can offer. I don't expect the solutions to work quickly. Breaking things is easy. Building things takes time.

That may not be satisfying, Rugadd.

MarVinKra wrote: What else do you seek to pursue here at the temple or as a Jedi?
Do you feel there is more to be achieved?

I am chipping away at the criteria toward Senior Knight. I am training my apprentices as best as I am able, giving the Temple the best Knights we are able. I'm not particularly interested in authority, but I know that role models are the best gift we can offer a community. That is what I strive for.

There is always more to be achieved. One can gain greater awareness of connection, be a better warrior, a better peacemaker. One can become kinder. One can serve better, love better.

The ranks and affiliations have value, but only insofar as they facilitate the Path. The Path asks me to bend myself to it. As far as I can tell, not label offered by our community touches what the Path asks of me.

Arisaig wrote: If you could have dinner with any three people (living or dead) who would they be and why?

Also, what would you serve them?

Second part first. If they had preferences, I would simply take dinner orders. If not, I would prepare my Chicken Yarro. I take great pleasure in making and serving it. Food made with love makes better dinners.

As for dinner, I would like to invite Thomas Merton (whom I never got to meet), Acharya Godwin Samararatne (who I miss terribly these 17 years), and Robert Bly (who I met once, yet lives, and would be a delight, I am certain).

If they were, for some reason, unavailable, I suppose I would just have over the three people in the world who needed an amicable dinner the most.

I love this thread.

What is your answer to the Trolley problem?

Coke or Pepsi?

Favorite movie, and why?

What is the funniest joke you know?

Next!!

Also, what has been your proudest moment?

Darren wrote: I love this thread.

What is your answer to the Trolley problem?

Coke or Pepsi?

Favorite movie, and why?

What is the funniest joke you know?

To the original trolley problem, assuming I know nothing about the people, I throw the switch. Then I just try to live with it.

Water.

I don't really have one, single, favorite movie. Sorry.

Saul is working in his store when he hears a booming voice from above:
"Saul, sell your business."
He ignores it. It goes on for days.
"Saul, sell your business for $3 million."
After weeks of this, he relents, sells his store.
The voice says ‘Saul, go to Las Vegas."
He asks why.
"Saul, take the $3 million to Las Vegas."
He obeys, goes to a casino. Voice says, "Saul , go to the blackjack table and put it down all on one hand."
He hesitates but knows he must.
He’s dealt an 18.
The dealer has a six showing.
"Saul, take a card."
What?
The dealer has -- "Take a card!" He tells the dealer to hit him.
Saul gets an ace.
Nineteen.
He breathes easy.
"Saul, take another card."
What? "TAKE ANOTHER CARD!" He asks for another card.
It’s another ace.
He has twenty.
"Saul, take another card," the voice commands.
I have twenty!
Saul shouts.
"TAKE ANOTHER CARD!!" booms the voice.
Hit me,Saul says.
He gets another ace.
Twenty one.
The booming voice goes: "un-f*#@ing-believable!"

Rosalyn J wrote: Next!!

Also, what has been your proudest moment?

Becoming a father has placed all my personal accomplishments in a different light. I don't really think about them too much anymore. I'm also of the conviction that my best stuff is yet to come, so the past isn't all that interesting.

How do you see the temple itself growing over the next few years, and in respect to that, your role in its growth?