1. City Square is public space and meant to be used by the public. However, it also needs a guardian so no group can claim it exclusively for their own private use. Also, it needs a coordinator to schedule and timetable when different groups are be able to use the space in a temporary exclusive way. This is common sense and the way we run our public spaces.  The coordinator/guardian of public spaces is a representative of the public, duly elected, and in the case of Melbourne city happens to be the council and the Mayor, Robert Doyle. In his function as the representative of the Melbourne city public, he calls the shots. This is how the system works. If he makes a bad job of it, he gets voted out.

2. Occupy Melbourne, in spite of their claims, do not represent the public in the same way that Robert Doyle does. They are a bunch of people who claim that their grab-bag of issues represents public concerns and are of public interest. Given this and our mostly excellent system of governance, they were able to exercise their right to protest and use City Square for a period of time

3. What right does Robert Doyle have in deciding 6 days and no more? As the Occupy Melbourne people did not apply for a permit to occupy City Square for a set amount of time, someone has to decide when the limit it. He could have consulted more of course but it is, IMO, within his power to set the limit. I generally elect people to lead and make the hard decisions. 6 days IMO is pretty good and is commensurate with other festival or events that take place in the city. (Why do the Occupy Melbourne people need a permit? See point 1)

So, from my perspective, the only thing that is of issue is whether the police exercised undue force in enforcing the law (ie protecting my rights to use City Square without the presence of the Occupy Melbourne people). The discussion around this is healthy and part and parcel of our mostly excellent system of governance. I believe that they could have done things smarter of course. They certainly could have been more sensitive. The ideal police force is un-corrupt, efficient, smart and sensitive. However, given that we live in a less than ideal world, I am happy with a police force that satisfies the first two. Ample warnings were given after all.

4. EDIT: The other thing to also note that the eviction of the people from City Square is often conflated with the stopping of the protest and hence infringing on the rights of the protesters. I think it is important here to distinguish between stopping an illegal method of protest as opposed to stopping an individual’s right to protest. The question here for me is: Is it reasonable for a group of people to permanently or at least indefinitely inhabit a public space as part of a protest? Given that the protest movement has free access to the internet, to private spaces and has the ability and the right to organise other protests in public spaces, I think that it is not reasonable for them to claim a right to monopolise any public spaces indefinitely under the shield of their right to protest.

The problem is that this is impossible.

Sure, most teachers say that complete extinguishment can only result after lifetimes of practice etc etc but within the paradigm of many teacher-student relationships, there’s always the projection that the teacher has actually achieved this. Given that in all Buddhist traditions the boasting of “achievements” is strongly discouraged and indeed evidence of a lack of achievement, this actually perpetuates the situation.

Because the belief that the cessation of suffering is attainable is the Third Noble Truth, I often consider whether I can claim to be Buddhist when I don’t agree with this. My view is that suffering never ceases – that cessation or extinguishment is impossible. What happens through practice however is that the influence of suffering on one’s mind and actions lessens and may eventually diminish entirely.

So, in my highly personal view – it is the cessation of the effects of suffering that is attainable. I’m sure this reveals also how early down the path I am.

EDIT: Turns out that the Greek Stoics have also travelled down this path: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheia.

It started quite simply: I decided that no matter what I would not untag any photos of myself on Facebook. It didn’t matter how terrible I looked or what I was doing, I was going to wear it. Actually, seeing as my wild days are well and truly behind me, it wasn’t that big a deal.

The next thing I did was let my family in. My mother had already somehow discovered my blog some time ago and with other family wanting to connect on Facebook, it didn’t take too long for me to friend them. Of course, there were all those photos and my publish and be damned policy.

I took a deep breath and did it never mind that pretty much all the photos of my on Facebook involves some outdoor trance or hippie festival and very little clothing.

Today, I became facebook friends with two of my workmates. I do have workmates there in the mix somewhere but generally only after I’d stopped working with them. Again, there were all those photos and my damned publish everything policy.

I took a deep breath and did it anyway.

It’s not as if I can hide my dreadlocks at work anyway. Mind, I do regret the photo of me looking like an asian triad member and pretending to smoke a cigarette.

A strong caveat here is that I do not include indigenous Australians in this, their plight and moral claim to being true Australians are indisputable but I cannot speak for them.

So anyway, here’s my list.

1. Give people a fair go.

A classic, a cliche but a good one. The fair-go clause (“geeze, give me/them/him/her a fair-go will-ya?”) when invoked will always cause the recipient to stop and think. It doesnt mean that they will actually give anyone the benefit of doubt, an opportunity or a helping hand (look at the way we treat uncontrolled boat arrivals) but the pause is actually pretty good because it allows for innate human decency to shine through – which it does most of the time.

2. Don’t bludge

On the surface, one could mistake this for a variant of the good ole protestant work ethic but within the Australian context, there’s a strong communal tinge. The full value may well be “Don’t bludge of your mates”. Unfortunately, over time, the average Australian’s sense of entitlement seems to have grown. Pretty much everyone bludges in one way or the other off the government. Personal independence seems to have dropped off as well – more people appear to bludge off their parents rather than making a go of it on their own.

3. Stop whinging

From observation, native Australians are brought up with this ringing in their ears. It makes for a certain taciturn surliness in their men and a tough-love no-nonsense attitude in their women but that’s actually kinda cool once you get used to it and if you’re a pretty confident independent sort. Alas, this value is receding enough from the cities that visits to regional towns can often cause a degree of culture shock to inner-city Australians. However, it’s not all bad – male health and life expectancy has improved.

4. Don’t be a bloody wanker

In other words, speak honest and directly, do not boast or show off, do not pretend to be something you’re not, be proud but not arrogant, strong but not a bully, polite but not obsequious. These are all good qualities but more often seen in certain types of Australian movies, tv serials and advertisements than in real life. In most inner city suburbs and city centers, pretty much everyone is a wanker in one way or another. I do not exclude myself either.

Anyway, that’s the list. They are my values as well of course but I don’t pretend to be living up to them better than my fellow Australians. The important thing is that from what I can tell, most of us do share them. And to all my fellow Aussies worried about the newbies flooding in from Outbloodywoopwoopstan, I’ve got this to say:

“Don’t be a bloody wanker and give them a fair-go. Geeze, it’s not like you haven’t bludged off the government at some point and if you were in one of those camps or boats, I bet you’ll be whinging a lot louder than those poor bastards.”

Anyway, after being away for nearly four years, I moved back into Thornbury a couple of weeks ago and started thinking about putting up a front wall again. Traffic had got worse on the road since I’d lived there and these days massive trucks were hurtling down the narrow road. A community meeting between local residents, council and Vicroads which I attended didn’t seem to indicate that matters would change any time soon.

The place had kept reasonably well however. I was happy with the way my tenants had looked after it. Some earlier ones had even tiled portions of the garden and organised for the roof to be insulated. Inside, a few new cracks had developed in the plaster but that was common to the area with very high clay content in the ground. I’d stored a number of things in the back shed – a crumbling building with gaping holes in the roof. To my surprise, most of that had survived with the exception of a single filing cabinet.

So the last few days had been about moving new things into the house and re-discovering old things. I’d had a pretty turbulent time in the house before I left so some of the things that surfaced included memories. In the main, they were unpleasant. I’d been sad or stressed much of the time.

Still, as I sat yesterday in the backyard listening to the bird song from the trees around, I was happy.

The last two Easter Confests have been different however and I’m hoping that they’ve set the pattern for the future. On the mundane but essential comfort level, I feel like camping is pretty sorted. The combination of having a van with a built-in bed, early arrivals who pick a good site, great cooking and food-storage gear plus assorted carpets, fabrics, tarps and chairs has taken lush camping to new heights.

Socially now that I’m in a committed relationship and not traipsing around, Confest has been great for making new friends and deepening connections with existing acquiantances. All of this is through my existing network – I hardly spend enough time in the festival area to have meaningful conversations with completely unconnected people. That helps significantly as a filter. I remember reading somewhere that for a large percentage of people, university is a time of social expansion with new connections falling off swiftly after that. I’m not sure how true that is but I’m glad that it isnt the case for me at all.

I meet lots of new people most festivals and of those, there’s always a couple of great ones I want to keep each time. There’s something about having days and nights up one’s sleeve to socialise and get to know people better that parties in town can never rival.

Anyway, I had a great Easter Confest – one of the best – and I’m reminded again why I keep going back.

I’ve always thought I knew that life is relatively short, people get old or sick and eventually die. But I didn’t understand that my knowledge lived on the intellectual level and that on the deepest level, I didn’t believe that it could happen to me. That has shifted and for the first time, I’ve started to feel some dread about  illness and the change that illness brings, about death and the cessation of existence that it entails.

I’m not sure if this has changed me or if it will. I hope that I will not be more fearful or anxious and that instead, I will be more appreciative of my health and the health of those I love, more compassionate to those who are ill. It may be that it is a package however, that as with so many things, vulnerability engenders compassion.

Anyway, there’s still some major flaws in the model. Due to geographical restriction clauses in publishing contracts, e-books sometimes take ages to be published in Australia (see here for a great explanation). For some of these e-books, I’ve just pirated them. Yeah, sure I could buy a legal copy printed on compressed organic material from some place I actually have to physically travel to but I could also light a fire by rubbing two sticks together. Unfortunately, not all books are popular enough to be found on torrent sites. Even worse, these books are often not popular enough to be found easily in Australia either. To add salt to the wound, sites like Amazon will list them as available, just not for you.

However, for those books that are available in e-book format, Amazon has made things so easy (and cheap) that I actually bought two books today instead of pirating them. Plus, I want to support the authors (Iain M Banks and Steven Erikson) and their publishers for having moved out of the stone age.

It also made me think a bit about my own approach to western Buddhism and whether my woefully lapsed meditation practice along with my interest in Buddhism as a whole has done the same thing. Looking at my consumption habits over the last few years, it would certainly seem to be the case. Compared to what I used to be like, I’m certainly more able to spend money. Not too surprisingly, my political attitude to consumerism has shifted a lot too. The level of judgement I used to have for people who hoarded things for no good reason as epitomised by MacMansion types has dropped a fair bit. So, it could be quite true that being more relaxed and less stressed about things has just made me more complacent in general and greedier in particular.

I’d like to think however that I’ve shifted away from aversion (a lot of my anxiety about buying things was fear based) to a healthier balance where I’m now more able to buy things I need without beating myself up over it. I’d like to think also that having become more aware of my own underlying drivers of aversion and desire and acknowledging the difficulty in overcoming either, I’ve become a bit more compassionate for the people who are still caught in the cycle of buying stuff as a distraction.

But then, I could just be fooling myself.