Having just finished 1st reading of "Saints and Psychopaths" by William L. Hamilton…

At the very end:
"There are extra copies of the Checklist for Saints and Psychopaths on the last pages of this book, and I suggest that you post them on a wall as a reminder, or give them to friends. Reviewing this list from time to time may save you and your friends a great deal of trouble in this time of change."

Such Checklist not found in the PDF facsimile copy of the book that I have. Anyone have a copy of that (to share)?

Also, on second / acknowledgements page:
"Other Books by William L. Hamilton;
Synergetic Tool Primer
Dhammapada (translation)"

Haven't been able to find these other two books on the internet… Anyone here have any clues to finding them?

Odd how obscure he has become, for having written such an interesting book.

I found two other DhO threads on Hamilton – 2009 and 2010 – with no mention of these other books (and most of the links from those discussions are now stale):
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/171014#_19_message_162689
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/589289#_19_message_589289

P.S. The link quoted below seems still active for getting a copy of S&P:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/iyjfzyzyo5j/19649507-Saints-and-Psychopaths.pdf

Page 18 of the book....right before 2nd chapter...there is the checklist on the pdf you linked to

Yes indeed. Thank you.

After searching the Dho for this list I am surprised that it has never been listed; very useful information and the book is a fun, quick, educational read.

 

SAINTS SAY MEAN DO consistency Adhere to own moral standards Pay debts Keep promises Truth is highest standard Insists close associates tell the truth Un-aggressive philosophy Attractive but not drawing Waits for you to seek help Good reputation endures & improves Projects & organization grow & improve In the long run things turn out well People have long term benefit from association Have concern for effect of actions on self and others Will immediately apologize for errors Look for their own mistakes & will apologize If trapped will not renounce principles Typically have good health Typically have few accidents & injuries Felt loved when a child Can sit very still Encourage associates to be self reliant Refrains from using mind-dulling substances Are comfortable being in the background May adopt a spiritual name one time

PSYCHOPATHS SAY MEAN DO disparity Breaks own rules Many bad debts, writes bad checks Break promises No true regard for truth Tell close associates to lie Push philosophy aggressively Attractive and drawing Comes on with unsolicited advice Cood reputation fades in time Projects & organization degenerate In the long run things turn out badly People are damaged by long term association Are unconcerned for effect of actions on self and others Apologize as last resort Ignore their own mistakes and apologizes only if cornered If trapped will do or say anything to escape Typically have variable exotic health problems Typically have many accidents and injuries Felt unloved when a child Can sit still only when center of attention Enslave people around them Substance abuse common Compulsion to become the center of attention Adopt many aliases

Anyone psychopath or saint is unlikely to have all of the characteristics listed. Just because someone has some of these characteristics does not mean he or she is a psychopath or saint.

Hi Chris,

Here is another thread on/including Bill Hamilton. http://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5677470/en (indeed a third thread without mention of those books) and in regards to one of his comments on one of his teachers, Tungpulu Sayadaw of Burma.
.

Such compulsive non-life behavior continued over time certainly leads towards this last resort effort to survive (or whatever other goal feels threatened), and I only have to view my own history as a being to see the truth of that. We all can and we all do in time pull ourselves out of our "nervous breakdown" to become once more your average compulsive Joe quieting and satiating his mind with only socially acceptable practices which slow our inevitable descent back into a last resort decision of insanity. Anyone with mind, whether quiet or not, is in danger and it's only a question of time, perhaps lifetimes.

Whats working for me is metta meditation and creative visualization as useful to groove me into complementary behaviors, twinned with some real DIY activity to permanently discreate the compulsive mind which hangs onto segments of the past as if it were happening now, those scenes hanging like wet laundry on a string of goal sets by which we create this ever-expanding dual mind/universe.

In my recalls as a being, the decision "to go psychotic" always occurred when whatever I was being or perceived as being was not gonna work for me, and at the time may have been a good idea. Like King David rolling on the ground and frothing at the mouth because he knew the people of that district would think he was a holy man and thus he avoided capture and death and passed through the area unscathed. It's a way to get people to not want to know you or be known by you when you don't want to be known or be forced to know them. The problem is that "solution" worked so well that it became part of my "deck of cards" and eventually got overworked and used unwisely in an attempt to overwhelmi others, and as a sensational non-life goal towards others to where until a few days ago I could not myself stand to be around people who even had a faint resemblance to craziness and have left behind some relationships where I felt the person was acting irrationally. I experienced the same exaggerated discomfort I attempted to cause for others in order to get some feel goods for myself at their expense. For example, I once took pleasure sensation in driving a squirrel temporarily batty looking for an acorn that did not exist except what I planted in its mind. I know better now thanks to doing my practices and studying up about the mind.

I realized too that my desire to be a psychotherapist was purely out of self-defense concerning my fascination and dread towards psychotic identities. Now I devote to my own "case" because I see my Original Cause in this matter, and my "self" and every other "not-self" persona is truthfully a sub-program of 1's and 0's written into a particular delimiting architecture of commands.

[Edited in youtube URL of Munindra and Taungpulu]

"Here is another thread on/including Bill Hamilton.
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5677470/en
(indeed a third thread without mention of those books) and in regards to one of his comments on one of his teachers, Tungpulu Sayadaw of Burma."

Thanks for that reference, Katy. Particularly the second ("Blooming in the Desert: Favorite Teachings of the Wildflower Monk" Taungpulu Sayadaw is quoted…).

Googling Taungpulu finds curious, fascinating info:

In Wikipedia on "Sayadaw", there's a (under "List of prominent Sayadaws") one "Taung Pu Lu Sayadaw".

Then there's: Munindra and Taungpulu Sayadaw from 1980 in Boulder Creek California.mp4 (a youtube that I grabbed to mp4 via utility CLIBGRAB from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DgH5MFQTzo
).
This shows Tuangpulu, but he doesn't seem to say much – wears sunglasses, like many in Burmese youtubes (e.g. Mahasi) – must be bright sunlight there, and maybe that's something to do with the big fans they're often pictured holding.

That led to the discovery that there's this TKADC place:
"The Taungplulu Kaba-Aye Dhamma Center (TKADC) was established in 1978 by the forest master Very Venerable Taungpulu Tawya Kaba-Aye Sayadaw of Upper Burma and his student Rina Sircar. The mission of TKADC is to offer Thera vada Buddhist teachings as practiced in the Forest Tradition as a way to foster peace for all sentient beings. Kaba-Aye means world peace, and as the Venerable Sayadaw taught, world peace begins with inner peace. By cultivating mindfulness, clear comprehension, and metta (lovingkindness), you will be cultivating a peaceful mind and body for yourself which in turn creates a peaceful atmosphere around you enabling others to benefit."

(The bit hilited in red seems to indicate this is the same as the Tungpulu you mention.)

A bunch of photos of the place at (scan back and forth using the arrows):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/slolane/5356778820/in/photostream/
Looks just like pictures from Burma, except for the unmistakable redwood trees in the background.

Turns out this TKADC is just outside of Boulder Creek, California, the other side of Hwy 9 from the Vajrapani Center (where I attended my first retreat – auspices of SMRC – in 2008, and another retreat there later with Shaila Catherine), and a couple of miles from Ben Lomond, where (the Quaker Center there)  I've attended 6 or so retreats with Shaila, and three co-taught by U Jagara, the last just a month ago. – All of these are about 35 miles from where I live (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

The San Francisco Bay Area – from SMRC (Spirit Rock) in Marin, down to Land of Medicine Buddha near Santa Cruz – seems to have an extraordinary high density of Buddhist centers, of all stripes: Zen (Japanese), Tibeten, IM/VM (Insight/Vipassana American modernist), Thai, Burmese (besides TKADC, Pa Auk has one to the north, and Pandia (Mahasi lineage) has one in San Jose (TMC)), Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, etc.One source:http://bayareabuddhism.blogspot.com/search/label/South Bay

Small world.

[Can't find a way to embed this image here, either from .jpg or .tiff files, so the message below is in reference to viewing the photo at this link:]
https://www.flickr.com/photos/slolane/5356778820/in/photostream/
That's the photo imbedded in a link in my last post.

First impression – obviously some Burmese stupa.

Second glance – the nicely complementary colors of the background forest… but that's not Burma; those are California coastal redwood trees! (Having lived some 50 or so retreat days amidst close relatives of those very trees (a couple of miles to the southwest at the Quaker Center near Ben Lomond), they're unmistakable.)

During a former retreat there I had concocted a little fantasy about those trees: They are jhanic deva beings…

a) Jhanic with such perfectly erect posture and deep, persisting stillness (I just happen to hav ebeen spending most of those retreats cultivating PaAuk-style jhana). Other trees in the forests of the Santa Cruz mountains can be nearly as tall – the sugar pines, some decidious types – but never as consistently straight and parallel as the redwoods.

b) To cite Therevada lore – if one dies in jhana, one is guaranteed rebirth in some deva-world. Redwood trees have peculiar and very long life-times. If you've ever been around them, it's not hard to notice they often grow in circles, about 10-15 feet wide. When I first noticed this, the thought was that maybe Native Americans planted them so as medicine circles or the like. Then I noticed that at the center of these circles is invariably a sawed-off or burnt-out stump of a huge (typically 4-6 feet wide) former redwood tree.* It turns out that the root-system remaining after being burned-out or cut-down lives on, and spawns the circle of trees around it. In a sense, they are "the same" tree(s), that live on for potentially millennia – like devas… A close-knit sangha of jhana-practitioners.

* The current redwoods in most of California are "second-growth", despite many having heights of 100+ feet. The "first-growth" trees were all harvested between mid 19th and mid 20th-centuries as building material. Not only is the heartwood very straight, but also, due to resin content and/or other factors, it's remarkably resistant to rot and insect damage.

Thank you.

Perhaps , in Human ignorance, we harvested Devas, what a disturbing thought,,,

Peace, 

Psi

A tape with Bill Hamilton reading Dhammapada (probably his own translation) was just recently sold at e-bay. I am sorry I missed that. https://www.ebay.com/itm/DHAMMAPADA-Poems-by-Buddha-cassette-tapes-William-Hamilton-reading-1980s-/362671860095

Anyone having that Dhammapada translation, in writing or as audio? I could not find it at dharmaseed.org.