Bowled over ...
Robert of Beginner’s Mind leads us to the paragraph that follows, in a post titled “Weight I,” in Soen Joon’s One Robe, One Bowl:
Be aware the essay isn't centrally about only pain and silence, but books, writing and the ineffable, too.Everyone says it: pain is not our natural state. Pain is present in life, and especially for the small self that wants so much to be a part of life. But that small self is not natural, either. The pain is a warning that we're moving closer to a central silence, where the small self has no relevance--and so no life. It's like magpies and their nests. The closer you come to the nest, the more the magpies scream. They're trying to distract you, and yet they're simultaneously telling you you're right where you need to be to find the nest. Just don't get distracted.
The War on Christmas, SOLVED
Speaking of Beginner’s Mind's Robert, he solved the ‘Happy Holidays’ v ‘Merry Christmas’ imbroglio. He writes,
… I propose that people use the phrase associated with their personal religion to everyone they meet. The recipient, understanding that the utterer is being kind, would then reply with the appropriate phrase from their tradition.So, when a Christian says to a Buddhist, "Merry Christmas!" the Buddhist might respond by bowing, or with the term "Namaste." There, is that so hard?Coolbuddha of Bringing Buddhism to the Masses observes the war during Christmastime in the UK. A snippet from late in Cool’s cool essay:
let's not be afraid to mark Christmas. Although the backsides of some of the PC brigade can be quite large, we don't have to disappear up there yet. But, let's have less hype, and, PLEASE, can a few more shops be allowed to open on Christmas day?Penises
The genius of Dave Bonta, scribe of Via Negativa, never fails to amaze. His set of penis poems [there are a lucky seven of them] are delightful, insightful and a scream. And they are gathering a comments stream of praise (and bad puns) longer than, well, something. Here’s a PG-rated snip from the first poem:
We're Shrinking! Shriiink - ing! Oh, what a world! What a world!I bent to kiss my reflection in her silver toenail polish.
It was 2:00 in the afternoon. I traveled her spine's high ridge with the eyes of a newt, looking for a stream in which to molt.
The hard nuggets of her name slowly melted as I rolled them back & forth across the hollow left by my missing tooth.
Bill Gardner of Eternal Peace travels and reads and has observed that the Buddhism section of bookstores everywhere is shrinking! Bill offers up a four-point list on the situation, the first of which could’ve been, but is not, Book availability is suffering. Bill does not offer an 8-point plan on how to right the situation. Here’s one of Bill’s hypotheses on why Buddhism might be losing it: “The Christian section has grown (particularly the Christian-themed novels).” Yeah, yeah. Blame the infidels.
In an effort to check on Bill's assertion, I visited the Barnes & no-longer-quite-so Noble in the city of Citrus Heights. It was alarming how few Buddhism books they now carry.
It is in my nature ...
Douglas Eye of Hundred Mountain Journal gets grim two days before Christmas, quoting the Dalai Lama and linking to TNH and adding his own words to a skullful Death Meditation. Here are HH’s words that Doogie quotes:
One's passions are enlightenment...it is in my nature to grow sick,
I have not gone beyond sickness.
It is in my nature to grow old,
I have not gone beyond old age.
It is in my nature to die, I have not
gone beyond death.
Peaceful Turmoil’s Tinythinker, much impressed by a post in Chalip’s Zen Under the Skin, delved further into Maitreya Buddhist Seminary page of the Buddhist Society for Compassionate Wisdom. Tiny reposted the thoughtful eight-item list of Everyday Admonitions for Dharma Students found at the website that is also posted at Zen Under the Skin. Tiny also posted the society’s stark list of what it thinks are the five major pronouncement of Mahayana teachings. One or two items, I think, are a tad controversial, perhaps, but it is worthy of much consideration, in any case:
1. All sentient beings are buddhas.Writes Tinythinker with respect to the above list, "The idea that Affliction is Bodhi ["One's passions are enlightenment"] ... made sense as my effort to understand the riddle of mind came to a minor fruition. Just as a lotus blooms in the mud, Bodhi blooms in afflication. Bodhi isn't the absence of pain or emotion, as some seem to believe."
2. Samsara is Nirvana.
3. One's passions are enlightenment.
4. We are an interrelated whole.
5. Everyday life is the Way.
Good Michael's Health
Michael of One Foot in Front of the Other suffers from parathyroid cancer, a troubling, challenging, damnable condition that he cites as incurable in the subheading of his blog. But his most recent post heralds an opportunity to combat the disease.
A visitor to my blog took note of my medical condition, and mentioned it recently to a friend of hers, a medical researcher at a major U.S. university.It turns out that this researcher developed an experimental drug that may be helpful for people like me …A couple of weeks ago, Michael learned of an interesting good omen: “A co-worker and friend of mine is a nut for anagrams. He has a gift for analyzing names and all their possible letter permutations. Tonight, on a whim, he came up with an anagram for my first and last names: HEALTH MIRACLE.”
The blog visitor gave me the researcher's e-mail address and we began a correspondence. The drug is now being tested in clinical trials at four hospitals in the United States, one of them the hospital where I'm being treated. …
Is all this a coincidence?
I don't think so.
Everything happens for a reason. Everything is interconnected. I don't think there's anything mysterious or magical about it.
Good health to you, kind Michael.
