Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Roundup for Sept 5, 2006

A quick roundup of great and quite recent posts in the Buddhoblogosphere and other matters of interest.

Kalsang Dorje knows he will one day die. In a post in The-universe-is-all-in-your-head he wonders how he can make things such that his life will have had meaning. He writes, “Ultimately, what I would like my life to be is a culmination of all of the good human qualities that exist.”

TMcG of the eponymous blog is interested in death, also. She writes, “For a decent $3500, you can pick up 'The Cocoon' a soy-based resin coffin that will decompose in 10-15 years and is CO2 neutral.”

Here, a central sentence in a quote Tyson of tysonwilliams.com posted of words of Sogyal Rinpoche: “From a Buddhist point of view, doubt is a sign of a lack of complete understanding and a lack of spiritual education, but it is also seen as a catalyst in the maturing of faith.”

Cliff of This Is This almost says something dumb at an airport bar. Well, actually, he does say something dumb. But before being too hard on himself for being a tad slow, he takes solace in knowing that there is another there dumber than he is. One other. His post’s title is wonderfully clever, anyway: “Flight of the Humble Me.”

stumble bum of m o u n t a i n w o r d bopped in for a quick post. He quotes Anais Nin re how we see things.

Things are looking up for Chodpa of Luminous Emptiness. Her Labor Day post begins, “Is there anything more beautiful in this world of ours than a deep blue, almost clear sky, with traces of white puffy cloud?”

OK, what’s the deal guys? Recent posts by James of The Buddhist Blog and Sujatin of lotusinthemud are similar. Check it out: James’s 8/28 post ; and Sujatin’s 8/28 post . Again, James’s 9/2 post; and Sujatin’s 9/2 post. Then, too, there’s the mystery of Tom’s post in Thoughts Chase Thoughts [8/31]; and Bill’s of Integral Options CafĂ© [9/2]. GMTA?

Is anybody else getting sick to death of the Pass The Loot ministry of the formerly-cool Mel? Capitalism is fine; but grifting is something else, again.

Jack of Mind Mountain [formerly known as Jack's Mountain] has his meditation disturbed by a giant cockroach.

Hokai of hokai’s blogue begins a post that quotes Timothy Freke, “... Waking up is not a state of disembodied ‘enlightenment’. It is an ecstatic state of individual ‘enlivenment’!”

Cliff of everyday zazen writes, “making a fresh start is an illusion. i can turn over a new page but it already bears imprints from the previous page and the one before that. the present is the consequence of my past actions.”

Mark Walter of eternal awareness asks and answers this question: “If I have something to convey that is beyond words, how can I use words to convey it?”

Whoa! A wonderful rambling post by Mike Doe of Doe-Do begins with Battlestar Galactica, meanders through thoughts of memory loss, his sex life, books he’s reading, a chance of rain, and then it is all wrapped up in a bow of questions of identity. Who am I?

Chris of i am the cyclingplatypus is in the early days of an all-September photoblogging regimen. Here’s day four.

chalip of Zen Under the Skin cites two good blog finds, both submissions to Buddhist Blogs WebRing which she manages and both from India: Cockoo’s call and The Red Blood. Rama, the blogger of Cockoo’s call, has just concluded a long series with photos that show people who serve in his city of Calcutta. Amit kumar Singh writes passionately about the terrible problem of corruption and disparities of earnings in a post in The Red Blood titled “I wept twice amidst the cry of corruption.” In the rest of her post, chalip discusses her feelings regarding disparities based on class in Buddhist temples or practice centers in America.

Zataod of Zen and the Art of Dreaming writes about his latest nocturnal adventure, which includes this line, “What does one do with a homeless person one encounters in a dream. She is a product of my unconscious dreaming mind. Yet, I still want to ignore her and not acknowledge that she exists.”