In the midst of dreaming this am, I twisted by neck. Finally found the heat rub and felt my neck burning as I sat two periods of zazen.
Am trying to figure out what it means to "find refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha" which is something Buddhist's say. So as I sit, I say, "I find refuge..." and then words pop into by head.
Today it became clear (as in, tomorrow something else will become clear) that the Dharma, reduced to its bare essential, is simply getting one's information from being awake. From being there, or better yet, here. The Buddha is him who discovered this rather simple and simplistic approach to life. As well, it is that part of us that is awake. And further, it is who we are when we are awake. The Sangha is the cheer leading squad that supports us in our endeavor, starting from within and becoming all things.
So then I tried to eat a carrot, a celery and a cracker with peanut butter for lunch (part of which I shared with my sewing teacher). But a couple of hours later I was starving (as if an American could starve) and ate a 330 calorie bag of peanuts.
When I got home I ate and ate for a few hours... luckily there was neither fried chicken nor chocolate cake around, or I would have gone past my calories for the day. I'm under now for a few weeks.
I watched John Balusi in "the Best of Saturday Night Live" and saw not only what a genius he was but how much his talent relied on his suffering. I heard a wonderful talk today by Brother ChiSi about, among other things, the wisdom that can be derived from suffering.
I'm spending more time than a day now on each painting... will have another done tomorrow. I'm disappointed that people rather comment on Facebook about Joan Lipkin's and my new blog on the State of Marriage. Maybe Facebook is the new blog. What's next?
Reflections on Talks on Buddha's Lists
During a recent Appamada Intensive our students gave talks on Buddha's lists. Here are my reflections on their talks.
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Rhinoceros Fan (an infamous koan) One day Yanguan called to his attendant, "Bring me the rhinoceros fan." The attendant said, ...
2 comments:
I think FB makes it quick to see multiple posts with less click an load time, one login, etc.
I am thinking of quitting the blogging and just put portfolios on my site / FB, spending my time with the images and not thinking about generating thoughts, ideas, or remarks from the community.
It would be nice if others understood what we desire and helped us become better artist/communicators.
In a sense, it is a perfect system where many compete for other's time. In school, we (as both teachers and students) look at other's work because that's our job. In out-of-school we ration our time and give it to those things most likely to feed us. So in the end, that forces us to either provide good food, or to not be looked at.
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