Neither Funny Nor Interesting

Bug Box

Be kind to bugs. Our life depends on them.

Suffering Begins at Birth

See: http://tinyurl.com/297p6u
for more explanation.

Ye Ol' Barber Shop

I love listening to the conversations
at the barber shop. I should pay extra
for that.
The older barber is a great listener.
Each customer is his favorite,
and he seems sincerely interested
in what they are going to do for Easter.

The other barber is off fishing,
or golfing, no matter who is
sitting in his chair. Maybe next
time I'll draw him.

Descartes

So the Buddhist said Descartes
had it backwards,
"I am therefore I think."
And another said I was wrong
saying "I am not me" because
asserting "I" is really
saying "I am me."

So I asked what do I say,
without much hope that
I'd figure it out by midnight.

"There is me," he said.
I thought of the little prince,
looking at himself, standing on the Earth,
and at the rest of everything,
all twirling around and around
and around.

Non-Thinking Again

I asked the abbot about
non-thinking yesterday
and found that it was a
desired state, where
we experience
rather than conceptualize.

I then asked if non-self
was related to non-thinking
and he said no. But the
more he talked, the more
I realized that "self"
was the illusion of our
though rather than what
we experience.

I am "me" is only true
because I create
that as myself.
That identification
sometimes functions
as a shield to protect
me from getting
to really know how I feel
as I interact with our world.

Around and Around Again

He was driving in circles,
around and around,
slowly,
day by day,
year by year,
as the landscape changed
by the light and seasons
and as the world spun and rotated
around its mother Sun.

He was getting somewhere,
then nowhere, not realizing
that the trip was only back
from whence he had come—
over and over again.

His mind was not on the road
but rather on the gluttonous
breakfast he had, and how
it refused to find its way
past the middle of his stomach.

As his car jumped over a deep pothole
he was jarred into consciousness
and wondered if the surroundings
were slightly familiar
or just a figment of his imagination.

And then his stomach growled once more
as he left the road once again
to travel
in his mind, around and around,
again.