Pardon my Bloopers

Mistakes

Big deal or little deal?

 

An Old Tree

The Appropriate Response

 

Sounds of Silence

 

Plato's Cave Allegory

 

Look Ma, No Tears

 

A Flower

 

Folow Me (not)!

 

Mr. and Mrs. To-Be Kim

 

Bump on a Log

 

Prison, Moses, and Buddha

 

Who Do You Pick?

 

Ultimate Training

 

Another Version

 

Equanimity

 

The Creative Process

 

The Smile

 

Impermanence

 

“Disturbance comes only from within our own perceptions.” Marcus Aurelius

 

Whoa!

I make so many assumptions. If another monk instead of Kashyapa had smiled, would he have become Buddha’s successor? If Kashyapa had done something besides a faint smile would he still have become Buddha’s successor? I’ve heard that there is a book that explains all the koans. Yet, I’ve been also told that if you gave the “answer” to a teacher they would know that you didn’t get it yet. It seems the way I contend with situations is by making a vast array of assumptions. Suppose I add nothing to what I know: that Buddha picked up a flower and that Kashyapa smiled. Because these events were sequential I believe one caused the other. Even that may be a story. Whoa!

Small Odds

 

Truth and Fiction

 

Chosen?

 

Sympathetic Joy vs. Jealousy

 

Flower

 

80,000 Monks

 

Bike Story

65 years ago my bike tire got caught in a crack in the middle of the paved alley in Chicago. I came home with skinned knees. My mom explained that the reason for my accident was because I wanted attention since all the attention had been on my cousin Noel who died in an accident 6 months earlier. How is it that we look at what happened and are confused until we make up a story like my mom always did? Is it ever so simple as the story suggests? Buddha holds up a flower and Kashyapa smiles. Usually when one is giving a talk to 80000 monks they would say something. When there are no words, one makes up a story. Our minds resist resting in not knowing, so we come up with one explanation after another. But is anything that simple? Is it possible to really know? Freud believed that there was a method to our madness. I wonder if his method came from an insecurity he had with not knowing. But that’s my story.

Did the flower smile? (blog.kimmosley.com)

What do you say when there is nothing to say. A tragedy strikes your friend when her loved one passes on. Whatever you want to say won’t bring them back and won’t comfort. And yet if you say nothing you worry that they’ll think you didn’t care. You bring them a flower. Your eyes meet. Then they glance at the flower and you discern a faint smile. Did they smile at the flower? Or was it a smile at your gesture? Or was it simply a smile at the connection? Did Kashyapa really smile at the flower? The flower didn’t need a smile. But your friend did. Perhaps the smile was a meta smile, from millions of miles away, a smile recognizing what would take more words than the sands of the Ganges to express.