September 3, 2010 11:45 am

Politics, Sex, Commercialism, Education

by arniejosephbell

the scream

”Though they become our sworn enemies, reviling and persecuting us, we should regard them as bodhisattva manifestations who, in their great compassion, are employing skillful means to help emancipate us from the sinful karma we have produced over countless kalpas through our biased, self-centered views.” Torei Zenji (second entry, down the page a bit, under other sutras)

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I’m cutting my latest loaf of sourdough this morning, and I think it is too wet and heavy. My partner again states that she really likes my bread because it is good for the sandwiches that she takes to work. She says the tomatoes don’t make the bread soggy. All well and good, but what am I doing worrying about making the perfect loaf (a delusional goal) when all around the world most people have a hard time finding enough to eat? I live like the kings of old were accustomed to living, in terms of creature comfort, not in terms of life and death over others. At least not that I’m aware of, or am I?

I was in at the swimming pool a couple of days ago and a fellow in the change room was musing about how it would be nice if the pool bought a heat-less spin dryer to dry the swimming suits. I pointed out that we were going to have to do it the old-fashioned way and dry the suits on a line. He pointed out that the ‘Y’ had a spin dryer. “Maybe the pool management is saving the cost of the electricity and the machine?” I suggested. And then he made what I thought was a nonsequitur. “Somebody pays,” he said. I offered,”Taxes.” He came back with, “Even people in the third world pay for us. They send us all their stuff.” He suggested I look up The Story of Stuff, which I pass on to you in the spirit of dancing lessons from god, or being aware of what is really going on in terms of commercialism and economy.

On many Buddhist themed blogs lately I have been reading various musings, some tortured, some determined, all reflecting on the sorry state of the world today. Topics range from poverty, sex, politics, commercialism to war. The eternal human stuff. Well, if I am going to write yet one more blog about zen, what is my stand on these topics? I started musing about what I thought about politics, although the topic, politics, stands in for all the other topics as a test case.

Lessons learned from Nathan’s blog and Peter’s blog. Nathan writes from a zen perspective, often wondering how things in the world look when subjected to a certain amount of introspection and analysis. Peter directly points to common concerns and often asks how certain difficult topics affect your life, how zen practice affects your perception of the world. Or at least this is sort of what I take from the two of them.

What does Buddhism tell us about the world? This is territory for the Four Noble Truths.

Looking at all the world’s problems from the perspective of the 4NTs

If all is suffering then all the worlds peoples are suffering. What causes suffering? Suffering is the result of having desire, but desire results from having an incorrect or incomplete view of reality. In short (in terms of Buddhism), suffering is the state of not being enlightened. If the great majority of the world’s peoples are short of enlightened then their pursuits, for the most part, can be nothing other than an engagement with and a further perpetration of suffering. When suffering is caused by misapprehension of self and the world, we have to ask what is the major error in perception. It seems to me that the major error is a person’s idea of self. The old zen saw: the problem of the ego. Suffering people often feel that they are more important than other suffering people, that their suffering is somehow more important or significant than other peoples’ suffering. Politics is often called the art of the possible, but it is really the art of one suffering person tying to get advantage over other suffering people. Yes, compromises do happen, but few people are ever satisfied with a compromise. Compromise rarely (like never) stops the suffering.

What is the enlightened person supposed to do? Or more realistically, what can anyone who is writing about zen do about politics when confronted with the solipsism of suffering? Suffering is a real thing. It is everywhere. As zen nuts we vow to alleviate it. Should we get involved with politics if politics does not really relieve suffering? That depends.

So what am I doing writing this blog? I am trying to look at the world from a zen perspective. Trying to be aware of what really is going on. What is really going on in politics is that people try to thrash out some workable compromise. But how can a compromise work unless it makes deluded suffering peoples stop blaming each other for their suffering? If we want to engage in politics we need to point out that what is good for one is what is exactly good for another and that unless the good becomes general, suffering ensues. Supposed enemies are not really enemies in the long run. They are merely suffering people who have the misguided idea that someone else is causing their suffering. Oh, yes, someone might shoot you. But the reason they do so is because they are suffering and have mistakenly blamed you for it. The only way to stop someone or their brother or sister or friend from shooting you in the future is to help them alleviate their suffering. To try to subject your enemies to suffering is no solution at all. The proof of this pudding is that we have an endless history of people blaming each other for their suffering and going to war to put and end to the situation and yet we still have suffering and war. All attempted solutions have so far not worked.

Politics to a zen nut has to be an attempt to educate people about the nature of suffering, and it cannot be making accusatory or judgemental statements, or trying to get the advantage over another. Zen does not cast blame. The “beam in your own eye” is the blame you (I) give others for your suffering.

This is a hard lesson, especially when someone is coming over the hill with guns intent on killing you. How does one have compassion for the person who is causing you pain? The only reason they are causing you pain is because they blame you for causing them pain. This situation is the universal suffering circle from hell.

I have absolutely no idea how to go about educating the world. All I can do is argue that the first step in ending suffering is to stop blaming others for your (mine, our) disease of suffering. Have compassion for the (metaphorical) suicide bomber who sees his/her life as so awful that the only way they can stop their suffering is to cause others to suffer. How to make their life one of less suffering? What do you think?


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10:37 am

Who’s in charge here?

by Dalai Grandma
Yesterday I wrote about the conflict between Miss Shud, our judgemental self, and Mimi-Mi, our impulsive self.  There's more to this story, I thought this morning.

Have you ever found yourself frustrated with someone, oh, a mean guy at the post office counter, a woman at the X-ray department who tells you you can't have your own X-rays?  Okay, they are doing Shud like they think they're supposed to, and Mimi-Mi can't get her wants satisfied.  What do you do?  You say, "I'd like to speak to the manager."

Here he comes.  He is a nice middle-aged man, going bald, a bit overweight, with a humble air and the somewhat harried look of someone who is in charge of a bunch of people who don't want anyone to tell them what to do. "How can I help you?" he asks, pleasantly, I hope.

But then there are things he explains he can't do.  It's our policy, he says, obviously believing that's the final answer. Policy.  What now?  In the real (illusory) world it may be time to go home and get on the internet and find out the name and address of the CEO.  In our imagined world you want to get in touch with the Big Guy.

Long ago I met a really nice CEO named Gary, who was in charge of a reasonably large, successful corporation.  It surprised me that he himself was not large, about 5'8, with an appropriately slender build and a quiet presence.  Unremarkable dark hair, handsome in a quiet way.  He was relaxed and polite, though my boss, who was writing his company's history, was embarrassing me deeply with his sycophancy. (I quit that job not much later.)

I have the kind of life that doesn't put you around too many other important people, though I've been around plenty who thought they were. Still, I remember a kind woman who was my department head and went on to be the first female president of more than one college.  A dean who moved on become a Vice President.  Some fine ministers and Teachers.  They were characteristically quiet people who gave you their full attention and spoke to the point.  As CEO's they were people who had the detachment to see the big picture.

This morning I added these two types to my constellation.  Say the Manager is a negotiator who can step inbetween Miss Shud and Mimi-Mi when they really get to brawling.  Maybe you think of him as your will power or discipline, or thinking things through.  His ideas are different than the concepts Miss Shud so freely dispenses, often with disapproval; her ideas are pretty much inherited from your parents or expressing the cultural imperatives, not really yours.  They're different than the Want/Don't Want! of Mimi-Mi, and her automatic resistance against Miss Shud.  The Manager's ideas are logical, and take reference back to your priorities.

Ah yes, but he can't solve everything, or sometimes anything.  That's when you need to get in touch with The CEO - the one who's really in charge, above all the principles and precepts, above small You.  Maybe you'd prefer to think of this One as feminine, or de-gender the image and think of The Tao, or karma, or Big Mind, or God. 

How do you get in touch with this One?  Right here I am tempted to tell you what I do, but I have to go exercise right now.  So I'll leave you with the question for now.
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10:36 am

what do you want done with your body?

by daishin

You know me by now, this is not some morbid obsession. As I continue to investigate the matter of death and dying, the topic of dead bodies (corpses, cadavers) has come up. Customarily, we talk about burial or interment (if we talk about it at all). Do I want my body to be cremated or buried. If buried, where and how. If cremated, where shall the ashes go: cast off the back of the ferry, near a favourite spot in the woods, in the backyard, or placed in an urn to sit one someone’s bookshelf? Have you decided, made arrangements, and/or told people who can ensure your wishes are followed?

For some time, I’ve had a vague notion that my remains be cremated and ashes sent to the monastery for interment. There’s mention of this in my will but that document may not be opened in time. Information needs to be readily available immediately after death, especially, as is my case, when there’s no immediate family to look after things.

I’ve already registered to be an organ/tissue donor so that health care providers can access a confidential data bank for my consent. Eyes need to be harvested within hours of death, other parts soon after that. But what of the rest? In conversation with a nurse friend I was reminded that medical schools use dead bodies for the purpose of anatomical study and medical research. Regulations differ from place to place – where I live the University of British Columbia will take the remains of anyone over 30 years of age, with some restrictions to do with infectious diseases, extreme trauma, and suicide. The bodies have to be intact; this means no major organs can be taken for transplants with the exception of corneal transplants.

I now have to find a way to restrict my organ donation to “eyes only” and sign a separate consent form with the university. This way every part will find a use in the education of future nurses, dentists, physicians, and scientists. Perhaps a skeleton made of my bones will some day hang in someone’s closet. Unused bit and pieces will eventually (six months to three years after receipt) be cremated “with the dignity and respect” and ashes returned to the executor of the estate.

All this feels right as my vow “to be of service” will continue to benefit others beyond my death. Meanwhile, may this brief essay help you weigh become informed and communicate your wishes to others. Regulations differ regionally and in accordance with religious and cultural customs. To register for organ donation, go to www.transplant.bc.ca; to learn about the body donor program to www.cellphy.ubc/bodyprogram.html.

image: http://blog.bioethics.net/2010/04/


Filed under: being of service, conscious living, dying Tagged: ashes, burial, cadaver, cemetary, cremation, dead bodies, last will, medical research, organ donation, remains, transplants
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9:15 am

Shobogenzo Zazenshin IV: Aiming Wide.

by Harry

Next, Master Dogen discusses Kōzei's response as to what he is doing from the famous 'tile polishing' koan:

[11] Kōzei says, “Aiming to become buddha.” We should clarify and master these words. When he says “becoming buddha” just what does he mean? Does “becoming buddha” describe becoming buddha being done by a buddha? Does “becoming buddha” describe becoming buddha being done to a buddha? Does “becoming buddha” describe the manifestation of one instance and the manifestation of two instances of “buddha”? Is “aiming to become buddha,” being the dropping off [of body and mind], “aiming to become buddha” as dropping off? Does “aiming to become buddha” describe that even though “becoming buddha” is of myriad kinds, it continues to be entangled with this “aiming”?

It might be tempting to discount Kōzei's answer as simplistic and idealistic (i.e. based on the effort to become some idealised 'buddha'), but Master Dogen encourages to look at it more closely than this. Again the theme of clarifying effort, and the right sort of effort, comes forth here. As noted by Nishijima/Cross, the last line of questioning suggests that the nature of the 'aiming' that Dogen is indicating is complicated: Practicing being without intention and goal is itself a very real and tangible type of effort that we can realise with our own being, it's a sort of 'aiming'.

Remember, the words of Daijaku are that to sit in zazen is, in every case, “aiming to become buddha.” To sit in zazen is, in every case, “becoming buddha” as “aiming.”

This clearly expresses Master Dogen's value on zazen as its being an expression of the state of buddha. The practice ('aiming') is itself the becoming of the non-goal.

The “aiming” may be before the “becoming buddha,” may be after the “becoming buddha,” and may be just the very moment of “becoming buddha.”

This indicates that the effort, or 'aiming', and the 'becoming buddha' do not necessarily occur at the same time. Noticing the effect of sitting zazen may happen before or after the event. This recalls Dogen's point that although we become realised in zazen we might not necessarily recognise the fact at that time.

Let us ask for a while: How many instances of “becoming buddha” does one such instance of “aiming” entangle? This entanglement is further entwining with entanglement. At this time, all cases of entanglement—as totally “becoming buddha” in separate instances, and as totally “becoming buddha” always being exactly itself— are individual instances of “aiming.”

Master Dogen indicates the complicated relationship between our own efforts in practice and its manifest results in our life. He presents both single instances of totally 'becoming buddha', and totally 'becoming buddha' as an on-going reality, as instances of our own effort/ 'aiming' in practice-conduct.

We cannot flee from a single instance of “aiming.” At a time when we flee from a single instance of “aiming,” we lose body and life. [But even] the time when we lose body and life is an instance of entanglement as “aiming.”

A moment of practice is a moment of real effort that, unlike daydreaming or talking idle poop, is not a type of zoned-out 'escape'. Even so, a moment of such habitual activity, when we notice that we're doing it in zazen, say, is an essential element of our 'aiming'.

Regards,
Harry.

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9:00 am

Update on Lynne Twist

by Mumon
Regarding Lynne Twist of "Soul of Money," as Duff pointed out in the comments on the post below, she has apparently been involved in the questionable "Hunger Project."  Rick Ross reproduced the original Mother Jones article on the Hunger Project. (Mother Jones has part of the article here.)

The Hunger Project is technically a separate legal entity, but in fact it functions as a recruitment arm for est. The experience of Hunger Project volunteers confirms this. From the moment she first went to the Project's offices in San Francisco as a volunteer, reported Lori Lieberman of the Center for Investigative Reporting, members of the Project staff concentrated on recruiting her to est. "I was greeted by Tracy Apple [a local Hunger Project staff and est graduate]," she recounts, "who immediately asked me whether or not I had undergone the est training. When I said I had not, she reassured me that that was okay, but that it 'would be easier for you to work around the office if you do take the training because we use a different language and different ways of communicating around esties.' Pressure to take the est training continued throughout my five-hour stay. I discovered only one other person among the 20 or 30 people that I encountered to be a non-est graduate. She was an office worker. And as I was sitting in the bathroom, I heard two other women office workers harassing her because she had worked at the Hunger Project for a month and still refused to take the training. They said she was 'uncooperative, closed-minded and had a narrow perspective.' I was later asked to provide my car to chauffeur some out-of-town est officials around the city several days later.
"I was also struck," Lieberman adds, "by the emphasis on Werner Erhard. Everything was 'Werner says.' When I expressed confusion to someone about the way the Xerox machine worked, she explained that I 'really ought to study this machine because Werner says we all ought to get clear about how machinery works so that it doesn't control us.' "
Another Center for Investigative Reporting staffer volunteering at the Hunger Project described a similar experience. The effort to pressure him into taking the est training, says Dan Noyes, was as important as Hunger Project business: "When asked Tracy Apple if est was important, she said 'I personally recommend it, but it's not essential. It will help you understand the Hunger Project and the man who created it. T's the greatest thing that ever happened to me.' Although she was careful to say that est was not essential to the Hunger Project, she then proceeded to pressure me to sign up for the two-weekend seminar, saying it cost $300. She asked me when I had a free weekend and sat down to call and find out when the dates of the next Bay Area sessions were. I said I would think about it.
"The next time I came in, I saw Tracy Apple. After saying hello, the first thing she asked was 'Have you decided about your training yet?' She told me that I had to have the $300 enrollment fee by the next day. She called to arrange for me to go down and enroll. When I went to a special est guest seminar the next week, I was surprised to see that it began jointly with a Hunger Project seminar. My general impression was that there was no difference between the two." Hunger Project staffers expended so much energy trying to get Noyes to join est that they neglected to collect his Hunger Project enrollment card or to convince him to contribute time or money to the Project.
Such pressure in recruiting new est members comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with the organization. Est has monthly enrollment quotas and staffers are put under enormous pressure to fill them. "Werner once put out a list of ways to recruit people to est," explains one disillusioned former est staffer. "You would not believe the lengths staffers were asked to go to get people in the training. F someone called est by mistake, you know, a wrong number, you were supposed to not hang up but to try to recruit him. You were supposed to recruit your lover, your mate, your friends, your family, the milkman or paper boy. It was incredible." According to another former staff member, Werner explained the purpose of the Hunger Project as that of increasing enrollments in the est training. 


It takes quite an penchant for indifferent to one's fellow human beings to exploit hunger for one's own ends. Speaking of that, go now and read the NY Times magazine article on Plumpy'nut.


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6:59 am

My Lovely Fetter and Building Buddhas

by John
Crossposted over at Dharma Mouth Punch but worth reposting over here….

The ten fetters that bind the us to the world are (1) self-identity views, (2) uncertainty/skeptism, (3) the concious and unconcious clinging to habits & practices, (4) sensual passion, (5) irritation, (6) attachmen to form, (7) attachment to formlessness, (8) conceit, (9) restlessness, & (10) ignorance.

Oh, my lovely, lovely fetters.

We look into so many spiritual recipes to remove our fetters.  Some passed down from generation to generation and some new fusions containing different styles and cultures but they all try to explain and delineate the same thing ~ How many?  How many retreats to I need to go on to remove them?  How many minutes sitting in zazen will do?  How many blogs, Dharma talks or sesshins?  How many masters?  How. Many. Moments.

Every moment is a personal recipe.  It isn’t complex and doesn’t need to be.  The only ingredient of interest is action.  Taking one moment in meditation or mindfulness is the only quantity on which you need to focus.  One moment spent in compassion rather than judgment.

When Master Ikkyu was asked what the most profound teaching of Zen was he replied “Attention.”  When asked for more elaboration and commentary on that teaching he replied “Attention.  Attention.  Attention.  What else is there?”  The questioner grew angrier and asked “Well what is attention anyway?”

“Attention is attention” was Ikkyu’s profound, quiet reply.

A friend mentioned that the endearment I use to describe my daughter “Samsara-toddler” would be better described, in Buddhist terms, as “Fetter.”  My lovely little fetter.  This struck a strong chord as I have felt uncertain and fearful that my practice was faltering due to increased duties at work and at hime.  In reality, it is just my own clinging to outdated modes and ideas of practice (insisting on silent moment for meditation or more free time) that was holding me back ~ not my familial obligations.  Grasping at the past is a fetter and shows an ignorance of or (at very least) a lack of internalization of impermenance.  The life of a householder does not limit practice but allows my practice to change and evolve.  I can either stop practicing altogether or I can adapt my practice to the moment.  I can ignore the fire or allow it to temper this practice. Strengthen it.  Create resolve.

Attention is attention.

My lovely Fetter.

I got up early this morning to practice yoga and sit zazen until I needed to get ready for work.  While beginning my first few stretches my two-year-old walked in and asked for breakfast.  My first reaction was “There goes that. No meditation. No practice this morning.”  But it didn’t feel quite right so I prepared her breakfast and then set myself up for zazen and sat.  While a TV was blaring on one side and a (now fully awake and active) toddler on the other, I sat in zazen for 15 minutes.  The actions and noises and responsibilities were each noticed, addressed and then allowed to move on while I sat under my own personal, domestic waterfall of householder duties and distractions.

There is very little interest in inculcating Buddhist dogma into my child. But for the values that I find dear, I must create a bridge that does not exist here—a bridge to the understanding of Buddhism without ever being Buddhist. Values and concentration without dogma and secterianism.  For a child to see a practice develop is the best way to impart these morals.  To see a calm mind and compassionate actions are the flesh and bones of a little Buddha.  Stories and holidays, retreats and sesshins will create Buddhists but experiences, insights, and concentration will build Buddhas. 

Zen is experiential and the direct experience of a child seeing compassionate action, contemplation and openess in their daily lives will, with care and tenderness, build Buddhas. 

My lovely Buddha.


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6:54 am

Suicide is Painless: Or, Cain’s Question

by James



A few days ago I received a note from a friend about a friend of hers who is dealing with chronic pain and wanted my view on suicide, and whether it is a sin.

I said that sin is not really a term of art within Unitarian Universalism, nor, particularly, in Buddhism.

Of course the question begs a definition of sin that does not include offense against a deity. The Wikipedia article on sin gives a pretty good working examination of sin from a Buddhist perspective.

Buddhist ethics is consequentialist in nature and is not based upon duty towards any deities. It is founded upon compassion for all sentient beings and upon the duty to cause their happiness and to prevent their suffering. The well-being of all sentient beings is seen as an end-in-itself and not a means towards any transcendent end. Buddhist ethics therefore closely corresponds to secular ethics and there is no Buddhist equivalent of the Abrahamic concept of sin.[1] Buddhism recognizes a natural principle of Karma whereby widespread suffering is the inevitable consequence of greed, hatred and delusion. Buddhism therefore seeks to end suffering by replacing greed with selflessness, hatred with compassion and delusion with wisdom.

I would argue a bit with Wikipedia's definition of consequentialist as it regards to a Buddhist understanding, as true but not sufficient.

At least within my understanding of Zen which is also my understanding of Unitarian Universalism (I suspect much could be played out from that, but some other time...) is that the action, whatever it is, is also the consequence, in addition to the various consequences that also follow the moment. We are and we are becoming. And, we are deeply, deeply interconnected. More on that in a moment.


Additionally I've come to see our intentions have a significant place within this whole thing. In that sense, what we think - we are.

Okay.

So, then to suicide.

Today would be my brother's sixty-first birthday. Except in 1997 he blew most of his head off with a high powered rifle. That year my son also committed suicide. And, a few months after both of their deaths my mother died.

These words sit so quietly on the page, or screen.

I wish they were not so compliant, so still. But as limited as what they convey, they'll have to do...

And that brings us back to that simple assertion a bit earlier, how we are deeply, deeply interconnected.

Also this past week a friend wanted to engage in a conversation about ego, focusing on whether it is just as delusionary to cling to a group ego as it is to one's own ego. There were deeper questions of personal concern hidden within that question.

Of course.

Where these events all come together is within our experience of self.

Who am I?

And, out of that, Cain's question.

Our conventional sense of self is as an isolated being whose outer boundaries extending somewhere in the general vicinity of the skin.

In some ways its an undeniable truth. The "I" is a byproduct of brain function and is responsible for the the safety and continuance of that collection of stuff that more or less extends to the skin.

But, we probe the matter a bit further and we see how much we in our simply physical, if simple can ever be used for physicality, reality, our actual boundaries are pretty vague, our senses themselves are very much part of that I and extend quite a distance past the skin, and we are connected through genes to all other life forms, some much, much more closely than others, and chemically vastly beyond that.

But there's the stuff that presents in the mind, as well.

And what makes me.

I am profoundly marked by my brother's death.

I am profoundly marked by my son's death.

I am profoundly marked by my mother's death.

In 1997 the constantly shifting being that calls itself "me" took some big hits and experienced some major shifts and while always becoming new, became something considerably different than before those three events.

So, suicide.

It all is situational. There are, to my mind, obvious reasons why one might choose to commit suicide. Unbearable pain is a pretty good one.

And whatever the choice there will be consequences.

And we don't really know who will be marked by such an act.

Or, what will be the shape of that change...

No idea...


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5:51 am

driver’s license

by genkaku
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My younger son got his driver's license yesterday.

The result was that there were a hundred places he needed to go -- shopping at WalMart, blowing up the tires, picking up milk for dinner, putting gas in the tank ... all told, I wouldn't be surprised if he put 75 miles on my car.

And each outing was followed by a blow-by-blow description of the experience. Connecticut drivers were the pits ... and he had an example to prove it. The gas pump didn't seem to work, so he went back into the convenience store to get the clerk to reset the mechanism.

He was a peacock and I was enjoying it.

Who doesn't like to be a peacock from time to time?

If he wants to drive me around, that's more than OK with me as well.

Who doesn't want a chauffeur from time to time?
.

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5:50 am

compassion

by genkaku
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One of the things I suspect about serious spiritual life is this:

A realized man or woman is by nature compassionate. This compassion is not the stuff that self-help books refer to -- a kind of super-duper altruism that contrasts so nicely with the rough-and-tumble and sometimes horrific ways of the world. It is not something to praise.

Rather, I suspect, a realized man or woman simply has no other choice. Things cannot be correctly understood or enacted without compassion and this has fuck-all to do with virtue. There simply is no other choice.

It can't be helped.

Outsiders may judge those deemed 'realized' by the fact that they simply cannot act out egotistical formats. They can not. If they can, that's not realized...it's just another greedy, sex-crazed, ignorant nitwit like the rest of us. Such nitwits may praise compassion or tie it in self-serving knots or Jesuitical explanations, but compassion is not a choice or a possession in the world of realization.

It can't be helped ... that's all.

Or that's my hunch.
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5:08 am

waking up

by genkaku
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2 a.m. seems to be the time to wake up lately. Not yet near enough to dawn to consider getting out of bed and yet difficult to find that cliff we all drop off when finding actual sleep.

Maybe it's needing to take a piss, though that hasn't really pushed my buttons. Or maybe it's the fact that I am yet another voodoo doll for doctors and pharmacological money-makers to stick their bottled pins into.

Whatever it is, 2 a.m. seems to be about the time to wake up and think thoughts that pass the time without any particular excitement ... the relative merits of baloney and liverwurst; a B movie I enjoyed; and then a night or two ago was a longish segment it's hard to describe:

Whatever thought I thought, in the moment when the thought was through, another thought would come along posing exactly the opposite of what had preceded it. What was ugly became beautiful; what was tall became short; what was simple became complex and vice versa. The opposites came along naturally on the heels of whatever initial proposition there had been. It was all smooth as water connected to wave.

And the interesting part was not so much this rag-tag army of odds-and-ends thoughts, but the fact that any aspect had precisely the same importance as the one preceding it. I seemed incapable of elevating one thing over another. It wasn't frightening or delightful or freighted with "Buddhism" ... it was just what happened, over and over again. No particular emotion, but not lacking emotion either. It's odd to write, but it wasn't odd at the time ... more quasi-boring, as if someone were saying "d'oh!" and you agreed with them.

All things considered, I'd rather sleep from 2 to 4 or 5, but that simply hasn't been in the cards lately.
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