There’s a Certain Kind of Buddhist . . .
. . . utterly bereft of a sense of humor. (See the comment thread to this entry about Sarah Palin at the Tricycle Editor’s Blog.) What a bunch of sanctimonious nitwits!
Two Little Zen Books
So I’ve been studying Buddhism over the last year or so, after merely paying attention to it in my peripheral vision for the last decade. For me, that means books, of which I have accumulated a shelf full. I’ve discovered an entire universe of discourse & have only just begun to have a vague map [...]
The Doctrine of Impermanence
Found this at Tricycle Magazine. Check out the comment there from “Bill,” who, whatever kind of Buddhist he is, is severely irony-impaired. Bill hangs around the Tricycle blog as the resident scold & reminds me of the fundamentalist Christians among whom I grew up. Of course, I earn no merit from saying so, which probably [...]
New York Walkabout, Day 2
I better post this before it fades from memory. I would have gotten to it last week, but I have been chairing a search committee in my department and that has required a lot of time and attention (and which, to speak honestly, has been a terrific emotional drain). Anyway, NYC seems like a long [...]
NYC Walkabout, Day One
Left the hotel early on Friday morning and walked slowly uptown, got a coffee at one of the two million Starbucks along Broadway, and went to sit in Union Square for awhile watching dogs and people, mostly dogs. Bright, cool morning & everyone — canine & human — looked frisky. Went to the Strand and [...]
Focusing, Or Trying to Teach an Old Dog . . .
One of the nice things about being an academic with tenure is that I have big blocks of time that I can use however I want, but that’s — for me, anyway — also a problem. I tend to fritter away time when I don’t have structures and deadlines. I get the most done when [...]
Happiness
The old Buddhist masters I’ve been reading — Dogen and Foyan in particular — must have been crusty old bastards. They certainly did some hard traveling in the Woody Guthrie way, traveling back and forth from Japan to China, which is where the greatest Zen teachers lived. (Maybe that should be Way.) When a junior [...]
Meditation Note
My head is a house With a hundred billion hipsters Snapping their fingers To bad jazz
Observation
Sitting in LAX waiting for the redeye to JFK. I haven’t experienced any delays because of increased security. Hanoi’s Noibai Airport was not crowded today and everything worked smoothly; Taipei was no problem, either, though they were doing random searches after clearing the gate and before getting on the plane. And LAX was all right, too, [...]
Red Pine’s Translations of Masters Bodhidharma & Stonehouse
Some of my friends know that I’ve been reading a lot about Buddhism and trying to meditate* daily. There is a whole universe of texts and practices out there, of course, and I have just begun to navigate around a few of the edges. For someone like me, who has had a life-long beef with [...]
