Random Dharma

I've read The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, but after I got interested in Zen I also started to read The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (' loosely based on the burning of the Reliquary (or Golden Pavilion) of Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto by a young Buddhist acolyte in 1950') but I didn't get through it...

what do you have to say about it? I haven't read any of his works, I was just looking at quotes out of curiosity

The narrator, remembering when he was seven, in Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at The End of the Lane" says:

I wondered, as I wondered so often when I was that age, who I was, and what exactly was looking at the face in the mirror. If the face I was looking at wasn't me, and I knew it wasn't, because I would still be me whatever happened to my face, then what was me? And what was watching?

I've had a couple people tell me they had experiences growing up where they were looking in the mirror for extended periods of time and all of a sudden it seemed like the image looking back at them was looking back at them, as if it was intelligent. and I also remember seeing a DhO post once about a Shingon technique involving gazing into your reflection in a mirror until the image does neat no-self stuff

Curious! I'm gonna go try it

My grandparents had a mirrored coffee-table when I was a mere sprout. I remember getting lost looking into it, that "through the looking-glass" sense of disorientation. And mirrors have always been a Big Clue, and a mystery, to me. I'll be interested in what you discover.

Kate Gowen wrote: And mirrors have always been a Big Clue, and a mystery, to me.

I've been thinking that recently too! I guess they've been an important teaching device, e.g. in Buddhism as a metaphor, for sure (though historically I don't know when they started getting reliable mirrors - certainly by the Chan period) and Sailor Bob, though his house was a fairly straightforward little apartment not like a 'guru' space or anything, had a big mirror on the wall which reflected his teaching room which he also used tot each with. Whoever's doing the Alice hangout, we can discuss Through The Looking Glass..

Jerry Seinfeld:

your blessing in life is when you find the torture you’re comfortable with.

I enjoy the "Takeshi Kovacs" novels by Richard Morgan - "Altered Carbon" and so on - dystopian sci-fi with a "noir" aesthetic.

Part of the "scenery" of those books is a figure called "Quellcrist Falconer" - a social revolutionary from the main character's home planet's past. Quotes from her written works are sprinkled throughout the text. Here are some good ones:

If you want to lose a fight, talk about it first.

Hold true for practice, too.

In any agenda, political or otherwise, there is a cost to be borne. Always ask what it is, and who will be paying. If you don't, then the agenda-makers will pick up the perfume of your silence like swamp panthers on the scent of blood, and the next thing you know, the person expected to bear the cost will be you. And you may not have what it takes to pay.

"Swamp panthers" are part of the scenery, very fierce predators.

The difference between virtuality and life is very simple. In a construct you know everything is being run by an all-powerful machine. Reality doesn't offer this assurance, so it's very easy to develop the mistaken impression that you're in control.

They have virtual reality - "constructs" - in these stories.

Face the facts. Then act on them. It's the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it's harder than you'd think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but. Face the facts. Don't pray, don't wish, don't buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don't give in to your conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of... whatever. FACE THE FACTS. THEN act.

Of course, I've found that consulting (and ultimately tossing) the centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric is part of the process which leads to facing the facts. Good to keep the goal in mind at all times, because it's a yardstick the ancient dogma and dead rhetoric has to measure up to - the goal is part of the process, too.

Cheers,
Florian

Radio Lab show titled " Bliss ". Broken up into 3 parts. Great show. The 3rd part of the program is perhaps most relevant, mostly discussing A&P type awakenings and psylocybin. The opening of the Norwegian dude finding his last cache on a trip to the south pole is great.

Not really 'Random Dharma' but really funny: www.highexistence.com/meditation-how-it-really-is-a-comic/

"Does a dog have buddha nature"?

That is hilarious and adorable! Where on earth did you get it?

From another one of those rather tiresome 'Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy' pieces, though it's not too bad as far as that genre goes, on Patheos...

www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2...n-or-philosophy.html

"Why we post..."

You will search, babe,
At any cost.
But how long, babe,
Can you search for what's not lost?
Evrybody will help you,
Some people are very kind.
But if I can save you any time,
Come on, give it to me,
I'll keep it with mine.

I can't help it
If you might think I'm odd,
If I say I'm not loving you for what you are
But for what you're not.
Everybody will help you
Discover what you set out to find.
But if I can save you any time,
Come on, give it to me,
I'll keep it with mine.

The train leaves
At half past ten,
But it'll be back tomorrow,
Same time again.
The conductor he's weary,
He's still stuck on the line.
But if I can save you any time,
Come on, give it to me,
I'll keep it with mine.

I love the Nico version of this song (and am a huge Nico fan generally):



Also, Tiny Tim's 'then I'll Be Satisfied With Life,' on which she features, also has a lot of dharma in it:

"All I want is wheatgerm for my breakfast
A Champagne fountain sizzling at my feet
While Rockefeller waited on the table
And a barrel's band playin' while I eat.
If I only owned Western Union cable
And if Tuesday Weld would only be my wife (Tiny, I love you!)
if I could only stay sixteen forever and ever and ever
Then I'd know that I'd be satisfied with life."

The sound of the hammer on the wedges is beautiful. Really neat to see this:

Now I know what I want to do for a living!

When I'm indulging in fun rock/pop music, I don't require or expect intelligent lyrics.
So this bit of insight into Dukkha was a surprise:

It's unfortunate that when we feel a storm
We can roll ourselves over 'cause we're uncomfortable
Oh well, the devil makes us sin
But we like it when we're spinning in his grip

-- Paradise Circus by Hope Sandoval and Massive Attack

I love songs about the

Mazzy Star have a new album out, too - it's pretty damn good.

"The few problems that I see is that humanity is so fixated on making sure everything has only one true definition that they don’t stop to realize that maybe there is no such thing as anything" - Shit My Students Write