I. P. Frehley
I've had to cancel my retreat at Benediktushof. I apologize to everyone who signed up and to the staff at Benediktushof. But right now I'm in no condition to fly. With any luck, I'll be able to make the rest of my European dates.
Here comes the over-sharing part. Please do not read the following if you get grossed out easily. I'm sharing this mainly so that I do not have to keep telling the story over and over and over to the many people who are asking about it. If you're not curious, I suggest you not even read. This isn't pleasant.
Some people were guessing I had a colonoscopy Friday. You were close, but wrong. You missed by about six or seven inches. I don't want to brag, you see.
I had a little camera inserted into my weenie to have a look around up there. It's supposed to be a routine procedure with few complications other than discomfort. I was one of the lucky few for whom the procedure had some unexpected side-effects. No one yet seems to know why, but the procedure led to an inability to urinate.
Thus, screaming like a baby in agony, I had to be driven to the emergency room at about midnight by a long-suffering and very good friend. They placed a catheter in my thingy (hey all you people in San Francisco who don't like me not saying "cock" or "penis" -- Go suck my dick! But not yet. Wait about a week.) It's still there now and I will have to endure this for the next two days.
I can't say the catheter is painful. But it is extraordinarily uncomfortable in a way I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. It's just wrong to have a rubber tube up there. Consequently, although the folks at the ER said I could live a more-or-less normal life with this thing in, I have so far not really done so. If I sit very very still, I can let the thing sort of rest and then kind of forget about it. When I move around, it moves around too. It has subtle ways of reminding you that it's still there. Little pinches that I react to as if a crazed bald eagle were champing on the end of my wang -- although in truth the pain really isn't that bad.
I've always said that we should be aware that our independence is largely an illusion. We are not really independent at all. Nothing will remind you of this more clearly than having a medical procedure. I have been reduced to pure dependency. Though when you really look at it, your life is pretty much pure dependency no matter how healthy you are.
Friday was my first experience with anesthesia. It wasn't my first visit to an emergency room. I've taken other people to ERs before and I've been to the ER when I had kidney stones. But last night was my first visit to the Akron, Ohio General Hospital ER. Emergency rooms in Japan are quite different.
As for the anesthesia, that was the easy bit. I went out like a light at the first hint of drugs introduced to mys system. All I really remember was getting light headed then waking up. I initially thought the procedure went really well.
I didn't feel most of the pain they'd warned me I'd feel after the procedure. I was told I'd have a sore throat from the intubation. I barely felt anything. I was told I'd have pain urinating. But the first two times I went it wasn't that bad. It was a little sore. But I've had kidney stones, baby. That kind of sore is nothing!
But the third time I tried to go, nothing came out. I tried and tried for about two hours. You know how it feels when you hold your pee like in a long car ride or something? Imagine that times about 10,000. When at last I finally accepted that I was gonna need to be catheterized I was hurting bad (I'd called the ER & they told me about that possibility, I did not want another thing shoved up my weenie so I resisted).
The long-suffering and saintly Erin drove me to Akron General's emergency room. I was not in a good mood when I arrived. I guess they deal with a lot of distressed people in the ER. So the first person I spoke to had all of her professional defenses up. It was interesting to note. She was prepared for me to go off on her, as I'm sure others have in the past. But I didn't. I tried as best I could to articulate my problem.
Pretty soon I was in a room, waiting to be seen. Luckily the ER was not too crowded. But it still took them forever to get to me. I suppose having to pee really bad is not considered one of the more urgent concerns. Unless you're the one who has to pee real bad.
Finally a doctor came in an accessed my situation and the decision was made to insert a Foley catheter. Much as I dreaded that, I knew it would relieve my pain so I was all for it.
I shook like a maniac as the insertion was done. I'm not really sure if I started shaking before or during the insertion. But by the time they were finished it was like I had the most uncontrollable shivers you can possibly imagine. They said that was a common reaction and that it would subside. It did. But nearly two days later I still ache.
I nearly died on Friday night. Seriously. Without the ER I would have been dead, and it would have been a very bad death. But I'm not dead. So that's good. It's interesting how many things we consider to be fairly minor ailments these days are actually deadly. A wild animal in my predicament would have died. A person living in more primitive conditions would have too -- although such a person wouldn't have had the procedure that led to my ER visit in the first place. Still, a blocked bladder is actually pretty serious stuff.
The fact I could have died makes me very aware that I am extremely dependent upon others. I'm a guy who prides himself on independence, so this is something I often attempt to deny. But there ya go.
I've been reading a book lately called God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World. The book takes the standpoint that the stuff we've been hearing for years about all religions being basically the same thing is bollocks. They aren't really the same at all. A Christian who tries to be nice by saying that Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists are also saved is missing the point. Those other religions don't consider it important to be saved.
Anyway, according to the author the goal of Islam is to free us from pride and arrogance and the feeling that we are independent of God. The ordeal I went through the other night has gone a long way to accomplishing that for me. It's hard to be proud when you're walking around carrying your day's accumulated urine in a big plastic bag connected to a garden hose shoved up your dick.
I'll just end there since I've gone on a very long time. I hope your weekend was better than mine!
114 comments:
I am sorry you are suffering friend... Let me know when I can start poking fun at all this... I mean this is just crying out for me to say several things... :)
Seriously.. Let me know if you need anything, and hopefully your trip will be back on soon enough.. HUGS
But four hours after the breathing tube comes out, you get the neck catheter and PICC removed! Oh, and the Foley* is removed. Don't touch my JUNK! (except, what's the alternative?)
*The Foley catheter is an indwelling urinary catheter.
If you have other distractions - like 12 broken ribs - then the
urinary catheter seems minor.
Sans distractions, the urinary catheter is a MAJOR pain...
When they mess around with your urinary tract, all manner of things can go astray. They usually DON'T and most are easily treatable. But what a bummer!
Did they say to drink liquids and flush that system out?
Best wishes...
Chas
At first I thought Ace had croaked, that maybe you left the "R" off he "I" "P" part.
Glad you are making it through this, Brad. Be well.
Hope you are feeling better, Mr. W., as your humor and American punk sensibilities would be missed. Hope the initial problem turns out to be nothing after all, although it might actually peeve you some at this point if that turned out to be the case.
I will think good thoughts toward your complete recovery.
I've had medical issues my whole life, beginning with a pretty serious heart defect that required open surgery before I was a year old. Much of my childhood up to the age of around 6 or 7 was spent in the hospital. So I've always been dependent on doctors. Less so now, in adulthood. Still, I gotta pay a visit to my heart doctors once a year and have tests to make sure things are running ok. And I may still require a little "maintenance" every now and then (such as a cardiac ablation I had to have 6 years ago).
Anyway...
Good luck Brad. Get well soon.
Hot damn!
Ouch! Good to know you'll live, sorry to hear about the discomfort and thanks for the reminder that we are all a breath (or, in your case, a pee) away from dying.
I told you not to try "I AM BLISS"! BRAD,it was purely for satire-not consumption!
No, in all honesty-get well soon man.
Can't go dying on us yet!
We don't have enough people stirring the Buddhist pot yet!
It's always the "little" things in medicine that seem to come round & bite us in the ass. I hope you recover quickly, and (being a quiet but steadfast fan of your writing) I am very grateful that you are still around to tell it like it is.
Get well soon
This is the worst thread EVER on Bradley's blog but dude, I will be praying to the Christian God for you...I only do this a few times per year, after all...best wishes...
Having a tube up your 'thingy' is wrong but not being able to pee is way wronger
Discomfort trumps non functioning every time
Strange, but just last week old co-worker of mine had an ultra sound done for stones in his bladder and then some kind of sound wave shock and awe to break up the stones (yes, he was sedated and he also found himself unable to pee
He took himself back to MD where they catheterized him and they told him he had just saved himself from hours of pain in an ER...
So he's awaiting further treatment.
It is only when things start to not function so seamlessly, so smoothly that there is appreciation for simple things taken for granted....
I hope for you that you get back into the flow of things
Brad, been reading you for about a year now.... best chapter title: "...in which I dedicate the rest of my life to being an asshole"
i think you may dig my band, we're called Stop Motion. www.reverbnation.com/stopmotionofficial
if we ever have the resources, i'm going to combine calculus, buddhism and music into their rightful singularity. we will drop to the floor instantly, all together. the lights cut off at the same time. after a moment we jerk back up and act like nothing happened. trying to illustrate the fact that time is discrete...not continuous
keep going hard my friend. i owe a few "ah-ha" moments to you
sidenote: i got a grain of sand stuck there about 6 years ago...now theres scar tissue there and my piss comes out like a sprinkler
I've been through the same procedure, but out of completely different medical reasons. But after about two weeks I really got used to the tube'n bag so much that I really was annoyed when I had to take care of peeing myself again.
Though every dog seems to be a master in urinating it takes more effort and planning ahead than you may think.
I hope that you will not make this experience too, becaus probably you get off the tube very soon.
Hope you get well soon!
Best of luck, Brad! Hope to see you healthy in Amsterdam the ninth!
Unfortunately, three years ago I also suffered from a bloked bladder and had to carry the same pouch around for a while. Then, to make it more conmfortable (!) they just punched my belly and introduced the catheter there directly. Some advantage (but I could sit confortably...).
I know where you are and wish you hadn't known that...
Ok, THAT is an excuse to not be there at Benediktushof. I was planning to be there on Sunday. Anyway, all the best for you - it sounds like it can only get better from now on.
All the best, Brad.
And thanks for sharing your experiences with us.
Book TV: After Words, Stephen Prothero, "God is Not One"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz6Wq3JNUQ8
Stephen Prothero, "God is Not One," interviewed by Sally Quinn
http://www.booktv.org/Program/11556/After+Words+Stephen+Prothero+quotGod+is+Not+Onequot+interviewed+by+Sally+Quinn.aspx
As a practitioner, some kind of heroism is necessary. That is to say, it’s not trying to proclaim yourself as better than somebody else. At the same time, it seems to be good to have some kind of heroism within yourself. It’s not so much based on the example of each president in the United States, who says, “I’m making history, and this is fantastic. I won the elections,” or whatever. But some kind of heroism is needed, that you are doing what you are doing. It seems to be very simple. It’s heroism toward yourself.
Brad, sorry to hear that your
weiner's not working. Get better.
"it sounds like it can only get better from now on."
If only this were true.. I guess it might be true in some respects. But the body is not made to last forever. It will keep breaking down more and more often until it stops. Then things could be better, or worse. But it all depends on how you look at it.
That's just fucking awful. FWIW, I really hope you get well soon.
Hope you're better soon. Though when you made the final reference to your organ - the exclamatory sentence - I did recall that Ken Wilber said the same thing once, albeit in a different context.
There need not be any great remorse in your behavior; much of it is pretty instinctual.
Hope I remember that when I have such problems.
Hey Brad & all you (other) Dogen experts, Is this one worth the money/time?
Realizing Genjokoan: The Key to Dogen's Shobogenzo by Shohaku Okumura
Thanks.
Very interesting piece, I'm wondering how you feel about stories of Zen masters who endured what would normally be insane levels of pain through the discipline of zazen? No doubt some of the stories are fancifull, but we have on video the monk who set himself on fire and didn't flinch until he was dead.
Do you think you could do that after so many years of sitting or is something missing? Or is that really not the point of zazen, just a type of parlor trick that's cool to know can be done but isn't the primary purpose of meditation?
Cheers,
Brian
Brad, I feel for you man. Hospital visits suck and they cost way too much in America 2011.
CAPTCHA : lusers : I kid you not
Glad to hear you didn't die! Thanks for sharing, and I hope you feel better soon.
Sea Gull Rim Shot quotes from
http://live.shambhala.com/heroism-toward-yourself/
Catheter was removed about an hour ago. I'm supposed to wait three more hours & call the doc to say whether I'm still peeing normally or not. But so far, so good.
Thanks for all the well wishes. They really helped!
As a practitioner, some kind of heroism is necessary. That is to say, it’s not trying to proclaim yourself as better than somebody else. At the same time, it seems to be good to have some kind of heroism within yourself. It’s not so much based on the example of each president in the United States, who says, “I’m making history, and this is fantastic. I won the elections,” or whatever. But some kind of heroism is needed, that you are doing what you are doing. It seems to be very simple. It’s heroism toward yourself.
-quoted from Chogyam Trungpa
I hope you feel better soon, Brad.
Realizing Genjo Koan is a darn good book! I even wrote a blurb for it.
Hey Brad,
I'm glad you're recovering. I think about my dependence, especially around my birthday, because I was born with my umbilical cord around my neck. If someone hadn't helped me I wouldn't have made it to day two.
"Realizing Genjo Koan" is great! I just started it a few weeks ago. I picked up my copy at the SFZC bookstore while on tour with the Charles Sharp Quartet.
-John
Good to see that your good to pee again!
Getting old kinda sucks, i read somewhere about the "ever increasing indignities of old age" but I suspect that there is a lesson in humility there.
At least thats what Ill tell myself tomorrow when they pull my teeth and I start wearing a denture. . . .
Not only that, but the quote is from Trungpa, a womanizing drunk.
I don't think that his body and
mind dropped off because his ANS
was balanced. And there is nothing
heroic about a falling down drunk
that uses his " spiritual "
reputation to seduce women.
I'll get it (Realizing Genjokoan) then, thanks Brad!
"To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly."
Pretty radical.
Props to Seagal Rinpoche for providing me with the inspiration to keep going on my cushion.
Bigtime gasssho to Rinpoche.
"They placed a catheter in my thingy (hey all you people in San Francisco who don't like me not saying "cock" or "penis" -- Go suck my dick! But not yet. Wait about a week.)"
You know you're a decent writer with a line like that, given the extreme harship circumstances. Nice chops - Doh!
" Genjokoan means ' to answer the
question from true reality through
the practice of our everyday
activity"
Brad would you agree that "our
everyday activity" is more than
just sitting, and that every facet
of our being can be used to open
to "true reality".
How could Dogen be the beginning of
Soto Zen if he is advocating a
type of Zen that goes beyond merely
just sitting for itself?
Brad, you've expressed your great dislike towards Thich Naht hahn more than enough times in your books, yet you have continued to do it subliminally. Can you please spill the beans once and for all and admit in front of everyone that you despise this Sri Lankian cocksucker and give us reasons why?
Ashvaghosha teaches " when one is
rising, standing, walking, doing
something, stopping, one should
concentrates one's mind on the act
and the doing of it."
So both Ashvafhosha and Dogen seem
to be promoting that dreadful
"mindfulness" and somewhere along
the line just sitting was
emphasized by others. Comment?
Hey Brad,
Ah man... that's really terrible, glad ur okay. It's odd that you were so overly concerned about the procedure in the first place. Maybe ur subconscious mind saw something in that doctor that 'you' missed?
Sounds like the worst is over with. Heal fast.
Korey said:
Brad, you've expressed your great dislike towards Thich Naht Hahn more than enough times in your books, yet you have continued to do it subliminally.
Have I? I'm kind of indifferent to Mr. Hanh, actually. I neither like nor dislike him. He seems decent. I don't know enough about him to dislike him.
Why would anyone dislike that man?
Too bad you're censoring comments at the moment, Brad. That creep who always asks about your wee-wee is probably going crazy.
What was meant to be checked with the camera in the first place? The idea of having it inserted is creepy.
"truth is a mixed bag, confusion and understanding, stupidity and clarity
endless cycles"
that's as close as i can get to crafting some sense into the beginning of dogen's genjokoan
the problem with genjokoan is the problem with dogen,an unholy mixture of rubbish and sense !
he's trying
to
express
poetry
as
prose
and
it
doesn't
work
and
i
don't
think
he
understands
properly
either !
Okay well know atht we've got your opinion on Thich, can I please have your honest opinion on Psychedelic Zen. You know what I'm talking about Bradley.
dogen
attractive
to
schizophrenics
everywhere
that
autonomous
blur
of
sense
and
rubbish !
May all beings find inner peace.
Hey dude. A little warning. The first couple o' times you micturate post-catheter, it will hurt like, well, you just had a tube removed from your johnson. I had one, and the first leak I took post-catheter it felt as if I had razor blades coming down the chute. But it hurt even more to try to hold it. You just gotta let it come out. A little advice. - The Joonya
I had the same thing done but they only gave me a local. nurse with pecker in one hand and eyedroper in the other. hurt so bad to piss afterwards it took hours to let it flow. I think the camera wa a 35mm panovision
Oh wow. Sorry I was cracking up but I KNOW how painful that is!
No, I don't have a weenie (harhar) but the same thing (not being able to pee post-procedure) happened to me and it was awful...I seriously know how bad it hurts when your bladder is holding a liter-plus. Or was it two liters they took out of me with the first catheterization? (sp?) I forget but they were shocked. They didn't tell me I could die from it, though....yours must be much worse. Glad you didn't die.
I sure hope you get better soon! Oh and thanks for sharing lolol (it's not funny but you wrote it funny ya know :)
All I can think is that with a catheter you must pray for no morning glory.
Brad, good luck on getting back to a normal urination schedule and I know the feeling of being a "patient"
common an3drew..
the vertical shit isn't cool.
Glad things are getting better for you, Brad!
Get better soon, Brad. Best wishes, Abu.
harry i don't think you understand what it is about if you think there is such a thing as peace let alone inner peace
if you treat this as a koan , i am asking why is it so?
why was the guy who said that buddha is the one who shines through calm wrong ?
not that you will , will you?
no
real
koans
are
passed
over
in
favour
of
voynichese
and
the
opportunity
to
blather
insensibly
to
the
applause
of
zombies !
"Korey said...
Brad, you've expressed your great dislike towards Thich Naht hahn more than enough times in your books, yet you have continued to do it subliminally. Can you please spill the beans once and for all and admit in front of everyone that you despise this Sri Lankian cocksucker and give us reasons why?
4:12 PM"
Thich Nhat Hanh is NOT a Sri Lankan cocksucker.
He is Vietnamese.
And he lives in France.
Even if you meant that he sucks Sri Lankan cock(s) I doubt that there is any credible evidence to support that claim either.
Do you have any other slanderous allegations and/or insults that you would like to share with the group?
"Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken" (genjo koan)
enlightenment is not like the moon on the water
the
moon
gets
wet
and
the
water
is
broken
that's assuming that enlightnement means somethign sensisble like infinity in life !
An3drew, do you like it when
people troll your site. The
fictional self which is you and I
hallucinates every day. The part
of you that seeks Dogen's truth
brings you here.
Fred
Didn't you say somewhere that you have no insurance? Is there some way your readers can help with the cost of this whole thing?
if you look at an3drew's poems he is a bit of a nutter like stalin very intelligent but psychotic !
(his words, not mine)
Dogen's truth?
Truth, like a fingerprint, is individual. Because no two people perceive the world, or anything therein, in the same way, so too truth is a party of one - 6.75 billion times over.
Thank God for comment moderation.
Many shudder-wincing sympathies over here, and hope things clear up, Brad.
Cool, another Harry... as if to prove the point that Dogen turns people into schitzoids.
'Two heads are better than one', and all that. Brad, I hope yer 'wee head' is feeling better. Never had any major plumbing problems, but reports of cocktastrophies such as yours evoke very real tugs in the gut of Genjo-Koan.
Regards,
Harry.
Sorry for your pain, Brad. Glad you're reading about other religions. No, they all are not the same, but some do lead to similar 'places'. I've found the christian book "Cloud of Unknowing" to be very helpful with my zen practice at times....and I'm what most would call an atheist. The writings of Ramana Maharshi were also invaluable.
Does this mean you'll soon be converting to Islam?
; )
Anon asked:
What was meant to be checked with the camera in the first place? The idea of having it inserted is creepy.
Indeed it IS creepy!
I've had kidney stones a number of times. A routine ultrasound of my kidneys & bladder showed something the doc didn't like. So he went in for a look.
The initial findings are that everything appears normal up there. I'll get a full report later. I'm not too worried.
Spirituality of Atheism
http://www.uuca.org/spirituality-of-atheism
Korey, you have to be joking with the psychedelic zen stuff. Or else you only just started reading my stuff.
I love psychedelic rock. Love it! It's my favorite type of music. Even the real hippy-dippy stuff gets me going.
But zazen is something else. In order for zazen to be zazen it must be done in a quiet place with as few distractions as possible. No drugs. No colored lights. No music.
I don't doubt that you can trip yourself out in a lot of ways. But that's not zazen.
I must say I agree completely with your little riff on truth mysterion.
Oh feel the love..
lol YES it was a joke
Your Original Face, Mysterion. is
the same truth for everyone. It
sees itself.
Speaking of health issues,
here's the best science
available to avoid 80%
of the diseases that
Americans die from:
Campbell
Esselstyn
Forks Over Knives
Health Starts Here
Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
Novick
In a nutshell, eat and chew
unprocessed, plant-based foods...
--no animal products
--no refined products
(and no added sugar, salt, or oil)
Be well.
"common an3drew..
the vertical shit isn't cool."
i
s
cool
a question
did
dogen
write
top
to
bottom (tategaki)
or
left
to
right (yokogaki) ?
"The part of you that seeks Dogen's truth brings you here."
the truth of dogen was he was the "living dead" which is actually what he called himself !
do
you
understand ?
NO !
"In order for zazen to be zazen it must be done in a quiet place..."
if the wind blows, let it...
if the rain falls, let it...
We have discussed the meaning of 'silence' in the past so I will not exhume it now.
"if you look at an3drew's poems he is a bit of a nutter like stalin very intelligent but psychotic !"
lol i'd look at the health advice too !
you are quite right nof course, i am raving mad and i think thats why i relate/get stuck on dogen so much, he's easily the most insane/sane person in zen
dogen
insane
sane
intellectually
retarded
intelligent
of
the
earth
and
of
the
sky !
Out of the Stars
Out of the stars in their flight, out of the dust of eternity,
here have we come,
Stardust and sunlight,
mingling through time and through space.
Out of the stars have we come,
up from time.
Out of the stars have we come.
Time out of time before time
in the vastness of space,
earth spun to orbit the sun,
Earth with the thunder of mountains newborn,
the boiling of seas.
Earth warmed by sun, lit by sunlight;
This is our home;
Out of the stars have we come.
Mystery hidden in mystery,
back through all time;
Mystery rising from rocks
in the storm and the sea.
Out of the stars, rising from rocks
and the sea,
kindled by sunlight on earth,
arose life.
Ponder this thing in your heart,
life up from sea:
Eyes to behold, throats to sing,
mates to love.
Life from the sea, warmed by sun,
washed by rain,
life from within, giving birth,
rose to love.
This is the wonder of time;
this is the marvel of space;
out of the stars swung the earth;
life upon earth rose to love.
This is the marvel of life,
rising to see and to know;
Out of your heart, cry wonder:
sing that we live.
http://www.uuca.org/spirituality-of-atheism
Yes Andrew you have to die before
you die, which means dieing to each
thought, to yesterday and to each
post on this blog.
The living dead are in the world,
but not of it. Having dropped mind
and body, what is left - the
deathless nectar.
Sit and see, instead of struggling
with words.
silence is it's own reward!
captcha = extra
:)
I've been doing zazen for about 3 years daily (even more than 3 years but it wasn't always on a consistent, daily basis) and i've been to this one sangha about half a dozen times to this Sunday public service they offer. They're always using words like "love", "compassion", "enightlenment", "cultivate a heart of enlightenment", and talking about giving donations generously to the temple to help "cultivate generosity".
Should I be weery of this?
K
Hey andr3w!
Welcome to your new asyl3m!
Andrew, is this poem by Dogen not
beautiful?
Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm,
Without looking for the traces I may have left;
A cuckoo's song beckons me to return home;
Hearing this, I tilt my head to see
Who has told me to turn back;
But do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.
Fred
Here's one I wrote in 1982:
I grew ripe
When the daydream dieing
Turned into infant eyes.
Fred
" Korey said...
I've been doing zazen for about 3 years daily (even more than 3 years but it wasn't always on a consistent, daily basis) and i've been to this one sangha about half a dozen times to this Sunday public service they offer. They're always using words like "love", "compassion", "enightlenment", "cultivate a heart of enlightenment", and talking about giving donations generously to the temple to help "cultivate generosity".
Should I be weery of this?"
Have they asked you for $50,000
yet?
Korey,
If you're logging onto the internet for advice, you're going to get inadequate advice.
Be leery of advice given here.
"They're always using words like "love", "compassion", "enightlenment", "cultivate a heart of enlightenment", and talking about giving donations generously to the temple to help "cultivate generosity".
Should I be weery of this?"
last night i was reading bodidharma's dialogue with the emperor wu who asked the same things, was there virtue in donating to support religous institutions and bodhidharma said NO
i like "weery", a combo of leery and weary and wary !
Here's one I wrote in 1982:
"I grew ripe
When the daydream dieing
Turned into infant eyes."
my reply
even an infant
needs
to
be
different !
"Andrew, is this poem by Dogen not
beautiful?"
no in fact imo it is typical of the problem of dogen, sorta half-assed but there's something too it!
no
cuckoo
calls
me
boiled
as
i
am
by
the
SUN !
Korey asked: "Should I be weery of this?"
good question. define weery.
"Sit and see, instead of struggling
with words."
the problem with sitting imo is
1. it's dangerous from a circulation point of view, also possibly destructive to the knees
2. it takes too much brain power to sit properly because it's such an unnatural position
what i do on some sort of daily basis is just sit in a chair or ly in bed just thinking or what might be called shikantaza, i think it's vaguely productive
i honestly have to say and this is not some snitch i have on zen that people who sit get more damaged than they already are and i know of several people who sat who died from some sort of thrombotic condition !
interesting the koreans are not so much into sitting, rather lying down, standing or endless walking and chanting which imo is more sensible
kwan seum bosal, sort of hypnotic really !
can't say i would willing do the chanting tho, but if you are doing solitary retreat it's important to vocalize a bit to get the immune system going in the lungs and sinuses !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qfE-mogilU
takes
me
back
to
my
days
at
the
providence
zen
center !
: o )
Anonymnous, I am not asking for general advice from the internet (especially not you). I was asking Bradley specifically so keep your nose stuck up Andr3w's ass and out of my biz.
Death is a natural process. You are
suppose to die.
A calf or something died in a
nearby pasture. The cows ignored
it and the vultures ate it. Life
moved on.
Andrew,
Did you say your Dharani's today? Did you do your bows this morning?
Outside my window, plum blossoms,
Just on the verge of unfurling, contain the spring;
The clear moon is held in the cup-like petals
Of the beautiful flower I pick and twirl.
above by eihei dogen
clear
of
windows
plum
blossum
throws
itself
to
infinity
is
this
spring ?
NOT !
man, i leave town for FIVE minutes and all hell breaks loose! Glad to hear you're getting back on yr feet Brad, may it pass quickly. I know what penis trouble is, but i haven't had any bother for years... touch wood :)
Anonymous said to Korey:
define weery
If it were written correctly (weary), it might be easier to define...
an3drew wrote:
last night i was reading bodidharma's dialogue with the emperor wu who asked the same things, was there virtue in donating to support religous institutions and bodhidharma said NO
Not exactly. The emperor enumerated his good deeds and asked what were his merits. Answer was "none", just because you have no merit if what you did was for a fee.
Brad wrote:
I've been reading a book lately called God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World. The book takes the standpoint that the stuff we've been hearing for years about all religions being basically the same thing is bollocks.
Even the various Jesus of the various Christian are not really the same. Tell me what connection there may be between the big blonde American footballer Jesus of the Mormon and the emaciated suffering gore Jesus of the Latin American, and so on...
it's funny, you sorta get there and it's empty isn't it? just a few ferals and the landscape !
Ouch! But you write about this in an easy and fun way. Hope you can get rid of this pipe asap!
I've enjoyed Mystie-pie's contributions recently.
And just to break things up a little: has anyone else found Nonin and Ted Biringer's on-going entanglements on ZFI enthralling too?
"Nor even do I believe in this teaching as the "One True Buddhism" of my own Zen teacher -- because, on the basis of experience, I refuse to believe a single word anybody says, and especially that deluded old bastard."
Angry Buddhists are everywhere.
Nobody has their nose up Netti
Netti's ass. There's no merit there.
"Did you do your bows this morning?'
i had forgotten about the bows !
we had to do a lot at the cambridge zen center, as i spent most of the day walking around they were a bit of a waste of time
i
really
liked
boston !
Yes, I was reading their stuff
yesterday on a thread concerning
the backward step into the light
turned inwards. I think that they
were doing a forward step
entanglement.
"Soft Troll said...
I've enjoyed Mystie-pie's contributions recently.
And just to break things up a little: has anyone else found Nonin and Ted Biringer's on-going entanglements on ZFI enthralling too?"
Fred
"The emperor enumerated his good deeds and asked what were his merits. Answer was "none", just because you have no merit if what you did was for a fee."
really ?
first thing is to look at a number of different translations so you won't get hung up on "right" words like merit, in fact i think virtue fits better
there is no virtue because religious institutions have nothing to to do with infinity except estrangement
part of that estrangement is your over confidence or denial in inadequacy of understanding
one
bright
pearl
endless
the
stupidities
of
zen
teachers
claiming
to
know
what
they
are
on
about
one
bright
pearl
is
itself
in
the
ten
directions
that
is
all !
http://flatbedsutra.com/flatbedsutrazenblogger/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/004ikkam.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/67kwgk2
So I hope it's work'n for ya now. What's the report?
I wonder if Mysterion has become thoughtful about how he used to spam this blog now that he has to put up with An3drew's commentary diarrhea?
"Aww, they're just lonely loners with nothing but time on their hands." -Captive Audience*
*I, for one, am leaving instead of wading through any more of this insufferable drivel. Looks like several others have as well. Bye.
Hi Brad,
This comes pretty late, but I just read this post. I am really sorry to hear you had to go through that, and I hope you have a speedy recovery. :)
I am presumably about the same age, and the fact that I could get kidney stones like you has given me a shock and reminded me that diet and fluids matter. :(
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