I'm up again

I spent most of the day on my own Saturday. Did the usual breakfast thing at the RC, then tried to fix RJ's wifi router. Don't know yet if I succeeded. After that, bought cat food. After that, did overdue household chores. After that, read. After that, bought a hundred-dollar pair of speakers for my dining room. After that, an hour at the mostly empty RC. After that, more of the Diamond Sutra, then bed by 8:30. Now I'm up.

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John X asks in a comment on the previous post,

How attached are you to the idea of non-attachment?

I think the answer is, 'Well I'm a lot more attached to the idea than I am to the actual practice.'

Some rich dude told Jesus he wanted to follow him, and Jesus said, 'Give away all your stuff and come with me.'

But the rich dude –– well, you know how it is. Lease payments on the SUV, credit card bills to pay, that check to the Republican National Committee you've been meaning to write, there's already another new iPod out, the collagen injections are wearing off –– hey, I'd like to help, but I think you'll just have to go get crucified without me.

So the rich dude and Jesus went their separate ways. And Jesus turned to his disciples and said, "It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into the kingdom of heaven."

Now, I am not a rich man. For me, getting into the kingdom of heaven would be like maybe a German Shepherd trying to fit through the eye of a needle.

But the deal, as Jesus and Thoreau and Master Gotama all said, is that having a lot of material stuff weighs you down –– spiritually, morally and intellectually. (Said the guy who just set up wireless iTunes speakers in his dining room.)

Now, on the other hand: before Master Gotama achieved enlightenment, he spent several years wandering around India as an itinerant holy man. This included some time as one of those 'one grain of rice a day' ascetics –– major major major non-attachment.

After a year or two of that, he weighed about 60 pounds, was near death, and still didn't see himself as enlightened. So he started eating again, and came to what he later called the Middle Path, somewhere between stuffing yourself on KFC every day and wandering around in the woods half-naked and starving.

(You notice I'm writing about all this like I actually know something about it. Here's a caveat: I don't know shit. Double check my facts on wikipedia, so you'll know they're at least truthy, if not true.)

Synchronistically enough, I happened to read a story this past week about a monk who was asked this same question a few centuries back: are you attached to non-attachment? There was an exegesis of the story afterward, explaining all the details of his paragraph-long answer, but the short version was, "No, I'm not."

You know, I just stepped on the Buddha boat like ten minutes ago in cosmic time, and I'm still asking directions to the promenade deck.

blogblah!, meanwhile, asks if I know too much about don't-know mind.














































I don't know.



iTunes (from the dining room!): Rupak Tal, Ravi Shankar