[click image]You probably can't tell, but I've been pretty damn serious about Zen for decades. I have read and reread many times whatever I can find from the ancients in English that I can tell hasn't been mutilated by the deluded in the process of translation. I think I own every book translated by Thomas Cleary, and I am even gathering myself to go into more depth on strategy and the deeper aspects of the martial arts. I need my strength back and it comes from these things.
Just owning the books is a sort of comfort and protection. Being in the room with them. Opening even one, even just uncomprehendingly letting one's gaze fall on a random page. Or mustering the will to shut the pie hole of your computational mind while you write over it by reading these aloud to it. Whatever level of absorption and proximity, it only piles on more truth and strips away the ripping claws of delusion to do this.
And it corrects errors. Opens limitlessness. Encourages positive energy. Saves sentient beings.
I'm close to completely ground to a halt by the outrages of this modern mess and need to be in my stacks of ancients again.
You probably can't tell, but I've been pretty damn serious about Zen for decades.
ReplyDeleteI haven't cleared barely a YEAR, and I can't take you! Decades???
I'm like those heckling muppets, those two old guys in the balcony.
ReplyDeleteBig Bird, meet Big Dan....
ReplyDeletexoxoxox
You blow!
ReplyDelete;)
And you have poor taste in movies!
ReplyDeleteAnd the roots of your hair are a different color!
ReplyDeleteAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
I'm gonna watch The Soloist next.....
ReplyDeleteThat movie STINKS ON ICE!!!
ReplyDeleteFine! It will serve me right!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI saw a really good movie lately, Robert DeNiro played a gay pirate, I can't think of the name of it, I liked it a lot.
ReplyDeleteDiNiro as a gay anything is HARD to picture......
ReplyDeleteMy daughter gets us to watch these movies, she rents them.
ReplyDeleteAnother good one, some fantasy by the guy who did those stop motion movies, again, I can't think of it. Crap!
Two movies, new, I just saw, and I can't remember the names of them! Holy Christ!
ReplyDeleteSenile!!!!!
ReplyDeleteYer old, Danny! L-P
:-P
ReplyDeleteThe one was by the guy who did that creepy Halloween movie with the weird characters, it almost looks like a cartoon.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're right. I never do pay attention to things like names of movies, though.
ReplyDeleteI'll find it....stay tuned...
ReplyDeleteI passed them up on the new release rack.....
ReplyDeleteI want dramas with good actors in them tonight.
Stardust - the one with DeNiro as the gay pirate.
ReplyDeleteExcellent movie, loved it!
And I'm really hard on movies, I'm very critical.
He wasn't the main character, though, but he really stole the movie.
ReplyDeleteThe other one, that'll be tougher to figure out.
ReplyDeleteThey have to notify me when I'm trying to rent the same one I already saw a week before.... I'm notorious for forgetting completely about them very soon after watching them.
ReplyDeleteOff track, but I loved this movie, I watched it about 10 times:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362270/
Too engaged with other stuff......
ReplyDeleteAnd senile.
Wes Anderson, I think did this recent movie, that's why I hit on Life Aquatic.
ReplyDeleteIt began with a "C", I think...I'm getting hotter!
ReplyDeleteI might end up calling my daughter.
ReplyDeleteIt was Tim Burton, not Wes Craven.
ReplyDeleteWell, there's a total difference there.....
ReplyDeleteCome on! Help me out! It was almost a cartoon, it was a CREEPY cartoon like move, it began with a "C".
ReplyDeleteIt was a little girl's name that began with a "C", that's what the movie was about, this girl.
ReplyDeleteIt was with that weird cartoonish stuff, like "nightmare before christmas".
ReplyDeleteI'm stumped.
ReplyDeleteC O R A L I N E !!!!!!
ReplyDeleteNeil Gaiman
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327597/
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327597/
ReplyDeleteLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteExcellent! Dark movie.
ReplyDeleteHow did you figure that out? I had to call my daughter.
ReplyDeleteYou can listen to him read the whole Graveyard Book here:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx
He just won the Hugo for that one.....
I'm a genius! :-P
ReplyDeleteOK America, before you go blindly into an animated film with your young children, why don't you do a little research on what they are about to witness. A PG rating and stop-motion animated aesthetic do not always make a child-friendly adventure. Based upon the horror novella by acclaimed author Neil Gaiman, Henry Selick's Coraline is chockfull of heavy material, dark story threads, and bleak possibilities. For a guy like me, those things equal undivided success; for a child aged ten, those things equal nightmare filled evenings and parents writing angry letters to Focus Features for subjecting their children to lewd and horrific imagery.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0327597/usercomments
Doesn't Tim Burton do that exact same thing? As this movie? The scary stop motion?
ReplyDeleteMore psychological terror than jump out at you scares, the tale of Coraline escaping into a parallel world, perfectly mirrored of her own only inhabited by animated dolls, is one of enlightenment and discovery of what love truly means. Do we all want the parents that dote on us? The guardians that will do what we want and when we want it? Of course we do. But that idyllic utopia doesn't exist, especially in the times for which we live today. Children need to be raised and supported and that takes money and a lot of hard work. What may seem like neglect in the eyes of a child is really two people doing all they can, sacrificing their time, in order to give him/her a chance at success. Only when Coraline sees the manipulation and truth behind the "kindness" her Other-Mother gives her does she realize what she has back at home.
ReplyDeleteGaiman is a good novelist. He also wrote a bunch of Dr. Who teleplays and some sucky screenplays, but his novels mostly rock.
ReplyDeleteI thought Burton had something to do with it. That's what my daughter and her boyfriend said. It was very encapsulating, it starts slow, then you cannot stop watching it.
ReplyDeleteI really didn't want to watch it. Then I couldn't stop watching it. Same thing with Stardust. Two good, recent movies.
ReplyDeleteIt's really fun listening to him read The Graveyard Book at that link. Very relaxing and entertaining... for kids, or adults.
ReplyDeleteMy movie rental place stinks on ice. Too big a hassle to do Netflix here unless you have a big enough PO Box to fit the dvds in... and I don't....
ReplyDelete