Things I overheard while talking to myself

By chance yesterday I found the book What Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse (good luck pronouncing that) in the GCC library, and I've been glued to it ever since. It's certainly well written, and uses the type of humor that Buddhists are apparently famous for.

For instance, I actually laughed out loud when he said this about showing truth to people just beginning the study of Buddhism: "But of course, you can't just show the truth to Jack right at the beginning, because Jack is an idiot." It wasn't said at all in a mocking or scornful way, but in brutally honest way. Apparently when my Dad interviewed the Dalai Lama several years ago he got a similar sort of response about why China is still in Tibet after Chairman Mao said they'd be out in fifty years: "Yes, Chairman Mao did say that then. But now Chairman Mao is dead!" *laughter*

This author, who is a monk himself, also uses lots and lots of stories to illustrate his points, most of them funny. Given that I tend to learn and remember things like that it's a match made it heaven -- granted that Heaven itself doesn't exist in Buddhism, nor does Hell -- and today at work I managed to get through about 2/3 of the book before I left.

As for whether I am a Buddhist or not... I'm still not sure, but I certainly already apply a lot of the ideas of in within my own life. There's also a wonderful quote in there about how Buddhism itself is only a temporary state, and that the goal is essentially to not need it anymore. That's what I love about it, really, the fact that the profound and humorous exist both side by side and within each other. :)

"He's so far in the closet, he's in Narnia!"

Spotted on someone's icon. Appeals to both the Gay Woman and Literature Nerd in me. Took me a moment to get it, but when I did there was laughter. Apparently that's an old one, but I hadn't seen it before and remembered.

Carry on. *flits away*

Icon unrelated, BTW.

Essentially, thank you Carla for reminding me to send in my senior baby photo for the yearbook. Thanks to something she said I remembered to check the school's website and send it in. Technically they were due yesterday, but Larch is flexible with that sort of thing (not to mention he forgets stuff easily) and I do have the excuse of not being in the building at all since the school year started. Yeah.

Now I just have to pick a senior quote and send them the "Maze" picture from Ireland. I've decided to use that as opposed to the ones that were taken at the end of August (most of which I hate, but one of which I sort of like since you can actually see my eye color clearly) and email that to the yearbook staff. Then I've got to choose my yearbook quote and have it be less than 300 words long. Not sure what I'm doing yet, but maybe something from Eleanor Roosevelt or Miyamoto Musashi. I've got until November 2nd to decide, though I'm tempted to use this one:

A woman is like a teabag— only in hot water do you realize how strong she is.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Or the classic

All generalities are false.
-Anonymous

So, to reiterate, Thank you Carla! I hate not being on top of things, but I think I'm safe for now.

While mom and I were in town getting groceries two college-age girls were behind me in the cookie aisle, both of them probably on their own for the first time, and I heard one of them say this as they were talking about what to buy:

"Oh! And Oreos! Every house needs Oreos."

And she sounded dead serious saying it. I just got a kick out of that.

I borrowed this book from our minister Alison and have loved every minute of it. I started actually reading in before school let out but I had to return it before I got too far, but luckily it was easy to pick back up. There have been several times when I've actually laughed out loud while reading, since it's both funny and insightful. He makes some good arguments about religion (Pi himself is a Christian, Hindu and Muslim all at the same time) though I think he's a tad antagonistic towards Agnostics. I think I'm an agnostic, so I have to wonder sometimes about what he's saying. Especially this line made me scratch my head a bit, since my definition of an agnostic was a bit different:

"I can well imagine an atheist’s last words: ‘White, white! L-L-Love! My God!’–and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostics, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, ‘Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,’ and, to the very end, lack the imagination and miss the better story."

Still, I don't mind the arguments against agnosticism. I tend to read to challenge my way of thinking, not to have it conform. I tend to identify as Unitarian-Taoist-Buddhist-Shinto-Wiccan-Hindu-Pagan-Panentheist, or as one person once described it, "A salad-bar worshiper" and though in context that was supposed to be an insult I rather liked it. I took it to mean someone who takes into account what lots of religions have to say and take it into account.

I've yet to get my hands on anything related to Islam or Christianity outside the context of what's usually taught, but I think ultimately all religions seem to say the same thing. In Life of Pi there's a very funny scene where an imam, a priest and the keeper of a Hindu temple all meet Pi's parents and express concern that Pi has been coming to all three of them for religious practice. Pi then essentially makes them eat their own feet and essentially say that they all teach the same thing. The book is in my car, but it was very funny scene indeed, and I hope the book has a lot more of that sort to offer.

Piggybacking off a conversation on another journal, I think this text just about sums up my gender identity and general world view. I'm very much one for moderation and looking at both sides, and the last stanza in particular speaks to me about my own role in this world, or at least what it appears that role will be.

The Tao Te Ching: Chapter 28

Knowing man
and staying woman,
be the riverbed of the world.
Being the world's riverbed
of eternal unfailing power
is to go back again to be newborn.

Knowing light
and staying dark,
be a pattern to the world.
Being the world's pattern
of eternal unerring power
is to go back again to boundlessness.

Knowing glory
and staying modest,
be the valley of the world.
Being the world's valley
of eternal inexhaustible power
is to go back again to the natural.

Natural wood is cut up
and made into useful things.
Wise souls are used
to make into leaders.
Just so, a great carving
is done without cutting.

Ganked from ryusan, and while I don't necessarily agree with all the delcarations of faith this made my jaw drop. I wish I'd found a good way to say just this years ago. *tear* God.

"The Way I Am" by JC

I don't know why I am the way I am
I don't know if it is an inherent trait from birth
Or the culmination of experiences from my youth
But, one thing I do know
Is that I did not choose to be this way
The choice was made for me
By forces beyond my control
Conspiring together to make me who I am
And, I must believe that there is a purpose
God would not punish one of his children thus
Therefore, it must be part of His grand design
And, if it be from God
Then I must accept who I am
For, to do otherwise
Would be an insult to God
But, what grand purpose does He have
For making me the way I am?
What is it that He would have me do?
Life is an exploration
A journey
So, as I travel down the road of life
It is up to me to discover my purpose
My reason for being
And to seize upon the very essence of my existence
So that when I return to God
He will say to me "Well done, thou good and faithful servant"
And I will spend the rest of eternity
Praising God
For making me the way I am

JC

I seriously need to buy a copy of the Tao Teh Ching, as my school copy has multiple post-its it in at sections I like and I need to return it on Tuesday. I know it's an academic class, but I find quite a lot of spirituality in most of what we read, which I find really amazing. This one almost brought me to tears and is my favorite saying:

What is well planted cannot be uprooted.
What is well embraced cannot slip away.
Your descendents will carry on the the ancestral sacrifice for generations without end.

Cultivate virtue within your own person,
And it becomes a genuine part of you.
Cultivate it in the family,
And it will abide.
Cultivate it in the community,
And it will live and grow.
Cultivate it in the state,
And it will flourish abundantly.
Cultivate it in the world,
And it will become universal.
Hence, a person must be judged as a person;
A family as a family;
A community as a community;
A state as a state;
The world as world.

How do I know about the world?
By what is within me.

We attain full understanding only when we are aware of the divine and other associations of every piece of ground we tread on. Otherwise it would be like the passage of a blind man through illuminated halls and gardens.
- The Ramayana

"We shall see how the councels of prudence and restraint may become the prime agents of moral danger; how the middle course adopted from desires for safety and a quiet life may be found to lead direct to the bull's-eye of diasaster."
-Winston Churchill