A Reprise

Mind Weeds Pulling out the weeds we give nourishment to the plant. The weeds in my mind turn to nourishment. Though effort creates waves, we must make effort to attain calmness. In this realm, there is no subjectivity or objectivity. We are without awareness-- every effort, idea and thought will vanish. Keep your mind on your breathing until you are not aware of your breathing. At first, the effort will be rough and impure. With time it will become pure-- and body and mind will become pure. We have innate power to purify ourselves and our surroundings. You can act properly, will learn from and become friendly with others. Concentrate on breathing Right posture Great, pure effort The Marrow of Zen In zazen posture, mind and body have great power to accept things as they are, agreeable or disagreeable. The worst horse is the most valuable one. In your way imperfections are the basis for your firm, way-seeking mind. Those who find great difficulties in practicing Zen will find ...

Cinderella, a companion story to "Snow White"- based on my earlier unfinished story "Windflowers." As with "Snow White" I plan to explore the elements I think are important. Snow White was a story about coming of age. Cinderella is about claiming what you were born to own.

Satori - dramatic Zen mind. To make you wonder, and to answer that wondering with the deepest expression of your own Beginner's mind. What am I? See things as they are, the original nature of everything The student should teach himself Calligraphy, i.e. to write in the most straightforward, simple way, like a beginner. As if discovering what you were writing for the first time. Your full nature will be in your writing. Right Practice - body Right Attitude - feeling Right Understanding - mind roshi - person who has actualized perfect freedom. Consciousness arises spontaneously and naturally from actual circumstances of the present, not fixed repetitive patterns of self-centered consciousness Living in the present Utter ordinariness. A mirror - we feel our own strengths and shortcomings without praise or criticism from him. Our original face, the extraordinariness of our own nature "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there ...

This movie scared me to death when I was little, and may have something to do with my fear of excess. I do not remember it as a wholesome children's movie, but as a dissection of the darkest parts of human nature bathed in the sinister light of 1970's film-making, for some reason made into a children's movie. SCENE 2. The Palace of Happiness. When the curtain of clouds opens, the stage represents, in the forefront of the palace, a sort of hall formed of tall marble columns, between which hang heavy purple draperies, supported by golden ropes and concealing all the background. The architecture suggests the most sensual and sumptuous moments of the Venetian or Flemish Renascence, as seen in the pictures of Veronese or Rubens, with garlands, horns of plenty, fringes, vases, statues, gildings, lavishly distributed on every side. In the middle stands a massive and marvelous table of jasper and silver-gilt, laden with candlesticks, glass, gold and silver plate and fabulous vi...

    Weatherford, TX

We discussed it this weekend, and we love it when we find people who have discrepancies in their characters-- parts that would not be related to another part. This is, of course, a hallmark to creating an excellent novel character, not something I do as often as I should. I am aware that there are parts of me that don't fit. Things I love, ideals I admire, that have nothing to do with where I come from or even my gender. I find a kind of beauty in the city I can't really live without anymore, and yet when I feel my roots I feel completely myself. We are all, I guess, in a state of flux, and it is only when we are changing that we are living.

I have made a start of putting my Backpackit content on my own pages. This is my first attempt, my tea page . I like how it turned out. There's still some things I want to improve, but I know I have to just put it out there if I ever want to get anything done. It won't be perfect at first. My favorite part about it is the Javascript effect. I am really excited that I will be able to use that in my image galleries. I have decided to control everything through FTP instead of server side, because the latter makes absolutely no sense. I do a lot of my computer work at coffee shops where I don't purchase the Internet access. I can't edit anything if it's all server-side. I'm disappointed in that I would like to push myself into learning those CMS's and wikis, but this is a good, simple start. I have not been so interested in becoming a web designer more recently anyway. I've been busy with my work and my writing, and I don't feel a void so much anymor...

All my senses are acute. As the morning sunlight washed over me, and I understood the whole narrative after a month or so of reading, it came upon me to the resolution of my whole perverse nature. One of the questions I have so often asked myself, with the attitude of heartbreak between Romeo and Juliet, or some epic lost love, is why I did not choose the thing that blazes over my nature, with which I have absolute sympathy, as the center of my life. The study of literature, the understanding of human nature, which obsesses me at all times. As I thought of what I really do, I was thrilled with the irony and revelation that I chose a profession that could not touch my heart, nor give me even the remotest satisfaction, nor do that which is my whole aim, giving beauty to the world. A scientist has never and will never give beauty to the world. He exists like a worm beneath a rock. Contributing something, usefulness, but beauty, never, and for someone with my mind, I think it a terrific w...

The To-Do list is my life right now, and in going to the Blogger site to gather info on customizing my blog further, which I am actually planning to turn into one big to-do list, I found this blog featured, which I think is neat. Basically the thought is turning to-do lists into some kind of self-confessional art. Not really want I want to do, obviously. I just like putting my goals and accomplishments online as a means of motivating myself. Growing up I would never have expected myself to become so totally immersed in this kind of thing, but the GTD system is exactly what I'm about right now. I have not really looked into this system, but I think it's in line with my current philosophies. Not only am I interested in getting things done, within the last year I have turned the whole process of list-making into a complicated orchestration, and even an investigation of different ways to take notes and make lists. This started probably with my Treo, when I found I could keep boo...

Lifetype - is what I am trying out right now; no support in Windows Live Writer or hblogger, but there are plugins for mobile support. Still, limited to email and MMS's. I like because I can create multiple blogs on the fly easily, without using more databases. Ecto for Windows will work with Lifetype and looks like I can do other stuff with it too. MMS's? I'm charged by the message, but it doesn't take away from my monthly Internet allotment. If I use the Internet infrequently, I can get a small plan, and being charged by message is more cost-effective, since I post irregularly. Wordpress - supported by Windows Live Writer, not hblogger. But can post by email, nothing about posting images.

It's really interesting the way this is going. I guess revisions aren't so terrible as I was making them out to be. I like discovering things I did that were right, and I am learning more about the way I write. I can't really plot out an entire novel before I write it, though it is a necessity to plot out the major events. The bits and pieces, "filler," ends up becoming the most important part, and I make it up as I go along-- kind of like sewing a basic garment together, then embroidering and embellishing on it, which is a real joy (in both cases). I guess a storyteller is an embellisher. Some people get on a kick about how they are liars as authors, loving to tell lies. I'm not sure what that's about. I don't have any trouble telling the truth, and when I tell people about things that happened to me I'm pretty bare bones. No one would ever guess that I write novels. The embellishments to my character's basic story are hardly lies. They're...