The Way of the Sage

As I understand it koans are designed to break us out of conventional thought patterns ("consecutive thought" as John Keats spoke of in one of his letters, which he claimed could never lead to "truth" ) Ejector seats. Transcending the interminable dialectic of "reason" as the Madhyamika seeks to do. Bringing us to "the end of suffering" as the Buddha sought to teach in various ways.

The problem with heaven, as I see it, is that our minds seek for ideas beyond our experience, something the opposite of what we know. If truth is to be found in non-duality then we hit a brick wall. I have an edition of Dante's Divine Comedy, with all the illustrations of Gustave Dore. The number of illustrations seems to decline as the book progresses, hell being far easier to depict/imagine than heaven. Dante tries hard with his words and ends with us "seeing the stars once again". But again, it is another place. Not here.

I have often pondered upon the koan "A clearly enlightened person falls into the well. How is this so?" which suggests that heaven/enlightenment may not be all that it is cracked up to be. The old joke comes to mind, of the guy in the lotus position who says:- "I'd read so much about about it beforehand that now I'm actually enlightened I'm just a little bit disappointed."

Dogen subscribed to the Mahayana Buddhism doctrine of "original enlightenment" and the question that drove him on was, if such is so, if we are all born "enlightened" , then what is the purpose of practice? And it did drive him on - for him not an academic question to fill up the hours of boredom, but a question that drove him to existential crisis. He travelled to China, meeting and being taught by the Ch'an masters of the day, then back to Japan. The answer he found was his life. He wrote many discourses seeking to expound upon his own understanding. Alas, as someone said, the "truth dies with each master, the rest they put into their books."

"On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment, and nirvana, there is not a moments gap; continuous practice is the circle of the way" (Dogen)

Each moment is complete in itself. Yet there is a "direction toward Buddha". Which sounds a bit like having your cake and eating it too. But then , why not? The journey itself is home.

As I know virtually nothing about baseball ( are we talking "rounders"? ) I find that story pretty enlightening.



(Oh, I did read your other story, still trying to work out if it was a comedy or a tragedy!)

This old one...??

bob was the fan, he still the first base. what's on second base. second base is leory , he work in construction.

no, not the " rounders " game, i heard of it, and seen it played in movies and tv. i played rounders as a kid. we never called it, rounders. i think in america, we call it, " stickball ". which you play in streets not on ballfield. stickball was play more in 30's to 50's. i have played it several times, it is fun.

a fun game, it is call " corkball " or " 500 ". which other team, will take the field stand position like a regular baseball game. instead the ball is pitch to you, the batter throw up in the air. the batter hit, but the batter doesn't run.

if the batter literally miss the ball, that a strike. it you hit the ball and the fielder catch it, it is out. if the player hit a single or double, triple, or even homerun. i forgot the how each one score. the team has reach 500 win. each player get three strikes to an out. each team has 7 out for each inning.

it's fun game, you don't want play softball or baseball.

Thanks. Must admit I was being a little bit "tongue in cheek" as we say over here. It's more the "world" series that does my head in!

don't worry, not american children or adult will play cricket, it too long of a game to play. i have try to watch cricket in movies or tv, people play it. why? this what it explain why you have a tea time at 4:00pm in afternoon. you are only half through the game. you start at 9:00am that morning. it is a very slow game. game can last over 6 hours, i had more fun at funeral, not at my funeral. of course!

Rules of Cricket (you may have heard this)

"You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out. When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in. There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game"

(How did we get here from the "way of the sage"..... )

I exchanged a few posts with someone on here about Cricket, and watched some highlights, trying to understand it.

I think I was actually "getting" parts of it.
Then I saw a squirrel.

you'll over their ocean, could beat us in the american revolution. you played this game britian vs usa back then. you would bored us to death, we forgot to sailed across the ocean back then.

i forgot the name of the game - i have played it since i was an teenager.

it in between baseball and tag - if you are at a baseball field or in your backyard.

if you are a baseball diamond you use any of the base of the field. it basely, three players. for example, one player is second base and other player is first or third base.

the idea is two players are throw the ball back and force the third person run in between them on the side of them. each time, both players throw the ball to each others. the runner has to between the players running. the two player's distances are getting closer. so when the two players literally 6 feet or closer, the smaller area for runner's area is. the runner has smaller change of scoring.

if i remember the two players at anytime, can tag the runner, he is out. the runner has to complete back and forth to both bases to score a run. to win - the runner has score as many runs, he can achieve 21 ( something i can't remember, i think that right. ) the objective for two players: to tag the runner before he achieve his goal.

Fresh is best. Just keep it fresh. Simon & Garfunkel have a verse from their collection which goes something like Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme. The song itself is timeless. I would imagine that the spices however have expired.

Red or grey?

Well, you really need an educated commentary team to bring out the deep subtleties of the game. Simple things such as telling us who is at the wicket and who is bowling........as in "The batsman's Holding the bowlers Willie". And the now legendary description of how the great Ian Botham, then "In" got "Out". Botham swung his bat, missed the ball and his fierce momentum spun him round, causing his foot to catch his own bails and knock them off. Thus "in" he was now "out", as said. The commentator told us that Botham had "not quite been able to get his leg over"......which caused all in the commentary box to be reduced to uncontrollable giggles. Very unprofessional for the BBC. By the time they had stopped sniggering, the next batsman, who had been out, had come in, and the game proceeded with those not yet in seeking to get those in, out.

Ideally we should interact with others with spontaneity, natural empathy. Not with reactions drawn from some authority figure or proscribed set of rules and regulations, seeking to create a mirror image of ourselves in order to feel "justified".

Idealism is a brand of cigarettes and it's a glorious vision. The first best thing that can happen to us is that would change our diets. I would suggest limiting smoking but I'm not anti-tobacco. And secondly be prepared to Die For Something you believe in regardless. Justin Martyr was accused of being an atheist because his philosophy went against the state.

Maybe if we had at least some insight into how we ARE interacting with others we would realise that most things we are prepared to die for are empty slogans.