This month past brought Rusty Ring into its tenth year of publication, not counting the four-odd months that I sat ango. This blog has become so integral to my monastic practice that I didn't even notice that an anniversary had passed until this week.
There's an ancient Zen commandment that monks keep a journal of their lives and activities, and that such records should be accessible to all in order to support others' enlightenment practices, present and future. Rusty Ring, and the regular posting schedule that I imposed on myself from the beginning, with the resulting pressure for material, quickly filled that gap in my monastic programme.
And then it added something else as well: sangha. As I've mentioned before, the third is the hardest Treasure for hermits to acquire, and the lack most keenly felt. In the case of Rusty Ring, just the blog itself, absent of readers, is already sangha; somebody for me to talk to. That it's also attracted a modest but loyal cadre of regulars, with similarly serendipitous stop-ins from visitors all over the world, provides a cogent counterpoise to my monk game.
And so I feel like this is the moment to let a small but significant cat out of the bag: that this is in fact an actual primordial 'blog. That is, in the original intent of the medium – by its full name, a weblog – it's a personal thought journal, with the appended late-90s enhancement that others can read it too if they wish.
Thus, all of the posts here are messages to me. Reminders, for the most part, practical and philosophical.
The sesshin and practice points I consult while organising my own.
And crucially, the moral and political exhortations that frequently appear here are all addressed to me.
Spoiler alert.
Not quite The Sixth Sense, but there may be a touch of O. Henry in that revelation for some, all the same.
Any road, I hope the reflections that I share here – or at least make available – or at least don't hide – are useful to those who must, with increasing difficulty, dig them out. (I have got to move to a better host!)
Your company and contributions have been invaluable, and I'm deeply grateful for your influence on my life and practice.
In pleasant anticipation of the years to come, I remain,
Zen monasteries traditionally close in midsummer, when the zendo gets too hot for comfortable (or safe) sitting and the travelling is good. Then the sangha put the altar Buddha in cryostasis – wrapping him in black cloth till autumn – take stick, and leave, posting a skeleton crew to mind the store.
The Internet does that too. Around July readership drops sharply as more attractive options open up on the northern half of our planet, where most users live. Thus, I learned long ago that I can do pretty much anything I want around now; ain't nobody home no how.
Hence the yearly ritual of the rock groups, with sporadic even weirder vacations from Zen, strictly spoke. So let this post be one of the latter.
Over the past year I've become attached to a Youtube trend so awesome I have to share it. By measured steps, short-subject filmmaking has advanced on that platform, quietly improving and proliferating, in the absence of all profit motive or likelihood of fame. Today, as fans often remark in the comments, these labours of love and passion can rival anything coming out of major studios or corporate television.
Probably the most prominent example is Dust (above). Though devoted to science fiction, in the best tradition of that genre this channel's definition of same is decidedly liberal. So much so that choosing an embed is agonising. The one I finally went with is both typical (quality of concept, writing, performance, production) and unusual (subject). But I'm unable to discern a "normal" Dust subject; any redundancy in their catalogue is well-camouflaged.
Note also that the suggested video is only 12 minutes. That's on the long side. If Dust uploaded a 20-minute film, they'd probably have to put an intermission in it.
The Omeleto vault, for its part, might be summed up as "O. Henry meets Rod Serling". Again, my search for an archetype was fruitless, but the video below is representative of the humour, insight, and fearless young writing.
Some of the actors you'll see are familiar, particularly in the Dust entrées. But if you recognise one, you won't recognise two; the rest will be brilliant aspirants. This means those few name artists are doing it for joy more than career, and I for one tend to love that sort of thing out of all proportion to objective merit.
Which is also awesome here. Just to be clear.
Likewise, some scripts are complete, taking the audience two hours' distance in ten minutes, while others play like opening scenes from non-existent features. But in both cases the raw power of the writers behind them makes me want to get out of the business.
All in, this movement is a perpetual mitzvah: the best movies you'll see all summer, free, bottomless, on demand, fully portable, and each one shorter than a sitcom. (Even without adverts.) "Hang on, I gotta watch this BAFTA-calibre movie. No worries; it's eight minutes long."
And the manna pelts on unabated, for in addition to further Dust and Omeleto suggestions, you'll find other nuggets of comparable genius from still more independent short channels in the margins. If you're not careful, this could become a problem.
But don't come running to me; my own Watch Later list is so long it'll be months before I get back to you.
So much of the hope we had for the Internet never materialised, or rotted into horrors we scarce suspected. In such times, this-here is a fair-dinkum boon; a manifestation of wish fulfillment.
