WW: Arizona sunset

(Photo stolen from Michaela Young-Mitchell, Sahuarita, Arizona.)

WW: Karma ring

(Found high in the dunes; ancient relic of some wrecked seawall or dockwork. I collected the malleable washer, which is about 3 inches across, to make a fudo.) 

WW: Foggy forest

(Photo by friend and fellow blogger Trent Dejong: http://trentdejong.com/.)

Forging the Chain

Haflinger horse.

Here's a fun little experiment:

1. Load any Wikipedia article, about anything.
2. Click on the first link in the main text of the article; links in (parentheses) or italics don't count.
3. Click the first link in that article, again avoiding parenthetical or italicised links. Then click on the first link in that article. And so on.

In most cases, no matter what topic you started on, you will eventually wind up at Philosophy. (If not, you probably either clicked on something that was in italics or parentheses, or somewhere you encountered a WP article whose first link took you out of Wikipedia. But this is rare.)

To test this claim, I started with the article on Haflinger horses. (I don't remember why.) Sure enough, after many clicks, I ended up at Philosophy.

I was curious to know where else the technique might lead, so I clicked on the first link there, too. That took me to Reality, then Reality to Existence, Existence to Awareness, Awareness to Consciousness, Consciousness to Quality (hello, Robert Pirsig!), Quality to Property... and then back to Philosophy; I'd finally pi'd out.

So there it is: our Big Bang. Human awareness itself originates in the perception and judging of Property. (A Quality, let us recognise, that only exists in our minds.)

Fellow Zenners, at the risk of being a Paine, I'll say it right out loud: our chains are forged.


(Photo courtesy of Jon Shave and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Pond in winter

Outback Kyôsaku

"Take your inspiration from those who, long ago, went to live in the far-off mountains and practice ascetic discipline in distant woods."

Eihei Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō


(Photo of 11th century painting of the Zhongnan Mountains by 范寬 [Fan Kuan] courtesy of National Palace Museum, The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei DVD-ROM, and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Coyote crosses the yard

(Poor guy appears to have the mange, which is probably why he showed himself so close to the house in broad day.)