WW: Autumn in the woods

Good Song: Every Day is a Good Day

Sometime around the 9th century CE, Ch'an Ancestor Yunmen said the whole of this practice could be resumed in a single sentence:

"Every day is a good day."

It's one of those deceptively simple statements that seem trite and supercilious on first consideration. But try actually meditating on it: analyse each day – each breath – and draw up an airtight case for why it's a good one.

Hell, a good day for what? And are you making good on it... whatever it is? How do you do that? How will you know when you've done it? Can you ever have done it? Or have you already done it?

And what about Naomi?

Not so vapid anymore, eh?

That's what Yunmen (ancestor of the Linji, or Rinzai, school) intended. You're supposed to dismiss his quintessential koan on meeting. That's how you prove you're an idiot.

Then, if you're worth a damn, the second thoughts start dropping.

Which puts a whole 'nother spin on "Bobby Bones and the Raging Idiots", don't it?

Anyway, I stumbled into this song some time ago and thought it provided another excuse to post such reflections. The lyrics may be dippy and hackneyed.

Or not.

Sometimes you just wanna hear something upbeat.


EVERYDAY IS A GOOD DAY
Lyrics by Bobby Bones, Kristian Bush, and Lindsay Ell.

Refrain:
Every day is a good day
It's how you see it, that's what I say
When you wake up in that mind frame
Singing with the Blue Jays, sipping on a latte
Every day is a good day

Forgot to charge my phone before I went to bed
Now I gotta get to work but my iPhone's dead
I just missed my mouth, and now it's on my shirt
Ain't got nowhere to park but it could be worse
I know what to do, drop a little Ice Cube
You need to check yourself before your wreck yourself
Because...

Refrain

Some dudes texting in the movie and he's lighting up the room
There's a line at the stall and I gotta go soon
The car is on 'E' and I'm almost out of gas
Traffic's backing up, I'm going nowhere fast
When it's raining and I'm soaked
Got no money and I'm broke
Has anyone seen my remote?
But...

Refrain

There's a new episode of my favorite show and you ruin it
That one hurt, how 'bout a spoiler alert?

Refrain

It's how you see it, that's what I say
Tell me are you going my way
I'm singing with the Blue Jays
Riding on a Segway
Every day is a good day

Here we go

Jazz Koan

A jazzman walks into a diner.

"Gimme a piece of your famous pie!" he says.

"The pie is gone," says the waitress.

"Crazy!" replies the jazzman. "Gimme TWO pieces!"








(Graphic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous artist.)

WW: Pumpkin zafus

(Saw these in town the other day. Turn 'em upside down, you got a monastery's-worth of cheap zafus.)

Legend of Irritating Master

This week The Onion published fascinating insight into the history of Buddhism, recently revealed by scholars studying obscure Asian texts. The post, Historians Discover Meditation Spread From Ancient China By Annoying Monk Who Wouldn’t Shut Up About How It Changed His Life, constitutes yet another brick in my thesis that Buddhism ca. Long Ago was approximately identical to Buddhism today, give or take the odd posh yoga retreat.

It now appears that a single individual may have opened our path in regions as far-flung as Afghanistan, Korea, and Cambodia. According to historian Sheila Ryan, writing in The Journal Of East Asian Studies, "Our research shows that from Mongolia all the way down to Java, everyone hated this smug prick."

While the notion that nearly all extant Buddhist denominations may be descended from just one indefatigable Ancestor remains conjecture, and will probably never be proved given the centuries elapsed, you gotta admit it has a certain ring of truth.

So check out the Onion article. Because the more we learn of our past, the better-equipped we are to avoid it.

Also, if I'd thought of it, Annoying Monk would have been yet another awesome name for this blog.

(Period tableau of Irritating Master doing what he did best from the Onion post.)

WW: Hallowe'en spider

(This is the giant house spider [Eratigena atrica]. It's called that because it's four inches across and we find it in our homes during this season up here on the North Coast. The house-eating spider is not native, however; like Hallowe'en itself, it came from Europe. Trick or treat, indeed.)

Street Level Zen: Self-Responsibility

"I was thrown out of NYU for cheating on my Metaphysics final. I looked within the soul of the boy sitting next to me."

Woody Allen








(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)