The Bee Koan

A bee was browsing the clover blossoms in a pasture one fine spring day when a cow ate her.

"Well," she said, "this is one micro-aggression I am not disposed to enable. I'm just going to sting this stupid cow 'til she throws me up."

But the darkness was warm and moist in the cow's stomach, and in point of fact she'd been working rather hard that morning.

At length she thought, "I suppose I could take a short nap first. You know, to renew my strength for the battle."

And when she woke up, the cow was gone.


Wu Ya's commentary: This too will pass.

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

WW: February bud

(After living in Québec, where it's 40 below now and will remain until May, I'm always amazed to meet this sort of thing in mid-February on the North Coast.)

Preference Meditation

According to an Internet commenter, when Thais encounter food they don't care for, they don't say, "I don't like this."

They say, "I don't know how to eat this." (กินไม่เป็น)


(Photo courtesy of Wilfredo Rodríguez and Wikimedia Commons.)

Walden Kyôsaku

"The greater part of what my neighbours call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behaviour."

Henry David Thoreau


(Early 1900s postcard of the cairn marking the site of Thoreau's cabin on the shores of Walden Pond courtesy of the Newberry Library and Wikimedia Commons.)

WW: Lebanese poutine

(Because the restaurant where I ordered this is in the States, it calls this dish "shawarma fries". When my plate arrived I was unsurprised to find that it is in fact Lebanese poutine. I didn't ask the staff where they got the idea, but Québec boasts a large Lebanese population, and immigrant families tend to split on entry, with some going north and others south. So it may ultimately be a Canadian invention.

Given that the whole "sauce and cheese on fries" thing isn't a thing in the States, you gotta give them credit for audacity, to say nothing of skill. This stuff is darn good; it would fly out the door in Montréal. Hope it catches on here, too.)

Brad Warner on Religion vs. Practice

A few months ago I happened upon this excerpt from Brad Warner's latest book, Letters to a Dead Friend about Zen. I haven't read it, or any of his books save the first. But Brad and I are the same age, from very similar backgrounds, and have come to comparable conclusions on many points. So it's perhaps not surprising that his work often speaks to me.

Nor that he catches a lot of blowback. From people like me, for starters, because he has okesa and makes money off it. (In case it matters, I care frak-all about the first charge. As for the second, yeah, that's dangerous. But as long as he's not claiming a patent on enlightenment, or declaring by word or implication to be the only authorised dealer, I'm listening.)

The linked text starts with a lot of throat-clearing, but beginning with this passage:

It’s like there’s a little Enlightened Beings Club. […] Some guy says he’s got enlightenment. He has a story to back him up about the wonderful day when he finally understood everything about everything. Another guy, his teacher, certified him as a member of the Enlightened Beings Club. And now he’s ready to help you learn to be just like him.

… the pace picks up briskly.

Essentially, Brad uses the book's introduction to address the difference between religion, which serves our craving for temporal power, and practice ("faith", in Christian terms), which rejects human authority and aspiration. The two have always been at each other's throats, as they always must be.

He doesn't delve into the matter in this excerpt; I suspect that's the rest of the book. But in good Zen form, the unanswered questions he poses might serve as a rudder for your own exploration.

WW: Me at the gates of Hell

(Not as bad as they all say. By the way, I'm totally not doing that Bodhidharma thing on purpose. I'm as taken aback as the rest of you by such photos. [Which are rare, because I seldom take any.])