cjmarbutt's Journal

2:14PM

Going stir crazy.

Partly its our the weather, partly its the Post Office next door and mostly its just me. The weather is cold, damp, gray and bleak. That's to be expected since but long walks are not feasible at the moment. The Post Office's part is complicated. When we moved here there was a stand of Leland cypress which provided us with privacy and a sound break. Our backyard was a lovely if weedy oasis in this small town filled with boom boxes and people checking their mail at hours of the night.

Then after the shooting the Post Office chose to cut down the cypresses, put up flood lights (in response to a crime that occurred in broad day light no less) and generally ignore our needs here. Now every night our backyard looks like a football field on Friday night and the once oasis is more of a monkey island in a zoo. Rather than making the Post Office safer they have only increased the likelihood that we would be involved if a future crime occurs let alone that anyone in the Post Office parking lot can now easily case our house.

It's been over a month since the post master asked me if I hated her. I am glad to say the answer is no, but the emotions are a bit on the complicated side and left me wondering what it means to hate someone. I do not wish her harm. In the most general way I can wish her happiness and well being. But that's my limit.

Eventually we can regrow what has been cut down on our side of the property line. The fact those trees have been there over twenty five years and they couldn't give us a couple of years to plant something on our side before they cut them says a lot. And to think we have to live with this for about three years. Maybe she'll ask again then.

3:46PM

And the heavens parted... Seriously I am off from today at 4 PM until Thursday at 4 PM. It wasn't planned. I just agreed to work some random shifts for different people and this is what happened. Whether its karma or just serendipity, I like it.

10:10PM

Tom who hosts the local Auburn Zen Group had business elsewhere and I opened for him Thursday at the UU in Auburn. We had a nice sit, just myself and two others, one of whom is a regular and the other who practices TM meditation. One thing I like about AZG, it really just gives you head space to do your own thing. You can practice zen, silently chant Namo Amitabha, or plan your grocery list and no one minds.

In that respect, quiet sitting is very friendly to a diversity of approaches.

Recently I started reading Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations by Paul Williams. One of the texts he expounds upon is an early proto-Mahayana Sutra called the Ajitasema Sutra discovered in Pakistan in the 1920's. It includes the practice of chanting the Buddha's name and mentions Amitabha's Pure Land by name.

Somewhere in my reading, it dawned on me. In the Pure Land Sutras I cannot recall any disparagement toward the Sravakas or Arhats which we sometimes find in the sutras of the otehr schools, such as the Lotus Sutra or the Diamond Sutra. All of this, to me at least, suggests that the Pure Land teachings must be included among the oldest strata of the Mahayana school, before the schism between the Mahayana and the Theravada and other early schools got so over heated.

7:58PM

6:53PM

Earlier this month we all go a shock in our sleepy hamlet. Tony who picked up mail in the evenings at the post office as a contracted worker was shot and killed. Not the kind of news we get off in our neck of the woods and we live next door to the post office.

Here's a link to the latest update:
http://www2.oanow.com/oan/news/local/article/investigators_following_up_on_tips_in_postal_workers_death/99838/

3:11PM

Looking over last summer, I realize just how much we have stayed home this year. No matter, third weekend in October we're headed to Cape Girardeau for an art show. In the careful what you wish department, the TV station called early last Wednesday. I am once more pushing buttons and staying up late in infomercial hell which is all kind of weird.

Back in the day, the TV station was my job and the airbrush paint thing was a side project. Now the airbrush paint thing is my job and my top priority and the TV station is... well, I'm not sure what it is. I mean it's money, it's a job I've done off and on through two layoffs now, for eleven years, it's people I know and like, it's getting paid for watching TV. So why not? I am shooting for 25 to 30 hours a week at times when I wouldn't be working for the paint business anyway.

7:22PM

Weekend was insane. I did a head count and we had twelve people and one bathroom over two days. We still only have one bath but we're back down to two people. William has added on a sun room where our crumbling back porch used to be. Nice improvement. It came with a butler's pantry. I also got a weight bench... life had gotten too sedentary after leaving the TV station.

I actually miss certain aspects of that life. The other day we had to kill four hours in Auburn-Opelika waiting on Ashes to get off and it was fun to just do whatever, which in this case meant hitting every park we could find between Auburn-Opelika, which is a bunch btw.

We are now getting Emir on weekends and holidays. He's four and except for this past weekend, he's generally well behaved. With all the company this past Saturday and Sunday, he was the most adorable evil incarnate hell spawn one could imagine... still missed him when he was gone and that dang gummy bear song has been stuck in my head since Sunday.

Gummy, gummy, gummy, ARGGG!!!

5:40PM

October was uber-busy. I had a Mid-South UU conference, a family reunion, homecoming at the UU in Camp Hill and Buddha Heart Village's 21st anniversary celebration plus a funeral to contend with. Just now unwinding it seems and finally got around to posting (which I have been putting off for weeks now).

Johnny, a member of the UU here, died of cancer after a three year battle. Certainly brings home the fragility of life. He had just got past the sixty year mark. Angie, his wife, seems to be hanging on which in itself is an accomplishment regardless of how well she is doing so.

On the bright side I *did* get guest speakers booked for the Camp Hill UU up until April. We got some stuff I am actually looking forward to including a poetry reading in December, the guest speaker in February is someone I met in Birmingham at Mid-South and April will be Charles Suhor who will speaking about his gay son who was violently killed in New Orleans and whose writings have been published under the title The Book of Rude and Other Outrages.

I took refuge at Buddha Heart. Shifu made it far more stress free than I expected and another new member was also taking refuge at the same time which also helped. So I guess I am officially Mahayana Buddhist with Ch'an underpinnings. How did that happen? Oh, wait, that was the whole non-discrimination thing, taking the raft that is given, etc.

You would think I had more to report but mostly the happenings haven't been terribly newsworthy or I have to keep my mouth shut to protect the guilty. I did discover True Blood on HBO and admit I am addict. Sam is so underrated! I think the killer is Rene: the Cajun accent, just getting around to marrying Arlene, everything suggests to me he's rather new in town like Sam and Bill, plus Sookie hasn't got inside his head that I've seen and well, it would be irony of sorts if Arlene who is so worried about Sookie's involvement with monsters like Bill was herself marrying one of another kind.

Hey, it looks like I am doing pretty good on my Boomer is the fifth cylon guess. Lets see if I can go two for two :-)

Well speaking of TV, I am off to chant the Heart Sutra and wait on Smallville.

10:25AM

4:13PM

What type of person do you attract? Your Result: You attract rednecks!   Maybe it's that Nascar T-shirt, the scent of diesel fuel on you, the grease under your fingernails - you attract rednecks. If you enjoy listening to Skynard CD's on infinite repeat, lots of mullet-wearing freinds, air-guitar, giving/taking the occasional beating, and watching a lot of wrestling on TV, then you are all set. If you are looking for depth and less drama, you definitely need to change something - and soon.
You attract geeks!
You attract unstable people!
You attract Yuppies!
You attract artsy people!
You attract models!
What type of person do you attract? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Think its time I laid off of the quizs

4:59PM

Your Love Life is Like Titanic

"Promise me you'll survive. That you won't give up, no matter what happens, no matter how hopeless." You think that you only really have one true love in your life. And that you better to anything and everything to be with that person. You tend to be very nostalgic about past loves that didn't work out. There are many secret feelings that you keep to yourself. Your love style: Deep and emotional Your Hollywood Ending Will Be: Bittersweet

Arggg!!! Can I like demand a recount or something?

8:55PM

Picked up a little book today in the poetry section called Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei.  It explores nineteen translation of a deceptively simple poem and explains the many strengths and weaknesses of each translation and the Gordian knot that translators in general must face.  (The reason I question the practice of our time of using of quotation marks around translated sentences such as though attributed to the Buddha, Jesus or any of the ancient Greek philosophers.)

The poem, called Deer Park, runs something along the lines of:

An empty mountain, no one is seen,
but the sound of a human voice is heard.
Sunlight returns and enters the deep forest
again shining upon the blue green lichen.

For other versions see:
http://www.chinapage.com/poem/wangwei/wangwei-trs.html

(Strange however many translators want to invent some kind of a witness for the scene which the Chinese clearly lacks. 

It's not a perfect translation but better than myself have tried and failed.  Most translators agree that the sunlight in question is meant to be the setting sun which is in many poems such as these symbolic of the light of Amitabha Buddha shining from his Western Pure Land.  Here it penetrates the deep forest which is a time tested Buddhist metaphor for deluded thinking, the so called forest of false views.   It was in fact this third line that jumped out at me.

The fourth shows the object of Amitabha's compassion which is the blue green lichen; this goes back to the Diamond Sutra where the Buddha declares that even knowing that there is no Self, no Other, no individuated existence and no lifespan, a bodhisattva still vows to save all beings, even those born by transformation such as mushrooms/fungi.

So what are we to make of the first two lines and why is the light not turned toward the human voice? With the Amitabha symbolism of the third line reasonably beyond question I think, the argument to be made is that the sound heard is a person chanting the name of Amitabha.  Amitabha and sentient being, as the Contemplation Sutras puts it, is of one original self nature.  To chant the name of Amitabha is to be born in the Western Pureland, and is to identify with our true self.  To identify with the true self is to destroy attachments to ideas of self or other which is the death of the samsaric ego.

So when one encounters an old monk in the wilderness chanting the name of Amitabha, even though his voice can be heard, there is still no one to be found. 

9:57PM

Sunday at Buddha Heart Village was odd.  I had printed out the mantras in Sanskrit and had the intention of chanting along at an unobtrusive mumble as the rest chanted in Chinese.  The odd thing was, it all matched up almost seamlessly.  I know that the Chinese did their best to preserve the sound of the Sanskrit originals but it's creepy when I can't follow them in pinyin.  I have always gotten lost before but switch to a different language and I'm suddenly good, wtf!?!  Maybe Allison is onto something, Karmic affinity and all that.

On the bright side I have also gotten in the habit of chanting the Shurangama Mantra as well as the other Morning Recitations as part of my daily practice though for me it's more like a noon recitation.  From BHV's point of view the timing of the recitation is less important than the spirit in which it  is recited.  I tend to agree.  (In some corners of Chan Buddhism there is a taboo about reciting the Shurangama Mantra at certain times.)

Charlie made a point I liked yesterday though I can't quote him exactly because my memory sucks.  Basically mathematics can be used to build bridges or administer medicine.  Both are important applications but neither bridge building nor medicine is mathematics.  Buddhism can be used to seek enlightenment in this world or be reborn in the Pure Land but likewise neither application is Buddha Dharma which is beyond words, conceptions and all dichotomy. 

In regards to Buddha Nature being neither real or unreal he compared it to an infinite number of points between zero and one of which not a single point takes up space.  'The Buddha Heart, extending everywhere, yet not occupying space', those were the first words on my mind when I woke up this morning.

Shifu has been in Peru this past year and will be back this weekend.  I hope to be back to Buddha Heart in two weeks to see him and welcome him back to Alabama. 

4:10PM

While I do not respect John McCain's politics, I am grateful for what his VP pick has done for the English language.  Words like termagant, fishwife (my favorite) and harridan have never had a more promising future for use in daily conversations.  August passed like a whirlwind, ending with a Sister Hazel concert and a cautious eye on Hurricane Gustav that, as it turned out, past so far from us we did not even get appreciable rain off of it.

We also caught a concert earlier in the month that will not long be forgotten.  It was a tribute band type thing.  The Return, playing the Beatles' hits from the sixties were good.  The Rolling Stone tribute band whom I will leave nameless was up there with Van Halen, the Baby Animals and some group that opened for the Indigo Girls once (or maybe that was the Baby Animals) and Jeff Cook as delivering one of the most off key, nerve grating, ear splitting concerts of my life.

We also had a weekend in Atlanta, kind of last moment planning.  We stayed in the ghetto which is an odd place to build a hotel, almost as odd as the place where the commode was placed, tight against the wall in the corner so you had to sit on it rather askew.  Translucent glass tiles also prevented us from enjoying the view of the parking deck from our room.   It was the only window.

But some business associates were flying into town for a woodworking convention and did our part to look presentable.  I also escaped briefly and made it over to Zenspace in Little Five Points for a nice sit.    It was a good mini-escape all in all.

Also Wes is starting up a metaphysical discussion group on Wednesday nights.  I may have a social life again :-)

8:57PM

William and I went up to North Georgia yesterday, spending a laid back birthday with Mom and Dad.  We took some detours around the mountains in Northern Alabama and the deepest gorge east of the Mississippi if the hype is to be believed.  It's not like I measured it myself.  But it is beautiful than, in deference to William's desire that his brakes survive to another trip, there are parts we didn't dare go out and these happen to be the most scenic of course.

The pillows on the guest bed at Mom and Dad's are bad.  We're talking sleeping on a maxipad bad.   Sadly I've turned into both my parents it seems.  On family vacations the first invariably packed were their pillows which always seemed to fill up the back seat.  Mom especially just couldn't sleep on strange pillows.  So at 6:00 AM Georgia time, 5:00 AM my time, I got up and went outside.  Found me a spot with a clear view of the early morning sky and meditated as I watched Orion suspended over the horizon.

We came later and I ate (too much) at Provino's to top off the festivities.

Yesterday we began watching CNN's documentary Buddha's Warriors.  It was well done and we're fixing to catch the second half here in about an hour. 

11:20PM

Fourth of July was spent watching the Next Food Network Star marathon followed by some fireworks and then pancakes.  Jeesh, my life seems to reach new heights of mediocrity but truth be told, it was fun just to relax.  Not much has been going on and not much to complain about.  I did find a Korean Buddhist group called Kwan Um.  They are a Zen school with very pronounced Pure Land elements.

The closest group is in Marietta.  Hoping to be there next Sunday.  It's a two hour drive and with the price of gas, it's not exactly something I can do often but periodically, it's doable and with emails, I'm thinking there might be some possibilities here.  As a school, Kwan Um made the jump from Korean to American culture beginning somewhere in the 70's but they didn't seem jettison as much as some (but I realize not all) of their Japanese counterparts. 

For example the Great Compassion Dharani has a prominent place in their liturgy, as does the Yeombul (Nembutsu) and various other chanting material; bowing and chanting also remains on a rather equal footing with sitting if I understand correctly.  It seems very much centered around the figures of  Kwan Se Um (Avalokitashvara) and Amita Buddha, as well as such other figures as Shakymuni, Vairochana, Ksitigarbha, Manjushri and Samantabadhra.   

In other words, this is the rich, almost polytheistic version of Zen  which also happens to be  the Zen I am at ease with the most.  

1:53PM

The Hulk never made much sense as a member of the Avengers but with the slant that movies tend to give such fare, Bruce Banner and his IQ makes perfect sense and the his green alter ego, both asset and liability, just makes the situation more interesting.  So with Fury appearing at the end of Iron Man, I just had to wonder if Marvel would really do it and apparently they did:

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20080611/121322250000.html

Based on the upcoming movies, this would mean the Avengers will include Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and Thor.  I wonder if Brad Pit and Angelina Jolie would up for the parts of Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyke?

1:17PM

As if I didn't already know, my subconscious is seriously bent.  I frequently dream of spiders sometimes as big as automobiles but the spiders are in short friendly and the dreams are never nightmares.  So what creature do I dream of getting attacked by? A frackin' mutant gerbil-guinea pig-bunny thing that was all white and fluffy and cute with a neat red bow.   Its worshipers swore it was the vessel of some dark god and judging by the strength of its little rodent jaws, I tended to agree.

Shame one of the giant spiders didn't come to my rescue. 

We had a great time in Florida this weekend.  We hit Panama City Beach first and drove up to Pensacola, stopping for the night in Ft. Walton.   We stayed at the  Dolphin Inn where a room will set you back sixty bucks.  The place is a piece of Americana needing landscaping and a paint job, but our room was clean and the cheapest thing to be had.  Saturday we hit the beach in Navarre as well as the snow cone  stand.  Sunday I went to the Buddhist temple in Pensacola.  It was some holiday but I couldn't stay for the whole thing. 

Now we're back and the summer slam is under way.

8:28PM

Long two weeks and I am tired. 

Ashes has officially been out of the house for most of it.  William and I were in Emir withdrawals and went and borrowed him Saturday.  We bought him an erasable sketch pad thingy and went to the Lee County public lake yesterday.  It was exactly what we needed... getting up at 5:00 AM this morning however wasn't.  Nonetheless I did and we went to the ren fair for Phillip and Dee's wedding.  Somehow I was drafted to be best man.  There was some all around bitchiness on the part of the staff of the ren fair about doing a Pagan ceremony but somehow they caved and the wedding was a 100% Pagan handfasting... very beautiful.

Last weekend was Gene's last sermon at the UU in Camp Hill.  His search for truth and meaning had carried him away from the UU's general stance towards things.  Dennis and Gene are similar in that both are Christian but somehow Dennis never seemed to have a problem transcending his own spirituality when giving a sermon.  Gene was a different matter and along about November his focus shifted, the sermons became very Christian oriented, his interest in the Dharma ended (he seems to have forgotten he was chanting "Om Mani Padme Hum" on a daily basis when he first arrived) and things changed as they must.

Now we're hunting guest speakers and I've been on a mad emailing spree.  Wish us luck.

Lat weekend, after Church, we drove over to lake and listened to Kansas and the Robin Hill Band.  Kansas is frackin' awesome.  Of course if you had been playing some of the same tunes since 1974, you would probably have 'em down tighter than an eight day clock as well but they were good.  Dust in the Wind was stuck in my head for days. 

And that is pretty much it I guess, except we got another Belgium order and it's been insane around here.  The couple in Belgium who sell our products have to order in large bulk to make it worth the tariffs but they seldom order over two ounce bottles.  The result, little bottles of paint everywhere and just when you have everything accounted for, there is invariably an additional email ordering 10 more of this and that and those over there and so forth.

I feel a long night's sleep coming on... Then time to play in the paint again.

9:19PM

And the old classmates continue to resurface.  A guy named Philip whom I haven't seen in close to twenty years just invited me to his wedding on June 1 at the Georgia Renaissance Festival.  Nice to know he hasn't changed, at least in some little quirky ways.  He used to live on Cloudland Mountain and in high school we would hike out the trails.  The caves and outcroppings were amazing.  Hadn't thought about 'em in years.  Really not much else is going on.

I hit Buddha Heart today after a Dharma free month--- everyone has been out of town for one reason or another.  I came home and chanted the Medicine Buddha Sutra followed by some Amitabha's, okay a lot of Amitabha's I guess.  It's not exactly a Pure Land text but does contain the verse " Because of this good seed they [Buddhist followers] have planted, they expect to be reborn in the Western Paradise where the Buddha Amitayus [Amitabha] dwells. But, though they hear the correct doctrine of the Buddha, they can not discern and put enough trust in it. When they hear the name of the Buddha of Medicine at the time of their death, then there will be eight Bodhisattvas who, with magic powers, will traverse the intervening space to come to show them their ways, and amidst the colourful flowers of that world, they will be born there by transformation."

Couldn't get Myanmar or China off my mind, still not sure I have and the Medicine Buddha deals a lot with suffering.  Almost went with the Contemplation Sutra.

Business is slow with the economy and gas prices.  The dollar falling to the euro, the inflation of gas prices, a crumbling infrastructure and more and more jobs being lost to NAFTA and such, I don't think I am being Chicken Little here--- hard times are coming and I suspect coming fast.   Driving  down past Tiger Town (Land of the McJob that it is) and out toward Beauregard this last point gets brought home as you past row after row of abandoned warehouses and factories.

As for why  we would be driving to Beauregard, Ashes is moving out; her and her boyfriend have gotten serious and rented themselves a "cute" little block home.   I told her to look on the bright side, they are not so much living in the ghetto as they are the ghetto.  All joking aside though, the house is  not bad for a rental home and has great potential...  much of which William has been fulfilling as he has been painting Emir's room and helping out considerable in the other rooms.  I've been providing baby sitting service while Ashes packs, paints and whatever else needs to be done.

Soon I will be able to walk naked through my living once again...  Yeah, I know, TMI.