--- In [email protected], Duveyoung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Turq,
> 
> Very enjoyable read. I was walking next to you, bub. Glad you "came
> back" after you hinted about leaving here.  

For a long time there was really nothing I felt like
replying to or contributing, that's all. Besides, I
wanted Swami J to panic for a while and focus on some
new victim, which she did -- Peter.  :-)

> No matter how right or
> wrong you are judged to be on so many matters by so many here, the
> piece below sets you above most here in that you contribute of
> yourself these "takes on life" with quality writing, and . . . 
> quality heart.
> 
> I envy your setting.  

It's a neat place.

> You're doing something very good for yourself it
> seems. Don't know if you follow the "movement rules" about having
> religious statues -- seems unlikely -- but I still try to honor 
> any religious symbol by at least mood making a bit and trying to 
> be "my nice parts" when I'm around them.  I don't bow and pray to 
> them, but I try not to -- psychically speaking -- purposefully 
> turn my back on them. I respect them for the power they have to 
> trigger my mind into wandering the "purity aisles" of my inner 
> supermarket.

While I respect the inspirational purposes of such
images, I *definitely* don't respect any "rules"
about them. The new stone Buddha I bought last 
night is currently wearing a pair of my nose glasses,
and looks to me as if he's really enjoying them.

This is not sacrilege. On the contrary, it is my way
of respecting what I think Buddha was all about. I
suspect he laughed a lot and had FUN with life, and
I'm not ever going to get down with any tradition or
teacher who tells me to get all *serious* about a
dude who probably had passed "serious" by long before
they started making statues of him.

So some days I might fill his lap with flowers, and
the next, Tootsie Rolls, or like today, let him wear
my nose glasses, or maybe a funny hat. I think enough
of the historical Buddha to believe that whatever makes 
me smile would make him smile.



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