Hi, Merle,
We're all transients, and everything we do or make is transitory. Tomorrow I
will be out of favor, and who knows who will be in favor. But the
surface-stuff is just gloss and glitter and crust. I think -- and know -- that
we are all of good stuff.
Our expression sometimes can be off-center, though. Eccentric. And sometimes,
our hearing is off-center: we can take people wrongly. That's Human, too,
along with the fact that our finger-nails grow.
Now, how were our finger-nails "meant" to be cut, 50,000 years ago? They
didn't have clippers, then, and they didn't even have metal tools. I think we
have ways of living in Nature that enable things to happen without a lot of
specific intention. And don't tell me that everybody BIT their nails back
then!: That only started during the Great Stock Market Crash, I think.
Oh, what I'm saying is, "Thanks", I sometimes speak or write and indicate what
I can in a way a friend would indicate things, or as teachers of mine have
indicated. It's hard, at a distance, to share what is closest to us. In
person, you and I would teach each other, you know. I know you would teach me!
We would be fast friends. Even if I'm not as fast as I used to be (was on the
track and field team).
If my stock is high this week, don't let it be at the expense of others, or
others' stock. It just isn't realistic. You see how everything is connected:
two bombs go off in Boston, and you think Edgar is not a good-guy? It can't
really be so. It's just the mind -- or some part or process of it -- playing
tricks, again. Our practice can make us able to see those tricks, even if we
don't always see through them all of the time.
For example, you once displayed some behavior or pattern of thought, and I
decided to put on those same clothes to "mirror" this back to you, at you, and
so I called "artists" by a bad name, and cast aspersions on Art, in general.
Not YOUR art! See, I'm not a good teacher. Anyway, your art to me is an
eloquent expression, and the truest teacher, and much, much better that I
"deserve", and yet you share it with me!
I shall try to reform. Didn't I write here, two months ago, that in my
practice I am in early days of slim progress? Yes. I used those very words.
As practice improves a little, life improves in order to support the improved
practice, and better practice, ...and so on. Well that's what's going on and
it's much, much better if I don't consider or think that I can teach, or that I
do teach. That's just a Vanity. They used to say in my youth that there are
no teachers, and that, instead, we are each others' Teachings. Nowadays, I
just don't know. I'm just glad I learned practice from good teachers, so now I
can just face practice and be true to it, and to them. Sorry, there's some
sadness, too. The teachers are both gone. And this is part of their teaching,
too. The Zen school's concern is about life and death. Our relationship with
a teacher embodies both, and makes a complete teaching. So, yes, in a way a
teacher doesn't teach, but in fact is a Teaching to us.
Long on words this morning ...sipping Coffee #1.
Greetings, across the waters!
And to Mike, too, on your Left Coast! In Perth.
Cheers,
--Joe
> Merle Lester <merlewiitpom@...> wrote:
>
> joe... i have lost faith in edgar after his comment about the boston
>bombings... no compassion..
>
> unless he clarifies himself he's off my christmas card list..
>
> you are on it joe..
> because you have been a very patient and kind teacher
[snip]
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