Title: Philosopher-King

Gender: Male

Location: A town, in Nova Scotia

Huanchu Daoren, lit. “A Wayfarer After Beginnings,” Taoist name of Hong Ying-Ming, retired 16th-century Chinese scholar

“The eyes and ears, seeing and hearing, are external plunderers; emotions, desires, and opinions are internal plunderers. But if the inner mind is awake and alert, sitting aloof in the middle of it all, then these plunderers change and become members of the household.” - Huanchu Daoren

“I yam what I yam!” - Popeye, the Sailor Man

“You Are What You Is” - Frank Zappa

“In order to 'get rid of,' first you have to 'get,' you know?” – Yoko Ono, 1980

“You've got to get in to get out….” – Peter Gabriel, 1974

May all beings be happy and free from suffering!

Water Tiger Capricorn wife

Metal Snake Taurus son, 4-1/2

Wooden Rooster Capricorn son, born first week of 2006

Something interesting the Dalai Lama said about enlightenment:

“It might take eons for you to become fully enlightened. If that bothers you, it is a sign that selfish cravings remain which still need to be worked through.”
Update: That was a paraphrased précis. Here are his exact words:
“Practice is not something you can do for a couple of weeks or a couple of years. It takes place over many lifetimes, for eons and eons…. Some texts say enlightenment is achieved after accumulating the collections of merit and wisdom for three periods of countless great eons. If you consider this statement properly, it can encourage you to adopt a patient, persistent attitude through difficult circumstances. If learning this saddens you, this could be due to  your desire to achieve Buddhahood swiftly out of your great concern for others. It could also be a sign of insufficient courage. Enlightenment cannot be attained without working hard at it. To believe otherwise means you are harboring some form of selfishness.”

Chogyam Trungpa is another of my favourites:

“Everything is based on our own uptightness.”

I have a brother who's lived in Japan for the past 20 years. He passed to him on a question I had posed, which was essentially, “If you perceive something you call enlightenment, then you're back in the realm of comparing experiences, of placing special significance on one over the rest. We all think and believe what we think and believe because our experience at that moment convinces us it's true. But we might think differently later on. So how would anyone know they got to that final enlightenment? Isn't enlightenment itself merely a beginning?” And what he gave my brother to pass on to me was (more or less), “Who said anything about final? To say that there is nothing special about that moment is itself a negation, a dismissal. Also, it seems your brother thinks that, having come to a place without reference point, that he should simply abide in it; but as it is itself relative – depending on the world of reference points for its own identity – it can't last. Far more telling of the truth of the enlightenment experience is how deeply his attitude changes when he returns to the relative world. It is true that enlightenment is a beginning, but there is a fundamental reversal in polarity.” What he was talking about, of course, was the exchanging of oneself for others. This is one of the things I think is so wonderful about Tonglen: we don't have to stop to ask ourselves where we're at. Like Frank Zappa's admonition of “Shut up and play,” we can simply immerse ourselves in the practice of exchanging ourselves for others.

Member Since: Wednesday, February 15 2006

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