Muqi is a 13th century Chinese monk who was also an artist. Pronounced /moo CHI/ by Professor James Cahill. Also spelled Muxi.
I thought of 6 Persimmons, when my cousin was feeding one to his son. (Tricycle on Archive). Here's a lecture by Professor James Cahill on YouTube.
I like this one:
There's a plastic tarp caught in a tree. Some painters were loading up their truck and it flew away and they were not able to retrieve it. It's kind of ugly, and I like watch what my mind does when I see it past my Manjushri statue, that is also imperfect because it was blown down and broke.
I think about impermanence in the 13th stage of anapanasati, and I saw today that the tarp broke, it's now in 3 sections, more likely to fall off the tree. The leaves have fallen off in winter time in North America. I miss the green leaves, but the colorful goodbye was spectacular. Days are shorter, it gets dark early.
I was listening for rapture, makes me slightly manic, hypomanic, and I saw the broken tarp and I laughed and cried. Things are a little intense before they consolidate into happiness, or sukha. It's that vital transition that makes up Buddhism, makes it different than a Dionysian cult. Cult can have a positive connotation where it whips up devotion and energy for the spiritual practice. The joy of a goal, my children hugging me, sex, drugs and rock and roll. The poets might see it as drunk on spiritual rapture.
Impermanence might be obvious, but I contemplate it, and I've worked on calming the selfing done in the skandhas, the 5 heaps in stage 8, and I contemplate what happiness really is in stage 10, but I look at how I'm still subtly clinging to samsara too, in stage 13. I imagine I would feel better if that tarp wasn't in the tree.
There's a guy who used to have a long grabby things in Brooklyn for taking the plastic bags that get caught in the trees, he just fixes the reality instead of coping with the mental situation, and that's a valid approach. They made bags need to be bought in grocery stores, so now there are fewer bags flying around in New York City, but I still get the bags for takeout, and use them for small garbage cans.
I've started a blog about my personal experiences in a dharma friendship, this blog was more objective experience and reports of culture. I feel like this blog may have run its course, we'll see what I do with it.
"I here find myself compelled to dissent from a typical response I often encounter among Western Buddhists. This is the response which says that, in any conflictual situation, we must adopt a stance of detached neutrality, that we shouldn’t take sides but should try to see the good and bad hidden in both sides. That’s a style of Buddhist rhetoric I don’t want to accept. I also don’t want to accept the familiar line, “Everything is impermanent, so don’t worry.” It’s true that everything is impermanent, but by the time this regime ends, millions of lives may be lost and damaged and the entire ecosystem of the earth disrupted beyond repair."
From "It's No Time To Be Neutral" 11/8/24
Yesterday was Dia de los Muertos is a remembrance of ancestors, a holiday from our Mexican brothers and sisters.
Yesterday was Halloween is a day when you can dress up in an alternate persona, or hero, and beg for candy. I never really got into it, though of course I did it as a kid for the candy haul. I went around with my daughter who was dressed up like a bat. She says next year she wants to dress like a witch with her mother. I sometimes think about getting a Cat in the Hat hat. Lots of amazing costumes on social media, some people are the opposite of me, and make it really happen.
Today is Diwali is the triumph of light over darkness. My friend voted yesterday to get that out of the way, hopefully light triumphs over darkness politically. I've been reading about Zoroastrianism, because I'm studying Iran, and they have a specific take in the fight of light over dark. Jainism and Hinduism also celebrate Diwali. My Buddhist friend is part of a leading team for a Diwali retreat.
My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. A feast and a positive attitude.
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