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(4-19-2001)
Tony_Tiger: Hi, are you just zapping through the Yahoo Buddhist chat room or can you stay?
Sitaram: I can stay a while, I suppose
Sitaram: I just posted two new little articles... one is "A Jar Filled with Flies", the other, "Is TRUTH Universal?"
Tony_Tiger: I have had a wonderful experience with the Zen center. I will go read them. Thank you. I will be doing my second sesshin meditation retreat soon.
Sitaram: That's good.
Tony_Tiger: It's harder than I expected. I was almost sent home from the first one
Sitaram: Socrates used to frequently say "Xalapa ta Kala" (Good things are difficult)
Tony_Tiger: Easier to talk about Buddhism than to do it.
Tony_Tiger: Yes, I agree with Socrates
Tony_Tiger: The teachers are so wonderful there. They sat a priest by me the whole sesshin. Which was an amazing learning experience for me. End of boring sesshin story.
Sitaram: Your story is not boring. Blaise Pascal said, "Examine even the humblest thing closely, and you will find it contains an entire universe in microcosm".
Tony_Tiger: Yes
Tony_Tiger: I learned that my own rebellion, my lack of acceptance..caused most of my pain
Sitaram: Everything may be our teacher.
Tony_Tiger: It was almost entirely internal... yes
Sitaram: You should look at my website page on quotations from Existentialism
Tony_Tiger: Okay I will. I don't know much about existentialism
Sitaram: You will find good things at the page
Tony_Tiger: Except that I think Buddhism is talking about a different kind of emptiness... I will look
Sitaram: You may not be able to say "acidasalacylic acid", but you can always take an aspirin
Tony_Tiger: LOL, yes
Tony_Tiger: Someone in here wanted me to ask my Zen teacher what the doctrinal foundation of Zen was
Sitaram: I hope some day you can see the film version of the play called "Wit"
Sitaram: It was on HBO or some cable station this week
Tony_Tiger: We don't have that... but will have it soon, they'll re- show it, I will watch for it
Sitaram: About a woman who is a renowned classics scholar, and is dying of cancer.... it is very philosophical (and somewhat zen-like)
Tony_Tiger: Yes, I heard of that... it is supposed to be excellent
Sitaram: Perhaps you can also rent the video
Tony_Tiger: I will watch for it
Tony_Tiger: My private time with my teacher is so brief... that is always is close to the bone and essential... not much theory
Tony_Tiger: I always end up feeling wordy and a little foolish
Sitaram: An eon is a "wink" and a moment is an eternity.... our experience of time is subjective
Tony_Tiger: Yes
Tony_Tiger: Meditation alters the time sense and one sees that more clearly, or at least I do
Sitaram: Robert Ornstein, in his book "Multimind", speaks of T.W.I.T. (The Western Intellectual Tradition).... our desire to translate all experiences to words and then share them
Tony_Tiger: LOL, yes ... thanks for the reminder
Sitaram: It's like an old joke, about the lumberjack, who makes all his love in the forest, and chops all his wood in the whorehouse.
Tony_Tiger: Yes... everything is so amazing
Sitaram: For most of us, experience is an after-thought and reminiscence, or an anticipation in the imagination... we are rarely in the here and now...
Tony_Tiger: Yes
Sitaram: This is sort of what the story "Wit" deals with
Tony_Tiger: Go on
Sitaram: Simply, that if you watch the movie,.... the scholarly woman tries to deal with the death experience through words, literature.... and yet fails....
Tony_Tiger: Yes, why is that I can understand why death can't be explained with words. But I have no trouble trying to explain something equally profound, life with them
Sitaram: Death is our "final exam"...not multiple choice... but an essay.
Tony_Tiger: I am not afraid and that makes living bearable.
Tony_Tiger: I have to go now
Sitaram: OK... take care
Tony_Tiger: I really always enjoy talking to you. You really don't know how much influence you have had on my going forward with zen
Sitaram: Glad to be of help
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