Miscellaneous

More notes from the "Zen Lent" Theology on Tap session . . . The three stages along the spiritual road: purgative, illuminative, unitive. I have no doubt that they accurately describe the road. But I guess I've never found them helpful or useful. As I've gotten older,

A student once asked [the Zen master Joshu]: "If I haven't anything in my mind, what shall I do?" Joshu replied: "Throw it out." "But if I haven't anything, how can I throw it out?" continued the questioner. "Well,

Zen is steeped in Buddhism, which means its roots are in pantheistic monism: God is the world and all is one. The same spirit (Brahman) occupies everything. All is Brahman: I'm Brahman, you're Brahman, that chair is Brahman. If you think you perceive a distinction between

Miscellaneous Rambling Wow, glorious weather! Last night, I put up two short low tunnels at the production site. The plan: accelerate the drying-out process, so I can prepare the beds under the tunnels in two weeks, recover them with the tunnels thereby adding heat for weeds to sprout, burn them

Time to Retreat Well, the Cursillo was definitely better than the first three retreats that left me flummoxed, but I didn't like it and couldn't even finish it. I guess I'm not retreat material, which means I'm not a good Catholic, based

Cursillo weekend. Just this today: > Prague, Czech Republic @MagicalEurope [https://twitter.com/MagicalEurope?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/sfz6imEgGi [https://t.co/sfz6imEgGi] > — Tradia (@amalieskram) February 21, 2018 [https://twitter.com/amalieskram/status/966322075525943296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > Ambient beauty sets the scene from the

Brews You Can Use Drinking in China: The Qingdao Beer Festival [https://drunkard.com/the-qingdao-beer-festival-is-evil/]. According to the author, it's a terrible festival: boring, bad food, bad beer. It's a good, humorous read, but if you just want a few of the highlights: > Beer brewing

A Bullet Life of JRR Tolkien 1892-1973 Father died when Tolkien was 4. When he was 8, his mother became Roman Catholic, to the fury of her relatives. They withheld financial support in hopes she'd renounce the Church. She didn't and had to go to work.

I am intrigued with the points made by Gabriel Marcel in his book, Man Against Mass Society, a book that came out in English in 1962. Modern society is, to Marcel, mass society, a society where public life is relentlessly presented to us as reality, but it is not reality