[Buddha-l] Jim Peavler's Experience

[jkirk]

I had a stoat-like experience once when I thought I was going to
be at the annual Bodhi Manda lectures that happen in early
summer, as I recall. I sent an email to BManda asking about
accommodation's and got a reply from a former student of mine
from days of yore when I had a teaching job. He said he was amonk
there, and that he looked forward to seeing me, but when I
ventured to reply asking him to tell me more about his life since
college, no reply came back. He had been shut up, or felt obliged
to shut up any such correspondence. Alas, the accommodations were
such that I could not possibly have managed being there: dorm
rooms built for many, accommodations for the young and spry only.
Joanna
================================


Thanks for the positive response to my experience. I don't think
I would, personally, call it the "stink of awakening and zen". I
have friends for whom it has all been a positive experience as
far as I can tell. Hell I would even call my experience positive
so long as I wasn't longing to be a monk. I turned out to be
quite unmonkish.

On the other hand, some of my friends, once vibrant and amusing
seem to have been put in shock by their ordinations and now seem
"stunned as stoats" in the words of the immortal John Cleese.


On May 22, 2009, at 10:58 AM, Franz Metcalf wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I do not have any great insights to add to Jim's post. Mostly I
am 
> posting this to give Jim his own thread, richly deserved.
>
> In the Hollywood movie of Jim's life, I'm pretty sure that
Sasaki 
> Roshi would rise from his Roshi's platform, make the trek to
Jim's 
> place, and hand him his robe and staff as testaments to Jim's
having 
> let go of the stink of awakening and of Zen along with it.
>
> In Jim's *experience*, well, we'll see
>
> In gassho,
>
> Franz
> _______________________________________________
> buddha-l mailing list
> buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
> http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l

Jim Peavler
jmp at peavler.org




_______________________________________________
buddha-l mailing list
buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
http://mailman.swcp.com/mailman/listinfo/buddha-l