Monday, December 03, 2007

Human nature

People
stick with you

pledge eternal friendship
devotion
concern
goodwill
until the next shiny doodad
catches their eye
Should it be
any different?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I understand your feelings...completely. That is why I love animals so much.

Lisa

Jules said...

Hi Michael,
Your photographs are wonderfully shiny doodads. I hope you can continue to get out and keep taking them for a long, long time to come.

Michael said...

Thank you both very much.

YourFireAnt said...

I think there's room for shiny doodads AND eternal friendship in the same person. Even if its just the one being respite from the other. Again and again. Also, I'm leery of pledges (or anything else that smacks of promising). If you are a friend you just are.

FA

Michael said...

... which is why I close with "Should it be / any different?"

Mike Cross said...

Hi Michael,

Your question reminds me of the Zen monk who went into Macdonalds, ordered a cheeseburger and chips and handed over a five-pound note. All he got back was the cheeseburger and chips. After a while, the monk complained: "But I gave you a fiver!"

"Change," the bloke at the till replied sagely, "comes from within."

By the way, how is the new bed? Has it made any difference?

Michael said...

Hi Mike,

My back is feeling better, so I haven't gotten a new bed yet.

Mike Cross said...

Voila! Energy spreads out and flows away. People's fickleness and your back feeling better are equal manifestations of the same principle. Energy flows away.

I don't promise you eternal friendship. But I can tell you in all honesty that your blogging has helped me think more deeply about what "the backward step of turning light and shining" might mean -- in terms of what it might require us to give up. And I can promise you that, if your energy flows away before mine does, I will be here, on this sitting-cushion, carrying on this process, step by step, every day until my energy flows away too. That is one promise you can rely on.

Because energy flows away, the Buddha's lifeblood keeps flowing.

Hence, "If in life and death there is buddha, there is no life and death."

Michael said...

Thank you, Mike.

Mike Cross said...

Thank you, Michael, for tolerating with good grace my long-winded pontifications.

But the person you should really thank is Master Dogen, at least for the two sentences that really count:

"Learn the backward step of turning light and shining."
(Fukan-zazengi; Rules of Sitting-Zen for All)

and

"If in life and death there is buddha, there is no life and death."
(Shobogenzo chap. 92, Shoji; Life & Death)