Before Zen crossed the shores into Japan, the students of the Tendai school would study meditation, as part of their daily practice. Four of them, close friends all, promised one another to observe seven days of silence.
On the first day, no words were spoken, and the students took pleasure in their auspicious beginning. When night came however, the oil lamps grew dim, and the room slowly darkened.
One student, named Hoshin, called out to a servant: "Servant! Attend to the lamps, so that I might better observe our accomplishment!"
The second student was surprised to hear Hoshin speak. "We are supposed to keep quiet," he chided.
"But you also spoke!" declared the third. "You are an idiot!"
"I am the only one who has not talked," concluded the fourth, as he settled into seiza.
She had no business being there.
Thirty-five, her friends all in Jacksonville. And Aikido, of all things. She was practicing four, five hours a day.
She’d never even been to New York before.
But there she was, for five weeks, sleeping on the mat. And training, with partners fifteen years her junior, and twenty years her senior. I can hardly imagine how grueling it must have been.
I wish I knew her, then.
Sorry, Sheena.
This entry was posted on Saturday, July 31st, 2010 at 8:26 pm and is filed under Conversation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
who’s Sheena? o_0
oh, okie. We have already had a discussion about that song.
For some reason I thought you were referencing an old flame of your’s or something. lol
Heh.
Yeah, I think I’ve gotten all the nostalgia out of my system, for the time being. So no more Ramones posts.
So…did you like the style of these posts? Or do you want something more matter of fact?
I tried to change the tone a bit, from my previous “tongue-in-cheek” posts. Which everyone took the wrong way anyway. Not that I’m bitter.
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Yes I am.
I like the nostalgia.
I appreciate it. Still, though, I want to move on.
I have an article, but I’m not sure if I will ever post it. It goes back to my strong feelings regarding budo transmission, rank, and the importance of organizations. Especially with regard to yudansha testing, but also with transmission in general.
However, if you or incogneto have something you’d like to post, send ‘er in. We may have an article from one of our other instructors, too.
I was also thinking about resurrecting some particularly interesting comments from Tonya’s blog, as a post. Not the Watchmen stuff.
That sounds like a good post. You should post it. I like that kinda stuff.
Jerry, you have seen Inception, so let me ask you the following question:
When did the main character wake up? Who was the rival business man? When did his wife die? How many separate acts of inception were done during the movie?
meh.. he’s trying to turn this into a “Watchmen” post….>_<
The obvious answer which none of the critics seem to get about Inception: Whether the top falls at the end is irrelevant.
It is a red herring, or MacGuffin.
Recall that throughout the movie, the protagonist dreams / remembers his final visit with his children. And recall that the ending, where he finally reunites with them, shows the exact same scene. Same situation, same activity, heck, same lighting.
The children are playing outside, just as before.
So, all the kerfluffle about the spinning top is just noise. It’s clear, based on the flashbacks alone, that he is still dreaming.
I think he was always dreaming. His wife was right; they were still dreaming, and she rightfully threw herself off the side of the building.
I think he was just stuck inside so many levels of dreaming he forgot where it ended and began.
I thought that from the start because of the things Saito was saying.
The top is relevant because it shows if the believes it is a dream or not. In order to put the idea in his wife’s mind that it was a dream, he spun the top. It didn’t stop because she knew she was dreaming, just didn’t want to wake up. The top dropping means he has convinced himself that he is asleep, when he confronts his wife she makes it very clear that he is not sure at that time what reality is.
The issue isn’t if he is dreaming, only if he will wake.