I'm sitting here next to the men's room at the Las Vegas airport enjoying their free, but pretty sluggish Internet service. I may be too far from the hub to pick up the signal well. But this was the nearest place to my gate where I could find an electrical outlet. The Internet service at LAX is one of those you gotta pay $10 to use, so I never do. I suppose Las Vegas supports their free Internets with gambling and prostitution. But it's not like LA doesn't have plenty of money.
I'm waiting here to take a plane to Dallas, where my dad lives and then, from there drive with him to Knoxville where my sister lives. I'll be in Knoxville for about a week, then back to Dallas for a night, to LA for another night and then up to Tassajara for a few days R & R. Since none of the people who begged me to stay in LA offered me a place to crash while I'll be homeless for several days in between moves, I may stay up in San Francisco for the first week of Twenty-ought-eight.
Does anyone out there know Macs well? Since two days ago, my "Mail" program refuses to pick up about 90% of my mail. Not all of it, mind you. Just most of it. If I go to my .mac account on-line I'll have, say 12 messages. When I go to "Mail" I have, like 3 messages. The 3 that appear in "Mail" do not appear on-line, while the 12 that appear on-line do not show up in "Mail." This is becoming a huge problem. Guess I'll have to try one of them Apple Stores, but I doubt they have 'em in Knoxville. I tried checking my Preferences to see what's up there. But I didn't see anything wrong.
Also, thanks for the Bukowski poems. I'd never read him. He's pretty great, though. I'll have to read some more of his stuff. Plus he lived in Southern California. Maybe sane people do live there after all. Maybe I won't regret sticking around a little longer.
As for the vows of poverty taken by Buddhist monks, God I hate to burst people's bubbles (actually I love to), but here's what I've seen of this. Yes it's true that if you enter a Zen monastery in Japan you are allowed only the clothes you wear plus what you can fit in two back-pack sized things that are strapped to your shoulders, one hanging in front of your chest and the other on your back. The things inside these are strictly regulated. You can't just choose what you want. I don't know the list, but I know you get your three bowls, a razor, some underwear, maybe a toothbrush, your bedding and that's about it.
While you're at the monastery these are all you're allowed to possess. And you live on a square of tatami mat. All true. But, see, the thing is nobody lives their whole life like this anymore. It's like boot camp. You endure this for a period of several months and then go back home where your TV and DVD player, your PS3, your black leather pants and all the rest of it have been lovingly stored by mom and dad. Plus I have never been to a temple that didn't have all that kinda stuff and more for the monks and caretakers who lived there.
There may be countries where the poverty vows are taken more strictly than they are in Japan. But I kinda doubt it. My understanding of what goes on in Thailand, Tibet, China and Korea is that it's pretty much the same deal.
The training I had from Tim and from Nishijima Sensei just ignored the whole boot camp stuff and tried to instill a more evenly spread out habit of living less extravagantly. Still, as you've seen from my eBay auctions, I managed to amass a nice collection of junk. But, again, I don't know of a single Buddhist monk who doesn't have some similar vice. The difference is that their vices tend to be pretty modest. Tim's was a big collection of horror movies on VHS (don't know if he still has those). Nishijima lives amazingly modestly but he has a fairly extensive library of philosophy both Western and Eastern. Apparently Shunryu Suzuki had lots of pottery stuff.
In moving house recently I had to discard a whole lot of junk. It's absolutely incredible how much a person can acquire in a short time. But we live in a capitalist consumer-based economy. It is part of our duty to society, I think, to participate in a certain degree of consumption. This is not a bad thing in and of itself. But it can go too far very easily.
I think they might be calling my flight, so I'm signing off here. Bye!
