ZEN MASTERS ARE EVERYWHERE

A ZEN STORY

A student asked his Zen master how long it would take him to become enlightened.

The Zen master said ten years.

The student inquired how long it would take if he worked very hard all day every day.

 

The Zen master replied twenty years.

A ZEN BUZZARD STORY

A number of years ago I had a carpenter come over to my house to give me an estimate on installing a metal roof. 

The carpenter said he would do it for twenty dollars an hour. 

 I told him I was willing to help. 

He said it would then be thirty dollars.

the Ol’Buzzard

A BUZZARD EGG OMELET #30

Taking a crap is probably one of the most Zen like things you can do.  Unless you ruin it by taking a magazine or newspaper with you to read.  It is a time to zone out with nothing to focus on except your own bodily function – no counting breaths, no reciting koans and no chasing the monkey-mind: just sitting quietly and experiencing the moment. 

The Buddha became awakened after seeing a beautiful girl, tasting the refreshing quality of water and eating a bowl of rice.   Buddhist text doesn't say so, but I am sure later that evening he totally zoned out taking the first good crap he had had in many months.  

It is rewarding how simple bodily functions can bring so much contentment if you can stay focused in the moment.  

  

Perhaps this is more than you would like to know: but sometimes I err by trying to name my craps – usually after a Republican Congressperson.   It takes me out of the moment and is totally unrewarding.   I find the rest of my day lacking in tranquility. 

Like a sexual orgasm, taking a crap is a personal experience, and if you are not focused in that moment you miss out on a great happening that can never be reclaimed. 

the Ol'Buzzard

   

BUZZARD EGG OMELET # 29

BUZZARD BARF

Why is it that in all the vampire stories the vampire hunters always arrive at the crypt just as the sun is going down; and no one ever says, ‘It’s getting dark. I've got an idea: let’s come back tomorrow morning?’

OR

ONE MORE POST ON POT

I won’t go into the pros and cons of legalization of marijuana; but I see one huge stumbling block (mentioned by Blog Fodder in my comment section.)   

 If pot is legalized what happens to all the people in that state that are in jail for possession?  Are they freed?   What happens to their criminal record?  Do they continue to serve time while all the rest of us are free to indulge?

the Ol’Buzzard

WILLIE NELSON

It has been reported that Willie Nelson is going to release his own brand of pot.   I wonder what they will call it = Williejuana, Willie Jane....

If Bill Maher decided to get on the weed wagon he could start a brand Maherjuana, or perhaps Real High Time ...

The possibilities are endless.

People who worry the long term effects of smoking pot can look at Willie: it is writing and releasing and performing songs into your eighties. 

the Ol'Buzzard

IN CELEBRATION OF 4/20

Heads up people - April 20 is Stoner Day: a celebration of marijuana.   

No one ever smoked a joint and then beat his wife,

Legalize pot - it is far less devastating than alcohol.
the Ol'Buzzard 

IT’S MUD SEASON IN MAINE

The temperatures through the first two weeks of April have been in the high thirties with an occasional forty degree day.  Thursday we picked up four inches of snow and then yesterday (Friday) it rained for twenty-four hours.  Today the temps are in the fifties and for the next ten days they are predicted to be in the sixties.

My driveway

This sounds like good news: well it is and it isn't.   We are now officially entering mud season.

The good news is that for two weeks of the year in the spring Maine is left to the Mainers.   It is too wet to ski, too muddy for snowmobiles, the ice is too thin for ice fishing, the moose aren't moving, the dirt roads are treacherous and the countryside is too bleak for viewing; so the tourist stay home or go south.   The traffic is down – no one is in a hurry riding your bumper, Mainers can shop at Renny’s in a nearly empty store.

 We can get an ice cream at Gifford;s without standing in line.    

A perfect time for Muddy boots:

Not those - the Gifford's ice cream.

We can even ride down to the coast for fried clams or a lobster meal without having to sit in a crowded restaurant.

The bad news is it’s mud season.  We lost uncle Leon last year, we are not sure if he got sucked down in the muck walking to the mail box or if he ran away with red headed Clara; anyway about two days later his dog showed up.

About the same time Old Willard lost his truck heading to a grange baked bean supper.   He waited until the road dried and then had his nephew dig it out with a back hoe… the battery was still good and radio was still playing classic rock.

 

It is a dangerous time for those of us living up here on dirt roads.  But being Mainers we take it in stride; because we know that in about two weeks the mud will have dried up and we will be in bug season. 

 the Ol'Buzzard

BRING BACK THE DRAFT II

I am some sick of seeing people who have never been to war crying out for expanding the war in the Middle East. 

 

It also pisses me off to see Vets line up in a knee jerk reaction protesting people who are protesting wars (Women in Black were protested by a veteran's group in Farmington, Maine.) 

I am of the band of brothers; but I am also a rational thinking individual.    Supporting the military does not mean that you have to support wars – especially not unnecessary wars.

  

In Vietnam we lost 58,479 military brothers and sisters for absolutely nothing – we lost that war.  Now, the death toll is climbing in the Middle East with exactly the same predictable outcome.

The Middle East is enmeshed in a religious war between Sunnis and Shiites that date back over fourteen hundred years – there is no resolution that can be achieved by American military might.

 

The new drive by the Republican hawks in Congress is for a war with Iran (the last invasion worked out so well.)  Their ‘all or nothing’ demands for negotiating a nuclear build down of the Iranian nuclear armament program is aimed at scudding the talks.   Like most Tea Party brain farts the results has not been thought through.

 

Our volunteer military is stretched to the limit with back to back deployments that destroy military families and result in high percentages of PTSD among our active duty as well as veterans.

  

If our politicians are insistent on escalation and redeployment of troops then we should bring back the draft so that everyone has a commitment in the fight.   Only then would we see politicians reined in by an outcry from the people. 

the Ol'Buzzard

    

I CAN SEE RUSSIA FROM MY PORCH.

Poor Sarah, she is so ridiculous that even when she is right she comes off as driving the clown car.

You can actually see Russia from Alaska.  The Island of Little Diomede in the Bering Strait is part of Alaska, and a few files away the island of Big Diomede is Russian. 

Little Diomede

Little Diomede and Big Diomede

He can actually see Russia from his porch

Tourist at Little Diomede

I was offered a mid-year teaching position on Little Diomede, but turned it down because it would have been a non-accompanied position (I don’t go anywhere without my wife.)   

Whale blubber a delicacy 

I would have loved to have taught there for a couple of years - I know the people  there must be wonderful -what a learning experience for my wife and me it would have been.

the Ol'Buzzard

EASTER: THE SEED OF CHRISTIANITY - OR HAVE ANOTHER CHOCOLATE RABBIT

Weeks of Christian religious mania has finally culminated with the eating of chocolate bunnies and dyed hard boiled eggs; all because a man died horribly on the cross and then was proclaimed as a god.

 

Getting past the celebration of human sacrifice commemorated by cannibalism (transubstantiation,) or at least token mock cannibalism (communion) if you are protestant, you wonder why sane and rational people would buy into the myth.  

 But sane and rational is on a sliding scale, sliding all the way down to Pentecostals.

You just can’t reason with ignorance.  

the Ol'Buzzard

SUNNI vs SHIITES

Shiites and Sunni have been at war for the past fourteen hundred years, but for the last fifteen years the United States (motivated by oil interest) has inserted itself into the fray; and in the process destabilized the entire Middle East. 

CBS Sunday Morning gave a quick overview of the religious/ geopolitical factions involved and the crazy alliances the US has committed itself. 

  

This is a Religious Civil War that needs to happen; but we cannot extract ourselves, because our commitment is not to one side or the other - but to oil.

It doesn't have to make sense: it is Religion. '
the Ol'Buzzard

MEN’S MENTAL BOXES AND WOMEN’S MULTIVERSE

There has always been a dialogue about the difference between men and women (Women are from Venus, men are from Mars – or Uranus if you prefer.)  

   

The politically correct answer is that there is no difference in boys and girls.   Only that boys and girls are nurtured differently.   

But anybody who has ever worked with kindergarten children knows that is bullshit.   For the most part, men’s and women’s brains are wired differently from the very beginning.

  

Men compartmentalize their brains – we are good at doing one thing at a time.   Women tend to multitask.

 

My wife will tell me to carry the garbage out, and she will add ‘while you are at it, take out the recyclable bottles and put a new trash bag in the garbage can.'     (I have to be told each step because I can’t see the connections.)

  

I will say ‘OK.’  And then I will take out the garbage, then I will come back in and take out the recyclable bottles, then I will come back in and put a new bag in the garbage can. 

This drives her nutz.   Why don’t I just juggle it all at once like she said and save the trips – and while I am at it clean out the mud room?

  

Because I am not wired that way.

Our bathroom is directly off our living room.     She will begin vacuuming in the living room and then stop and clean out the sink in the bathroom, clean the toilet, replace the toilet paper, refold the towels – then continue vacuuming, but stop and dust the bookshelves and the TV… and two hours later she is frustrated because she still hasn't finished vacuuming.   She cannot do one thing at a time because her brain constantly multitask – that is the way she is wired.

 

Now if I am vacuuming and the sink is dirty; that sink is going to stay dirty until I finish vacuuming and then I will clean it – if I remember it.

Anyone that is married knows there are many differences in men and women:

that is why women can relate to other women… and men can relate to men – but men and women can’t relate – only understand. 

The Ol’Buzzard

MY EMPTY BOX

This morning I was watching TV with my wife and the commercials came on so I went to my empty box.    I was interrupted when my wife broke in and said, ‘I see you are staring at the girl on the Viagra commercial.’   (As a matter of fact, I don’t need Viagra: my wife is plenty sexy and is my Viagra.) 

 I said, ‘huh?  No I’m not.’

I was facing the TV, but I was in my empty box!    She doesn't understand my nothing box.

  the Ol'Buzzard

IT IS APRIL FIRST

Even though there is a foot of snow on the ground the day temps are reaching into the forties and I can feel spring in the air.   Time passes so fast; but I still feel the need to celebrate a new month/season. 

 

THINGS I AM THANKFUL FOR

1.    My wife

2.    Our health

3.    Our cats

4.    Spell checkers

THINGS I DISPISE

1.    April fool’s jokes

the Ol’Buzzard