Swimming in the Same Stream

             The Fireplace Records, Chapter 34

Swimming In the Same Stream

Does the same person
swim twice
in the same stream?
Or, in hours,
is Everything New
or a fleeting dream?
New person, New stream;
the price of Tomorrows' Being!

Mind moving or stream moving?
Two monks cane's tap
The Master starts to rap
Cut an apple in half
On your head wear a cap
Use one hand to clap
Let the cat take a nap

Comments, Sources, Observations, Koans, Poems, Quips:

The Heraclitus River flows today into Philosopher's Bay.
Of course, much stays the same--- flowing memories' games.
Nansen's hands are very bloody--- he's quite simply nutty.
We remember mistakes; sometimes that is what it takes.

Koans:
Nansen's Cat GB 14, BOS 9, BCR 62, DSMS 181
Mind Moving: GB 29, ENT 83, DSMS 146, WWSF 212
Chao Chou's Sandals on His Head: BCR 63, BOS 9
Rivers or Streams: DSMS 283, BOS 100, GB 29, ENT 83

Keys to Koan Databases

"The days the weeks pass by beyond our ken
Neither time past
Nor love comes back again
Under the Mirabeau Bridge there flows the Seine
Let night come on bells end the day
The days go by me still I stay."
-  Guillaume Apollinaire, Mirabeau Bridge
Translated by Richard Wilbur

Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans/Stories. 

Subject Index to 1,975 Zen Buddhist Koans

Zen Buddhist Koans: Indexes, Bibliography, Commentary, Information

The Daodejing by Laozi

Pulling Onions  Over 1,043 One-line Sayings, Quips, Maxims, Humor

Chinese Chan Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans

The Fireplace Records (Blog Version) By Michael P. Garofalo

The Fireplace Records (Text Version)

Columbia River, Washington State
Ilwaco, WA

Waiting for the Master

                The Fireplace Records, Chapter 37

Waiting for the Master

Act 1

[Philosopher Coyote and Reverent Hound Dog are sitting under some huge redwood trees along the Eel River by the bridge near Pepperwood. It was cold. They were shivering. They were hungry.]

Philosopher Coyote: When do you expect Master Goose to arrive here today?

Reverent Hound Dog: I’m not exactly sure. He is traveling with two monks from Riverdale, about 10 miles down river. I’m sure the going is rough. It has been very foggy, quite cold, and drizzling all morning.  Are you not both wet and cold Coyote?

Coyote: Inconvenience and discomfort is a small price to pay for meeting Grand Master Goose. Besides, don’t Zen Masters keep you waiting; sometimes for many years?

Hound Dog: Indeed, they can be annoying when wasting your time. I’m tired of waiting for Master Goose. He could fly here so quickly if not for his two slow moving attendant monks. One is a three legged dog, you know. Goose sometimes tries to help him. Both monks are dedicated to him. Master Goose normally leads a squadron of noisy geese, flying South at this time of year. He should just leave that lumbering dog behind.

Coyote: You are not very charitable, Reverend Dog. You are too impatient.

Hound Dog: And, you are too fickle, Coyote. Never steadfast and demanding.

Coyote: Really? Actually, I am flexible [He laughs]

[Coyote barked and Hound Dog howled. Coyote licked his crotch, and Hound Dog scratched his ribs. Then Coyote and Hound Dog curled up close together, fur raised, trying to stay warm and dry. The tree cover and the thick floor of redwood needles helped them keep warmer. They waited, uneasy, for Master Goose. They slowly feel asleep, dreaming of pranksters and penitents.]

Act 2

Coyote: Dog, wake up! I hear them coming over the bridge to meet us. Let’s go!

[Both Coyote and Dog were very hungry, feeling the pangs of starvation.]

[Grand Master Goose was big and loud. His donkey, led by a rope, carried packs and bags of camping gear and food. His devoted dog limped along. They all looked tired.]

Coyote: Welcome, Master Goose. We have been waiting many hours for you to arrive. Where are you going?

Goose: We are going to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in Wherever Valley. It is a three day hike from the Riverdale Zen Temple.

[Master Goose seemed very annoyed by something Donkey had asked previously, and by some answer servant Dog had given previously. He was upset with his students. He suddenly bit donkey on the hind shin and bit Servant Dog on the hip. He scolded and threatened them as only a aggressive goose can do. The donkey brayed and the dog squealed in pain.]

Goose: Lazy monks!  Dumb and slow. Never understanding the True Way or the Single Point. Lost in delusions, confusions, and misguided resolutions.

[Shocked!–– Coyote barked and Hound Dog howled. Everyone appeared shaken.]

Reverend Dog: You seem very impatient, quarrelsome, and violent Master Goose. Do these teaching methods really help your dedicated students? How many of your monks have attained enlightenment and received certification in your long career as an Abbot?

Master Goose: I have certified three enlightened ones. I have hundreds of students. What right or qualifications do you have to judge me so? You’re just another Christian sheep herder, quoting scriptures, babbling about petty morals, and always arguing and oppressing other religious views.

Reverend Dog: [Annoyed] I was simply commenting on your teaching methods.

Coyote Philosopher: [Also annoyed by Goose]  We waited so as to meet an esteemed Master who could impart a few gems of wisdom to us. Can you?

Master Goose: Wisdom? I teach the doctrine of No-Mind, beyond philosophers endless prattle, looking directly into the heart of being, beyond words, embracing emptiness. You philosophers are muddle minded wordsmiths.

Coyote Philosopher: [Looking perplexed] Then, instead sir, could you give us a koan?

Master Goose: Why did the Bodhisattva Bodhidharma travel South to Wherever Valley?

Reverend Dog: To hear the sound of one hand clapping in the moonlight?

Master Goose: You’re a fool! Go sit and meditate in a cave for seven years! Your wasting my time.

Servant Donkey: Master Goose, don’t be so haughty and rude towards these friendly inquirers.

Master Goose: [Jerking hard on the rope over Donkey’s neck.]  Shut up!  Don’t question me! Silence, or I will give you thirty blows with a stick.

[Master Goose, furious, bit Donkey on his hind leg again. Donkey, in a reflex response, kicked his hind leg back and accidentally struck Goose in the head. Goose died instantly!]

Servant Donkey: Oh! No!!  I did not mean to hit him.  I’m so sorry!  Is he really dead?

Coyote: Yes, Goose is dead!  Not breathing!  Bloodied head!

Servants Donkey and Dog:  Oh, No!  No!  This can't be so. Terrible!

Act 3

[All four, still shocked by the recent events, stood around the corpse of the goose. Donkey is most upset and is shaking.]

Hound Dog: Since the death of Goose was purely accidental, I think we all need to give the same story to others as to what happened.

Coyote: I agree!  How about we all agree to say that Goose was killed and eaten by a cougar near the Pepperwood bridge.

Three-Legged Dog: That is a good idea.

Hound Dog: Yes!. I think that Dog and Donkey should leave now and travel back to Riverdale to tell Master Goose’s pupils the the Master was eaten by a cougar. Coyote and I will bury Goose’s remains.

Coyote: Let me remove that rope from your neck, Donkey. It might trip you up.

[All nod in agreement. Donkey and Dog slowly walk off and disappear from view. As Donkey leaves, a canvas box falls off of his back.]

Hound Dog: Where shall we bury the goose's body?

Coyote: What is in that box, Hound Dog? Maybe there is some beef jerky or dried fruit in the box. Let's look!

[Both Coyote and Hound Dog scratch and pull on the canvas box until it springs open. They rummage through the contents.]

Hound Dog: I see a rumpled hat and a leather whip.

Coyote: Here are some dirty clothes, a pair of boots, and about three pounds of Humboldt cannabis.

Hound Dog: Some Sutra books and the Discourses of Epictetus. Damn, no food to eat in here.

Philosopher Coyote: Oh, well, we tried. I think burying this dead goose is wasteful. I think we, like a hungry cougar, should eat this fine dead goose. I’m terribly hungry. What do you think, Hound Dog?

Reverend Hound Dog: Indeed, a good way to show our proper respects to Master Goose for all he has now given to us.  Before, he seemed a bit rude and stingy with sharing wisdom, if indeed he really had any at all. But, yes, goose flesh is a worthy offer to us. If I can eat and drink the body and blood every week of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; then, I can easily eat a fine freshly killed goose when I am hungry.

Coyote: I interpret our actions in more pragmatic terms. However, I will thank the gods for a much needed meal. Waiting for Master Goose turned out to be rather worthwhile for us after all.

Reverend Hound Dog: You sometimes speak the truth, Coyote. However, you still will end up in Hell, or reborn as a mangy fox spirit.

Philosopher Coyote: Hell is listening to somebody who is not worth listening to; or, waiting for somebody who is not worth waiting for. Let's eat!

[Both begin to devour the dead goose.]

Curtain

[We hear Coyote barking and Hound Dog howling.]

The End

 

Comments, Sources, Observations, Koans, Poems, Quips:

Hunger is the first step up on the ladder of spiritual needs.
Live by the bite, die by the kick.
Don't wait for somebody who will never appear.
Don't be a slave led on the rope of ignorant worship. 
"Masters" might be fakers, frauds, and full of crazy mind.
Blame it on the cougar.
Allegories strain our imagination; talking coyotes - humbug.
Everything in some way gets eaten up some day.
Dead things give birth to the living.

Waiting for Godot. Samuel Beckett. 1955.

Zen Master Raven.  Robert Aitken. 2002.

Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans/Stories. 

Subject Index to 1,975 Zen Buddhist Koans

Zen Buddhist Koans: Indexes, Bibliography, Commentary, Information

The Daodejing by Laozi

Pulling Onions  Over 1,043 One-line Sayings, Quips, Maxims, Humor

Chinese Chan Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans

The Fireplace Records (Blog Version) By Michael P. Garofalo

Riddles (200+)

Prepping For the Kill

While driving to work in Corning, there is a large old broken down Army truck along the Interstate 5 freeway.  On the side of the truck is a large sign: "PREPPERS  AMMUNITION AVAILABLE!"  What are these paranoid Preppers preparing for?  What do they need more ammunition for?  Truthfully, they are preparing to kill some innocent animals or human beings.
 
I live in a safe, quiet, rural area.  The cities near me are Red Bluff and Redding.  Both cities are ranked in the top ten most Redneck cities in California.  Rednecks, often right wing white Republicans, are a fearful and selfish lot always fretting about and Prepping for civil war, race war, Christian Defense war, or some kind or other of end of the world spiritual apocalypse.  They seem forever to be lamenting that they can't trust anyone.  They seem happier when hating somebody. 

This week, a 7th grade boy was checking out a hunting book in the library.  I asked him if he enjoyed this hunting season.  He said that he liked to shoot squirrels with his rifle.  I asked if he ate squirrels.  He said "No."  "Why do you kill them," I asked politely.  He smiled and answered, "for fun."

The sociopath that killed 9 people at an Oregon Community College last week had 14 guns in his apartment.  You know that he spent hours fondling guns and bullets, allowing his petty discontents about women fester in his sick mind as he relished the feel of his precious steel guns.  The callous deranged killer of 26 children and adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School had many guns in his home, and spent countless hours playing violent shoot and kill video games.  The racist murderer of 9 people at a church service in South Carolina, toyed with guns as he harbored the drug addled thoughts of a cold blooded White-Power killer.  The Colorado movie theater killer, dressed like GI Joe or some ISIS thug, loaded down with automatic weapons, bombs, tear gas, and bullet proof vests, showed his lust for gunning down 82 innocent people for no reason whatsoever.  The Columbine High boys, dressed in black like some kind of faux Matrix ninjas, murdered 12 and wounded 21 more, and shot people in the face like they were killing squirrels.  The scoundrel traitor Major Hasan screamed "Allau Akabar" as he murdered 13 and wounded 30 of his fellow soldiers, all highly trained to defend themselves, at Fort Hood.  A right-wing extremist machine gunned and killed 77 teenagers on a holiday in Norway.  How many wives and children have been shot to death by a discontented, angry, jealous, or cruel husband— a weak and pathetic man with a steel trigger on his finger?  A child arguing with and killing a neighbor child with a pistol?  And, how many people kill with guns "for fun."  Wake Up People: Over 11,000 people are murdered with a gun every year in America. 

We poured ice cold water over our heads and raised funds for the ALS victims.  5,000 unfortunate persons die of ALS each year in America.  Over 11,000 people are murdered with a gun every year in America.  How many tens of thousands more are seriously injured from gunshot wounds each year in America???  Every year, in America, over 100,000 people are shot with a gun. 

I read this week an excellent opinion piece by Paul Waldman titled  "Ben Carson Perfectly Explains the Republican Position on Guns."  These Republican candidates support a bizarre solution to this rampant gun violence: sell more guns and put more guns in more people's hands; or, Jeb Bush shrugs and says "stuff happens" and we should do nothing.

More people wearing pistols into supermarkets, churches, schools, shopping centers, bars, restaurants?  Everyone tensed and armed and fearful and untrusting and waiting and enabled to kill three people in five seconds?  No limits on guns?  Teachers and preachers with guns strapped to their waist?  Great news for the NRA, gun manufactures, bullet manufactures, holster makers, gun salesmen- all those that greedily profit from gun fetishism and killing urges.  However, not so good news for me shopping for groceries at Raley's when some drunken local redneck yokel thinks I offended his fragile honor, and, with pistol holstered and ready at hand ... bang, bang, I'm dead. Crazy!  Like that gun toting retired policeman who shot to death a man in a movie theater because the discourteous fellow spilled some popcorn on him and talked too loud. 

In the days of the first version of the Constitution, pistols and rifles could just make one shot.  One shot, and then time to reload.  [Ben Carson could back then lead the charge to tackle the one bullet bully and save the day; then, he could go back to being the slave of some heartless white Southern plantation owner.]  Naturally, with that kind of firepower in those long ago days of only farmers in back woods settlements, there was little question about "the right to bear arms."  We live in different times.  Modern arms can rapid fire many shots in seconds.  Nearly everyone lives in a city.  It is high time to change the Constitution regarding this out of date "right."  The "Constitution" has changed many times, e.g., Christian men refused to allow all women to vote until after 1920 (19th Amendment).  Change the laws about gun manufacturing, sales, ownership, and use. 

99.99% of people flying on airplanes are not terrorists, but we have no problem with spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year trying to prevent terrorist attacks on airplanes.  What are we doing to prevent gun worshippers and assorted angry lunatics from killing over 11,000 people just last year in America?  Or, from killing millions of innocent animals "for fun."  What are we doing?  Nothing— "stuff happens."


Guns do kill people.  People kill people with guns.  People kill innocent animals with guns.  People who own and use guns do think about and fantasize about killing animals and people.  Preppers are preparing to kill people and animals and lurking foreign terrorists.  Countless video games and television shows feature killing, crimes, violence, gangs, hunting animals, and gun fun.  If that is not enough, we invent new creatures to kill: the walking dead zombies, vampires, demons, ghosts, Big Foot, space aliens, monster snakes, godzilla, mutated flies ...  Shame on America.  Cruel America.  Violence loving America.  Just last year, this hate filled, fearful, desperate, and self-loathing America had over 21,000 people put a gun to their head and blow their brains apart.  Ugly!  Unnecessary!

Some people have proposed reasonable solutions to gun control that need to be adopted.  Stop manufacturing and selling military grade weapons and machine guns.  Make gun owners and gun manufacturers pay for special insurance, just like we do for automobiles, to provide some measure of restitution to persons wounded by guns or killed by guns.  Educate children in schools about the dangers of guns, e.g., over 500 people are killed each year in American in gun "accidents."  Legislators can do something!  More important, Americans need to shed their cowboy fantasies, their gun fetishes, their worship of firearms, their perverted desires to possess more and more guns and display them in a threatening manner, and stop the celebration of killing innocent wild animals.  Some changes can be legislated, others must come from a change of heart and mind. 

Men once thought that smoking tobacco was macho cool, part of the rugged cowboy mystique.  Seeing a few wheezing and emaciated smoker friends suffering miserably and dying of emphysema or cancer in a modern hospital room, and anti-smoking public education campaigns, and restricting smoking in public locations, and warning labels, and higher taxes on tobacco ... all have resulted in fewer people smoking these days.  Why not some similar efforts at defusing our gun loving mania and murderous ways in America?

And, reduce the number of hours you waste watching television.  Television is largely a pathetic front for commercial advertising wrapped around programs featuring violence or trivial humor or celebrity worship. Watching fewer crime dramas might help reduce our urges to kill someone.  Come on people, Duck Dynasty?, dirty bearded stinky old men killing animals and drinking beer, or poor anti-social loners hunting caribou in wild Alaska ... how is this relevant to how 90% of Americans actually live.  Or, watching old rich rock stars tell us about the joys of blasting ducks apart with shotguns and being shills for the NRA is just blow-hard tiresome ted.  Wake up!  Stop feeding your violent fantasies!  Grow vegetables, garden, nuture loving kindness, cultivate decent friendships, create peace; don't daydream about sawing the antlers off a deer's bloody skull that you shot to death "for fun."  Realign your values!   


Seems like, in America, the family that kills together stays together.  Teach you children well, Papa Rifleman.  Their camouflaged bravado— really just pretending to mask their underlying defensiveness, weakness, fears, and lusts to kill something.  Sure, Donald Trump, let these kinds of gun toting folks into your church or restaurant or casino— you can really trust people that fondle automatic weapons.  They look Prepped, grossly fat from eating dead ducks and armadillos, and ready to blast away anybody who questions their sanity.  We will let Ben Carlson, that phony and unrealistic pseudo hero, rush to the front of the class when these types of folks come into the classroom Prepped to kill us all.   

                       
[Unquestionably, rants like the above include some exaggerations and sharp rhetoric.  Many Red Bluff and Redding folks are decent, honest, kind, and trustworthy.  Not all gun owners think about killing animals or other people.  Self-defense does have a legitimate place in our lives; rarely, thankfully.  There are a few Republicans like Gabby Giffords that support some gun control measures.  Nevertheless, I still stand by my main points: many people have an excessive and dangerous gun loving addiction, we encourage and pleasure ourselves with violence excessively, and we lack the will and courage to self-change and public-change away from this trend towards fear-hate, stockpiling guns, killing animals, and a bang bang your dead macho but unmanly bravado.]

Crying Over the Dead

Today is an American holiday called 'Memorial Day.'  It is a day to remember American soldiers who were injured or died in wars of the past.  Yes, sometimes fighting in wars is necessary in self-defense; but, still an evil and not to be glorified.  

Even the god Krishna tried to convince Arjuna (a professional soldier) in the Bhavagad Gita that fighting and killing were a duty and necessity.  The Bible and Koran tell of how "God" slaughters people, and how murder is acceptable to punish "sinners" and non-believers. Fervent religious people are often quite pleased with killing other people.  

Scores of millions of people have died in the many useless, stupid, tragic, horrible, cruel, and crushing wars of the past. Most of the men that started or fought in these destructive rampages where merely pawns in the hands of nations or dogmas or greed or dictators or petty warlords.  There were a few heroes, and many evil men, and mostly just extremely scared people crying and screaming as the bombs exploded and bullets whizzed by and their loved ones and friends were torn apart and murdered.  

So, let us instead remember on this Memorial Day to celebrate the real joy that everyone felt when we heard "The War Has Ended" and people could live again in peace.  Let us remember the millions of civilians slaughtered by soldiers marching under ten different flags.

I recommend that we adopt an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to Limit the War Making Powers of the U.S. Government. 


I served in the United States Air Force from 1969-1983.  I served because the United States forced men of my age, through "The Draft," to serve in the Vietnam War.  Penalties, social ostracism, and imprisonment were imposed on young men if they did not "serve their country" in the military.  I had been indoctrinated in my youth in Catholic Schools to hate communists and have few moral reservations about killing atheistic communists.  Again, sadly, we were merely pawns in the hands of nations or dogmas or ideology or religions or greed or dictators or petty warlords.  

When I hear women and men talking these days about how we need to fight and kill those cruel Islamist ISIL brutes in the Middle East, and that President Obama is not "tough" enough, and these same people never gave one single hour of their life in being a soldier and/or seeing and smelling the carnage of battle, it makes me want to vomit.  

Peace and Memorials to Peace, Less Thinking about War "Heroes"  

Beware of worshiping flags, signs, emblems, and symbols.  We, and every nation, including our "enemies," indoctrinates its ruled population to stand up and show worshipful reverence to their own nation's flags and favored religious symbols and fallen soldiers and heroes.  On Memorial Day the graves of dead soldiers in America are decorated with U.S. flags and the Christian cross and gunfire salutes to their following orders.  But, remember, the map is not the territory.   

Before you get too worked this Memorial Day about our military "heroes," our brave fighting men, our courageous soldiers ... please recall just a few of the cruel acts they did to earn such glorious distinctions, to wit:


"On March 9, 1945, United States military warplanes launched a bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history."  

 

The United States military, during Operation Rolling Thunder, killed over 90,000 civilians in North Vietnam from 1965-1968.  Listen to a "heroic" professional U.S. soldier tell of "silencing" the Hanoi defenses to rescue one downed pilot, and the "business" of war.  

On February 14, 1945, the United States military dropped 3,900 tons of bombs on the city of Dresden in Germany, and killed over 25,000 civilians.

The United States military dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 and killed over 129,000 civilians.  

The United States military killed over 550,000 civilians in North and South Vietnam from bombing, artillery attacks, and heavy weapons attacks.

 And, recently, we made a "mistake" about Iraq having any weapons
of mass destruction and for having anything to do with 9/11.
American military soldiers killed over 120,000 Iraqi noncombatant civilians.  

 

Heroes?  Artillery men, air bombers and gunners, snipers, tank gunners ...

Only crying on Memorial Day.

Yes, the horrors of war and the intense survival necessities of battle for he conscripted soldiers is nearly unfathomable.  

 

 

Only crying on Memorial Day.

I recommend that we adopt an amendment to the U.S. Constitution
to Limit the War Making Powers of the U.S. Government. 

Memorial Day: Sorrow, Guilt, Shame, Revulsion