Wowzers! Immediately the day after my Joshu tea post, the first thing I see is another OP about tea! “Wouldja look at that?” I thought. “Perhaps there is something to this ‘Zen Masters liked tea’ thing after all!”
Thing is, the other feller, who wrote a post about some scary ideas—and how not to be kidnapped and dragged off to the closet by them, as far as I could tell—neglected to mention the actual tea implement itself, nor referred to how it was being used, or nothing.
So obviously he got the case all wrong.
I mean, of course that would be my opinion. My standard for a case like that is basically whether or not you notice what is happening—or if you talk about some ideas you had instead.
And if even the guy in the story brings the tea implement to center stage, just like a sensible person would, how are you talking about the same thing at all, if you don’t even notice those fellas are at tea together, and what they are doing? Let alone comment on it? And so on?
By the way, a guru today diagnosed me with having suffered a trauma. Said it “explained how I acted” or some such.
“Excellent job!” I thought. “Correctly diagnoses this tea drinker with a bad case of pandemic, this fella—then even notices it’s resulting directly in satire! Very good eye!” ::sips out of imaginary gaiwan::
But the thing is, I only saw the case briefly, and then stomped off on a several hour walk—looking at how the two concerned parties were looking at the tea implement, and what they were saying, and not their names so closely—and by the time I got back up the hill, and decided to film a comedic commentary on the case, I’d switched ‘em around.
Ironically, but predictably for someone with memory issues, I did so by promoting the Layman to P’ang, and giving him Sung-Shan’s lines—but I don’t think I mixed up my comment none.
Here is the case:
As the Layman and Sung-shan Ho-shang were drinking tea together, the Layman held up the stand of his teacup and said: “Everyone without exception is endowed with it: why can no one speak?”
“Just because everyone without exception is endowed with it, no one can speak,” returned Sung-shan. “How is it, my elder brother, that you can speak?” asked the Layman. “I can’t help but speak,” replied Sung-shan. “Obviously, obviously,” returned the Layman. I was looking at how they referred to the stand of the tea cup, and how I was seeing their conversation, as they were actually referring to the place they were, and were—as I put it in the video—obliquely allowing the mindground (“it”) to comment on the fact that it cannot be expressed in words.
Like that’s what they act out, looking at it right there in front of them. This comes very much from seeing this as a tea session, and not as containing some hidden mystical meaning about scary ideas. Two fellas sitting there having tea, looking at the same tea ware, then the case takes place.
Anyway, my spin down of it you can find in this here new video—just figured I should explain that I didn’t have this case in my head at all like the Joshu ones, but just from one reading this afternoon, hence the name mixup.
I tell ya what, though. I went to my (gardening) teacher’s place immediately after I finished the video, and he told me two things:
- He told the dentist to forgoe anesthetic this morning because he didn’t have time for two whole appointments. “Practically slept through it—and now I don’t have to go back in! Now that’s how you save time!”1
- That he was taking me to the food bank later this week to stock up on rice and noodles
“There’s a land war in Asia now,” he told me. “So I’m just taking you to get some rice and noodles.”
A year ago I woulda told him he worries too much. But this year I said, “Sounds good—thanks for the offer!”
At least that mother fucker never wonders why I’m so funny.
Lazy, yes—he wonders about that.
He gets annoyed about things like books, for example. Writing zen comments doesn’t feed my body, he is fond of pointing out. Nor does it grow food or plants for the future. So technically it is “just laziness”.
Everyone has a diagnosis, I tell ya!
“But if I weren’t funny,” I point out. “No one would give me rides.”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How to Wake A Slumbering Butterfly.
—Linseed
1 No exaggeration at all. My (gardening) teacher is a gold mine of even much-better hermit humor than my hermit humor. “Do funny things—and when ya tell the story later…it’s pretty funny!” Ancient hermit joke recipe.
Submitted March 08, 2022 at 12:22PM by lin_seed https://ift.tt/f5BYQ3e
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