Obituary
I had always sort of considered what I’d like to have written on my headstone when I am dead. It’s a big thing to consider and I have always refrained from having any text tattooed on my body after all of these years because I can’t quite come up with something perfect enough. Although I suppose that with a tombstone it might not matter as much since a tattoo is something you have to live with for a while and a tombstone is something that you get to make other people live with.
Charles Bukowski always was one of my favorites as far as epitaphs were concerned. His just says, “Don’t Try.” It beats hell out of Keats’ any day. And another favorite is the one that Bernoulli chose for himself and was a nice play on his Miracle Spirals as well as his belief in reincarnation. It reads, “Eadem mutata resurgo” which is translated from Latin to mean, “Though changed I shall arise the same.”And how can you not love Royal Tennenbaum’s inscription? [Go see it if you haven't.]
What I have so far would be nice to use on opposing sides of the thing and that way, depending on how you felt about me when I was alive, you can choose to be reminded of the good or the bad.
This is all of it so far:
A quiet man, not given to law, quarrel or wrangling, not vitious, but pleasant, neat and spruce, loving mirth in his words and actions, clean in apparel, rather drinking much than gluttonous, prone to venery, often entangled in love-matters, zealous in his affections, musical, delighting in baths and all honest merry meetings, or masks and stage-plays; easy of belief, and not given to labour or taking any pains, a company-keeper, cheerful, nothing mistrustful, a right virtuous man, often had in some jealousy, yet no cause for it.
Or, on the other side of things is this bit:
The man was riotous, expensive, wholly given to looseness and lewd companies of women, not regarding his reputation, coveting unlawful beds, incestuous, an adulterer; fanatical, a mere skip-jack, of no faith, no repute, no credit; a goldbricker, chronic malcontent, spending his means in alehouses, taverns, and amongst scandalous, loose people; a mean lazy companion, careless in the emotions of others and not careful of the things of this life or anything religious; a mere atheist and an unnatural man.
This is adapted from a 17th Century book by William Lilly called Christian Astrology. It’s somehow supposed to be how the planet Venus can change people depending on where it was when a person was born or something. And I have no idea why I was even reading that in the first place.
[I'll keep you posted on the developments and the final edits.]
Filed under Daily Notes, Documentation, Notes and Writing, Pomes | Tags: Buddhism, Daily Notes, Journal | Comment (0)Connection And Reconnection.
Addendum to the entry just before this one:
Just shortly after those things happened I get a great, brick-house beautiful email from Brandon [another Hospitality Club guest-turned-friend] who I have not spoken to in over two years easy. And later this evening as I check my mail I get news that Nes has finally been given the Spouse Visa she had been waiting over a year for. She got the news just before leaving Tucson for Diamond Mountain.
I never check my email much lately and I almost never use my Yahoo! account. I just happened to be at home and I had some time to kill so I fooled around online and decided to check my mail. That’s when I got the email from Nes asking if they could stay with me for the night as they were coming down from the mountain to see a show at the Rialto. It’s a freak thing that I ever even checked my mail that day. Seriously, I have over 150 emails in my inbox.
Filed under Daily Notes, Notes and Writing | Tags: Buddhism, Karma | Comment (0)The Distance Between Locations.
It took 3 Years, 341 Days, 11 Hours and 10 Minutes for my $20 bill to reach Texas. Today, after all of that time, someone found it.
Today my great, good [Bodhisattva] friend Nes [and her perfectly kind and wonderful husband Ed] has popped back into my life after at least a year.
[I will take these unexpected things from a bit back into my past as some sort of sign.]
Filed under Daily Notes | Tags: Buddhism, Journal, Karma | Comment (0)Eight Verses for Training the Mind
Composed in the twelfth century by the great Tibetan Buddhist teacher Geshe Langri Tangpa [1054-1123], these teachings are an important guide for understanding human behavior, learning to relate to one another while offering compassion unconditionally.
You can read these eight simple teachings aloud as meditations, if you’d like:
May I consider all beings precious.
May I always respect others as superior while attaining self-esteem.
May I face my inner darkness and turn it to good.
May I be moved with compassion for the pain behind the spite others may show me.
When I am hurt by others, may I forego retaliation while always fighting injustice.
May I reckon those who betray me as sacred teachers.
May I offer joy to all beings and secretly take on their suffering.
May all beings and I be free from ego concerns of loss and gain.
Filed under Daily Notes, Documentation, Notes and Writing | Tags: Buddhism, Reference | Comment (0)Zooey Sleeping, Buddha Weeping
So I got a kitten the other week or so and like every new kitten owner I have taken to photographing his every move. These two are pretty nice.
