Work, Family Practice and the Blogosphere

This is one of those posts, that posted on Kos, would go nowhere. It'd be posted at the wrong time, for one thing. Posting in the early morning puts in right in a rush-hour at Kos...

And besides, this post isn't really so well suited for Kos. Street Prophets, maybe.

This post is about work and family practice...and blogging.

Blogging often threatens to get in the way of the other two. As people who have visited this site regularly know, it isn't being as updated as it used to be. That's for two reasons, or three...

1. It's political season, and frankly the stuff at Kos is more fascinating. The left blogosphere threatens to be the first method of organizing people to take on the religious rights. I don't often see the need to cross-post here in any depth.
2. Work practice: Recently work has increased in its intensity. It is amazing the degree to which mindfulness directed in a stressful work environmnent allows one not only to simply get by, but to flourish. True; I need a vacation. The three or so days off in the summer haven't been enough, and it's time for me to schedule them. But the blogging just doesn't seem as interesting as the work.
   
3. Family practice: This I could increasingly write a book about.

The zennist recently wrote:

Much of what is marketed as Zen in popular books and in Zen centers, bears very little resemblance to Zen as described in its own traditional texts. When Zen master Tsung-mi explains the principle of Zen he writes:

“The fundamental source of Zen is the fundamentally awakened True Mind also called Buddha Nature which is the primordial mind. Awakening to our Buddha Nature is called "wisdom" (hui, prajñâ). Practicing this is called "concentration" (ding, samadhi).”

How many Westerners who attend Zen centers have heard this? For the most part, not even Asian Buddhists hear such ideas from their teachers. All of this is buried in the voluminous Mahayana canon. Often, it only comes to the light of day when students are doing their dissertation or scholars are doing research.

I like this guy, and I guess you could say I go to an American Zen center (though my teacher is more in Asia these days than the US). But I can assure zenmar where the rubber meets the road is practiced today.

But as I do this I do find that one aspect of zenmar's criticism is spot on...this teaching is indeed not prominently displayed in the world...

Which brings me to the blogosphere... and Beliefnet's Blog Heaven.

It's high time they updated it.

When I think about the deep richness of the moments when I'm trying to figure out some obscure link between aspects of a particular protocol and a Stiefel manifold, and am completely, utterly, absorbed in it to the extent that the ki (気) being generated is causing me to sweat...frankly, the blogs that beliefnet pushes don't seem that relevant (with the notable exception of....Woodmore Village).

They skew way too far to the right, and ought to include Street Prophets.

But I think so much of this is so irrelevant.

I can understand zenmar's point: so much "dharma," so much "religion" so much "spirituality" is completely useless.

I think there are sites that I just won't visit because they never edify...