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A Letter To A Dying Man

Bassui wrote the following letter to one of his disciples who was about to die:

"The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existence, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither color nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains.

"I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in the pure air."

When my daughter was around 5 years old, I made up a game for us to play together. I called it “the beautiful game”. We would take turns picking out one thing we could see, smell, taste, touch, or hear, that we found beautiful. It had to be something that was before us. Those things could be conventionally beautiful, such as birdsong, but it was always better for the game if we chose other things. Mundane, even ugly things. And whatever we chose, we had to give one reason — a considered reason — why we found that thing beautiful.

I enjoyed this article. Enlightenment through changed perception.

British comedian Russell Brand has posted a video denying "serious criminal allegations" set to be made against him in an upcoming television program.

"But amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks, are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute," Brand said.

"These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies.

"And as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous. Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual.

....

ruh roh, Russell.