9 things i learned at buddhist summer camp
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You will always find yourself between the two noisiest sitters in the meditation hall. Those on either side of you are having the same experience.
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A bell rung at dusk does not herald the serving of hot chocolate to sip on during the dharma talk. Due to past conditioning, your body will consider this to be an outrage even though camp hot chocolate is never good unless it's a Tim Tam slam.
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Evening metta chants, however, approximate the vibe of the a capella cozy worship song closely enough that you will be on the verge of passing out in the hall.
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Noble silence will be less challenging than anticipated and will alleviate much of the awkwardness of a new social environment without many of the downsides of drugs.
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Eating even middling meals becomes completely absorbing when the only other thing you've done all day is meditate.
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Around hour three (of eighteen) of cumulative sitting and walking mediation periods, you will rue the choices that cause you to compulsively think in posting format. (See this list.)
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Birds love silent meditation. You will regret the decision not to bring binoculars, though you were probably right that it would have been gauche.
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Your habit of falling asleep any time you're horizontal will persist and bells are not enough to rouse you from the devil's nap.
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Your impulse to maintain austere Zen sitting postures even in an Insight meditation environment stems from arrogance, insecurity, and habitual self-construction. No amount of egoism will save you come day three, when your lower back gets very upset with you. Go off though, Dogen will show up with your participation trophy any time now.
The incredible alt fan studies anthology AMERICAN FUJO is still open for late pledges, so get your preorder while the getting's good! Last week they released an interview in which I discuss my interest in BL and give an anticipatory taste of the essay I'm contributing to the project. I'm having a great time working on it and I'd love to share it with you.
I've been spending a lot of time working on personal websites! Work has me thoroughly burnt out and creative writing has been a struggle, so it's been nice to have other projects. Some highlights from my smallweb resource bookmarks:
- Resources for keeping the web free, open, and poetic by Stefan Bohacek -- nice "starter pack" for making a personal site
- Tools and resources by vale.rocks -- particularly strong on UX/UI and design
- magick.css by winterveil -- "a minimalistic, (mostly) classless CSS framework that is designed to be easy to use and easy to understand"; it also looks fucking cool!
- Permacomputing -- a wiki/manifesto I think about quite often
Music: Squeeze Me by Sophia Kennedy -- I ask who God is, but she doesn't know / I ask who the boss is, she says: me
Food: BC Ferries cafeteria; vanilla soft serve in the little cup