December 01, 2004

• Inspired by Debaser's road rage thread.
• From the Chroma Key album "You Go Know." Track 5: When You Drive When you drive, you practice mindfulness of driving. It is possible. When you stop at a red light, you look at the red light and smile. You look at the red light, you smile, and you breathe in and out, and sit back, relaxingly. Breathing in, I calm myself. Breathing out, I smile." "And the red light become a friend, become a bell of mindfulness. Something unpleasant become something pleasant. We have the habit energy of wanting to arrive. That is why we want to go as quickly as possible. But according to this practice, we arrive at every moment. Life can be found only in the present moment. Everything that we look for must be found in the present moment. Peace. Joy. Happiness. Buddha. The kingdom of God." "What is our final destination? If we abandon the present moment, our final destination may be our death. We don't want to arrive there, we want to go in the direction of life." "This concludes Tape 1, A Retreat on the Practice of Mindfulness. Our program continues with Tape 2."
• I go nowhere fast in my Buddhamobile
• Hmm. Interesting. I've noticed an increase in the driving analogy in Buddhist discussion over the last few years. I have to say, though, that from my experience, Mindfulness requires a state of relaxed, easy-paced enjoyment & no stress. You can't rush & be mindful, & it's even more difficult to be mindful when you're dog-tired. Most people are not in a conducive state for Mindfulness when driving! However, the analogy of driving = life is interesting. Colin Wilson said something interesting about that experience of driving somewhere & forgetting the journey in his book Mysteries - damned if I can remember what it was, though! :D
• "When we see a red light or a stop sign, we can smile at it and thank it, because it is a bodhisattva helping us return to the present moment." So when people shoot at signs, they saw the Buddha on the road and killed him.
• Buddha actually died when someone gave him some food & he got food poisoning. I have no idea of the relevance of that.
• It's quite relevant to Kill Bill Volume II.
• oh, great.....bootys!.... that's my new term for buddhists....you like? it's disparaging! I don't know about this... buddhists driving? I thought they had a thing about suffering? what about all the dead Iraqis in the gas tank? though the buddhamobile link made me smile, the only car I would drive would be the buddhabatmobile
• Yes, Buddhists have a thing about suffering. But since everything is suffering, it doesn't matter whether you drive or you don't drive. Sometimes Buddha must get uptown. If a Buddhist parks in an empty car park, can anybody steer him? Dead Iraqis in the gas tank? This is an illusion!
• I maintain my motorcycle with Zen so I can keep turning the dharma wheelies
• The best vacations are the ones I can barely remember. I guess.