Is Emptiness nothing? (Thay, Alan Watts)

Thich Nhat Hanh via BGC; Alan Watts; TEXT: Dhr. Seven, Ananda (DBM), Wisdom Quarterly

Emptiness is NOT nothing: a teaching from Thich Nhat Hanh

O, Zen empty spot, there is nothing you are...

"Emptiness is not nothing," says Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) as he talks about shunyata, the impersonal or not-independent nature of all things. He emphasizes the interbeing of all things.

For a thing that is empty, what is it empty of? It is empty of separate existence, which is to say, every dependently originated thing may have the whole cosmos in it other than that thing it seems to be.

Why Zen? (Ioanna Salajan, Zen Comics)

For example, in a flower there are only non-flower elements: cloud (rain), mud (minerals), air (nitrogen), space, color, sunshine, fragrance, and so on.

The same is true of bread. In bread there are only non-bread ingredients: plant, cloud, leavening, heat, and so on.

Moreover, in a person, there are only impersonal (empty) elements: the Five Aggregates clung to as a separate "self," as a separate entity, as separate from these five components of which it is comprised. They are devoid of enduring essence.

Western Zen Buddhist Spiritual Entertainer Alan Watts: Emptiness

This emphasis on emptiness (shunyata) and suchness (tathata) is popular in Mahayana Buddhism. But it is made more of in Theravada Buddhism, which speaks of anatta, "not-self," the impersonal nature of a person, of I, me, or all that is imagined to be mine.

• [Aha, wait! Who imagines it to be "mine"? Isn't that the self, the soul, the atta or atman? No, not who but what? Form forms, feeling feels, perception perceives, volition wills, and consciousness is conscious without a true self in there. These are the Five Aggregates we cling to as if they were a self when there are only heaps. There is no homunculus.]

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva (Kwan Yin)

The historical Buddha (not the Mahayana buddhas/Gods like Amitabha and Vairocana) approached it in this way.

Everything may be empty, but that the viewer, feeler, watcher, experiencer is empty/impersonal, that is the mind blowing thing. That is what differentiates the enlightened from the unenlightened.

One will not win the first stage of enlightenment, called "stream winning," without that essential insight. It is actually what the Heart Sutra (the Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra) is all about.

The Buddha gives many similes in the texts. The aggregates or "heaps" may be compared to an onion, layers of which can be peeled away, and yet no heart will be revealed. The Buddha used the trunk of a banana tree to make this comparison. There is no heartwood in it, only layers, just like the onion.

Although we like to think about it and debate, the realization attributed to Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva (Kwan Yin, Goddess of Compassion) is not won by thinking. It is won by direct realization, the culmination of calm and insight, of deep compassion and systematic mindfulness.

Free life-changing weekend event: Unsinkable

Unsinkable.com via Lisa Garr (Aware Show); Amber Larson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

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Hi, I'm Lisa Garr!

Lisa Garr says she just heard about something unbelievably special happening THIS Saturday. She highly recommends you attend. (And it won’t cost you a cent!)

Many of the top "Bounce Back” experts, teachers, and motivational speakers from the blockbuster hit movie Unsinkable: The Secret to Bouncing Back are coming together in a powerful FREE all-day “Unsinkable” global online conference.

The focus will be on one thing – YOU and how YOU can live YOUR greatest life in 2020! Go here to reserve your spot now.

This brand new exclusive event is hosted by Garr's good friend Sonia Ricotti. She is a #1 bestselling author, one of the top "Bounce Back” (resiliency) experts in the world, and the executive producer of the Unsinkable movie.

Resilient: How to quickly bounce back

Thanks, Lisa. This sounds like "The Secret" all over again. So I can be a millionaire, too?

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This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where you can learn from Bob Proctor, Lisa Nichols, John Assaraf, Les Brown, Rhonda Britten, Shellyann Siddoo, and Marci Shimoff!

With a front row seat to this all-day event, here’s a sneak peek at some of the life-changing sessions you’ll experience:

• 

  Famous motivational salespeople

  Sonia Ricotti: 3 Steps to Bouncing Back BIG and Living Your Greatest Life!
• Bob Proctor: Shift Your Paradigm, Shift Your Destiny
• Lisa Nichols: Winners Never Quit: Rising Above the Impossible
• John Assaraf: How to Reprogram Your Brain for Success in 2020
• Marci Shimoff: The Secret to being Happy (Even When Life Isn’t Perfect)
• Rhonda Britten: Forgiving the Unforgivable
• Les Brown: Mind Over Health: The Magic of Believing
• Sonia Ricotti: 6 Steps to Manifesting Money in 2020
• …and LOTS more!

This is one of those “must attend” events, so make sure you reserve your spot and block off your calendar to be there. Go here to reserve a spot now.

P.S. Because of the long length of this event, it will most likely not be recorded. Do everything you can to attend the entire event. It’s going to be incredible! This is one you really don’t want to miss!

To be young, hot, and Muslim (video)

Eds., Wisdom Quarterly; Sakdiyah Ma'ruf (The Feed); UV; Nadiya Aditiya (Metro U); CBC Arts

Maybe what we're taught about each other is to separate us? Feb. 1st is worldhijabday.com.

All females are taught that other females have it far worse -- to keep us quiet (Evans).

Comedy Jihad with Sakdiyah Ma'ruf

(The Feed) Arranged marriages, domestic violence, patriarchy, and fundamentalists' secret obsession with porn are just the beginning when it comes to the controversial jokes from Sakdiyah Ma'ruf. [The original meaning of jihad, by the way, is the struggle against oneself to be good and pure not against others to be Muslim.] (The Feed: facebook.com/SBS2Australia, twitter, instagram, tumblr).

Unsinkable the Movie: When Friendship, Solidarity and Love Begins

 

What must life be like for Muslim females in the largest Muslim country in the world (Indonesia), which was formerly a Buddhist and Hindu country near India? This student film was made by English Department #14 Muhammadiyah at the University of Metro, Indonesia, edited by Aan Fergian (youtube.com/aanfergian, instagram.com/fergiaan).

UK hot in a haute burkini (Nigella Lawson)

"Marry Your Daughter" song by BRKN RBTZ licensed to YouTube by INgrooves (on behalf of Trif3cta Records); Kobalt Music Publishing, AMRA, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, LatinAutor, Public Domain Compositions, ASCAP... "Summer Paradise" (feat. K'naan) by Simple Plan licensed to YouTube by WMG; LatinAutor, Kobalt Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, UMPI, SODRAC, LatinAutor - SonyATV, ASCAP, AMRA, Sony ATV Publishing, LatinAutor - Warner Chappell, EMI Music Publishing, PEDL, UNIAO BRASILEIRA DE EDITORAS DE MUSICA - UBEM, SOLAR...

Taking on extremism one penis joke at a time

Taking on extremism with Indonesia's first female Muslim comedian

The Secret Love Lives of Muslim Women

Sakdiyah Ma’ruf’s comedy "opens this place of play" to talk about being a woman in her Muslim community with its cultural prejudices. We as, "Is it dangerous for us to be with you?"

"I don't know, perhaps if they heard that halal [kosher] condom joke," she answers.

Who Speaks for Islam? The polling research

Sakdiyah Ma'ruf — Islamic Indonesia's first female Muslim comedian — doesn't always get a good reaction to her comedy, to say the least. She's been harassed and threatened by religious extremist groups and accused of betraying Islam, but for her it's a important way to speak out that makes her feel alive.

"I always knew that I need to say something about my experiences growing up, about the experiences of women in my community."

Maybe it's time to rise up for our rights?

As religious extremism increases in Indonesia, Sakdiyah wants to foster understanding and break down barriers: "I can open this place of play for people to think about their own prejudices, about the life of Muslims."

"With comedy I really feel alive. You can come from a completely different background. But if we can share similar ideas, concerns, anxieties, pain...then you can connect to them in a more meaningful way."

When Muslims want to stop masturbating

In 2015, she was awarded the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent at the Oslo Freedom Forum, an event that doesn't escape playful skewering in her act:

"Oh my god, you're a Muslim woman in Indonesia and you're brave enough to speak up! Let me give you an award and a ticket to Oslo so you can breathe the fresh air of freedom and human rights."

ABOUT CBC ARTS: a destination for extraordinary Canadian arts for culture vultures, working artists, avid crafters, compulsive doodlers, and dabblers: CBCArtsWeb, facebook, twitter, instagram

Islam can be a feminist teaching, though few teach it that way (worldhijabday.com).

Ajahn Brahm: Australia burning (live)

Ajahn Brahm (BSWA, Jan. 31, 2020 live stream); Amber Larson, Crystal Q., Wisdom Quarterly


Live Dhamma Talk, January 31, 2020

(Buddhist Society of Western Australia) Bush fires of Australia? It's not the first time. Corona virus? It's not the first time mass panic is being spread about a contagious virus when the common flu kills many more every year, and vaccines do even more harm in terms of morbidity (see Vaxxed: From Cover-Up to Catastrophe), because we are reacting in fear. Funny and kind, Ajahn Brahm is a British monk trained at Cambridge who ordained in the Theravada Buddhist Thai forest tradition under Ajahn Chah. Support the BSWA in making teachings available for free online via patreon.com/BuddhistSocietyWA. Recorded at Dhammaloka Buddhist Centre, Perth, Western Australia.

This live Dharma talk culminates with a Chinese New Year performance and blessing.

Ajahn Chah: study, practice, and attain

Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org) via Ven. Sujato, Ellie Askew, Dhr. Seven (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Here, c'mon, have some fruit. Good to see ya!

With the Dharma, it’s like going to the home of friends or family and they give you fruit. When you take the fruit in your hand, you don’t know whether it’s sour, sweet, or unripe.

In other words, if you simply hold the fruit, you can’t know its taste. To know its taste, you have to bite into it and savor it. That’s when you’ll know that it’s sweet or sour or what its various flavors are, in line with your own perceptions.

It’s the same with the Dharma, the Truth the Buddha made known. In everything, the Buddha has you take yourself as your own witness. You don’t have to look to anyone else.

Three things lead to full enlightenment.

The affairs of other people are hard to judge because they are the affairs of other people. If something is your own affair, however, it’s easy—because the truth rests within us. It has you as its witness, not anyone else.

When you hear the Dharma -- strange, never-before-heard Truth -- you have to meditate on it to be complete in three things: study, practice, and attainment.

1. Study is pariyatti, to make the effort to know.
2. Practice is patipatti: After you know, you apply it.
3. Attainment is pativedha, when knowledge in line with the Truth we've studied and practiced arises within us [as certainty, as verified faith, so that we know our confidence in the Buddha was well placed].

If we simply listen, our knowledge is just perceptions and concepts [mental fabrications, ideas, assumptions, distortions]. If we talk about it, we speak in line with our concepts. We aren’t bringing the actual Truth out to talk about. This means we haven’t reached the Dharma, haven’t contemplated the Dharma.

Our heart isn’t Dharma, but we can speak the Dharma and act as if we were Dharma. This is called being incomplete according to the standards of the Buddha’s teachings.

America's Got Talent: Auditions, L.A. (Feb. 1)

AmericasGotTalentAuditions.com; Sheldon S., Crystal Q., CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

America's Got Talent 15: OPEN CALL

Coming to a major metropolitan area near you

It's free to audition. It's an open call, which means everyone is welcome to apply. Come show AGT what you've got! Click a city (like Los Angeles for Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020) to sign up to audition. If you already have registered, click the sign in option and select a city on your Performer Profile page!

Not all of America has talent: most outrageous and spectacular FAILS

If you are part of a group, only one member should register for the group. Or click the Audition Online option to submit an online audition. If you had an account with AGT prior to Season 15, those credentials have expired. Please create a new account... More

• Pasadena Convention Center, L.A.
• Auditions run from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM
• 300 East Green St., Pasadena, CA 91101

Who Speaks for Islam? 1 Billion Muslims

John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed; Pfc. Sandoval, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Who Speaks for Islam?

Based on the largest study of its kind, the book Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think is the first to present the fascinating findings of the Gallup poll of the Muslim world.

The staged events of 9/11 dramatically intensified what many saw as an ongoing conflict between the U.S. and parts of the Muslim world, the geopolitical "Middle East."

Extremism, encouraged by the CIA, has grown exponentially as many kinds of Muslims and non-Muslims continue to be victims of global terror. Fear-provoking "terrorist" attacks have occurred from Morocco to Indonesia and from Madrid to London, as U.S.-led wars are taken to Iraq, Afghanistan...and now Iran.

As of this writing, American wars and terrorism have already claimed more than 300,000 lives just since 9/11; the vast majority of the victims have not been terrorists, soldiers, or even fighters but civilians.

Hegemony: decadent West wins by "fashion."

As we face savage covert actions in a world that seems ever more dangerous and out of control, we are confronted daily by analysis from "terrorism experts" and media pundits who say the religion of Islam is responsible for global terrorism, rather than the nominally Christian antagonists provoking war everywhere.

At the same time, groups like al-Qaeda ("the List") are said to beam messages throughout the world that demonize the West as the enemy of Islam, responsible for the ills of the Muslim world.

Amid the rhetoric of hate and violence, both anti-Americanism in the Muslim world and Islamophobia — discrimination against or hostility toward Islam and Muslims — have increased precipitously.

In the aftermath of 9/11, chief terrorist Pres. George W. Bush emphasized that America was waging a terrifying war against terrorism, not against Islam. However, the continued acts of a terrorist minority, coupled with statements by preachers of hate (Christian and Muslim) as well as anti-Muslim talk show hosts and political commentators have inflamed our emotions and distorted our views.

Islam in Buddhist Bamiyan, Afghanistan (RP)

The religion of Islam and the mainstream Muslim majority have been conflated (treated as if they were the same thing) with the beliefs and actions of a tiny extremist minority.

The result was reflected in a USA Today/Gallup poll that found substantial minorities of Americans admitting to negative feelings or prejudice against Muslims and favoring heightened "security" measures with Muslims or anyone who looks different to help prevent terrorism.

Nearly one-quarter of Americans (22%) say they would not want a Muslim as a neighbor; fewer than half (< 50%) believe U.S. Muslims are loyal to the United States; and 44% say Muslims are too extreme in their religious beliefs.

Are the growing violence and negative perceptions on all sides only a prelude to a CIA-organized all-out war between the West and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims?

Muslim females standing up for Muslim females and Islam (worldhijabday.com)

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The vital missing piece among the many voices weighing in on this question is the actual views of Muslim publics. We've heard enough form the clerics. With all that is at stake for U.S. and Muslim societies, indeed for the future of the world, the time has come to democratize the debate.

Who Speaks for Islam? Listening to the Voices of a Billion Muslims (2008) is about this silenced majority. It is the product of a mammoth Gallup research study over the last six years.

Gallup conducted tens of thousands of face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim nations. Gallup’s sample represents urban and rural, young and old, educated and illiterate, women and men.

In total, Gallup surveyed a sample representing over 90% of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims, including Muslims in the West, making this the largest, most comprehensive study of contemporary Muslims ever.

Sex, repression, masturbation, hypocrisy...

The concept of this book is simple. After collecting vast amounts of data representing the views of the world’s Muslims, the authors asked the questions everyone wants answers to:

• What is at the root of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world?
• Who are the extremists?
• Is democracy a desired construct among Muslims, and if so, what might it look like?
• What do Muslim women really want?
• With questions in hand, they let the empirical evidence — the voices of a billion Muslims, not individual “experts,” CIA analysts, or other “extremists” — dictate the answers. More
  

• PHOTOS: The Buddha was a Scythian from ancient Gandhara/Afghanistan. See remnants of Buddhism in now Islamic Afghanistan (achco.org.af)
  
  

Zen like Thich Nhat Hanh (Jan. 30)

Sounds True; Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

(Sounds True) Introduced by Tami Simon. Thay (Thich Nhat Hanh) offers practical teachings on how to bring love and mindful awareness into daily life. Kind, purposeful, and illuminating, here is a treasure of traditional teachings to unify meditation practice and life challenges (artofmindfulliving).

Letting go of our cages gives us freedom.

"Mindfulness is the opposite of forgetfulness." Come into the present with the breath. Awareness is enlightenment. These are simple teachings from Vietnamese Zen Master Thay.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had a great friend in this Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh -- "Thay" as he is lovingly called at Deer Park Monastery in Southern California.

MLK Jr. nominated Thay for the same honor. They were unified by peace turning their back on war and any government that promotes aggression, which is condemned by both religions, activist Christianity and Engaged Buddhism. What is Thay's style of Zen and practice? Vegan snacks. FREE/by donation. RSVP:

• Dharma Buddhist Meditation, Los Angeles
• Thursday, January 30, 2020, 7:00-8:30 PM
• Ahiah Center for Spiritual Living, Pasadena
• 150 N. El Molino Ave., Pasadena 91103

Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Desire (Tara Brach)

Tara Brach (tarabrach.com); Ashley Wells, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Tara Brach spoke in Los Angeles last night (Wednesday, insightLA.org) to launch her new book, Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of Rain. What made her famous and a popular and accomplished meditation teacher? It was her candid discussion of addiction, sex, and rising above the vicissitudes of life. Even famous teachers face these things.

Calendar: ongoing classes, daylong workshops, presentation, and retreats (tarabrach.com)

At the Entrance of HELL (video)

Eds., Wisdom Quarterly; Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper (Apocalypse Now Redux)

Samsara: 31 Planes of Existence

Is there a "hell" (naraka loka, perdition, purgatory, Hades, Gehenna, etc.) or is there not a hell?

Is there a judge, a Yama, who helps us transition and calls on us to account for our deeds in the afterlife? It's nicer to think there's not. Or if there is, it's all an illusion. But this world is all an illusion, and look how "real" it seems!

It seems more "progressive" to firmly believe there's not a "hell," no place of torment for the fruition of bad karma like

1. killing or causing others to kill,
2. taking what is not giving or encouraging others to steal,
3. sexual misconduct or harming relationships (or abuse of any of the senses up to and including gluttony),
4. harmful speech (perjury, harshness, divisiveness, nonsense),
5. consuming intoxicants that lead to heedlessly doing one or more of these.

There are, in fact, Ten Courses of Unwholesome Action. Where does the fruit of those deeds ripen, only here? Only among animals or ghosts, only in heavens, only right here right now in our minds?

Now? (Francis Ford Coppola)

There are other worlds, there are results of actions, and there are hellish (not Christian or Jewish final hells) worlds one may be reborn in.

With many good actions, karmas, to counteract that eventuality, no one is damned. (Except that there are five heinous deeds with fixed results that are said to lead to such a hellish world and lots of unpleasant experiences).

But let's say there are no other hells, no eight great hells as described in the texts, possibly written by teaching monks with feverish imaginations exaggerating to help warn people.

Even then there are surely hellish parts of this human plane. And this human world extends in all directions to, according to Michael Cremo interpreting the ancient Vedic texts that preceded Buddhist sutras and commentaries, there are said to be 400,000 "species" of humans in worlds (dimensions, planets, sectors, divisions, levels) in the vicinity of this world, all called "the human plane" (manusya loka) of existence (C2C, 1/28/20).

"Hells"? Who can believe such fairytales?

They can't all be as nice as this one is on a good day.

What karma (deed) merits sentences in hell more than the mass murder of defenseless civilian victims? Peaceful Vietnamese Buddhist civilians had no way to ward off a violent US invasion, occupation, and sexual abuse.

Who views the US War on Vietnam as just? Who calls it the "glorious" to turn a weak country an imperial colony? French colonialism was ending, so the USA stepped in to rule.

Guerilla fighters try to defend their homes, so our military drops Dow and Monanto's jellified gasoline ("Agent Orange") on them?

7.7 earthquake hits Cuba-Jamaica

AP.org via mail.com, 1/29/20; Pfc. Sandoval, Xochitl, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Sinkhole surrounded by police tape appeared when a powerful quake struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and eastern Cuba, at public beach on West Bay, Grand Cayman, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020. The quake also hit the Cayman Islands, leaving cracked roads and what appeared to be sewage spilling from cracked mains (Taneos Ramsay/Cayman Compass via AP).

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Magnitude 7.7 quake hits between Cuba and Jamaica with no injuries

HAVANA, Cuba - A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and eastern Cuba on Tuesday, shaking a vast area from Mexico to Florida and beyond.

Nerves were rattled, but there were no reports of casualties or heavy damage.

Maps change Cuba's size (Mandela Effect)

The quake was centered 86 miles (139 kilometers) northwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and 87 miles (140 kms) west-southwest of Niquero, Cuba, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It hit at 2:10 p.m. (1910 GMT), and the epicenter was a relatively shallow 6 miles (10 kms) beneath the surface.

Dr. Enrique Arango Arias, head of Cuba's National Seismological Service, told state media that there had been no serious damage or injuries reported on the island.

Massive Cuba in recent weather.com map

The Cayman Islands were rocked by several of the strong aftershocks that followed in the area, including one measured at magnitude 6.1. Water was cut off to much of Grand Cayman Island, and public schools were canceled for Wednesday.

Gov. Carlos Joaquín González of Mexico’s Quintana Roo state, which is home to Cancun, Tulum, and other popular beach resorts, said the earthquake was felt in multiple parts of the low-lying Caribbean state, but there were no reports of damage or injuries.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center initially warned that the quake could generate waves 1 to 3 feet above normal in Cuba, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Honduras, Mexico, and Belize but issued a later message saying the danger had passed. More

• Murder charge for officer accused of shooting to death a handcuffed man he had in front seat of police cruiser, shooting him seven times

Mindfulness in the toilet, Part #2 (cartoon)

B&B; Dhr. Seven, Jason, Ellie, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly

Mindfulness means awareness of all one is doing or experiencing in the present.

Enlightened advice

"We practice to learn letting go." - Ajahn Chah

There is a funny story told about the enlightened Thai Buddhist Meditation Master Ajahn Chah (ajahnchah.org). It seems there was once a young Western monk who was stressed and dissatisfied with the monastic life. He had left a very beautiful girlfriend back home, and he missed her. His erotic thoughts about her pestered him and often ruined his meditation.

Hi, Jason! Want to come to the museum with us?

Such intrusive thoughts left him agitated, dejected, confused, and filled with great sensual longing and misgivings about having abandoned the worldly life to live the left-home life in the beautiful and peaceful Thai forest.

One day while standing with another monk on the road in Isan, a car pulled up. It was Ajahn Chah's driver, and the great master was in the front seat. He motioned them, asking if they would like a ride back to Wat Pah Nanachat, the international Buddhist meditation center. They were about to jump in. But the young Western monk did not feel worthy. He hesitated. His friend convinced him that it was all right.

Wat Pah Nanachat ("International Forest Monastery") for Westerners, Northeast Thailand

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Ask the meditation master. He knows everything.

In the car Ajahn Chah sensed something was not right with the white monk, only a year into his training. He asked if it was by any chance a girl? The young monk was shocked that the great master might understand such things as tug at a young man's fancy and cleave painfully to his heart.

Ajahn Chah asked if it was possible for the young monk to perhaps contact the girl. It was, but what was the use? Ajahn Chah suggested that it might help his meditation greatly if he requested her to send him something, a reminder of herself and all that he left behind.

Love letter and lock of hair (NA)

The young monk's eyes widened. He was very interested and in awe of Ajahn Chah's liberal mindedness. But what would I do with the token she sent me? Monks aren't allowed to have anything but the five requisites and maybe some books.

Well, Ajahn Chah suggested, you could put it in a bottle with a cork, maybe wear it around your neck? And then that way every time you felt great longing for her, at night when you really missed her and what you had had with her, you could uncork it and take a little whiff.

The monk was ecstatic at the possibility and honored at the special exemption he was being offered by their great master. He said, you mean like a lock of her hair or a perfumed love letter or used stockings? No, Ajahn Chah, explained:

Sure, I can send you something.

I was thinking you ask her for some of her _ _ _ _ and keep that in the bottle. That way every time you miss her, you take the slightest whiff, and I don't think you'll miss her much anymore. You'll be filled with revulsion. And it should do wonders for your meditation and letting go.

The young monk pursed his lips and smiled. He should have known better than to think he could get away with some alluring reminder of the cramped home-bound life he left behind. His meditation improved dramatically just calling to mind the great master's advice, and there was not even any need to contact his ex.

My ex? He wants something? I'll send that S.O.B. a reminder of me he'll never forget!