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Tuesday, December 28, 2010 - LoW-HI RV Ranch, Deming NM

Snow Geese, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, February 1, 2010
Snow Geese, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, February 1, 2010

Morning at JT's Auto Service

There. That's done. After a morning at JT's Auto Service LD now sports a fine newly rebuilt air conditioner compressor and a new belt tensioner pulley. That quieted the belt just fine.

Now it's on to find replacements for the rear tires which are getting down to their last 10% or so of tread depth. That's plenty far enough for me. I'll sacrifice that 10% for a little peace of mind out on the highway. A flat dually will often disintegrate before the driver even notices it has gone soft. We've all seen those road snakes out there. Trouble is, a disintegrating dually can do major damage to the plywood wheel wells on the Lazy Daze. I'd rather not deal with that if I can help it thank you.

So tomorrow I'm off to the tire shop JT's recommended, Tinley-Tee Tire & Auto Services, a mile across town.

Night camp

Boondocked - LoW-HI RV Ranch, Deming NM

Emptiness

Emptiness shouldn't be thought of as a negative. A lot of people misconstrue that as meaning the opposite of something is nothing. But this is something slightly different. I don't want to get into comparative religious things because that's a complicated topic. But if we were to think about it, the problem of life and death has to do with what comes in between, and what comes in between is an awful lot of suffering. We're not just talking about the pain of suffering, we're talking about suffering. Our common everyday parlance it's called stress. That's a kind of suffering and we die from this. From the standpoint of Zen Buddhism this life isn't some sort of stage mock-up for something else that comes after this. This is what we have. We're right here and we're being in this present moment. What you want to think about when you think about emptiness is a way in which to stay present. Just as, in a way, in a very strange kind of concept, there really is no such thing as time. There's no dress rehersal for anything.

The Artful Mind, Reverend Sohaku Flagg, Rinzai Buddhist priest, in an interview with Nanci Race, Jan/Feb 2003

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