Tuesday, January 11, 2011 - Percha Dam State Park, Arrey NM
< previous day | archives | next day >
Leather Case, iPod Touch, February 15, 2009
Now that it's here I'm torn
This day has been in the wind a long long time; now it's here. Verizon announced today they will be selling iPhones beginning February 10th.
I've been hanging on to my old LG cell phone for years in anticipation of this day. Now that it's here I'm torn. Trading in my old phone for an iPhone instantly makes my constant companion, my dedicated iPod Touch, redundant. That's ok. The thing is, though, the great leather case I lavished a week developing and making won't fit the new iPhones. So that becomes instantly redundant as well. Arrgh....
Night camp
Site 23 - Percha Dam State Park, Arrey NM
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO service - good signal
- Go to the Percha Dam State Park website
- Locate Percha Dam State Park on my Night Camps map
- Check the weather in Arrey 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