Tuesday, January 18, 2011 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM
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Going to Breakfast, Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, January 17, 2011
It's about Thyme
Thyme is my favorite herb; I use it in everything. Last summer I picked up a big container of organic thyme at a local farmers market. It's almost empty so when I was in Deming I put it on my list for a trip to Peppers, the local supermarket. Guess what? They had no thyme, unless you count those little McCormick "samples." Same thing at Bullock's in Truth or Consequences when I stopped there on my way through last Sunday. What's up with that - doesn't anyone cook with thyme in southern New Mexico? Or eat almonds; they've gone missing too?
Night camp
Site 10 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM
- This is a basic, small Mom & Pop RV Park with full hookups.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park on my Night Camps map
- Click for Google street view
- Check the weather in San Antonio 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