Om

ah, don't you ever have it where you love a song, hate it, and then love it again? blast that Tull and their godly flute riffs! But at least I'm enjoying it again.

I had a good day today, though. I went to church; I go to a Presbyterian church; the pastor's on vacation and this was a substitute pastor.

The sermon was called "I Give you Life and Death." I thought it was kind of interesting how the pastor said the quote of Jesus "If you try to keep your life you will lose it, but if you lose your life for Me, you will find it," and he said it three times. I mean like, he didn't indicate it was Jesus' quote except just by him saying it, if that makes any sense, I mean the way he said it, grammatically, he was talking about himself. I mean I don't put any stock in that, it's just a random thought.

Wouldn't the deepest human feeling or- the noblest thing- isn't that when a person is crazy and calls himself Jesus? But he actually is a saintly person who is spiritually aware, perhaps enlightened or close to it, and then he slips over into schizophrenia and thinks he is Jesus. Then he lives his life, and maybe he doesn't tell people because he knows how they'll react, but just acts without speaking and becomes like a saint of the people, wouldn't that be great? Like, the triumph of the crazy saint who thinks he's Jesus. That's the real underdog, because no one is discarded more quickly than someone who says anything like that, anyone, in fact, who has an the idea to teach people something, or share- regard is lost for him very quickly generally. Just someone who has a saintly disposition, and is very intelligent and has studied enough sacred texts to have a strong- perhaps the strongest of anyone alive- grasp on theology and human concepts. But he basically [I]is[/I] very close to Jesus, he just doesn't express it in words, etc..

And this life, one thing that is very true to me- the Buddha said there are three marks of existence: impermanence or change, suffering or unsatisfactoriness, not-self or insubstantiality (egolessness); the second two apply to animate and non-animate, but the first is only for us- but what becomes true for me, or mark of existence, is that it's invariably unstable. It's almost like being hurled into a wall with incredible force, in slow motion. Or it's like standing on something that isn't there. Or being all twisted, confused, rambling in mind, under the pressure of mountains of stress. The reason it's unstable is we keep trying to fall back on something that isn't there: ourselves. But once you realize how much things are changing, you realize that you actually do have substance, ground you can walk upon, but you just have to realize what is substance and what is non-substance. This is what the Buddha taught, and he also said that one who is [I]not[/I] walking the path (study Buddhism to find the path), that they are..I can't find the word for this, but it's clear by looking at the situation. Maybe I'll rewrite that last bit...I dunno, anyway; thoughts anyone?