Monthly Archives: October 2006

emptiness…

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Emptiness. What is your first thought when you read that word?……………

I think in the west, we’re taught culturally that empty is a negative, or unfulfilled word. We believe if we don’t have things, stuff, junk really, our lives are in some way destined to be empty. It’s a hard mind-frame to get out of at times. Everywhere we look – advertising. Messages about how much of a better life we’d be allowed if we just have this product, or that thing. And at times we really can believe this. It’s weird when you step back and think about it.

Then we come to what I intended to write about when I fired up ecto. The buddhist definition of emptiness. One of the most famous passages from the sutra states, “All phenomena are like a dream, illusion, bubble, or shadow; they are like dew or lightning. You should meditate upon them thus.” Another I like to think about states, “form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” In summary, or, for those unfamiliar with buddhist thought, you can say that all phenomena is insubstantial on it’s own. A good example is this:

Pick up a pen.
What makes it pen? What gives it “pen-ness”?
Does it, itself make it a pen?
No.
The experience between you, what your understanding is, and the pen – all together – that is what makes it pen; what gives it “pen-ness”.
Think of if a dog got ahold of that very same pen.
To the dog, would it be a pen? Would it have “pen-ness”?
No.
Likely, the dog would see it as a chew toy or something to that effect. Therefore, between the dog, the dog’s understanding, and the pen, it would have no “pen-ness”.

I had a moment of understanding about this the other day in conversation with one of my friends at work. I had just looked at my watch and noticed that it was already 2:30PM. I thought to myself ‘the day sure is flying by’. Not a second later he brought up “can you believe it’s only 2:30? Wow today is dragging!” I kind of giggled to myself and chose to stay quiet,replying with just a smile.

Time itself is also empty.

Gave blood today.

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So I had another appointment for donating blood today at 4PM.

It went really well, but, typically does. This poor lady though; we were sitting there eating our free cookies and juice afterwards and she started to state that she didn’t feel well. They asked her to try and walk over to lie down on the cot, but as she stated that she didn’t think she’d make it she passed out. The onsite RN came over just in time. They got her over to lie down and luckily splashing her face with water was enough to wake her up. I hope she’s ok.

Found some interesting facts about donating blood at the Mayo Clinic’s website, the most striking of which is:

“Only 5 percent of eligible donors across the nation donate blood, but the number of transfusions nationwide increases by 9 percent every year.”

It’s such a small amount of time, within minimal effort, yet the potential benefit to others is so high. And heck free cookies and juice when you’re done, you can’t go wrong with free cookies and juice.

When you’re ready to donate – please see the following link:
http://www.redcross.org/donate/give/

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

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Ethan took Moody and I to see the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on Monday night. It had been so long since I’d seen a show at the Palladium! Same old place; though either I’m getting older, or their sound man is getting deafer and speakers getting worse. Likely just that I’m getting old. Oh well. Second thought – that has to be it. Watched the first opening band whose name escapes me currently, they were pretty good. Then the Blood Brothers were on. They weren’t bad, but they really weren’t my thing. Way too much screaming. And seriously, someone needs to take the old Rolling Stones videos away from the singer. But, just my opinion.

Then the Yeah Yeah Yeahs came on. It was great. I’ve been saying it since I first heard them – Karen really reminds me of early Siouxsie. Good stage presence, similar moves, similar (at times) voice, above all else – an intensity like Siouxsie. (consider that a massive compliment, I LOVE Siouxsie… I even proposed to her over the phone once)

I really enjoyed the show. For me, Maps really stole the night. Karen began the song, then stopped the band because she felt that the acoustic version was really needed. (thank you Karen – that was seriously perfect.)

It was a lot of fun hanging out with Ethan and Moody too. We NEVER get to do that anymore.

Moving – Car (what a weekend)

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So it’s been quite a ride lately. Saturday I helped Ethan move his Grandparents from Victorville to Alhambra. It wasn’t a bad day. Very tiring, but overall, just not bad. His Grandparents are so nice how could a day of helping them possibly be a bad day.

Not to say it wasn’t a challenging day. ;) The morning started out quite funny. So Ethan had reserved a 26 ft. truck a few days before, nicely telling the person on the phone that we’d intended to drive about 200-300 miles. Well, we got there, and after waiting for around 20-30 minutes for the sadly understaffed worker to help us, she let us know that though she did have the truck, she just couldn’t let us drive it that far due to a radiator issue. Though irritating at the time, in hindsight we agreed that at least she was nice enough to tell us this, rather than let us load up the thing and wait for it to break down, fully loaded (because you know that’s what would have happened) and then break down out in Timbuktoo. Once we got there it wasn’t bad. There’s some sick part of me that finds moving to be a fun challenge. Some say my love of Tetris really shows on moving day… hahhaa

Here’s the cherry on top though….. poor poor Ethan. We get the truck and van (forgot to mention, talked the nice person at the rental place into throwing in a van completely free. You know, if you tell places how they can resolve your issue, they typically will listen ;) ) all loaded up with stuff and drove to the destination. Get there and it’s a somewhat busy street. Then it happens. I’m sitting there in the van, behind Ethan in the truck, and I start to yell NO ETHAN NO ETHAN ohhhhh crap. Yep, you guessed it – the family van that needed to be right in the way of a massive truck being parallel parked is now missing some of it’s original shape, paint, and one headlight. :( They were nice when Ethan went to talk to them though, so that even turned out better than it could have.

So, got home around 1:30AM. Very tired. Then of course Little Man wakes me up at 7AM. We played trains :)

Then Sunday; we’re driving to temple for my BLIA meeting, then planned to head over to Disneyland for the Jedi Training show at Tomorrowland, and the lovely car decides to lose power. Long story short, it’s now at the dealer and they are fixing electrical and transmission problems. Word of advice everyone – the extended warranty they try to sell you with a new car —- ya, buy it!!! So happy I have it currently.

Well, you know what they say; chop wood, carry water.