Nine Protections

“Are we discussing Buddhism or is this just a game of one-upmanship?”

I give this a 3 out of 10, but your enthusiasm is good. Please keep trying.

When you “know” Reality, it is no longer “knowing”. It becomes something else. It is, then, becoming.


“abstinence is one of the truest forms of sexual morality”

Buddhism is not a do-it-yourself kind of thing.

This is the Jack-in-Box of Buddhism. May I have your Koan please? Life reveals itself in due course, me’ bucko.


“based upon and mired in duality is a samsaric being trapped in samsara.”

Interesting, but how do you know all this. How can you be so certain that your not Buddha, and what you see are your projections upon him?


I do have a very simple type of temple bell hanging out in front of my little cottage. (I got it at a clearance sale for a great price.)

But, I can only think of how the neighbors would feel if I was out there ringing away, at midnight, one hundred and eight times. I don’t think that I would be on their best-friends list for awhile after that.

Awakening together would be an apt phrase.

I would like to add that yes, it is very important to my own practice to make uncertainty a byword with what I learn. That is, in the sense that: Yes I have experienced this, but perhaps there is more to learn about it, more to know, perhaps I am just seeing my own baggage. Thus I practice to know it. Open to whatever is revealed to me, yet thinking that it’s not the answer, but that which, for the moment, I realize.