u/adelard-of-bath

coming home to my hovel,
the sound of crows and children playing
I sit zazen, back aching, then heat up food
it's friday night.
should i drink coffee? should i drink beer?
plane buzzing overhead, i scratch angrily at scabs
108 prostrations for 108 afflictions
whoever could take away my afflictions?
well worn clothing, no clothing at all,
friends don't take things from friends
walking alone in my head, in my body
nerves thrumming each note alone never ringing
never tingling, burning up and through
who rings? who rings? back aching,
10,000 afflictions in eyes unmet
staring ahead
faces dancing on the wall, singing a funeral pall
kwan seum bosal

After mod and i had our shitfit yesterday i started reflecting on the question "but like how *do* we save the world tho?"

Because after all the point of buddhism isn't to make yourself happy and float away into a dream cloud of nothingness. We're practicing this shit for a reason, and it's to save all beings.

Save all beings from what? Their delusions. Why? Delusions create suffering. The more deluded, the more suffering.

So that means waking up infinite beings. How do you wake up infinite beings? Attain buddha nature and wake up other beings.

So to my understanding this leads to a chain effect, like a nuclear buddhahood. If the number of buddhas doubles every kalpa (I'm doing napkin math here) eventually we'll get to an event horizon where we go from 9,999 to infinite Buddhas, right?

Cuz i mean when the Buddha woke up he didn't go back to being a king and fix the economy. He started wandering around being a beggar. I think that says something.

I'm rambling. What are your thoughts? What does it mean to fix the world's problems to you?

Today i weeded the garden while it was raining. I stayed dry in the hoop house. Pulling up the lettuce bed, I'm a giant destroying the homes of untold numbers of ants, pill bugs, slugs, centipedes. The spidermothers screaming as they carried their eggsacs away on their backs.

The lettuce is too bitter to eat. I dunno what I'm going to plant to replace it. Been gardening for years but this is my first time growing for production.

I don't really like it, the production i mean. I'd rather just give it away to hungry people. The world is going to shit and people need help.

Realizing there's not much i can do to help i just content myself with being a giant demon, destroying the magic forest.

So many wasted words to say 'just this, just this'

Can't you see it? Just there.

A stick bug walking, sun sailing

Washing dishes, cooking, the clouds piling up outside the window

Scrubbing stained linoleum

Smiling faces of strangers, my children I'll never meet

Giving it all away, what's left to do?

Selling water, selling sand,

Days spent lining grocery store shelves

Nights spent laughing like a mad man at the moon