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TUESDAY TRUTH: THE SPIDER
Several things you need to understand. First, and foremost, a waterspout is a term no one around here has used in centuries, unless you mean a tornadic columnar vortex of water, and trust me, we spiders avoid those like the plague. Shocking, I know, but with eight legs we cannot swim. At best some of…
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SEPPO REJECTS A MONK 鐵笛倒吹 七十三
If you find the answer and rush to tell your teacher why are you surprised when he turns away from you, saying that is yesterday’s answer. If you want to impress your teacher paint the answer on the surface of the raging river or accept scorn with equanimity. A reflection on case 73 of the…
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DIG IT
He started digging early in the morning,and hoped that by lunch, he’d be wellon his way there, though he wasn’t certainhow he’d get up out of the holewhen lunch rolled around, but needis a good instructor, so he was surehe could figure it out easily enough.It was slower going than he imagined,slower by several magnitudes.He…
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FLIP IT
It would be an anathema to himif he were a Pope or held deeply feltopinions about anything, but he does not.He denies being vacillating, rather, he says,he is just open to a multitude of views,never mind, she replies, that hecan never make any important decisionexcept by mere chance or luck.He says he prefers life this…
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NEW LISTING
Consider them very carefullyfor you will have only this chanceand you don’t want to addthose which ought not be includedor be forever burdened by thoseyou overlooked or misassumedyou wanted to retain.When you are quite certainyou are finished, that your listis exactly as you wish it,that all your dislikes and regretsare properly delineated, thenwalk slowly to…
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RIDING THE WASTELAND
We set out with bold ambition, egos saddled and reined across a landscape left barren by our leaders who saw only carefully stacked boards and beams awaiting the master carpenter, great floral sprays dotting the lobbies of glass and chrome edifices, created in their own images. We ride in search of the promised land, and…
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KNOWLEDGE
It is difficult explaining to a child,even one who has reached the age of 40,that you once knew all there was to know.They are certain they know more than you,and they know all there is to knowso, a fortiori, you could not knowall that there is to know, period.They will say this with a certain…
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TUESDAY TRUTH: MISS MUFFET
She is anything but little, huge wouldn’t be a gross overstatement. And I suppose you could call a overstuffed brocade cushion a tuffet if you stumbled here out of the Nineteenth century. And just for the record, she was munching on a well-aged brie and sucking down a Courvoisier-laced Greek yogurt smoothie. Oh, yes, did…
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YOKUSAN’S LECTURE 鐵笛倒吹 六十三
If you go to a lecture and listen carefully will you become wise? If you go to a hundred lectures are you a hundred times wiser? Where did the teacher find wisdom, did he sit in endless lectures. Watch him most carefully is he not wise with sleeping, and when eating, when he walks to…
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MIRRORS
Each morning I drag myselffrom bed, slowly engage my legs,and amble into the bathroomwhere I peer into the mirror.Each morning I am surprisedthat I am the same as I wasthey day before, and yet the mirrorby all appearances,has grown another day older.It is, I suppose, the natureof mirrors to age, sadly for them,and as I…
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an old writer and his words 