The Road to Enlightenment Is Paved With Glitches

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The monastery internet conked out yesterday noonish, leaving me cut off from EVERYTHING. Seriously, I went into withdrawal. Talk about attachment. Fortunately I have a 4G phone and could check emails, but couldn’t get into the admin page here, for some reason.

So now I’m “working” in the Reinaissance Java Cafe on Schermerhorn Street in Brooklyn. Anybody in the neighborhood, come on down. I may be here most of tomorrow. Fortunately they serve food.

5 thoughts on “The Road to Enlightenment Is Paved With Glitches”

  1. I think the monks were testing you. Sneaky Zen monks!

    Wish I could teleport to NYC and join you. Bored, bored, bored here on the prairie!

    Friday afternoons at my job can be like Calvin daydreaming in class, in Calvin and Hobbes: “Spaceman Spiff has entered the Arithmetic Dimension, WHERE TIME HAS NO MEANING!”

  2. Should a monastery even have internet access?

    I remember the old “Odd Couple” episode, where Felix and Oscar decide to take a break from day-to-day life and join a monastery.
    And, after only a few hours, Oscar – “The Monk of the Messy” – was caught running a dice game.
    And how they failed at being in tune with the monastery’s rules throughout the entire hilarious 30-minute episode.

    Not that I’m not glad to hear from you, my beloved maha – but is it appropriate to have internet access in a monastery?
    I say “YES!”
    But only because I’m selfish – and, it think that while studying Zen up close, it’s important to maintain contact with the real (sad & pathetic) world!

    I wonder what Buddha would have said about having access to the internet at all times during the day or night?
    He probably couldn’t have even imagined what we’d be capable of, hundreds and hundreds of years later…
    Who could have?

    • Monasteries have to do business and have websites and even Facebook pages. The Internet is not optional. And people have their own phones now. During intensive retreats we’ll be on our honor to not use our various devices, but most days are pretty day-to-day. There’s morning and evening meditation (mandatory) and chore time (semi-mandatory) and other things (optional). It’s actually kind of nice to get out of these a few times a week.

  3. I don’t want to sound too “hippie-Zen.” Often the glitches reflect some little bit of ourselves or of the nature of things, that we might otherwise have missed, ignored or avoided. Things are so different from how they appear or how we fix them in our minds. Instead of “things” maybe I should say, we, ourselves and the world around us. Sometimes those things, at least the way we perceive them, are separate, sometimes, not.

    I didn’t want to sound too “hippie-Zen.” But, what are you gonna do? It’s my glitch.

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