What happened to this place?

[Dosho]

Re: What happened to this place?

Hello Dosho,

Since I, too, brought it up, I should offer my explanation. Birthday threads are nice. But they could be problematic.

First of all - what about those people who doesn't get a happy birtday thread? I'm sure it can bring out feelings of being rejected, overseen, or simply ignored. Who gets a birthday thread? The most popular? People we tend to notice? People we see accidentally on Treeleaf's "today's birthday is ..."?

Second of all - and this is purely a forum aspect: many threads on literally the same subject tend to clog up a forum. This is, after all, a discussion forum as well, and sometimes a lot of threads on the same subject is making it a bit heavy when you're sifting through the latest posts, to actually find discussions or unique subjects that hasn't been delt with a hundred times before.

Forum-wise, I think it would be good either with monthly celebration, or a "birthday thread", where all these compassionate posts could be placed. That doesn't solve everything, but at least it frees up some space, and makes it easier to find subjects and navigate on the board.

Or maybe I'm just grumpy because I don't celebrate my birthdays anymore.

For what it's worth.

Or maybe I'm oversensitive because my Mom was only truly selfless on someone's birthday...we all have reasons, on the surface or buried deep, why we feel the way we do.

[anista]

Re: What happened to this place?

Or maybe I'm oversensitive because my Mom was only truly selfless on someone's birthday...we all have reasons, on the surface or buried deep, why we feel the way we do.

Fair enough!

[chicanobudista]

Re: What happened to this place?

Chet, whether the talk is deep or shallow, and whether about you or not, and whether on a topic that is interesting or boring...in any case I firmly believe that you belong here too.

Just picking up on your thought. I think Chet belongs here. Like. All of us belong here. The active members to the lurkers. We all belong here. But we must also be aware that one day we will not belong here.

[chicanobudista]

Re: What happened to this place?

What happened to this place?

What happened to my wife/husband?
What happened to my youth?
What happened to my home?
What happened to my friends?
What happened to my pet?
What happened?
What happened?

We ask the same questions of hungry ghosts.

[Jinyu]

Re: What happened to this place?

But we must also be aware that one day we will not belong here.

I have an old Uncle who always lived with us and he used to says:
"The only place you belong to... is the cemetery! You have a nice reserved spot just next to mine (in the family vault= still very important in Portugal). Believe it or not, it was one of his favorite jokes for years :lol: And more important ... it is true, all family members (untill now) have a reserved spot in the familial vault... traditions).

gassho,
Jinyu

[ghop]

Re: What happened to this place?

Earlier, I got a new sutra from Rich.

Rich wrote:
even boredom is something you do, but at the same time absolutely nothing has happened to this place. So it must be all in your mind. The dog is whining to go out.

This is my new sutra. [/quote]

Now, I get a mantra from Jinyu.

"The only place you belong to... is the cemetery!

So many buddhas in one forum! Chett...are you listening??? 8)

[chessie]

Re: What happened to this place?

But we must also be aware that one day we will not belong here.

I have an old Uncle who always lived with us and he used to says:
"The only place you belong to... is the cemetery! You have a nice reserved spot just next to mine (in the family vault= still very important in Portugal). Believe it or not, it was one of his favorite jokes for years :lol: And more important ... it is true, all family members (untill now) have a reserved spot in the familial vault... traditions).

gassho,
Jinyu

I'm kind of jealous of this actually. My 4 grandparents died when I was grown up. They were all 3000 miles away, on the other coast. It was not deemed necessary for me to fly out there for any one of the times. I don't know where any of them are now.

It's not really important to my moment-to-moment, but every now and then a story like this gets me feeling wistful. Memories are good too, I guess. Since I didn't see them often due to distance, I kind of feel as close to them now as ever, and I feel close to y'all in a similar manner. I learned early that those far away are often as or more close and loving and real, than the guy next door.

Off topic, sorry, but it just brought a lot of stuff to mind.

Gassho, Ann

[Jundo]

Re: What happened to this place?

Yeah, actually I feel a little weird about the birthdays because I don't really "know" some of the people and I can't decide if it would be odd to say "Happy Birthday!" or just ignore some people and not others (who wants to be ignored on their birthday?)

Monthly might be a good idea.

Happy Birthday Dosho, Happy Birthday Anista, Happy Birthday Jennifer, Happy Birthday Jon, Happy Birthday Chet, Happy Birthday Chessie, Happy Birthday Rich, Happy Birthday Greg, Happy Birthday Jinyu, Happy Birthday Taigu, Happy Birthday Shohei and Shards and Fugen and Chugai and Karl and Risho and Trevor and Keishin and Stephanie and Taylor and Pontus, Happy Birthday everyone ...


(not you Erik :wink: )

[ghop]

Re: What happened to this place?

Chet,

If you're still reading,

I think at the very least your post revealed how human we all are...

how vulnerable...

how needy...

how utterly human...

while this forum is sometimes lacking in intellect

it isn't lacking in heart...

there are diamonds in the dust...

you are one of them...

hang around

and warm yourself by the fire...

or go

and remember the warmth you've gathered

and generated...

gassho
Greg

[Dosho]

Re: What happened to this place?

Yeah, actually I feel a little weird about the birthdays because I don't really "know" some of the people and I can't decide if it would be odd to say "Happy Birthday!" or just ignore some people and not others (who wants to be ignored on their birthday?)

Monthly might be a good idea.

Happy Birthday Dosho, Happy Birthday Anista, Happy Birthday Jennifer, Happy Birthday Jon, Happy Birthday Chet, Happy Birthday Chessie, Happy Birthday Rich, Happy Birthday Greg, Happy Birthday Jinyu, Happy Birthday Taigu, Happy Birthday Shohei and Shards and Fugen and Chugai and Karl and Risho and Trevor and Keishin and Stephanie and Taylor and Pontus, Happy Birthday everyone ...


(not you Erik :wink: )

Jundo,

If there's a joke here, I must have missed it. :?

Although, my missing the joke is fairly common.

Gassho,
Dosho

[chicanobudista]

Re: What happened to this place?

(not you Erik :wink: )

:mrgreen:

[Seishin the Elder]

Re: What happened to this place?

I have to admit that I have missed a few of the Birthday announcements for whatever reason, and then felt a bit awkward going back to it after a few days; yet I do thank Shohei, and others who seem to be the ones on top of this. Anista, the birthday folks are always printed toward the bottom of the forum page, for those whose birthdays are listed in their profiles.

Now I wish to mention why this has become more important to me of late. First of all, I realistically am aware that I will have fewer birthdays going forward than I have had looking backward. . Then, in the past 12 months I have lost two very dear "birthday partners". I used to have three delightful women with whom I shared the same birthdate, albeit the year was not the same. My great-aunt, who just passed away this week at 96; my aunt who passed away last April at 85 were two of the dearest women I have ever known. The other is an old college chum whose wedding I officiated at and whose sons I baptised and who, thankfully, is still here to co-celebrate.

When one nears, or hovers in my age group there are fewer cards and calls when things like birthdays arrive. The Christmas card list gets shorter each year. So it is pleasant to have a dozen or so messages listed, even on a forum, when one's birthday rolls around. It is Metta, thank you Dosho for noting that. It is also an opportunity, at least for this old monk, to consider impermanence and especially so for me this year with two less cards that I shall being sending.

Gassho,

Seishin Kyrill

[Nenka]

Re: What happened to this place?

Seishin Kyrill--

Thank you for that. And please accept my condolences for your losses.

Gassho

Jennifer

[JohnsonCM]

Re: What happened to this place?

Interesting conversations have their time and place, and I think that because the way our sangha speaks is through this forum, we sometimes feel that we have to say something. But, sometimes (and this is a lesson I’ve had to learn) these Teachings are best expressed through silence, a few lines of poetry, a smile and a bow.

This post itched, literally. So I thank you for the discomfort, the boat needs to be rocked now and then to make sure people don't fall into complacency.

Why does the boat need to be rocked? And if it needs to be rocked, won’t the river take care of that for us? Do we have to be the ones to rock the boat? When I get in a boat, I get in to go from here to there with as little rocking as possible. If the boat rocks, shouldn’t we rock with it instead of against it? Rock the boat so we don’t fall into complacency, but rock too hard and we all fall into the water. Rock the boat just to rock the boat, and folks will just wonder why you got into the boat in the first place.

[Eika]

Re: What happened to this place?

There's an interesting novel called Saints and Villains and it is a loose biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. If you are into biographies, it is a pretty interesting read even though it is truly meant to be a work of fiction (it spends a great deal of time speculating about certain aspects of his life. Anyway, the part that seems relevant here is that when Bonhoeffer arrives in NY to seminary, he is very frustrated by the professors and the students. His idea of school is based on his experiences in German institutions of learning. He is shocked by the looseness of the teacher-student relationship, he is uncomfortable with the lack of structure (at least apparent structure) in the curriculum, and, most importantly, he is confounded by what appears to him to be a lack of respect for serious critical examination of sacred texts (exegesis). What he later discovers is that the teaching was being administered more by osmosis than injection. Like the old image of walking through dense fog vs. walking in the rain . . . both will get you wet, but one does so without you noticing it.

So, I think my answer is that nothing has happened to this place. What happened to Chet?

We all bring expectations to Treeleaf. All of these expectations foiled to varying degrees. We all want something to happen, but there's nothing to happen, so we keep coming back. Soto is the slow way. If we are not having "serious" conversations often enough, maybe we should be OK with that because next month may be entirely different (or next year, or next decade). Or start one of those conversations (or revisit one). We are "long-haul" folks who, I hope, have abandoned any idealistic notions of having mind-blowing/enlightening conversations about rebirth, karma, death, etc. The way we learn such matters is to take a walk in the fog . . .
Study and discussion is wonderful, and absolutely necessary as a portion for our practice, but it would be incorrect to make it the emphasis of our practice.

Just my bit,
Eika

PS--I'm glad you are back, Chet. My advice is to quit trying so hard, it tightens the knots more.