Drinking as Religion, and other sense pleasures

[Justin]

Keishin,

perhaps when making it, the person should gassho to their glass before drinking--then you could really 'drink as if your hair were on fire' !!!

One does! The instructions I transcribed on my blog are as follows:

-Pour 3/4 shot Amaretto
-Pour 1/4 shot 151-proof rum
-Light
-Gassho
-With great attention: drop into glass of dark beer. Taste the creamy goodness. Realize you are the universe tasting itself.
-Replace glass on table
-Gassho

Would it be repetitive to gassho once more to close the post? Ah, but I suppose monks have been known to bow a thousand times a day, I can certainly gassho once more.

Gassho.

[Gregor]

Interesting drink, flaming rocks!

I've always preferred my drinks to be simple whiskey neat, red wine, glass of ale ---> but my former service as a bartender might be responsible for this. After mixing cocktails all night, It was just easier to crack a beer than shake up a mai tai.

Quick question. . . which style of beer is better English or Belgium? I think this might be the most important issue that this Sangha will ever deal with.

[Justin]

English, surely.

I think this might be the most important issue that this Sangha will ever deal with.

Haha.

[Rev R]

Quick question. . . which style of beer is better English or Belgium? I think this might be the most important issue that this Sangha will ever deal with.

Be happy that you have a beer.


What is the recipie for the flaming gassho anyway?
*edit* duh I missed a post.

[Stephanie]

This thread is right on target with a lot of things I've come to believe quite strongly about the nature of things.

One aspect of Buddhism I've come to completely renounce is the trend to hold up monasticism as the pinnacle of human achievements. Don't get me wrong--I value and appreciate the institution of monasticism. But I don't see it as superior in any way. And I suppose I do see it as a bit wrong-headed. Because I believe that the pleasures of the world are not only "okay," but one of the main sources of human joy and meaning.

Sounds hedonistic, but I'm not a hedonist. I completely agree with the Buddha when it comes to the outcome of ignorant drift from one sense-contact to another. But there can be a wise engagement with the world--as William Blake put it, a "marriage of Heaven and Hell." Delight, exuberance, beauty--I completely embrace the Blakean vision of the intersection of "World" and "Spirit."

Recognizing that the deepest and most profound happiness cannot be found in sensory pleasures doesn't mean that such pleasures should be shunned. And I'm thinking of the simple pleasures of human existence--the taste of an ordinary home-cooked meal, the sight of fireworks over the river, the gentle touch of a lover... I agree with Philip Pullman's vision that our experience of these things is not only good, but a core aspect of our humanity. Experience is not sinful or shameful--it is delightful.

What one enjoys may vary, but I pity the person who cannot enjoy their glass of wine, piece of chocolate, Beethoven symphony, or whatever it might be. The joy of the natural world is a font of spiritual energy for us, and any spirituality that dismisses it is an abomination, or at least a neurosis, in my view.