Monday, July 27, 2009 - Pittsfield MA

Overhead water damage under storage box, July 19, 2009

Nasty

And a lousy picture to match my lousy mood...

I can't proceed with my big plans for the overhead until I have this leak fixed and know it's fixed for sure. I have to be able to crawl up in there to look and feel for dampness. That won't be so easy once I've built what I'm building. Very frustrating.

At least it rains every day this summer. Holy Cow does it ever rain! All the rain has been a mixed blessing. While it gets in the way of having a dry exterior for sealing the leaks, if it weren't for the ongoing torrential rains I never would have believed this spot leaks in the first place. I've been all over the roof and everything looks fine up there. Very frustrating indeed.

Night camp

Wal-Mart Supercenter in Pittsfield MA

Wal-Mart Store #2228, 555 Hubbard Ave./Suite 12, Pittsfield, MA 01201 - (413) 442-1971

Good level parking lot
Verizon cell phone service is good
Verizon EVDO Broadband service is good
Find other Wal-Marts in the area
Check the weather here

Emptiness

Emptiness shouldn't be thought of as a negative. A lot of people misconstrue that as meaning the opposite of something is nothing. But this is something slightly different. I don't want to get into comparative religious things because that's a complicated topic. But if we were to think about it, the problem of life and death has to do with what comes in between, and what comes in between is an awful lot of suffering. We're not just talking about the pain of suffering, we're talking about suffering. Our common everyday parlance it's called stress. That's a kind of suffering and we die from this. From the standpoint of Zen Buddhism this life isn't some sort of stage mock-up for something else that comes after this. This is what we have. We're right here and we're being in this present moment. What you want to think about when you think about emptiness is a way in which to stay present. Just as, in a way, in a very strange kind of concept, there really is no such thing as time. There's no dress rehersal for anything.

The Artful Mind, Reverend Sohaku Flagg, Rinzai Buddhist priest, in an interview with Nanci Race, Jan/Feb 2003

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