Twelve Minutes of Zazen

[elfs]

Twelve minutes seems to be an odd place in the Zazen routine. As I meditate, I start to wonder when that damn doan chime (meditation alarm) is ever going to go off, and when it does I stop and think to myself, "Is that it?"

Next week, I'll up the rate to 15 minutes.

I don't think I'm doing it right. Yeah, I sit still and alternate between doing heavy visualizations and trying to do traditional zazen, but there's too much clutter in my head, too many characters and projects and tasks and distractions. Getting them to shut up is hard work.

Comments

[sirfox.livejournal.com]

totally off topic, but a friend pointed me at this article.
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/06/the_gay_animal_kingdom.php?page=all&p=y

you might find it interesting, or may have heard about it a while back.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

So, I read it, and I don't understand it.

There are so many other conditions that also prevent breeding. These conditions are well understood and their persistence is easily explained by the economics models of evolutionary theory: milder expressions of the genes that cause these conditions, dispersed through a much wider collection of the population than those for whom it is a detriment, are a net benefit to the gene pool overall. Dawkins covered this thirty years ago.

I think shouting "mate selection can't handle homosexuality" is about as meaningful as shouting "mate selection can't handle sickle cell anemia." But it can handle the latter, and it can handle the former in the same way. People just don't want it to because, y'know, it's about icky sex.

[rarkrarkrark.livejournal.com]

Why is it that people act like homosexuality is the same as infertility? It really really really only takes once. Given how common having multiple partners is in the animal kingdom, why do people assume that just because an animal has or even prefers homosexual contact that it will *never* mate with another of the opposite sex?

I'm baffled, truely.