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Nin Andrews

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WeCroak and the Three Pigs

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It’s an ap! Recommended by our Wednesday night meditation instructor, Bob. Five times a day WeCroak will remind you that you will die. For Buddhists, it’s supposed to be important to remember your mortality—otherwise you will not practice as urgently. I just downloaded it. I can’t wait to get my first reminder.

Last week at meditation, we had a guest-teacher from Tibet, Tenzin, who talked about this need for urgency. He also told us his version of the story of the three pigs.

The three pigs, he said, represent three steps one goes through when becoming enlightened.

The first pig is the little piggy who becomes happy with himself after meditating. And he’s happy being happy. He feels great. He can just sit there on his zafu, all blissed out. Oh, to be the first piggy!

But then, alas, one day he becomes the second piggy. This happens when he thinks of other pigs, other less happy pigs. He worries about them . . . Maybe his heart even aches for them. I’m not entirely sure what he does with his newfound awareness of the unhappy pigs in the world. I think he just sits there, dwelling on their condition. Maybe he writes poems about them.

But then, one day he turns into the third piggy, and he seeks to save all the other pigs. How he does this, I don’t know. Maybe he teaches everyone to sit on their cushions and become piggy number 1?

I don’t think I have the story right. And there are many other aspects of Tenzin’s teaching I can’t sort out in my head—as well as other aspects of Bob’s teachings.

So I wrote Bob who promised to contact Tenzin and find out what the real story of the pigs was. I also asked about the rest of Tenzin’s teachings from last Wednesday. And he is going to update me soon.

I clearly need help. I am a terrible student of Buddhism.

Tenzin’s pigs reminded me of this Edson poem:

HOG THEATER

                        There was once a hog theater where hogs performed as men, had men

            been hogs.  

                        One hog said, I will be a hog in a field which has found a mouse 

            which is being eaten by the same hog which is in the field and which has 

            found a mouse, which I am performing as my contribution to the 

            performer’s art. 

                        Oh, let’s just be hogs, cried an old hog.

                        And so the hogs streamed out of the theater, crying only hogs, 

            only hogs . . . 

—-

Since I first wrote this post, my friend Anne and fellow Buddhist-in-the-making, told me third pig was the happiest of all little piggies because he was a transcendent pig so he was free of bodily limitations. So he is like a bodiless pig. Bodiless pigs, I am told, aren’t afraid of death.

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Poets/Artists, Freak Out, and the Amazing Didi Menendez

I don't know of any writer, poet, artist, and publisher with more energy than Didi Menendez. I have had the honor of being published by her in MiPoesias and Poets/Artists and on iTunes, and of being a part of her amazing art and poetry shows. Her latest show can be seen here: https://indd.adobe.com/view/3fcc628d-cb92-46f3-93c3-2c8ca64057cc. The website for Poets/Artists is  www.poetsandartists.com.  You can see the magazine here: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1075086. And this is book of art and poetry she published of my and Emily Lisker's work.  What an amazing force Didi is!  So many of us poets and artists have benefited from her passion and hard work!   

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Sonnet 73, Comic

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

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Writing Comic

Writing Comic, right when I

I've spent the week trying to polish off some poems and a manuscript for a chapbook.  I finally sent them along. Now I want to unsend them. It's always like that for me. The worst is when a book comes out, and I want to rewrite it. I dream of the day I don't feel like this! 

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