Open Buddha

The last week with the long weekend has been the weekend of many movies.
Along with Netflix movies, R and I rented a couple and then I bought a few.

Last night, we watched Dawn of the Dead, which was a bit of a dog.
Now, I like a bad zombie movie as much as the next guy but while parts of it
were engaging, the movie as a whole was utterly predictable. I was hoping for a
bit better but I expected it to be as such. We also watched Envy with Ben
Stiller and Jack Black (plus Christoper "I'm fuckin' creepy" Walken). That one
was a bit better and typical Stiller and Black type shenanigans. Again, not a
deep movie but I was simply hoping for funny. Jack Black always makes me laugh.

Tonight, we watched The Unforgiven, which I bought yesterday (along
with The Outlaw Josey Wales and Pale Rider). As you can imagine,
I'm a bit of a Clint Eastwood Western fan. I hadn't seen it in years and I still
loved the moodiness and just general desperation of the terribly flawed
characters. I can't think of a simple "pure" character in the whole movie unless
it is the children. Unlike the old Westerns, everyone in this movie is messed
up. As Clint says "We've all got it coming."

Watching him also reminded me that I need to pick up the rest of the Dark
Tower books again soon. Roland calls. Maybe over the holidays.

Tonight, I'm reading A Year in Linear City, a novella by Paul Di
Filippo, in the collection, Cities. The Tain by China Mieville is
in it as well, which is actually why I got it. As it turns out, all of the
authors that contributed to it are ones that I like.

I've also been working through Stephenson's The Confusion and have
gotten far enough that I understand the basis of the name (and I'm not meaning
that as a joke). Stephenson continues to give me laugh-out-loud moments when I
read it though some of it seems to fall flat when I try to explain why it is so
funny to the missus.

I am also reading some of Mark Stavish's essays, including one on compassion
and the Western Esoteric Tradition. He draws comparisons with the Tantric
tradition and the Bodhisattvas for contrast. Mark and I have been corresponding
a bit in the last few days and exchanging some thoughts on the Western Estoteric
Tradition. Inevitably, my involvement with Tantric Buddhism comes up in the
conversation and the needs that it fulfils that I don't get in "my own" native
tradition. He has some interesting thoughts and insights here and seems pretty
well informed. We've had a discussion relating the Inner Heat yoga from Naropa
to some of Mark's ideas around the Middle Pillar ritual. Interesting.

I also updated the stylesheet on
his website on the Hermetic Library
as the old one was just making me wince. It seemed nice six or seven years ago
when I wrote it.