EMPTY CUP MIND

(Warning: Tonights entry is kinda long and touches on digger psychology. Some of the content may seem bizzare. I would advise most of my friends not to read it. Ye have been warned.)

Tonight i was alone and had nothing to do, so I went out driving. Eventualy I somehow ended up at Fredonia college. I visited the lawn behind the art building, where my friends and i once spent a semester building a long house. The university buldozed the house years ago. Now the is nothing there but unbroken green lawn. They also fired the professor that let us build it because one day in class he told a joke involving underwear. One of the girls in our class decided she had been sexualy harrassed. Her parents were big benefactors of the college, so heath got fired. Fuck you Fredonia.

I lived here for two years.
I never really belonged here.
I wish i had.

I walked around campus for hours, feeling lonely and thinking too much. The noise inside my head was driving me nuts.

I needed quiet.

Dunkirk beach is on the shore of lake eire. This particular beach is flanked by a sewage treatment plant. From the cliffs above the water, you can't see anything except the trees and the earth, the water and the sky. Here, you feel like you are the only person on earth.

By moonlight I walked passed the obligatory pair of lovers down onto the sand. The couple sat quietly, looking at the sky. Down on the beach, there were three gigantic letters etched in the sand. S. O. S.

I sat on a broken slab of concrete and closed my eyes. I could hear the waves lapping sofly on the sand. I tried to breathe. For a long time i sat perfectly still, in the near silence. I tried to make it as quiet on the inside as it was on the outside. I almost succeded. I opened my eyes and the world looked much clearer. The stars were coming out and the air was still. The lake was as smooth as glass. Finaly, Empty Cup Mind.

When i was fifteen, i independently stumled upon something people had known for thousands of years. (Dr. Joe would point out that when different people discover the same thing independently it is called called polygenesis). I discovered that if i could quiet all the talking in my head, i could feel... Like every moment seemed fresh and new as snow at christmas. I walked around for the next two years with a smile on my face. My life changed compeletly. Wherea before i had been angry and introverted, I became kind of mellow and happy, and much more popular. I didnt know it at the time but i later found out I had learned to enter the state taoists call Empty Cup Mind. A state of nearly pure spontaneous existence. Then, I dont know remember why, but slowly the noise came back. I just culdn't keep it out anymore, or maybe i didnt want to. One day a man i barely knew asked me "hey, what happened to you? You used to smile all the time." But i could'nt go back. I didn't know how.

Till today as I stood on the beach in dunkirk, the great lake streaching to the horizon. At that moment i wished i had a boat so i could sail away across the endless black, in search of some strange new land. I bent over to pick up a handfull of sand to throw, but found a solid slab of rock instead. I laughed out loud and started to play capoeira, alone. My macacos and batidos were ungracefull, but i felt the ache flowing through me like never before. I jumped and flipped and danced alone on the stone by the water. The movement had never felt so pure before. I roared at the darkness and smiled and started to run as fast as i could down the beach. The cold air felt good in my lungs. I waved my arms and shouted, suddenly gratefull to be alive. Somehow i had almost remembered. Empty Cup Mind. I let out another ROAR!!!!

I blasted the radio and mooed at the cows by the road on the way home. It was like a manic episode times 50, only i didnt fear the inevitable crash. Of course, every high leads into a low and vice versa. But tonight, i remembed something I had forgotten a long time ago.

Don't forget again, digger.
Dont forget again.
Dont forget again.



Peace