meditating theravada

I guess this has become a monthly blog, which reflectively emphasizes this blogs own lack of self importance.

Yesterday I, and over 120 others, were indoctrinated into "the knowledgeable" by the Human Rights Commission. As we sat for three hours and listened to slide after slide, I found myself composing a chant as a form of meditation. Relaxing into a rhythm I could absorb the presentation without falling asleep (as many of my colleagues did).

meditating theravada

TRUTH FOUND IN BONE
FLESH PROMOTES LIES,
DEATH BRINGS YOU HOME
RENT WE THESE LIVES.

ART BECOMES LIGHT
DARKNES OUR WORD,
ALONE STANDS RIGHT
LEFT TO THE HERD.

WOMEN KEEP CAGED
FREEING THE MAN,
GROWN FULLY AGED
YOUTH ALWAYS WANS.

CHANT WE THESE WORDS.

Chant we these words.

Youth always wans
Grown fully aged,
Freeing the man
Women keep caged.

Left to the herd
Alone stands right,
Darkness our word
Art becomes light.

Rent we these lives
Death brings you home,
Flesh promotes lies
Truth found in bone.

The title comes from something I have in my notebooks from the Sanskrit. There are many Buddhist traditions of chant, but the literal translation of स्थविरवाद is "teachings of the Elders" which expresses the state I was in at the time the poems creation. I was listening to the teachings while creating some lessons of my own.

The CAPS are intentional as the reverse of the chant is in a lower tone. The structure of the chant as a series of idealogical crossing parallelisms in antithesis and rhyme is intended to create a sense of motion balanced by the tone of the spoken words.

    title="Wordle: meditating theraveda">    src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/542243/meditating_theraveda"
    alt="Wordle: meditating theraveda"
    style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">

Famous Schools

We did an activity today with Naomi Nye's poem "Famous" in Creative Writing (http://www.amyjanecheney.com/famous.html). Students wrote their own poems about celebrity and being famous. The following is mine.

Famous Schools

A school is famous to those who learn.

Principals are famous to the school board;

for his dreams of commuity reach

beyond geographical borders.

Teachers are famous for teaching;

even when what is taught

is less than famous.

Students are famous for challenging;

more famous than prior

graduates who thought themselves

crowned in infamy.

We all are famous to our schools;

for what we do, what we achieve

is the celebrity of our time.

An all too brief time

Famous for four years Warhol'd down

to a fifteen minute era of

famosity.

World's Worst Blogger

I am the World's Worst Blogger!

For a man who has so much to say, I find myself speaking aloud rather than blogging.

I've only told a few close friends (and Lisa of course) about this blog and everyone is like, "When are you going to write something else?" I have tons of ideas, which I list in my journal, but don't list here for fear of commie thieves taking my ideas and writing them better than me and making a small fortune used for the sole purpose of electing McCain, killing him, and using Sarah Palin as their biatch.

You may think I'm kidding, but this actually happened to my father. In the 1970s he was working at a huge manufacturer as a draftsman. He would draw these very detailed views of machine parts which would become blueprints for some engineer. He really wanted to be a cartoonist. So often in life we find necessity trumps free will.

Anyway, dad wanted to be a cartoonist and came up with an idea to do this while still doing tri-views of eighth-inch screws, or some other inane task. He had this idea to create "baseball cards" of co-workers as a gag gift. His idea was to do his caricatures on the front and some bogus stats on the back which were based on what their specific tasks were for the company. He did a bunch and distributed them. They were a big hit. He thought if the idea took off, people would want some cards more than others and he could make multiple copies for trading.

Well, somehow another company saw, heard, or thought of the idea at the same time, or just after he did. They created a marketing scheme for the idea and successfully marketed the "baseball card" idea to salesmen throughout the tri-state area and made a small fortune.

My father was very angry at first. I have memories from when I was seven of him cursing their thievery. "If I can teach you one thing," he said to me, "it's how to lie, cheat and steal." He meant those words with the best intentions. He didn't really want me to be a liar, a cheater, or a thief; what he meant was, "Don't let this happen to you kid."

So, that's why I don't post many of my ideas in this blog.

And that's why I am the World's Worst Blogger.

Blog titles

Blogs. Everyone has one. Well, not everyone; but comedians couldn't make blogging jokes about there being so many, if there were not so many people that have them. All comedians know the axiom: Humor is simply TRUTH + VISION. And, strangely enough, the same axiom works for words like Possession, Enlightenment, and Insanity -- and all these words embody what I think of when I think of blogging.

In making my first blog I felt strongly about the title. I spent days agonizing over what to call this. I changed my mind a dozen times, but returned to the current title -- amanuensis -- for its multiple and varied interpretations. For those who do not know, amanuensis means "one who takes dictation" or "a person employed to copy a manuscript." How perfect a title is that for a blog? Isn't that a blog's purpose -- take dictation and maybe get a book deal?

But amanuensis was not only chosen for its meaning, but its sound.
Say it aloud.

\ə-ˌman-yə-ˈen -səs\

A Man You En Sis

A Man You Insis(t)

A man you instst? One word embodying an eternal epistomogical question of self. How could I not choose that title?

How did I arrive at this conclusion?

A few years ago I stumbled on this word while teaching a Creative Writing class at my high school, Missisquoi Valley Union, in Vermont. In order to get kids to write, I would give them prompts (because most high school students {not all so get off my case you few} who want to become writers don't have ideas yet), and when they would get a bit of writer's block (which was practically every five minutes because of the hormones, and energy drinks, running through their systems) I would give them random words from my dictionary (also called "the classroom bible") to refocus their uncontrollable, caffeinated desires. So, in a way, this word found me. I wrote it down in my journal -- and four years later, it's the title of my first blog.