Rudiland

I've still got a few weeks till school starts and I'm using every minute of my time studying. OK, so this might sound obsessive, I don't care. I just want to enter my classes with some information so that I'm not just grabbing at bits as they fly by. It's fun work.

I've got a good schedule for the moment. Road riding to campus, I've got work study now, for about an hour and twenty minutes, spinning a 36 to 17 gear feels good and warms me up for the day. After working at campus, I'm so grateful to be on campus now, being part of the system and the flow of the place, and of all schools I've ever been to this one the community feel at ease. There's laughter. Man, how many schools have I been at where the laughter was not joyous, but something else, something ill at ease. And every one reaching out to help. I've got to admit the hearing Collen Phelan's Laugh just make my day.

Speaking of making my day, yesterday while getting water, the woman behind the counter said to me, "Your so luck to be outside today. It's a beautiful day." Wow. She was, is my guru in my mind. It's so great when even when everything is going well someone can wake up and take you higher. Thank you. Namaste, my friends.

Back to school. That where I'm going. Right now I'm just getting in some advanced study of anatomy. Maybe it would help to say what I'm going to study. I'm begining to learn massage therapy. It's hard to say all that this will intail since I'm just starting out, but the for starters the focus will be more Swedish/Trigger point. And even that, well, I'm not sure what it will be. I'm really interested in where this will go.

After spending the morning studying, I headed out for an afternoon ride. There's a storm that's coming up from Baja so It hasn't been to hot lately. Still, I took it easy. Over Gates Pass and to the Tucson Mountain Park West and then up lower Golden Gate, dancing on the rocks, and finally back over Gates. In the last fifteen minutes the clouds that were building dumped a nice rain on me. Guess I don't need a bath tonight.

Time to make some beans and get back to the books.

"The greatest quality is seeking to serve others." Atisha.

There is nothing better. And yet it can be both so easy and so hard to do. Hard because we, or I, get so stuck in our lives that it is hard to see another, let alone reach a hand out to help. And here's a moment. For the cyclist, and for the those who care about others. I recently donated this painting title "Over the Line" to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Here's a good cause. It combines the heroic aspects of facing cancer and then over coming the hardships and becoming a champion. All survivors of cancer are champions. All survivors of cancer are heros. I've lost both family and friends to many forms of this disease, and I've seen those who have endured years of suffering with the agony that this disease can bring. And I know many who have endured, survived and I've even forgotten that they once had cancer. And I know that most of us know someone gone, facing, or surviving cancer. And so here's a chance to help out. If your interested in this painting contact Julie Thomas at the Lance Armstrong Foundation. She'll let you know when and where this painting will be availible. Here's here contact. julie.thomas@laf.org

That's the first thing my friend Tom said when he saw one of these in my studio. It you can't tell it is a desicated pumkin that had a simple face carved into it for Halloween. I have a small collection of these that I've turned up in the alleyways while walk with Po. I've been drawing and painting these former Jack-O-Lanterns along with paperbags and a couple of dead pigeons for the last few years. Even when I make paintings based on them the paintings are made to feel like drawings. The surface is enough. There's no need for color, maybe one color, but not a color play ground. It's the simple act of drawing or a monochromatic image that is holding my attention.

I'm doing a project for the Three Jewels Buddhist Center in Tucson, AZ. I'll be painting the front window. The plan is a wall paper of Buddhas. And as I'm working on this I'm doing alot of Buddha drawings. I love the mantra. Starting out with one and then slowly filling the sheet till it is complete, and going to the next page. Feeling the brush and the ink loaded fibers touch the page can contain a vaste range of being. There's the soupy overloaded brush, the errant brush hair, the dry brush, etc. And then there's the unknown suprizes. Nothing is ever the same.

I brought these drawing, about 15, to the Three Jewels for them to sell as donations to the Buddhist Center. If you're interested and there's any left you can contact me, and I can get you in touch with the Three Jewels. Go ahead, get one and help the enlightenment grow.

Peace.

Bitter struggle ending in death. And sex. Bitter struggle ending in death.

I don't worry if I get things right. Wrong. I worry needlessly if I've got things right. It's a form of pain, of self identification. Of ego. Foolish selfish. Better off getting in the water and do some body surfing.

I'm thinking about the line that Jesus says to his disciples about "turning the other cheek." One of those ideas I can turn as a weapon on myself. Call it a deep conceptual misunderstanding, or maybe just weakness, using this phase as an excuse. I can confuse the concept of "turning the other cheek" with laying down on my back and saying "kick me." And that's not what this should be about. I feel he's after is what Gandhi and the Buddha were after. Don't get angry, don't strike back, but don't just lay down. Be strong and without violence face your great enemy. Change the world with giving with joyous effort, without anger. Clear the mind. All is empty.

Maybe there is one enemy that violence can be use on. This would be the true enemy. The part me that clings to samsara, to the world of illusion. The part that says "I suffer therefore I am." The part that thinks it knows. The part that desires. The part that cannot see reality as it really is.

And if I die tomorrow, and I can't add or change what I wrote today. There's that ego, clinging and grasping, better let go now. I'm just digging in deep, and I don't really get it.
Smile. Shine.