A blog about Zen and other stuff

http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2006/10/nashville.html

Reporting this morning from Nashville. I spent 15 hours yesterday driving with my mom and dad along the highways of America. It's not often I get to really see the land of chain fast food restaurants and Wal Marts that is this here United States. Had my first Taco Bell meal in a decade or more and remembered why I stopped eating that garbage. Though I must admit, when I first turned vegetarian I was glad for Taco Bell as it was the only place for a quick, cheap non-meat meal.

I wanted to write something profound about koans. But my dad's got the TV blasting here in the hotel room. I often forget there's a whole segment of the society that enjoys having crapp-o TV shows carping at them 24/7. I took to turning off the radio on my driving shifts. My dad's got one of them XM radio deals. 200 channels and nothing on. Noise, noise noise.

If you're interested in Buddhism, the first thing you need to do is get rid of all that noise. Turn off the TV, the radio and -- for God's sake -- the Internet and get down to some real practice.