Recently I experienced my 26,298 rotation of this planet we call home. This triggered the lever that counts the number of orbits around the star we refer to as The Sun, setting it at 48 (in hexadecimal) total revolutions, beginning the 49th.
All these largish numbers put me in a reflective mood, a pensive frame of mind, going over what has transpired in all those rotations and orbits. All I could come up with is that it all has been rather pointless.
I then remembered a well known Zen koan:
“The novice says to the master, ‘What does one do before enlightenment?’
‘Chop wood. Carry water,’ replies the master.
The novice asks, ‘What, then, does one do after enlightenment?’
‘Chop wood. Carry water.”
Except in my case, having never chopped wood or carried water in the pioneer sense of the word, or even in the woodchuck sense…if a woodchuck could chuck wood, I say fold t-shirts, wash the dishes.
Enlightenment will, in all likelihood, have to wait until all the counters have been reset to zero, and I might get another shot at it… or not.
In the meantime, I am folding t-shirts and washing dishes.
Om mani padme hum
