There may be no path to follow or method to use to attain realization, enlightenment, waking up, satori...but it is often said that if the fruit is ripened fully it will fall from the tree more readily. Kwatz shakes the tree a bit. What follows is a confrontation...a strange and amusing, encounter...Dharma combat...between two modern masters...one from the Zen tradition, the other an unlikely Taoist...who has decided that this deadly serious "combat" may be a new and amusing way to spend an afternoon. Each answers the other using variations on sayings from other "masters" that they find...

TABLOID HAIKU Is a collection of haiku based on tabloid headlines. The inspiration for composing these haiku came to me one afternoon while standing in a supermarket checkout line listening to a fellow customer read loudly from the Weekly World News. Off the wall and beyond the fringe pulp poetry resonated down the supermarket aisles as the man read through the paper, then folded it neatly and placed it back on the rack. Haiku immediately came to mind, since the utter strangeness of many of these gems gave them an almost koan-like quality.

As The Tao of Aging opens, we encounter a strange old, sage-like Chinese philosopher and raconteur who claims to actually be Zhuangzi (ChuangTzu) - the second most important originator of Taoist thought after Lao Tzu. Zhuangzi now lives in San Francisco and is known simply as "Z." As it turns out, over 2000 years after his exploits in ancient China, "Z" is still rambling about the world - trickster to the bone - tinkering with the way we look at what we call reality. He insists that he is not some mythical Taoist Immortal whose condition is due to an alchemical elixir but rather an ordinary...

YOU are a bodymind, not a body with a mind or vice versa. You are a verb, not a noun. You are fluid, constantly changing. The static you is a persistent illusion. You... your self, persona, ego...who you are... is a construct that is formed by the interaction of genetics, imprinting, and learning. Now consider that this you that you now seem to be is, actually, very much like a fictitious character that may appear in a novel, play or movie and may be re-written, re-produced and re-performed, using the techniques of those media. One part of your character description that can effectively be...

YOU are a bodymind, not a body with a mind or vice versa. You are a verb, not a noun. You are fluid, constantly changing. The static you is a persistent illusion. You... your self, persona, ego...who you are... is a construct that is formed by the interaction of genetics, imprinting, and learning. You have little input into this process until after you have been thoroughly shaped by parents, peers and culture. Now consider that this you that you now seem to be is, actually, very much like a fictitious character that may appear in a novel, play or movie and may be re-written, re-produced and...

Comments on the book by leading Roman Catholic theologians: 1. Offensive to God and to the Church. . . action might be taken in this matter. Cardinal Francis George (Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago and President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops). 2. I am sure it is a perverted author who wrote it. Bishop Daniel F. Walsh (Bishop of Santa Rosa). 3. horrified. . . blasphemous book. . . that this sickness may be wiped out, and the name of our Blessed Mother, our Lord and all the Saints preserved from this kind of aberrant exploration. Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory (Archbishop of...