I lit incense
and a candle
and chanted a prayer
for my dead father.

I watched a documentary on Buddhism.
The show talked about a little girl.
She was upset that Buddha didn't tell her about where she would be reborn.
Buddha told her that she should be concerned with how to eliminate her suffering in the present moment.
I thought that my problem was that I was overly complicating my religion.
It occured to me that my religion should be about making me feel better.
I feel better now.

I've been sick.
I cured myself this morning.
The cure only lasted about an hour.
Then, I fell asleep while sitting in a chair.
The Mind Snatchers took over my head while I was dreaming.
It was a pleasant dream about a friend playing his flute.
When I woke up the mind was ablaze.
A roaring, burning flood of thoughts drowned me.
I put out the fire.
I calmed the flood.
I've been sick.

Some days are like this.
Some mornings I wake up with a head telling me what a loser I am.
It makes me feel lower than whale *****.
I try to love each day, but these kind of days are hard to love.
However, as we know from the song, the blues is allright.
So, I drag myself upstairs and write a poem.
That's better than suicide.

Everything seems to have a way of being not so good sometimes.
I think maybe it's because of atomic makeup or something.
Alcohol is a thing that is not so good most of the time.
I don't know why this is.
They call it spirits so that means it has a spirit.
It can be very tricky.
It can give me foot in mouth disease.
So today because I am a fool, I drank a little bit of whisky.
I said stupid things.
Now, I'm sitting here on a sort of guilt trip.
Oh well, such is life here in the College Of Lifelong Learning that we call earth.

All of my life I have been afraid of The One Truly Bad Thing.
Death.
With the help of my religion, however, I seem to have come to terms with it.
There is, though, the thing that most of us are even more afraid of.
The One Truly Bad Thing Which Leads Up To The One Truly Bad Thing.
That is the thing like cancer or heart attack or stroke or car accident or getting shot by a ******.
This is the thing that really hurts.
I can't seem to come to complete terms with this even with the help of my religion.
Then there is that other Bad Thing.
This is the thing that is so bad that it freaks everybody out.
The End Of The World!
I don't know about this.
But, you know, the dinosaurs died.
One thing that I do know is that if you watch the media, you might think that it's coming, but if you don't, if you just watch the everyday world, you probably won't think it's coming.
I suppose we could explode because some star goes supernova or something, or the north pole becomes the south pole or something, but I don't know.
Actually, not knowing has saved me thus far.
Sure does seem like there are more Bad Things than Good Things on this planet, but if you think like I do, that every moment of life is a Good Thing, then it's not so bad.
I don't know, most people don't think so.

I have been severely deluded for my whole life.
I have been hoping for The One Truly Good Thing to happen.
I have been desiring a Good Thing all the time.
I have realized that there is no Good Thing.
It is a delusion.
The television sells the Good Thing as, for example, a fast food fish sandwich.
"You can search the whole world, and never find anything as good as this fish sandwich."
**.
I had a desire today for a Good Thing.
Something like The Best *** or something.
When The Good Thing does come, it's not really that Good.
And it passes as soon as it's over with.
If it's something like Winning The Lottery, sometimes that can even go bad.
If it's something like Getting The Big Break or Making Your Dreams Come True, sometimes that can even go bad.
Waiting For Your Ship To Come In is a mistake.
Today, I have decided for myself that the Good Thing is already here.
This moment and each moment is the Good Thing.
I just don't usually realize it because I have a headache.