Thursday, October 29, 2009

3 Quickies

Alcyone: "At the Feet of the Master"

This item, more of a booklet than a book, I received as a gift from the Denver Theosophical Society. I was intrigued by an advertisement on their website to the effect of "Always wanted special insight and awareness, but never figured out how to do it? Here we are!" Which I interpreted as "Come get special mental powers!" This is something I have wanted, of course, for a long time.

The answers offered in the group, and in this booklet, were not satisfying, but merely repeated what I already knew from reading The Buddha's work: "Have no desire for psychic powers; they will come when the master knows it is best for you to have them" (17). Rats. I already knew, of course, that there is no trick to enlightenment, and that it is a lot of hard work. How many times do I need to be told this?

Tom Stoppard: "The Dissolution of Dominic Boot" and "'M' is for Moon Among Other Things"

Yes, I really did read two Stoppard plays in one night, but volume two of his collected works is a collection of his radio dramas, not stage plays, and they are correspondingly shorter. I'm not sure if my confusion over the first would be cured by hearing it as it was performed, or just by a better understanding of the British Monetary system. Either way, I didn't get it. The second was more comprehendible, but the ten minutes or so was not long enough for the full Stoppardness of it to shine. It was amusing, but not really thought-provoking.

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