couple of things...

i have a twitter now.  i thought it was silly, but now i kinda dig it.

i leave tonight for nashville.  ill be recording for a few weeks with a group called the early hours from NYC.  i am really excited, and the studio is definitely the most totally boss place i have ever recorded at. 

i went up to norman, OK and blackwatch studios last weekend and played drums and percussion, as well as a bit of singing and hand clapping, for mister chase pagan on his sophomore effort. we did some gnarly 2 o'clock in the morning madness, which included llama toenails and mouth sounds.  cant wait to see how it turns out.

i heart my sarabugg and my two boys and i will miss them alot.

one last thing.  this picture is awesome.

concentration

In the sutras there is a story about a man who had been condemned to death. The king who had condemned the man gave him one last chance to live. The king told the man that if he could carry a jar of oil on his head around town without spilling a single drop, he would let him go free. The man agreed to the proposal. With utmost concentration he slowly carried the jar of oil around the town. As he walked along his route, the king had people ring bells and make noise to distract him. When this did not work, the king had beautiful dancing girls sway beside the man as he proceeded. Nothing made him lose his concentration. Since his life depended on it, the man's mind was perfectly fixed on the jar of oil on his head. Eventually he succeeded in completing his route without spilling a drop of oil, and the king let him go free.

Major Themes Of The Tao Te Ching

Force begets force.

One whose needs are simple can fulfill them easily.

Material wealth does not enrich the spirit.

Self-absorption and self-importance are vain and self-destructive.

Victory in war is not glorious and not to be celebrated, but stems from devastation, and is to be mourned.

The harder one tries, the more resistance one creates for oneself.

The more one acts in harmony with the universe (the Mother of the ten thousand things), the more one will achieve, with less effort.

The truly wise make little of their own wisdom for the more they know, the more they realize how little they know.

When we lose the fundamentals, we supplant them with increasingly inferior values which we pretend are the true values.

Glorification of wealth, power and beauty beget crime, envy and shame.

The qualities of flexibility and suppleness, especially as exemplified by water, are superior to rigidity and strength.

Everything is in its own time and place.

Duality of nature that complements each other instead of competing with each other — the two faces of the same coin — one cannot exist without the other.

The differences of opposite polarities — e.g., the differences between male and female, light and dark, strong and weak, etc. — help us to understand and appreciate the universe.

Humility is the highest virtue.

Knowing oneself is a virtue.

Envy is our calamity; overindulgence is our plight.

The more you go in search of an answer, the less you will understand.

Know when it's time to stop. If you don't know then stop when you are done.

sand - buddhist wheel of life

Duracell

being human