[gatotom]

yrs ago searching for my shining light, I came across reads from Suzuki Rashi and tibetan book of the dead and concluded that zen buddhism is about as good as it gets.

I was raised a strict Lutheran, went to parochial grade school and high school, Mother was a Lutheran my Father was a strict Catholic, there is your first clue.

Going off to college, didn't have time for church, all that fire and brimstone, didn't make much sense to me at the time besides I just entered the hippie generation and didn't even know it.

To make a long story short, found a group called The Farm, a bunch of hippie acid heads from san fran that started a farm in tenn. and had branches in other states one being in wisc. were I was from. To enter the place you had to take the pledge of poverty and give up all your worldy possessions, which I did and the saying goes that after you do that you will be blessed with 10 times back to you. Well, this is sounding like the middle eastern strapping on a bomb to get 10 virgins in heaven routine. I lasted 4-5 months on the Farm only to conclude that I wanted to aspire to more in life than being a slave to the common good of a group of acid taking pot smoking hippies.

So, I broke away, found my wife and the rest is history but I have to wonder about the 10 times rule. Would I do the pledge of poverty again, not in your wildest dreams cuz if the 10 times rule is true, I don't want the next 10 times back.

Maybe that's the point, be here now, don't worry be happy, find yourself hoping, you never reach your destination, we are all here because we are not all there.