Still hacking up lung. Coughing does a lot for silent group meditation. As a group we are used to a train coming by at least once during the meditation hour. I'm not a Zen Master or anything. I just bang the gong.

Really, that is the extent of my leadership. I open the church and bang the gong.

There are no altered mind states during meditation. It is just sitting and being. That is hard for a lot of people. I have no problem being silent in an external sense but my mind can be quite noisy. That is the part that requires discipline. There is a reason is called practice.

The question that comes up in my mind a lot is, "Does the Dalai Lama fart?" Actually does he fart while in meditation? I haven't had that experience yet. I've had some close calls. It would just be interesting to find out how one of our living holy people handles the extreme earthiness of farting. Jesus probably farted and laughed about it. The Dalai Lama would probably laugh too.

The dogs got to enjoy some sunshine today. It was cloudy for 5 days in a row.

Salvador is standing on my shoulder shrieking in my ear. He does not understand that I cannot stroke his head and type at the same time. He was whistling some show tunes earlier today. The preening, the show tunes, the cattiness, I don't know.