Click images for desktop size: "Amazing Taprohmtom Braid Tree Temple" by Whamuel It snowed. Another 2 and one half inches, I'd guess.
I was only partially joking about snow shoveling and martial arts having a similarity. When I shovel snow I get a feeling eerily similar to the feeling I used to get at karate special trainings.
Its the constant repetitive motion perhaps. Or its like the comedy training in "Return to the 36th Chamber" where the monks have the acolyte do what seems to be a dull never ending task. It ends up that the acolyte has been martial arts training. So well he isn't even aware of it. "Karate Kid" stole the well and condensed it to "wax on, wax off". Which is easier to remember but not quite as deep.
What I'm referring to is the meditation part of the exercise. Shoveling snow and throwing 1,000 kicks aren't as different as I'd
Click images for desktop size: "Dark Days" by PicDeskTop like to think. The major difference is that at the end of the snow shoveling exercise you can look back and see a clear path that, hopefully, leads somewhere. With martial arts you only have a tired body and the feeling that you've accomplished something great.
I'm not sure which is more zen.
In the "Lone Wolf and Cub" manga and movies there's a story about Ogami Itto being hired to kill a monk. a very holy monk; a Buddha walking the earth.
Ogami confronts the monk as he prays in a temple. In the manga Ogami's sword slashes and cannot touch the immobile monk. In the movie Ogami cannot even draw his sword.
The monk tells Ogami he cannot be killed because he "is one with the void. The universe begins and ends in me. There is no place where you can strike the heart of the universe. You are enlightened Ogami Itto but your enlightenment is only that of the assassin."
In the comic the exchange ends with the monk saying, "to kill a Buddha you must be a Buddha."

Click images for desktop size: "Woody Acres" by Jon Draperr In the manga Ogami goes to a temple, fast and prays for 3 months before feeling he is ready. He confronts the monk in a procession and attacks. A line of blood drops down his forehead. He raises his hand and says, "A magnificent stroke." Then his body splits in half, sliced down the vertical from skull to hips.
In the movie Ogami uses a scandalous trick to get the monk in his grasp. He pulls the monk from a boat and drags him underwater. There Ogami stabs the monk with a knife. The monk says, underwater, "so this is the path to enlightenment you have chosen."
I don't think I have a preference between the two ways of telling a story.
I do know that I used to do an annual fast. The first week was rough as the body tried to live off the toxins I'd ingested the previous year. After that first week I felt great. Demonstrably stronger, faster. Better concentration.
I used to run five miles every day. During those runs my mind thought of nothing. I didn't have a Walkman or an iPod. I only had the white noise in my brain to keep me company. I marked out the distance previously. I'd start the stop watch and run. Very few of those runs produced any memories. I'd look at the stop watch and 32 to 35 minutes had passed. I was at the mark I knew was five miles from the starting point. That was the only evidence that I had done what I set out to do.
I wonder, now not then, if this was the state of meditation that the Shaolin monks strove for when they practiced their martial arts. To simply flow. To live with their minds filled with something like my white noise?
I'm not a good Buddhist or Christian, I'm not much of a good anything, except a good man. I can say
Click images for desktop size: "Autumn White Birch" by Maxfield Parrish that with pretty much a calm self assurance.
Shoveling snow produces some similar meditative ideals in me.
Lewis Carroll, (Charles Dodgson), wrote a book that's been fairly well maligned: "Sylvie and Bruno". Dodgson was a great writer. No contest. Most people would call James Joyce a great writer. He wrote three great books. William Faulkner is a great writer. He wrote three great books and created a lot of great scenes. Even my pet, Raymond Chandler only wrote two great books. Charles Dodgson was a great writer.
His "Sylvie and Bruno" is hard to track down. It has some problems but also some great scenes. One of the Chapters of the book is titled, "Bruno's Revenge". It was based on a short story he'd published years before in some dwee Victorian Kiddie mag.
In the story Bruno is angry with his sister, Sylvie. He feels he's been wronged and seeks revenge by destroying her carefully tended flower garden.
Before he can begin his odious task the narrator, an ill defined adult who alternates between being omnipotent and hapless, stops Bruno and then helps him expend his rage by lovingly enhancing the garden, finding colored stones to accent and line the paths, removing weeds and whatever other stuff you do for a garden.
At the end of his labours Bruno and the narrator are exhausted. Bruno finds his rage has dissipated. The physical exertion in the spirit of kindness, not forgiveness but kindness has removed his rage and transported him closer to the Victorian God Dodgson fervently believed in.
I think you need to pay attention to Dodgson. He made a deep impression in four different disciplines, Kids Lit, Math, Photography and Religion. I mean, any guy who can mathematically prove that Jesus Christ was the Messiah is a force to contend with not against. And its in nice Western terms and not alien Eastern philosophy.
My shoveling the driveway, I guess that's a difficult task, some consider it ridiculous, was my "Bruno's revenge."
I've been angry about the neighbor's dumping a ton of snow pressed against the gate, angry about shoveling it out at midnight so we can get into the house, angry that I still can't use the man gate, angry that even after shoveling it out he sees fit to block the gate with his trailer and snowmobile.
The physical labour locked me into the white noise in my head. It expelled my rage and accomplished something positive.

Click images for desktop size: "An Impossible Dream" by Sweibel Last night I went out with the dogs to tour the house, like we do every night. I bought them inside and back out to get the mail. I have to use the car gate to do this now and while the gentle dog and the giant dog are getting better at it they still can't be 100% trusted outside. So I went back out to get the mail and was shocked to see that the snow mobile was parked so close to the gate I had to climb over it to get out.
I came back inside enraged. I know that I have to let the rage out or it turns into dark fury so I complained. I got responses that I didn't anticipate.
I went back, climbed the snow mobile and knocked on his door, filled with undisapated rage justified with ludicrous "facts", like the fire department can't get into the house, an ambulance and how he had no right to dictate what times we were allowed to come and go.
Angrier still that I still don't feel that this is malicious more that this guy is such an ass he doesn't think or care about others.
Luckily he didn't answer the door. I think he was asleep and I didn't press it. I wasn't that angry yet. That's the furious parts job, to be irrational.
This morning I dealt partially with the snow. When the snow stops I'll finish the rest of it, if I've time.
When cleaning the car I was surprised that it was coated all over with ice. There'd been no rain and the temperature has not gone above freezing, the car hadn't been moved in 3 and half days, so I'm bewildered. My only guess is that the sun shone yesterday. I guess it heated the glass and metal enough to melt stuff and then it refroze. Its just a guess.
When my brain isn't filled with white noise its filled with thoughts like that. Those thoughts always lead to other thoughts like that.
The noise is better, calmer.
Maybe its because I'm dumb. I'm the kind of dumb who believes people are smarter than me because they say they're smarter than me. It takes a lot to change my mind.