"...as a young teenage boy growing up in Southern California I owned an immaculately spotless early model wooden Ford station wagon...spending what seemed to others an enormous amount of time maintaining and reworking the wood in an exacting and meticulous standard never before dreamed of by the manufacturer."
"...when I noticed the man next door had stopped to look at the wagon. In a mellow, almost Shakespearean voice he told me how beautiful he thought the wood was and how he had admired for all these months both the beauty of the wood and my endeavors to keep it so. He asked if it would be alright to touch the wood and, as I nodded in approval, he ran his fingers over the surface in such a strange and exacting manner that he and the wood seemed as one. No racehorse trainer could have stroked or curried a prize thoroughbred in a more loving way. When we made eye contact for the first time I was set aback, almost stunned, by the overwhelming calmness and serenity that seemed to abide in his presence. Never had I experienced anything like it. He thanked me, smiled, and tipping his hat, nodded slightly and strode off."
THE ABOVE FROM: Zen Enlightenment...the Wanderling writes of his first encounter with his to-be Zen mentor.
A) 89HP at 3600RPM - Stock 100HP Ford flathead V8 (corrected)
B) 114HP at 3800RPM - Same engine with dual intake manifold.
C) 124HP at 4000RPM - Same as B with 8.5:1 compression heads.
D) 140HP at 4400RPM - Same as C with 3/4 race camshaft.
E) 145HP at 4500RPM - Same as D with special exhausts.
F) 177HP at 4500RPM - Same as B, bored 1/8 inch, stroked 1/8 inch, ported, relieved, 9:1 heads.
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Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where
we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience
and then make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.
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