Have you at least heard of the admonition “that an empty mind is a devil’s workshop?” That would send Buddhist meditators on a rampage or do they ever go on such emotional extremes?

I grew up with that stern warning: anybody who hasn’t heard of that warning must be too young to read my essays except as a compilation of weird messages from a crone.

I grew up with the constant holy reminder to keep my mind busy or else the devil will whisper to me the way it did to Eve in Eden. Come to think of it the devil’s messages could have very well been the Monkey Mind of the late 1900s. The term just wasn’t introduced then.

My irreverent mind is tickled by the misunderstandings the youth would read into this essay. Continue reading →