Items in alt.philosophy.taoism

Subject:Re: Breaking the cycle
Date:Tue, 6 Jul 2004 19:05:20 -0400
From:"/*-9" <whyareyou@email.com>
Newsgroups:alt.religion.buddhism.nichiren,alt.religion.buddhism.nkt,alt.religion.buddhism.theravada,alt.religion.buddhism.tibetan,alt.philosophy.taoism

"Ned Ludd" <nedludd@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:iiFGc.10309$yy1.8451@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
>
> "/*-9" <shute54@email.com> wrote in message
> news:2kvve8F72krlU1@uni-berlin.de...
> >
> >> How do you killfile somebody in a zendo?  Earplugs?
> >
> > Good question.
> > I'd begin, if I were you,
> > by filling my ears with super glue
> > and then glue your eyes shut.
> > If this doesn't work,
> > send me a smoke signal
> > and then watch for my message in a bottle
> > for your answer.
> >
>
>  The ancient Skoptsy sect of White Russia, believing that sex was
> the root of all evil, practiced an atrocious self-castration to
> extirpate the root. The modern Skoptsys, believing that sensation
> was the root of all evil, practiced an even more barbaric custom.
> Having entered the Skoptsy Colony and paid a fortune for the
> privilege, the initiates submitted joyously to an operation that
> severed the sensory nervous system, and lived out their days
> without sight, sound, speech, smell, taste, or touch.
>
>  When they first entered the monastery, the initiates were shown
> elegant ivory cells in which it was intimated they would spend
> the remainder of their lives in rapt contemplation lovingly
> tended. In actuality, the senseless creatures were packed in
> catacombs where they sat on rough stone slabs and were fed and
> exercised once a day. For twenty-three out of twenty-four hours
> they sat alone in the dark, untended, unguarded, unloved.
>
>  "The living dead," Foyle muttered. He decelerated, put Sigurd
> Magsman down, and switched on the retinal light in his eyes,
> trying to pierce the wombgloom. It was midnight above ground.
> It was permanent midnight down in the catacombs. Sigurd Magsman
> was broadcasting terror and anguish with such a telepathic bray
> that Foyle was forced to shake the child again:
>
> "Shut up!" he whispered. "You can't wake these dead.  Now find
> me Lindsey Joyce."
>
> "_They're sick... all sick... like worms in their heads...
> worms and sickness and_"
>
> "Christ, don't I know it.  Come on, let's get it over with.
> There's worse to come."
>
>                 - from "The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester,
>                   (originally published as "Tiger! Tiger!", 1956)

Glue didn't work, huh ?
Is this your smoke signal ?