The pile

This week I'm reading my pile, not focusing on one book, moving on when I get tired of what I'm reading.

I start my day with Blind Owl by Sadeq Hedayat. A surreal, dark, and cyclical novella about a pen-case painter caught in an opium-induced state of alienation, heartbreak, and madness.

Reread some of Meeting The Buddhas by Vessantara on the Vajrasattva sadhana, and he pulls up short, you need a teacher to get this full sadhana. This is a book for understanding Tibetan Buddhism and the panoply in their mythology, which you can use to supercharge your understanding of Buddhism.

Rereading Boundless Heart by Christina Feldman. It's not a robot's disinterest, it's human not getting too caught up on the results. Sort of the opposite of capitalism that measures and expects and demands profits. She doesn't say that, I'm riffing off her. She dwell in the brahma viharas of metta, karuna, mudits and upeksha. 

Reading Itivuttaka for the first time. It's a small anthology, often packaged with the Udana. Trying to round up and read all the things I haven't yet. I was jammed the other day when it said that the Buddha had no feelings. So what did he do with the feeling part of his brain? I don't think that can be true that he had no feeling, he just was fairly positive and wasn't upset easily. 

Reading Shakespeare by Peter Ackroyd. It's quite good, not sure why I hadn't read it before. I remember reading a review of his book on Dickens when I lived in England, maybe he took too many liberties? My memory is foggy, but the negative impression perhaps might have been a factor in my avoiding this book. Well, I got to it anyway, and it's really good book. I'm only on the 5th chapter. I'm really fascinated by the book, but it's hard to read more than a chapter at a time for me somehow. I'm never going to finish this before it's due, going to have to return and check it out again. I'm going to have to stick with this one.

The River In Me by Sister Dang Nghiem is pretty intense plain poetry, the trauma.

Also Devotions by Mary Oliver, Rumi and some others. That's about half my pile, but hard to get lower.