{"id":1299,"date":"2008-10-17T06:34:54","date_gmt":"2008-10-17T10:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=1299"},"modified":"2016-07-11T14:00:52","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T18:00:52","slug":"the-thing-that-happened-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2008\/10\/the-thing-that-happened-once\/","title":{"rendered":"The Thing That Happened, Once"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: Mary Oliver, 'At Blackwater Pond'\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2008\/10\/at-blackwater-pond-at-blackwater-pond.html\" target=\"_blank\">whiskey river<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>At Blackwater Pond<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have<br \/>\nsettled<br \/>\nafter a night of rain.<br \/>\nI dip my cupped hands. I drink<br \/>\na long time. It tastes<br \/>\nlike stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold<br \/>\ninto my body, waking the bones. I hear them<br \/>\ndeep inside me, whispering<br \/>\n<em>oh what is that beautiful thing<br \/>\nthat just happened?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Mary Oliver)<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"whiskey river: Sekkei Harada, on once-in-a-lifetime events\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2008\/10\/in-tea-ceremony-expression-once-in.html\" target=\"_blank\">And<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In the tea ceremony, the expression &#8220;once in a lifetime, this one encounter&#8221; is often used. The usual way this is interpreted is &#8220;a one-and-only encounter.&#8221; In Zen, though, we interpret this expression in the following way: In the course of our lifetime, there is one person we must meet. No matter through which grasslands we may walk or which mountains we may climb, we must meet this person. This person is in this world. Who is this person? It is the true self. You must meet the true self. As long as you don&#8217;t, it will not be possible to be truly satisfied in the depths of your heart. You will never lose the sense that something is lacking. Nor will you be able to clarify the way things are.<\/p>\n<p>This is the objective of life as well as of the teaching of Buddhism &#8212; to meet yourself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Sekkei Harada)<\/p>\n<p>And the obvious musical bit (lyrics follow), although the video is a bit&#8230; unusual:<\/p>\n<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-jbya4kxC6E?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Once in a Lifetime<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>(words and music by Talking Heads;<br \/>\nperformance is emphatically <\/em>not<em>)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack<br \/>\nAnd you may find yourself in another part of the world<br \/>\nAnd you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile<br \/>\nAnd you may find yourself in a beautiful house,<br \/>\nwith a beautiful wife<br \/>\nAnd you may ask yourself: <em>Well&#8230; how did I get here?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Letting the days go by\/Let the water hold me down<br \/>\nLetting the days go by\/Water flowing underground<br \/>\nInto the blue again\/After the money&#8217;s gone<br \/>\nOnce in a lifetime\/Water flowing underground.<\/p>\n<p>And you may ask yourself<br \/>\n<em>How do I work this?<\/em><br \/>\nAnd you may ask yourself<br \/>\n<em>Where is that large automobile?<\/em><br \/>\nAnd you may tell yourself<br \/>\n<em>This is not my beautiful house!<\/em><br \/>\nAnd you may tell yourself<br \/>\n<em>This is not my beautiful wife!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Letting the days go by\/Let the water hold me down<br \/>\nLetting the days go by\/Water flowing underground<br \/>\nInto the blue again\/After the money&#8217;s gone<br \/>\nOnce in a lifetime\/Water flowing underground.<\/p>\n<p>Same as it ever was&#8230; same as it ever was &#8230;same as it ever was&#8230;<br \/>\nSame as it ever was&#8230; same as it ever was&#8230; same as it ever was&#8230;<br \/>\nSame as it ever was&#8230; same as it ever was&#8230;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Followed by <a title=\"Statler and Waldorf\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Statler_and_Waldorf\" target=\"_blank\">Statler and Waldorf<\/a>: &#8220;<em>Same as it ever was! Same as it ever was!<\/em> Yeah&#8212;&#8221; &#8220;An hour ago!&#8221; <em>[laughter]<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>Original, longer version, from the concert film <em>Stop Making Sense<\/em>, can be viewed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=o7pVjl4Rrtc\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From whiskey river: At Blackwater Pond At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands. I drink a long time. It tastes like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering oh what is that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,405,53,74,251],"tags":[178,505,594,595,596,597,598],"class_list":{"0":"post-1299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-nature","10":"category-movies-media","11":"category-music","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-whiskey-river","14":"tag-talking-heads","15":"tag-once-in-a-lifetime","16":"tag-mary-oliver","17":"tag-sekkei-harada","18":"tag-muppets","19":"tag-kermit","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-kX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18239,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions\/18239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}