2004-01-22 - 2:27 p.m.

i recently read a (somewhat badly titled) book called 'hardcore zen' by brad warner. warner is a former punk rocker and monster movie empresario who received the dharma transmission from the soto sect of zen buddhism in japan. the book is refreshingly straightforward and mostly free of gooey new-age-isms. i'm from california and that type of thing gives me the heebie jeebies.

for me, the most affecting part of the book is his chapter about a buddhist text called the heart sutra. i have read other translations of the heart sutra but his translation and explanation really got to me. the words are so beautiful. and i love words.

i'm going through some intense internal changes right now, and the words of the sutra really soothed me. i am blessed with a massive bathroom mirror in my new home and i took a sharpie and wrote the heart sutra on the mirror in blue. i realise it's kind of a crazy person/horror movie thing to do, but i just needed to try it out. it felt good to write it out and it looks really beautiful. the script doubles on the mirror and is only really legible from certain angles. this morning i realised i'd already commited the first few lines to memory.

i also included another line from the book which says simply 'i cannot be deceived by others'. i wrote this in the lower right hand corner of the mirror, away from the sutra. when i got home last night and was doing my evening ablutions, something very creepy and cool happened. i realised that while standing in front of the sink, the words 'i cannot be deceived by others' were being projected by the floor lamp with perfect accuracy onto my throat.