What is a Quafaie?


Quafaie (pronounced: kwa FAY) are fantasy creatures that exist in the fantasy writing of Hugh Kemeny, and are created by him. They are primarily in Hugh Kemeny’s Black Phoenix short stories...

To learn more, read this post: What is a Quafaie?

Monday, July 28, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 28

Friday 25 July 2008
A monk asked Krgon: "What happens when an enlightened being returns to the state of illusion?"
Kegon said: "A broken mirror does not reflect, fallen flowers do not bud."
- Zen mondo

Saturday 26 July 2008
"He insulted me, he harmed me, he robbed me, he beat me." If you think like this, you will suffer. "He insulted me, he harmed me, he robbed me, he beat me." If you do not think like this, you will not suffer.
- The Buddha

Sunday 27 July 2008
The most important thing is, only do it. When you only do something 100 percent, then there is no subject, no object. There is no inside or outside. Inside and outside already become one. That means you and the universe are never separate. There is no thinking.
- Seung Sahn

Monday 28 July 2008
When Abbot Pambo was asked to say a few words to the very important Bishop of Alexandria, who was visiting some of the Desert Fathers, the elder replied: "If he is not edified by my silence, there is no hope that he will be edified by my words."
- Thomas Merton

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 24

Tuesday 22 July 2008
I have used the word "attention," which I borrow from Simone Weil, to express the idea of a just and loving gaze directed upon individual reality. I believe this to be the characteristic and proper mark of the active moral agent.
- Iris Murdoch

Wednesday 23 July 2008
Student: "You say that Zen is everywhere - why do we have to come to the Zen center?"
Shunryu Suzuki: "Zen is everywhere, but for you, Zen is right here."

Thursday 24 July 2008
The perfect employs his mind as a mirror.
- Chuang-tzu

Monday, July 21, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 21

Monday 21 July 2008
The mind, when once it has withdrawn itself and realized its own power, has neither part nor lot with the soft and pleasant, or harsh and painful motions of thy breath.
- Marcus Aurelius

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 20

Saturday 19 July 2008
Out of nowhere, the mind comes forth.
- The Diamond Sutra

Sunday 20 July 2008
An artist of understanding and experience can show more of his great power and art in small things roughly and rudely done, than many another in a great work. A man may often draw something with his pen on a half sheet of paper in one day . . . and it shall be fuller of art and better than another's great work whereon he hath spent a whole year's careful labor.
- Albrecht Dürer

Friday, July 18, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 18

Thursday 17 July 2008
Doing zazen, you become king of theworld.
- Gudo Nishijima

Friday 18 July 2008
I fear nothing, I hope for nothing, I am free.
- Nikos Kazantzakis

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 16

Wednesday 16 July 2008
Year after year
     on the monky's face
         a monkey face.
- Bashō

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 15

Saturday 12 July 2008
Those Buddhists who discipline themselves in the doctrine of absolute Buddhahood should make their mings like a piece of rock, be darkly ignorant, remain unaware, have no discrimination, behave unconcernedly, like an idiot. And why? Because the dharma has no awareness, no intelligence; it gives no fearlessness - it is the final rest.
- Bonhidharma

Sunday 13 July 2008
What else is there to say? We end in joy.
- Theodore Roethke

Monday 14 July 2008
The way of the wise is without knowledge . . . in the place of ten thousand sutras, one song.
- Ikkyu

Tuesday 15 July 2008
When he was a teenager, Joshyu studied under Nansen. Nansen asked him: "Where did you come from?"
"I am from Zuizo," he said.
Did you pray to the Great Buddha in Zuizo?" asked Nansen.
"No sir, the Great Buddha is in front of me, lying down on the floor."
"What are you talking about?" asked Nansen.
"My great teacher," Joshu said, "I am so pleased to see that you are in good spirits and good health."
- Zen mondo

Friday, July 11, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 11

Friday 4 July 2008
These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands,
    they are not original with me.
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing
    or next to nothing.
If they do not enclose everything they are next to
    nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle
    they are nothing,
If they are just as close as they are different
    they are nothing.
- Walt Whitman

Saturday 5 July 2008
One day Te-shan gave a sermon, in which he said, "When you question, you commit a fault. Whe you do not, you give offense."
A monk came forward and began to bow, whereupon the master struck him.
"I have just begun my bowing!" said the monk. "Why did you strike me?"
"If I wait for you to open your mouth, all will be over."
- Zen mondo

Sunday 6 July 2008
The believing mind is the Buddha-nature.
- The Nirvana Sutra

Monday 7 July 2008
We must have a beginner's mind, free from possessing anything, a mind that knows wverything is in flowing change. Nothing exists but momentarily in its present form and color. One thing flows into another and cannot be grasped. Before the rain stops we hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow we see snowdrops.
- Shunryu Suzuki

Tuesday 8 July 2008
Realizing one's own real essence is the ultimate expression of enlightenment.
- Hui-neng

Wednesday 9 July 2008
And I would answer you . . . that to prepare the future is only to found the present . . . for the sole true invention is to decipher the present under its incoherent aspects and its contradictory language. . . . You do not have to foresee the future, but to allow it. . . .
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Thursday 10 July 2008
Cn the floating clouds and snow-white storks inhabit this world of ours?
Or you still abideon Wu-chou Mountain now that strangers are coming here?
- Liu Chiang-ch'ing, Farewell to a Buddhist Monk

Friday 11 July 2008
When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.
- La Rochefoucauld

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Zen-a-day - July 3

Tuesday 1 July 2008
Insects on a bough
  floating downriver
    still singing
- Issa

Wednesday 2 July 2008
Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
- The Red Queen

Thursday 3 July 2008
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.
- The Buddha

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Canada Day

It's Canada Day today, and I'm spending it in the office, only because I have a pile of projects to get done within the next few weeks.

But here is a post of Canada Day photos for you all...
This is part 1 of 2, part 2 will come on Thursday (if you read my blog, you know what that means...).


About this photo: Taken around the end of August 1999, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Not much to say about this photo, other than 'Welcome to Canada.' This is our 'new' centre block of Parliament. Originally built in 1876, a fire on 3 February 1916 tore through almost the entire Parliament Hill, only the Library was saved. For more information, and photos from 1916, go here: Canadian Parliament Buildings Fire of 1916
The new centre block was rebuilt after that and completed in 1927. The centre tower, clock tower, is called the Peace Tower in memory of those that lost their lives in the Great War (WWI). (Source of some info from: Wikipedia - Parliament Hill)
About this photo: Taken Wednesday 30 June 2004, Taunton, Somerset, England.



About this photo: Taken Wednesday 30 June 2004, Taunton, Somerset, England.
This was a cake I made for Canada Day when I lived in the UK. I can't remember what flavour the cake was, but it was fun decorating it with the Canada Flag - no guide to help me decorate, other than memory.
For those of you that are not Canadian, Canada Day is not like Independence Day (July 4th) in the United States which declared Independence from the British Empire.
Instead Canada Day celebrates Confederation, the union of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in 1867, creating a dominion of the British Empire, to be governed by its own parliament, yet over seen by the Governor General - representative of the Queen.
1870 Canada was given governance of the Northwest Territories, which stretched from Ontario to British Columbia and Alaska, and from the 49th parallel (USA boarder) to the northern islands. Manitoba was created at this time.
1871 British Columbia joined Confederation, and the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway) started to build a rail line across Canada.
1873 Prince Edward Island joined Confederation.
1898 after the Klondike Gold Rush, the Yukon Territory was created from the Northwest Territories.
1905 Alberta and Saskatchewan were created out of the Northwest Territories. Creating a Canada almost what it is today.
1949, the last province, Newfoundland & Labrador, joined in the post WWII era.
This was the Canada I grew up knowing, yet Canada is still evolving.
As in 1999 Nunavut was created out of the Northwest Territories.
(Source: Wikipedia - Canada Day & Canada)
And for the record, the Canadian flag, as seen today, was created in 1967.



About this photo: Taken Saturday 19 February 2005, Taunton, Somerset, England.
One of my first photos from my (old) webcam. I took it as a profile photo on some websites. The Canadian flag in the background, which is the same flag I have around my waist in my profile photo, is special. I made that flag in grade 9 Home Economics (I won an award that year for both Home Ec and Industrial Arts) back in about 1993.



About this photo: Taken Thursday 10 March 2005, Taunton, Somerset, England.
Taken with my current digital camera, at arm's length. This photo was also taken as a profile photo, though I don't think I ever used it. The necklace I'm wearing is one I made. It is chainmail, and the lower loop was designed with a clasp so it could have a pendant or other decoration hanging from it if desired. I gave the necklace to my friend Ann when I left the UK, and have yet to attempt to recreate it (thanks to finding this photo, I at least have a visual guide to remind me how I did it).