Ancient history-

It's been a while. Maybe I'll just toss a few thoughts. But first a plug for Pandora.com. OK the "flash" login is a pain. Hint: doesn't work with LastPass. But it provides music.

And now- a story with Monk Ki:

It doesn’t matter how mindful one is; there are times the rice burns.

In a jambalaya that’s not all bad. The crispy rice with the flavoring tastes pretty good if you get it before it gets “smokey” but the Monk Ki wasn’t making Jambalaya (darn monks seem to have an aversion to good Cajun sausage) and the rice was fast approaching the “call the bear stage.”

Master Ho Ha just happened to be walking into the kitchen and looked at Monk Ki hunkered down in front of the television and the rice pot hunkered down on the stove. It was hard to tell which would get attention first.

“Harumph” Master Ho Ha looked at Monk Ki.

Monk Ki kept his eyes glued to the television just in case the video replay that he’d seen umpteen times before happened to be slightly different. He heard the master but hoped that like Sadaam he’d just go away.

“Harumph.” Master Ho Ha snatched the lid off of the rice pot and peered into the steaming pot. “It’s beyond soup.”

“Catch it in a minute. A bomb will be going off in a second.”

“And will that bomb fill your stomach? Will it fill any other monk’s?”

Monk Ki knew he’d been taken prisoner. (Stay in the vernacular of the day.) “OK OK I’ll pull the pot from the burner.”

“Could I see the instant replay of that?” Master Ho Ha smiled.

“What do you think of the war Master Ho Ha?”

“ I think it is sad.”

“So you are a war protester?”

“I was a war protester long before it began. That guy in Iraq wouldn’t listen to me and the UN wouldn’t listen to me. I know the guy in Washington won’t listen to me. People insist on clinging to their definitions. They refuse to accept change. That is why we have war.”

Monk Ki smiled as he stirred the rice. He looked at Master Ho Ha. “So accepting change is good, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then if the rice was burned you’d accept the change right?” There was glee in Monk Ki’s eyes.

Master Ho Ha looked at the young monk. “You’re asking if I would eat burned rice? Yes. If that was all the rice we had. That does not give you the luxury of burning it because you watch bombs fall in some other country. Isn’t there enough suffering in the world without burned rice?” Master Ho Ha walked to the hall to prepare for the meal.

Monk Ki sighed and lifted the pot of rice to carry it to the other room. He caught a fleeting view of another bomb in Iraq. Some things don’t change quickly.