{"id":12662,"date":"2020-03-08T16:16:55","date_gmt":"2020-03-08T16:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/?p=12662"},"modified":"2020-03-08T16:16:56","modified_gmt":"2020-03-08T16:16:56","slug":"motel-monastery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/?p=12662","title":{"rendered":"Motel Monastery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I guess you know you\u2019ve reached the Left Coast when your motel room offers a Gideon Bible and the Teachings of Buddha.  Us weary travelers, still on the road, might just be in desperate need of Guidance after a dozen wrong turns on the Google Map.  Who knows how many converts have left these over-priced motels and returned Saved \u2026.<\/p>\n<p>Personally I\u2019m in near Satori just to reach the rock strewn shores of the Pacific in one piece.  One of our old friends back on the highway in Sedona, Arizona suggested I read the works of Tibetan monks so I scrolled the Teachings a bit.  But as I told a carload of proselytizers  who had driven up on Guitar Bob and me, chainsaws in our hands atop a slick log pile ten feet high that suddenly let go under us, you have to seek converts among the lost and forlorn, not those who miraculously just survived near death and came up grinning.<\/p>\n<p>The Universe is an incomprehensible place, I reckoned when I was about 16.  A friend of mine &#8212; let\u2019s call him the Zig Zag Man &#8212; once told me \u2018for those who require no explanations, there are no mysteries.\u2019  Sage words, I thought then and still do.  I stopped looking for God a long time ago.  She wants to get hold of me, call me up, I\u2019m in the phone book.<\/p>\n<p>Otherwise life itself is plenty.  I can\u2019t spend my time trying to figure out what essentially is indecipherable.  Better, I think, to live it, not try to explain it.<\/p>\n<p>The roadmap to the Universe isn\u2019t something you can publish.  Maybe those who seek a Guru find some solace there, fine by me, but Universal Truth?  I don\u2019t think so.  Better to read poetry, make music, enjoy friends, help others, be kind.  The world may actually be what you believe.  But only for you.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re headed to Big Sur today, a long and winding road.  If we discover Nirvana on the way, I\u2019ll get back to you \u2026 but don\u2019t hold your breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I guess you know you\u2019ve reached the Left Coast when your motel room offers a Gideon Bible and the Teachings of Buddha. Us weary travelers, still on the road, might just be in desperate need of Guidance after a dozen wrong turns on the Google Map. Who knows how many converts have left these over-priced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2449,2448,2450],"class_list":["post-12662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-bubbhism-made-ez","tag-gideon-buddhism","tag-nirvana-on-the-way-to-big-sur"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12663,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12662\/revisions\/12663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}