The Marathon Monks of Mt. Hiei

In 2003, a Buddhist monk named Genshin Fujinami completed the Kaihōgyō, a grueling series of physical and spiritual tests that requires 27,705 miles of walking over seven years:

For 100 consecutive days in each of his first three years as a pilgrim, Fujinami rose at midnight, prayed, ran and walked 18 miles (stopping 250 times to pray), did chores back at the monastery, ate, and hit the sack. In years four and five, he upped his total to 200 consecutive days. Year six saw him complete a 37-mile course every day for 100 consecutive days, then endure the doiri—seven days without food, water, or sleep while sitting upright and chanting 100,000 mantras. In year seven, he trekked 52 miles a day for 100 straight days, usually from 1 a.m. to 5 p.m., then 18 miles a day for 100 consecutive days.

(Source: Outside Magazine)

Fujinami subsisted on a vegetarian diet of vegetables, tofu and miso soup throughout his training.

He is only the 47th person to complete the "marathon meditation" since antiquity. For more info, watch the excerpted Google and YouTube video of the Marathon Monks.

Random Interesting Photos on Flickr

Suggestions for Becoming a Positive Deviant

1. Ask an unscripted question.
e.g., "Where did you grow up?" or "Did you watch the game last night?"
It's not that making this connection necessarily helps anyone. But you start to remember the people you see, instead of letting them all blur together. If you ask a question, the machine begins to feel less like a machine.

2. Don't complain.
Resist it. It's boring, it doesn't solve anything, and it will get you down. Just be prepared with something else to discuss: an idea you read about, an interesting problem you came across. See if you can keep the conversation going.

3. Count something.
One should be a scientist in this world. In the simplest terms, this means one should count something. If you count something interesting, you will learn something interesting.

4. Write something.
Writing lets you step back and think through a problem. By offering your reflections to an audience, even a small one, you make yourself part of a larger world. The published word is a declaration of membership in that community and also of a willingness to contribute something meaningful to it.

5. Change.
Be willing to recognize the inadequacies in what you do and to seek out solutions.

from Better by Atul Gawande

Jim Jarmusch Quote

“I don’t really believe in originality. Art and human expression are about variations. There’s an ocean of possible ways, but they don’t ever come in the same configuration.”

DFW Commencement Address

I'm supposed to talk about your liberal arts education's meaning, to try to explain why the degree you are about to receive has actual human value instead of just a material payoff. So let's talk about the single most pervasive cliché in the commencement speech genre, which is that a liberal arts education is not so much about filling you up with knowledge as it is about quote teaching you how to think.

Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.

This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.

On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.

Excerpted. Read the full speech here.

Diligence

"the constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken."

Riding the Line