I want to speak for just one essay - 'The Sutra of Maggots and Blowflies' by Sallie Jiko Tisdale.In the essayists words it is a rewrite of Dogen's Sutra of Mountains and Waters as a natural history of flies, in Buddhist terms. I read this essay last night. And today I could make something of a housefly. I saw the four stripes on its gray thorax. I saw the 'halteres'. If I can tell that much of a fly, it has to be a dead one with its limbs detaching at the slightest touch. The fly is on a path of decay. The essay not only leaves you with the knowledge of what happens to our bodies when we die but it goes into suffering identified by Buddha.
It is a long essay. If you cant get your hands on it, you should read the excerpts of it on 'Dharma Rain'. [...]. After reading this essay I was reminded of an essay 'Not found Not Lost' by Joel Agee.
Other essays that I liked and recognized from magazines: 'Time and Distance overcome' by Eula Biss and 'How to succeed in Po Biz' by Kim Addonizio
Jul 17,2010
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