DogMa wrote:
> Dominic T. wrote:
> > My appologies DogMa... I ain't mad 'atcha Dog.
>
> No offense taken, not that this Zen adept can be unsettled by mere words
> (excepting mystical incantations like "dan cong oolong" or "extra-bitter
> chocolate" or "free lunch." Besides, to paraphrase a young philosopher
> out of Wadham College:
>
> ... taking ritual at its superficial level can be misleading, or even
> harmful to the realization of Tea Mind. And while agreeing with some on
> the necessity for tea practice to reach outside the sphere of casual
> reading, which is in itself merely the intellect seeking to further
> reinforce itself, one should remember that "hard" scientific
> epistemology usually belongs to schools other than Cha Dao. Whether or
> not it is useful in achieving pleasure or insight is not for me to say,
> but that "direct tasting" has traditionally eschewed many intellectual
> practices carried out in the West.
>
>
> -DM

Nice quote. And on the extra-bitter chocolate topic... last Christmas I
bought my father (a huge dark chocolate fan) what I thought would be
the holy grail when I found a German Dark Chocolate with 85% cocao...
not realizing that more is not always better with dark chocolate. He
said it was bitter as sin, and also darn near broke a tooth on the
hardness of it.

"Free lunch" is a phrase that tugs at my heartstrings as well

- Dominic