3.3

I told Buckhead Jeep that they can keep their spare Cherokee engine, and to just put my car back together and let me take it home. I'm not paying $8,000 (I don't have $8,000) for a new engine for a six-year-old car.

While I was on the way to the mechanics, I got a call from my doctor: my PSA, which was previously measured at a disturbingly high 14.2, almost a sure indication of prostate cancer, was now down to 3.3, a very safe, "normal" and non-carcenogenic level. The doctor wants to check the level again in a month, and for now, the prognosis is much improved.

So this weekend, I will gingerly drive the Jeep to various car dealerships and start looking at new vehicles. Which, of course, opens a Pandora's Box of questions: should I buy another SUV or be more economical and eco-friendly and get something more fuel efficient? Should I buy something along the status line, say a German import or sports car, or buy a plain sedan, something less likely to call attention to myself and reinforce the ego? What do the Amish drive? (Oh yeah, right - forget that thought.)

I opened the zendo tonight, and nobody showed up. None. Zero. It was a cold, cold night here in Atlanta, the first really cold evening of the year, and that may have kept some folks away. Checking the attendance records for previous weeks, I saw that non-sesshin Fridays were only averaging two or three people, so it wasn't like tonight was a huge shift.

So there I sat on my non-cancerous prostate gland, all alone in the zendo, the compromised Jeep the only car in the parking lot, and at the half-hour struck the gong and began the Great Heart of Wisdom chant ("Form is emptiness, emptiness is form," etc.) just as if there were 30 people in the room. I sat in silent meditation for one 45-minute period and then rang the bell for kinhin (walking meditation) and got up, snuffed out the incense and candles, and headed home to bed.