Has a Dog Buddha-Nature or Not?

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A couple of days ago it was the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Jim Morrison in Paris, at the age of twenty-seven: that magnetic age that seems to be the terminus for so many in rock & roll. The roster of like early exits is well-known and much written about - usually on anniversaries such as his.


Randomly, this morning I picked out an old volume from a bookshelf: ‘Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series)’ by D.T. Suzuki, first published in 1949. Suzuki attained his enlightenment at the age of twenty-seven. He went on to write and teach for the next sixty-five years.


"Live fast, die young, and have a good-looking corpse" - from ‘Knock on Any Door’ by Willard Motley.


“Those who can do, those who can't teach.” - George Bernard Shaw’s infamous aphorism from ‘Man & Superman’.


Neither quite hits the spot, methinks…

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