I am a Story Teller when it comes to about who I am.

And I ask myself what else have i got to  look at in my day to day life for the past few days, nothing eventful to talk of, no dramatic life changing episode, nothing out of the ordinary, life as usual. Do the dishes and wash the laundry, think of what to cook and perhaps sweep the house, not forgetting to feed the cat and the birds outside. Water the plants and before all that do some yogic stretching after having sat in meditation on the bed for half an hour or so. All these started at just before five in the morning. Then there's the drive to the store to pick up this and that and dropping by the fisherman's hut by the sea to chat with a few friends about this and that, including how I take the self pursuit of who I am as my prime motive in living; Know thyself, I tired to explain what it means. I shared about my life experiences and what i practice throughout my life and I wonder how much they had understood. I raised a few questions that I know had made them stop to think, I tried to share myself being the eldest in the group and one who had earned the rights of passage to speak spiritually. 

I had joined the Alan Watts Group on Face Book and am enjoying seeing how the works of Western Zen Master is being studied and understood by an international group of people involved in making a study of the Zen Philosopher. Alan Watts as I have written many times in my past postings was on of the first few contemporary philosopher who had influenced my life. I first read his book "The Way of Zen" and knew that I was destined to study Zen Buddhism as past of my spiritual experience; i joined the Zen Buddhist Monastery a few years latter in California. I spent two years as a Practice Student at the Green Dragon Temple aka Green Gulch Farm Zen Center. The monastery is located in the Sausalito area of Marin County, in a valley that stretches from the top the Tamalpaias hillside and stretches all the way to the Pacific Ocean at Muir Beach. It was one of the most beautiful yet painful life altering experience of my life, I came to understand the teachings of the Buddha for what it is, simple yet a tremendous challenge to act upon.

This was basically I was trying to share with my fellow Malay Muslim friends who were relaxing there having  trying to make sense at what I was talking about. I find that as i began to relate about myself through the years, the stories began to unravel one connected to another albeit into the past or the future. This was what I had done or been through for every stages of my life from childhood to being an adult and now an old timer...Malays call us Otais out of respect. I realize as I shared my experiences I could go on and on forever as each story , an episode, a minor or major event, changes has interrelated stories connected to them; I am a story teller and I have stories to tell. This is my story, this lengthy Blog, Ramblings of the Cheeseburger Buddha posted since very regularly since 2005. This Blog which started off just as a journal of my travels and experiences I have had in 1978 was as a sketchbook journal of my travels in England as a student. This too has an interesting story that is connected to it, what, why and how come this happened, like how come you ended becoming a student at the University in Wisconsin at Green Bay?(UWGB), and so I start talking about how i worked in the meat packing plant for three years in Green Bay, Wisconsin before I was talked into becoming a student at the University...and that story is as interesting as the one that I was trying to share to begin with.

But the show must go on...I have sang my song and played my music and I have told my story, now it is time perhaps to manifest them in my daily life, here we are all telling our own stories some we are proud of and some not so. What have we to share except for our own stories in the hope that it would be entertaining as well as beneficial towards those who listen.