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    The Third Diamond
    The Third Diamond
    The Third Diamond
    Ebook113 pages1 hour

    The Third Diamond

    By Mel C. Thompson

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    About this ebook

    Fans of the Triple Diamond Sutra had no way of knowing that the third book has been missing from the print version and appears a short chapter in other books. But this is the first full release of all the materials in The Third Diamond. In addition to the infamous characters of old: Sensei, The Dreaded Fujikami and Fu War, we find Christs working retail jobs and Orange County surfers looking for make up for the deficiencies in their lives. At one point the universe appears to be missing a leader and at other points God seems to lose His omnipotence. We stumble into computer rooms that run parts of the universe, deities who have quit their jobs and innocent job applicants forced to rule worlds for thousands of years against their will. All of the poems that appeared in the short version of this book have been converted to prose works and this makes the whole book more readable on various devices. There are plans to get this book in paperback on its own and plans to do a grand reconstruction of what would be a new version of the Triple Diamond Sutra, possibly going over 700 pages. These materials arise in the spirit and ancient Rinzai literature minus the minimalism. And while the short book is open to the charge that there is way too much talking and explaining in there, I defend the work as getting to the essence of the unknowable nature by continually throwing the reader back on his or her own assumptions and even the assumptions of other parts of the Triple Diamond Sutra. The new and complete addition of The Triple Diamond Sutra might not come out till sometime between late 2021 and early 2023, and so, before that time, this short volume is indispensable to the completion of this modern iteration of a very controversial tradition, a kind of Los Angelized combination of Rinzai Zen and Soto Zen hurled into the ever whirling blender of world religions. Some parts of these books are so difficult to accept that I sometimes don't accept them, even though I publish them. No one, not even me, can have any hope of complacency in these pages.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMel C. Thompson
    Release dateOct 15, 2020
    ISBN9781005564636
    The Third Diamond
    Author

    Mel C. Thompson

    Mel C. Thompson is a retired wage slave who survived by working through temp agencies and guard agencies. Unable to survive in the real world of full-time, permanent work, he migrated from building to building, going wherever his agencies sent him, doing any type of work he could feign competency in and staying as long as those fragile arrangements could last. He somehow managed to get a B.A in Philosophy from Cal-State Fullerton in spite of his learning disorders and health problems. Unable to sustain family life due to depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, lack of transportation and lack of income, he lives alone in low-income housing and wanders around California on buses and trains. He began writing at the age of 14 and continues till the current day. (He turns 64 in June of 2023). In his early years he wrote pathetic love poetry until, in his thirties, he was engulfed by cynicism and fell in with a group of largely antisocial poets who wrote about the underground life of drugs, sex, alcohol, poverty, prostitution, heresy, isolation and alienation. In his fortes he turned to prose and began to write religious fiction with an emphasis on the comedic aspect of theology and philosophy. He now writes short novels focusing on the attempt to find meaning in a economic world beset with money laundering, unethical marketing, contraband smuggling, human trafficking, patent trolling, corrupt contracting and every manner of spiritual and psychological desperation and degradation. When he is not writing, he wanders from hospital to medical clinic to surgical room attempting to sustain what little health he has left after a lifetime of complications resulting from birth defects and genetic problems. When he is able, he engages in such hobbies as reading, walking, yoga and meditation; and whenever there is any money left over from his healthcare-related quests, he goes to wine tastings and searches for foodie-related bargains. Before the pandemic, he spent many years gaming various travel-points systems and wrangled many free trips to Europe. He is divorced and has no children, no pets, no real estate, no stocks nor any other assets beyond the $550 in his savings account. His career peaked in the early 2000s when he did comedy gags for a radio station and had about 10,000 listeners per week. However, currently, he may have as few as five active readers on any given day. He no longer has the stamina to promote his work and only finds new readers through ran...

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      Book preview

      The Third Diamond - Mel C. Thompson

      The Third Diamond

      Mel C. Thompson

      Copyright © 2020

      Mel C. Thompson Publishing

      3559 Mount Diablo Boulevard, #112

      Lafayette, CA 94549

      melcthompson@yahoo.com

      Cover Photo: Wikipedia Creative Commons License:

      Silver figure of Mañjuśrī holding a long-stemmed lotus. Central Java, Indonesia

      Tropenmuseum, National Museum of World Cultures

      *

      Table of Contents

      The Third Commandment

      The Hidden God

      No One Wants To Be God

      Overselling The Dharma

      Los Angeles Motorcycle Buddha

      Doctrines

      A Wealthy Man

      A Few Thoughts On The Jade Emperor

      Miss Emotionally Wholesome Meets Primordial Sensei

      A Day In The Life of Aku no Ken no

      The Shogun And The Old Celibate

      An Idealistic Student Confronts Fujikami

      The Shogun’s Shoji Screen

      Regarding Mountain Lions

      The Supreme Question

      The Odessa Juggernaut

      The Problem of The Precepts

      A Short Holiday Play

      Popular Buddhist Authority Meets Monk On Meds

      The Circumstances Regarding Sensei’s Eventual Retirement

      The Third Diamond

      Shallow Pleasures

      Ask God For Anything

      Imperfect People

      Paperwork

      The Final Liberation

      *

      The Third Commandment

      Return to Table of Contents

      Jesus Christ was running a small record store in Hunting Beach in the 1970s, having himself become tired of being the object of fawning worship. Wanting only to be treated like an average person, he incarnated into a completely secular life and became a common small-business owner.

      The surfers of Huntington Beach at that time, however, sensed right away who the long-haired, bearded record store owner was, their intuition being enhanced by lots of surfing and weed-smoking. But most of them never accused him of being Jesus, but rather stared at him in a knowing and somewhat reproachful way before buying their albums and leaving. This whole arrangement suited Jesus just fine. People usually refrained from pressing him regarding his past and he volunteered little information about it.

      But every so often, some person with a seemingly incurable neurosis would hear whisperings about the identity of the record store owner and would take advantage of the opportunity to be advised by perhaps the greatest mind in all of cosmic history. And so, tactlessly, our protagonist hung around the record store pretending to be in a prolonged state of indecision about which record to buy when, in fact, he was really waiting till he was the only customer in the store.

      It was a Monday afternoon and business was slow, and a couple of surfer girls who’d been pestering Jesus about when certain albums might finally be in stock had at last decided to leave. It was then that Jesus spotted our protagonist and observed the overeager look on the pretend customer’s face. Jesus sensed that something annoying was about to happen.

      So, are you really Jesus Christ?

      You know, most people around town have decided not to hassle me about my old job.

      But since you were a Jew, could we say that you were the greatest rabbi who ever lived?

      Yeah, I guess that would be fair. But I’m trying to get out of the sage business.

      I know, but I couldn’t resist running my problems by you.

      Didn’t you pray to God The Father about it first?

      Yeah, but nothing happened.

      So you figured if The Old Man couldn’t help you, maybe The Kid could?

      Sorry, but, nothing in my social life is working out.

      The record store owner sighed in resignation and indicated that the bothersome visitor should wait at the counter a moment. In the meantime the former Savior of The World went back into his office to change his outfit. A few moments later he came back out in the high-priest robes that he’d brought from two thousand years ago just in case some situation like the current one came up.

      There! Are you happy? It’s all official. I’m in my robes of glory now. So what was your question?

      Just then one of the middle-aged parents of the surfer kids walked by to enter the liquor store next to the record shop. He poked his head in the door and said, Hey, you’re not supposed to let on.

      I know! I know, said The Son of God, but this neurotic won’t let it go.

      Ah, said the middle-aged parent. I think I know what you mean. Never mind.

      The record store owner then turned back to the neurotic and gazed at him impatiently, wishing this intruder would ask his question and then go.

      Okay, my question is this: When you were asked what the greatest commandments were, did you really say: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,’ and, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself?’

      Sure, yeah, that sounds like something I would have said back then. Why? Is that a problem for you?

      No, I don’t think so. I just wanted to make sure because, you know, a lot of the Bible is historically inaccurate and there’s a lot of interpolations and outright fiction in there. I figured it couldn’t hurt to find out about that passage from the source.

      Okay, but you look pretty wigged out, so clearly you wanted more than that from me, didn’t you?

      Well, I just wanted to get enlightened, and I figured you were the ultimate guru. No one really likes me, and I don’t really like most people. So, I’ve ended up alone and a lot of people think I’m a jerk. I guess I came here to learn what the swamis call ‘The Path’ from you.

      Fine. Then, as your guru, the first assignment I’ll give you will be to spend two weeks working on loving the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all they soul, and with all thy mind. I figure that if you could master that, you wouldn’t really give a shit that nobody likes you and that most people are irritating, right?

      I guess so. Yeah, if I mastered that, I presume I would get into a pretty elevated head space.

      For sure. It’s kind of like a real long mushroom buzz, but way, way bigger than that.

      Alright, I’ll try it out and give you a progress report in two weeks.

      Good. See you in two weeks.

      *

      Two weeks later our protagonist came back to the record store window with his head hanging down

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