Remembered just about everything except some batteries, charger and soap. Standard boring-as-hell drive to Canberra. Bought a new pair of Docs at Redpath Shoes (URL on bag is defunct), seemingly the last purveyor of Docs in south-eastern Australia. Dinner from Sammy's, ate it on the lake near the National Museum. Lots of little wrens enjoying themselves, including a beautiful blue fairy wren that skillfully avoided my camera. Met up with Dave after work at 10:30pm, talked with him and Luke until 3am.
This is much like his autobiography, quite indulgent and rambly. I think he summarises the text quite well in Chapter 43, Mondo on Immortality:
Zen Student: So Master, is the soul immortal or not? Do we survive our bodily death or do we get annihilated? Do we really reincarnate? Does our soul split up into component parts that get recycled, or do we as a single unit enter the body of a biological organism? And do we retain our memories or not? Or is the doctrine of reincarnation false? Is perhaps the Christian notion of survival more correct? And if so, do we get bodily resurrected, or does our soul enter a purely Platonic spiritual realm?
Master: Your breakfast is getting cold.
There are lots of things about this book which feel tenuous and loose, so much unlike the logic he did up to that time and the puzzles soon after. It'll take me a while to do it justice.
