[mburbank]

Your rejection of the Koan is perfectly legitimate. You are a westerner, raised in a western culture with a western mindset. There is absoluetly nothing wrong with that and it's exactly why most western zen is absolute escapist bullshit, doomed from the go. I applaud your rejection. While Zen is of interest to me, I am unable to practice it. I merely meant that the tree thing (and most Koans) translate poorly into English.

But none of that gets us closer to OAO's new bodie's rejection of his head.

I have come to the conclusion that while he needs to also cut back on the body building. In his particular case it reaks of self obsession and self love. If he is somehow able to see those pictures as anything other than ridiculous and ironic, he's self dellusional. A diagnosis I think is assured by the fact he shares them via the internet, as if people were yearning to view him in the same way he years to view himself.

I am unprepared to view with respect the 'philosiphy' of a mind in such a state of dysfunction that it would post such pictures, let alone deliberately strive to look the way he looks in them.