Life is Suffering

Zen Buddhism in a nutshell:

A) Life is suffering
B) Suffering is caused by desire
C) To eliminate suffering, you must eliminate desire

To properly eliminate desire, one must meditate for hours on end focusing on a Zen koan (an unsolvable riddle such as "What was your face before you were born?") and following the Seven-Fold Path. Now, I've never claimed to be the most industrious fellow, but seven folds is still quite a lot. One or two folds: definitely. Three or four fold: maybe. But seven: not so much.

Now why am I rambling on about this topic? Because there is more than just desire-based suffering. There's also the most basic: physical torture. And this is what I've had the pleasure of dealing with for the past 24+ hours. It seems that I had caught a form of the stomach flu from Howard, who plays Peachy Weil in Ballyhoo. He came down with this most delightful form of the flu on Saturday and miraculously made it through that day's two performances. I started coming down with mine late afternoon Monday. I had to call in sick to work Tuesday morning, something I very rarely do. I guess the only upshot of all this is that I seem to have lost a pound or two. Well, that's one way to diet.