(overheard at a teen-oriented sesshin)
"Ringing the meditation bell is not the same as giving the go-ahead to desolation. Ok? Not the same thing at all. Children of the corn, children of heaven, children of Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, MySpace, Ello, Ask Jeeves, Raw, makes no difference. The green light is available. The red light is serpentine. The yellow light remains a question, one that you are welcome to wrestle with, fruitlessly. Frito Lay and Hostess snack items are available on a first come, first served basis. Body is a temple, keep it simple, all of that. The cleanest, nicest, fittest, smartest, hardest-working and most socially conscious gods and goddesses will become your lifelong allies for a nominal fee. The blue light is a joke that the older instructors will probably play on you. Welcome to meditation camp! Hooray! Ringing the bell is not nonsensical. It produces a clean and even tone that resonates through the minds of true and untrue practitioners alike. Give a hoot, don't pollute, help take a bite out of crime, all of that. The dirtiest, meanest, sickest, dumbest, laziest, and most apathetic gods and goddesses will gather around 'your ideas', and instead of taunting 'your ideas' like the media moguls and tech gurus in your part of the world, they will incorporate 'your ideas' into an unsuccessful new sitcom that slowly revolves around your warped conception of the dharma, and then suddenly, out of nowhere, for no reason, and with nobody watching, it splinters and vanishes back into the great sea of primordial errors. Yay! Or imagine a sink or bathtub draining. It is akin to your spiritual journey. In fact, it's identical! The pink light means that your dry goods have safely arrived. Moisten them at your own peril. The black light is only used when the sangha decides to play psychedelica. This camp is meant to be fun! Don't forget that! Jay's, Jay's, just can't stop eating 'em, Jay's, all of that. We want you to learn new sanity techniques and languages. Remember, the green light is always available. You probably don't quite understand what I mean by that yet, but hang in there. The blinking light differentiates the various phases of pure, unadulterated excitement that we call 'day' and 'night' around here. We'll observe a timeshare arrangement when it comes to general oblivion, until you can get up on your own two feet and wander off into the wilderness. The keeper of the pass will clean your clock for a nominal fee."
