My Life of Crime as a Shaolin Priest II
Book by: Daphne Sylk
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We met in person at twelve, her parents moved to the condo above ours in Greenwich Village. Janah’s dad, James Svensson, is a diagnostic psychiatrist, her mom, Kara, an artist. I have two moms, Susan Sylk, my bio mom, and Chris Fischer, my mom's partner. Janah and I became everyone’s daughter, so we share three moms and a dad.
Janah is a bit of a freak. She has natural snow white hair, and she’s an eidetiker, what people call a photographic memory.
I’m another kind of freak. I have unusually quick reflexes, and heightened senses. I can smell sickness like a dog, hear a whisper in another room, see like a telescope or a microscope, which pays off considering my fascination with martial arts.
Table of Contents
Introduction
We ended Volume I with Janah and I discovering the joys of physical intimacy. We have, for years, known the joy
of mental intimacy. We ... Read Chapter
One
School is out, permanently for Janah and me. We decided it was our last year, no more high school. I was
graduated as Janah had been tw... Read Chapter
Two
Admission is Free, Pay at the Door
Pull Up a Chair and Sit on the Floor
Poem for rope jumping, author unknown*
The next day, Kim ... Read Chapter
Three
Don't be afraid of missing opportunities.
Behind every failure is an opportunity
somebody wishes they had missed.
Lily
Tomlin
... Read Chapter
Four
Being aware of the truth and falseness of seeking,
the mind is no longer caught in the machinery of seeking.
There’s a feeling of b... Read Chapter
Five
He who has awakened is freed from fear, he has become Buddha; he knows the vanity of all his cares, his
ambitions, and also of his pain... Read Chapter
Six
Almost every problem we have can be ascribed to the fact that human beings are utterly beguiled by their
feelings of separateness.
It... Read Chapter
Seven
If you say it can’t be done, you’re right.
If you say it can be done, you’re right.
After morning meditation, Janah’s day ... Read Chapter
Eight
It’s like stepping into a time portal, finding yourself in fifteenth century China. With indoor plumbing.
Susan, on her first visit t... Read Chapter
Nine
After morning meditation and breakfast, I am going through the usual gung fu exercises when I feel Janah,
'I’m going to find the old ... Read Chapter
Ten
We can all communicate without words.
In fact, we do it all the time.
Janah
Janah gives it a test during the morning meditation.... Read Chapter
Eleven
Now I have studied philosophy,
Medicine and the law,
And unfortunately, theology,
Wearily sweating, yet I stand now,
Poor fool, n... Read Chapter
Twelve
One has to be indifferent--to health, to loneliness,
to what people say or do not say,
indifferent to success or no success,
... Read Chapter
Thirteen
Empty mind?
Big deal.
Half the people in the world have an empty mind.
Daphne Sylk
Janah gives Master Sung her decision afte... Read Chapter
Fourteen
I am at two with nature.
Woody Allen
A week passes, Janah is sitting with a plant for three hours a day. She giggles to me that if ... Read Chapter
Fifteen
It’s like the Spanish Inquisition without the comfy chair.
Janah on working with Tan
Janah spends the next months with Tan, tw... Read Chapter
Sixteen
I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then.
Alice, Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Late summer, I’ll... Read Chapter
Seventeen
Some moms do guilt trips, some have endless advice.
Our moms are happy if we just show up. That’s the best kind of mom.
Daph... Read Chapter
Eighteen
Take us:
we were never children
like your children
We do not understand love songs
like your inamorata.
poem for personnel mana... Read Chapter
Nineteen
I like that Janah knows my entire being, inner and outer.
I particularly like it when she plays with the outer.
Daphne
... Read Chapter
Twenty
The idea of synchronicity is that the conceptual relationship of minds, defined as the relationship between
ideas, is intricately struc... Read Chapter
Twenty One
Teach this triple truth to all:
A generous heart, kind speech,
and a life of service and compassion
are the things which renew huma... Read Chapter
Twenty Two
I’ve been an RN for twenty five years.
I’ve seen some things. Nothing like this.
Sonia’s nurse
Janah enters the room, a nur... Read Chapter
Twenty Three
'What in hell happened?'
'Beats me, they sat on the floor, as still as the furniture most of the time.'
'Maybe we should all take up ... Read Chapter
Twenty Four
You start thinking about failure, you fail. Your brain looks for patterns. You input the word failure, it finds
failure patterns.
Goo... Read Chapter
Twenty Five
Genius makes the difficult look simple.
Endless practice makes genius.
Master Tan
The Shaolin sit together, over one hundred m... Read Chapter
Twenty Six
Coming home from school one day,
I saw a man hit a woman and threaten a child,
right on the street, nobody did anything.
I said som... Read Chapter
Twenty Seven
Brian’s mother: Who are you?
Wise Man #2: We are three wise men.
Brian’s mother: What?
Wise Man #1: We are three wise men.
Br... Read Chapter
Twenty Eight
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Janah thin... Read Chapter
Twenty Nine
I wasn’t there.
I mean there was no sense of a me
that was separated from anything.
I don’t know how else to say it.
Susan
... Read Chapter
Thirty
Daphne, 'I thought one plus one was two. What happened with us?'
Janah, 'In Reality, we’re one plus one,
in Actuality, we’re one ... Read Chapter
Thirty One
You can be anything you want
A lie masked as encouragement
The next day, Janah and I are invited to sit with our Abbot in the garde... Read Chapter
Thirty Two
Whoever said diamonds are girl's best friend hadn't discovered vibrators.
Susan Sylk
The Christmas holidays are approaching, ... Read Chapter
Thirty Three
Chan is fluent in both Chinese and English.
He doesn’t talk in two languages.
Janah
Black, David, and Chan show up on Christmas... Read Chapter
Thirty Four
Christmas Day
Black and I have coffee with Susan early, start a fire in the fireplace, then hit the subway to the Epsteins.
Chan is... Read Chapter
Thirty Five
Lucky is only a frame of reference,
yesterday you were better off than you are today,
but it took today for you to realize it.
The ... Read Chapter
Thirty Six
Daphne is wide open and sneaky
A sizzling hot paradox
Janah
Holidays over, immersed in temple life, it is flipping co... Read Chapter
Thirty Seven
Outside the hut, around ten thirty, we settle in cross-legged on a blanket. It’s twenty seven degrees, the air
still. Wind doesn’t ... Read Chapter
Thirty Eight
No, you can’t look like the fitness model by buying a piece
of plastic for three low monthly payments of nineteen ninety-five. Even i... Read Chapter
Thirty Nine
Mrs. Fong has a mind like a diamond
and a tongue that could cut one.
Master
Sung
We keep a low profile through our fourth year,... Read Chapter
Forty
Drugs are stupid
Guns are stupid
Mixing the two is insanity
Daphne Sylk
The boys, not so much boys anymore, are coming into the... Read Chapter
Forty One
I used to be Snow White….but I drifted
Mae West
'Yay,' Susan grabs both of us in a double hug, 'The babies are here,' she stands ... Read Chapter
Forty Two
'If I tell a true story, but not the whole story, is that lying?'
Janah, 'It’s called prevarication.'
I tell them about Fong’s,... Read Chapter
Forty Three
You shoulda stuck the cleaver in his head, Daph.
Mini
Under the radar, wishful thinking. After a workout at the dojang, Janah an... Read Chapter
Forty Four
You never played Barbie when you were little?
Janah, I was waiting for my perfect Barbie, Barbie
Three hours and a smidgen later, t... Read Chapter
Forty Five
Some religions have crosses,
some have beanies and candlesticks,
others have prayer rugs.
They all have rules, and guys who sit aro... Read Chapter
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