Image by Gene Poole
#1095 - Wednesday, June 5, 2002 - Edited by Jerry - Home: http://nonduality.com/hlhome.htm
MARALENA
"If you really want to know your mind, the body will
always give you a truthful reflection, so look at the
emotion or rather "feel" it in your body. If there is
an apparent conflict between them, the thought will be
the lie, the emotion will be the truth. Not the
ultimate truth of who you are, but the relative truth of
your state of mind at the time." ~ Eckhart Tolle (The
Power of Now)
This is book, "The Power of Now", along with my regular
Sufi Studies is my current books at hand. I was
wondering what "book" is sitting on your nightstands or
end tables at home ... adding to your "Now"?
I love Nonduality Salon. I am very happy to be a part of
this wonderful community. Thank you for accepting me
here.
SU GANDOLF
These are the books in the backpack: being
bodies--buddhist women on the paradox of embodiment;
Fighting Fit--boxing workouts techniques and sparring;
and A Writer's Workbook.
Here is quote by Linda Ruth Cutts (from being bodies)
that your Tolle quote inspired me to copy here:
"...I went into the zendo and tried to speak about Dogen
Zenji and Zen. If you're a nursing mother, various
hormones get secreted that make you feel completely
relaxed, like a big cow, which is just what you're
supposed to be. So I had what a friend calls "milk
mind." You can't really put two and two together. A cow
doesn't give the best Dharma talk. I fumbled, I
couldn't remember what I was going to say and it was
very embarrassing. I was later chastised: "If you're
going to give a talk at Tassajara, and the guests are
there, you should prepare..." Many years later I
realized that if I had gone to the zendo and said, "I
just finished nursing my baby, and now I'd like to tell
you about how I love zazen. And aren't we all happy to
be here"-- if I had spoken the truth--this is who I am,
this is what I'm doing, I am a nursing mother--if I had
spoken authentically from where I was, without trying
to be somebody else, without trying to be a Zen
Teacher, it would have been fine. But I was pretending
to be something different. I didn't confess who I was.
It's not that you have to dig down to your deepest
darkest most horrible secrets and express them at every
moment, it's just a matter of looking at who you are
and what's going on, and speaking from there. And when
you do, it's such a relief to everybody around you, and
to yourself, too."
Do you have a felt sense of your current state of mind
as reflected in bodily-felt "emotion"?--in other words,
do you have access to this "realtive truth of your
state of mind" that Tolle suggests is available through
attention? I'd be interested in anyone that can speak
to this, from that place...
__________________________________________________________________
JERRY
Last night saw the movie Life as a House. Great
expression of love and humor. It's a very moving and
inspirational movie. Very funny, too. Made me aware of
the 'house' I'm living in.
NINA
Jerry, I saw Life as a House a while back. I laughed
when I saw that you mentioned it in reply to Maralena's
post about finding the state of one's mind through
attention to what is going on in the body. I laughed
because when I saw Life as a House, I bawled through the
entire second half. I'm not talking a few squirts of
saline from the old tear ducts. I'm talking buckets of
liquid, so much so that I was dehydrated for days
afterwards, so much so that my husband had to change
his shirt, so much so that at one point I was drowning
in fluid and began to gag to clear the air passage.
Great gasping wretched keening! Nearly puked three
times, had my head hanging over the edge of the bed and
all. Left me with a giant hangover. Good grief.
I did, however, really dig the scene where the main guy,
a model- builder for an architect, went on a rampage and
destroyed 20 years of models he had built. Hurrah!
__________________________________________________________________________
Image contributed by John Metzger
FIRECEREMONY
from Live Journal
I have zero intelligence when it comes to romantic love
and I'm an absolute doofus about it.
I fell more easily in love with ideas than ppl, ppl
didn't count till I was long into my teens and at that
time I couldn't understand why these idiots were
attracted to each other. Scrap that, they deserved each
other, they were all small and narrow minded, I had
nothing to do with them and they had nothing to do with
me.
Yup, cynical me.
A neighbor in Rainy Town (oh that perfect place for old
cynics) correctly identified me as a cynic on first
meeting and never let me forget that she saw I was a
cynic from the get go.
But tonight feels like a good night to be cynical and
say it out loud. :)
What I did today:
Vacuum cleaned the house and washed the bathrooms. Of
course Susee managed to soil one floor a few hours after
I finished.
Ate dinner.
Wrote a lot, something which surprisingly turned into a
story with an ending. I'll edit tomorrow instead.
More cynicism:
A friend called and we'll meet up to go to the HS
reunion on Sat. We also agreed to do hiking day trips
during the summer so that'll be a nice way of getting
out more. Wow, between that and the meetings, I'm
actually on the verge of getting *GASP* that thing which
is called "a life". What will happen next ? I may do
like the trolls of old and crack at the light of dawn.
:)
My friend also asked me along on a 11 day jaunt across
the mountains in the central massif together with some
other experienced hikers. No. I've never been in the
mountains for more than day at a time and that much time
away from any comp would have me in serious withdrawal
after a few days. She agreed that a few 3 day trips
would be a better way to build experience than suddenly
11 days in the mountains. Still, it would be nice to
become a more experienced hiker so I could join them for
longer trips. It would be nice to spend that much time
in the mountains, I have been kind of dreaming about it
for some time now.
A lab mate of mine went with her boyfriend for a 6 day
trip in the mountains. Before the trip she bought 6
bottles of red wine. Afterwards she told me those were
the only way she had survived the trip, even though they
were damn heavy to carry. Each day when all that
mountain air and free nature sucked, she looked forward
to pitching the tent up in the evening, sit down while
her b/f made dinner and start on the wine. By the end of
each evening she was well sloshed and too tired to care
that there was another 6 hours of hiking to be done the
next day. She was looking forward to the next bottle of
wine. :) Not exactly a mountain trip I would recommend,
but I can understand her sudden withdrawal from
civilization and annoyance of nature in general when it
all got to be too much.
Norwegians do a lot of hiking and crossing the central
massif is rumored to be one of the best ways of spending
a holiday. Some do it, some don't, but those who haven't
are kind of embarassed about it. I haven't done it yet
and I still dream about doing it. The thing is, when you
place internet addicted geeks or lab rats like my friend
and I suddenly out into a massive no holds barred
nature, we're talking no houses, no restaurants, no
cafes, no toilets, no people, no computers, no roads for
days of travel here, without warning or prior
preparation, that can probably be very damaging. :)
I pride myself in knowing I'm well traveled, urbanly
trained and fearless enough to be able to go to any
place in the civilized world within 24h should the need
arise. Beijing, Mexico City, Frankfurt, name the
building and address and I'd be able to get there no
problem even if I don't know the language of the place.
However, that's the civilized world. When it comes to
the uncivilized world, the wilderness, I'm as lost as a
lab reared monkey suddenly let back into the jungle. I
don't know how to make a camp fire, I barely know how to
pitch a tent. In a real jungle, I wouldn't last an hour
on my own.
But as with all animals reared in captivity, the
curiosity of what's out there and the idea of the
wilderness, remains and doesn't vanish just like that,
even if the animal knows she's not well adjusted to the
wilderness at all.
Hmmm.... I'm not even sure I want to get out into the
wilderness before I can get bring the net and
preferrably a game or two as well with me. And maybe
some music too. Me indoors only geek, you Jane.
Oh and btw, someone commented on tv today that "why
would we want to genetically engineer ppl for better
health, physical strength, perfect looks and all the
other silly stuff we seem bent to engineer for when we
rather ought to engineer ppl who are capable of being
more loving, compassionate, gentle and caring instead?"
I thought that was such a great take on it. I've never
heard anyone say anything like that before. The thing
is... traits such as positive self confidence,
compassion, gentleness and balanced mental health seem
to be so unimportant in so many ppl's eyes... I guess
fear drives this world too much, too bad it's ruining
it. What can I say ? Bloody wanker cowards !
OK, that's enough cynicism for one night.
Image contributed by Al Larus