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#1220 - October 7, 2002 - Edited by Jerry
CHRISTIANA
Bernadette Roberts Videos and Links
http://www.geocities.com/brianperkins77/275bernadettevideo.htm
http://www.geocities.com/brianperkins77/178bernadetteroberts.htm
http://www.geocities.com/brianperkins77/index.html
____________________________________________________________________________
K.D. PALMER
Nonduality Salon members---
Would like to draw your attention to the non-dual philosophy and
systems theory I have been developing for a number of years:
See http://archonic.net
See also http://dialog.net:85/kent_palmer.html
Thank you,
Kent Palmer
palmer@exo.com
___________________________________________________________________________
JEFF BELYEA
from Papajeff
No questions
Clarity has no questions.
It's tempting to look
at life's problems and
examine them for rational
solutions. And, of course,
that works in some instances.
But there is a better way -
a more excellent way.
We look at something that
is "wrong" or uncomfortable
and try to figure out what
we need to do to correct
the current situation and
act in such a way that it
doesn't recur.
But if you've been around
the sun more than a few
times, you'll notice that
problems do recur. The
relationship, financial,
and situational discomfort
may have a few new plot
twists, but essentially
the same story keeps
somehow getting rewound
and played again.
And we continue to try
to "figure it out". But
habits of thought don't
give up easily. You'll
notice that a large
percentage of your
thoughts today are
replays from yesterday.
All the planning and
goalsetting and making of
lists are temporary bandaids
almost all of the time.
The solutions often doesn't
lie in making new resolutions
or "figuring it out". The
solution lies in getting to
a place of clarity - a clearing.
And this will come from going
inside to a deep, still place
and allowing a natural enlightenment
to unfold. This is the goal of
meditation. This is the place
the Awakened Ones speak of so
invitingly.
The solution is peace of mind.
Go within. Deeply and silently
within. A new perceptual
condition will emerge and change the
very nature of your problems.
Your inner view is very different
than the outer view. If you are
seeking relief from tension and
frustration, and feel intuitive
stirrings that there must be
more to life - you're right.
Press on. Find a guide, find
a lightbearer, find a meditation
group. Don't settle for a life
of frustration and tension.
There is a place of pure joy,
peace of mind and love and
understanding - a place with
no questions, nothing to figure
out...just enjoyment of bliss.
From this place, the solutions
are obvious, the impact is
brief and minimal, and the
emotional loop greatly shortened.
It is sumpremely practical,
not a state of stupified
beatitude. From clarity comes
unfettered action - no thinking
about should I, shouldn't I,
but action, trust in your own
judgment and integrity.
From this place of inner peace,
no one is able to emotionally
manipulate you (see "guilt") or
doubt your worth as a child of God.
It's heaven on earth. It's the
promise of the great Masters.
Need a guru, do you?
Jeff
_____________________________________________________________________________________
CHIYO-NI
from http://womensearlyart.net/chiyo/
Calligraphy, art, and haiku poetry by the Pure
Land
Buddhist nun Chiyo-ni (Kaga no Chiyo) (1703-1775)
~~
Airing out kimonos
as well as her heart
is never enough
~~
Again the women
come to the fields
with unkempt hair.
~~
Just for today
using men
for rice-planting.
~~
Rouged lips
forgotton --
clear spring water.
~~
Putting up my hair
no more
my hands to the kotatsu
~~
The morning glory!
It has taken the well bucket
I must ask elsewhere for water.
___________________________________________________________________________
From 'The Dharma Bums' by Jack Kerouac
<http://www.litkicks.com/Texts/DharmaCamp.html
'There's nothing wrong with you Ray'
(From Chapter 9: Japhy Ryder and Ray Smith are camping
out after a day of mountain climbing)
So we unpacked our packs and laid things out and smoked
and had a good time. Now the mountains were getting that
pink tinge, I mean the rocks, they were just solid rock
covered with the atoms of dust accumulated there since
beginningless time. In fact I was afraid of those jagged
monstrosities all around and over our heads.
'They're so silent!' I said.
'Yeah man, you know to me a mountain is a Buddha. Think
of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just
sitting there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like
praying for all living creatures in that silence and
just waiting for us to stop all our frettin and foolin.'
Japhy got out the tea, Chinese tea, and sprinkled some
in a tin pot, and had the fire going meanwhile, a small
one to begin with, the sun was still on us, and stuck a
long stick tight down under a few big rocks and made
himself something to hang the teapot on and pretty soon
the water was boiling and he poured it out steaming into
the tin pot and we had cups of tea with our tin cups. I
myself'd gotten the water from the stream, which was
cold and pure like snow and the crystal-lidded eyes of
heaven. Therefore, the tea was by far the most pure and
thirstquenching tea I ever drank in all my life, it made
you want to drink more and more, it actually quenched
your thirst and of course it swam around hot in your
belly.
'Now you understand the Oriental passion for tea,' said
Japhy. 'Remember that book I told you about the first
sip is joy the second is gladness, the third is
serenity, the fourth is madness, the fifth is ecstasy.'
'Just about old buddy.'
The rock we were camped against was a marvel. It was
thirty feet high and thirty feet at base, a perfect
square almost, and twisted trees arched over it u and
peeked down on us. From the base it went outward,
forming a concave, so if rain came we'd be partially
covered. 'How did this immense sonumbitch ever get
here?'
'It probably was left here by the retreating glacier.
See over there that field of snow?'
'Yeah.'
'That's the glacier what's left of it. Either that or
this rock tumbled here from inconceivable prehistoric
mountains we can't understand, or maybe it just landed
here when the friggin mountain range itself burst out of
the ground in the Jurassic upheaval. Ray when you're up
here you're not sittin in a Berkeley tea room. This is
the beginning and the end of the world right here. Look
at all those patient Buddhas lookin at us saying
nothing.'
'And you come out here by yourself ...'
'For weeks on end, just like John Muir, climb around all
by myself following quartzite veins or making posies of
flowers for my camp, or just walking around naked
singing, and cook my supper and laugh.'
'Japhy I gotta hand it to you, you're the happiest
little cat in the world and the greatest by God you are.
I'm sure glad I'm learning all this. This place makes me
feel devoted, too, I mean, you know I have a prayer, did
you know the prayer I use?'
'What?'
'I sit down and say, and I run all my friends and
relatives and enemies one by one in this, without
entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I
say, like 'Japhy Ryder, equally empty, equally to be
loved, equally a coming Buddha,' then I run on, say to
'David O. Selznick, equally empty, equally to be loved,
equally a coming Buddha' though I don't use names like
David O. Selznick, just people I know because when I say
the words 'equally a coming Buddha' I want to be
thinking of their eyes, like you take Morley, his blue
eyes behind those glasses, when you think 'equally a
coming Buddha' you think of those eyes and you really do
suddenly see the true secret serenity and the truth of
his coming Buddhahood. Then you think of your enemy's
eyes.'
'That's great, Ray,' and Japhy took out his notebook and
wrote down the prayer, and shook his head in wonder.
'That's really really great. I'm going to teach this
prayer to the monks I meet in Japan. There's nothing
wrong with you Ray, your only trouble is you never
learned to get out to spots like this, you've let the
world drown you in its horseshit and you've been vexed
... though as I say comparisons are odious, but what
we're sayin now is true.'
______________________________________________________________________
In all of our memories no one had been so outspoken in
poetry before -- we had gone beyond a point of no
return. None of us wanted to go back to the gray, chill,
militaristic silence, to the intellective void -- to the
land without poetry -- to the spiritual drabness. We
wanted to make it new and we wanted to invent it and the
process of it as we went into it. We wanted voice and we
wanted vision.
--Michael McClure, from Scratching the Beat Surface