this is the place
of no choice
east or west
slow or fast
from the pond
to the sea
like an eagle in the sky
watch the dance of all
come
come
come
along with me
---------------------------------------------------------------
JERRY KATZ
NDS
The Dream Society
The following is from Dave Mason's Live Journal:
The Information Age, which opened only a few decades
ago with the appearance of the first commercial
computers, is already approaching its end. In the years
ahead, we will move into what may be called the Dream
Society. The future Dream Society will be the fifth
techno-economic system in which humans have lived. The
first - the Hunter-Gatherer Society - gave way to
Agricultural Society about 10,000 years ago.
Agricultural Society began yielding to a third system -
Industrial Society - about 1750, when steam engines
began appearing in England. About 1950, a fourth system
- the Information Society - began to take shape, but it
now appears that the Information Society will not last
more than a few decades longer before yielding to a
society focused on dreams, adventure, spirituality, and
feelings.
( Rolf Jensen* )
* Dr Rolf Jensen is the author of the international
best-seller "The Dream Society: The Coming Shift from
Information to Imagination," and director of The
Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, Europe's
largest future-oriented Think Tank.
more from Rolf . . . . "We - and by we I mean consumers
in the rich part of the world - stand with one leg in
the high technology scientific, logical, information
society, and with the other leg in the Dream Society. In
this place, the story-teller reigns supreme: The person
who can appeal to our feeling . . . .
Example: from an ice cube for your drink to an ice cube
from the glaciers of Greenland. This ice cube has been
in storage for several thousand years, and when it
melts, fresh air from the time that Cleopatra was a
little girl, is released. Even an ice cube can tell a
story.
Example: from branded coffee to Single Estate Coffee.
Coffee that not only comes from Columbia, but from a
particular coffee farm. It's from the 1998 harvest to
boot, a harvest which was particularly good because of a
plentiful rainfall in the month of May.
. . . . . . . technological progress will bring about
the automation of the production of goods and data, and
this advance will naturally be accompanied by a decrease
in the price of goods and data. The consumer will be
able to afford to buy items which appeal to the heart,
will be able to afford to buy stories". (Rolf Jensen
"The Dream Society II" from myweb.com/partners)
perhaps one day, we will be able to buy enlightenment,
like buying a face-lift or some other cosmetic surgery.
---------------------------------------------------------------
STEF JACKSON
Allspirit
"Between us, it is not so much the issue of falling in love
as it is finding another eccentric soul in this world who
does not find you and your ways strange."
--Bell Hooks, from "Wounds of Passion: a Writing Life"
---------------------------------------------------------------
VIORICA
WEISSMAN
from MillionPaths
DISRUPTING THE ROUTINES OF LIFE
In order to be a hunter you must disrupt the routines of your
life. You have
done well in hunting. You have learned quickly and now you can
see that
you are like your prey, easy to predict.
You have observed the habits of animals in the desert. They eat
and drink
at certain places, they nest in specific spots, they leave their
tracks in
specific ways; in fact, everything they do can be foreseen or
reconstructed
by a good hunter.
There are certain animals, however, that are impossible to track.
There are
certain types of deer, for instance, which a fortunate hunter
might be able
to come across, by sheer luck, once in his lifetime.
What do you think makes them so difficult to find and so unique?
They have no routines. That's what makes them magical.
A magical being is a sight to behold.
~~Castaneda - Journey to Ixtlan
---------------------------------------------------------------
whispersofthebeloved
from Sufi_Poetry
'One, One, One'
The lamps are different,
but the Light is the same.
So many garish lamps in the dying brain's lamp-shop,
Forget about them.
Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light.
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire,
The Light streams towards you from all things,
All people, all possible permutation of good, evil, thought,
passion.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind,
Endlessly emanating all things
One turning and burning diamond,
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down,
To blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
You are gazing at the Light
With its own ageless eyes.
Now the pure luminosity of the dharmata is shining before you;
recognize it.
O son of noble family, at this moment your state of mind is by
nature pure
emptiness, it does not possess any nature whatever, neither
substance or
quality such as colour, but it is pure emptiness; this is the
dharmata. . .
This mind of yours is inseparable luminosity and emptiness in the
form of a
great mass of light, it has no birth or death, therefore it is
the Buddha of
Immortal Light.
To recognize this is all that is necessary."
What exactly this emptiness or luminosity is cannot, by
definition, be
described. In the Tibetan Book of the Dead the emphasis is on
recognizing
one's true nature, that which is no-thing in particular but
rather the field in
which all things arise -- itself being visionless, though
producing visions;
itself being structureless, though exhibiting structure; itself
being
non-existent, though producing existence.
The clear void light is absolutely paradoxical, since the
"I" cannot grasp it,
nor can the mind by its subject/object dualism conceive it.
read the whole article:
http://www.angelfire.com/realm/bodhisattva/chand2.html
---------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN METZGER
NDS
meet the spiritual chicks
http://www.beliefnet.com/frameset.asp?pageLoc=/story/114/story_11480_1.html&boardID=46727
Thanks, Melony. I'm
aware of my own truth-making
and unmaking. The new Brother Void out today:
"Mysteries are not necessarily miracles."
-- James Baldwin
Life is a confusing mess. You get blindsided by a drunk driver.
You
fall in love when you least expect to. Your firstborn becomes an
accountant. Things happen that bring you great pain or pleasure
and
change your life forever. To find your bearings amid such chaos,
you
choose to believe that these events happen for a reason. It was
meant
to be, you tell yourself, and this comforts you. But to live
truthfully, you must forgo this comfort. You must accept that
there
is no cosmic plan -- just a story you tell yourself after the
fact.
As you try to weave each twist and turn of your life into some
coherent whole, you artfully fashion the meaning you need. Things
are
not meant to be, they are made to mean.
Everything happens for a reason I make up.
Melony, The long and winding road finally
gives way to... being longer and more winding
than expected.. John
~~~
Felix:
It would appear that being a story teller is much more human than
being a saint.
There seems to exist some exclusivity in the doing of it, what
other creature can
make meaning out of their experiences? And yet, most animals do
live life as
innocently as saints.
~~~
Alan:
We do not need to think about it ( a cosmic plan existing or not
) .
The I am/ I am not .... switches of the mind.
How many do we really need ?
---------------------------------------------------------------
GENE POOLE
NDS
Jerry wrote:
There is a lot at the website. I don't know how helpful it is to
someone who is not in the spiritual game, however. How would
people
explain nonduality to their Uncle Jack? It would make sense to
relate
to a person's experiences and background. Some examples might be
interesting.
GENE:
I remember years ago an episode of 'The Beverly Hillbillies'
in which Jethro, while on an airline flight, recited a
riddle to an attractive stewardess, to whom he was
attracted. He hoped to impress her with his cleverness:
"This is someone in your family... who is it?
It isn't your father
It isn't your mother
It isn't your sister
It isn't your brother...
Who is it?"
"I don't know", replied the stewardess...
"It's ME!", cried Jethro...
Of course, that was the correct answer, when
Jethro was told the riddle... but he did not
comprehend that the teller of the riddle,
was not the 'me' in question... he did not see
that the answer is 'you', when telling the
riddle...
Similarly, when 'describing' 'nonduality' to
someone... which is similar to telling a riddle,
don't you know... the answer is 'you'...
==Gene Poole==
Now appearing
as 'other'
---------------------------------------------------------------
JOHN METZGER
from allspirit
PIECE OF COAL
The piece of coal that wanted to be diamond
said to the earth: Press me.
The succulent grape that wanted to be wine
said to the feet: Crush me.
The cloud that wanted to be thunder and rain
said to a facing cloud: Collide with me.
The mountain that wanted to be level valley
said to the elements: Erode me.
The oyster that wanted to produce a pearl
said to a sand-grain: Irritate me.
The heart that wanted to be filled with light
said to the world: Break me.
So what's the surprise
at the onslaught, the relentless
avalanche after avalanche of rose petals
in the form of insurance payments,
natural disasters, arthritis,
heart trouble and death?
Rose petals big as houses
propelling through the air at us
like the shields of Hussars
which leave us flat on the battlefield dazed,
but then they assume their
rose petal shapes again
piled in drifts around our
prostrate bodies, so that if our
prostrate bodies are taken away there'll be
the perfect outlines of the absolute
blessings that have
showered upon us
like the chalk outlines of forensic
destiny
O our lives cry out to be pressed to
diamond, call out to be
crushed to wine, sing out to be made to
fall as merciful rain all around us,
our mountains cry out to be worn down
to passable valleys
Nansen is just an idiot who killed a cat to make a point.
Just like any other idiot with a point to make.
Joshu surpassed Nansen his teacher, and thus
put his sandles on his head and left.
The students are idiots who assumed that someone must
be enlightened, felt intimidated by this
projection of authority, and were frozen
in awe of the unexpected behavior of their
teacher.
The moral of Nansen's demonstration
is that the unexpected is where truth
is -- yet it's an absurd demonstration--
because the unexpected isn't demonstrable.
Once demonstrated -- it's the "familiar" as in:
"oh my -- he killed a cat" ...
There's no need to kill a cat to show the unexpected
truth -- just open your eyes.
No need to be a Zen monk to find the
unexpected -- it's all around ...
When the observer drops off, the observed drops off,
and there is no one to comment. Indeed -- "dropping
off"
is not -- and life and death
are concepts which drop as well.
But because life and death are concepts that drop, it
would be absurd to suggest that no cat was killed,
or that slicing a cat with a sword doesn't kill anything.
The idea of "unreality" drops as well.
The theory of uncertainty has no applicability.
There is nothing to speculate about, no concept of
exist or not-exist.
Yet, this doesn't mean that the day-to-day experiential
awareness we mistake as life is a total illusion with
no meaning. Far from it.
One lives "impeccably" to use Don Juan's nice phrase --
because one doesn't conceptualize
an existence for oneself or anyone or anything else.
Joshu behaved impeccably, everyone else in the story
still had a sense of continuity. Even Nansen showed
a subtle sense of continuity -- by making a statement
to shatter monks' complacency --
by having something to impart about discontinuity.
We began as a mineral.
We emerged into plant life,
And into the animal state,
And then into being human,
And always we have forgotten our former states,
Except in early spring when we
Slightly recall being green again.
That's how a young person turns toward a teacher.
That's how a baby leans toward the breast,
Without knowing the secret of its desire,
Yet turning instinctively.
Humankind is being led along an evolving course,
Through this migration of intelligences,
And though we seem to be sleeping,
There is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream,
And that will eventually startle us back
To the truth of who we are.
An old grave hidden away at the foot of a deserted hill,
Overrun with rank weeds growing unchecked year after year;
There is no one left to tend the tomb,
And only an occasional woodcutter passes by.
Once I was his pupil, a youth with shaggy hair,
Learning deeply from him by the Narrow River.
One morning I set off on my solitary journey
And the years passed between us in silence.
Now I have returned to find him at rest here;
How can I honor his departed spirit?
I pour a dipper of pure water over his tombstone
And offer a silent prayer.
The sun suddenly disappears behind the hill
And I'm enveloped by the roar of the wind in the pines.
I try to pull myself away but cannot;
A flood of tears soaks my sleeves.
~~Ryokan
-------------------------------------
From the website: http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/zenpoetry.html
