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Issue 1379 Saturday, March 22, 2003 Editor   John

a day at blues creek
counting species wiped away
by green blinded geeks   most versatile breed
whether war hawk or peace lord
depends on fed creed!   stranded on death beach
agent orange took young leaves
but their shadow stays   bush palm beach and fogs
breathing problems killing grounds
agent orange rogues   fiery clouds light up
signs of an impending doom
wars and dire disease   a world of fire floats
on the sea of Iraq's oil
to pay for gunboats   the world's largest debt
powered by the stars and stripes
paid with Iraq's oil   ethics gene at bay
global warming chilly view
on a windless day   yo! all bridges bombed
praise gunboat diplomacy
hail eye for an eye!
  hurricane's blind date
clouds gather above palm bush
ghouls the pawns of fate   Gaia quakes with likes
California here they come
pure preemptive strikes!   whatever perceived
in the neural network soap
life is but a dream   view from top is best
even within deepest dreams
not one moment rest  

Jan   NDS

Marcia Paul   NDS   response to Jodi  

I am waxing sentimental. Perhaps it is the glass of wine
I am sipping. I have not written to this list in a year. I have
not read anything on this list in a year. But the same folks
are here. I appreciate you guys. ( I am not sure I would
appreciate Judy.) But what the heck. Dan I remember,
fondly. I am so self-focused. If no one responds then
then I think no one likes me. It is hilarious really.
Can anyone see the humor in this? It is absolutely
the funniest. Who the heck am I anyway? It is so
myopic.

I look at Judy. She talks about getting to the absolute
bottom of the barrel and then that is how one sees.
But that can't be the only way to "see". That is for sure
one way. I mean, my circumstances are different. I
have been married twenty five years. We are
comfortable. I took care of dying parents and that
was "real." I took care of a friend dying of mad cow
disease in December. I went with him across the
threshold of death. These things matter. They are
"real."

I watched "About Schmidt" last night. The one thing
he did that made a difference was to care for this
hungry child. What in one's life makes a difference?
Can we say...none of it makes a difference?

I see humans as "meaning making" entities. It seems
that nonduality is saying that there is no meaning. How
to reconcile this.

The thing about the Gurdjieff work is that it is about
conscience. Conscience is buried in essence like
Atlantis was buried. To me nonduality is so theoretical.
But then perhaps I just "don't get it" Some of the "old
familiar voices" here seem genuine. Is it me. Don't I
get it?

Jodi:
There are people in power with various agendas, but they are not 
super clever by most standards, although they maybe somewhat devious.

The nondual truth of it is: it is. It's been the natural outcome of the
process of evolution, not a conspiracy of secret societies.

There's little to be done expect to do your job (whatever that is)
and not expect anything.

At some point you'll understand that there is no "they" as there
is no "you" to be concerned with them.

Dan, Sat Karta   AdvaitaToZen  

Dan: Ken Wilber's complex maps to answer philosophical
questions that he thinks need maps, and Andrew
Cohen's self-serving notions of enlightenment
authorities, are just more of the same old,
same old -- dressed up in the clothes of enlightenment
instead of the clothes of churchianity.
  If you hear authorities making weighty pronouncements
about the way that enlightenment really works,
and what it's doing for humanity -- check that
your wallet is still in your pocket and smite
them with bolts of lightening immediately!
  The Emperor has no clothes!
  The first step to enlightenment is the last step --
and it requires no movement.
 
Unless one knows enlightenment now,
first-hand, enlightenment is a concept only for that one --
something one wants to get for whatever it is believed it will do for oneself, or whatever evolution one  believes it will bring for oneself.
 
So, you see -- enlightenment is just another thing
that I come up with so I can keep the game going,
with authorities, paths, those half-way up the
mountain, those at the top, all that stuff.
 
The pyramid of greed - whether it is greed for
enlightenment or money, is structured the same.
 
When for you there is no bottom nor top -- no
authority will be needed or sought -- no map
will be useful.
 
Then, which is now, you will know, that not
even a single step is involved.
 
Evolution requires time.
Time requires a place to form a perspective,
a perspective of a movement from before to after ... 
Enlightenment of no before nor after won't
be found evolving.
 
It won't be made into a program or a map.
 
It's like that old Christian song: "He's got the whole world in his hands ..."   It's got all the evolutions of all possible
beings in all worlds, in its hands.
And the devolutions.
 
But itself is not evolving, nor devolving.
 
Sat Karta: 
HI Dan
oh! i am shivering now, was this 
the burning bush talking me in 
the form of an enlightened person? 
i mean *Enlightened* as understood 
and excepted phenomena for ages by 
the religion biz and the sages..
 
or the lightening bold will struck
my wallet?
 
or was it a successful and bright 
phd talking with envy of an other one;
who by the much condemned word: "by *Practice*" as meditation etc
became Enlightened?
 
ps: "we are pure conditioning. And that conditioned 
entity thinks it knows something, has some knowledge upon which it 
can build. But in doing so, it is building upon the wrong
foundation,  because knowledge is always fragmentary, limited. 
 
It is always of 
thought, of the intellect, the mind, and what we are interested in
is  not new theories, new concepts, all resulting from mentation, but
to  go beyond the mind."

i see NO "going beyond mentation"
not much REAL exchange; but rather
repetitions of each of our own 
rhetoric: WITH NO INTENTION TO LEARN,
or even to listen to the other :-(((
 
Dan:
Learning can go on and on.

What is learned today is later forgotten.

We can pretend to influence each other in a
give and take.

But what is taken in today is given up later.

The peace where there is nothing to learn,
seems dead to an inquisitive mind.

The inquisitive mind doesn't want to know
that it has no place of its own.

It wants to keep on learning, doing, being.

It doesn't want to come to the noplace where
no minds or beings are.

But what it wants is only its own conceptuality,
for ever and ever, in the form of experiences.

And its wanting to continue is devoid of any truth.

This is peace.

Gloria, Xan   allspirit  

Words can never convey the beauty of a tree;
to understand it you must see it with your own eyes.
Language cannot capture the melody of a song;
to understand it you must hear it with your own ears.

So it is with the Tao [Self]:
the only way to understand
it is to directly experience it.

The subtle truth of the universe
is unsayable and unthinkable.
Therefore the highest teachings are wordless.

My own words are not the medicine but a prescription;
not the destination but a map to help you reach it.

To get there
quiet your mind
and close your mouth.

Don't analyze the Tao.
Strive instead to live it:
silently, undividedly,
with your whole harmonious being.

- Hua Hu Jing
Chapter 30

sandeep  being one http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2002/11/iraq2.shtml

Daily Dharma   Saturday morning

"In classical Buddhist terms, ‘the middle way’ involves not identifying with anything: either pleasure or pain, separateness or togetherness, attachment or detachment.  The middle way is not some bland middle ground.  Rather, it requires us to be alert and awake at all times, so that we do not harden into any position, no matter how righteous it may seem.  Not solidifying a position keeps us sensitive to continue to flow fluidly.  When two people become too invested in their positions (for example ‘I need more closeness’ versus ‘I need more space’), they become polarized and the

dance grinds to a halt." ~~John Welwood

From the book, "Toward a Psychology of awakening,” published by Shambhala.

In response to the world, the mystery deepens, widens, opens, includes,
shares, flows back.

There is an endless depth for us in the stillness, answers beyond our own
creation, unless we realize we are one with the divine.

I who sit, think, write, contemplate, write again, and pray, cannot fathom
the mystery. When I leave myself, the divine enters, fulfills me, reveals
things beyond my comprehension.

As so the language itself, shrouded in mystery, speaks impossibly about
paradoxical things, for how could I leave myself? How could I be one with the
divine?

Yet these are the words that resonate within, the very poetry of my soul.

I am one with the divine.

And I am apart.

We are magnificent goodness and impossible horror, bound up in being.

I watch this beautiful world crack, shatter, cry out.

Yet somehow within the deepening continues.

And I am one with the divine in a mystery beyond my comprehension.

I look within now for the beauty and truth.

And the more I look into the world the more deeply I must look within.

Eman8tions   March 22
John MacEnulty