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Nondual Highlights Issue # 1439 Editor: Christiana
The_Other_Syntax@yahoogroups.com
"... Perception is a condition of alignment; the emanations inside the cocoon become aligned with those outside that fit them. Alignment is what allows awareness to be cultivated by every living creature. Seers make these statements because they see living creatures as they really are: luminous beings that look like bubbles of whitish light. The emanations inside and the emanations outside are the same filaments of light. Sentient beings are minute bubbles made out of those filaments, microscopic points of light, attached to the infinite emanations..."
TFFW Carlos Castaneda
Shawn Nisargadatta@yahoogroups.com
Hold onto the "riverbed." The cessation of thought does not make the bed come into being, but simply clears the water for an easier view. Awareness is always there, be aware of awareness. Nothing can be a hinderance, ultimately.
DC Vision allspirit@yahoogroups.com
Feasting Within Famine
I dare not exhale 
knowing how fragile
the moments are,
when all is right
in my world...
wrapped up in
this absorbtion
of effervescent joy.
I dare not speak
or the spell
may be broken.
What good can words
come to,
when there is nothing
to say
to add to
perfection?
I dare not seek
beyond the immediate,
for fear
that the anxious world
will crash in on
my solace,
my moment
where the music
of the heart
holds center stage.
Why must peace
and contentment
live as estranged neighbors
of mine,
on my street?
Why must joy
be such a rarity?
Happiness is
handed out as samples,
when we are in famine
and denial
of our hunger.
I dare not close my eyes,
knowing how fleeting
and fickle
reality is.
I will hold this breath
until either
this perfection,
or I
cease being.
©2003 DC Vision
Anois Blue Live Journal
This may be a bit on the mystical side
when it really has to do with
one's level of awareness but I think it is magical when you are
lost in
contemplation on one subject and similar, connected things come
along when you aren't looking for them. As if the first thoughts
pulsate
from a person's body in electro-magnetic waves that attract those
things that are connected and one thing leads to another and then
another until eventually they gather like Pick-Up Sticks lying
over and
under each other in one large, colorful connected pile.
A friend posted about Thomas Merton
which reminded me to
go in search of my favorite Merton poem and instead, I got lost
in
biography and come across a website that attempts to answer the
question, "What was the Christian monk looking to find in
his dialogue
with Buddhism?" Merton
said about his journey to Asia that he was, "going home to
the
home I have never been" and that he wanted to become
"as good a
Buddhist as I can." What is that if not a man determined to
cement his
own faith by giving himself over to the study of another faith,
not with an
eye to denounce it but to embrace it.
He didn't come about that idea on his
own. For Merton it was a lesson
he had tucked away for decades, one that he didn't think about
when
he was a fierce new Christian with no regard for any other
religion. But
then, that makes sense. The less one knows about their own
beliefs
the more they have to protect them.
It was as his own faith and
understanding grew that he remembered a
moment when he was in his early 20's that had a profound effect
on
him. He had met a Hindu monk and asked for suggestions on what he
should read. The monk surprised Merton when he didn't suggest he
read the great Hindi texts, but rather that he should delve into
the more
mystical Christian literature such as St. Augustine's
Confessions.
That's got to make someone think, huh?
It makes me think, Here is a
person so secure in their own spirituality that they can explore
and
question and consider how all the pieces fit together and they
don't
need me to believe what they believe as some numerical
confirmation
of its rightness. That's not common among people, especially in
any
discussion of religion or politics. Well, maybe with the
exception of the
Jesuits who have made questioning their calling.
Ghandi said that one could find
"the deeper roots of one's own
religious tradition by becoming immersed in other
religions."
What a way to influence another
person--send them back to their own
culture, their own traditions for the answers--let them find them
on their
own. That's what it's all about, isn't it? What a respectful
thing to do, as
well.
Mary Bianco to NDSN@yahoogroups.com
What Are You Really Afraid Of? David R. Loy
David R. Loy argues that our true fear
is not of dying, but of not existing
in the first place.
For the most part, we experience
ourselves as stable and persistent
beings, apparently immortal; yet there is also a sneaking
awareness of
our impermanence, the fact that "I" am growing older
and will die. The
tension between these two conflicting perceptions is essentially
the
same one Shakyamuni Buddha himself felt when, as the myth has it,
he
ventured out of his father's palace to encounter for the first
time an ill
man, an aged man, and finally, a corpse. While most traditional
religions resolve this tension by claiming that the soul is
immortal,
Buddhism does the opposite. Not only does it accept our mortality
in
the usual sense, but it also emphasizes the doctrine of anatta,
or
"no-self." Anatta
is central to Buddhism, and is closely connected to another
fundamental Buddhist idea: dukkha. Dukkhais usually translated as
"suffering," and is understood more broadly as
frustration or
unhappiness. Although psychotherapy today has more specific
insight
into the dynamics of our mental dukkha (repression, transference,
etc.),
Buddhism points more directly to the
root of the problem: it is not death
that underlies our deepest fears and mental suffering, but the
more
immediate and terrifying suspicion that anatta gives rise to-that
"I" am
not real right now. This suspicion appears in us as a sense of
lack and
motivates our compulsive but usually futile attempts to ground
ourselves with a fixed, unchanging identity.
Traditionally, religious institutions
reassured us that this sense of lack
will be resolved, and local communities provided a social home
and
role that made us feel more comfortable with ourselves. Today,
our
more individualistic culture means it is my own responsibility to
ground
myself-hence the ferocious competition for fame, money, sex
appeal,
and other things that, it is believed, will make me "more
real."
http://www.tricycle.com/p_articles_id_37.html
From the editors: Meet the NDH
community 
It is serendipity when we editors discover that the spirit and words which show up elsewhere to include in these highlights are written by someone already in this community. We have not mentioned this relationship. Perhaps, it is time to do so. As we sit in this circle of emptiness together, this affinity is good to be aware of.
If you have are a reader, and have a personal webpage you would like us to be aware of, please send us the link. If you would prefer not to be "outed" as a list member, let us know and we will, of course, respect this.
Today may I introduce you to:
James Traverse http://www.beingyoga.com
From the "Dimensions of Now" link
Less is More Nothing is Everything
Now is. All other dimensions are qualities which describe Now. They are the measurements and dimensions of change. As the definition evolves it includes, and is dependent on, the previous aspects.
In a certain way, now gets stretched when viewed from other dimensions. The 1st dimension stretches now linearly, the 2nd dimension adds width, the 3rd dimension adds depth, and, the 4th dimension is movement (time) within space. (the 4th dimension is Now completely unfolded).
Now can be lived Intuitively, but not Intellectually, because the very attempt to understand Now Intellectually is negated by the medium of the explanation (like a wave, the local mind exists as movement - intellectual knowing is identification with the movement - the natural state of the relaxed brain is multidimensional attention).
Less is More. The Yogic understanding of Less always provides More. In Yoga practice you get more by doing less.
~ What time is it? Have you ever experienced a time other than this?
~ It is the identification with the whirl (the world) of the local mind that is the trap because what you give attention to will expand - this is how the I-entity is formed and sustained. So what stops is this concretization of energy as the ego barrier, and, without this energy the barrier collapses, then the Light of what you are naturally acts.
~ It is the emptiness of a vessel that makes it UseFull.
Buddhists hold key to happiness
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=857&e=14&u=/nm/oukoe_health_buddhists
LONDON (Reuters) - Buddhists really are
happy, calm and serene 
people -- at least according to their brain scans.
Using latest scanning techniques, neuroscientists have discovered that certain areas of the brain light up constantly in Buddhists, and not just when they are meditating, which indicates positive emotions and good mood.
The scanning studies by scientists at
the University of Wisconsin at
Madison showed activity in the left prefrontal lobes of
experienced
Buddhist practitioners. The area is linked to positive emotions,
self-control and temperament.
Other research by Paul Ekman, of the
University of California San
Francisco Medical Centre, suggests that meditation and
mindfulness
can tame the amygdala, an area of the brain which is the hub of
fear
memory.
Ekman discovered that experienced
Buddhists were less likely to be
shocked, flustered, surprised or as angry as other people.
Flanagan believes that if the findings
of the studies can be confirmed
they could be of major importance.
"The most reasonable hypothesis is
that there is something about
conscientious Buddhist practice that results in the kind of
happiness
we all seek," Flanagan said in a report in New Scientist
magazine.
more from Anois Blue aka Lisa Haynes
http://www.homestead.com/rainsatnightproductions/LisaHaynes.html
We are all life time students and
teachers, after all--of the things that
move us, of the experiences that shape us, of history, of the
earth. We
may be good students or not, but living is the largest act of
learning.
What I think I know about learning:
1. When there are conflicting views, it
is just as 
necessary to know the opposing view as
it is to
know your own. Not just to quote it or
to throw it
out in sound bites of derision, but to
get inside
it; to understand why a person would
hold it to
be true; to understand the reasons, the
fears,
the needs behind the view. Arguing for
the
opposite viewpoint allows you to explore
your
own beliefs and if you still hold them
after great
exploration, you will hold them gently
and
respectfully and your arguments will be
better
for it. You won't need to hold your
views to you
with anger which too many of us do, as
if anger
were a weapon of righteousness.
2. School is necessary, yes, but real
learning
occurs when you are on a fearless
journey of
self-discovery; when questions mean as
much
as answers; when one subject leads to
another
and then another in a circle of
awareness.
3. Knowledge is a wide river and there's
many
ways to cross it. It is necessary to
choose
respected mentors, not to parrot them
but to
absorb what you can and use what they
teach
(sometimes inadvertently) as stepping
stones.
4. If something resonates within you, make note of it.
5. True learning requires listening,
contemplation
and exploration. There is no pop quiz.
Beware
the true or false and multiple choice
portions.
They may be easier but the bigger points
are in
the essay questions. Don't fear
them.
~ You see, thoughts are never linear and rarely are they house-broken.