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Nondual Highlights #1526 ~ August 17, 2003 ~ Editor: Gloria
13 de agosto de 2003, 16h57
The annual ceremony, known as Zhanfo, which means Buddha worship, is held at the Gandan Temple in Dapchi, southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2003. Over 10,000 disciples prayed to a Buddha portrait printed on a huge piece of cloth, together with tourists from foreign countries and other parts of China attending this year's Zhanfo ceremony, one of the grandest Buddhist activities in Tibet. (AP Photo / Xinhua, Gesong Dawa)
Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit Inspiration
You no sooner attain the great void
Than body and mind are lost together.
Heaven and Hell - a straw.
The Buddha-realm, Pandemonium - shambles.
Listen: a nightingale strains her voice, serenading the snow.
Look: a tortoise wearing a sword climbs the lampstand.
Should you desire the great tranquillity,
Prepare to sweat white beads.
~Hakuin
'The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry'
Edited and Translated by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto
Poems of Jimmy Santiago Baca
poet, author, screenwriter, father, ex-con
Who Understands Me But Me
They turn the water off, so I live without water,
they build walls higher, so I live without treetops,
they paint the windows black, so I live without sunshine,
they lock my cage, so I live without going anywhere,
they take each last tear I have, I live without tears,
they take my heart and rip it open, I live without heart,
they take my life and crush it, so I live without a future,
they say I am beastly and fiendish, so I have no friends,
they stop up each hope, so I have no passage out of hell,
they give me pain, so I live with pain,
they give me hate, so I live with my hate,
they have changed me, and I am not the same man,
they give me no shower, so I live with my smell,
they separate me from my brothers, so I live without brothers,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?
who understands me when I say I have found other freedoms?I cannot fly or make something appear in my hand,
I cannot make the heavens open or the earth tremble,
I can live with myself, and I am amazed at myself, my love, my beauty,
I am taken by my failures, astounded by my fears,
I am stubborn and childish,
in the midst of this wreckage of life they incurred,
I practice being myself,
and I have found parts of myself never dreamed of by me,
they were goaded out from under rocks in my heart
when the walls were built higher,
when the water was turned off and the windows painted black.
I followed these signs
like an old tracker and followed the tracks deep into myself
followed the blood-spotted path,
deeper into dangerous regions, and found so many parts of myself,
who taught me water is not everything,
and gave me new eyes to see through walls,
and when they spoke, sunlight came out of their mouths,
and I was laughing at me with them,
we laughed like children and made pacts to always be loyal,
who understands me when I say this is beautiful?~ ~
Standing and Breathing
(last 2 of 12 stanza poem)
and the time for explanations
is gone, vapid and sordid self-flattery because we handle language so well,
I don't hear the cactus explaining his-self,
nor the mimosa tree chattering in the front yard why it is
the color it is,
nor the water as it streams down hill
telling me it has to do so,
just is,
just as we are and have been,
once we cut the shit we've been taught to believe
and get on our knees and hands and scrape up what we threw away
a long time ago,
put back together that old egg-shell angel and prop it
on our shoulder,
by the winds and magic of our hearts,
it's start flapping wings and blessing us
again,
and no, no, no,
until there ain't no room for the I'm confused chants,
for the yeah what about me snivels,
for the fear that comes from talking out loud
in places and in front of people
that pay your salary,
fuck them,
fuck their noose around me neck
I chewed right through that piece of limp frayed rope,
I seen through their words and found a nest of fanged lies,
I touched their flesh and it was colder and chilled
than a ice-tray in the frig,
no room for nothing
except my beautiful sister, beautiful woman that you are,
to love yourself and sing your songs
that come from a river way below the stone and the fancy clod feet of the rich,
that black molten fire that is the tongue of all birthing origins,
that song that kept us alive,
that protected us against the predators,
full of fleas and smelling of shit song,
the one that our mothers a thousand years ago
hummed when they carried us
in a time when dinosaurs grumbled the blues....
Jimmy Santiago Baca Standing and Breathing
©CopyrightJimmy Santiago Baca
read entire poem: http://nieveroja.colostate.edu/issue2/stndbrth.htm
author's bio: http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=564
Kheyala ~ Adventures at Rasa Ranch #124
8/16/03 "Tender Leaves"
Yesterday we went to a children's festival at our town's park. There was a huge flurry of activity with people of all ages moving about, costumes, crafts, entertainers and more. I had completely lost myself in the excitement of it all until I became aware that there had been a slow crescendo of complaints coming from the little guy in the baby backpack.
I quickly chose a "quiet" spot beneath a tree to the side, laid his plump body across my lap, and lifted one side of my shirt as the bubbling river of youth-energy rambled right by us. The moment the baby and I were face to face, it was as if all time came to a halt. Somehow his happy eyes were so still! All that existed for me right then was a vast silence in the form of the two of us looking at each other in an instant that seemed to stretch itself to eternity.
He nursed a bit and then paused. His eyes traveled upward, and his face broke into a smile. He reached and pointed one puffy baby finger into the air and sang out a joyful "Aaaaaaa." I tilted my head down and to the side, resting my temple on his forearm and gazing along the line of his finger so that I could see what it was that delighted him so. On first glance, all that was apparent to me was a high umbrella of leaves. But then I started to notice how very green they were, being exquisitely lit up from behind in the late afternoon sun. And I noticed how the breeze was tenderly kissing them, causing them to just barely brush against one another in a gentle dance that I am certain I have never seen before in all of my life! "Aaaaah," I answered back with enthusiasm, and when I glanced back at him he acknowledged our mutual wonder with a big and shiny two-toothed grin.
Verteg ~ E-Zendo When even dogs believe in ghosts
On the night of the blackout, around about 9:30 I went out with one of
my girlfriends to take a walk through the city, flashlights in tow. It
was incredible, most of the people had moved outside their houses and
were having little candle parties on their front lawns. One group had
even hauled out an old gramaphone record player (the kind you wind up)
and were playing old jazz records from the 1930s. The kind of records
that break into a million pieces when you drop them - remember?
That night, back in my house, I found myself wanting to sit down in
meditation more often. I don't consider a meditation period to be
effective unless it reaches a certain level of QUALITY which I call
'effortless transparency'. This is when stillness no longer requires
any conscious effort, and the body feels very light and transparent -
almost as if it didn't exist. Developing the preconditions for
entering this level are not easy, and it is only during these
perfectly balanced periods that large quantities of time can drift by
and disappear almost unnoticed. During the blackout, in the deepest
darkest stillest hour, when even dogs believe in ghosts, I found
myself able to enter this level far easier than usual - and I wondered
- maybe the ancients were right - to remove themselves from the world
- to retreat to their lofty peaks and hidden valleys. Perhaps its
necessary, at least for a time.
Steve Toth ~ Rumi-Hafiz
photo of mare and foal by Al Larus FREE TIME
Some of the people I've met lately are ones
who should have died
in the past but didn't
So now they're living in a kind of free time
as are we all but most of us forget
I'm not about to tell survivors like these
that their lives are nothing
You can say life is a play
& just be reading your lines
You can say life is a game
& just be making your move
Life is more than a series of mock executions
It's what you discover
not what you know
that shows how alive you are
Everything we eat is a form of dirt
There's nothing in any plant
or animal body that can't be
traced back to the earth
Nature doesn't leave humans out
No matter how much we pay
none of this earth
will ever really belong to us
If God is where life comes from
then everyone reading this line
is living proof that God is alive
We all know one of these breaths
will be our last
but let's not hold on
to each one until we choke
Why spend your life giving moving speeches
to unmoved ignorants like us
when you could be writing love poetry
to the one you truly adore?
Why bring your own personal war
with you wherever you go?
Nobody can tell you anything you don't already know
Lovers don't play the victim
The source of love doesn't care if any of it returns
It's impossible to discourage a lover
Manuel Hernandez ~ A Net of Jewels
The Wisdom of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
"Life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple, in itself an ecstasy"
"My Guru ordered me to attend to the sense 'I am' and to give attention to
nothing else. I just obeyed. I did not follow any particular course of
breathing, or meditation, or study of scriptures. Whatever happened, I would
turn away my attention from it and remain with the sense 'I am', it may look
too simple, even crude.
My only reason for doing it was that my Guru told me so. Yet it worked!
Obedience is a powerful solvent of all desires and fears."
Freyja ~ NDS
No justified resentments
Justified resentments are feeling that
we have a right to blame, hold a grudge against,
or resent because of something that was
supposedly done 'against' us.
A Patanjali Sutra says:
If you become steadfast in your abstention
of your thoughts of harm towards others,
ALL living creatures will cease fo feel
emnity, fear, anger in your presence.
St. Francis of Assisi says the same:
No matter what comes my way,
i will send love in response to hate
So, dump the blame, the resentment
and the grudges...and that includes
towards yourself.
No justified resentments.
Tony O'Clery ~ Million Paths
Daily Words of the Buddha
August 17, 2003
Just as a solid rock
is not shaken by the storm,
even so the wise
are not affected by praise or blame.
Dhammapada 81
Cornelius ~ NDS
David Hawkins
http://www.beyondtheordinary.net/drhawkins.shtml
author of Power Vs Force. Archived interviews are 50min long.
Just wanna listen?
You require a Audio application (Realplayer-free version is easily
downloaded)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UniversalMeditations
Karta ~ Meditation Society of America
"What is this silence you are talking about? The silence operates
there in the city market. When I am talking, it is the expression of
the silence. You think there is no silence, when I am talking? You
think there is silence when you close your eyes, sit in one corner
and try to stop the flow of thoughts? You are just choked--that is
not silence. Go to the forest--that roar is the silence. Go to a sea-
-that is silence. Go right into the center of the desert--that is
silence. A volcano erupting--that is silence. Not the silent mind
trying to experience "silence." Silence is energy bursting.
U.G. continued saying, "What is the `silence' that you are after? Do
you hear those trucks passing by on the road and the flushing of the
toilet? Do you want to escape from all this and go and sit in the
caves? There is noise inside you wherever you go."
--U.G. Krishnamurti
