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#1600 - Tuesday, October 28, 2003 - Editor: Jerry    

 
Photo from Wildgarden's Live Journal  

What To Do

By Bob Rose

http://www.meditationsociety.com/  

Practice concentration on an object, sensation, or concept
for 20 minutes twice a day. Merge and emerge into meditation.
In the other 23:20, be in a meditative mode. Practice
mindfulness and being empty of mind. Enquire into "Who am I".
Discriminate between the real, eternal and infinite, and the
illusionary and temporary. Be dispassionate as you witness
your ever changing thoughts, physical sensations, and
emotions. Control the breath with pranayama. Chant a
mantra/OM. Do affirmations. Eat, sleep and drink as your body
needs, not as your tongue, habits, ego or desires dictate.
Recognize and break free from compulsive behaviors. Be
selfless, humble, and compassionate. Be generous, charitable
and quick to forgive others and yourself. Get over being
upset ASAP. Don't carry anger or revenge or anything else
that disturbs your peace. Don't rehash the past or fantasize
about the future. Do yoga, martial arts or some physical
activity. Appreciate the freedom that "Thy will be done"
brings to you. Detach yourself from the people, places, and
things that take your peace away. Spend time in nature. Be
kind to all, and helpful to animals, children and our elders.
Study scriptures and books of wisdom. Have a sincere burning
desire for liberation. Be patient. Dedicate your actions to
your divinity. Flow with visions and powers as they come and
let them go as they go. Witness the Witness in silence. If a
teacher comes to you, learn. Limitless in the eternal, finite
in the body, don't squander energy or time. Have fun, enjoy,
laugh. Love.

(This has been a sneak preview from the new Inner Traveler magazine, not yet on newsstands, published with permission. Along with The Highlights and Noumenon magazine, Inner Traveler, which focuses on meditation, is one of three independent (i.e., not affiliated with a specific school of thought, self-proclaimed guru, or religion) nonduality publications of which this editor is aware. --Jerry)  

God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, "Ah!"
-   Joseph Campbell
 
To take it personally...
 
There are also the several tree gods I have seen,
in three states.
 
And there is the tree who hugged me back,
exactly in proportion to the energy of my embrace.
 
He forgave me for snapping a dying limb with my foot,
in my greed.
 
(I went to the desert for awakening among the rocks
and the vastness, and found it was the "high desert",
full of trees.)
 
Rootedness, they said.
 
The unseen (wind) manifest in the movement of our leaves
and branches.
 
Sound, violent and gentle sound, then utter silence, in cycles.
 
Connection-- fire (sun) and rain, smell of Ponderosa
like vanilla, like mocha-dirt.
 
Yield of pinecones, so many eyes and eyelashes when we
fall apart, such a soft and tickly touch.
 
And comfort!, they said, yielding their wooden furniture
to the press of my body.
 
Holding me, without thought.
 
Bark, like skin, peeling off, shedding what once protected
but is no longer necessary, as they grow.
 
A new ring inside, a new strength, a new vulnerability arising
as we grow taller, closer to the sky and the inevitability
of lightning.
 
Less yielding in our age, we are more likely to snap.
 
Death and life together in a single tree, unsevered.
 
More and more beautiful...
 
 
-   Susanna Gandolf
NDS    

Gill Eardley
AllspiritInspiration  

From: 'Mysticism of Now' by Rafael Catala

Relationship is one of the most beautiful and spiritual
endeavors of the human soul. This is how we learn to
love God aright-in relationship with our sister, our
brother, and our environment. We need to really ponder
deeply about the nature of relationship.

As we begin to reflect we will soon discover how to agree,
how to have empathy and how to express our disagreements
and anger creatively. We will learn to see and understand
beyond appearances, and we will learn when to be silent
and when to speak. As we relate consciously not  unconsciously-
a feeling beyond words and thoughts, of the relationship of
oneness will one day become manifest. Then, slowly but surely,
we will begin to witness the work of God in our sister, in our
son, in our neighbor, and in the foreign family living on the
other side of the railroad tracks. Christ begins to shine as
the human being who happens to be your neighbor. It is here
that the depth of relationship is revealed when Silence speaks.

Daily Dharma  

"Although the true nature of beings is always the Buddha
essence, still we always wander in the ceaseless wheel of
life, not understanding that. May infinite compassion arise
for the limitless suffering of all beings.  

Although this infinite compassion is strong and unceasing,
the truth of its empty nature arises nakedly the very moment
it appears. This union of emptiness and compassion is the
highest faultless way. May we meditate inseparable from it,
the whole time, day and night.  

May we attain the state of Buddha through maturity,
realization, and completion, and develop beings through
divine eyes and clear sight arising through the power of
meditation. May we realize the Buddha fields and fulfill the
wishing prayer of the perfection of the Buddha qualities.  

You Buddhas and Bodhisattvas from the ten directions, through
your compassion and through the power of all the pure and
good that exists, may the pure wishing prayers of ourselves
and all beings be fulfilled, just as they were made."
~Karmapa Rangjung Dorje  

From the Tenth Chapter of the commentary on "The Great
Perfection: The Nature Of Mind", published at the website:
http://www.buddhistinformation.com  

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
John Donne  

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
   And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
   "The breath goes now," and some say, "No,"

So let us melt, and make no noise,
   No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
   To tell the laity our love.

Moving of the earth brings harms and fears,
   Men reckon what it did and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
   Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
   (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
   Those things which elemented it.

But we, by a love so much refined
   That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
   Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
   Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion.
   Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
   As stiff twin compasses are two:
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
   To move, but doth, if the other do;

And though it in the center sit,
   Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
   And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
   Like the other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
   And makes me end where I begun.  

---------------------------------------------  

No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. John Donne, Meditation XVII  

(John Donne contributed to NDS by Ben Hassine)  

I stole the life giving light of the gods,
Abiding as I AM now,
The rage of Zeus,
Can I endure.  

(contributed to NDS by Ben Hassine)  

from the Buddhists Community on Live Journal (authors are unidentified)  

...Soto Zen tradition preferably, without all the hoohah!
I'm not looking for frills and pretense, I want a place where I can sit.
I do this at home, but I've been considering finding myself a place with a teacher... it may be something I need, not sure to be honest.   Any suggestions for a place to go a few times a week in New York City, closer to Brooklyn would be great, or in Brooklyn, but like I said, no frills and dazzle, just sitting zazen.  

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you are welcome to join us!   www.wonbuddhist.org

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I was very impressed with Ordinary Mind Zendo when I visited Manhattan. The teacher, Barry Magid, studied under Charlotte Joko Beck, and seems to be quite clear of frills and dazzle. It might be a bit out of your way, but it's worth a visit at least. http://www.ordinarymind.com/  

Wildgarden
Live Journal  

for women who run with the...
~Wolf Rules~

1. Eat

2. Rest

3. Rove inbetween

4. Render loyalty

5. Love the children

6. Cavort in the Moonlight

7. Tune your ears

8. Attend to the bones

9. Make love

10. Howl often

David Hodges
Live Journal  

Because what I really wanted to say is...  

The walk this morning was wonderful....the world, in its
newly acquired frosty mask, was smiling at me.
All of reality seems full of presence when I can let my mind
settle down enough. Yoga helps with that. Its like, after a
while, a light goes on in an inner room that you always know
is there, but somehow you don't get to visit it much.  

I'd rather wander the streets a lot. Or go out in the country
for a walk in woods where leaves are falling. But I'm not
unhappy. Just a little too frantic at the moment.  

When I meditate or even when I walk, there is no one there,
inside here. And that's good. Losing your self is good.
realizing that awareness is all around you is good.
Everywhere, the world is alive and aware. Awareness looks
inward where I am one of the sights, but by no means a
remarkable one. Just some guy breathing while he looks back.  

Yeah, I have a lot of deep insights. But that doesn't find
you your hat and gloves on a cold frosty morning.

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