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#1611 - Weekend, November 8-9, 2003 - Editor: Gloria

 "Purple Leaf" by Alan Larus http://www.ferryfee.com/bluesky/valley&rain.htm  

Since everything is none other
Than exactly as it is
One may well just break out in laughter.
~Long Chen Pa

Daily Dharma

Ordinary experience plus mindfulness plus equanimity
yields insight and purification.  In this formula,  each
term is defined very precisely. Ordinary experience is
defined as hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, the feeling
body and the thinking  mind.  Mindfulness is defined as
specificity in awareness, clarity in awareness, continuity
in awareness, richness in awareness, precision in awareness.
Equanimity is defined as not  interfering with the flow of
the senses at any level,  including the level of preconscious
processing.

~Shinzen Young


For example when you wash a dirty piece of cloth,
the water becomes black with dirt.  You don't see
the black dirt as a negative thing since it means the
cloth is getting clean.  In the same way,  when you
practice dharma negative karmas can ripen causing
you  to get sick because  you're  purifying so much
negative karma by practising dharma.

~Lama Zopa Rinpoche

  Gill Eardley ~ Rumi to Hafiz    

From: 'The Essential Rumi'  Barks/Moyne

~ The Dream That Must be Interpreted ~

This place is a dream.
Only a sleeper considers it real.

Then death comes like dawn,
and you wake up laughing
at what you thought was your grief.

But there's a difference with this dream.
Everything cruel and unconscious
done in the illusion of the present world,
all that does not fade away at the death-waking.

It stays,
and it must be interpreted.

All the men laughing,
all the quick, sexual wanting,
those torn coats of Joseph,
they change into powerful wolves
that you must face.

The retaliation that sometimes comes now,
the swift, payback hit,
is just a boy's game
to what the other will be.

You know about circumcision here.
It's full castration there!

And this groggy time we live,
This is what it's like:

A man goes to sleep in the town
where he has always lived, and he dreams he's living
in another town.

In the dream, he doesn't remember
the town he's sleeping in his bed in. He believes
the reality of the dream town.

The world is that kind of sleep.

The dust of many crumbled cities
settles over us like a forgetful doze,
but we are older than those cities.

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 the 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.


Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk  

 
If you wish to understand yourself, you must succeed in doing so in the midst of all kinds of confusions and upsets. Don't make the mistake of sitting dead in the cold ashes of a withered tree.

-Emyo

From "The Pocket Zen Reader," edited by Thomas Cleary, 1999. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Boston, www.shambhala.com.

  Gill Eardley ~ Allspirit Inspiration  

From: 'After the Ecstasy, the Laundry'
by Jack Kornfield

Embodied Enlightenment

Enlightenment must be lived here and now through this very body
or else it is not genuine. In this body and mind we find the cause
of suffering and the end of suffering. For awakening to be an
opening into freedom in this very life, the body must be its
ground.

Embodied enlightenment is not about special psychophysical
accomplishments, mastering the yogas of inner fire, fulfilling
sexual tantras, or developing a rainbow body. Yes, certain
Tibetan lamas can sit naked in the snow at 18,000 feet and
generate sufficient heat to melt the snow in a twenty-foot
circle around their bodies. And Catholic saints have demon-
strated stigmata and miraculous healing powers. "But these
powers are not the true miracle," said the Buddha. "Awakening
to the truth is the miracle." Embodied enlightenment is about
living wisely in your particular body, as it is, on this day, in this
amazing life.

Western Buddhist meditation master and nun Pema Chodron calls
this understanding "The Wisdom of No Escape."

        It is helpful to realize that being here, sitting in meditation,
        doing simple everyday things like working, walking outside,
        talking with people, eating, using the toilet, is actually all
        that we need to be fully awake, fully alive, fully human. It's
        also helpful to realize that this body that we have, this very
        body that's sitting here right now in this room, this very
        body that perhaps aches, and this mind that we have at this
        very moment, are exactly what we need to be fully human,
        fully awake, and fully alive. Furthermore, the emotions that
        we have right now, the negativity and the positivity, are what
        we actually need. It is just as if we looked around to find out
        what would be the greatest wealth that we could possibly
        possess in order to lead a decent, good, completely fulfilling,
        energetic, inspired life, and found it all right here.

Enlightenment flowers not as an ideal, but in the miraculous reality
of our human form, with its pleasures and pains. No master can
escape this truth, nor does enlightenment make the vulnerability
of our body go away. The Buddha had illnesses and backaches.
Sages like Ramana Maharshi, Karmapa, and Suzuki Roshi died
of cancer in spite of their holy understanding. Their example
shows we must find awakening in sickness and in health, in
pleasure and in pain, in this human body as it is.

How do we touch this body of life, the joys and sorrows of
it? An embodied awakening neither denies nor reviles the
body, nor does it grasp and mindlessly indulge in pleasures.
In embodied awakening we become present for the life that is
given us, respectful of what the Tibetans call "this precious
human form." Tsong Khapa, the Tibetan master, taught: "This
human body is more precious than the rarest gem. Cherish your
body; it is yours for this one time only ... a thing of beauty that
passes away." Such a respectful presence allows the life of
our body to be blessed.


Allspirit Website: http://www.allspirit.co.uk

Disappointment

I was feeling pretty religious
standing on the bridge in my winter coat
looking down at the gray water:
the sharp little waves dusted with snow,
fish in their tin armor.

That's what I like about disappointment:
the way it slows you down,
when the querulous insistent chatter of desire
             goes dead calm

and the minor roadside flowers
pronounce their quiet colors,
and the red dirt of the hillside glows.

She played the flute, he played the fiddle
and the moon came up over the barn.
Then he didn't get the job, —
or her father died before she told him
             that one, most important thing—

and everything got still.

It was February or October
It was July
I remember it so clear
You don't have to pursue anything ever again
It's over
You're free
You're unemployed

You just have to stand there
looking out on the water
in your trench coat of solitude
with your scarf of resignation
             lifting in the wind.

by Tony Hoagland, from What Narcissism Means to Me (Graywolf Press).

Ben Hassine ~ NDS  

Steve Roach - Structures from Silence  

There is one album that transmits clarity very directly.  It is Steve Roaches "Structures from Silence". It awakens the inborn memory of childlike I AM-ness. In the attachment there is a file and when you click it Real Player will play a medley I found on this page:   http://www.steveroach.com/MP3/albums.php3    

You can find Structures from Silence under "Atmospheric Space", it's well worth listening to.  

The second track on the album is called Quiet Friend. Very significant :-)        

Once Jean Klein said Bach made a composition that has the same ability to transmit something of this gentle clarity and even awaken the inborn memory of it within.   He heard this in J.S. Bach's "Die Kunst der Fuge" (The Art of Fugue) BWV 1080. I was drawn into this music as soon as I heard it.   http://www.kunstderfuge.com/bach/canons.htm#Art   The midi files can be found under this heading:

~ 'Die Kunst der Fuge, Herrn Johann Sebastian Bach, ehemahligen Capellmeister und Musikdirector zu Leipzig' ('The Art of the Fugue', from 1749, BWV 1080 ~

another good bach place
http://tinyurl.com/ua45
this one too, quite big:
http://www.angel.ne.jp/~kcn/?..midi
and finally the ocean of free classical music:(mp3 and all)
http://www.classicalarchives.com/bach.html

bach operates all his life, all his music on only one mood: joy
sure, joy is not a mood, it is the natural state of the tao

The creative power of music is by all means one of the most direct ways to express the inexpressible. That is my strong conviction.   Have a nice Sunday,   Ben.  

Magazine: Yoga Journal
Issue: November/December 1997
Title: The Spirit of 9 to 5
Author: D. Patrick Miller

THE SPIRIT OF 9 TO 5

Does your work life feel like a Dilbert cartoon? Here are some practical ways to put the soul back into it. By D. Patrick Miller

A recent Publishers Weekly feature noted that while workaday stress may be hell on the rank and file, it is something akin to heaven for America's publishing industry. Tens of thousands of books marrying spirituality and business have been sold in recent years. The idea of sanctifying the office has spawned an enthusiastic cadre of consultants who advise executives, managers, and employees on how they can bring their souls to work.

In a keynote address at a Heartland Institute conference on Igniting Purpose and Spirit in Work, Matthew Fox an excommunicated Catholic priest and author of The Reinvention of Work declared that business, not academia or organized religion, is most likely to be the cultural force that brings spirituality back into the world.

All work contains drudgery, but the joy of work must be greater than the pain, Fox insisted. There is a mystical insistence that work needs to be about joy.

1st excerpt:

GET CLEAR ABOUT MONEY. Now here's a lifelong discipline. As unspiritual as it may seem, the capitalistic mindset actually worships money. The first step to personal economic liberation is to recognize money as a means to greater ends, never an end in itself.

To stay awake spiritually in business means applying your deeply felt values to the material world right down to the discussion of how much money you get and how much money I get, without whining, flinching, or being vague, says Honora Foah, a veteran of the contemporary spiritual practice known as Subud and creative director of the Atlanta multimedia firm Visioneering.

Once an actress and dancer who identified with the archetype of the starving artist, Foah initially resisted the unavoidable task of financial management when she joined the successful company founded by her husband. For the longest time I felt like I was chewing rocks; I really hated dealing with money. But when I finally turned around and faced it, money became a very important spiritual discipline for me just doing the math because I had never been the kind of person to do it.

Recommended practice: First you have to recognize how unclear you may be about money, and that means paying close attention to what you do with it not just at tax time, but every single day. There's no better guide to this eye-opening (and sometimes mind-blowing) discipline than Your Money or Your Life, by the late Joe Dominguez.

Next, figure out which problems in your life would actually be solved by money and exactly how much dough would be required. For this exercise you may need a broader philosophical overview than you'll find in typical self-help financial guides; one good resource is Jacob Needleman's Money and the Meaning of Life.

Finally, devise a workable plan for achieving serenity, intimacy, and fulfillment for the rest of your life based on the assumption that you'll never have the amount of money you need to solve your problems. Impossible? Then you're still not clear about money. Return to the beginning of the practice.

2nd excerpt:

HOW TO BE A CORPORATE MYSTIC By Gay Hendricks and Kate Ludeman

Corporations are full of mystics. Over the past 25 years we have been in many boardrooms and many cathedrals, and we have discovered that the very best kind of mystics those who practice what they preach can be found in the business world. We are now convinced that the qualities of these remarkable people, and the principles they live by, will be the guiding force for 21st-century enterprise.

What is a corporate mystic? The dictionary says that mystics are those who have been initiated into esoteric mysteries. It says that mystics intuitively comprehend what is true. The people we call corporate mystics seem to operate at a level of effectiveness that appears esoteric until you understand the principles they are drawing on. In addition, the mystics we have known definitely have a strong connection with their intuition and know how to use it where it counts. We go further in our definition, however: Corporate mystics are those who operate from a base of integrity, pursue their visions with passion and compassion, and evoke the full potential of those with whom they come in contact.

We believe that these qualities will become crucial in the century to come, when change occurs at a rate that may be hard to imagine even in our speeded-up present. Here is an opportunity to check yourself out against these qualities, attitudes, and operating strategies. Find out how many of these characteristics are part of your life already.

ABSOLUTE HONESTY. Every single mystic we interviewed said the same thing: The first secret to success in business is to say only things that are true and to say them with total consistency. Business people get into trouble when they say one thing to the banker, one thing to the customer, one thing to the board. We have facilitated many emotionally charged sessions in which company executives admitted lies, distortions, and concealments to people who had believed them. Yet even though these meetings were often loud and long, we have never seen a situation where absolute honesty did not pay off. People cannot relax and produce at their finest in an atmosphere of distortion and concealment. Honesty brings out the best in everyone. In other words, integrity is not just a noble idea, it's a tool for personal and corporate success.

Corporate mystics are also honest, even brutally honest, with themselves. They want to know the truth, even though that truth is sometimes personally painful.

FAIRNESS. Scrupulous attention to fairness distinguishes the corporate mystic. They do what they say they are going to do. They don't do what they say they're not going to do. And all of this is carried out with across-the-board fairness and consistency.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE. Human beings are born learning, and the moment we stop learning we start to die. Corporate mystics are particularly concerned with learning about themselves. They recognize that our minds, bodies, and spirits are the instrument by which we carry out our actions, so they put a great deal of attention on examining their motives, history, and feelings.

FOCUS ON CONTRIBUTION. Early in his executive development work, one of Gay's clients was a CEO who had been uprooted by the shifting winds of corporate politics. Gay recalls, I asked him point-blank why he didn't just retire right then in his early 50s. After all, I said, you have more than enough money to live on for the rest of your life. You could play golf, enjoy your grandchildren, get to know your wife. What would you miss that would be worth getting back into the fray for? He looked at me with a total incomprehension. The contribution,' he explained, as if he were showing a child how a clock worked. When I retire I want to be completely satisfied that I have made my full contribution. I'm not finished yet.'

NONDOGMATIC SPIRITUALITY. Corporate mystics tend to be allergic to dogma, and often remain at a distance from religion in its more structured forms. Rather, they attempt to live their lives from the universal sources of spirituality that underlie differing beliefs. Above all, spirituality means deeds, not words, to the corporate mystic. MGet More Done by Doing Less. To get more done by doing less is a credo and a key operating style of corporate mystics. They put a great deal of attention on learning to be in the present, because they have found that this is the only place from which time can be expanded. If you are in the present not caught up in regret about the past or anxiety about the future time essentially becomes malleable. When you are in the grip of the past or the future, there is never enough time, because you are trying to be in two places at once.

CALL FORTH THE BEST OF THEMSELVES AND OTHERS. Most mystical traditions speak of a clear space at the center of ourselves, whether it is called soul or spirit or essence. It is what some call the higher self and represents who we really are at the core. Corporate mystics know how to stay focused on this essence in themselves and in their coworkers, and how to bring it forth reliably.

OPENNESS TO CHANGE. Mystics have a respect and even a fondness for change that reaches down into their cells. They know that everything is change that's the way life works in this part of the universe. At times they may have unpleasant feelings about the direction of change, but they are careful not to let those feelings limit their ability to respond.

A SPECIAL SENSE OF HUMOR. Corporate mystics laugh a lot. They are quick to point out the quirks of life and the human animal, and they are quick to include themselves in the joke. They can laugh at themselves and do because they have embodied a basic duality: the sacredness of life and the utter absurdity of it at times.

KEEN DISTANT VISION AND UP-CLOSE FOCUS. Corporate mystics have a gift for engaging people in big dreams. They can stand in a future that does not exist and map out the details of how to get there. At the same time they can look steadily at right-now reality.

UNUSUAL SELF-DISCIPLINE. Corporate mystics are fiercely disciplined, but it is a discipline born of passion. They generally do not rely on the kind of authoritarian discipline that is driven by fear. They motivate themselves through a clear sense of purpose, not with the shoulds and oughts of a fantasized ideal. This type of discipline makes them flexible and adaptable rather than rigid.

BALANCE. Mystics keep a keen eye on balancing their lives in four main areas: intimacy (including marriage, family, and close friendship), work, spirituality, and community (including social and political life). The balance between work and intimacy is usually where problems occur. A considerable amount of our consultation time has gone into helping extremely busy people achieve a harmonious balance between work and home.

From The Corporate Mystic by Gay Hendricks and Kate Ludeman. Copyright 1997 by Gay Hendricks, Ph.D. Used by permission of Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing, Inc.

http://www.natural-connection.com/resource/yoga_journal/spirit_of_9_to_5.html

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