Click here to go to the next issue

Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day

#1716 - Tuesday, February 24, 2004 - Editor: joyce (know_mystery) 

Photo by Alan Larus

music: Central.mid from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Panhala/ 

In the dark of the moon, in flying snow,
in the dead of winter,
war spreading, families dying,
the world in danger,

I walk the rocky hillside,
sowing clover.

~  Wendell Berry  ~

"February 2, 1968"

In spring, hundreds of flowers;
in autumn, a harvest moon;
In summer, a refreshing breeze;
in winter, snow will accompany you.
If useless things do not hang in your mind,
any season is a good season for you.

~ Ekai ~

SNOW

The rain of the south has never congealed into icy, glittering snowflakes. Men who have seen the world consider this humdrum; does the rain, too, think it unfortunate? The snow south of the Yangtze is extremely moist and pretty, like the first indefinable intimation of spring, or the bloom of a young girl radiant with health. In the snowy wilderness are blood-red camellias, pale, white plum blossom tinged with green, and the golden, bell-shaped  flowers of the winter plum; while beneath the snow lurk cold green weeds. Butterflies there are certainly none, and whether or no bees come to gather honey from the camellias and plum blossom I cannot clearly remember. But before my eyes I can see the wintry flowers in the snowy wilderness, with bees flying busily to and fro - I can hear their humming and droning. Seven or eight children, who have gathered to build a snow Buddha, are breathing on their little red fingers, frozen like crimson shoots of ginger. When they are not successful, somebody's father comes to help. The Buddha is higher than the children; and though it is only a pear-shaped mass which might be a gourd or might be a Buddha, it is beautifully white and dazzling. Held together by its own moisture, the whole figure glitters and sparkles. The children use fruit stones for its eyes, and steal rouge from some mother's vanity-case for its lips. So now it is really a respectable Buddha. With gleaming eyes and scarlet lips, it sits on the snowy ground.  Some children come to visit it the next day. Clapping their hands before it, they nod their heads and laugh. The Buddha just sits there alone. A fine day melts its skin, but a cold night gives it another coat of ice, till it looks like opaque crystal. Then a series of fine days makes it unrecognizable, and the rouge on its lips disappears.  But the snowflakes that fall in the north remain to the last like powder or sand and never hold together, whether scattered on roofs, the ground or the withered grass. The warmth from the stoves inside has melted some of the snow on the roofs. As for the rest, when a whirlwind springs up under a clear sky, it flies up wildly, glittering in the sunlight like thick mist around a flame, revolving and rising till it fills the sky, and the whole sky glitters as it whirls and rises.  On the boundless wilderness, under heaven's chilly vault, this glittering, spiralling wraith is the ghost of rain....  Yes, it is lonely snow, dead rain, the ghost of rain.  January 18, 1925  ~ Lu Xun ~ "Ye Cao (Wild Grass)"

Kevin Large ~ OmniConscious & Mirehiels ~ Harmonic_Concordance

Strange New World

An interactive philosophical simulation

Snowcrystal Photomicrograph by Wilson Bentley From TPM Online: Strange New World is based on a scenario portrayed in the film The Matrix (but it is not endorsed or in any other way approved by the makers or producers of the film). When you start Strange New World, a scenario will unfold where you will be in contact with someone who lives outside the Matrix. What this means will become clear as you progress through the activity. Your journey through Strange New World will take around 10 minutes. At the end, you will be able to read, if you choose, about the philosophical ideas that underlie the activity. If you prefer, you can just take the trip and chew over the implications for yourself... http://www.philosophers.co.uk/games/matrix_start.htm http://www.philosophers.co.uk/games/matrix.htm http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OmniConscious/ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Harmonic_Concordance/  Helga ~ OmniConscious Headless Tao Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu Rhyme and Reason by Jim Clatfelter Book of Tao 1. Words and names are not the way They can't define the absolute It's better that you look within Hold your tongue and just be mute Look within and look out too You will not find a separation Out there you see appearance Within you see origination Look within with wonder At emptiness and bliss For wonder names totality Where nothing is amiss The space within is always there If you can moderate desire A place of utter emptiness And possibility entire Lao Tzu begins the Book of Tao by telling us that the Tao, the absolute, cannot be defined with words. He says we must look for it. He will repeat this theme throughout. This looking or seeing is total seeing - looking out at the world of appearance and looking in at its origin in the spacious emptiness at the very center of our being. This emptiness is truly empty and truly great because it contains all possibility, all potential, and all that appears. It's the source of all that exists - and aware of itself as such. What a promise! He even tells us where to look. Look within for origin. Look without for creation. Look and see both ways simultaneously. Origin and creation are one! Lao Tzu makes another promise. This emptiness that is totality is also bliss and wonder. Bliss is our true identity! Read the rest: http://www.geocities.com/~jimclatfelter/jimztao.html

  Joyce Short ~ Sangha

Snowflake Koan - Part I Its a fabulous day! Its snowing and each little snowflake is pelting down certain and with complete confidence that it knows exactly where it is going and where it is going to land. There are zillions of them swirling around as one, and yet each so unique. No fear at all of melting -it seems, {grin} ~ Joyce Short ~ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sangha/

Snowcrystal Photomicrograph   by Wilson Bentley

  Helga ~ OmniConscious  

Excerpted from "Clarity" by Nathan Gill
"... Well, as it happened, in September 1998 an event did occur. I was gardening and it was drizzling with rain. I looked up and there was a subtle sense of ‘me’ not being there. I got on my bike and cycled around the lanes and it seemed like there was a movie going on without any effort needed on my behalf to be taking part in it.   Even though Tony had pointed out that no event is necessarily associated with the recognition of your nature as Consciousness, I had obviously still been subtly waiting for one because now that this event, or experience, was occurring I gave myself ‘permission to be awake’. Without realising, I had been waiting for confirmation of my true nature.   I rang Tony and excitedly explained what was going on and, having given myself ‘permission to be awake’, I allowed myself to speak from the clarity of understanding that had already unfolded during the years of the process of my seeking before the event took place. Suddenly, I no longer related as a seeker to Tony and he recognised that I now spoke directly from my nature as Consciousness.   Now, having associated this event with being awake, I started to get a bit precious about it. Instead of seeing this event as merely another appearance in awareness I assumed it was the ‘enlightenment’ I had been waiting for. I overlooked the fact that the recognition of my true nature had already been the case for some time, that I had simply not acknowledged this was so because I was subtly expecting an event to confirm it and so now I became focussed on the event itself.   I woke the next day. Was it still there? Yes! Then, after a few days, I noticed that the event was wearing off a bit, but a couple of days later it was full on again. After a couple of weeks of it coming and going and of trying to hold on to it, I went to one of Tony’s discussions and the event seemed to be re-charged by being there but then a few days later it disappeared altogether. I didn’t say anything to Tony about it and I didn’t go to the meetings for a while. I felt confused again.   Then I happened to read a book called "Collision with the Infinite" by a woman called Suzanne Segal who described an ongoing event lasting many years which she referred to as ‘the vastness’. After several years she was told by certain ‘teachers’ that this experience was ‘enlightenment’. Then she got ill and died, and, in the afterword to Suzanne’s book which was written by a therapist friend of hers, I read that near the end she had become confused and frustrated because the vastness event had disappeared.   Suddenly it became clear to me that these events - I call them transcendental events - actually have nothing to do with clarity. A transcendental event can last a few seconds or ten years or maybe even the rest of your life, but a transcendental event is just that. An event, an appearance. Many people have these events and sooner or later it disappears and often the person is left with a desire for more of it. They think they have been given a taste of ‘enlightenment’, when all that has happened is that there has been a transcendental event. Walking down the street is an event, but it’s an ordinary one so you don’t go looking for more of it.   The confusion was gone. I no longer required any transcendental event to prove my nature as Consciousness, as this in which all appearances come and go like waves rising and falling on the sea. It was clear that the whole of my life and ‘spiritual’ search was arising as a play in Consciousness or awareness and I understood the confusion around this whole issue, why ‘spirituality’ and ‘enlightenment’ are confused with simple clarity. This recognition of my true nature was not associated with any transcendental event. It was clear that a transcendental event of any kind is easily confusing if it occurs without clarity - understanding of your true nature. Obviously the transcendental event that appeared had nothing to do with clarity of understanding. The occurrence of the event merely brought my confusion to a head and allowed me to see clearly how I had been subtly waiting for an event as permission to be what I already am.   I see now that no transcendental event has any significance in the light of plain, ordinary, everyday clarity..." "
~  Nathan Gill ~   http://www.nathangill.com/book-online/pages/arial-small/frame-02.html http://www.nathangill.com/

Stillmind2000 ~ Sangha

Snowcrystal Photomicrograph by Wilson Bentley Snowflake Koan - Part II Why is each snowflake unique? Why is no two snowflake the same? How is it so? ~  Stillmind2000  ~

Wilson A. Bentley

The Snowflake Man

"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."

Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley 1925

From the earliest memories of our childhood, many of us can remember hearing the phrase "no two snowflakes are alike". This discovery was made in the small rural town of Jericho, Vermont by Wilson A. Bentley (1865-1931).

A self educated farmer, Bentley attracted world attention with his pioneering work in the area of photomicrography, most notably his extensive work with snow crystals (commonly known as snowflakes). By adapting a microscope to a bellows camera, and years of trial and error, he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal in 1885.

He would go on to capture more than 5000 snowflakes during his lifetime, not finding any two alike. His snow crystal photomicrographs were acquired by colleges and universities throughout the world and he published many articles for magazines and journals including, Scientific American and National Geographic.

In 1931 his book "Snow Crystals", containing more than 2400 snow crystal images, was published by McGraw-Hill but has long been out of print. A soft cover copy, identical in all respects, can be obtained today from Dover Publications, Inc.. On December 23, 1931, Bentley died at the family farmhouse in Jericho. Because of his wonderful work with snow crystals, he became affectionately known as "Snowflake" Bentley.

More at: http://snowflakebentley.com/

Krishnamurti Tells A Joke  

"There are three monks, who had been sitting in deep meditation for many years amidst the Himalayan snow peaks, never speaking a word, in utter silence. One morning, one of the three suddenly speaks up and says, ‘What a lovely morning this is.’ And he falls silent again. Five years of silence pass, when all at once the second monk speaks up and says, ‘But we could do with some rain.’ There is silence among them for another five years, when suddenly the third monk says, ‘Why can’t you two stop chattering?"
"The Kitchen Chronicles: 1001 Lunches with J. Krishnamurti"   http://www.katinkahesselink.net/kr/jokes7.html

Stillmind2000 ~ Sangha

Snowflake Koan - Part III Identical twins are clones yet these clones are not the same Why?

Snowcrystal Photomicrograph by Wilson Bentley

Panhala ~ Joe Riley

(Dedicated to the memory of Mary Ferrell,
a dear friend who fought against the darkness.)

 
from The Cure at Troy
 
Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.
 
The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home.
 
History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.
 
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
 
Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
 
That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.
 
~ Seamus Heaney ~
 
 

Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Cure_at_Troy.html

Web archive of Panhala postings: www.panhala.net/Archive/Index.html

To subscribe to Panhala, send a blank email to
Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
 
music link
(left button to play, right button to save)

Every day priests minutely examine the Dharma
and endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though,
they should learn how to read
the love letters sent by the wind and rain,
the snow and moon.

  ~  Ikkyu  ~

top of page