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#3243 - Thursday, July 31, 2008 -
Editor: Jerry Katz
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
In this issue announcement of a new search engine for nonduality.com. And two very short stories, one by Pete and one by Jerry.
A new and powerful search engine has been added to nonduality.com. Try it here: http://nonduality.com
Over 3600 documents are indexed, which includes all the Highlights as well as hundreds of other pages on nondual topics.
The provider is PicoSearch. I used PicoSearch for a few years. Then I switched to Google site search. Google was neither highly reliable nor could it be configured. PicoSearch is highly configurable and is fun to use. The more specific your search, the better.
Let me know if you have recommendations for improvement.
--Jerry
A Miracle, A Revelation, A Sign from Above
by Pete
30 years ago, while vacationing in Frisco.
My wife, who thinks, jewelry stores are
outlets from Heaven dragged me into one. Feeling
superior, I, disdainfully, glanced at the
glittering necklaces within the glass case that
she was inspecting with rapt attention.
"Look, Pete, a Buddha! Let me buy it for you."
I saw an inch long, quarter inch wide piece
of rusty pinkish orange coral carved into a
Buddha face. It was very well done in the
Indonesian style. It was set in a gold clasp.
I, who have always looked down on jewelry as
an unmanly deluded affectation, suddenly, had
an urge to wear that piece. I have been wearing
that Buddha face hanging from a gold chain
ever since.
Last night if fell off from its clasp, and got
glued to my shoulder. On waking up, my shoulder
was aching, and I rubbed it, and the little piece
of coral fell in my hand. I looked at it. The
face of Buddha was gone. The piece of coral was
as smooth as if it never had been carved. Thirty
years of rubbing against my skin had erased the
lovely Buddha face. What does it mean?
A miracle, a revelation, a sign from above? I have
come to the end? I am about to attain extinction?
I have developed alligator skin? Sweat is corrosive?
Maybe, it simply means coral is a soft stone, all
things are impermanent, no face can last, not even
Buddha's carved in stone.
Pete
http://cerosoul.wordpress.com
http://awakefiction.wordpress.com
I was a skinny kid, lacking the strength and stamina to play sports, and a sufferer of migraine headaches. I had few friends and no girlfriends.
It didn’t take much strength or talent to body surf, so that was my sport in the 60s on Santa Monica beach.
I enjoyed going into the ocean when the lifeguard station flew a solid red flag signaling the riptide. A riptide is a strong flow of water from near the shore out into the ocean. You are swiftly carried into deep water. The natural tendency is to fight the pull and swim towards the shore. The strongest swimmer either drowns or is saved.
Swimming parallel to and edging toward the shore, I would catch waves and ride them further inland until the water was shallow enough that I could walk from sea to shore. It didn’t take strength to be free of a riptide. You had to swim and stay calm.
After high school and on weekends I worked part-time at Henshey’s department store. One day several co-workers met at the beach.
The solid red flag was waving. It was understood that no one would be swimming today. Bridget Beaulaire, tall and lean with long flowing reddish bronze hair, urged the other girls to feel Len Harding’s biceps and abdominals. “Feel them!” she delighted. He wore the attention of women as comfortably as the sand between his toes. “Lenny, show your Mr. Universe pose.”
I said, “I’m going in.”
“Len, you should go too.” He didn’t want to. “You’ll be okay,” Bridget commanded.
The two of us walked to the water silently. Len looked back at least twice. We dove in and were carried swiftly into deep water. I started to swim north, parallel to the beach, riding waves at my leisure, enjoying the ocean. Len swam directly for shore. Waving his arms, he went under a couple times. I was too far from him. The richly tanned lifeguard in flag-matching bathing trunks dashed down the ramp of his tower.
A couple hundred yards away my co-workers gathered near the water. I jogged. Len lay on his back not far from where the water’s final foam reached. Bridget was kneeling at his side while the lifeguard and the others from work stood over him.
I watched him for awhile until there was no point any longer and headed into the water. Floating on my back, my co-workers quickly became small human figures on the sand. A wave came and I caught it. I came out of the wave and tried to swim straight for the shore. Exhaustion threatened to extinguish me. I cut to the left, north, and began to swim parallel. Waves guided me in. Shore to sea. Sea to shore.
I started a slow walk parallel to back home.