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 9 Feb 2005 @ 16:55
When Governor Lu was about to return to his office, he came to say goodbye to Nan-Ch'uan. The Master asked him: "Governor, you are going back to the capital. How will you govern the people?"
The Governor replied: "I will govern them through wisdom."
The Master remarked: "If this is true, the people will suffer for it."
---Zen story
Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.
---William Butler Yeats
Lent, then, is a church institution embodying an exalted idea, the idea of cleansing and disciplining both mind and body toward the end of making them more receptive to the Christ ideas.
---Georgianna Tree West
The photo is of composer Alban Berg, in army uniform in 1915.
This essay started out yesterday, Mardi Gras or Shrove Tuesday, as a forward of an amazing link from Bushman at his Log. You may be aware he's a gardener in Sedona, which sounds very poetic and adventurous---and he is that but he's also a graduate of a school for Very Hard Knocks. He has a website [link] , but mainly I wanted to share this other URL~~~
[link]
HaloRising seems to be a platform for creating interesting projects, in this case a kind of documentary/news report from the future. It's supposed to be a commentary for some sort of installation at a Museum of Media History in the year 2014. The piece is very brilliant and maybe chilling. If you're stuck with dial-up, as we are, you may lose patience with the load, even though the work runs only 8 minutes. If so, make a note of the site's location and try it at work or a library. Hmm, it just loaded for me in the time it took to write those 2 sentences...so maybe it won't be so bad for you after all. However, there are lapses...so when it's done, replay it by right-clicking and choosing "Play". Its creator is Robin Sloan whose site is [link] More >
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 15 Dec 2004 @ 09:31
Oh friend, awake, and sleep no more! The night is over and gone, would you lose your day also? You have slept for un-numbered ages, this morning will you not awake?
---Rabindranath Tagore
The man who in his work finds silence, and who sees that silence is work, this man in truth sees the light and in all his works finds peace.
---The Bhagavad Gita
I never hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, nor the mild cadence of a troop of grey plovers in an autumn morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry.
---Robert Burns
Grünewald, Matthias
Concert of Angels and Nativity, ca.1515
This year's Christmas greeting from beloved friend, mentor, poet John Tagliabue, and his beautiful artist wife Grace, are 3 new poems I'm delighted to share with you. His introductions to everything, including himself, are worth preserving, and so handwritten he says, "I've been hearing it said to me since 1923...Buon Natale and now in 2004 Grace & I say it to your family and we hope we all will have Good Health and Somehow Peace in 2005. All Good Wishes---Grace & John". Inside on lovely recycled paper are the poems, printed by Jan Owen, which I reproduce here exactly (without question or concerns you might expect from me about grammar, punctuation or spelling)~~~ More >
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 7 Jul 2004 @ 10:17
Part 1 of this topic has become a bit heavy to lift for those of us with dial-up Internet Service Providers. For those of you coming in from the outside, the link to that thread~~~ [link] You may prefer to continue the discussion here if you like or if convenient.
The photo is of a sculpture by Toots Zynsky (American, born 1951) and is titled Night Street Chaos, from the series "Chaos," 1998. It is made of fused and thermo-formed glass threads, 7 1/8 x 13 x 7 inches
Collection of the Tampa Museum of Art
To inquire after the truth, groping your way through the underbrush, is for the purpose of seeing into your true nature. At this very moment, where is your true nature?
---Tosotsu's First Barrier
If you realize your own true nature, you are free from life, free from death. But when the light of your eyes is failing, how can you be free from life and death?
---Tosotsu's Second Barrier
If you have freed yourself from life and death, you know where you will go. When earth, air, fire and water separate, where are you off to?
---Tosotsu's Third Barrier
I have a comment myself at this point which I shall post as the entry. I put "NCN Happiness" as the title to all this not because I was inviting further comment about the site itself, which is a topic many of us feel has been talked to death. However new people come in and are noticing things for the first time, so it is good for there to be an outlet for what they have to say. Nor did I put NCN in the title because I think a dogma of positive thinking power is insisted upon more here than anywhere else. The United States is full of it these days, and we have a legion of spin doctors to prove and enforce it. More >
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 21 Jun 2004 @ 03:47
Late at night I sit alone and work on deadwood zen
I stir the lifeless ashes the fire won't relight
Suddenly I hear the tower chime resound
Its single sound of clarity fills the winter sky
---Han-Shan Te-Ch'ing
I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgement, it takes place every day.
---Albert Camus
I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.
---Abraham Maslow
Happy Quartet
1901-02; Oil on canvas
Henri Rousseau 1855 - 1910
There is an urgency pressed upon us toward positive and happy thinking at New Civilization Network. Will new findings about happy people darken the horizon?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Times Magazine
June 20, 2004
THE WAY WE LIVE NOW
Against Happiness
By JIM HOLT
Sad people are nice. Angry people are nasty. And, oddly enough, happy people tend to be nasty, too. More >
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 27 May 2004 @ 02:08
The quest for certainty blocks the quest for meaning.
---Erich Fromm
Without raising a foot we are there already;
The tongue has not moved, but the teaching is finished.
Though each move is ahead of the next,
Know there is still another way up.
---Wu-Men
As for me, I delight in the everyday Way,
Among mist-wrapped vines and rocky caves.
Here in the wilderness I am completely free,
With my friends, the white clouds, idling forever.
There are roads, but they do not reach my world;
Since I am mindless, who can rouse my thoughts?
On a bed of stone I sit, alone in the night,
While the round moon climbs up Cold Mountain.
---Han-Shan
The gentleman who graces this final update on the major surgery I underwent early this month is Dr. William Batten, who has been my specialist through the whole ordeal. I want to express my appreciation to him for his skills, his personal approach, and his continuing openness to me for many basic needs. I must say as well I was astonished at the reasonableness of his charges---especially compared to the costs of hospital services.
Let me fill you in on where we are, tell you a bit more about Dr. Batten, and get specific about treatments and what comes next. Some of this we'll rate at PG-13, and you're welcome to skim through and drop out at any point. The last couple weeks have been a lot of work for me at home. I think we made it more difficult, in a way, by trying to get me off the potentially addictive pain-killers and onto ibuprofen before I was ready physically. This was a personal decision, because Dr. Batten wrote prescriptions for levels of medication from which we could choose. Yesterday the catheter was removed, concluding the mopping-up that began at the previous appointment, when stitches and 2 1/2 feet of drainage tubing were taken out. Dana got to watch that, while I just lay there---eyes shut. This means I retrain myself now to various inner workings, and in a couple more weeks enter the ongoing phase of monitoring for any appearance of cancer activity. That's why I think this can be the end of the journey, so to speak, with hopefully no more health news to report for a while. More >
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