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 10 Aug 2005 @ 09:39
The true man of ancient times knew nothing of loving life, knew nothing of hating death. He emerged without delight; he went back in without a fuss. He came briskly, he went briskly, and that was all. He didn't forget where he began; he didn't try to find out where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it; he forgot about it and handed it back again. This is what I call not using the mind to repel the Way, not using man to help out Heaven. This is what I call the True Man.
---Chuang-Tzu
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
---Edward Abbey
Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the room.
---Simone Weil
Cindy Sheehan hears the Sheriff
While jailed reporter Judith Miller decides with her cellmate every night who gets to sleep on the floor [link] , activist mother Cindy Sheehan tells reporters she may be arrested tomorrow as a security threat. As news sources around the world are reporting (if their corporate owners allow them) Ms. Sheehan has walked as far as they'd let her down the road to the President's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is taking a 5-week vacation (the longest presidential retreat in 36 years). Well, he does say he goes there "to meet with folks in the heartland and hear what's on their minds" [link] . Of course we know he never can let himself be disagreed with in public, so Cindy Sheehan bakes in the sun. She is telling reporters she's been notified that she and supporters will be cleared out when the Secretaries of State and Defense come to the ranch tomorrow. At the moment, people are boarding planes, trains, buses and anything else that will get them to Crawford in case that happens. More >
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 1 May 2005 @ 10:44
Stand in awe, and sin not;
commune with your own heart,
and in your chamber, and be still.
---Psalm 4:4
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.
---William Wordsworth
The fact that astronomies change while the stars abide is a true analogy of every realm of human life and thought, religion not least of all. No existent theology can be a final formulation of a spiritual truth.
---Harry Emerson Fosdick
The old photos are of my country grandmother in her garden, and of little Dickie learning about the flowers from Mom.
Whenever I attempt an essay about my early days in Western New York, I usually can expect an email of corrections from my sister, Ann. She seems to remember the facts of what, where, and when better than I do, burdened as I was of course with being such a visionary. And also she's a few years younger than I am. (Correction #1 may come regarding the word "few".) But last evening she wrote me a note requesting some things out of my memory. Here it is~~~ More >
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 24 Jan 2005 @ 10:35
Brothers, have no fear of men's sin. Love a man even in his sin, for that is the semblance of Divine Love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God's creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery of things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
---Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Meditation is not the means to an end. It is both the means and the end.
---Krishnamurti
"What have you come here for?" Master Ma-Tzu asked Hui-Hai.
"I have come seeking the Buddha's teaching."
"What a fool you are," Ma-Tzu said. "You have the greatest treasure in the world inside you, yet you go around asking other people for help."
Hui-Hai bowed and said,: "Please, Master, tell me what this treature is."
"Where is your question coming from? THIS is your treasure---precisely what is asking the question at this very moment. You are the master of everything."
---Zen mondo
The February issue of Prospect has a cover story that should give us all a goal toward which to work. And time is of the essence (even if it is a few billion years)!
Escape from the universe
Michio Kaku
The universe is destined to end. Before it does, could an advanced civilisation escape via a "wormhole" into a parallel universe? The idea seems like science fiction, but it is consistent with the laws of physics and biology. Here's how to do it. More >
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 19 Nov 2004 @ 10:51
I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
---John Muir
Excessive stress is involved in a wide variety of medical conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure, ulcers, acid reflux disease, strokes, and many other illnesses. Though most of us have heard that deep breathing can help us relax in the midst of stressful situations, many of us do not really know how to breathe deeply. We do not really know how to breathe deeply. We do not know how to quiet our minds and emotions and release the unnecessary tension in our diaphragm, ribs, belly, and back that restricts our breathing. As a result, our efforts to deal with stress through deep breathing often result in shallow, fast breathing which tends to make us even more nervous, anxious, and tense than we already are.
Though it is extremely important to your breath and health to learn how to quiet your mind and emotions and to release unnecesarry tension in your breathing muscles, there is a simple breathing practice that you can use in the meantime to help you relax. In this approach, you simply emphasize and lengthen your exhalation. The long exhalation helps turn on your parasympathetic nervous system, your "relaxation response."
Using this technique, there's nothing to do except to make sure that your exhalation is longer than your inhalation. You don't have to count to do this. Just put your attention on your breathing as you exhale. Sense the air from your lungs going out slowly and gently through your nose. When you're finished exhaling, don't put your attention on the inhalation. In fact, don't make any kind of effort to inhale at all. Just wait for your inhalation to arise by itelf. Take several complete breaths in this way.
If, after several breaths, your exhalation still isn't longer than your inhalation, simply imagine that you are gently blowing out a single candle as you exhale slowly and effortlessly through pursed lips. Take several more breaths in this way, and you will soon find yourself beginning to relax. To deepen this relaxation, you can hum for several breaths.
---Dennis Lewis
Breathing in, breathing out, feeling resentful, feeling happy, being able to drop it, not being able to drop it, eating our food, brushing our teeth, walking, sitting---whatever we're doing could be done with one intention. That intention is that we want to wake up, we want to ripen our compassion, and we want to ripen our ability to let go, we want to realize our connection with all beings. Everything in our lives has the potential to wake us up or to put us to sleep. Allowing it to awaken us is up to us.
---Pema Chodron
The photo is from the increasingly popular image site Sorry Everybody. [link] More >
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 10 Oct 2004 @ 12:11
Life is a maze in which we take the wrong turning before we have learned to walk.
---Cyril Connolly
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
---Robert Green Ingersoll
Clear stream, meanders by this hamlet, flowing.
Long summer days, at River Village, everything at ease.
Coming, going, as they please, the pairs of swallows soaring.
Paired and close, the gulls float with the stream.
My old wife draws a board for chess.
My son bends pins for fishhooks.
I'm often sick, but I can find good herbs.
What, beyond this, could a simple man ask?
---Tu Fu
This morning I find myself trying to catch up with a new documentary entitled Unconstitutional: The War On Our Civil Liberties. We watched it last evening. It's produced by Robert Greenwald, who also brought us Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election, Uncovered: The War On Iraq, and more recently Outfoxed, an in-depth look at the Fox News channel. All of these films were released directly to the public by online and mail order purchase on VHS and DVD, with only secondary emphasis on theater distribution. You may recall that Outfoxed was premiered at thousands of house parties across the States, which anyone could host or attend just by contacting MoveOn.org. When you buy one of them online, it arrives in only a few days. [link] We had ordered Unconstitutional about a month ago, but it sat on our to-watch table in front of the TV until last night. Stupid us, we've been too "busy."
Yes stupid, because chronicled in that film is a lethal erosion of the basic freedoms we take for granted in our country. It's an erosion in the form of a piece of legislation named the USA Patriot Act, which you may recall President Bush mentioned in the 2nd debate the other night. He urged its strengthening and expansion. The Patriot Act was printed at 3:45 AM the morning Congress passed it. You probably saw Michael Moore, in Fahrenheit 9/11, driving around the Capitol in an ice cream truck, reading the act aloud for congresspeople who voted for it without reading. The legislation that was printed in the dead of night was not what came out of committee, but rather a form of the bill which Ashcroft wanted that had been amended by Congress. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the government over the constitutionality of the Patriot Act, even as the Justice Department declares classified the very evidence the ACLU is demanding. [link] More >
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