Orff
Carl OrffO Fortuna
Velut luna
statue variabilis,
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem
egestatem
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem
Sors immanis
et inanis
rota tu volubilis
status malus,
vana salus
semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata
et velata
michi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.
Sors salutis
et virtutis
mihi nunc contraria
est affectus
et defectus
semper in angaria.
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!
English translation -
O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
and waning
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it
poverty
and power
it melts them like ice.
Fate - monstrous
and empty
you whirling wheel,
you are malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.
Fate is against me
in health
and virtue
driven on
and weighted down
always enslaved.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the string man,
everyone weep with me!
The vote is going on right now. 
I Judson John Laird have, Tourette syndrome. I write all these words without ticks.When I draw I have ticks but it makes drawing bettter. I love to scream and let it out.Taking off, shouting with words that I only know, I love poems and hearing about God and wisdom . God has ticks too.
Crayon, pencil charcoal color pencil. 2010 Judson John Laird
Good. What’s new? - Sain. Sonin yu bain?
Fulfill all your duties; action is better than inaction. Even to maintain your body, Arjuna, you are obliged to act. Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without any thought of personal profit.
- Bhagavad Gita 3:8-9
'On Antiwar Literature,' Kuroshima writes: "So long as the capitalist system exists, proletarian antiwar literature must also exist, and fight against it."
December 12, 1898 – October 17, 1943
The Asheville HUMANE SOCIETY needs blankets beach and batteries ,paper towels and peanut butter and food for cats and dogs. This is my plan. I will make 10 blankets and donate the other items on JANUARY 31 ,2010. I will make afgans.This is my promise to do good for the community. May this be so. Thank you for your help in any way.For more questions on helping this cause to do this act of kindness for the animals.For more infomation contact me at
Judson J. Laird
176 Mountain Bluff Trail
Hendersonville, NC ,28792-5677
Phone number is 828-808-4267 Judson juddie@kcwaters.com
A letter from the society after the storm of 2009
DEAR FRIEND OF ANIMALS:
As I write this letter, I have tears in my eyes. But they are tears of joy.
Despite our shelter taking the brunt of the worst winter storm in over a decade, I can report to you today that we have survived. The tree that threatened the building has been removed, the power is back on, and we are again open for business.
What brings me the greatest joy, though, is thinking about the people who got us through this crisis: the brave, compassionate staff who weathered the storm to take care of the animals… the committed volunteers who took dogs and cats into their homes on a moment’s notice… and the members of
the community who donated blankets, towels, heaters, and batteries to help us in a time of need. This is what love is all about.
At this special time, I want to thank you on behalf of all of us here at Asheville Humane Society. The simple fact is we could not do what we do without you, and for that we are extremely grateful.
Now, as we look ahead to the New Year, I hope you’ll find it in your heart to make a gift to Asheville Humane Society. Whatever you can afford will help us start 2010 with a renewed commitment to our mission. To make a donation, simply click here.
Thank you again for your support. It means so much to us and the animals in our care.
All my best to you and your family,
Shelly A. Moore, CAWA
President/CEO
P.S. Economic conditions have caused many people to turn in their pets to us. Your year-end gift will help us care and provide for an increasing number of animals that come into our shelter.
Blankets made so far.
Mahmud Shabistari
“I” and “you” are but the lattices,
in the niches of a lamp,
through which the One Light shines.
“I” and “you” are the veil
between heaven and earth;
lift this veil and you will see
no longer the bonds of sects and creeds.
When “I” and “you” do not exist,
what is mosque, what is synagogue?
What is the Temple of Fire? 
O Lord of creatures, Father of all beings, you alone pervade all that has come to birth. Grant us our hearts desire for which we pray. May we become the lords of many treasures!
- Rig Veda
Baba Kuhi is an Iranian Sufi poet-saint. He spent many years in retreat and prayer in a mountain cave just north of Shiraz.
He died in 1050 A.D., and was buried just outside of Shiraz, on a hill called "the green old man" (Pir-i-sabz). It is said that just before Baba Kuhi died, he made a famous promise that if anyone could stay awake for forty consecutive nights at his tomb that person would be granted the gift of poetry, immortality, and his heart's desire.
A story is told about the later Sufi poet Hafiz: When the young Hafiz was in mourning because the young woman he loved was to marry the prince of Shiraz, he remembered the famous 'promise of Baba Kuhi.' Hafiz hoped to gain the young woman's hand and kept his vigil at Baba Kuhi's tomb at night, working in the bakery by day. Finally, utterly exhausted, Hafiz saw a radiant angel who asked him what he desired most. Hafiz was so dazzled by the sight of the angel that he forgot about the young woman and declared that he wanted God.
In the market, in the cloister--only God I saw
by Baba Kuhi of Shiraz
(980? - 1050) Timeline
English version by
Reynold A. Nicholson
Original Language
Persian/Farsi
Muslim / Sufi
11th Century
In the market, in the cloister--only God I saw.
In the valley and on the mountain--only God I saw.
Him I have seen beside me oft in tribulation;
In favour and in fortune--only God I saw.
In prayer and fasting, in praise and contemplation,
In the religion of the Prophet--only God I saw.
Neither soul nor body, accident nor substance,
Qualities nor causes--only God I saw.
I oped mine eyes and by the light of His face around me
In all the eye discovered--only God I saw.
Like a candle I was melting in His fire:
Amidst the flames outflashing--only God I saw.
Myself with mine own eyes I saw most clearly,
But when I looked with God's eyes--only God I saw.
I passed away into nothingness, I vanished,
And lo, I was the All-living--only God I saw.
In the valley, on the mountain, I beheld only God. In hardship I saw Him by my side. In ease and well-being I beheld only God. Like a candle I melted in His flame. Amid the sparks of the flames, I beheld only God.
- Baba Kuhi of Shiraz, "Rabi'a the Mystic"
- Baba Kuhi of Shiraz, "Rabi'a the Mystic"
He is the sun dwelling in the bright heavens. He is the air in the interspace. He is the fire dwelling on earth. He is the guest dwelling in the house. He dwells in men, in the gods, in truth, in the sky. He is born in the water, on earth, in the sacrifice, on the mountains. He is the True and the Great.
Like a silkworm weaving her house with love from her marrow, and dying in her body's threads winding tight, round and round, I burn desiring what the heart desires.
- Mahadeviyakka
As the sun, which helps all eyes to see, is not affected by the blemishes of the eyes or of the external things revealed by it, so also the one Atman, dwelling in all beings, is never contaminated by the misery of the world, being outside it.
I do not want any patronage, as I do not give any. I am a lover of my own liberty, and so I would do nothing to restrict yours. I simple want to please my own conscience, which is God.
- Mahatma Gandhi, 1927
Bring me the elixir whose grace and alchemy
Bestows treasures, from bonds of time sets free
Give me so they'll open the doors once again
Of long life and the bliss that will remain
Hope for the World
Pencil , Charcoal 1988
Bush as I saw him. Pencil Charcoal 2005
He did alot for aids protection in the world. Glad to see him go.
Charcoal, Pencil ,Pastels, Color Pencil 2009 "Hope" Judson John Laird Pablo Neruda 
Neruda always wrote in green ink because it was the color of Esperanza (hope).
“ Look around—there's only one thing of danger for you here—poetry. ”
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Poetry
By
Pablo Neruda
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is longand I will be waiting for you, as in an empty stationwhen the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.Don't leave me, even for an hour, becausethen the little drops of anguish will all run together,the smoke that roams looking for a home will driftinto me, choking my lost heart.Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,because in that moment you'll have gone so farI'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
“No lejos de mí un solo día”
Pablo Neruda
No estés lejos de mí un solo día, porque cómo,
porque, no sé decirlo, es largo el día,
y te estaré esperando como en las estaciones
cuando en alguna parte se durmieron los trenes.
No te vayas por una hora porque entonces
en esa hora se juntan las gotas del desvelo
y tal vez todo el humo que anda buscando casa
venga a matar aún mi corazón perdido.
Ay que no se quebrante tu silueta en la arena,
ay que no vuelen tus párpados en la ausencia:
no te vayas por un minuto, bienamada,
porque en ese minuto te habrás ido tan lejos
que yo cruzaré toda la tierra preguntando
si volverás o si me dejarás muriendo.
Keeping Quiet
Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.
This one time upon the earth,
let's not speak any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.
It would be a delicious moment,
without hurry, without locomotives,
all of us would be together
in a sudden uneasiness.
The fishermen in the cold sea
would do no harm to the whales
and the peasant gathering salt
would look at his torn hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
wars of gas, wars of fire,
victories without survivors,
would put on clean clothing
and would walk alongside their brothers
in the shade, without doing a thing.
What I want shouldn't be confused
with final inactivity:
life alone is what matters,
I want nothing to do with death.
If we weren't unanimous
about keeping our lives so much in motion,
if we could do nothing for once,
perhaps a great silence would
interrupt this sadness,
this never understanding ourselves
and threatening ourselves with death,
perhaps the earth is teaching us
when everything seems to be dead
and then everything is alive.
Now I will count to twelve
and you keep quiet and I'll go.
-from Full Woman, Fleshly Apple, Hot Moon
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
POETRY
And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.
I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.
And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.
Read this poem in Spanish
In the center of the earth I will push aside
the emeralds so that I can see you---
you like an amanuensis, with a pen
of water, copying the green sprigs of plants.
What a world! What deep parsley!
What a ship sailing through the sweetness!
And you, maybe---and me, maybe---a topaz.
There'll be no more dissensions in the bells.
There won't be anything but all the fresh air,
apples carried on the wind,
the succulent book in the woods:
and there where the carnations breathe, we will begin
to make ourselves a clothing, something to last
through the eternity of a victorious kiss.
You sing, and your voice peels the husk
of the day's grain, your song with the sun and sky,
the pine trees speak with their green tongue:
all the birds of the winter whistle.
The sea fills its cellar with footfalls,
with bells, chains, whimpers,
the tools and the metals jangle,
wheels of the caravan creak.
But I hear only your voice, your voice
soars with the zing and precision of an arrow,
it drops with the gravity of rain,
your voice scatters the highest swords
and returns with its cargo of violets:
it accompanies me through the sky.
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's unique style was recognized in 1971 when he won the Nobel prize for Literature. His poems are often passionate odes to love and nature, and he was once noted by the New York Times as "the most influential, and inventive poet of the Spanish language."
Back to Poetry Index
I Like For You to be Still
I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.
As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.
I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.
And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.
I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it's not true.
Clenched Soul
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.
I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?
Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.
You will remember that leaping stream
where sweet aromas rose and trembled,
and sometimes a bird, wearing water
and slowness, its winter feathers.
You will remember those gifts from the earth:
indelible scents, gold clay,
weeds in the thicket and crazy roots,
magical thorns like swords.
You'll remember the bouquet you picked,
shadows and silent water,
bouquet like a foam-covered stone.
That time was like never, and like always.
So we go there, where nothing is waiting;
we find everything waiting there.
Too Many Names
Mondays are meshed with Tuesdays
and the week with the whole year.
Time cannot be cut
with your weary scissors,
and all the names of the day
are washed out by the waters of night.
No one can claim the name of Pedro,
nobody is Rosa or Maria,
all of us are dust or sand,
all of us are rain under rain.
They have spoken to me of Venezuelas,
of Chiles and of Paraguays;
I have no idea what they are saying.
I know only the skin of the earth
and I know it is without a name.
When I lived amongst the roots
they pleased me more than flowers did,
and when I spoke to a stone
it rang like a bell.
It is so long, the spring
which goes on all winter.
Time lost its shoes.
A year is four centuries.
When I sleep every night,
what am I called or not called?
And when I wake, who am I
if I was not while I slept?
This means to say that scarcely
have we landed into life
than we come as if new-born;
let us not fill our mouths
with so many faltering names,
with so many sad formallities,
with so many pompous letters,
with so much of yours and mine,
with so much of signing of papers.
I have a mind to confuse things,
unite them, bring them to birth,
mix them up, undress them,
until the light of the world
has the oneness of the ocean,
a generous, vast wholeness,
a crepitant fragrance.
Past
We have to discard the past
and, as one builds
floor by floor, window by window,
and the building rises,
so do we go on throwing down
first, broken tiles,
then pompous doors,
until out of the past
dust rises
as if to crash
against the floor,
smoke rises
as if to catch fire,
and each new day
it gleams
like an empty
plate.
There is nothing, there is always nothing.
It has to be filled
with a new, fruitful
space,
then downward
tumbles yesterday
as in a well
falls yesterday's water,
into the cistern
of all still without voice or fire.
It is difficult to teach bones
to disappear,
to teach eyes
to close
but
we do it
unrealizing.
It was all alive,
alive, alive, alive
like a scarlet fish
but time
passed over its dark cloth
and the flash of the fish
drowned and disappeared.
Water water water
the past goes on falling
still a tangle
of bones
and of roots;
it has been, it has been, and now
memories mean nothing.
Now the heavy eyelid
covers the light of the eye
and what was once living
now no longer lives;
what we were, we are not.
And with words, although the letters
still have transparency and sound,
they change, and the mouth changes;
the same mouth is now another mouth;
they change, lips, skin, circulation;
another being has occupied our skeleton;
what once was in us now is not.
It has gone, but if the call, we reply;
"I am here," knowing we are not,
that what once was, was and is lost,
is lost in the past, and now will not return.
Poet's Obligation
To whoever is not listening to the sea
this Friday morning, to whoever is cooped up
in house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or harsh prison cell:
to him I come, and, without speaking or looking,
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a great fragment of thunder sets in motion
the rumble of the planet and the foam,
the raucous rivers of the ocean flood,
the star vibrates swiftly in its corona,
and the sea is beating, dying and continuing.
So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea's lamenting in my awareness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the autumn's castigation,
I may be there with an errant wave,
I may move, passing through windows,
and hearing me, eyes will glance upward
saying "How can I reach the sea?"
And I shall broadcast, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and of quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing,
the grey cry of sea-birds on the coast.
So, through me, freedom and the sea
will make their answer to the shuttered heart.
Ode To Enchanted Light
Under the trees light
has dropped from the top of the sky,
light
like a green
latticework of branches,
shining
on every leaf,
drifting down like clean
white sand.
A cicada sends
its sawing song
high into the empty air.
The world is
a glass overflowing
with water.
Oda a la luz encantada
La luz bajo los árboles,
la luz del alto cielo.
La luz
verde
enramada
que fulgura
en la hoja
y cae como fresca
arena blanca.
Una cigarra eleva
su son de aserradero
sobre la transparencia.
Es una copa llena
de agua
el mundo.
The dawn has lighted the sky.
evening before you go to sleep - under the full moon,
fill a glass with pure water and place it outside under
the sweet rays of our magnificent moon.
Make sure the child knows that it is not their fault.
Absent Parent.An absent parent refers to non-custodial parent who is obligated to pay partial child support and who is physically absent from the child's home. The term also refers to a parent who has abandoned his or her child, and failed to maintain contact with the child.
I grew up looking like my dad. But did not know what he looked like?He had left her long ago.Books became my friends. I looked like my father there were no hugs ,or praise would come my way. "How was school or do you have homework?" Fighting was the norm.My twin brother was not going to school. I saw the writing on the wall. Stop going to school.So it became a battle
.My father's image over my mother's anger towards him. My brother was gay so he did not fit in school. There was no being gay in 1968. He was more like my mother so that she took his side.I was was pretty much alone. I looked like my father and acted like him as I grew older. I had no idea that this was happen until now at 55 years old. I became Vice President of the Honor Society in school. My mother never asked me how I was doing in school. I was my dad's son. Leave me out of this. I am alive with feelings and actions confuse with my father's bones and no support as his son. Don't even ask about him. I was scared too. ABSENT PARENT is a good term for parents that don't allow freedom so ask about another absent parent.
Notes of Things I heard this week.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart
Be in this world
as if you are a traveler,
A passerby, with your clothes
and shoes full of dust.
Sometimes you will sit
under the shade of a tree,
Sometimes you will walk in the desert.
Be a passerby always,
for this world is not your home.
- Prophet Muhammad
Invest in Mothers and Children. Resources in Power.
Why does the government say China should spend more.They would lose there savings when they have invested in the debt of the United States.China save your money and don't spend crazy..Saveing very good..Spending consumer not good" bu hen hao" meaning not good, very early, very bad, still good, not very good, no thanks.
Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree)
NAME: Isabella Baumfree (Sojourner Truth)
BIRTHDATE: 1797
BIRTHPLACE: Ulster County, New York
FAMILY BACKGROUND: Sojourner Truth was born in 1797 on the Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh estate in Swartekill, in Ulster County, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York. Her given name was Isabella Baumfree (also spelled Bomefree). She was one of 13 children born to Elizabeth and James Baumfree, also slaves on the Hardenbergh plantation. She spoke only Dutch until she was sold from her family around the age of nine. Because of the cruel treatment she suffered at the hands of a later master, she learned to speak English quickly, but had a Dutch accent for the rest of her life.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS: She was first sold around age 9 when her second master (Charles Hardenbergh) died in 1808. She was sold to John Neely, along with a herd of sheep, for $100. Neely's wife and family only spoke English and beat Isabella fiercely for the frequent miscommunications. She later said that Neely once whipped her with "a bundle of rods, prepared in the embers, and bound together with cords." It was during this time that she began to find refuge in religion -- beginning the habit of praying aloud when scared or hurt. When her father once came to visit, she pleaded with him to help her. Soon after, Martinus Schryver purchased her for $105. He owned a tavern and, although the atmosphere was crude and morally questionable, it was a safer haven for Isabella.
But a year and a half later, in 1810, she was sold again to John Dumont of New Paltz, New York. Isabella suffered many hardships at the hands of Mrs. Dumont, whom Isabella later described as cruel and harsh. Although she did not explain the reasons for this treatment in her later biography narrative, historians have surmised that the unspeakable things might have been sexual abuse or harassment (see the biography on Harriet Jacobs, the only former slave to write about such), or simply the daily humiliations that slaves endured.
Sometime around 1815, she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, who was owned by a man named Catlin or Catton. Robert's owner forbade the relationship because he did not want his slave having children with a slave he did not own (and therefore would not own the new 'property'). One night Robert visited Isabella, but was followed by his owner and son, who beat him savagely ("bruising and mangling his head and face"), bound him and dragged him away. Robert never returned. Isabella had a daughter shortly thereafter, named Diana. In 1817, forced to submit to the will of her owner Dumont, Isabella married an older slave named Thomas. They had four children: Peter (1822), James (who died young), Elizabeth (1825), and Sophia (1826).
The state of New York began in 1799 to legislate the gradual abolition of slaves, which was to happen July 4, 1827. Dumont had promised Isabella freedom a year before the state emancipation, "if she would do well and be faithful." However, he reneged on his promise, claiming a hand injury had made her less productive. She was infuriated, having understood fairness and duty as a hallmark of the master-slave relationship. She continued working until she felt she had done enough to satisfy her sense of obligation to him -- spinning 100 pounds of wool -- then escaped before dawn with her infant daughter, Sophia. She later said:
"I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right."
Isabella wandered, not sure where she was going, and prayed for direction. She arrived at the home of Isaac and Maria Van Wagenen (Wagener?). Soon after, Dumont arrived, insisting she come back and threatening to take her baby when she refused. Isaac offered to buy her services for the remainder of the year (until the state's emancipation took effect), which Dumont accepted for $20. Isaac and Maria insisted Isabella not call them "master" and "mistress," but rather by their given names.
Isabella immediately set to work retrieving her young son Peter. He had recently been leased by Dumont to another slaveholder, who then illegally sold Peter to an owner in Alabama. Peter was five years old. First she appealed to the Dumonts, then the other slaveholder, to no avail. A friend directed her to activist Quakers, who helped her make an official complaint in court. After months of legal proceedings, Peter returned to her, scarred and abused.
During her time with the Van Wagenens, Isabella had a life-changing religious experience -- becoming "overwhelmed with the greatness of the Divine presence" and inspired to preach. She began devotedly attending the local Methodist church and, in 1829, left Ulster County with a white evangelical teacher named Miss Gear. She quickly became known as a remarkable preacher whose influence "was miraculous." She soon met Elijah Pierson, a religious reformer who advocated strict adherence to Old Testament laws for salvation. His house was sometimes called the "Kingdom," where he led a small group of followers. Isabella became the group's housekeeper. Elijah treated her as a spiritual equal and encouraged her to preach also. Soon after, Robert Matthias arrived, who apparently took over as the group's leader, with the activities becoming increasingly bizarre. In 1834, Pierson died with only the group's members attending. His family called the coroner and the group disbanded. The Folger family, whose house the group had moved into, accused Robert and Isabella of stealing their money and poisoning Elijah. They were eventually acquitted and Robert traveled west.
Isabella settled in New York City, but she had lost what savings and possessions she had had. She resolved to leave and make her way as a traveling preacher. On June 1, 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth and told friends, "The Spirit calls me [East], and I must go." She wandered in relative obscurity, depending on the kindness of strangers. In 1844, still liking the utopian cooperative ideal, she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Massachusetts. This group of 210 members lived on 500 acres of farmland, raising livestock, running grist and saw mills, and operating a silk factory. Unlike the Kingdom, the Association was founded by abolitionists to promote cooperative and productive labor. They were strongly anti-slavery, religiously tolerant, women's rights supporters, and pacifist in principles. While there, she met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles. Unfortunately, the community's silk-making was not profitable enough to support itself and it disbanded in 1846 amid debt.
Sojourner went to live with one of the Association's founders, George Benson, who had established a cotton mill. Shortly thereafter, she began dictating her memoirs to Olive Gilbert, another Association member. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave was published privately by William Lloyd Garrison in 1850. It gave her an income and increased her speaking engagements, where she sold copies of the book. She spoke about anti-slavery and women's rights, often giving personal testimony about her experiences as a slave. That same year, 1850, Benson's cotton mill failed and he left Northampton. Sojourner bought a home there for $300. In 1854, at the Ohio Woman's Rights Covention in Akron, Ohio, she gave her most famous speech -- with the legendary phrase, "Ain't I a Woman?" :
"That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place, and ain't I a woman? ... I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me -- and ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), and bear the lash as well -- and ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen most all sold off to slavery and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me -- and ain't I woman?"
Sojourner later became involved with the popular Spiritualism religious movement of the time, through a group called the Progressive Friends, an offshoot of the Quakers. The group believed in abolition, women's rights, non-violence, and communicating with spirits. In 1857, she sold her home in Northampton and bought one in Harmonia, Michigan (just west of Battle Creek), to live with this community. In 1858, at a meeting in Silver Lake, Indiana, someone in the audience accused her of being a man (she was very tall, towering around six feet) so she opened her blouse to reveal her breasts.
During the Civil War, she spoke on the Union's behalf, as well as for enlisting black troops for the cause and freeing slaves. Her grandson James Caldwell enlisted in the 54th Regiment, Massachusetts. In 1864, she worked among freed slaves at a government refugee camp on an island in Virginia and was employed by the National Freedman's Relief Association in Washington, D.C. She also met President Abraham Lincoln in October. (A famous painting, and subsequent photographs of it, depict President Lincoln showing Sojourner the 'Lincoln Bible,' given to him by the black people of Baltimore, Maryland.) In 1863, Harriet Beecher Stowe's article "The Libyan Sibyl" appeared in the Atlantic Monthly; a romanticized description of Sojourner. (The previous year, William Story's statue of the same title, inspired by the article, won an award at the London World Exhibition.) After the Civil War ended, she continued working to help the newly freed slaves through the Freedman's Relief Association, then the Freedman's Hospital in Washington. In 1867, she moved from Harmonia to Battle Creek, converting William Merritt's "barn" into a house, for which he gave her the deed four years later.
In 1870, she began campaigning for the federal government to provide former slaves with land in the "new West." She pursued this for seven years, with little success. In 1874, after touring with her grandson Sammy Banks, he fell ill and she developed ulcers on her leg. Sammy died after an operation. She was successfully treated by Dr. Orville Guiteau, veterinarian, and headed off on speaking tours again, but had to return home due to illness once more. She did continue touring as much as she could, still campaigning for free land for former slaves. In 1879, Sojourner was delighted as many freed slaves began migrating west and north on their own, many settling in Kansas. She spent a year there helping refugees and speaking in white and black churches trying to gain support for the "Exodusters" as they tried to build new lives for themselves. This was to be her last mission.
Sojourner made a few appearances around Michigan, speaking about temperance and against capital punishment. In July of 1883, with ulcers on her legs, she sought treatment through Dr. John Harvey Kellogg at his famous Battle Creek Sanitarium. It is said he grafted some of his own skin onto her leg. Sojourner returned home with her daughters Diana and Elizabeth, their husbands and children, and died there on November 26, 1883, at 86 years old. She was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery next to her grandson. In 1890, Frances Titus, who published the third edition of Sojourner's Narrative in 1875 and became Sojourner's traveling companion after Sammy died, collected money and erected a monument on the gravesite, inadvertently inscribing "aged about 105 years." She then commissioned artist Frank Courter to paint the meeting of Sojourner and President Lincoln.
Sojourner Truth has been posthumously honored in many ways over the years:
a memorial stone in the Stone History Tower in Monument Park, downtown Battle Creek (1935);
a new grave marker, by the Sojourner Truth Memorial Association (1946);
a historical marker commemorating members of her family buried with her in the cemetery (1961);
a portion of Michigan state highway M-66 designated the Sojourner Truth Memorial Highway (1976);
induction into the national Woman's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York (1981);
induction into the Michigan Woman's Hall of Fame in Lansing (1983);
a commemorative postage stamp (1986);
a Michigan Milestone Marker by the State Bar of Michigan for her contribution (three lawsuits she won) to the legal system (1987);
a marker erected by the Battle Creek Club of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs (also 1987);
a Mars probe named for her (1997);
a community-wide, year-long celebration of the 200th anniversary of her birth in Battle Creek in 1997, plus a larger-than-life statue of her by artist Tina Allen; and
the First Black Woman Honored with a Bust in the U.S. Capitol (October, 2008)
DATE OF DEATH: November 26, 1883
PLACE OF DEATH: Battle Creek, Michigan
PORTRAYED BY: Stephanie Tolliver
SUGGESTED READING:
Braude, Ann. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1989.
Commire, Anne, editor. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, Conn.: Yorkin Publications, 1999-2000.
Hooks, Bell. Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Boston, MA: South End, 1981.
Johnston, Paul E., and Sean Wilentz. The Kingdom of Matthias. NY: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Mabee, Carleton. Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend. NY: New York University Press, 1993.
Painter, Nell Irvin. Sojourner Truth: A Life, a Symbol. NY: W.W. Norton, 1996.
Pauli, Hertha Ernestine. Her Name Was Sojourner Truth. NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1962.
Slave Narratives. NY: Library of America, 2000.
Stetson, Erlene, and Linda David. Glorying in Tribulation: The Lifework of Sojourner Truth. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1994.
Stewart, James Brewer. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery. NY: Hill and Wang, 1976.
Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth; a Bondswoman of Olden Time, Emancipated by the New York Legislature in the Early Part of the Present Century with a History of her Labors and Correspondence, Drawn from Her Book of Life. Battle Creek, MI: Published for the Author, 1878. Later printing, with introduction by Margaret Washington: NY: Vintage Books, 1993.
Shana Tova... Happy New Year. I planted a peach tree for the New year. May she be know as Shana Tova Tree. I send the boys a care box and some pants and a shrit. may your NEW YEAR be blessed "May you have a good year, and may you be inscribed for blessings in the book of life. ...
True person manifest throughout the ten quarters of the world
By Dogen
(1200 - 1253)
English version by Steven Heine
The true person is
Not anyone in particular;
But, like the deep blue color
Of the limitless sky,
It is everyone, everywhere in the world.
"All the world is a Mosque"
True charity remembers not only those in need who ask, but also those who are prevented by some reason from asking.
- Sura 51:19
In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,
For her, with my shadow, will make three people.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes their way.
May we long share our eternal friendship,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.
Moon Viewing Party
Up comes the moon of ramadan.
The east is red.
Li po 
and Rumi
take a toast of plum wine together.
Laughing the music plays a flute.
I listening to the prose that are being exchanged .Ideas as smooth as the cloud that is near the moon. Light everywhere corn growing in the field. A star comes to light the entire woods.Fasting I am full.
Jetsun La
He is dear to me who runs not after the pleasant or away from the painful, grieves not, lusts not, but lets things come and go as they happen.
- Bhagavad Gita 12:17
1.
Parh parh ilm te faazil hoya
Te kaday apnay aap nu parhya ee na
(You read to become
all knowledgeable
But you never read yourself)
You read so many books
to know it all,
yet fail to ever read your
heart at all.
Bhaj bhaj warna ay mandir maseeti
Te kaday mann apnay wich warya ee na
(You run to enter temples and mosques
But you never entered your own heart)
You rush to holy shrines to play a part,
Would you dare enter the shrine of your heart
Larna ay roz shaitaan de naal
Te kadi nafs apnay naal larya ee na
(Everyday you fight Satan
But you never fight your own Ego)
You are quick to attack the evil one,
yet pride is a battle you have not won.
Bulleh Shah asmaani ud-deya pharonda ay
Te jera ghar betha unoon pharya ee na
(Bulleh Shah you try grabbing that which is in the sky
But you never get hold of What sits inside you)
You grab for a star you can control,
yet fail to grasp the light in your soul.
Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)
Let the race end, my friend
Ilm-oun bas kareen o yaar
Ik Alif teray darkaar
(Stop seeking all this knowledge my friend
Only an Alif is what you need)
Stop trying to be the one who knows,
for ‘God is One’ you need to know.
Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)
End the race, my friend
Allah Sayyaan Allah Sayyaan
(God is the Master, God is All)
God is All we need! God is All!
Nee main jaanaa Jogi de naal
(I shall follow the Yogi {ascetic/sufi})
Follow the wandering dervish!
Jo naa jaane, Haqq ki taaqat
Rabb naa devey us ko Himmat
(Those who deny the Strength of Truth
Lord does not give them courage)
If you deny the power of all that’s true,
God will not grant strength to you.
Hum Mann ke darya mein doobey
Kaisi nayya? Kya manjhdhaar?
(We have drowned in the river of Self
the boat and the flowing waters do not matter)
We are lost in this river of self,
no boat or streams are of any help.
Bas kareen o yaar
(Stop it all my friend)
End the race, my friend
Ilm-oun bas kareen o yaar
(Stop seeking all this knowledge my friend)
Stop trying to know it all, my friend.
Allah Sayyaan Allah Sayyaan
(God is the Master, God is All)
God is All we need! God is All!
- English Translation and Lyrics originally in Punjabi | English in bracket is approximate literal translation. A more poetic rendering in bold by Naomi.
18 August 2009 Charcoal, markers pencil. Color pens and pencils. The chinese word means Buddha
"We will work together, Inshallah".
A similar phrase, law š?? All?h, means "if God willed it" or "if God wished it". In š?? All?h is used for the execution of real actions (I'm going to the store if God wills it); law š?? All?h is used to express a wish or desire one cannot fulfill.
[edit]Similarity to Spanish ojalá, and Portuguese oxalá
The Spanish phrase, ojalá (que), and the Portuguese phrase, oxalá (que), both meaning "I hope (that)," "would (that)," "would to God (that)," etc., are both derived from the Arabic law š?? All?h.[1] This phrase is an example of the many words borrowed from Arabic due to the Muslim rule of some areas of the Iberian Peninsula from the eighth to fifteenth centuries.
Main Entry: inshallah
Pronunciation: ?in-shä-?lä
Function: foreign term
Etymology: Arabic in sh?' All?h
: if Allah wills : God willing
Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.
- Mahatma Gandhi, 1926
Those who try Zen meditation even once wipe away beginningless crimes. Where are all the dark paths then? The Pure Land itself is near. Those who hear this truth even once and listen with a grateful heart, treasuring it, revering it, gain blessings without end.
- Hakuin Zenji, "Song of Zazen"
The Song of Zazen
by
Hakuin Ekaku Zenji
All sentient beings are essentially Buddhas. As with water and ice, there is no ice without water; apart from sentient beings, there are no Buddhas. Not knowing how close the truth is, we seek it far away what a pity! We are like one who in the midst of water cries out desperately in thirst. We are like the son of a rich man who wandered away among the poor.
The reason we transmigrate through the Six Realms is because we are lost in the darkness of ignorance. Going further and further astray in the darkness, how can we ever be free from birth-and-death? As for the Mahayana practice of zazen, there are no words to praise it fully. The Six Paramitas, such as giving, maintaining the precepts, and various other good deeds like invoking the Buddhas name, repentance, and spiritual training, all finally return to the practice of zazen.
Even those who have sat zazen only once will see all karma erased. Nowhere will they find evil paths, and the Pure Land will not be far away. If we listen even once with open heart to this truth, then praise it and gladly embrace it, how much more so then, if on reflecting within ourselves we directly realize Self-nature, giving proof to the truth that Self-nature is no-nature We will have gone far beyond idle speculation. The gate of the oneness of cause and effect is thereby opened, and not-two, not-three, straight ahead runs the Way.
Realizing the form of no-form as form, whether going or returning we cannot be any place else. Realizing the thought of no-thought as thought, whether singing or dancing, we are the voice of the Dharma. How vast and wide the unobstructed sky of samadhi! How bright and clear the perfect moonlight of the Fourfold Wisdom! At this moment what more need we seek? As the eternal tranquility of Truth reveals itself to us, this very place is the Land of Lotuses and this very body is the body of the Buddha.
You will not be able to give anyone happiness by means of your wealth, so do it by means of a cheerful countenance and good humor.
- The Prophet Muhammad in Qushayri: al-Risalat al-Qushayriyya
When the voice of thy love shall call me to be thy slave,
I shall rise to a greater far than the mastery
Of life and the living, time and the mortal span
Hafiz, whose given name was Shams-ud-din Muhammad, is the most beloved poet of Persia. Born in Shiraz, he lived at about the same time as Chaucer in England and about one hundred years after Rumi. He spent nearly all his life in Shiraz, where he became a famous Sufi master. When he died he was thought to have written an estimated 5,000 poems, of which 500 to 700 have survived. His Divan (collected poems) is a classic in the literature of Sufism. The work of Hafiz became known to the West largely through the efforts of Goethe, whose enthusiasm rubbed off on Ralph Waldo Emerson, who translated Hafiz in the nineteenth century. Hafiz's poems were also admired by such diverse writers as Nietzsche, Pushkin, Turgenev, Carlyle, and Garcia Lorka; even Sherlock Holmes quotes Hafiz in one of the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1923, Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Indian teacher often credited with bringing Sufism to the West, proclaimed that “the words of Hafiz have won every heart that listens.”
-- From The Gift: Poems of Hafiz the Great Sufi Master
Even after
all these years,
the Sun never says
to the earth
"You owe me."
Look what happens -
with a love like that,
it lights the whole sky.
Spring and all its flowers
by Hafiz
(1320 - 1389) Timeline
English version by
Homayun Taba & Marguerite Theophil
Original Language
Persian/Farsi
Muslim / Sufi
14th Century
Spring and all its flowers
now joyously break their vow of silence.
It is time for celebration, not for lying low;
You too - weed out those roots of sadness from your heart.
The Sabaa wind arrives;Sabaa
African Meaning derived from saba, eastern wind
Gender Girl
Origin/ Nationality Africa
Continent/Source Africa and Middle East
and in deep resonance, the flower
passionately rips open its garments,
thrusting itself from itself.
The Way of Truth, learn from the clarity of water,
Learn freedom from the spreading grass.
Pay close attention to the artistry of the Sabaa wind,
that wafts in pollen from afar,
And ripples the beautiful tresses
of the fields of hyacinth flowers.
From the privacy of the harem, the virgin bud slips out,
revealing herself under the morning star,
branding your heart and your faith
with beauty.
And frenzied bulbul flies madly out of the House of Sadness
to unite with the flowers;
its love-crazed cry like a thousand-trumpet blast.
Hafez says, and the experienced old ones concur:
All you really need
is to tell those Stories
of the Fair Ones and the Goblet of Wine.
When I want to kiss God
Hafez,_the_Persian
When
No one is looking
I swallow deserts and clouds
and chew on mountains knowing
they are sweet
Bones!
When no one is looking and I want
to kiss
God
I just lift my own hand
to
my
mouth.
tr. David Ladinsky - "The Gift"
The Essence of Grace
by Hafiz
(1320 - 1389) Timeline
English version by
Thomas Rain Crowe
Original Language
Persian/Farsi
Muslim / Sufi
14th Century
Now that I have raised the glass of pure wine to my lips,
The nightingale starts to sing!
Go to the librarian and ask for the book of this bird's songs, and
Then go out into the desert. Do you really need college to read this book?
Break all your ties with people who profess to teach, and learn from the
Pure Bird. From Pole to Pole the news of those sitting in quiet solitude is spreading.
On the front page of the newspaper, the alcoholic Chancellor of the University
Said: "Wine is illegal. It's even worse than living off charity."
It's not important whether we drink Gallo or Mouton Cadet: drink up!
And be happy, for whatever our Winebringer brings is the essence of grace.
The stories of the greed and fantasies of all the so-called "wise ones"
Remind me of the mat-weavers who tell tourists that each strand is a yarn of gold.
Hafiz says: The town's forger of false coins is also president of the city bank.
So keep quiet, and hoard life's subtleties. A good wine is kept for drinking, never sold.
[for those who] have beheld the Tao... gems sparkle on dusty roads; puddles appear as pools of lapis lazuli; tough weeds acquire fragile beauty...
-- John Blofield
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_van_Ruusbroec
"Those who follow the way of love
Are the richest of all men living:
They are bold, frank, and fearless,
They have neither travail nor care,
For the Holy Ghost bears all their burdens.
They seek no outward seeming,
They desire nought that is esteemed of men,
They affect not singular conduct,
They would be like other good men."f
You who want
by Hadewijch
(13th Century) Timeline
English version by
Jane Hirshfield
Christian : Catholic
13th Century
You who want
knowledge,
seek the Oneness
within
There you
will find
the clear mirror
already waiting
I descend on my love
As dew on a flower.
"Lord, you are my lover,
My longing,
My flowing stream
My Sun, And I am your reflection."
While merely one day passed on Earth, billions of years of physical processes transpired at the far ends of the cosmos.
In quantum mechanics, the black hole emits Hawking radiation, and so can come to thermal equilibrium with a gas of radiation. Since a thermal equilibrium state is time reversal invariant, Stephen Hawking argued that the time reverse of a black hole in thermal equilibrium is again a black hole in thermal equilibrium.[1] This implies that black holes and white holes are the same object. The Hawking radiation from an ordinary black hole is then identified with the white hole emission. Hawking's semi-classical argument is reproduced in a quantum mechanical AdS/CFT treatment, where a black hole in anti-de Sitter space is described by a thermal gas in a gauge theory, whose time reversal is the same as itself.
Secretly we spoke
By Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
(1207 - 1273)
English version by Jonathan Star and Shahram Shiva
Secretly we spoke,
that wise one and me.
I said, Tell me the secrets of the world.
He said, Sh... Let silence
Tell you the secrets of the world.
endure 7 strokes
Knife with heart Pronunciation: Ren
Meaning: to endure
Ren "man" or human being 2 strokes
I have a new carpet It's brown. Has a nice design.For the frist time in a long time I bowed to the dharma in the three jewels. I did
50 prostrations. It was just like a swiming pool. I fell into beauty and grace.Diving off. I fell head long into dharma.I don't know what I would do with the carpet and the floor. Where to do prostrations in the house? The carpet takes me to places high in the mounatins and low valleys. Practice is having a carpet.The power of prostrations is great and doing good for the whole universe!The Chinese character is love and sounds like Ai. All in a new House.10 Strokes .Looks like rain. Plants are growing into greens leaf gods. Note all the diffrent bugs that come to the plants. Keeps me busy and the numbers of moths. colors and sizes and design on their wings.Growing melons this year. The orange and yellow green blooms are out in the garden.The tomates are green and hanging off the stem. Wonder.I walk into a supermarket and just look at all the produce and how they came to be?I got two chickens to buy. Ponder how that will be? Eggs and livestock and taking care of these birds.Going off with Chinese. may you know how easy Chinses really is. It's basic latin and has english sounds.So don't be afraid. Take your time and count strokes and them you can look up the word and meaning. The strokes teach you how to write and it becomes a way to learn Chinese. After a while you thinks how many strokes and write the word.
Take your time and count the stokes there your friend in Chinese.Remember your 214 characters to learn. You will sail through them like a dream counting strokes.Them sit out and write them. You all ready know ren as man, human being. Ren at another tone can mean. Ren endure. Learning your tones. Playing like singing and learn to hear your tones. It comes with time. But once you have tones you can understand another person. Hope this helps someone. It's all so beautiful and rich. Yes it makes you richer. When you see the characters on paper , stone . you Take to sky writeing allowing you to find your grace and inner fire. Sky write today.Breath to ego or Wo. I Or me belongs to the old ones that make up the people's language today. Because as you write you are century's old and new today.
Last night, as I was sleeping
By Antonio Machado
(1875 - 1939)
English version by Robert Bly
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.
Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.
Everyone can see the effects of God's mercy. But who, except God himself, understands the essence of his mercy? Most people cannot understand the essence of any of God's attibutes; they only know his...- Rumi, "Mathnawi"
Wherever there is life there must be death.
Whatever comes together must separate.
Whatever is built up will fall down.
What is collected will be scattered.
It is all the same to him.
Man or woman,
Good fortune or bad,
Happiness or sorrow.
It makes no difference.
He is serene.
-Ashtavakra Gita 17:15
Love came
flowed like blood
beneath skin, through veins
emptied me of my self
filled me
with the Beloved
till every limb
every organ was seized
and occupied
till only
my name remains.
the rest is It.
- Abu Said Abil Kheir
If your dream brings you joy, take it as a blessing from your Lord. Express gratitude and share it with others. However, if it incites fear, then remember it is but an assault from Satan. Seek refuge in Allah from its evil and do not mention it to anyone, for that shall annul any harm intended to you.
-The Prophet Muhammad (SAW), as reported by Abu Sayeed al-Khodri
For Purim we bought shoes for the boys. The boys have liked their shoes so much it is all they wear.My mother once ask me ."Do you want shoes or school". I wanted school.Old enough to break the laws of Karma. Coming full circle.
Moving into a new new house. No longer renting. We built this new home. We have land.
My lama died Sept 7 2008.Geshe Tashi Namgyal died at home in Victoria, September 7, 2008, aged 85. Known respectfully to his many students and friends as 'Geshe-la', he was born in Tibet, became a monk at age 7, attained the Rabjampa Geshe degree, the highest of all possible Buddhist academic credentials, and in 1957 became Abbot of the Jashong monastery in Sakya, Tibet. In 1959, following jail under the Chinese occupation of his country, he escaped to India. In 1974 he was sent by the Dalai Lama as one of four Tibetan lamas to the west.
http://www.island.net/~sakya/geshe-la.htm
Buying seeds to grow a mixture . Planning a garden.Reds and pinks and purple are on my mind. Buds are everywhere.White blooms and purple are out along with pink. The brown grass is green and I seen Robins running the lawn or a police call checking for worms.Yellows are getting stronger. Building all around us. From a new Wallmart and Lowe's to a Walgreens and a new road. New bird calls and singing sing sungs. Rain has taken the mounatins .Disappear in the fog . 
I ask my self what is really going on in North Korea?The warning from China and it's investments in the US. It's odd for China to say a warning to US. It's like big brother warning his younger brother about spending too much. Didi. gugu I am glad China is being like a big brother. 5 March 2009. Because in China's eyes we will be younger brother to China's ancient past.
SUNDAY, MAY 18, 2008
Why sing the rose, oh, poets?
Rose, represented in a love poem
why sing, if that flower
the flower will bloom even sung.
The poet is not singing a poem
The poet leaves his poem flourish.
The poet enjoys his poem
I see your flowers grow
andalusia grow and sing for joy 
and the love grows.
Each enjoys a poem
also enjoys flower in her life.
Author: Juan Camilo Piñeros
Those who believe will stand alongside [the Prophet], their light
streaming on ahead of them and to their right. They will say, "Our Lord,
perfect our light for us, and forgive us!"
A hard written poem within you finds dreams, the teller of your tale. Dreams and poems balance you into the past of your lives. Born many times all have been your mother. You have become the light of love and bliss of light. Shadows of past and future lives abound around me. The emptiness of form is attached to light.You light up darkness.You become so aware of your so called form as solid that you miss the journey. Notes of practice in mediation of ego. Judson Laird. Weaving in and out of "degradation and elevation,
Un disque écrit un poème en vous trouve les rêves, le narrateur de votre récit. Les rêves et les poèmes que vous équilibre dans le passé de votre vie. Né de nombreuses fois tout a été votre mère. Vous êtes devenus la lumière de l'amour et le bonheur de la lumière. Les ombres du passé et avenir ne manquent pas autour de moi. Le vide du formulaire est joint à la lumière light.You jusqu'à darkness.You le devenir conscient de votre soi-disant forme solide que vous manquez le voyage. Notes de pratique de la médiation de l'ego. Judson Laird. Tissage et de "la dégradation et de l'altitude,
Seeing God in everything
and everything in God
with completely extraordinary clearness
and delicacy
Where You place us, we stand;
the words You give us, we speak.
The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight
By Kamalakanta
(1769? - 1821?)
The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight
To the blue lotus flower of Mother Shyama’s feet,
The blue flower of the feet of Kali, Shiva’s Consort;
Tasteless, to the bee, are the blossoms of desire.
My Mother’s feet are black, and black, too, is the bee;
Black is made one with black! This much of the mystery
My mortal eyes behold, then hastily retreat.
But Kamalakanta’s hopes are answered in the end;
He swims in the Sea of Bliss, unmoved by joy or pain.
Many Zen advocates, for example, urge that since the mind is ignorant to begin with, the mind must be silenced through paradox or by some other "mind-bypassing" means. The Zen student strives to stop the misperceptions and the distortions which his or her mind regularly creates through its ignorance.
Arte poética
"That verse is like a key
to open a thousand doors.
A leaf falls, something flies;
As your eyes look is created,
and soul of the listener is trembling.
Invent new worlds and takes your word;
the adjective, when no life is to kill.
We are in the course of nerves.
Muscle locks
as a souvenir in the museum;
but not so we have less power:
the true force lies in the head.
Why sing the rose, oh Poetas!
do flower in the poem;
just for us
all living things under the Sun
The poet is a small God. " 
Mel_Odom- Melblindlust.
Vicente Huidobro (Chile, 1893-1948)
Que el verso sea como una llave
Que abra mil puertas.
Una hoja cae; algo pasa volando;
Cuanto miren los ojos creado sea,
Y el alma del oyente quede temblando.
Inventa mundos nuevos y cuida tu palabra;
El adjetivo, cuando no da vida, mata.
Estamos en el ciclo de los nervios.
El músculo cuelga,
Como recuerdo, en los museos;
Mas no por eso tenemos menos fuerza:
El vigor verdadero
Reside en la cabeza.
Por qué cantáis la rosa, !oh, Poetas!
Hacedla florecer en el poema;
Sólo para nosotros
Viven todas las cosas bajo el Sol
El Poeta es un pequeño Dios.
EL POETA ES UN PEQUEÑO DIOS
El espejo de agua
Mi espejo, corriente por las noches,
se hace arroyo y se aleja de mi cuarto.
Mi espejo, más profundo que el orbe
donde todos los cisnes se ahogaron.
Es un estanque verde en la muralla
y en medio duerme tu desnudez anclada.
Sobre sus olas, bajo cielos sonámbulos,
mis ensueños se alejan como barcos.
De pie en la popa siempre me veréis cantando.
Una rosa secreta se hincha en mi pecho
y un ruiseñor ebrio aletea en mi dedo.
Poets, why sing of roses! Let them flower in your poems; ...
The world honors Sa'di today by gracing the entrance to the Hall of Nations in the United Nations in New York City with a call for breaking all barriers. In the present author's translation, it reads:
Of One Essence is the Human Race, 
Thusly has Creation put the Base.
One Limb impacted is sufficient,
For all Others to feel the Mace.
The Unconcern'd with Others' Plight,
Are but Brutes with Human Face
Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you have no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain.Saadi (poet)
All that you see has appeared because of Love.
All shines from Love,
All pulses with Love,
All flows from Love--
Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi was born in Balkh, in what is now Afghanistan, on September 30, 1207. When he was still a young man, though, his family fled under the threat of a Mongol invasion, and after much traveling, finally settled in Konya, Turkey. The name Rumi means “the Roman,” that is, “from Roman Anatolia.”
Because the fool wants to become God, He never finds him. The master is already God, Without ever wishing to be.
Rumi followed the line of his father and his ancestors — scholars, theologians, and jurists. Until the age of thirty-seven he seems to have been a conventional teacher under the royal patronage. In 1244 he met the wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz. This recognition strengthened and galvanized his belief. His poetry filled with a longing to be the Friend, and close presence he first saw in Shams, later in Saladin Zarkub, the goldsmith, still later in his scribe, Husam. Rumi died December 17, 1273. During the last thirty years of his life he became a brilliant unfolding of that recognition, and a cause of its incandescence in others.
Listen, open a window to God and begin to delight yourself by gazing upon Him through the opening. The business of love is to make that window in the heart, for the breast is illumined by the beauty of the Beloved. Gaze incessantly on the face of the Beloved! Listen, this is in your power, my friend!
- From "Jewels of Remembrance," by Rumi, translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski
A World with No Boundaries (Ghazal 363)http://www.youtube.com/watch
Themes
Birds
Birth, Rebirth
Bliss
Dawn
Sitting in zazen. Form encounters form.Over taken by emptyness. How vast we are together.Even when you are gone I still feel your form and emptyness.May you rest in peace.Notes from a lover.It's very much like peace of Christ at mass. Bowing to the earth, light appears out of emptyness.Form in flowers and scent.Spring arrives. Rebirth. everywhwere in the pure land.
Friendship that insists upon agreement on all matters is not worth the name. Friendship to be real must ever sustain the weight of honest differences, however sharp they be.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Delicious Laughter: Rambunctious Teaching Stories from the Mathnawi of Jelaluddin Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks
East Window: Poems from Asia, Translated by W. S. Merwin
The Essential Rumi, Translated by Coleman Barks
The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia, with Lectures by Inayat Khan, Translated by Coleman Barks
Holy Fire: Nine Visionary Poets and the Quest for Enlightenment, Edited by Daniel Halpern
With every breath the sound
of love surrounds us,
and we are bound for the depths
of space, without distraction.
We've been in orbit before
and know the angels there.
Let's go there again, Master,
for that is our land.
Yet we are beyond all of that
and more than angels.
Out beyond duality,
we have a home, and it is Majesty.
That pure substance is
different from this dusty world.
What kind of place is this?
We once came down; soon we'll return.
A new happiness befriends us
as we work at offering our lives.
Muhammad, the jewel of the world,
is our caravan's chosen guide.
The sweetness we breathe on the wind
is from the scent of his hair,
and the radiance of our thought
is from the light of his day.
His face once caused
the moon to split in two.
She couldn't endure the sight of him.
Yet how lucky she was,
she who humbly received him.
Look into your heart and see
the splitting moon within each breath.
Having seen that vision,
how can you still dream?
When the wave of "Am I not?" struck,
it wrecked the body's ship;
when the ship wrecks again,
it will be the time of union.
The Human Being, like a bird of the sea,
emerged from the ocean of the soul.
Earth is not the final place of rest
for a bird born from the sea.
No, we are pearls of that ocean;
all of us live in it;
and if it weren't so, why would
wave upon wave arrive?
This is the time of union,
the time of eternal beauty.
It is the time of luck and kindness;
it is the ocean of purity.
The wave of bestowal has come.
The roar of the sea is here.
The morning of happiness has dawned.
No, it is the light of God.
Whose face is pictured here?
Who is this shah or prince?
Who is this ancient intelligence?
They are all masks . . .
and the only remedy is
this boiling ecstasy of the soul.
A fountain of refreshment
is in the head and the eyes -
not this bodily head
but another pure spiritual one.
Many a pure head has been spilled
in the dust. Know the one from the other!
Our original head is hidden,
while this other is visible.
Beyond this world is a world
that has no boundaries.
Put your water skin away, brother,
and draw some wine from our cask!
The clay jug of perception
has such a narrow spout.
The sun appeared from the direction of Tabriz,
and I said, "This light is at once joined
with all things, and yet apart from everything."
-- from Love is a Stranger: Selected Lyric Poetry by Jelaluddin Rumi and Kabir, Translated by Kabir Helmiski
Amazon.com
Poems by Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi |
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
By Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
(1207 - 1273)
English version by Coleman Barks
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
My joy --
Prepare
for the time when the possible will become the probable.
There are otheres, on their way on the same track,
Travellers from nowhere to nowhere, on their way
from nothing to nothing.
The track may narrow and be steep and boring
and frightening but everybody walks on it.
You are not alone but linked to everthing
around you.
Tang Poet
Han San
Cold Mountain : A Hundred Poems
You are the endless sea In whom all the worlds like waves Naturally rise and fall. You have nothing to win, Nothing to lose. Child, You are pure awareness, Nothing less. You and the world are one. So who are you to think You can hold on to it, Or let it go? How could you!
Ashtavakra Gita 15: 11-12
Humbly do I implore You, keep me in Your divine grace, and deprive me not of peace. Save me from sudden misfortunes; deliver me and sustain me. May I never displease You, my Lord.
-From the prayer book "Al-Hizbul-A'zam"
Look at yourself. You came into this world, but what you have to realize is that you came from Him and you must return to Him. The light within you has to merge with that One Light. Then the dark show of life will disappear. My love you, my children. This is the most important thing to understand in life.
BawaMuhaiyaddeenSpoken on January 10, 1979
Each of us who came here with wisdom must learn from this school. Heaven does not come from building beautiful churches, mosques, and temples. Man must build his church, mosque, and temple within himself. The house of God must be built within. The place of worship must be seen within. The completeness of God must be built within the self. If man can understand his story and the story of God and then build a church within himself, that is victory
God bestows His Compassion upon all beings, always, and His Love and His Way is to bring lives together by pressing them together. God possesses a Love which spreads and intermingles with all lives. In the same way, among human beings there is also such a true Love, such a true, real feeling. When that Love is operating, when it is working, then it is God's work to take it and put it in its appropriate place. That is the Form of Love. That Love, that Divine Love, has brought us together as one.
Truth & Light: Brief Explanations (1974)
That which God said to the rose,
and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty,
He said to my heart,
and made it a hundred times more beautiful.
-Mathnawi [III, 4129]
This mind is an uncertain thing. This body is uncertain. Together they are impermanent. Together they are a source of suffering. Together they are devoid of self. These, the Buddha pointed out, are neither being, nor a person, nor a self, nor a soul, nor us, nor they. They are merely elements: earth, water, fire and wind. Elements only!
Check out the banks and lending money. More loans to the bank until the government owns the bank.
Nonexistence
within existence
is my Rule
getting lost
in getting lost
my Religion.
"Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha".Not knowing these words before I became a Buddhist .I would say these words not understanding the knowledge and wisdom the given to the free body.
By Rabia (Rabi'a Al-'Adawiyya)
(717 - 801)
English version by Charles Upton
My joy --
My Hunger --
My Shelter --
My Friend --
My Food for the journey --
My journey's End --
You are my breath,
My hope,
My companion,
My craving,
My abundant wealth.
Without You -- my Life, my Love --
I would never have wandered across these endless countries.
You have poured out so much grace for me,
Done me so many favors, given me so many gifts --
I look everywhere for Your love --
Then suddenly I am filled with it.
O Captain of my Heart
Radiant Eye of Yearning in my breast,
I will never be free from You
As long as I live.
Be satisfied with me, Love,
And I am satisfied.
O my Lord,
the stars are shining and the eyes of men are closed,
and kings have shut their doors,
and every lover is alone with his beloved,
and here I am alone with Thee.
- Rabi’a al-Adawiyyah
The sign of the friend of God is that he has three qualities: a generosity like that of the ocean, a compassion like that of the sun, and a humility like that of the earth.
-Bayazid in 'Attar, "Tadhkirat"
Some look upon the sun as our father
Who makes life possible with heat and rain
And divides time into months and seasons.
Others have seen him riding in wisdom
On his chariot, with seven colors
As horses and six wheels to represent
The whirling spokes of time.
There is a key for everything, and the key to Paradise is to love the poor.
-The Prophet Muhammad (SAW), as reported by Ibn Umar
The Song of Food and Dwelling
Commentary by
Ivan M. Granger
Themes
Bliss
Fire
Food
Heart
Honey
Recommended Books
Drinking the Mountain Stream: Songs of Tibet's Beloved Saint, Milarepa, Translated by Lama Kunga / Translated by Brian Cutillo
The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa: The Life-Story and Teachings of the Greatest Poet-Saint Ever to Appear in the History of Buddhism, Translated by Garma C. C. Chang
The Life of Milarepa: A New Translation from the Tibetan, Translated by Lobsang P. Lhalungpa
Magnificent Trickster: The Story of Milarepa, by Molly MacGregor
Songs of Milarepa: (Dover Thrift Edition), by Milarepa
More
I bow down at the feet of the wish-fulfilling Guru.
Pray vouchsafe me your grace in bestowing beneficial food,
Pray make me realize my own body as the house of Buddha,
Pray grant me this knowledge.
I built the house through fear,
The house of Sunyata, the void nature of being;
Now I have no fear of its collapsing.
I, the Yogi with the wish-fulfilling gem,
Feel happiness and joy where'er I stay.
Because of the fear of cold, I sought for clothes;
The clothing I found is the Ah Shea Vital Heat.
Now I have no fear of coldness.
Because of the fear of poverty, I sought for riches;
The riches I found are the inexhaustible Seven Holy Jewels.
Now I have no fear of poverty.
Because of the fear of hunger, I sought for food;
The food I found is the Samadhi of Suchness.
Now I have no fear of hunger.
Because of the fear of thirst, I sought for drink;
The heavenly drink I found is the wine of mindfulness.
Now I have no fear of thirst.
Because of the fear of loneliness, I searched for a friend;
The friend I found is the bliss of perpetual Sunyata.
Now I have no fear of loneliness.
Because of the fear of going astray,
I sought for the right path to follow.
The wide path I found is the Path of Two-in-One.
Now I do not fear to lose my way.
I am a yogi with all desirable possessions,
A man always happy where'er he stays.
Here at Yolmo Tagpu Senge Tson,
The tigress howling with a pathetic, trembling cry,
Reminds me that her helpless cubs are innocently playing.
I cannot help but feel a great compassion for them,
I cannot help but practice more diligently,
I cannot help but augment thus my Bodhi-Mind.
The touching cry of the monkey,
So impressive and so moving,
Cannot help but raise in me deep pity.
The little monkey's chattering is amusing and pathetic;
As I hear it, I cannot but think of it with compassion.
The voice of the cuckoo is so moving,
And so tuneful is the lark's sweet singing,
That when I hear them I cannot help but listen --
When I listen to them,
I cannot help but shed tears.
The varied cries and cawings of the crow,
Are a good and helpful friend unto the yogi.
Even without a single friend,
To remain here is a pleasure.
With joy flowing from my heart, I sing this happy song;
May the dark shadow of all men's sorrows
Be dispelled by my joyful singing.
The Profound Definitive Meaning
Milarepa (often referred to as Jetsun Milarepa, meaning Milarepa the Revered One) is the central figure of early Tibetan Buddhism. He was a Buddhist saint, a yogi, a sorceror, a trickster, a wanderer, and a poet. He is both folk hero and cultural preceptor, the embodiment of the ideal in Tibetan Buddhism.
The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, an extensive collection of stories and poetry from the life of Milarepa, is a central text of popular Tibetan Buddhism, comparable to the Bhagavad Gita in Hinduism and the New Testament within Christianity. His life stories and poetry are read devoutly even today to inspire determination in meditation and spiritual pracitce.
Milarepa's father died when he was still a boy, and the land that should have passed to him was seized by relatives who treated the young Milarepa and his mother and sister as slaves. After several years of this cruelty and hard labor, Milarepa's mother convinced the teenaged boy to study magic with a local sorceror in order to take revenge on their relatives. Milarepa was so successful in this purpose that, it is said, a great hailstorm occured, destorying the house during a wedding ceremony, killing several members of the family. In the aftermath of this incident, Milarepa felt such guilt for his actions that he vowed to cleanse himself of the evil karma he had accumulated.
In his search for a pure spiritual teacher, Milarepa eventually met his guru, the Buddhist yogi and translator, Marpa, who was himself a disciple of the famous Indian Buddhist master Naropa. Marpa, seeing Milarepa's great potential mixed with dark karma, put Milarepa through many years of severe trials and tests before he would formally accept Milarepa as a student.
Milarepa then spent several years meditating in seclusion in remote mountain caves, struggling, at times, against the demonic forces of the mind, until he achieved the ultimate enlightenment.
Rejecting the formalism of religious position and the endless squabbles of theological discourse, he adopted the life of a mendicant, travelling from village to village, speaking directly with the people he met, singing spontaneous songs of enlightenment and wisdom.
By Milarepa
(1052 - 1135)
English version by Marpa Translation Committee
For the mind that masters view the emptiness dawns
In the content seen not even an atom exists
A seer and seen refined until they're gone
This way of realizing view, it works quite well
When meditation is clear light river flow
There is no need to confine it to sessions and breaks
Meditator and object refined until they're gone
This heart bone of meditation, it beats quite well
When you're sure that conducts work is luminous light
And you're sure that interdependence is emptiness
A doer and deed refined until they're gone
This way of working with conduct, it works quite well
When biased thinking has vanished into space
No phony facades, eight dharmas, nor hopes and fears,
A keeper and kept refined until they're gone
This way of keeping samaya, it works quite well
When you've finally discovered your mind is dharmakaya
And you're really doing yourself and others good
A winner and won refined until they're gone
This way of winning results, it works quite well.
Most high,
glorious God,
let your light fill the shadows of my heart
and grant me, Lord,
true faith,
certain hope,
perfect love,
awareness and knowing,
Dhu'l-Nun was asked: "What causes a devotee to be worthy of entrance to paradise?" He said: "One merits entrance to paradise by five things: unwavering constancy, unflagging effort, meditation on God in solitude and society, anticipating death by preparing provision for the hereafter, and bringing oneself to account before one is brought to judgment."
-'Attar, "Tadhkirat"
that I may fulfill Your holy will
I think it's intresting how life teaches you a lesson. Often I find them repeated over in many ways. The guru is your self .Teaching you to pay attention to awareness.Awareness is like the Alaskan nights.I miss the night.You start giving and learn every life is so important to all beings.It is like we're in a pot of water rubbing away the dirt and soil of our labors and prayers. One light.
34 billion dollars to help the auto companies.Bad idea.Thrity years in the making. Other nations have helped there auto companies. Looks like they will get a bail out.Bush talks about missing air force 1. He is the worst president as far as caring about the person on the street. I blame him. Pray for him every day. Hoping he would wake up.
Every righteous man has an Eden for himself.
- Eleazar ben Menahem, Midrash Leviticus Rabbah
Let us all be brave enough to die the death of a martyr, but let no one lust for martyrdom.
Mahatma Gandhi, 1927
THE OX
2009, 1997, 1985, 1973, 1961, 1949
Low and steady marks the ox’s character. Bona fide leaders, they are grounded, determined and highly dependable. They have the ability to motivate and inspire confidence in others as well. Those born under the sign are meticulous, systematic and real sticklers for details. They can be straight-laced and prefer routine, aiming to trash things out in a methodical manner till it bears fruit. Simplicity and straightforwardness govern their personality. However, the ox has a temper and it’s wise to get out of its way when it rears it horns. It is also a signs that it’s overly proud, refusing to seek assistance. The ox chooses to depend on its head to reason things and finds it hard to tolerate the week. Chauvinistic and even tyrannical, the ox is often grumpy, bigoted and refuses to forgive of forget for that matter.
Famous people born in the Year Of The Ox:
Armand Assante, Charlie Drake, Clark Gable, Eddie Murphy, Elizabeth Peña, George Clooney, Gregory Nava, George Lopez, Jack Lemmon, Jack Nicholson, Jane Fonda, Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, Jim Carrey, John Corbett , Jorge Garcia, Kate Beckinsale, Keira Knightley, Meg Ryan, Meryl Streep, Moctesuma Esparza, Napolean, Nomar Garciaparra, Paul Newman, President Richard Nixon, Richard Gere, Robert Redford, Rock Hudson, Roselyn Sanchez, Shirley Bassey, Sigourney Weaver, Van Gogh, and Walt Disney.
The sun gives light by day, the Torah by day and night.
- Asher b. Saul, Kol Bo
Izumi Shikibu
Timeline (974? - 1034?)
| View All Poems by Izumi Shikibu
English version by
Jane Hirshfield
Original Language
Japanese
Although the wind
Themes
Moon
Recommended Books
The Enlightened Heart: An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, by Stephen Mitchell
Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, Edited by Jane Hirshfield
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.
Awake and rejoice in watchfulness. Understand the wisdom of the enlightened.
By watching keenly and working hard, the wise one may build himself an island which no flood can sweep away.
The thoughtless man does not care, but the attentive man looks on wakefulness as his greatest treasure.
Meditate, and in your wisdom realize nirvana, the highest happiness.
Is my black Mother Syama really black?
By Kamalakanta
(1769? - 1821?)
English version by Rachel Fell McDermott
Is my black Mother Syama really black?
People say Kali is black,
but my heart doesn't agree.
If She's black,
how can She light up the world?
Sometimes my Mother is white,
sometimes yellow, blue, and red.
I cannot fathom Her.
My whole life has passed
trying.
She is Matter,
then Spirit,
then complete Void.
It's easy to see
how Kamalakanta
thinking these things
went crazy.
"Do whatever it takes, Mother, to bring me to you. Shatter me, if you must. Destroy me. I don't care. So long as you do not withhold yourself!"
The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight
Commentary by
Ivan M. Granger
Themes
http://translate.google.pl/translate?Polska
Bliss
Garden
Honey
Lotus
Pain and Wounding
Recommended Books
Kali: The Black Goddess of Dakshineswar, by Elizabeth U. Harding
Singing to the Goddess: Poems to Kali and Uma from Bengal, Translated by Rachel Fell McDermott
The black bee of my mind is drawn in sheer delight
To the blue lotus flower of Mother Shyama's feet,
The blue flower of the feet of Kali, Shiva's Consort;
Tasteless, to the bee, are the blossoms of desire.
My Mother's feet are black, and black, too, is the bee;
Black is made one with black! This much of the mystery
My mortal eyes behold, then hastily retreat.
But Kamalakanta's hopes are answered in the end;
He swims in the Sea of Bliss, unmoved by joy or pain.
God has given you the polishing instrument, Reason,
so that by means of it the surface of the heart may be made resplendent.
-Rumi, "Mathnawi" [IV, 2475]
Moments ago, Senator Stevens released a statement conceding the race -- Mark Begich will be the next U.S. Senator for Alaska! 
The AP has just called it - Mark will be Alaska's next U.S. Senator!
The Division of Elections has counted roughly 24,000 of the remaining ballots today, and we have expanded our lead to 3724 votes! Here are the final numbers:
Mark Begich: 150,728
Ted Stevens: 147,004
There are an estimated 2500 overseas ballots to be counted. All overseas, absentee ballots need to be received by tomorrow, November 19th. Those ballots are not enough to change the outcome of this election.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- With about 12 percent of ballots still to be counted, Republican Sen. Ted Stevens' chances of becoming the first felon elected to the U.S. Senate appeared remote Thursday.
Democrat Mark Begich took an 814-vote lead as ballots were counted Wednesday, and on Thursday, the Alaska Elections Division provided updated figures showing the origin of the 40,000 left.
"The bottom line is, I just don't see a significant block of votes that's remaining for Ted to get him back into this," said Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore. "I don't think in the end it's going to be close."
Stevens, revered in Alaska for his 40 years in the Senate and his ability to score enormous sums of federal money for the state, was convicted last month of lying on Senate disclosure forms to conceal more than $250,000 in gifts and home renovations from an oil field services company.
He had a comfortable lead on election night, but that vanished as early, absentee and questioned ballots were tallied Wednesday. Election officials said they'd count 10,000 more votes Friday, and the bulk of the remainder -- about 25,000 -- next Tuesday.
Moore, who did not work for either candidate but usually polls for Democrats, noted that a significant portion of the remaining ballots -- 15,000 out of 40,000 -- are questioned ballots. Those normally break heavily for Democrats.
"Most of the questioned ballots are people voting out of district, and people voting out of district tend to be younger, single, less stable, less established and more likely to vote Democratic," he said.
Meanwhile, Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, was winning on military installations and in the state's remotest areas, both typical strongholds for Stevens. And the area of the state where Stevens was winning most handily -- the extremely conservative Matanuska-Susitna valley north of Anchorage, where Gov. Sarah Palin lives -- had relatively little outstanding vote, about 5,200 ballots.
David Dittman, a pollster who worked for Stevens, agreed that his chances for re-election were slim. Most of the ballots being counted now were cast in the weeks before the election -- before Stevens returned to the state and began railing against his conviction, he said. Once Stevens started doing that, his poll numbers improved.
"When he came back fom the trial and began to campaign personally, it really made a difference," Dittman said. "That doesn't change anything for all those votes that were cast earlier."
Stevens' campaign didn't return a call Thursday.
Begich said he remained "very pleased we're ahead of the game," but wasn't about to do any celebrating.
"I can't predict anything at this point," he said.
Originally, there was nothing. Death was enveloping everything.What we call light is nothing but the capacity of the senses to perceive.
Live with compassion.
Work with compassion.
Die with compassion.
Enjoy with compassion.
When problems come,
experience them with compassion.
– Lama Zopa Rinpoche
Formerly Armistice Day, Veterans Day is a holiday observed annually in the United States in honor of all those, living and dead, who served with the U.S. armed forces in wartime.
Some states observe the holiday on November 11 and others on the fourth Monday of October. Armistice Day, the forerunner of Veterans Day, was proclaimed in 1919 to commemorate the termination (at 11 am on Nov. 11, 1918) of World War I. On the first anniversary of the truce, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation eulogizing fallen Allied soldiers and referring to November 11 as Armistice Day. It became a holiday in the U.S., France, Great Britain and Canada.
The holiday acquired its present name and broadened significance in the U.S. in 1954. In Canada it is known as Remembrance Day, and in Great Britain, as Remembrance Sunday.
Please take a moment today,
to remember our troops.
Kristallnacht, Nov. 9, 1938.
Do not treat people with contempt, nor walk insolently on the earth. Allah does not love the arrogant or the self-conceited boaster. Be modest in your bearing and subdue your voice, for the most unpleasant of voices is the braying of the ass.
-Luqman 31:18-19
Timeline (1929 - )
|
Original Language
English
Contemplation
Notes by Thich Nhat Hanh
In the valley, on the mountain, I beheld only God.
In hardship I saw Him by my side.
In ease and well-being I beheld only God.
Like a candle I melted in His flame.
Amid the sparks of the flames,
I beheld only God.
-Baba Kuhi of Shiraz, "Rabi'a the Mystic"
Recommended Books
Call Me by My True Names: The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh, by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering Into Peace, Joy & Liberation, by Thich Nhat Hanh
Since the moon is full tonight,
let us call upon the stars in prayer.
The power of concentration,
seen through the bright, one-pointed mind,
is shaking the universe.
All living beings are present tonight
to witness the ocean of fear
flooding the Earth.
Upon the sound of the midnight bell,
everyone in the ten directions joins hands
and enters the meditation on Mahakaruna.
Compassion springs from the heart,
http://translate.google.com.vn/translate?hl nh?ng trang t? Vi?t Nam
as pure, refreshing water,
healing the wounds of life.
From the highest peak of the Mind Mountain,
the blessed water streams down,
penetrating rice fields and orange groves.
The poisonous snake drinks
a drop of this nectar
from the tip of a blade of grass,
and the poison on its tongue vanishes.
Mara's arrow's
are transformed
into fragrant flowers.
The wondrous action of the healing water--
a mysterious transformation!
A child now holds the snake in her innocent arms.
Leaves are still green in the ancient garden.
The shimmering sunlight smiles on the snow,
and the sacred spring still flows toward the East.
On Avalokita's willow branch,
or in my heart,
the healing water is the same.
Tonight all weapons
fall at our feet
and turn to dust.
One flower,
two flowers,
millions of little flowers
appear in the green fields.
The gate of deliverance opens
with a smile on the lips
of my innocent child.
The mirror (from The Secret Rose Garden)
By Mahmud Shabistari
(1250? - 1340)
http://urtvforums.org/index.php/topic,904.0.html
English version by Florence Lederer
“I” and “you” are but the lattices,
in the niches of a lamp,
through which the One Light shines.
“I” and “you” are the veil
between heaven and earth;
lift this veil and you will see
no longer the bonds of sects and creeds.
When “I” and “you” do not exist,
what is mosque, what is synagogue?
What is the Temple of Fire?
http://www.psychoacousticresearch.us/
Your eye has not strength enough
to gaze at the burning sun,
but you can see its burning light
by watching its reflection
mirrored in the water.
So the reflection of Absolute Being
can be viewed in the mirror of Not-Being,
for nonexistence, being opposite Reality,
instantly catches its reflection.
Know the world from end to end is a mirror;
in each atom a hundred suns are concealed.
If you pierce the heart of a single drop of water,
from it will flow a hundred clear oceans;
if you look intently at each speck of dust,
in it you will see a thousand beings.
A gnat in its limbs is like an elephant;
in name a drop of water resembles the Nile.
In the heart of a barleycorn is stored a hundred harvests.
Within a millet-seed a world exists.
In an insects wing is an ocean of life.
A heaven is concealed in the pupil of an eye.
The core at the center of the heart is small,
yet the Lord of both worlds will enter there.
Building in Bat Cave. New house.Look at our drive way.
Whatever decision we think we are making is actually being made for us, because the decision is the end result of a thought and we have no control over the arising of the thought.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conference_of_the_Birds
Went looking for my father the other day. I looked under the bed.No one was there.I would play real hard thinking you might come to play and share a sunset. I waited for you father ,but you never came.Never heard your deeds or name until now. Fifty four I get a passport and I still need to know a name? I hear it. Feeling so much from you and mother.Are you dead? Are you all right?How can I help you to find me? Well lets face facts that won't happen!Waiting child. Knowing nothing! Empty handed I go swearing at ghosts.I became so much like you ...Dad.Mother hated this. I reminder her of you. She would get so pissed off, not knowing what I had done?Terrible feeling not knowing what to do?I felt ashamed and absent just like my father. I was to be like him. In nature and looks.Fathers everywhere surround me.Mother said" That I would be like my father and leave her!Now in my prayers of prostrations I have you both together. Mother on one side and father on the other side.Doing Dharma no fighting or pulling. I am whole being. Able to write this.I send you both a poem
By Dogen
(1200 - 1253)
English version by Steven Heine
All my life perplexed by truth and falsity, right and wrong;
Now amusing myself in the moonlight,
Laughing at the wind,
Listening to the songs of birds --
So many years spent idly contemplating
The immense white layer on the mountains;
This winter, all of a sudden,
I see it for the first time as a snow-mountain.
Worship
Commentary by
Ivan M. Granger
Themes
Snow
Recommended Books
The Poetry of Zen: (Shambhalla Library), Edited by Sam Hamill / Edited by J. P. Seaton
The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace, by Steven Heine
Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Translated by Lucien Stryk / Translated by Takashi Ikemoto
A white heron
Hiding itself
In the snowy field,
Where even the winter grass
Cannot be seen.
If you persevere in adversity and depend on God, then know that He will remove your afflictions and bestow vast blessings upon you. For in His Book God promises, "Those who depend upon Allah, Allah bestows His bounty upon them and provides for them from means unknown." Therefore follow the road of patience and rejoice in His infinite bounty.
-Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani
Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rubin
The outward form of things passes away, but the essence remains forever. How long will you be besotted with the shape of the jug? Cast aside the jug, and seek the water. If you look too closely at the form, you miss the essence. If you are wise, you will always pick out the pearl from the shell.
-Rumi, "Mathnawi"
"Unless You give no one gives.
O Creator, unlock the gates of your bounty."
He turned his face to heaven and said,
"No one knows my devotion save You.
You put that prayer into my heart.
You raised a hundred hopes."
-Rumi, "Mathnawi"
The pot is a God. The winnowing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basavanna
By Basava
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/10/21/india.space/index.html
(1134 - 1196)
English version by A. K. Ramanujan
The pot is a God. The winnowing
fan is a God. The stone in the
street is a God. The comb is a
God. The bowstring is also a
God. The bushel is a God and the
spouted cup is a God.
Gods, gods, there are so many
there’s no place left
for a foot.
There is only
one God. He is our Lord
of the Meeting Rivers.
Ching-ch'ing's raindrop sound
Commentary by
Ivan M. Granger
Recommended Books
The Poetry of Zen: (Shambhalla Library), Edited by Sam Hamill / Edited by J. P. Seaton
The Zen Poetry of Dogen: Verses from the Mountain of Eternal Peace, by Steven Heine
Zen Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, Translated by Lucien Stryk / Translated by Takashi Ikemoto
Because the mind is free --
Listening to the rain
Dripping from the eaves,
The drops become
One with me.
Thou keep me prisoner: in Thy heart’s cavern?
I am the Lord and the Cosmic Soul; I am myself the Cosmic Body. I am Brahma, Vishnu, and Rudra, as well as Gauri, Brahmi, and Vaishnavi. I am the sun and the stars and I am the Lord of the stars. I am the various species of beasts and birds; I am also the outcaste and thief. I am the evil doer and the wicked deed; I am the righteous person and the virtuous deed.
http://translate.google.com.mx/translateMEXICO
http://translate.google.com.Bazil
He sprang from his sleep to behold the blind man reading from the Qur’an. "O you with no eyes, how can you see those lines?"
The blind man replied, "I begged my Lord, crying, 'O You who help those who seek, restore my sight that I may read the Book of Life.' My Lord replied, 'O man of devotion, whose hope am I, when you want to read this Book of Mine, you shall have sight at that time.' So the King restored my eyes, like a lamp till the end of the night."
-Rumi, "Mathnawi"
The search of knowledge is an obligation laid on every Muslim.
-The Prophet Muhammad (SAW)
Not being a richman. I find myself with great art and music I am so rich. Passsed a church today. What beauty and grace was within this space.Idea and feeling this morning." Nothing is ever lost nor gain in the world"It is just that easy.This allows one to be free from pain, annoyance, or anxiety.Judson. What do you think?
Gov. Sarah Palin does not represent American Women in Politics
Dear Reader, Friends, Family and Associates,
Hello. I feel as though I need to make this statement after having watched last nights debate between Senator Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin. I am outraged that Palin has been invited to represent American women in politics. I find her to be insincere, backward and a disgrace to the journey we have made toward equality for all men and women no matter what race or creed.
Let me start by stating that I am an avid fan of Hillary Clinton and have been for many years. I would have liked for her to win the Democratic Nomination. In her stead, (as she has encouraged), I will put my confidence and my vote, full heartedly, with Barack Obama.
I feel as though it is a direct insult to all women that the Republicans are attempting to entice the female vote and worse, sway women to their regressive viewpoints, by running the very poor example of an American Female Politician, Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin. She is the complete and total reverse of Hillary and is pandering to the women in this country who are still oppressed and unaware of their subtle entrapment in this male dominated society. She is an example and a role model for women who are still harboring a low self-esteem for their gender identity.
Gov. Sarah Palin’s behavior and jumbled beliefs enforce and uphold a subversive acceptance of female repression. Her example, set by her behavior, is a slap in the face to all self respecting, thoughtful, conscious, school educated or self-educated women in our country and worldwide. Her demeanor and actions are a hold over from the long abandoned, backward days when many African Americans also believed, erroneously, that they were naturally inferior and that they had no right to expect a greater respect from their fellow countrymen. Palin is saying to women of all races, but especially to “white” women that it is absolutely all right and expected for us to manipulate men with winks, flirtatious smiles, and adorably ridiculous opinions.
Watching her last night was not only embarrassing and humiliating, it was down right infuriating. It reminded me of the economically beneficial but socially harmful actions of the early Black American actor Lincoln Perry in his overly convincing, character role of Stepin Fetchit. Let me say that I am “white” and my ancestors who have lived on this continent since the time of the Pilgrims most likely were prejudice against, held as slaves and possessions and beheld as inferior, both African’s and Women, at least until 1863 and most likely beyond. However, I do not belong to that lineage in my heart, my soul or my thoughts. My loving husband is a Black American and our children are set free from the love, high esteem and high expectations that both sides of Grand Parents, parents and relatives hold for them.
I call for women to demand fair and equal representation in this Country, in this time and in this ever expanding, world. Do not find comfort, if you are conservative, or trapped in the outgrown and ill-fitting vision of women that Gov. Palin represents. Look beyond your wildest expectations and take your place amongst the strong, the brave and the free women of our nation and of the greater world community. Deny the affront that Palin is to our gender and vote alongside Hillary. I’m casting my vote with Hillary for the only sensible and self-emboldening choice in November. I am voting among the legion of women represented by the likes of Hillary Clinton, for the Obama/Biden ticket. I call for all my sisters in this great nation to do the same.
Thank you for reading this and feel free to pass it on.
Alison
Feel like the AMERICAN people are being robbed from wall street. No bail out. If you dont' pass this bail out you will close your credit.Banks are in trouble.I feel blame and terrible.Who too trust? Where is the money coimg from?NO GOVERNMENT!Crisis.I think there will be a bail out and many more to come. Blame check who?"Our way or the highway! "Scaring people into debt.Impeach the congress and vice president and Bush.What do you think and feel about this?
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues. ~Bertrand Arthur William Russell, On Education, 1926
Whoever is sitting with friends
is in the midst of a flower garden,
though he may be in the fire. 
Whoever sits with an enemy is in the fire,
even though he is in the midst of a garden.
-Rumi, "Mathnawi" [IV, 1976-1978
Intimate Hymn
By Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
(1907 - 1972)
English version by Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi
From word to word I roam, from dawn to dusk.
Dream in, dream out -- I pass myself and towns,
A human satellite.
I wait, am hopeful, as one who waits at the rock
For the spring to well forth and ever well on.
I feel as bright as if I tented somewhere in the Milky Way.
To urge the world to feel I walk through lonesome solitudes.
All around me lightning explodes sparks from my glance
To reveal all light, unveil faces everywhere.
Godward, onward to the final weighing
overcoming heavy weight with thirst.
Constantly, the longings of all born call out, "Is anyone around?"
I know each one is HE, but in my heart there writhes a tear;
When of men and rocks and trees I hear;
All plead "Feel us"
All beg "See us"
God! Lend me your eyes!
I came to be, to sow the seed of sight in the world,
To unmask the God who disguised Himself as world--
And yes, I wait to be the first to announce "The Dawn."
- from "Human, God's Ineffable Name," by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, freely rendered by Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi. Available from the Reb Zalman Legacy Project
Prud'hon continued to do these academies towards the end of his life, after his reputation was well established in the Parisian Salons and among private collectors. Most remained in his studio after his death.
Prud'hon's work is characterized by the sensitivity of his poses, his unique technique (beautifully presented by Rebecca Alzofon at http://www.art.net/~rebecca/OnPrudon1.html) and the way he designed his light and shadow which sets these works apart from the typical academie
.
Piere Paul{1758-1823)} a charcoal on blue paper ( now faded) about 16X35 cm and is at the Museum of Find Arts in Boston
It is his designing with light and shadow that fascinates me. I can see how I could mimic his technique and perhaps design satisfactory poses, but to design light and shadow with the vision and skill he does seems a Herculean task.
One thing that stands out in this drawing is the sensuous shadow that cascades down the right side of the body from head to heel.
don
__________________
"The people who call my work 'abstract' are imbeciles; what they call 'abstract' is in fact the purest realism, the reality of which is not represented by external form but by the idea behind it, the essence of the work."
Brancusi
"Unless You give no one gives.
O Creator, unlock the gates of your bounty."
He turned his face to heaven and said,
"No one knows my devotion save You.
You put that prayer into my heart.
You raised a hundred hopes."
-Rumi, "Mathnawi"
-Chia Tao, "Chia Tao (779-843), an while Zen monk who became a
poet during China's T'ang Dynasty, recorded the lives of the sages, masters,
immortals,
and hermits who helped establish the great spiritual tradition of Zen Buddhism
in China. When I Find You Again, It Will Be In Mountains"
Robert F.Williamshttp://www.sea-urchin.net/buggers/williams.html Hear his voice
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=home
who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where
always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves
If you persevere in adversity and depend on God, then know that He will remove your afflictions and bestow vast blessings upon you. For in His Book God promises, "Those who depend upon Allah, Allah bestows His bounty upon them and provides for them from means unknown." Therefore follow the road of patience and rejoice in His infinite bounty.
-Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani
Pencil, Drawing color pencils
Ingredients:Broccoli with Beef - serves 4
(1)
2 t. cooking wine
1 t. soy sauce
2 t. cornstarch
(2)
1-3/4 oz. (50g) baby corn (cooked)
1 oz (30g) sliced carrot
1-3/4 oz. (50g) broccoli
(3)
1 T. soy sauce
1 t. cooking wine
1/2 t. sugar
1/2 t. sesame oil
1 t. cornstarch
3 T. water
1 t. vegetable oil
3 section green onion
3 sliced ginger root
2 T. vegetable oil
DIRECTIONS:
Slice beef into small pieces, soak in (1) for 10 minutes.
Add 1 t. vegetable oil to the sliced beef, and cut broccoli into sections.
Heat oil, and put beef in the pan. Stir-fry with medium heat, and take it out when the color changes.
Put green onions and ginger root into remaining oil, and add (2) ,(3) and the beef. Use high-heat and mix it well. Then you can serve it to your guests!
http://www.glamour.demon.co.uk/drawings.htm
Don't Make Lists
By Dorothy Walters
(1928 - )
Every day a new flower rises
from your body’s fresh soil.
Don’t go around looking
for fallen petals
in a fairy tale, when you’ve
got the golden plant
right here, now,
shooting forth in light from your eyes,
your awakening crown.
Don’t make lists,
or explore ancient accounts.
Forget everything you know
and open.
When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Native
Perennial
Bloom: Summer, Autumn
Propagation: Seed
Joe Pie Weed enjoys a damp location. Do you have an area in your yard which stays wet? Here's one of the many plants for a location like that.
Joe pie weed blooms in the middle of summer. While in bloom Joe pie weed is an absolute butterfly magnet. The tiger swallowtail butterflies (and others) will be wing tip to wing tip on the blooms for as long as the flowers last!
Joe pie weed is tall, in excess of 6 ft, though the hybridizes have developed a selection of dwarf varieties.
Companion plants to Joe Pie Weed might include Lousianna Iris, Lobelia, & Huechera to name just a few.
By Kahlil Gibran
(1883 - 1931)
And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
Gerry Garcia
Judson's Nudes 
I am a self taught artist. I admire local artists and artists all
over the world . I am an army veteran. I have been working on
famous faces. I use my art for my depression and to find God. I
had a near death experience that inspired me to be an artist. I
see good in everybody as I work. I like odd or old pictures as
they help with the feeling I get when I do a piece of art. I throw
my entire self into doing a picture. I like the light of a person.
Spirit is very important when doing a drawing. I use oil, pencil,
charcoal and other mediums in my work. I was born on
07-16-54.
"China Freedom" 1989
"Carbon FootPrint" coming into your life.
extending troop deployments beyond a year,is wrong to do.
Growing and multiply annualty/ Start today for spring. Prayer is that which enables the soul to realize its divinity. Through prayer human 
beings worship absolute truth, and seek an eternal reward. Prayer is the foundation-stone of religion; and religion is the means by which the soul is purified of all that pollutes it. Prayer is the worship of the first cause of all things, the supreme ruler of all the world, the source of all strength. Prayer is the adoration of the one whose being is necessary.
Arabesque (disambiguation).
Arabesque pattern at the Alhambra
An element of Islamic art usually found decorating the walls of mosques, the arabesque is an elaborative application of repeating geometric forms that often echo the forms of plants and animals. The choice of which geometric forms are to be used and how they are to be formatted is based upon the Islamic view of the world. To Muslims, these forms, taken together, constitute an infinite pattern that extends beyond the visible material world. To many in the Islamic world, they in fact symbolize the infinite, and therefore uncentralized, nature of the creation of the one God (Allah). Furthermore, the Islamic Arabesque artist conveys a definite spirituality without the iconography of Christian art.
-Ibn Sina, “Kitab al-Najat”
Work in Process September 13 2007
May you have a year of sweetness and joy
Know you are one,
Pure awareness.
With the fire of this conviction
Burn down the forest of ignorance.
Free yourself from sorrow,
And be happy.
-Ashtavakra Gita 1:9
HONEY CAKE
Ingredients :
4 eggs, beaten well
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup coffee (regular, not flavored)
1 cup honey
1 cup oil (safflower, corn oil, other light oils are best - not olive oil)
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon. baking soda
½ teaspoon each of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon brandy
4 loaf pans, lightly greased
Preparation :
Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.
Add white sugar and brown sugar to eggs and beat until well mixed.
Mix coffee and honey together and add to the egg and sugar mixture.
Add oil and mix to combine.
Mix dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture until well blended.
Add vanilla and brandy and mix well.
Fill pans ½ full.
Bake at 325 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick. If crumb feels dry, cake is done.
After cooling, wrap well and store in the refrigerator. Some people suggest refrigerating the cakes for 24 hours before serving to intensify the honey flavor.
Word I am working on is "Rejection"
The word "rejection" was first used in 1415. The original meaning was "to throw" or "to throw back".
Rejection may mean:
In psychology, social rejection is an interpersonal situation that occurs when a person or group of people exclude an individual from a social relationship. This may lead to an emotional state of rejection.
In medicine, transplant rejection usually refers to the immune reaction of a host organism to a foreign biological tissue, such as in a transplantation.
In telecommunications, rejection is the receiving of the desired signal without interference from another undesired one. See Electronic selectivity.
In basketball, rejection is a slang term for a block.
In manufacturing and technology, rejected components are ones that do not meet standards because they are faulty, broken or do not work in some way.
In mathematics, rejection sampling is a technique used to generate observations from a distribution.
I am also the outcaste and thief. I am the evil doer and the wicked deed; I am the righteous person and the virtuous deed.
Questions for "Rejection"
What common behavior patterns exist for people who operate out of a fear of rejection?Answer is that I hide when confronted. I blame others. I get mad when confronted. I avoid people.I am shamed . I don't tell the truth to myself. They don't trust anything.
People who operate out of a fear of rejection:Run away. Avoid the subject . Give up for fear of rejection.Hide. Stay home a lot.
How do others react to people who operate out of a fear of rejection?Make excuses for them. Over look the fear of rejection.I hide the feelings of rejction. I avoid them. I feel they have to learn to trust all over again. baby steps.
What are some underlying causes for operating out of a fear of rejection? 
. Very early age of knowing rejection, abandonment.General mistrust of other people. Fuel by bad experiances in the past prejudice and lack of knowledge. Trust is limited. I trust in action, I believe when something is plan it should be follow to the fulless.In family circumstances, child abandonment is often recognized as a crime, in which case the child is usually not physically harmed directly as part of the abandonment; distinct from this is the widely recognized crime of infanticide.
Self portrait1990
i am a little church(no great cathedral)
By e. e. cummings
(1894 - 1962)
i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
-i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april
my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness
around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains
i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
-i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing
winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)
By Ibn Ata' Illah
(1250 - 1309)
English version by Victor Danner
How utterly amazing is someone who flees from something he cannot escape
to seek something that will not last!
"It is not the eyes that are blind,
but the hearts in the breasts are blind."
Do not travel from phenomenal being to phenomenal being.
You will be like the donkey going around at the mill.
It travels to what is set out from.
Travel from phenomenal beings
to the Maker of Being.
"And the final end is to your Lord."
The month of Ramadan is the one in which the Quran was sent down, a guidance for mankind, clear proofs for the guidance, the Criterion; so whoever amongst you witnesses this month, let him fast it.
-Surah al-Baqarah 2:185
"
I use this soap it makes you smell so good and it's great for after prostrations.
By Lama Gendun Rinpoche
Reprinted from Buddhism Today, Vol 5, 1998
(This is the most wonderful thing I have seen in print to help people conquer their aversion to the discipline of prostrations. I re-print here for all students attempting prostrations at Friends of the Heart. May you all be well. Catherine Jetsun Yeshe.)
Why do we do Prostrations?
1. The Purification of Pride
First of all, we should know why we do prostrations. We do not do them to endear ourselves to somebody else. We do not do them for the Buddha. Such concepts are completely wrong. The Buddha is not a god of this world. We bow down to purify all situations from the past where we did not respect others. Being interested in our own satisfaction and ourselves we did many negative actions;
Prostrations help us realize that there is something more meaningful than ourselves. In this way we purify the pride that we have accumulated through countless lifetimes thinking: "I am right," "I am better than others," or "I am the most important one." During countless lifetimes we have developed pride that is the cause of our actions and have accumulated the karma that is a source of our suffering and problems. The goal of prostrations is to purify this karma and to change our mind set. Prostrations help us rely on something more meaningful than our pride and ego clinging. In this way, through full confidence and devotion, we get rid of everything we have gathered because of pride.
2. The Purification of Body, Speech, and Mind
When we do prostrations we act on the level of body, speech, and mind. The result of doing them is a very powerful and thorough purification. This practice dissolves all impurities, regardless of their kind, because they were all accumulated through our body, speech, and mind. Prostrations purify on all three levels. Through the physical aspect of prostrating we purify our body. We offer our body to the Three jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) and to all sentient beings, wishing that all their wishes are fulfilled. Through the repetition of the refuge mantra and the meaning we ascribe to it, we purify our speech. Through confidence in the Three jewels we develop enlightened attitude Mid devotion. As we are aware of the perfect qualities of the refuge and offer everything to it, the veils in our minds dissolve. When our body, speech, and mind are being purified we realize that what we initially thought of as our body is actually a manifestation of enlightenment as active compassion. What we initially thought of as our speech is the expression of enlightenment on the level of joy; our mind is the truth level of enlightenment. We are able to see the enlightened reality of our body, speech, and mind - their full of wisdom truth that We Initially were not aware of. We realize that this practice can lead us to our goal, enlightenment, because the three levels expressing the state of a Buddha appear immediately after the three levels of our existence - body, speech, and mind - are purified. We do not have to look for enlightenment anywhere else. We do not have to chase any perfect realizations. The three levels of enlightenment are true inherent qualities of our own body, speech, and mind. We did not see it before. Prostrations help us discover it.
3. Physical Benefits of Prostrations
Prostrations strongly influence the balance and harmony in our body. Blocks in its energy channels gradually dissolve. This helps us avoid diseases, lack of energy, and other problems. Our mind becomes clearer. Our ability to understand increases.
The State of Mind During Prostrations
We should do prostrations with full confidence, joy and motivation to benefit others.
1. Confidence
We should have confidence in the perfect qualities of the Three jewels and be sure that their blessing can remove the veils from our minds. The blessing can appear and the purification is effective when otir confidence in body, speech, and mind meets the transforming qualities of the enlightened body, enlightened speech and enlightened mind - the sources of the refuge. If we do not have confidence and cannot open Lip to the Three Jewels prostrations will only be like a play.
2. Motivation to Benefit Others
When we do prostrations we should understand that good actions are the source of happiness of all sentient beings. Prostrations are a good example of this fact. When we do' the practice using our body, speech, and mind, we offer our energy to others wishing that it brings them happiness. We should be happy about this fact and do prostrations with joy.
The Proper Practice
1. Visualization of the Refuge Tree
In front of us in space we imagine the whole refuge tree. First, we imagine Dorje Chang - the lama who represents all sources of the refuge. We imagine the lama as the center of the refuge tree. We should be fully aware that Dorje Chang is our teacher and that he is the mind of our lama. We think about Dorje Chang to make sure that the manifestation of the nature of mind is not stained by our habitual thoughts. To help us keep the pure view, the view of wisclorrij we imagine this perfectly pure form. At the same time we keep awareness that Dorje Chang is the mind of our lama. Everything that appears in front of us in space is like a rainbow or a reflection in a mirror; it is not a thing. If we have difficulties Visualizing the whole refuge tree we should have confidence that all objects of the refuge are really in front of us even if we cannot hold them in our mind.
2. Awareness of Ourselves and Others
We are not alone in our practice. We are surrounded by all beings that fill the whole universe. We imagine our father oil our right side and our mother on our left. When we stand between our parents from this life we realize that each and every being without exception has been our parent in some previous life. This helps us remember the goodness of all our parents, all sentient beings, who were helping us during countless lifetimes.
We imagine the ones we consider our enemies in front of us, between the refuge tree and ourselves. We think of the people who cause us problems and obstruct the realization of our plans. All these people are very important because they help us develop such qualities as patience and compassion. We usually want to avoid such people. We try to stay away from them. We do not want to think about them. Putting them in front of us helps us not to forget them. Treating enemies in such a way protects us against disrespecting them.
We focus all our attention on the refuge tree. We are confident that the refuge can free all sentient beings from the suffering of samsara and it can protect us against the anxiety that this suffering causes. In such a mind-set, surrounded by all sentient beings, we start to repeat the refuge mantra. Everything around us starts to vibrate. We experience strong light from the refuge tree. The light shines on us because of our own devotion. This makes us open up even more. Then we start to bow down. We are the masters of the ceremony and lead the whole practice. Our prostrations immediately inspire all beings to begin doing the same practice. We hear all beings repeating mantras and doing prostrations. These These vibrations fill the whole universe.
Holding such a vision rather than concentrating only on ourselves widens our activity. On the one hand it gives us strength, on the other hand it gives us motivation to practice. All beings doing prostrations with us give us encouragement. Experiencing great amounts of energy from all beings doing prostrations, we feel even more confidence in and devotion to the Three Jewels. The feeling of "riding with the crowd" helps us finish prostrations quickly and experience great happiness during the practice.
3. The Symbolic Meaning of Each Element in the Act of Bowing Down
To give the ultimate dimension to our practice we should be aware of the symbolic meaning of a prostration. Touching our forehead with clasped hands, we ask the objects of the refuge for the blessing of their bodies. At the same time we imagine that the blessing of their enlightened bodies radiates on us, goes through our body and dissolves all its obscurations. Then our clasped hands touch our throat. We ask for the blessing of speech. At. the same time we think that the blessing of their enlightened speech emanates from the objects of the refuge and purifies all obscurations that we have accumulated through our speech. In such a way we free ourselves from these obscurations. When we touch our heart with clasped hands we ask the refuge for the blessing of their enlightened mind. It helps us get rid of all veils and wrong views in our minds. We are confident that all evil wishes we have been filling our minds with since beginningless time are completely purified. We should think that we are getting the full blessing of enlightened body, speech, and mind from the Three Jewels. Through the power of this blessing, all veils, bad karma, and negative tendencies in our body, speech, and mind are purified. We are completely pure and inseparable from the body, speech, and mind of the lama and the Three Jewels.
When our body touches the ground with its five points (knees, hands, forehead) we should realize that five disturbing emotions - anger, attachment, ignorance, pride, and jealousy - leave our body and disappear in the earth. In such a way we experience complete purification.
The two aspects of prostrations, dissolving the mind's poisons and getting the blessing from the Three Jewels, cause the transformation of pride, attachment, jealousy, anger, and ignorance into the five corresponding wisdoms. We should be be confident that the transformation is actually taking place, that we have the natural, inherent ability to develop these wisdoms.
This symbolic aspect of prostrations will work only if we have confidence. Our confidence can give us this big purification. Practicing without confidence is just like aerobic exercise.
4. The Significance of Devotion
Our devotion will grow the more prostrations we do. Finally, we will reach the level where we will no longer think that Our body, speech, and mind are any different from the body, speech, and mind of the Three Jewels. Prostrations give a wonderful result; they are the source of a very powerful blessing and a great purification. We should not think that prostrations consist only of an activity of our body. The blessing and purification appear mainly because of our devotion.
5. Increasing the Strength of Our Practice
I cannot teach you violence, as I do not myself believe in it. I can only teach you not to bow your heads before any one even at the cost of your life.
-Mahatma Gandhi
We practice with an open mind. We should not think that we are the only person doing prostrations. All beings are doing them with us. We do not have to limit our thinking only to ourselves. We should not assert ourselves by thinking, "I am bowing down." If we think like that we accumulate good potential that corresponds to the act of doing one prostration. If we think of all sentient beings doing prostrations with us, the good potential we accumulate is much bigger. When we are doing prostrations we should think that a hundred of our emanations are doing them with us. If we are able to imagine that our practice will be much stronger. We should not count more prostrations if we imagine more beings doing them with us. This is only one of the special Vajrayana methods that help us strengthen our practice.
6. Linking the Prostrations with Calming the Mind
After a while our body will be tired. This is a useful moment to practice calming the mind. When the body and mind are tired, attachment decreases. If we stop doing prostrations for a moment our mind will naturally calm down by itself without any additional help on our side. When after a while our body and mind feel rested agani, our mind becomes agitated. This is the sign to start prostrations again. When we alternate doing prostrations with calming tile mind we can practice ceaselessly
The Approach to Suffering
Sometimes we might experience difficulties doing prostrations. Pain and fatigue will be in our way. There is always some concern: pain in our knees, elbows, lower back, everywhere. There is no reason to be discouraged by it or lose confidence in our practice. Neither should we strengthen the feeling by saying to ourselves, "I suffer so much, I feel so weak." By doing this we completely block ourselves. We lose the ability to act. When the pain is allowed to "have a say," it can become a real obstacle on the path of our further practice. We should use every unpleasant experience, whether physical or mental, as a means to get enlightened. Such experiences should mobilize us toward greater effort on our path.
Everything we experience depends on the state of mind we are in. If we want to experience things differently we must change the state of our mind. If we manage to efficiently transform suffering into a positive and beneficial experience, the suffering will disappear completely without a trace. This will give us more happiness and joy.
Prostrations are a way of accumulating truly good potential. They are an easy and effective way to purify negative actions from our past. On the other hand, if - due to pain and fatigue - we continue prostrations being depressed, true purification does not take place.
The Techniques of Working with Unpleasant Experiences
1. Depletion of Karma
We should not think of suffering as something very serious. We should remember that suffering is just karma, that it is impermanent like everything else. Suffering has its end. When our karma ripens we should remain relaxed and observe this natural flow of things. If we manage to infuse our practice with the understanding of the impermanence of karma, it will dissolve by itself. Karma is not something we have to accept or reject. It is like the obligation to pay our bills which appears automatically. When we have paid our debts karma dissolves by itself and there is nothing to reject.
2. Purification of Karma through Physical Indisposition
Dharma practice eliminates veils and stains that are results of our former actions. We should perceive the physical indisposition that we experience during the practice as the result of the compassion of the Three Jewels. This relatively small suffering dissolves future karma which will not ripen. For this reason we should experience this suffering with joy and confidence. Such unpleasant experiences indicate that the practice works. The use of purifying methods may result in many unpleasant experiences on the level of body, speech, and mind. At the same time, we are getting rid of difficulties and veils In our minds. As we experience purification as a result of our practice, Our confidence in the Three Jewels increases. We feel deep gratitude because these relatively small nuisances help free us from conditions that would otherwise ripen as much greater suffering.
3. Noticing Ego-Clinging through Suffering
We should regard every suffering as an antidote to ego clinging. Experiencing one's own suffering is in itself a proof of our egocentric attitude towards all phenomena. At the same time, such situations (where we experience suffering) give us the possibility to get rid of our ego clinging. If we have no ego-illusion we can experience no suffering. We should also understand the cause of our suffering: we experience it because of our former actions which resulted from our ego clinging. Being so focused on ourselves, we have sown many karmic seeds which have now ripened as suffering. We can treat suffering as a teaching showing us the results of actions that result from being focused on oneself. From beginningless time this ego clinging has been the cause of us being caught in the cycle of existence (samsara).
4. Observing Our Ego
Ego wants to be satisfied all the time. As long as everything is all right our ego is content and tries to keep this state. Our "self " clings to this contentment and our mind is distressed with desire - the poison of attachment. When nice circumstances are gone, ego still clings to them because it wants to be content. More attachment and desire appear in our mind. In the cases of unpleasant situations the ego reacts with anger and hatred. It tries to avoid them and replace them with pleasant experiences. In this way our mind is anxious and unhappy. We can recognize the continuous influence of ego in every situation. It ceaselessly categorizes experiences as pleasant or unpleasant. If we follow our ego we accumulate karma which will sooner or later ripen as different kinds of suffering.
5. Unpleasant Experiences as a Test of Our Perseverance
We should remember about our promise to use our body, speech, and mind for the benefit of others. Knowing that we work for the benefit of all beings we should keep our promise, subdue our internal difficulties, and continue our practice.
Lama Gendun Rinpoche fled Tibet when the Chinese invaded. Renowned as a meditator who spent many years in retreat both in Tibet and India, be was invited to Dordogne, France, in the seventies, to teach meditation to Westerners. He made France his home, establishing seven centres in Auvergne, and for more than twenty years was fully occupied with teaching and guiding his students through the three year retreats. On the 31st October 1997, Gendun Rinpoche died from the complications of old age in Le Bost, France.
Translation from the Polish magazine Diamentowa Droga (Diamond Way) by Peter Piasecki and Susan Bixby from Calgary, Canada. This article was printed in Buddhism Today in 1998.
1000 PORSTRATIONS 3 September 2007 60000 for year of 2007.May you all find peace and freedom.
BAGHDAD -- John Agresto arrived here nine months ago with two suitcases, a feather pillow and a suffusion of optimism. He didn't know much about Iraq, but he felt certain the American occupation, and his mission to oversee the country's university system, would be a success.
"Like everyone else in America, I saw the images of people cheering as Saddam Hussein's statue was pulled down. I saw people hitting pictures of him with their shoes," said Agresto, the former president of St. John's College in New Mexico. "Once you see that, you can't help but say, 'Okay. This is going to work.' "
But the Iraq he encountered was different from what he had expected. Visits to the universities he was trying to rebuild and the faculty he wanted to invigorate were more and more dangerous, and infrequent. His Iraqi staff was threatened by insurgents. His evenings were disrupted by mortar attacks on the occupation authority's Baghdad headquarters.
His plans to repair hundreds of campus buildings were scuttled by the Bush administration's decision to shift reconstruction efforts and by the failure to raise money from other sources. His hope that Iraqis would put aside differences and personal interests for a common cause was, as he put it, "way too idealistic."
"It's difficult to describe how bad things were," he recalled.
Name dropper and Book Author John Augresto /"Mugged by Reality"
All sounds are the resonance of voidness
Thoughts are freed just as they arise.
At death the net of the body is at last torn apart
Taking down the boundaries of one's retreat.
Shabkar (Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol)
Timeline (1781 - 1851)
The sun, the king of illumination,
is not inflated by self-importance;
by the karma of sentient beings,
it shines resplendent in the sky. Kelsang Gyatso
Timeline (1708 - 1757)
Little Tiger
Commentary by
Ivan M. Granger
Themes
Crown
Fire
Freedom
Garden
Honey
Recommended Books
Songs of Spiritual Experience: Tibetan Buddhist Poems of Insight & Awakening, Translated by Thupten Jinpa / Translated by Jas Elsner
The honey bee, a little tiger,
is not addicted to the taste of sugar;
his nature is to extract the juice
from the sweet lotus flower!
Dakinis, above, below, and on earth,
unimpeded by closeness and distance,
will surely extract the blissful essence
when the yogins bound by pledges gather.
The sun, the king of illumination,
is not inflated by self-importance;
by the karma of sentient beings,
it shines resplendent in the sky.
When the sun perfect in skill and wisdom
dawns in the sky of the illuminated mind,
without conceit, you beautify
and crown the beings of all three realms.
The smiling faces of the radiant moon
are not addicted to hide and seek;
by its relations with the sun,
the moon takes waning and waxing forms.
Though my gurus, embodiment of all refuge,
are free of all fluctuation and of faults,
through their flux-ridden karma the disciples perceive
that the guru's three secrets display all kinds of effulgence.
Constellations of stars adorning the sky
are not competing in a race of speed;
due to the force of energy's pull,
the twelve planets move clockwise with ease.
Guru, deity, and dakini -- my reguge --
though not partial toward the faithful,
unfailingly you appear to guard
those with fortunate karma blessed.
The white clouds hovering above on high
are not so light that they arise from nowhere;
it is the meeting of moisture and heat
that makes the patches of mist in the sky.
Those striving for good karma
are not greedy in self-interest;
by the meeting of good conditions
they become unrivaled as they rise higher.
The clear expanse of the autumn sky
is not engaged in the act of cleansing;
yet being devoid of all obscuration,
its pure vision bejewels the eyes.
The groundless sphere of all phenomena
is not created fresh by a discursive mind;
yet when the face of ever-presence is known,
all concreteness spontaneously fades away.
Rainbows radiating colors freely
are not obsessed by attractive costumes;
by the force of dependent conditions,
they appear distinct and clearly.
This vivid appearance of the external world,
though not a self-projected image,
through the play of fluctuating thought and mind,
appears as paintings of real things.
Find find a way too give. It all comes back in a million ways. Most of all give time for yourself in your rising and falling of breath. Today we did prostrations He in tibetian I did free lance. The merit field was very big streaching from the dinning room from the living room to the bed room. Many blessings the little dog now bows and plays with me as I do practice. Very soon we will have a 1000 blessings for all here. May all be free may you reach the stars and heavens. Awareness is so vast and emptyness is even larger. It's like dark matter and you reachout it and there is no bounties , Nothing . When I dive off during prostrations, I fall and my arms slide in to a bow and all is relased. I am flying over my ego it seems as I learn more about prostrations all the time. For each person the experiance is different. Prosrations are like a fire that burns and never dies, I seek more a golden light . The same as my death experiance. I can feel the same affect there is a golden light. I feel it with the heat of the prostrations.Like death and rising again. My mind beomes clear as if my breathing is like this "All day long the fire burns and the light shines."
"The next time you go to GoodWill.Ask how much they spent on training people for the jobs. Not much." Where is there a living Wage. Ben there JUDSON
Barefooted and naked of breast, I mingle with the people of the world.
My clothes are ragged and dust-laden, and I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees become alive.
wojnarowicz
946 Prostrations for 1000 2 September 2007
I struggled hard but did not reap the fruits of my labors. Then I gazed into myself and found that my ego and my heart were unified. When the ego and the heart are united, a portion of all that shines upon the heart is seized by the self. Thus I came to know the cause of my dilemma, that the light illuminating my heart was being seized by my ego.
-Al-Nuri, in "Islamic Sufism"
Artist Writer David Wojnarowicz. Finish work 31 August 2007
Filipino proverbs have shaped the culture and subcultures of the people who use them. The most popular proverb is "He who does not look back from where he came from will never reach his destination." The feeling I have of the president's speech tonight.
Although there are countless teachings that instruct how to obtain enlightenment in a future life, almost all of them are nothing more than expedients. As the ultimate instruction there is simply no teaching that is superior to the true practice of the awakening to one's own nature.
-Hakuin, "Zen Master Hakuin"
Recommended Books
Adventures in the Deeps of the Mind: Th Cuchulain Cycle of W. B. Yeats, by Barton R. Friedman
Autobiography of W. B. Yeats, by W. B. Yeats
Birth of Modernism: Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, and the Occult, by Leon Surette
Blackwell Critical Biographies #12: The Life of W. B. Yeats, by Terence Brown
A Book of Irish Verse, by William Butler Yeats
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
By William Butler Yeats
(1865 - 1939)
Cumhal called out, bending his head,
Till Dathi came and stood,
With a blink in his eyes, at the cave-mouth,
Between the wind and the wood.
And Cumhal said, bending his knees,
"I have come by the windy way
And learn to pray when you pray.
"I can bring you salmon out of the streams
And heron out of the skies."
But Dathi folded his hands and smiled
With the secrets of God in his eyes.
And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke
All manner of blessed souls,
Women and children, young men with books,
And old men with croziers and stoles.
"praise God and God's Mother,' Dathi said,
"For God and God's Mother have sent
The blessedest souls that walk in the world
To fill your heart with content."
"And which is the blessedest,' Cumhal said,
"Where all are comely and good?
Is it these that with golden thuribles
Are singing about the wood?"
"My eyes are blinking,' Dathi said,
"With the secrets of God half blind,
But I can see where the wind goes
And follow the way of the wind;
"And blessedness goes where the wind goes,
And when it is gone we are dead;
I see the blessedest soul in the world
And he nods a drunken head.
"O blessedness comes in the night and the day
And whither the wise heart knows;
And one has seen in the redness of wine
The Incorruptible Rose,
"That drowsily drops faint leaves on him
And the sweetness of desire,
While time and the world are ebbing away
In twilights of dew and of fire."
After serveral trails .
Once the ego is overcome peace follows. "Only God and no living creature has the power to control destinies." With that conviction entrust all your cares to the Lord and follow the path of the Truth, conforming to the divine edicts, until you attain union with Him and become as pure as Adam before whom all creatures prostrated.
-Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani, "Fayuz E Yazdani"
New Project
New Project Start of Project
Below is an example of our most popular prayer adapted from Shatideva's 8th century Indian prayer.
Metta Karuna Prayer
Oneness of Life and Light,
Entrusting in your Great Compassion,
May you shed the foolishness in myself,
Transforming me into a conduit of Love.
May I be a medicine for the sick and weary,
Nursing their afflictions until they are cured;
May I become food and drink,
During time of famine,
May I protect the helpless and the poor,
May I be a lamp,
For those who need your Light,
May I be a bed for those who need rest,
and guide all seekers to the Other Shore.
May all find happiness through my actions,
and let no one suffer because of me.
Whether they love or hate me,
Whether they hurt or wrong me,
May they all realize true entrusting,
Through Other Power,
and realize Supreme Nirvana.
Namo Amida Buddha
I order a plant and it should arrive here soon Citrus australasica "Australian Finger Lime"
Here's a unique variety of lime that's ideal for pot culture. The 1-2' tall plants have small dark green leaves and an abundance of fragrant white flowers. Once plants reach a foot tall, they fruit heavily. The fruit is filled with tiny lime beads. 2.5" pot.
C2026-2 Reg $12.95 Hope you looking forward to something. 946 Prostrations for 1000 30 August 2007 . Falling like I have just taken off for a dive. I dive and touch the floor my mind is clear and breathing deep within the lower body. I streach and make a full prostration . My body smooth and like a needle that sews and mends things at a pointed edge. It's awareness through the entire body.Keeping count wears at you as you just want to do the prostrations with out counting. Paying attention to the entire act and what is behind your actions. I grow stronger and though I leave the practice and bring it back. It welcomes me with greather strength and mind power and heart.
Contemplation
By Thich Nhat Hanh
(1929 - )
Since the moon is full tonight,
let us call upon the stars in prayer.
The power of concentration,
seen through the bright, one-pointed mind,
is shaking the universe.
All living beings are present tonight
to witness the ocean of fear
flooding the Earth.
Upon the sound of the midnight bell,
everyone in the ten directions joins hands
and enters the meditation on Mahakaruna.
Compassion springs from the heart,
as pure, refreshing water,
healing the wounds of life.
From the highest peak of the Mind Mountain,
the blessed water streams down,
penetrating rice fields and orange groves.
The poisonous snake drinks
a drop of this nectar
from the tip of a blade of grass,
and the poison on its tongue vanishes.
Mara's arrow's
are transformed
into fragrant flowers.
The wondrous action of the healing water--
a mysterious transformation!
A child now holds the snake in her innocent arms.
Leaves are still green in the ancient garden.
The shimmering sunlight smiles on the snow,
and the sacred spring still flows toward the East.
On Avalokita's willow branch,
or in my heart,
the healing water is the same.
Tonight all weapons
fall at our feet
and turn to dust.
One flower,
two flowers,
millions of little flowers
appear in the green fields.
The gate of deliverance opens
with a smile on the lips
of my innocent child.
"Fields of being "playful and moving.Interior vs exterior being filled by all. You are the great forest, and the creatures of the forest.
arunachala.jpg
http://www.thegully.com/essays/gaymundo/020313_chrystos_native_gay.html
Butterflies are here. yellow and deep dark blues and black.The dog is alseep on the deck.Bring plants inside of the house because of the heat. Some plants do well in the heat and grow great. Getting married. even though "were living in sin. " 15 years of living together were getting married. I like being single. I grew the butterflies trees.Bees and skippers and butterflies love the plant. It's a weed I think. But it desevers to live. I am drawing and trying to shape pencil into something that take purpose and I can deal with. Reading "Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac. "I love the first chapter he and and the little bum and Saint Teresa his first Dharma Bum.May roses be on your path today as well. She is a good Saint. This has been my experiance. She is powerful and real.From the Book, "The greatest Dharma Bums of them all, the Zen Lunatics of China and Japan "Nippon " Lankavatara Scripture
Rediscover the ancient dream of man, the sensation of the Golden Age of Existence, in the details of this man’s life ... mine ... as I cease stimulants and narcotics, my mind yearns to recreate the Mighty Legend of Duluoz—In every instant of the drowsy dream so long finished & done—The Paean of a New American Song—. (Kerouac 1997, 258)
Smaller than a grain of rice, smaller than a grain of barley, smaller than a mustard seed, smaller than a grain of millet, smaller even than the kernel of a grain of millet is the Self. This is the Self dwelling in my heart, greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than all the worlds.
-Chandogya Upanishad
215. The Creed of My Heart
By Edmond Gore Alexander Holmes (1850–1906)
A FLAME in my heart is kindled by the might of the morn’s pure breath;
A passion beyond all passion; a faith that eclipses faith;
A joy that is more than gladness; a hope that outsoars desire;
A love that consumes and quickens; a soul-transfiguring fire.
My life is possessed and mastered: my heart is inspired and filled. 5
All other visions have faded: all other voices are stilled.
My doubts are vainer than shadows: my fears are idler than dreams:
They vanish like breaking bubbles, those old soul-torturing themes.
The riddles of life are cancelled, the problems that bred despair:
I cannot guess them or solve them, but I know that they are not there. 10
They are past, they are all forgotten, the breeze has blown them away;
For life’s inscrutable meaning is clear as the dawn of day.
It is there—the secret of Nature—there in the morning’s glow;
There in the speaking stillness; there in the rose-flushed snow.
It is here in the joy and rapture; here in my pulsing breast: 15
I feel what has ne’er been spoken: I know what has ne’er been guessed.
The rose-lit clouds of morning; the sun-kissed mountain heights;
The orient streaks and flushes; the mingling shadows and lights;
The flow of the lonely river; the voice of its distant stream;
The mists that rise from the meadows, lit up by the sun’s first beam;— 20
They mingle and melt as I watch them; melt and mingle and die.
The land is one with the water: the earth is one with the sky.
The parts are as parts no longer: Nature is All and One:
Her life is achieved, completed: her days of waiting are done
I breathe the breath of the morning. I am one with the one World-Soul. 25
I live my own life no longer, but the life of the living Whole.
I am more than self: I am selfless: I am more than self: I am I.
I have found the springs of my being in the flush of the eastern sky.
I—the true self, the spirit, the self that is born of death—
I have found the flame of my being in the morn’s ambrosial breath. 30
I lose my life for a season: I lose it beyond recall:
But I find it renewed, rekindled, in the life of the One, the All.
I look not forward or backward: the abysses of time are nought.
From pole to pole of the heavens I pass in a flash of thought.
I clasp the world to my bosom: I feel its pulse in my breast,— 35
The pulse of measureless motion, the pulse of fathomless rest.
Is it motion or rest that thrills me? Is it lightning or moonlit peace?
Am I freer than waves of ether, or prisoned beyond release?
I know not; but through my spirit, within me, around, above,
The world-wide river is streaming, the river of life and love. 40
Silent, serene, eternal, passionless, perfect, pure;—
I may not measure its windings, but I know that its aim is sure.
In its purity seethes all passion: in its silence resounds all song:
Its strength is builded of weakness: its right is woven of wrong.
I am borne afar on its bosom; yet its source and its goal are mine, 45
From the sacred springs of Creation to the ocean of love Divine.
I have ceased to think or to reason: there is nothing to ponder or prove:
I hope, I believe no longer: I am lost in a dream of love.
Stay close by the door, if you desire all beauty
And leave aside sleep, if you wish to arrive
And make of the spirit your first place of account
To the beloved, whose lights shine as from gold
All of them worship out of fear of the fire –
And consider deliverance abundant good fortune -
Or, so they may dwell in the gardens, and reach
To the meadows of paradise, and there drink from its rivers
Of gardens or fire I have no opinion
I seek no exchange for my dearest love
- Rabia Al-Adawiyya
Throughout her life, her Love of God. Poverty and self-denial were unwavering and her constant companions. She did not possess much other than a broken jug, a rush mat and a brick, which she used as a pillow. She spent all night in prayer and contemplation chiding herself if she slept for it took her away from her active Love of God.
As her fame grew she had many disciples. She also had discussions with many of the renowned religious people of her time. Though she had many offers of marriage, and tradition has it one even from the Amir of Basra, she refused them as she had no time in her life for anything other than God.
More interesting than her absolute asceticism, however, is the actual concept of Divine Love that Rabia introduced. She was the first to introduce the idea that God should be loved for God's own sake, not out of fear--as earlier Sufis had done.
She taught that repentance was a gift from God because no one could repent unless God had already accepted him and given him this gift of repentance. She taught that sinners must fear the punishment they deserved for their sins, but she also offered such sinners far more hope of Paradise than most other ascetics did. For herself, she held to a higher ideal, worshipping God neither from fear of Hell nor from hope of Paradise, for she saw such self-interest as unworthy of God's servants; emotions like fear and hope were like veils -- i.e. hindrances to the vision of God Himself.
She prayed: "O Allah! If I worship You for fear of Hell, burn me in Hell,
and if I worship You in hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise.
But if I worship You for Your Own sake,
grudge me not Your everlasting Beauty.”
Rabia was in her early to mid eighties[2] when she died, having followed the mystic Way to the end. By then, she was continually united with her Beloved. As she told her Sufi friends, "My Beloved is always with me"
Whatever attitudes we habitually use toward ourselves, we will use on others, and whatever attitudes we habitually use toward others, we will use on ourselves. The situation is comparable to our serving food to ourselves and to other people from the same bowl. Everyone ends up eating the same thing--we must examine carefully what we are dishing out.
-Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, "Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness"
In process 
The self, that which is always " FLASHING INTO EXISTENCE "
Back to faces.Had to do Jack Kerouac. All pictures are for sell . Signed by me . Just contact me . Will be glad to help.
Jack Kerouac
9X12 Pencil charcoal $200.00 GIVEN AWAY TO A POET
Kali is naked reality.
She is the feminine reality.
This simpleminded lover of truth
calls her my Mother, my Mother,
because she is the inexhaustible affection
who never neglects her children,
no matter how heedless or rebellious they may be.
-Ramprasad
703 Prostrations for 1000 29 August 2007
To the Tune of LIKE A DREAM
I always remember the sunset
over the pavalion by the river.
So tipsy, we could not find our way home.
Our interest exhausted, the evening late,
we tried to turn the boat homeward.
By mistake, we entered deep within the lotus bed.
Row! Row the boat!
A flock of herons, frightened,
suddenly flew skyward.
Alice Tokas
It is improper to ever forget a kindness,
But good to forget at once an injury received.
The deadliest injury is effaced the moment
The mind recalls a single kindness received from the injurer.
-Tirukkural 11:108-109
I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth. In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality.
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child--our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
-Thich Nhat Hanh, "Miracle of Mindfulness"
Judson Laird
Why are we so full of restraint? Why do we not give in all directions? Is it fear of losing ourselves? Until we do lose ourselves there is no hope of finding ourselves.Henry Miller
Sojourner Truth - Abolitionist
Ramadan is the (month) in which was sent down the Qur'an, as a guide to mankind, also clear (Signs) for guidance and judgment (Between right and wrong). So every one of you who is present (at his home) during that month should spend it in fasting, but if any one is ill, or on a journey, the prescribed period (Should be made up) by days later. Allah intends every facility for you; He does not want to put to difficulties. (He wants you) to complete the prescribed period, and to glorify Him in that He has guided you; and perchance ye shall be grateful.
-Qur'an, Al-Baqara, 2:185
Moving how much junk I have.Sorting out goods to storage. Dogs are happy and come by every day. Cats are ok. Birds are growing. Brought plants inside to fill empty house. The heat is terrible on me and the plants. Clean your house it means so much to you and your animals. The cats love the open spaces from clearing away just stuff. How that has changed. Were working to together to make it a home that it is clean. A storage place helped. Were moving in the country and further away from stores and town.
On all sides That has hands and feet;
On all sides eyes, heads and faces;
On all sides in the world it hearts;
All things it embraces
Kalpa 4,320,000,000 years,
moksha means liberation
Chapter Five: " The Seeking of the Dharma "is rather like Mark Twain writing .I like the dreams they all have men and women. they the dreams are rich and lasting in practice. They are like good deeds they warm you in the harder times of practice. Milarepa meets his Lama Marpa the Lama tells him too plow a field and drink some really good beer. He thinks the Lama/Guru is a monk. The beer is so good. There are dreams and magic and tells about the teaching of Marpa being the teacher to Naropa. Milarepa offers body speech and mind to the Lama/Guru. I am so happy it's like having a grand guest to my House. Odd behavior even for myself. It's just how I feel. I enjoy the book that much. It's like the greatest of stories is being told to me. And I sit spellbound. Beer holds the story together.
The wicked see this universe as a hell, and the partially good see it as heaven, while the perfect beings realize it as God Himself. Only when a man sees this universe as God does the veil fall from his eyes; then that man, purified and cleansed, finds his whole vision changed.
-Vivekananda
Tilopa is: "The problem is not enjoyment, the problem is attachment."
Meditate in everyfavorable solitary place. Raise a banner of meditation in each. Devikoti and Tsari. 
Mount Tsari
The sacred Mount Tsari is located in the north fringe of Loyul. Where the Takxin in the south of the Maqidun of the Nam county in the east to the Jiayu Xika of the Lhuntse county in the west, where are inhabited with Bayi, Yemure, Na, Dege tribes of the Loyul people. In the 12th century, Bajiare Yeshe Duomu, an eminent monk of the Kagyu Sect went to Tsari to practise Buddhism. He regarded the place as a palace of Happy Buddha and a victorious ambience for Budha’s pleasure. Circumambulations to the mountain started since then. It is said if you circumambulate the mountain once, you will be relieved from suffering for life and directly can enter into heaven. Since then, its influence and scale gradually developed to be larger religious activities in the whole of Tibet. As the circumambulation firstly started in the year of monkey in Tibetan calendar, it is followed and called “Tsari Jiege” by local people. Since the rising of the Gelug Sect into power in the 17th century, the circumambulation to the mountain became a regular rule once in every twelve years, the year of monkey, which has become a large-scale religious activity officially held by local government of Tibet. Especially during the 4th to 6th month pilgrims come for circumambulation to the sacred mountain in endless streams bustling with noise and excitement.
As in a pile of rubbish
cast by the side of a highway
a lotus might grow
clean-smelling
pleasing the heart,
so in the midst of the rubbish-like,
people run-of-the-mill & blind,
there dazzles with discernment
the disciple of the Rightly
Self Awakened One.
-Dhammapada, 4, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Check your mind,
Be on your guard,
Pull yourself out,
As an elephant from mud.
The Culture of Counter -Culture by Allen Watts. A short read and very enjoyable. His lectures are prose. Takes you in too a personal space and questions you have ask , but no answers.Experiance and practice writes the writer. Book costs $10.00 Tuttle Publishing. Inspiration for generations of Asia Fans. 150 pages
Moving and packing and unpacking from our years in Alaska. How much stuff you keep.Reading" The Life of Milarepa "by LOBSANG P. LHALUNGPA Translation fom Tibetan 
The words are rich and many powers a quest for spiritual perfection. Magic , humor. Learning about Marpa, Tilopa. Naropa
other saints have stories.
My imperfections and failures are as much a blessing from God as my successes and my talents, and I lay them both at His feet.
-Mohandas Gandhi
Pray for Japan"Nippon "
16 July, 2007
Japan hit by earthquake
An earthquake has struck north-western Japan. The national broadcaster NHK reported that hundreds of buildings in the Niigata area had been destroyed. More than two-hundred-and-sixty people were injured and two were killed. This report from Keith Adams:
The earthquake, which measured six-point-eight on the Richter Scale, hit Japan's north west coast on Monday morning. In the city of Kashiwazaki, residents described being violently shook. Officials there say 2,000 people were evacuated from their homes. The city's modern buildings, as elsewhere in the earthquake-prone country, are built to withstand tremors, but the older, mostly timber buildings were reduced to rubble.
Of most concern though, was the damage to the Kashiwazaki nuclear power station. But Yasuhisa Shiozaki, the Chief Cabinet Secretary, said there was no immediate danger.
"At the nuclear power plant, the third, fourth and fifth reactors automatically shut down. There is a fire at the transformer building outside the main reactors, but we have confirmed that there was no nuclear leak."
As aftershocks continued to hit, the Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced he'd cancel election campaigning in southern Japan and head to the area. Richard Lloyd Parry, a journalist for The Times, told the BBC he clearly felt the earthquake in Tokyo, some 250 kilometres away.
"I'm on the third floor of a concrete building, and it was like being on a ship at sea for about forty seconds or so, and the utility poles, the wires outside the window were all shaking. Over in Niigata prefecture, and especially in Kashiwazaki where most of the damage occurred, it must have been really something, I mean, people there say they couldn't stand up, it was like being on a storm-tossed boat."
Japan sits on four tectonic plates and is well prepared against its frequent earthquakes. An earthquake in Kobe in 1995 killed more than 6,000 people. The last major quake in Tokyo hit in 1923 and killed 142,000.
http://jameswagner.com/mt_archives/004504.html
Today is my Birthday July 16 1954. going to Maine Portland never been there. I hear it's beautiful,take care.
Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Timeline (1929 - )
http://www.chinapage.com/flash/love.htm
In my Father's house there are many mansions:
If it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come again, and receive you unto myself;
That where I am, there ye may be also.
Even when its leaves are rustled by the wind
the heart of the tree is still.
You are the same.
276 Prostrations 724 left for 1000 July 6, 2007
William and Catherine BoothWilliam Booth (April 10, 1829 – August 20, 1912) was a British Methodist preacher who founded The Salvation Army Catherine Booth (January 17, 1829 – October 4, 1890) was the Mother of The Salvation Army.
Sun! that shines on everyone, high or lowly!
The light of Your splendour outshines the seven planets;
The rays of Your knowledge open the lotus of mind;
Your light of Compassion dries up the stream of Becoming.
Mountain wind Empire State/ Upstate.Alaska Juneau eagle, snow capped. Vast views inward bound. Rain hitting me. Mountain to mountain. Snow capped mountains that look like older eagle heads. White and bright and shinning. . The young with normal feathers, Cannels and rivers everywhere. Salmon and berries for the taking though they belong to the locals. Trails . Daydreams. Cold in July and June. Glaciers, Skunk plant as big as a man ,
Everyone eats and drinks; yet only few appreciate the taste of food.
There is no Nivana to attain beyond;
There is no Samsara here to renounce;
Truly to know the Self-mind
It is to be the Buddha Himself.
These are the Key-points of Accomplishment.
Accustomed long to meditating on my Guru as enhaloed over my head,
I have forgotten all those who rule by power and prestige.
Accustomed long to meditating on my guardian deities as inseparable from myself,
I have forgotten the lowly fleshly form.
Accustomed long to meditating on the secret whispered truths,
I have forgotten all that is said in written or printed books.
Accustomed, as I have been, to the study of the eternal Truth,
I've lost all knowledge of ignorance.
Accustomed, as I've been, to contemplating both nirvana and samsara as inherent in myself,
I have forgotten to think of hope and fear.
Accustomed, as I've been, to meditating on this life and the next as one,
I have forgotten the dread of birth and death.
Accustomed long to studying, by myself, my own experiences,
I have forgotten the need to seek the opinions of friends and brethren.
Accustomed long to applying each new experience to my own spiritual growth,
I have forgotten all creeds and dogmas.
Accustomed long to meditating on the Unborn, the Indestructible, the Unchanging,
I have forgotten all definitions of this or that particular goal.
Accustomed long to meditating on all visible phenomena as the Dharmakaya,
I have forgotten all meditations on what is produced by the mind.
Accustomed long to keeping my mind in the uncreated state of freedom,
I have forgotten all conventions and artificialities.
Accustomed long to humbleness, of body and mind,
I have forgotten the pride and haughty manner of the mighty.
Accustomed long to regarding my fleshly body as my hermitage,
I have forgotten the ease and comfort of retreats and monasteries.
Accustomed long to knowing the meaning of the Wordless,
I have forgotten the way to trace the roots of verbs, and the
sources of words and phrases.
You, 0 learned one, may trace out these things in your books
- MilarepaJetsun Milarepa , 1052-1135 was one of one of Tibet's most famous yogis and poets, a student of Marpa Lotsawa, and a major figure in the history of Tibetan Buddhism.
138 prostrahttp://fruityfredda.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_archive.htmltions30 2007
I see the world as so young. 28 to 23 years old. Iran, China, Russia,Egypt ,India. Childern soldiers in combat. I wonder what has happen to the childern of this war. To our child within ourselves. How can we just allow so many young to die.We are in a real mess, the two parties and the president don't do anything. You know it going to be a withdraw, why is it not being talk about" the fall of "Iraq", Young peolpe are being killed and I am against the war. Nixon and George Bush hide in the White House and we just put up with it. Executive branch of government is a process that belongs to the people of the United States.We vote for that branch. Stop killing young People. No child left behing is left behind in Wars of the World.
" Don't look at your form, however ugly or beautiful.
Look at love and at the aim of your quest. ...
O you whose lips are parched, keep looking for water.
Those parched lips are proof that eventually you will reach the source."
by: Rumi
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/27/35938/7895
Some Kiss We Want
There is some kiss we want with
our whole lives, the touch of
spirit on the body. Seawater
begs the pearl to break its shell.
And the lily, how passionately
it needs some wild darling! At
night, I open the window and ask
the moon to come and press its
face against mine. Breathe into
me. Close the language- door and
open the love window. The moon
won't use the door, only the window.
Translator: Coleman Barks
My friend, in this one hour you will gain
far more for all your senses
than in a year's indifferent course.
What the tender spirits sing for you,
the lovely images they bring,
will not be empty magic play.
Blissful scents will come your way,
then your palate will be stimulated,
you will be bathed in ecstasy.
For this you need no preparation;
we are assembled, now begin.
-- Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
Faust, translated by Peter Salm
Goethe says,“you will be bathed in ecstasy.”
Maurice McClellandBrought Tibet to Alaska Anchorage
-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
Truth today"Your moving get a grip." Change and more change. Going to Maine on my birthday. I can deal with things going wrong, but these changes are for the future. not good or bad just what it is. Feeling worth for your home. The now of it. Forgetmenots are blooming . So far I have had blooms all season so far. Alaska state flower is the "forgetmenot. "Home sick for Alaska.Red blooms everywhere and golden too. A muster plant of gold .Tomatoes seeds are growing. Pink flowers for sweet dreams of the gardner. Rain a bit everyday. Has brought the flowers from a dryness to a display of greens and stocks of grass. The elephant ears plant is growing bigger and smaller leaves. Today start a seed and be a part of a plants life. It takes you away for self. It like you a process of being little and takes life and grows as you grow.
1000 prostrations for 25 June 2007 Total all year of 2007 5000
VOCABULARY: EMERGENCY SERVICES
el bombero
fireman
la ambulancia
ambulance
el policía
policeman
el paramédico
paramedic
el carro de bomberos
fire truck
la escalera
ladder
el escape de incendio
fire escape
Are you looking for me? I am in the next seat.
My shoulder is against yours.
you will not find me in the stupas, not in Indian shrine
rooms, nor in synagogues, nor in cathedrals:
not in masses, nor kirtans, not in legs winding
around your own neck, nor in eating nothing but vegetables.
When you really look for me, you will see me instantly —
you will find me in the tiniest house of time.
Kabir says: Student, tell me, what is God?
He is the breath inside the breath
Saint_Kabir_On_A_Magazine_Cover.jpg
Between the pillars of spirit and matter the mind has put up a swing.
There swings the bound soul and all the worlds with not even the slightest rest.
The sun and moon also swing, and there is no end to it.
The soul swings through millions of births like the endless circling of sun and moon.
Billions of ages have passed with no sigh of relief.
The earth and sky swing,
Wind and water swing,
Taking a body, God Himself swings.
-Kabir
The Lord is in Me
By Kabir
(15th Century)
English version by Andrew Harvey
The Lord is in me, and the Lord is in you,
As life is hidden in every seed.
So rubble your pride, my friend,
And look for Him within you.
When I sit in the heart of His world
A million suns blaze with light,
A burning blue sea spreads across the sky,
Life's turmoil falls quiet,
All the stains of suffering wash away.
Listen to the unstruck bells and drums!
Love is here; plunge into its rapture!
Rains pour down without water;
Rivers are streams of light.
How could I ever express
How blessed I feel
To revel in such vast ecstasy
In my own body?
This is the music
Of soul and soul meeting.
Of the forgetting of all grief.
This is the music
That transcends all coming and going.
http://www.chez.com/renoir/aline.htm "Does an apple move?"
I dashed down into the nether regions and brought thc vital breath up;
I got its clue out of earth and stones;
Then my kundalini woke up with nada;
I drank wine by the mouth,
I got the vital breath gathered it within myself;
I did not come on this earth as a seed,
I did not come on this earth as a seed,
To fall in the circle of births,
I am not the elements
Earth, water, fire, air and ether
I am beyond the primordial universal self and the individual self,
I am the Supreme Consciousness.
Rupa Bhawani, Rupa Bhawani (1620-1720) like Lal Ded, is one of the great female mystic poets of Kashmir.
She is said to have been born on the first day of the Hindu festival of Navaratri, the nine days dedicated to the Goddess. As a mark of how greatly she is revered, some legends say she was an incarnation of the Goddess who wished to bestow a blessing upon her saintly father.
The exact year of her birth varies in different accounts between 1620 and 1624.
Her father is said to have initiated her into yogic practice.
Although her father was a devotee of Hinduism and her poetry clearly uses yogic terminology, some elements of her poetry also suggests the influence of Sufi mysticism, as well. Today, she is honored by both Hindus and Muslims.
Rupa Bhawani entered mahanirvana, a saint's conscious exit from the body, in 1721. The day is commemorated in Kashmir as Sahibi Saptami.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/opinion/21thu1.html?hp
Bush Stops Research
http://pistolero.unilang.org/arabe/theletters.html Great for learning Arabic Free.
Frame and hanging my art. Better then having it get lost. It's everywhere all hanging and they are looking me in the eyes. Periods and styles. Blue. paint and pencil and color pencil. I give it all to my lover and he likes the art .It makes me feel good to know I am taking care of my pictures and myself. They are family and have gotton me through times of emptyness. Now I reward them with frames and hanging through our home.I would say frame your art and present yourself in quailty. Put up your art up and make ready for more. Taking care of you present pieces .Practice the eye with the frame and the style of your art and there you have a greater piece of art.
http://dearcomputer.nl/gir/?q=e+ring+wallpaper&s=4&b=Rip%20Google
Whatever road we take to You, Joy.
Themes
Bliss
Smile
Whatever road we take to You, Joy.
However one is received, Honor.
With whatever eye one beholds You, Beauty.
In whatever language Your Name is spoken, Joy.
Recommended Books
The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry, Translated by Peter Lamborn Wilson / Translated by Nasrollah Pourjavady
Love's Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition, Translated by David Fideler / Translated by Sabrineh Fideler
The Mystics of Islam, by Reynold A. Nicholson
Nobody, Son of Nobody: Poems of Shaikh Abu-Saeed Abil-Kheir, Translated by Vraje Abramian
Under the Sufi's Cloak: Stories of Abu Said and His Mystical Teaching, by Mohammad Ali Jamnia / Mojdeh Bayat
About Pattinattar
Timeline (14th Century)
English version by Kamil V. Zvelebil
The eightfold Yoga
The eightfold Yoga
the six regions of the body
the five states
they have all left and gone
totally erased
and in the open
Void
I am left
amazed.
There is but a red rounded Moon
A fountain of white milk
for delight
The unobtainable Bliss
has engulfed me
A precipice
of light.
gracioso
"This is My Face," said the Beloved,
wearing a basket of roses.
Thick, dark mystery flowing over the shoulder,
"This is my hair!"
A hundred musk incense sticks burning,
"This is My Perfume."
Fires everywhere, the whole creation aflame,
"This is My Passion."Abu-Said Abil-Kheir(967 - 1049)
Poems by Abu-Said Abil-Kheir
Books - Links
Go for it Michael Bloomberg for President http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/06/20/bloomberg.ap/index.html
874 total today 126 prostrations 19 June 2007
The word NAZR is an Arabic word which means "an offering," in its verbal form it will mean "to offer" or "to make a spiritual vow."
Note that NAZR is used in Arabic in a totally different meaning also - "to warn," that is not in this context. Therefore, we leave that for the time.
The Holy Qur'an has used the word "NAZR" in both meanings. We will only discuss here the first usage, i.e., which is relevant to our discussion here.
Sometimes the word NIAZ is also used in this context. This is a word from Farsi which means "need," and it is its metaphorical use in the sense of an offering.
The basic concept of NAZR is to offer something less valuable in the hope and expectation of receiving something of higher value. The "value" does not have to be material; it could just be honor and dignity.
Hail has done it's damage to the summer plants. More losses, looks like the tomatoes have been stripped ,no tomatoes. Chipmonks are out and having a great time with the treats I put out for them all. Squash is damage from the hail here. No water , dry and hot. 10.5 inches under the amont we need. Feel so helpless in the activity of the world and killing in the name of God. Killing is taking from precious human birth. It's is killing God.
Odd thing placing pots of plants on your deck. I have cats come around and sit in among the pots. Today it was four dogs and two cats. Stubby the cat with out a tail has come back . Because of the dogs he did not come around anymore. After I started to feed the dogs he disappeared. Now he 's back. All the animals like the plants and pee on them with great effort. Lazy dogs and cats sunbath themselves on the deck all the time. I have colors all yellow and red and pinks and oranges blooming in the yard. The peach trees are happy. The tadploes are getting legs. They like fish food.My pond plant that I saved is growing at such a great rate. Berries everywhere . I got Iris growing and blooming down below. I mediate there with the dogs. Part of my family are Dutch and they always "said use the land to your good health."
'Lost' been lost so long, drowning, tears flowing, so long, finally the day-lilys are blooming soon, am awakeing like the flowers, pick me, wake me , soon my baby. Steve
"We need to receive our lives back through a renewing of our desires…a reordering of desire through the eyes of someone without envy or rivalry. We need to open ourselves to someone with lots of time to wait at intersections."
On a certain day, month and year one should observe the ceremony of tree-planting. Thus, one fulfils one’s responsibilities, serves one’s fellow-beings which not only brings happiness but benefits all.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, October 1993
Hara
Putting peanuts out in the back yard.It's funny to watch a small bird fly off with the peanuts. The bluejays are the worst. They sort out the peanuts before taking off with one. When we first put out peanuts they were happy now they are carefull about the type. We bought some cheap peanuts and the birds could tell them apart. I find peanut shells all over the place . Ha.
"I am the food of life, I am, I am;
I eat the food of life, I eat, I eat.
I link food and water, I link, I link.
I am the first-born in the universe;
Older than the gods, I am immortal.
Who shares food with the hungry protects me;
Who shares not with them is consumed by me.
I am this world and I consume this world.
They who understand this understand life."
-Taittiriya Upanishad
Slow food
Eugène Delacroix Self-Portrait. c.1837. Oil on canvas. Louvre, Paris, France.(1798-1863) http://arthistory.heindorffhus.dk/frame-Delacroix.htm
Cezanne
The Slow Food movement was created to combat fast food and claims to preserve the cultural cuisine and the associated food plants and seeds, domestic animals, and farming within an ecoregion. It was the first established part of the broader Slow movement.
The Slow Food movement was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy as a resistance movement to fast food. It has since expanded globally to 100 countries and now has 83,000 members.
Alexandre Dumas, pèreBirth July 24 1802
Death December 5 1870
Activity novelist
Nationality French
Kind historical novel
Principal works Three Musketeers; The Count of Assembles-Cristo; The Margot Queen
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17509045/
828 total today 172 prostrations 19 June 2007
Pentagon Was Planning a 'Gay Bomb'
The Pentagon is confirming long-running rumors that it was considering the possibility of creating a hormone bomb aimed at turning enemy combatants homosexual. The idea was that this would make the enemy more interested in having sex with each other than fighting.
Edward Hammond, of Berkeley's Sunshine Project, discovered the plans when he found a copy of the proposal from the Air Force's Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio.
"The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another," Hammond said.
"The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soldiers would become gay," explained Hammond.
U.S. military officials confirmed to KPIX-TV in San Francisco that a "gay bomb" was on the drawing board in 1994 as a part of an effort to develop non-lethal weapons but then subsequently rejected.
http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=1913
http://queerlinks.com/results.asp
As of 2006, it is estimated that at least nine million people are currently imprisoned worldwide
A propos de bottes
(French). Turning to quite another subject; à propos de rien.Le Thé - Théodore de Banville (Poéme) Almost nothing on almost all:
Le Thé
Miss Ellen, versez-moi le Thé
Dans la belle tasse chinoise,
Où des poissons d'or cherchent noise
Au monstre rose épouvanté.
J'aime la folle cruauté
Des chimères qu'on apprivoise :
Miss Ellen, versez-moi le Thé
Dans la belle tasse chinoise.
Là, sous un ciel rouge irrité,
Une dame fière et sournoise
Montre en ses longs yeux de turquoise
L'extase et la naïveté :
Miss Hellen, versez-moi le Thé.
Théodore de Banville
Ellen miss, pour to me the Tea
In the beautiful Chinese cup,
Where gold fish seek noise
With the terrified pink monster.
I like insane cruelty
Dreams which one tames:
Ellen miss, pour to me the Tea
In the beautiful Chinese cup.
There, under an irritated red sky,
A proud and underhand lady
Show in its long eyes of turquoise
The extase and naivety:
Ellen miss, pour to me the Tea.
"...Théâtre, plein D'inspiration fantastique,
Tremplin qui tressailles d'émoi
Quand je prends un élan,
fais moi Bondir plus haut, planche élastique !
Frêle machine aux reins puissants,
Fais moi bondir,
moi qui me sens Plus agile que les panthères,
Si haut que je ne puisse voir
Avec leur cruel habit noir
Ces épiciers et ces notaires !
Par quelque prodige pompeux,
Fais moi monter, si tu le peux,
Jusqu'au ces sommets, où, sans règles,
Embrouillant les cheveux vermeils
Des planètes et des soleils,
Se croisent la foudre et les aigles.
Plus haut encor, jusqu'au ciel pur !
Jusqu'à ce lapis dont l'azur
Couvre notre prison mouvante !
Jusqu'à ces rouges Orients
Où marchent des dieux flamboyants,
Fous de colère et d'épouvante.
Plus loin ! plus haut !
je vois encor des boursiers à lunettes d'or,
Des critiques, des demoiselles
Et des réalistes en feu.
Plus haut ! plus loin ! de l'air ! du bleu !
Des ailes ! des ailes ! des ailes !"
Enfin, de son vil échafaud,
bubbles! bubbles! … for you
Le clown sauta si haut, si haut,
Qu'il creva le plafond de toiles
Au son du cor et du tambour,
Et, le coeur dévoré d'amour,
Alla rouler dans les étoiles."
(Théodore de Banville)
Admirable clown, in truth!
I believe that the posterity,
Whose unceasingly horizon moves,
Will re-examine, its wound with the side.
It was smeared of white,
Of yellow, of green and red.
Even to Madagascar
Its name had arrived, because
It was according to all principles'
That after the paper circles,
Without never the estropier
He crossed the round of the pipes.
Gravity freed,
Without seeing there clearly it had crossed
Staircases of Piranèse.
The light which struck it
Made resplendir its cheeck
Like a blazing inferno in the furnace.
It rose with heights
Such, that other jumpers
Were consumed in vain fights.
They found it discouraging,
And murmured: “Which quicksilver
This demon does it have in the veins? “
All the people shouted: “Cheer! ”
But him, by a new effort,
Seemed to roidir its naked leg,
And, without one knowing with whom,
This follower of Saqui
Spoke low in unknown language.
It was with its dear springboard.
It said to him: “Theatre, full
Of fantastic inspiration,
Springboard which tressailles of agitation
When I take a dash, make me
To leap higher, elastic board!
“Frail machine with the powerful kidneys,
Make leap to me, me which feel me
Nimbler than the panthers,
So high that I cannot see,
With their cruel black dress
These grocers and these notaries!
“By some pompeux wonder
Make go up to me, if you can it,
Until these tops where, without rules,
Muddling the hair vermeils
Planets and suns,
The lightning and the eagles cross.
To these ethers full with noise,
Where, mixing in the dreadful night
Their exténuées breaths,
Drunk southerly winds of ire
Sleep, dishevelled and insane,
On the pale centres of the clouds.
“Higher encor, to the pure sky!
To this lapis lazuli of which azure
Cover our moving prison!
Until these Orients reds
Where go of the blazing Gods,
Insane of anger and terror.
“Further! higher! I see encor
Stock-brokers with gold glasses,
Critics, young ladies
And of realistic on fire.
Higher! further! air! blue!
Wings! wings! wings! “
Lastly, of its cheap scaffold,
The clown jumped so high, so high
That it burst the ceiling of fabrics
With the sound of the horn and drum,
And, the devoured heart of love,
Went to roll in stars.
The pure land has always been there.
Amida Buddha comes down
from the Paradise in the West to welcome the souls of the dead and
take them back his heaven.
I've forgotton
my begging bowl
but no one would steal it
no one would steal it-
how sad for my begging bowl
Ryokan Poem
Japanese tea ceremony "ichigo ichie" "One time One meeting" Namu Amida Butsu The Japanese calligraphy reads "Ichigo, Ichie" and literally translates to "One encounter, one chance" Ichigo-Ichie means that every encounter with someone, even a friend whom you see often, should be treated as if it were a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. (As if today were the last time you might meet) The underlying philosophy of the tea ceremony is perhaps best described with this phrase.
The president does not look like he is dealing well with his fall from grace on the World Scene. He looks out of place with the other world leaders. Ill at ease.He looks like a man that knows he is in trouble with his worth.
Don’t forget to send a present to your parents to say thank you for the body you currently have. Even if they have passed away, do some meditation and send the good energy to them in their new rebirth
690 total today 310 prostrations 9 June 2007. Slowing down, the feeling of streching and taking my time more. Foating feeling deep within. I don't feel out of breath just good . It feels better. My body need the protrations to feel the feeling I get from these body work outs. Taking in breathing hitting the floor and a slide all the way out. Rewards are daydreams and love of light and feeling brave a completeness. The ego yells at me. How dare you bow. Get on you hands and knees and bow to the three jewels? My ego is really upset with me. And it's a daily battle to do prostrations.
So I now get up and do three right off before he wakes up.
When doing a prostration one stands with one's feet together, puts one's hands together at one's heart in prayer position, then brings them up and touches the top of one's head. The crown of one's head represents Buddha body. Then one brings them again to one's throat, which is associated with Buddha speech. Then one brings the hands to one's heart, which is associated with Buddha mind. My lama from Tibet says the best form is to fall forward onto one's hands, then stretch out flat on the ground. Most Americans cannot do this. We tend to use a slippery masonite prostration board, land on our knees on a folded blanket or knee pads, and slide out with out on gloved hands to a flat position. One can gain some speed this way, really letting go. I have put a 1 inch piece of foam underneath my board and two rugs to protect me knees, because the floor underneath is cement. I know people who have done permanent damage to their knees by not taking precautions. Protrations are great exercise, and are said to prevent illness. An electric fan keeps me from getting ill from over-heating
.
The Human Route
Coming empty-handed, going empty-handed -- that is human.
When you are born, where do you come from?
When you die, where do you go?
Life is like a floating cloud which appears.
Death is like a floating cloud which disappears.
The floating cloud itself originally does not exist.
Life and death, coming and going, are also like that.
But there is one thing which always remains clear.
It is pure and clear, not depending on life and death.
Then what is the one pure and clear thing?
President Bush says a missile-defense radar system in the Czech Republic and Poland is meant to protect the West from a nuclear attack by Iran. But Russian President Vladimir Putin is calling it an expansion of NATO and a threat.
http://www.queersoup.net/opportunities.html
The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds
riding the storm above the marksman's range;
exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered,
he cannot walk because of his great wings.
OBSESSION
http://www.berndvey.com/index.htm
Forest, I fear you! In my ruined heart
your roaring wakens the same agony
as in cathedrals when the organ moans
and from the depths I hear that I am damned.
Ocean, I hate you! For I recognize
the sobs and insults of my own despair,
the bitter laughter of a beaten man
repeated in the sea's huge gaiety.
Night! You'd please me even more without these stars
which speak a language I know all too well-
I long for darkness, silence,
nothing there. . .
Yet even shadows have their shapes which live
where I imagine them to be,
the hordes of vanished souls
whose eyes acknowledge mine.
Portrait of Emile Zola (1840-1902)
This portrait of Zola is essentially a Japanese work, achieved with the aid of exotic props, and more signficantly, by its pictorial organization. The shallow space, silhouetted figured, and strong decorative elements of repeated flat shapes and rectangles parallel th the painting's edge.
It is also a statement of Manet's eclecticism: Japan and Spain appear together (represented by Kuniaki's Wrestler, above and Velazquez's Little Cavaliers), framed above the desk, and jioned by Manet's Olympia, itself a hybrid of old and new. The open book is Manet's copy of Blanc's Histoire des Peintures- a valuable source of older art for Manet.
http://www.sanfranciscogayguesthouse.com
"There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill to create."
(from Mon Coeur Mis À Nu)
"faire l'amour, c'est faire le mal,"
to make love, it is to make the evil
BEAUTY
Conceive me as a dream of stone:
my breast, where mortals come to grief,
is made to prompt all poets' love,
mute and noble as matter itself.
With snow for flesh, with ice for heart,
I sit on high, an unguessed sphinx
begrudging acts that alter forms;
I never laugh, I never weep.
In studious awe the poets brood
before my monumental pose
aped from the proudest pedestal,
and to bind these docile lovers fast
I freeze the world in a perfect mirror:
The timeless light of my wide eyes.
LA BEAUTÉ
Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.
Je trône dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris;
J'unis un cœur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes;
Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes;
Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.
Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes,
Que j'ai, pour fasciner ces dociles amant,
De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:
Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles!
"Monsieur de Maupassant est certainement un des plus francs conteurs de ce pays oú l'on fit tant de contes, et de si bons. Sa langue, forte, simple, naturelle, a un goût de terroir qui nous la fait aimer chèrement. Il possède les trois qualités de l'écrivain français: d'abord la clarté, puis encore la clarté, et enfin la clarté. Il a l'esprit de mesure et d'ordre qui est celui de notre race." (Anatole France, la Vie littéraire, tome Ier, 1888)
"Silence is also conversation"
there are three paths to enlightenment - knowledge, service and prayer.
When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
W. Somerset Maugham, 'Of Human Bondage', 1915
My peach trees are a lost. But they are growing big this year. Same with the apple trees. my tadpoles are growing but my goldfish have been attack and only one remains. It's hot all ready. Like summer. Dry. Woodpeckers eat that fat I put out for them. Because of the fruit damage birds are looking for food more. Not enough hay for animals here. Selling them is the result, terrible lost for the farmer and his/her cattle.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6824206
SAN FRANCISCO — The number of Arabic linguists discharged from the military for violating its "don't ask, don't tell" policy is higher than previously reported, according to records obtained by a research group.
The group contends the records show that the military — at a time when it and U.S. intelligence agencies don't have enough Arabic speakers — is putting its anti-gay stance ahead of national security.
Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers, according to Department of Defense data obtained by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (search) under a Freedom of Information Act (search) request.
The military previously confirmed that seven translators who specialized in Arabic had been discharged between 1998 and 2003 because they were gay. The military did not break down the discharges by year, but said some, but not all, of the additional 13 discharges of Arabic speakers occurred in 2004.
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Gay Linguists Get The Boot
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 14, 2002
(Photo: CBS/AP)
"It's not a gay-rights issue. I'm arguing military proficiency issues - they're throwing out good, quality people."
Alastair Gamble
Former Army Specialist
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/23/america/NA-GEN-US-Military-Gays.php
(AP) Nine Army linguists, including six trained to speak Arabic, have been dismissed from the military because they are gay.
The soldiers' dismissals come at a time when the military is facing a critical shortage of translators and interpreters for the war on terrorism.
Seven of the soldiers were discharged after telling superiors they are gay, and the two others got in trouble when they were caught together after curfew, said Steve Ralls, spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a group that defends homosexuals in the military.
Six were specializing in Arabic, two were studying Korean and one was studying Mandarin Chinese. All were at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, the military's primary language training center.
The government has aggressively recruited Arabic speakers since the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We face a drastic shortage of linguists, and the direct impact of Arabic speakers is a particular problem," said Donald R. Hamilton, who documented the need for more linguists in a report to Congress as part of the National Commission on Terrorism.
One of the discharged linguists said the military's policy on gays is hurting its cause.
"It's not a gay-rights issue. I'm arguing military proficiency issues - they're throwing out good, quality people," said Alastair Gamble, a former Army specialist.
Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe in Tidewater, Va., confirmed the dismissals occurred between October 2001 and September 2002, but declined to comment further on the cases.
He said 516 linguists enrolled in the Arabic course this year at the Monterey institute and 365 graduated.
The military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy allows gays to serve provided they keep quiet about their sexual orientation.
Gamble and former Pfc. Robert Hicks were discovered in Gamble's room during a surprise inspection in April, Gamble said.
After their discharges, Gamble and Hicks applied for other federal jobs where they could use their language skills in the war on terrorism, but neither was hired, Gamble said.
day, July 27, 2006
Army Dismisses Gay Arabic Linguist
JOHNSON CITY, TENNESSEE - A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified.
Bleu Copas, 30, told The Associated Press he is gay, but said he was "outed" by a stream of anonymous e-mails to his superiors in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
"I knew the policy going in," Copas said in an interview on the campus of East Tennessee State University, where he is pursuing a master's degree in counseling and working as a student adviser. "I knew it was going to be difficult."
An eight-month Army investigation culminated in Copas' honorable discharge on Jan. 30 -- less than four years after he enlisted, he said, out of a post-Sept. 11 sense of duty to his country.
Copas now carries the discharge papers, which mention his awards and citations, so he can document his military service for prospective employers. But the papers also give the reason for his dismissal.
He plans to appeal to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records.
The "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, established in 1993, prohibits the military from inquiring about the sex lives of service members, but requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay.
The policy is becoming "a very effective weapon of vengeance in the armed forces" said Steve Ralls, a spokesman for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington-based watchdog organization that counseled Copas and is working to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Copas said he was never open about his sexuality in the military and suspects his accuser was someone he mistakenly befriended and apparently slighted.
More than 11,000 service members have been dismissed under the policy, including 726 last year -- an 11 percent jump from 2004 and the first increase since 2001.
That's less than a half-percent of the more than 2 million soldiers, sailors and Marines dismissed for all reasons since 1993, according to the General Accountability Office.
But the GAO also noted that nearly 800 dismissed gay or lesbian service members had critical abilities, including 300 with important language skills. Fifty-five were proficient in Arabic, including Copas, a graduate of the Defense Language Institute in California.
Discharging and replacing them has cost the Pentagon nearly $369 million, according to the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Lt. Col. James Zellmer, Copas' commanding officer in the 313th military intelligence battalion, told the AP that "the evidence clearly indicated that Sgt. Copas had engaged in homosexual acts."
While investigators were never able to determine who the accuser was, "in the end, the nature and the volume of the evidence and Sgt. Copas's own sworn statement led me to discharge him," Zellmer said.
Military investigators wrote that Copas "engaged in at least three homosexual relationships, and is dealing with at least two jealous lovers, either of whom could be the anonymous source providing this information."
Shortly after Copas was appointed to the 82nd Airborne's highly visible All-American Chorus last May, the first e-mail came to the chorus director.
"The director brought everyone into the hallway and told us about this e-mail they had just received and blatantly asked, 'Which one of you are gay?'" Copas said.
Copas later complained to the director and his platoon sergeant, saying the questions violated "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
"They said they would watch it in the future," Copas said. "And they said, even specifically then, 'Well, you are not gay are you?' And I said, 'no.'"
The accuser, who signed his e-mails "John Smith" or "ftbraggman," pressed Copas' superiors to take action against him or "I will inform your entire battalion of the information that I gave you."
On Dec. 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military's policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater. He answered affirmatively.
But Copas declined to answer when they asked, "Have you ever engaged in homosexual activity or conduct?" He refused to answer 19 of 47 questions before he asked for a lawyer and the interrogation stopped.
Copas said he accepted the honorable discharge to end the ordeal, to avoid lying about his sexuality and risking a perjury charge, and to keep friends from being targeted.
"It is unfair. It is unjust," he said. "Even with the policy we have, it should never have happened."
from The Los Angeles Times
Cream Cake
1 box yellow cake mix (18.25 oz.)
1 1/3 cup water
1/3 cup oil
3 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz.)
1/3 cup caramel ice cream topping
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup sliced almonds, toasted
Prepare the yellow cake mix according to the directions on the box for a 13” x 9” pan. Bake the cake completely for at least 1 hour. Place the sweetened condensed milk into a microwave–proof container. Microwave on medium power for 4 minutes; stirring after 2 minutes. Reduce the microwave power to medium–low and heat for 16-24 minutes stirring with a whisk every 2-3 minutes, or until thick and a light caramel color.
Stir in caramel topping. Stir for 15 minutes. Spread evenly over the cake and cool completely. Whip the heavy cream with the powdered sugar and vanilla extract until stiff peaks form. Spread an even layer over the cake and sprinkle with the toasted almonds.
Refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours before serving. Slice the cake using a sharp knife dipped in hot water. Plate each slice on a 9” dessert plate with mango or raspberry coulis.
2 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice, or to taste
1 pint chocolate sorbet
Fresh raspberries, for garnish
Puree raspberries with sugar and lemon juice in a blender or food processor. Pour mixture through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing on solids.
Scoop sorbet into individual serving bowls and top with coulis. Garnish with a few fresh raspberries.
Coulis keeps 3 days, covered and chilled.
or
1 lb. stewing beef, cut into small pieces & browned
6 cups water
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 can diced tomatoes
1 cup diced celery
1 cup diced potatoes
1 cup diced onion
3 cups sliced or shredded carrots
3/4 cup pearl barley, cooked (you can use quick cooking as well and add with all other ingredients)
3 tsp. low sodium beef bouillon
salt and pepper to taste
2 cloves garlic (I cooked the beef with the garlic and then added to the soup)
string beans would be good in this as well!
Combine ingredient in slow cooker, except for barley. Cover. Cook on low 8-10 hours or high for 4-5 hours. Add barley halfway through cooking time. Serve with fresh bread.
Today I see the world wants to give. Maybe in charity but having a personal touch to be involved. To really make a home or lend money for a enterprise for business to be repaid back. We are richer when we give in this world. Give.When I give I send money to my sisters they have childern and grand childern so it may help.
"Most demons only understand demons."
http://www.thubtenchodron.org/PrayersAndPractices/purification_practices.html
2
Meditation on the “Eight Verses of Thought Transformation”
(After each verse, visualize much light coming from Chenresig, flowing into you and completely filling your
whole body. It purifies the selfishness and ignorance which prevent you from understanding the meaning of
that verse, and gives you the ability to understand and integrate each verse into your life. If you like, say the
six-syllable mantra a few times while visualizing that.) Chenresig - Bodhisattva of Compassion
Om Mani Padme Hum
1. With the thought of attaining enlightenment
For the welfare of all beings,
Who are more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel,
I will constantly practice holding them dear.
2. Whenever I am with others
I will practice seeing myself as the lowest of all,
And from the very depth of my heart
I will respectfully hold others as supreme.
3. In all actions I will examine my mind
And the moment a disturbing attitude arises,
Endangering myself and others,
I will firmly confront and avert it.
4. Whenever I meet a person of bad nature
Who is overwhelmed by negative energy and intense suffering,
I will hold such a rare one dear,
As if I had found a precious treasure.
5. When others, out of jealousy,
Mistreat me with abuse, slander and so on,
I will practice accepting defeat
And offering the victory to them.
6. When someone I have benefited
And in whom I have placed great trust
Hurts me very badly,
I will practice seeing that person as my supreme teacher.
7. In short, I will offer directly and indirectly
Every benefit and happiness to all beings, my mothers.
I will practice in secret taking upon myself
All their harmful actions and sufferings.
8. Without these practices being defiled by the stains of the eight worldly concerns,
By perceiving all phenomena as illusory,
I will practice without grasping to release all beings
From the bondage of the disturbing unsubdued mind and karma.
The greatest antidote to egoism is the act of refuge.Someone ask me." Can a leaf swiring to the ground be my teacher?"Yes! Of course! This instant of seeing is the timeless teacher: the leaves are just what they are.
You are pure.
Let yourself dissolve.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Former President Jimmy Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy.
Scalding: A biographer of Jimmy Carter (with President Bush in July 2001) called the former president's criticism "the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president." - RON EDMONDS / Associated Press 2001 file photo
Carter's criticism also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding.
"I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper's Saturday editions. "The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon . . . has been the most disturbing to me."
Carter, the 39th president, spoke while promoting his new audiobook series, "Sunday Mornings in Plains," a collection of weekly Bible lessons from his hometown of Plains, Ga.
"Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man," said Amber Wilkerson, Republican National Committee spokeswoman. She said it was hard to take Carter seriously because he also "challenged Ronald Reagan's strategy for the Cold War."
Carter came down hard on the Iraq war.
"We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened," he said.
Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, said the administration "abandoned or directly refuted" every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts, by other presidents.
Douglas Brinkley, a Tulane University historian and Carter biographer, described Carter's comments as unprecedented.
"This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president," Brinkley said. "When you call somebody the worst president, that's volatile. Those are fighting words."
OM NAMO MANJUSHRIYE, NAMO SUSHRIYE, NAMO UTTAMA SHRIYE SOHA
Do at least 3 prostration and meditate on the 35 Confession Buddhas. If possible do three prostrations to each Buddha and before that make three prostrations while reciting the prostration mantra ie
http://www.lamazopa.com/prostrations.htm
You are not alone There are others, on their way on the same track Travellers from nowhere to nowhere, on their way from nothing to nothing. The track may be narrow and steep and boring and frightening but everbody walks on it. You are not alone but linked to everything around you.
From that time hence,
Even while alseep or unconcerned,
A force of merit equal to the sky
Will perpetually ensue.
1000 23 May 2007 4000 all together for 2007
Rushing sliding sound falling into what ego wonders what is happeing? Prayers follow. Back on my feet and I bow falling back on to the floor.Climbing into vestness. Energy with in my stomach. Feel like I have been running .Breathing is deeper. Stamina is flowing , comes easier. My body has more form and shapes nice. I now have a Lama for practice. Practice is hard work and helps shape your free space.I have been planting plants on the deck this year all in pots. I sit there in the sun enjoying life. The dogs come by for food every day it's five dogs now. The come at different times. Milk dog food and meal. They let me talk to myself. The dogs wait right now. Supper is soon to be. They follow me and they growl playfully a bit for milk, wet food and feed. Monks roaming around waiting for dinner. Bowls in hand. We both enjoy getting their food out to them. They sleep on the deck.
Hatred never ceases by hatred:
But love alone is healed
This is an ancient and eternal law.
Maha Gosananda(1929-2007)
"Read Tricyle Summer 2007 "
1000 prostrations 2007 MAY 16
3,000 F0R THE YEAR OF 2007
May your wishes come true and may you be free.
1000 23 May 2007 4000 all together for 2007
You are not your body.
Your body is not you.
You are not the doer.
You are not the enjoyer.
You are pure awareness,
The witness of all things.
You are without expectation,
Free.
Wherever you go,
Be happy!
-Ashtavakra Gita 15:4
==my attempt of Arabic
Three men went into the jungle on different occasions and saw a chameleon. "A chameleon is red," said the first man. "No a chameleon is green," said the second man. "Nonsense, a chameleon is brown," said the third man. Those who disagree about the nature of God are like these three men.
-Hindu Teaching Story
I have learned to give up control. I take upon my self and all beings through out all time and space. 857 prostrations 143 to go for 1000
Awareness is unlimited and impartial.Awareness nakedly manifests as self originating primordial wisdom and noble qualites.
Precise recognition of awarenss, ulitmate reality as it is. is what is called Great Prefection view beyond the intellect. One sublime master Guru Rinpoche said The dhramakaya, beyond the intellect, is ultimate reality. Intellectual understanding is like a patch. It will fall off.
Practice without being discouraged....
Good and evil have no self -nature
Holy and unholy are empty names.
In front of the door is the land of stillness and light
Spring comes, the grass grows
by itself.
Spirtual experiances are like mist. They will evaporate
"utter lucidity" and "timeless awareness". Are they the same?
What is a Meditation Mala
A mala is a string of 108 beads with one bead as the summit bead called a 'sumeru'.
It is a tool used to keep your mind on the meditation practice. Malas are generally made from different materials such as tulsi (basil) wood, sandal wood, rudraksh seeds or crystal. Each type of material has certain properties which subtly affect the subconscious mind of the practitioner.
Why use the Mala?
Meditation can be quite a tricky practice because the mind is like a naughty child. By its very nature, the mind tends to wander off during the meditation practice. If ones energy is low at the time of meditation, falling asleep can result. If the energy is too high, fantasy and distraction become the barriers. At such times, the mala provides the much needed anchor.
The mala beads are moved in rhythm with the breath and the mantra, so that both-sleep as well as excessive mental distraction-are prevented by this action upon the beads.
For wearing: A personal mala is a wonderful accessory to meditation, which when used regularly with a personal mantra, absorbs the vibrations of the practice. It becomes like a close friend or a comfortable piece of clothing!
How to Use?
The mala is traditionally held in the right hand and used in two ways -
In one method, the mala is hanging between the thumb and the ring (third) finger. The middle (second) finger is used to rotate the mala by one bead towards oneself with each repetition of the mantra.
http://www.free-photographs.net/abstract/abstract-display-1.htm
In the other method, the mala is hanging on the middle finger, with the thumb used to rotate the mala just as explained - one bead at a time.
Either way, the index finger is never used to touch the mala.
The mala may coil on the floor with the hand resting on the right knee or used with the hand concealed in the Mala Bag.
The practice begins at the summit bead (sumeru) and continues around the loop until the summit is reached again. The summit bead is never passed over. So if you plan to do more than 1 round, the mala is turned around to proceed again in the reverse direction.
Whenever the mala is taken up, it automatically conditions the mind to the meditative state. The mala that you use for Mantra Japa meditation should not be exhibited and is best kept privately in a special Mala Bag.
701 prostrations 299 to go for 1000 . The prostrations speak about health. Bowing and taking refuge.You need to be fit to do them. The prostrations change how you breath and your stamina. Vast improvements. Mind is more active. I day dream more. I sleep less and very well. It feels like climbing mountains. Resting as you reach to climb more. When your not doing them you feel as though you are still prostrating in side of your self. I try to say prayers in tibetian ,I say I try. I feel the prayers in both languages. I try. I take my time. Doing each prayer with great respect.
To you, it's an animal. To me, he/she is an adopted son/daughter who is short, hairy, walks on all fours and doesn't speak clearly.
If a person is ignoble and vulgar with a hundred faults.
But if he has one single good quality of knowledge.
Then do think of those faults, but accept that
single positive quality.
And like a swan extracting milk from water.
Accept it voluntarily and willingly for one's benefit
Thus , rejoicing these word in positive virtue .....Thinley Norbu
The clouds that wander through the sky have no roots, no home;
Nor do the distinctive thoughts floating through the mind. -- from the Song of Mahamudra by Tilopa
Whenever you hear that someone else has been successful, rejoice. Always practice rejoicing for others--whether your friend or your enemy. If you cannot practice rejoicing, no matter how long you live, you will not be happy.
-Lama Zopa Rinpoche, "Transforming Problems Into Happiness"
What you do may seem insignificant, but it's important that you do it.
-Gandhi
Summer Cake "Carrot Cake with Soy Cream Cheese Frosting"
This recipe requires parchment paper and two 9-inch pans
Cake 21/2 cups of purpose flour
plus more for dusting
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. of baking soda
4 large eggs
1/2 cup honey , slightly warmed
1 cup of brown sugar. firmly, packed.
1 cup of vegetable oil
1 cup crushed pineapple( fresh or canned), pus 1/4 cup juice
1 Tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups, shredded carrots , loosely packed
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup shredded coconut, preferably
unsweetened
1 cup of raisins
Frosting:
2 ( 8 -ounce ) containers soy cream cheese, chilled
23/4 cup light brown surgar, firmly packed
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1. To make cake: Preheat oven to 350 . Grease two 9 inch cake pans with vegetable oil cooking spray, line bottoms with parchment paper, and grease the paper. Dust with flour and shake off excess. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl , combine flour, baking power, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon and baking soada, Set aside,
3. In a large bowl, beat eggs, honey, and brown sugar with wooden spoon until well combined. Sir in vegetable oil,pineapple juice, and vanilla until well combined. All flour mixture and stir until well combined. Add pineapple, carrots, walnuts, coconut, and raisins. Stir until well combined.
4. Pour the batter into a prepared pans. bake 50 to 55 minutes, or each cake comes out almost clean.
5.Remove the cakes from the oven and let cool 10 minutes in pans on a wire rack. Run a knife around the side of each pan and invert the cake into racks. Let cool completely before frosting.
6.To make frosting: With an electric mixer, beat soy cream cheese until fluff about 2 minutes. Add brown sugar and vanilla and beat 2 more minutes.
Place one cake on cake plate. Coat top with about 1/2 frosting, and place second cake on top of first. Frost sides of entire cake before frosting the top. Refrigerate until ready to serve makes about 9 - inch two layer cake.
I like languages. This how I learn. It very frustrating to learn a language. But I want to understand a culture and this is a baby step in understanding. It's been several months of trying to organize. What is that I can lean. Sites for languages are difficult to get to to hear local people speak. Paying for it I can't afford right now. So may sites here help you. I search the site and found this Arabic site for numbers. Please enjoy it. Good luck in learning and sharing what you know with others. Keep learning. Trying to cheer myself up with learning Arabic. I see the world with more space and hope learning Arabic.I awoke up counting in Arabic numbers. I liked it and it's a sign that I am learning. I have been tracing Arabic Words . Wrting them. I have more control and I can see how the words make sense from the alphabet in Arabic. So I remember and have more confidence in the language.So much for explaining why I have Arabic words and numbers in my life. I just had to understand another world to enlarge my own. Climbing up with beginners mind like a child seeking out the world.
Bonjour de Judson Nudes
bien amicalement
So talk to your plants, and if they don't perform, warn them.
http://lexicorient.com/babel/arabic/02.htm
http://dearcomputer.nl/gir/?q=1945+nude&s=6&b=Rip+Google%21
Wonderful Art. Needs your support.
I have practice writing Arabic today. It is so much fun and brings peace as you do it. Arbic has more to say to me it seems. Flowing from highs to lows and fowing.
Sadiiq Friend Arabic
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
peng2 you3
Friend In Chinese
Put out corn and peanuts and sunflower seeds. Those peanuts are so funny when you see a tiny bird trying to take off and does very happy. New birds everyday. The Blue Jays take the corn and sit on a branch. They break open the corn between their legs. Smart and beautiful blues and black feathers. Avery tan bird came by. Wood peckers everyday.
The five monks have come by have been fed.I only feed the five no more. I am the dog day care center. Foot, Schmo, Yasha, and the German Shepard, and a three leg lab. They get wet food and milk. They like to sit with me while I do the stillness of Zazen.We have a big deck on both sides of the house. They sun themselves there. They are doing good and good looking hair and teeth and are good in the neighborhood. They are loved. They sleep as I do sitting meditation. Some times they lick me to see if I am all right.They like the garden and the pond. Run all over the place and have fake fights. The farm over near me has horses and dogs run together. It very pretty. The soil around is tilled up for seeding and farming. The winds and frost did much harm. Pray for the framers they have lost so much this year.
Nasturtium plants were discovered in the jungles of Peru and Mexico in the 16th century
Nasturtium Butter
Ingredients:
1 pound butter, softened
1 quart nasturtium blossoms
juice of 1 lemon
In a food processor or blender add the butter, nasturtiums and lemon juice and process until completely mixed. Use on seafood or vegetables. You can also add minced garlic to this if you wish for a variation.
What is your Carbon Footprint?
Planted two willows today. I touched dirt that looked like coal. Dark and rich. Roots everywhere and rocks. Lots of trees on the new land and far away from the rural area. I mean where I will live is in the mountains on a mountain. My lover wants to go out tonight and look for UFO's some meteor shower will take place tonight. Good luck. Working on the plants and pond today.
1 lb carrots
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp sugar
3 tbsp lemon juice
olive oil
Peel the carrots. Cut in half and boil in water with the garlic until just barely tender.
Drain, discard the garlic and dice the carrots.
Combine the spices with the lemon juice and sugar and pour over the carrots. Chill or serve at room temperature. Drizzle olive oil over the salad just before serving.
As meditation will expose your delusions, be good at identifying and dealing with them directly with the skilful use of antidotes.“See everything as a dream illusion.” If it is just a dream, why get uptight? Dream a better dream if a bad one is manifesting!
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
God is the light of the heavens and the earth. His light is like a niche that holds a lamp; it is like a lamp which contains a crystal as bright as a star. It is kindled from a blessed tree, an olive tree that belongs neither to the east nor to the west. Its oil would almost shine, even with no fire touching it. It is light upon light. God guides towards his light all whom he chooses.
-Qur'an, Al-Nour, Surah 24:35
a1. The radiant Dawns have risen up for glory, in their white splendour like the waves of waters.
She maketh paths all easy, fair to travel, and, rich, hath shown herself benign and friendly.
2. We see that thou art good: far shines thy lustre; thy beams, thy splendours have flown up to heaven.
Decking thyself, thou makest bare thy bosom, shining in majesty, thou Goddess Morning.
When it goes out. we see a flower, when we hear a beautiful bird's song, we become that a singing bird, When we go within , we are hungry, sleepy, hot and cold.Are you awake?. The eye of the universe must be wide open. Are you awake Don't be deceived by people. Bring deep peace to people all around you, Do this kind of Zazen .
To hold all sentient beings in friendship
When the world arises in me,
It is just an illusion:
Water shimmering in the sun,
A vein of silver in mother-of-pearl,
A serpent in a strand of rope.
From me the world streams out
And in me it dissolves,
As a bracelet melts into gold,
A pot crumbles into clay,
A wave subsides into water.
-Ashtavakra Gita 2: 9-10
Question Now if you have no attachment, what takes place? Is that love. You are part of awareness we are conditioned to worship, adoree, pray to things that thought has put together. What we call sacred. And in that quietness you will find out if there is something sacred, or nothing at all. J. Krishnamurti " This Light in Oneself. True Meditation. Shambhala
I have learn that just a package of seeds is a great gift. I carry packages of seed with me and give them to friends and family. We plant them together and when I visit.I see or hear how happy they were when the seeds bloom. I send them in the mail to my sister for her garden. So simple but how they hold a conservation is great and other people can teach you a lot about gardens. Just take a pot and plant your seeds. I have forgetmenots in pots I love the blues and green blooms. At the cost of 1.79 . I get severals packs and put them in to grow. Have fun.
"First fruits"
Being determined to accomplish
The highest welfare for all beings,
Who are more precious than the wish-fulfilling gem,
I shall constantly hold them dear.
April - Nisan, AbreelNisan
When seeing a being of wicked nature,
Who is forced by violent wrongs and sufferings,
I shall hold dear this one – so hard to find -
As though discovering a precious treasure.
To loose the fear and insecurity.asura
Devoid of form and color,
Excelling the sense of realms,
Is this wondrous mind
Out-reaching words and phrases.
-Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa
vine-grower without rain,
Baked Apples in Butter Brandy Sauce
Ingredients:
4 large Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
1 1/2 cups Golden Baker's Sugar
4 teaspoons Mulling Spice
1/2 teaspoon Thai Ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
8 tablespoons English Brandy Butter Dumplings Ingredients:
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F
Place apples in a shallow baking dish. Mix together the sugar, ginger, mulling spice, nutmeg; pack the mixture into the cores of the apples and pile the remaining on the tops. The tops of the apples should be covered. Place 1 tablespoon of Brandy Butter on top of each apple. Pour the remaining Brandy in the dish. Cover the dish with aluminum foil.
Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until apples can be sliced with a spoon. Serve in a bowl with some ice cream, and spoon sauce over. The sauce will be slightly runny.
"book", "kitâb"
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth
"Awareness has vast distances, like Russia.Emptyness is vast as well. Freedom from ego who rules as a tyrant." Loss blueberries, apples, pears. strawberries. peaches,plums. Hosta's were killed. My tulips bloom and are yellow.
In deep meditation aspirants may
See forms like snow or smoke. They may feel
A strong wind blowing or a wave of heat.
They may see within them more and more light:
Fireflies, lightning, sun, or moon. These are signs
That one is far on the path to Brahman.
-Shvetashvatara Upanishad
Español | Français | Nederlands |Chinese/Russian/Arabic
Crecer Con Amor.
"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." Alexander Graham Bell.
Adult autism is not a crime. Take your time and meet someone with autism. I bet it will change you. My lover is so friendly. He likes to jump up and down in a happy state. I wish I could be so happy. No programs for Autism in Adults.
James Brandon Rhode Born in Fairbanks, lived in Juneau, Alaska
Alaska Lover of Ten Years
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist, poet
"Sonnet 18, " Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?'
Impart to us those vitalizing forces
that come, O Earth, from deep within your body,
your central point, your navel; purify us wholly.
The Earth is mother; I am son of Earth.
The Rain-giver is my father; may he shower on us
blessings!
-Rig Veda
1007 prostrations . 2000 for the year of 2007. May all benefit from such actions may none be left behind.
Starting with ways to turn our mind to Dharma, it systematically leads us to the pinnacle: the realization of the ultimate nature of mind, the union of the primordially pure nature and spontaneously accomplished qualities of Dzogchen. All Vajrayana followers must treasure this masterpiece of profound teachings by one of the greatest masters of our age." — Tulku Thondup, author of Peaceful Death, Joyful Rebirth and The Healing Power of Mind.
312 pages.A Cascading Waterfall Of Nectar is a great original work and the enlightened vision of one of the greatest realized Nyingma masters of our age, Thinley Norbu Rinpoche. Its incisive reasoning and scriptural citations deepen our understanding of the holy Dharma. It condenses different paths of training taught by the Buddha to fulfill the needs of diverse audiences into a single volume. Profound philosophical standpoints and meditative trainings of sutras and tantras and especially of tranquil stillness (Zhi gnas) and true seeing (Lhag mthong) are presented with interpretations by different Buddhist masters of the past. The absolute teachings on the primordially pure great emptiness nature (Ka dag) and self-accomplishing clear light vision (Lhun grub) of Dzogpa Chenpo are the heart of this volume.
The main body of this book is a commentary by Thinley Norbu Rinpoche on the Concise Preliminary Practices (sNgon ‘gro bsd us pa) of Dudjom Tersar, new treasures revealed by Dudjom Lingpa (1835—1903). Born in Serta Valley of Golok in East Tibet, DUdjom Lingpa founded the Dudjom Tersar tradition. Thinley Norbu Rinpoche is the eldest son of the reincarnation of Dudjom Lingpa, Kyabje Düdjom Rinpoche (1904—1987).
Although called ‘Preliminary Practices’ the text is actually a manual of stages of mind training that leads even beginners to the ultimate goal, Buddhahood.
The Buddha said, “Mind is chief, and the forerunner of all happenings.” If our mind is in peace, whatever we say and do will be the expression of that peace. Then whatever we do will turn into peaceful and beneficial services for others. So training the mind is essential to improve our life and those of all humanity.
According to Buddhism, the true nature of our mind is enlightened, and the realization of the true nature is instantaneous. But to reach that point, we must rely on others’ support and go through the stages of training that the Preliminary Practices fully provide.
In Buddhism there are three major paths of training, called vehicles (Skt. yana). The Hinayana teaches students to avoid sources of emotional afflictions by, for instance, living in solitude or celibacy. The Mahayana teaches followers to take the responsibility of serving all mother-beings and to deal directly with sources of emotional afflictions like anger by applying antidotes like compassion. The Vajrayana teaches adherents to accept and transform all as wisdom and wisdom power by realizing everything as the enlightened nature and qualities.
The Preliminary Practices embody all three vehicles. The text begins with the four Common Outer Preliminary Practices to inspire us to Dharma and to renounce mundane life. We meditate on the preciousness and rarity of our human life; the impermanence of life and the world; the principle of karma, in which everything happens due to causation; and the suffering inherent in samsara, mundane life.
When we realize the truth of samsara, we will want to liberate ourselves and others. For this we rely on enlightened ones who are beyond samsaric control. We invoke the blessings of the compassionate and enlightened refuges and meditate on the five Uncommon Inner Preliminary Practices for the sake of all mother-beings:
We commit ourselves to Dharma and become Buddhists by taking refuge in the Buddha as the guide, the Dharma as the path, and Buddhists as our supporting community.
We establish the foundation of the Mahayana by developing the enlightened aspiration of taking responsibility to bring happiness to all mother-beings and lead them to enlightenment, and by putting such aspirations into practice through the six perfections.
We accumulate merits, the force of positive conditions, by offering the whole of existence as the mandala, the assembly of pure offerings, to the refuges.
We purify all negative conditions by visualizing the source of purification, Vajrasattva, above us, developing strong regrets for whatever evil we have committed, and making a commitment not to repeat it. Then, saying prayers, we meditate on washing away our afflictions in the form of filth from our body through the stream of the Buddha’s blissful blessing nectar without leaving any trace behind.
The heart of the Inner Preliminary Practices is Guru Yoga, a training based on pure perception of Vajrayana and realization of the true nature of the mind of Dzogpa Chenpo. We visualize ourselves as Vajrayogini, and Guru Rinpoche in front of us as the source of blessing. We pray and meditate on the sevenfold devotional trainings: paying homage, making offerings, purifying impurities, rejoicing over all virtue, praying to the Enlightened Ones to teach and have a long life, and dedicating all our merits for the enlightenment of all.
We receive the blessing lights of Guru Rinpoche’s vajra body, speech, mind, and wisdom, purifying the obscurations of our body, speech, mind, and the basis of all, thus enabling us to attain the four Buddha-bodies.
At the end, Guru Rinpoche melts into a ball of five-colored light and merges into us. Our mind and Guru Rinpoche’s enlightened mind become indivisible. With that realization and confidence, we rest in contemplating the true nature of the mind, the union of the primordially pure emptiness nature and self-accomplishing clear light qualities of Dzogpa Chenpo. When we perfect such realization, we attain the fully enlightened state, Buddhahood with three Buddha-bodies and five primordial wisdoms.
As a supplement to the Preliminary Practices, the meditation on the transference of consciousness (‘Pho ba) is an important training. If we are unable to perfect our realization in this life, we could still take rebirth in a pureland by meditating on the transference of consciousness and attain enlightenment there.
The second part of this book is another commentary by Thinley Norbu Rinpoche on the “Fulfullment ( bKang ba) Liturgy of the Dakinis” by Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche, who was a great terton, a celebrated scholar, and the
Supreme Head of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism for decades.
This commentary explains the meaning of this text and illuminates vast bodies of important tantric teachings.
A very good book. It helps you set up your practice. Answer questions to teachings and wise gifts with effect is the cure.
http://www.tomoffinlandfoundation.org/FOUNDATION/dispatch.html#Spring%202002
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."
- William Blake
And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As our dear Redeemer said:
'This the Wine, & this the Bread.'
"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
- Kahlil Gibran
http://www.danielschereck.com/wp2002arabia/wp-arabicalphabet.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act
http://danielschereck.com/wp2002arabia/wp-arabicnumbers.htm
903 prostrations we have 97 more to do for a total of 1000
skateboarding is not a crime
800 prostrations, 200 more for 1000.
Grief clouds thought and reason, and harms both the soul and the body; so you should repel it, or reduce it as much as possible. This can be done in two ways: you can strive to prevent grief from occurring; and you can banish grief when it does occur.
-Razi: Kitab al-Muluki
Sisyrinchium bellum
Blue-Eyed Grass
I wish I was a stick of incense
lit with the fire of awareness
aglow with the warmth of love
fragrance that releases fea
If you spend your wealth in the service of God, you are like a grain of corn which sprouts seven ears, each of which bears a hundred grains. God is abundantly generous to those who are generous; he knows all.
-Qur'an, Al-Baqara, Surah 2:261
When we see that we have gone wrong, it is our duty to retrace our footsteps and proceed again by the right path.
-Mohandas Gandhi
http://www.sfsu.edu/~aidsinfo/gallery.html
To date, some 65 million people have been infected with HIV and AIDS, and more than 25 million people have been killed by AIDS since it was first recognized in 1981. In 2005, AIDS claimed 2.8 million lives and infected more than 4 million others; the vast majority of the 38.6 million people living with HIV were unaware of their status. Today, AIDS is among the greatest development and security issues facing the world. Like malaria, measles, and tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections are costly to society and result in increased health care expenditures and lowered levels of productivity; HIV/AIDS has crippled workforces, orphaned millions of children, and destroyed entire societies.
Transmission & Symptoms
HIV is spread through sexual contact with an infected person, by sharing of needles and/or syringes (primarily for drug injection) with someone who is infected, or less commonly, through transfusions of infected blood. Babies born to HIV-infected women may also become infected before or during birth or through breast-feeding. Because HIV attacks the immune system, it renders the body vulnerable to myriad infections resulting in chronic pain, infertility, ectopic pregnancy and cancers in adults, and severe illness or death in newborns. Other symptoms include profound weight loss, which occurs in 99% of the patients, fever (81%), diarrhea (68%), cough (37%), dysphasia (35%), pruritus (30%) and dyspnea (23%). Symptoms can occur within 12 weeks of infection.
Prevalence & Incidence
AIDS knows no borders. Since its formal recognition 25 years ago, AIDS has permeated all continents across the globe, though sub-Saharan Africa remains the most affected region in the world. Similarly, AIDS and holds no gender or age bias. At around 17.3 million, women make up almost half of the total number of people living with the virus and people of all ages are at risk. And, because HIV-related stigma continues to impede diagnosis, it is presumed hundreds of thousands unregistered cases exist worldwide.
AIDS in Africa
HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among Africans accounting for 20% of all fatalities in the region.
Two thirds of all people and 76% of all women living with HIV reside in sub-Saharan Africa.
13 million African children have been orphaned by the premature death of one or both parents due to AIDS.
80% to 95% of HIV/AIDS cases in Africa result from penile-vaginal intercourse.
Nearly 90% (or 2 million) of all children under age 15 living with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa. Fewer than one in ten of those children are being reached by basic support services.
In 2005, an estimated 2.7 million people in sub-Saharan Africa became newly infected with HIV; an additional 2 million adults and children died of AIDS.
Around 72% (or 4.7 million) of all people in need of antiretroviral therapy are in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2005, only one in six of them were receiving it.
Current Solutions
Treatment and care for HIV/AIDS includes voluntary counseling and testing, food and nutrition, support for the prevention of onward transmission of HIV, follow-up counseling, protection from stigma and discrimination, spiritual support, the provision of antiretroviral therapies, treatment of STIs, management of nutritional effects, prevention of infections, palliative care, and death and family/orphan support.
Voluntary counseling and testing is integral part to the prevention of HIV transmission; it is widely recognized that HIV-positive people need accurate information about the infection to stay healthy longer and prevent new infections. Fortunately, HIV testing is becoming more widely available in sub-Saharan African countries.
My pond has new life in it and the gold fish are fat and alive. We have four that made it through the winter, polly wogs and newts are all over the place. The daffodils are out and I never thought I would have them. The plum trees are blooming and a number of flowers around here. The pond is a success. Bat houses are next. I have been trying to plant for butterflies and humming birds around my area.Working on Tibetan and Arabic.The black lab loves it here and eats here everyday. He goes home at night. The other dogs are happpy and I got them some dog bones.
'ismiJudson
Marhaban
I am fine - Ana bekhair
'kayfa halek?' - how are you?
Nenana Ice Classic!!!! My Peach Trees bloom a pretty pink flower "warda " .
The second protection, reflection on loving kindness. You have to develop the feeling of loving kindness to all living beings in the world.Wish all living beings happiness and peace. When the spirit of metta is fully developed in you, you feel calm, concentrated, happy, peaceful. And you can switch your mind to vipassana meditation. It will not be difficult for you to concentrate because the mind is calm, serene and composed.
There are two kinds of metta bhavana to be cultivated. One is specified metta bhavana, the direction of loving kindness to specific living beings or groups. The other is unspecified pervasion of loving kindness to all living beings in the world. In this preparatory stage, you should direct you loving kindness to all living beings in the world.
Say :
May all living beings in the world be happy and peaceful,
Free from all kinds of suffering.
May all the living beings be happy and peaceful
Free from all kinds of suffering
Both mental and physical.
http://www.stanford.edu/dept/lc/arabic/alphabet/arabgrid.html
700 Prostrations. 300 more for a thousand. 03 19 2007
I find my spirit at terrible heights. I don't like heights. I find myself floating down counrty roads. Real pretty. All at terrible heights. I feel like I have climb high up and I look over cliffs. When I wake up I stop flying. ha.
It is like you have eaten poison and you want to get rid of it the quickest way possible. So therefore, we do prostrations.
http://www.chiaraluce.it/ Italian
For the benefit of all Beings as vast as the Skies
http://www.vajra-yogini.com/French
Tathagata meaning "the one who has come".
http://www.edicionesdharma.com/Spanish
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)"
This light hath come, of all the lights the fairest,
The brilliant brightness hath been born, far-shining,
Urged on to prompt the sun-god's shining power.
Night and Morning clash not, nor yet do linger."
From his navel arose the air; from his head the heaven evolved; from his feet the earth; the [four] directions from his ear. Thus, they fashioned the worlds.
Upon that desire arose in the beginning. This was the first discharge of thought. Sages discovered this link of the existent to the nonexistent, having searched in the heart with wisdom.
Lover of song, may these our songs on every side encompass thee:
Strengthening thee of lengthened life, may they be dear delights to thee.
Instill in me abundantly that fragrance,
O Mother Earth, which emanates from you
and from your plants and waters, that sweet perfume
that all celestial beings are wont to emit,
and let no enemy ever wish us ill!
-Rig Veda
Today I come out as a gay veteran. There the truth. I all too much understand the" Ask don't tell" act. I think is about time too end this terrible crime against Americans.
Use these plants to lure butterflies and hummingbirds ...
Purple Coneflower
Columbine
Monarda (Bee Balm)
Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susan)
Black and Blue salvia
Blue-Eyed Grass
Carolina Jasmine
Confederate Jasmine
Coral Honeysuckle
Mouse Ears Coreopsis
Lobelia
Blue Flag Iris
Butterfly Ginger
Verbena
Ice Plant pink
Creeping Blue Veronica
Black and Blue Salvia
Pineapple Sage
Brazilian Bog Sage
Cigar Plant
Candytuft
Foxglove
Hollyhock
Butterfly Bush
Reeves Spirea
Spirea (shrubs)
Chokeberry
Serviceberry
American Beautyberry
According to legend, evil spirits cannot resist crawling into the colored glass of the Southern Bottle Tree. Once inside the bottles, they become trapped and are destroyed by the morning sun. The Bottle Tree is one of the oldest traditions in the South.
Bowing down and surrendering to the earth. The extra 3 prostrations is for those sentient beings through time and space that can't do prostrations . Hello to you all . Hope that your taking care of your self and depression is miles away. Zimbabwe is a country that is with me when I do Prostrations. Much suffering
Bush is in South America. Terrible job as president.Lies and more lies and so much pride.
South America hates him too. Human Rights he does not even have a clue.
A man was rowing his boat upstream on a very misty morning. Suddenly, he saw another boat coming downstream, not trying to avoid him. It was coming straight at him. He shouted, "Be careful! Be careful!" but the boat came right into him, and his boat was almost sunk. The man became very angry, and began to shout at the other person, to give him a piece of his mind. But when he looked closely, he saw that there was no one in the other boat. It turned out that the boat just got loose and went downstream. All his angel vanished, and he laughed and he laughed.
-Thich Nhat Nanh, "Being Peace"
503 prostrations 497 left to go for a 1000. Were going for a sum total of 100,000 prostrations for pride.
The literal meaning of Avalokitesvara is 'the Lord who looks down', the implication being that he looks down with compassion. 8 March 2007 103 prostrations. Total of 403 we need 597 to go for our 1000 total. Planting flowers and trees today.The three leg lab follows me around for jelly donuts. Cell phone is part of me now. I'll be sitting doing zazen and ring or walking meditation and ring. I don't even answer the phone. Change and learning about cell phones.
Bön
Mixture of Bon and Buddhist symbolism.
37 million people lived in poverty in the United States in 2005, or about one in eight Americans.
http://gloriabrame.typepad.com/inside_the_mind_of_gloria/pets_and_animal_love/index.html
THE FOUR BODHISATTVA VOWS
AS STATED IN VARIOUS BUDDHIST TEXTS:
"...Bodhisattvas take on the suffering of all sentient beings, undertaking the journey to liberation not for their own good alone, but to help all others. And eventually, after the attainment of liberation, not dissolving into the Absolute or fleeing from Samsara, but choosing instead to return again and again to devote their wisdom and compassion to the service of the world."
FROM THE WOMEN'S PERSPECTIVE:
The nature of Bodhi (Enlightenment) is attained in the same manner by men and by women. There are not even slight differences in this connection, neither in the method nor in the quality of attainment. The Buddha discovered that gender is of no importance for the aim of freedom. A female saint (Arahat, i.e., woman or man) or a female being striving after sainthood is in no way subordinate to a male saint or male follower of the Buddha. It is not possible to declare a higher or more important equality of the sexes.
According to the teachings of the Buddha, there exists no practical difference between the sexes. Man and woman are equal in their dependence upon each other and in their clinging which must be overcome (Angutara-Nikaya I,1). Man and woman are equal in the rights and duties of their partnership, as the Buddha described it for lay followers in the famous sermon to Singalako (Digha-nikayaNo.31). Thus stated, for male or female, the Four Bodhisattva Vows, their importance, meaning, and execution, are the SAME in any and all cases.
THE FOUR UNIVERSAL BODHISATTVA VOWS:
However innumerable sentient beings are, I vow to influence those seekers who have planted the causes and conditions along the path in succeeding to achieve it.
However inexhaustible the defilements are, I vow to contribute in extinguishing them.
However immeasurable the dharmas are, I vow to master them.
However unattainable the Way is, I vow to attain it.
Walking the walk
In walking meditation, in particular, it is possible to become acutely aware of each stage of the process. Walking slowly, for example, you become aware of the heel as it touches the ground, the rest of the foot as it touches the ground and finally the ball and toes of the foot as it lifts off the ground.
335 Prosatrations. Very much like swimming. Falling into a not knowing reaction. Compassion is the motive. Falling feeling . May all have rays to light your way. 5 March 2007, Breathing is great. I fill enitre a diffrent frame of levels of breathing and light everywhere. Bounce off and back. Refective nature.Were going for . Making 100,000 prostrations to counteract pride.I think I have gone off on the deep edge because I have resolve to commit to such action. It's like climbing up a mountain and being very high up and you rest. Look around and then you start climbing more for another view of breath, light and compassion."Hey, what are you gawking at?! Don't you see it's about you?!"
Fact today . There are between 60 and 80 million native speakers of standard Urdu
?
200 Prostrations 800 more to go for a 1000.March 4 2007
Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself
into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become
enlightened.
When you sit, let it be. What you walk, let it be. Grasp
at nothing. Resist nothing.
from 'A Still Forest Pool' by Ajhan Chah
The most secure place to hide a treasure of gold
is in some desolate, unoticed place.
Why would anyone hide treasure
in plain sight?
And so it is said,
"Joy is hidden beneath sorrow."
-Rumi, "Mathnawi" [III, 1133-1134
I am forever pure.
What is illusion,
Or the world?
What is the little soul,
Or God Himself?
One without two,
I am always the same.
I sit in my heart.
-Ashtavakra Gita 20:11-12
” The remedy is to take a good look at your own mind
Renovation project is coming into my life. Moving to another house and land.
t
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9904,goldstein,3688,1.html
http://www.actupny.org/diva/synWoj.html
David Wojnarowicz
(1954 - July 22, 1992) U.S.A.
Painter, photographer, performance artist, and writer
David was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, brought on by a severely dysfunctional, and abusive family, and an emerging sense of his own homosexuality, he dropped out of high school and was living on the streets by the age of sixteen. He turned to hustling in Times Square. After hitchhiking many times across the U.S. and living for several months in San Francisco and Paris, he settled in New York's East Village in 1978.
By the early 1980s, thank to his provocative works, he had become like graffiti artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, a vital fixture in the East Village art scene in lower Manhattan.
David had his first solo exhibitions in New York in the early 1980s. In 1985 he had a major exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. His growing prominence as a nationally recognized artist is witnessed by invitations to participate in the 1987 and 1991 Whitney Biennials at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
He came to maturity as a contemporary artist and writer during a decade when the arts sought increasingly to address issues of gender, race, and ethnicity. A younger postmodern generation of artists gave expression to these concerns in non-traditional media and often worked in multimedia.
David endured a difficult childhood and struggled to make sense of his homosexuality - subjects that became a central theme in his art. During the height of a national controversy in 1989 concerning morality and censorship in the arts - engendered by an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe - David became embroiled in scandal himself.
Following attacks from a host of politicians and religious leaders who called his work "pornographic" and "blasphemous," the National Endowment for the Arts revoked a ten-thousand-dollar grant for an AIDS-related exhibition in which David was to participate.
He challenged the NEA's ruling and, at the same time, brought a lawsuit against the conservative political action group the American Family Association for misrepresenting his art. He eventually won both campaigns.
His lover was Tom Rauffenbart. David died of AIDS-related complications in New York City, at the age of thirty-seven.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wojnarowicz
Overseas leading, intrest , debt, tax savings, US market is in debt. Middle Class running harder and falling behind. Not smart enough to keep up. Blame the older worker.Purchers of foreign debt. Japan and China. Fees being payed. Saving behavior increased in this country.The Budget sucks . Increase Networth. Savings into HOME VALUE. Icrease asset . redue surpus and balance the budget. Disruption. More training and retraining. Effective, using programs that work and improve worker skills. Went ouside and found flys outside.
"Further, a disciple of the noble ones considers this: 'I am not the only one subject to illness, who has not gone beyond illness.'... 'I am not the only one subject to death, who has not gone beyond death.'... 'I am not the only one who will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.'...
100 hundred prostrations today 900 more. Feb 26 2007"I am prostrating;" rather, prostrations are occurring.
The merit we accumulate by doing one prostration is beyond our conception. The result—all the temporal and ultimate happiness up to enlightenment—is beyond the grasp of our mind. Furthermore, remember that karma is expandable. From one small virtuous action, you can experience many happy results for many hundreds of lifetimes, just as from one small non-virtuous action you can experience many different suffering results both in one life and for many lifetimes. But if you cannot comprehend the cause, there is no way you can comprehend the result.
By the merit of this practice, may all living beings and I be happy and be free from all sufferings and unfavourable conditions. May we accomplish all our aims and wishes temporarily, and attain enlightenment ultimately.
1000 Prostrations Feb 26 2007
A Gentleman's Wealth
A poet's treasure consists of words and pharases;
A scholar's days and nights are perfumed
with books.
For me , plum blossoms framed by the window
is an insurpassable pleasure;
A stomach tight with cold but still enchanted
by snow, moon, and dawn frost.
"Wild Ways; Zen poems of Ikkyu, Translated by John Stevens Winter Buddhadharma 2004
Mother of the Universe,
I have no desire to exercise power.
I would not even care to be an emperor.
Sweet Mother, please grant me
two simple meals each day
and wealth enough to thatch the palm roof
of my clean earthen house,
where I offer dreaming and waking
as red flowers at your feet
-Ramprasad
Question today? For how many eons have secret blossoms been budding and fading?My name is... - Ana ismi.. Judson
"The innate nature, being inconceivable, is great space.
The space of mind. itself is free of all thought
Within the inconceivable enlightened mind
The innate nature is not found through meditation
Even without meditating it is primordially empty and never apart."
Meditating means abiding in the nature of nonthinking equality.
From "Buddhadharma Winter 2004 " The View of Conquerors From Ani Jinba Palmo's Translation Of Vajra Songs of the Dzogchen Lineage
We should regard those who point out our faults as if they were pointing out treasure.
Warda is Arabic for "Rose"Goodbye (Go in peace) - Ma'assalama
Though well-dressed,
If he should live in peace, with restraint and self-control, living with pure ethics,
Laying aside violence towards all living beings,
He indeed is a holy one, a renunciate, a member of the spiritual community.
140 prostrations today. 22 Feb 2007. We are nearing our thousand count. 60 more for a thousand.
Sweat and falling to the ground. Bought for me was a Pedometer. Which shows the steps walked. The garden and land calls me into action. The fish from the pond are doing well. Got to take leaves out of the Pond. Many Frogs. I like Frogs. Put out seed for the birds. New ones are showing up and I think the birds are going to have baby's soon. I walked the land today . Windy and all kinds of sounds and smells. Life all around. Rebirth, decay and impermanent karma. I will be able to do zazen down by the stream.
Thought for the day. Water has memory.
http://queerlinks.com/results.asp
The lab with three legs had moved in . I love him. He is a good man. He shares with the bossy chow. Pride is too much. Got to release it and move on. I am more in tune with Pride. Need to bow down and touch my head to the earth . Join those that await for me to bow with them. My mother and father twin brother my nephew and family and elders through out time.
I am not alone when I do practice.I think of teachers. Those of the West and others from Asia. East ,North in all directions.Hope today you take time and you find your love ones , your teachers in your practice. Light arrives back into the world.Allow your light in and trust it . You are stardust. 60 more prostrations. The goal is a thousand. Hope they help you and all that you need. May whatever arises from this practice may it help all beings not one left behind.Five monks came by with there begging bowls. Fed them and they sill had a nice sunny sunset to play in. My cats act like spring is near they love all the fresh air and they can smell much better than me. I look into their eyes to tell weather.
.
Today started a painting of Om. This is my model .
. . . Om Mani Padme Hum
Finish
Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.
86. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
1
FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face to face.
Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose. 5
2
The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-join’d scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme:
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings—on the walk in the street, and the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away; 10
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others—the life, love, sight, hearing of others.
Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east; 15
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
3
It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not; 20
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.
Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d; 25
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.
I too many and many a time cross’d the river, the sun half an hour high;
I watched the Twelfth-month sea-gulls—I saw them high in the air, floating with motionless wings, oscillating their bodies,
I saw how the glistening yellow lit up parts of their bodies, and left the rest in strong shadow, 30
I saw the slow-wheeling circles, and the gradual edging toward the south.
I too saw the reflection of the summer sky in the water,
Had my eyes dazzled by the shimmering track of beams,
Look’d at the fine centrifugal spokes of light around the shape of my head in the sun-lit water,
Look’d on the haze on the hills southward and southwestward, 35
Look’d on the vapor as it flew in fleeces tinged with violet,
Look’d toward the lower bay to notice the arriving ships,
Saw their approach, saw aboard those that were near me,
Saw the white sails of schooners and sloops—saw the ships at anchor,
The sailors at work in the rigging, or out astride the spars, 40
The round masts, the swinging motion of the hulls, the slender serpentine pennants,
The large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses,
The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,
The flags of all nations, the falling of them at sun-set,
The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening, 45
The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer, the gray walls of the granite store-houses by the docks,
On the river the shadowy group, the big steam-tug closely flank’d on each side by the barges—the hay-boat, the belated lighter,
On the neighboring shore, the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night,
Casting their flicker of black, contrasted with wild red and yellow light, over the tops of houses, and down into the clefts of streets.
4
These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you; 50
I project myself a moment to tell you—also I return.
I loved well those cities;
I loved well the stately and rapid river;
The men and women I saw were all near to me;
Others the same—others who look back on me, because I look’d forward to them; 55
(The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night.)
5
What is it, then, between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?
Whatever it is, it avails not—distance avails not, and place avails not.
6
I too lived—Brooklyn, of ample hills, was mine; 60
I too walk’d the streets of Manhattan Island, and bathed in the waters around it;
I too felt the curious abrupt questionings stir within me,
In the day, among crowds of people, sometimes they came upon me,
In my walks home late at night, or as I lay in my bed, they came upon me.
I too had been struck from the float forever held in solution; 65
I too had receiv’d identity by my Body;
That I was, I knew was of my body—and what I should be, I knew I should be of my body.
7
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw patches down upon me also;
The best I had done seem’d to me blank and suspicious; 70
My great thoughts, as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre? would not people laugh at me?
It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil;
I am he who knew what it was to be evil;
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,
Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d, 75
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,
The cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting,
Refusals, hates, postponements, meanness, laziness, none of these wanting. 80
8
But I was Manhattanese, friendly and proud!
I was call’d by my nighest name by clear loud voices of young men as they saw me approaching or passing,
Felt their arms on my neck as I stood, or the negligent leaning of their flesh against me as I sat,
Saw many I loved in the street, or ferry-boat, or public assembly, yet never told them a word,
Lived the same life with the rest, the same old laughing, gnawing, sleeping, 85
Play’d the part that still looks back on the actor or actress,
The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like,
Or as small as we like, or both great and small.
9
Closer yet I approach you;
What thought you have of me, I had as much of you—I laid in my stores in advance; 90
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.
Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?
It is not you alone, nor I alone; 95
Not a few races, nor a few generations, nor a few centuries;
It is that each came, or comes, or shall come, from its due emission,
From the general centre of all, and forming a part of all:
Everything indicates—the smallest does, and the largest does;
A necessary film envelopes all, and envelopes the Soul for a proper time. 100
10
Now I am curious what sight can ever be more stately and admirable to me than my mast-hemm’d Manhattan,
My river and sun-set, and my scallop-edg’d waves of flood-tide,
The sea-gulls oscillating their bodies, the hay-boat in the twilight, and the belated lighter;
Curious what Gods can exceed these that clasp me by the hand, and with voices I love call me promptly and loudly by my nighest name as I approach;
Curious what is more subtle than this which ties me to the woman or man that looks in my face, 105
Which fuses me into you now, and pours my meaning into you.
We understand, then, do we not?
What I promis’d without mentioning it, have you not accepted?
What the study could not teach—what the preaching could not accomplish, is accomplish’d, is it not?
What the push of reading could not start, is started by me personally, is it not? 110
11
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sun-set! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me;
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta!—stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn! 115
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress! 120
Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water! and faithfully hold it, till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you; 125
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sun-lit water;
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset;
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses;
Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are; 130
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul;
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas;
Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers;
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual;
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting. 135
12
We descend upon you and all things—we arrest you all;
We realize the soul only by you, you faithful solids and fluids;
Through you color, form, location, sublimity, ideality;
Through you every proof, comparison, and all the suggestions and determinations of ourselves.
You have waited, you always wait, you dumb, beautiful ministers! you novices! 140
We receive you with free sense at last, and are insatiate henceforward;
Not you any more shall be able to foil us, or withhold yourselves from us;
We use you, and do not cast you aside—we plant you permanently within us;
We fathom you not—we love you—there is perfection in you also;
You furnish your parts toward eternity; 145
Great or small, you furnish your parts toward the soul.
Very cold out put some seed out for the Wild Birds. Some suewit fat is hanging in the tree . The yellow finches are eating the speical seed they need. A thistle seed.The Blue jays stealing peanuts. The woodpecker male have beeen around eating corn . Got my oustide cat in.The birds look cold.
Mannahatta
by Walt Whitman
I was asking for something specific and perfect for my city,
Whereupon lo! upsprang the aboriginal name.
Now I see what there is in a name, a word, liquid, sane,
unruly, musical, self-sufficient,
I see that the word of my city is that word from of old,
Because I see that word nested in nests of water-bays,
superb,
Rich, hemm'd thick all around with sailships and
steamships, an island sixteen miles long, solid-founded,
Numberless crowded streets, high growths of iron, slender,
strong, light, splendidly uprising toward clear skies,
Tides swift and ample, well-loved by me, toward sundown,
The flowing sea-currents, the little islands, larger adjoining
islands, the heights, the villas,
The countless masts, the white shore-steamers, the lighters,
the ferry-boats, the black sea-steamers well-model'd,
The down-town streets, the jobbers' houses of business, the
houses of business of the ship-merchants and money-
brokers, the river-streets,
Immigrants arriving, fifteen or twenty thousand in a week,
The carts hauling goods, the manly race of drivers of horses,
the brown-faced sailors,
The summer air, the bright sun shining, and the sailing
clouds aloft,
The winter snows, the sleigh-bells, the broken ice in the
river, passing along up or down with the flood-tide or
ebb-tide,
The mechanics of the city, the masters, well-form'd,
beautiful-faced, looking you straight in the eyes,
Trottoirs throng'd, vehicles, Broadway, the women, the
shops and shows,
A million people--manners free and superb--open voices--
hospitality--the most courageous and friendly young
men,
City of hurried and sparkling waters! city of spires and masts!
City nested in bays! my city!
Last night I heard the owl calling for its mate for spring.
Even as the sun shines and fills all space
With light, above, below, across, so shines
The Lord of Love and fills the hearts of all created beings.
From him the cosmos comes, he who teaches
Each living creature to attain perfection
According to its own nature. He is
The Lord of Love who reigns over all life.
-Shvetashvatara Upanishad
3678, 2789
"The mountain is not a mountain; that is why it is a mountain’ (Diamond Sutra).
Everything beckons to us to perceive it...
Awde, Nicholas and Samano, Putros
American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, Egypt, 1996, 4th printing.. 95 pp, 8 9/16" H, soft cover. ISBN 9774242270 "Anyone who wishes to learn written Arabic faces a hitherto formidable initial problem: the alphabet. This book is designed to help students of the language, as well as visitors and people doing busin. ess in Egypt and the Middle East over that hurdle. The book proceeds step by step through all the letters of the Arabic alphabet, showing how they are formed, the sounds they stand for, and how they are combined into words. Nothing essential is le. ft out, but no unnecessary complications are added. Readers will find that progress is rapid and will be surprised at the relative ease with which they master the first steps in learning written Arabic." Interior - clean and tight with no previous. ownership marks. Exterior - minor edge wear to covers, minor rubbing/soiling. Very Good.
Here is my wish list for a book. Today I think of world wide all the homeless and without clean water. May they have strength.I just found a big tube of Titanium White Winsor Newton Winton oil colour .
Canvas has paint on it today. Someone said there is no bad art. Feelings and action and color. Reds and white, green. Should at least pencil it in the shapes and the texture I see. Where am I going with this canvas, I need more white and more idea on clouds. Or is it strips of color.Turning it around and around.
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an
angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the
starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the
supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of
cities contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan
angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Ar-
kansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,
Look I have nine cats and when I get up they all want to be patted. They want food and water and attention. Right off I am giving and giving want they want. Bright star, Dippa, Tecno, Rose, Smoky,Plain Jane, Skilldes,Lucy in the sky.Tabby is the oustside cat. Just some of the names they have. One cat was run over with a car all fixed up. Ha One is blind the other can't hear. We have three birds and one dog. More women then men.The women are in charge. The cats are long white hair cats and the parents have been in shows. One is long hair and a mixture of brown and black tones. The other cat was saved from a free way. She was full of feas and needed a home. So she is here. She is all fea free and very loved She is Dippa." Light of Dharma "
El baño
la bañera
bathtub
el excusado
toilet
el lavamanos
sink
el botiquín
medicine cabinet
el jabón
soap
la toalla
towel
el cortinero
curtain rod
el gorro de baño
shower cap
la ducha
shower
la jabonera
soap dish
la esponja
sponge
el champú
shampoo
el desagüe
drai
The three leg lab comes around and has been staying for food.I feed him extra because he needs more food. He hops around and puts up with the bossy Chow. Many night of late it's been five dogs to feed. Taking your time and watching behavior only can you feed the dogs. Boy it does cost a lot to feed them. Two boys and three females. But they seem happy and take there time eating. I feel better knowing they are taken care of. They love me and show me love all the time. They bring toys to me.
Lick my hand and jumb up to greet me.
Mind games suck. I don't like them .
Going through my Spanish English English Spanish Larousse Pocket Student Dictionary Reading it and doing my Arabic. I like the word arrugado and arte moderno, arrroz blanco The verbo arrojar to throw arrimar arriesgarse or arriesgar =to risk . It helps someone wanting to learn.I work with spanish and move on to ArabicStill trying to teach myself and and it's the find the basic language to understand Arabic and English. These are like notes and my way of learning. So bear with me. A VISIT FROM WISDOM
In the stillness of night Wisdom came and stood
by my bed. She gazed upon me like a tender mother
and wiped away my tears, and said : "I have heard
the cry of your spirit and I am come to comfort it.
Open your heart to me and I shall fill it with light.
Ask of me and I shall show you the way of truth."
And I said : "Who am I, Wisdom, and how came
I to this frightening place? What manner of things
are these mighty hopes and these many books and
strange patterns ? What are these thoughts that pass
as doves in flight? And these words composed by
desire and sung by delight, what are they? What are
these conclusions, grievous and joyous, that embrace
my spirit and envelop my heart? And those
eyes which look at me seeing into my depths and
fleeing from my sorrows ? And those voices mourning
my days and chanting my littleness, what are they ?
"What is this youth that plays with my desires
and mocks at my longings, forgetful of yesterday's
deeds, rejoicing in paltry things of the moment,
scornful of the morrow's coming?
"What is this world that leads me whither I know
not, standing with me in despising? And this earth
that opens wide its mouth to swallow bodies and
lets evil things to dwell on its breast? What is this
creature that is satisfied with the love of fortune,
whilst beyond its union is the pit? Who seeks Life's
kiss whilst Death does smite him, and brings the
pleasure of a minute with a year of repentance, and
gives himself to slumber the while dreams call him?
What is he who flows with the rivers of folly to the
sea of darkness? O Wisdom, what manner of things
are these?"
And she answered, saying :
"You would see, human creature, this world
through the eyes of a god. And you would seek to
know the secrets of the hereafter with the thinking
of men. Yet in truth is this the height of folly.
"Go you to the wild places and you shall find
there the bee above the flowers and behold the eagle
swooping down on his prey. Go you into your neighbor's
house and see then the child blinking at the
firelight and his mother busied at her household
tasks. Be you like the bee and spend not the days of
spring looking on the eagle's doing. Be as the child
and rejoice in the firelight and heed not your mother's
affairs. All that you see with your eyes was and
is for your sake.
"The many books and the strange patterns and
beautiful thoughts are the shades of those spirits
that came ere you were come. The words that you
do weave are a bond between you and your brothers.
The conclusions, grievous and joyous, are the
seeds that the past did scatter in the field of the
spirit to be reaped by the future. That youth who
plays with your desires is he who will open the door
of your heart to let enter the light. This earth with
the ever open mouth is the savior of your spirit from
the body's slavery. This world which walks with
you is your heart; and your heart is all that you
think that world. This creature whom you see as
ignorant and small is the same who has come from
God's side to learn pity through sadness, and knowledge
by way of darkness."
Then Wisdom put her hand on my burning brow
and said :
"Go then forward and do not tarry, for before
walks perfection. Go, and have not fear of thorns
on the path, for they deem naught lawful save corrupted blood."
He is the inner Self of all,
Hidden like a little flame in the heart.
Only by the stilled mind can he be known.
Those who realize him become immortal.
He has thousands of heads, thousands of eyes,
Thousands of feet; he surrounds the cosmos
On every side. This infinite being
Is ever present in the hearts of all.
He has become the cosmos. He is what was
And what will be. Yet he is unchanging,
The lord of immortality.
-Shvetashvatara Upanishad
Wisdom=Truth= WISDOM
Anger and the blues and blame game are here. The need to work out and get it out and remove those feelings. They don't help and I can't find compassion with them. I want to remove myself from these feelings of the past. Walking is physical and the need to do something is met. I feel so helpless and wonder how you feel? You who reads this and with no reply. I wonder about this web site. Does it help anyone or is it for the ego and pride?Prostrations are the cure for me. Bowing I feel like a field of grass in a field bowing with the wind and morning dew.No idea of god and no sound, no music only emptyness and breathing in and out. Floating within form and the bounce of emptyness. May you have peace blessings to your mind today and may you realize how important you are to me in emptyness and form.Out of this emptyness I often take form for other paths.I realize how little that I know and how I am fix in suffering about not knowing the truth of compassion. Compassion is like the white light that you think you don't deserve.It is so bright and frees and burns through you and you hear your roar. All the time you are confused that you God shines through you. You run away from the light and fear brings back doubts. So you go to the white light until you disappear. Roaring your brave roar. I am just speaking about my own white light experience. I was brought to my knees at such a humble site.I had much fear but as the light covered me I was brought back to the fact I knew so little. I was a child again. Then as I tryed to palnt my life as it was right now. I was showen other lifes and existence that I was not aware of. This threw me off and I became mad that my own suffering in this life was taking place.I spoke what about my mother with cancer. What about my twin brother who was crazy. What about this or that in my life. I was showen many lifes and became more confused by this and the intense love all around me. I was so confused. Waves of compassion surround me.Love and embracing love for forgiveness. And the white light becomes more intense. More later. I was taking out the bar trash and I was I was in between two buildings and hidden away . It all took place in a time loss idea. The seconds become slow and mintues took place as the white light became brighter. I became fear full I was fighting with all of this. I became feárfull that I could die right now or live. I choose life and as soon as it was all over with and it all took place it was over and I was left with all of this event in 1978. This as years before I became a buddhist found Ram Dass . The knowledge shown to me was vast and it happen in my mind as the experience talked to me.It read my mind and would tell me not to be so concerned with this life and it's emotions of karma. I had so much more life times and there karma. It just put me to rest. But the light took over and I became fearfful of dieing. With that it all disappered. And I was left with the bar trash the open door of the trash ltop and this experience.
or any idea of past lives. I had no idea what karma was. Since then I have self taught myself and learn about the world and I see that world a lot diffrent.There is many paths to love. Forgiveness and no blame is one of them. White light will absorb all of you and many life times . That is the truth you have nothing to so deal with it. It just you shinning and roaring like a lion. I feel better getting this out. It did happen and you deal with it . I bet your experiences are better. Send me some of yours.
Blessing to you all .
Today many blessing have happen and I feel so much better. Thanks for all your giving . Tabby my outside cat comes in from the cold. I don't what happen except that I feel better and more hopefull. I can feel my art friend thinking something up.I need him or her to do the art. I learn as far as it goes I can't draw. Some else's steps in and draws. I am so afraid that they won't be there to do drawing. I pick up the pencil or brush and it takes place. It's like a math problem. Shades and form through carbon. My home made blanket has my cat Tabby in deep sleep. I hope he stays as it is 20 degrees out side.
Got the book it's way over my head. The arabic print is so small. I don't like it . Got to keep looking for a better book.
Waiting on a book called " Learning Arabic Step by Step Approach Reading and Writing Arbic" by Moh-el Din Saleh. The dogs were all here today. I got another bag of food. Foot and lab with three legs and the white and tan dog and the chow and the german shepard. Two males and three females. They all look good and are healthy.
As there can be no water without the sea,
No touch without the skin, no smell without
The nose, no taste without the tongue, no form
Without the eye, no sound without the
Ear, no thought without the mind, no wisdom
Without the heart, no work without hands, no
Walking without feet, no scriptures without the
Word, so there can be nothing without the Self.
-Brihadaranyaka Upanishad
In the garden we have yellow raspberries and plums and dayplants.
New Word for the day. Arabic language word .
looks hard to write. One letter looks like a d another one looks like a j and another like a w. The dots over the writing is intresting. I like the word madrasa= school .
Assalamu alaykum wa'rahma-tullahi, wa'barakatahu,
“[Wisdom] is like a lamp, O king, which a man might introduce into a house in darkness. When the lamp had been brought in it would dispel the darkness, cause radiance to arise, and light to shine forth, and make the objects there plainly visible. Just so would wisdom in a man have such effects as were just now set forth.”
-Milindapanha
However tempting it may be to treat her to table scraps, it's really not wise. Overfeeding a cat at any age -- especially with fatty foods -- is actually setting her up for obesity and related health problems in the future.
http://www.difusioncultural.uam.mx/revista/sep2001/peppino.html
http://www.eldigoras.com/eom03/2004/2/tierra34rmd01.htm
* Praise is the easiest way to let people know they are appreciated.
* Each of us has the power to recognize the goodness in others.
* You will go a lot further if you stop to refuel.
"Adieu"
"Losing face (by withdrawing) or losing our souls (by continuing an unjust war)."Abraham Joshua Heschel
Teaching myself how to write flower. I feel like a bee floating from word to word. The loop and turns and tails . I trace it and then free hand. warda= flower
The treasure house
My teacher said to me:
"The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it.
You don't need to seek outside."
Dazhu (487-593)
Here I am. It's snowing and I like it. Pride in one's spiritual accomplishment. A thought and feeling to note that because of prostrations. I don't feel this as such. But I feel like a foundation of practice has taken place. I don't take for granted that I even understand nature. The knowledge of the appropriate and inappropriate. Cause for the the Ten powers. The second power is the knowledge of the results of actions. There are particular individual relationships between casues and results. May you be on your way through good "samadhi"today. Be naked with your whole self . Remove the need to say yes. No saves the inner person. Learn to become a child again and unerstand how much you don't understand. Another bag of dog food . Five dogs come by every day. Maybe everybody is short of money. Ha. I have to figure how to feed them so their is no fights and misunderstanding about dog space. My self I feel stuck and also feel good that the hoildays are over with. I did well never going near a store in the rush of people. 33 degrees here.Going to listen to the President . I don't think that congress and the senate will be processive. The President has no idea that he sounds like the people did in the Vietnam War. I hear the same excuses. I hope we get out of this war.
Toady the wind prayers are everywhere. Winds tossing the Pine trees that I planted on the hill. The black Lab with three legs came by and I fed him. He is lossing his sight in his eyes. Boy did he dive into the food. But it is worth it. When a dog runs to you with so much love and runs fast . How can you put a price on it.
Milk those dogs.I will update the picture.Putting out seed for the birds and other animals.
Working on my Spanish. Basic steps in words. el invierno for winter. It all seems so more colorful and richer in texture than English.Learning these months and seasons for better Spanish and English. Hearing woodpeckers around the yard. Owls and bats. New words and concepts for art.
Trust has nothing to do with moral courage. It occurs when we have nowhere else to turn, when we reach the end of our need to control.
el invierno enero 7 2007
la primavera
spring
Everything they do will be nothing but bliss.
el verano
summer
el otoño
autumn
el invierno
winter
Here are the months in Spanish. Note that, like the days of the week, they are not capitalized.
enero January
febrero February
marzo March
abril April
mayo May
junio June
julio July
agosto August
septiembre September
octubre October
noviembre November
diciembre December
Have a nice enero.
Spanish Plants and Trees
el árbol
tree
la flor
flower
el cactus
cactus
el arbusto
bush
la enredadera
vine
la hoja
leaf
el tulipán
tulip
el tallo
stem
la margarita
daisy
el bulbo
bulb
la orquídea
orchid
la violeta
violet
la rosa
rose
el botón
bud
"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter" - e e cummings
O Henry
The Last Leaf
In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These "places" make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!
So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."
At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted.
That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."
Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow.
"She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"
"She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue.
"Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?"
"A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."
"Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."
After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime.
Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep.
She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature.
As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside.
Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting - counting backward.
"Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together.
Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks.
"What is it, dear?" asked Sue.
"Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now."
"Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie."
"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?"
"Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self."
"You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too."
"Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down."
"Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly.
"I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves."
"Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves."
"Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back."
Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above.
Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker.
Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.
"Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy."
"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet."
"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes."
Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.
When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade.
"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.
Wearily Sue obeyed.
But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground.
"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time."
"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"
But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed.
The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.
When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised.
The ivy leaf was still there.
Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove.
"I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."
And hour later she said:
"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."
The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left.
"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable."
The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all."
And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.
"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and - look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."
THEN said a teacher,
Speak to us of Teaching.
And he said:
No man can reveal to you aught but that which
already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the
temple, among his followers, gives not of his
wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter
the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to
the threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding
of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.
The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which
is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which
arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.
And he who is versed in the science of numbers
can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but
he cannot conduct you thither.
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to
another man.
And even as each one of you stands alone in
God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone
in his knowledge of God and his understanding of the earth.
Selections from 'The Prophet'
THEN a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter
rises was oftentimes filled with yourtears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your
being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very
cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes yourspirit,
the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart
and you shall find it is only thatwhich has given
you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping
for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow,"
and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with
you at your board, remember that the other is
asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales
between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at
standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh
his gold and his silver, needs mustyour joy
or your sorrow rise or fall.
http://leebertarian.homestead.com/files/flowersutras.html
herefore it is important for us to reflect more practically, to work with compassion for individuals and then extend that compassion further.
First they came for the communists,
and I did not speak out
--because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists,
and I did not speak out
--because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak out
--because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me --
but there was no one left to speak out for me.
(Pastor Martin Niemöller, active in the German resistance against nazism, prisoner in the concentration camp Sachenhausen 1945)
Infinite lands and worlds
With no distinctions between self and others
Ten ages past and present
Are never apart from this moment of thought.
- National Teacher Shoitsu (1202-1280)
Shoitsu's Zen.
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/yourgallery/artist_profile/Alexei+Biryukoff/6464.html
Zen is not conception or perception;
if you establish an idea,
you turn away from the source.
The way is beyond cultivated effects;
if you set up accomplishment,
you lose the essence.
Shoitsu (1202-1280)
"One night I even surprised myself by waking myself up from laughing!"
Keep on pondering, and suddenly the flower of mind will bloom with enlightenment, illuminating the whole universe.
This can be called getting it in the mind, responding to it in action. Thereupon you can turn the earth into gold and churn the rivers into cream. Wouldn't that make life exhilarating?
-Chien-j
"Do not prolong the past. Do not beckon the future.Rest evenly in cognitive lucidity that is without conceptualization."
reflections
Making blankets for Xmas. Got 4 going at once. Painting colors of yarn for blankets.Love colors. 12 miles walking this month. 3 miles when I can . Down to 141.6 pounds. From 148. Lost 7 pounds. Plenty of Doves eating the corn we put out. Lover has gone to take care of his mother . Now is the time to get back into practice because I can get way with it. Zazen here I come. Home alone. Wonderful. The Wood Pecker and his mate have been eating the corn too. Finches, Nuthatch, Titmice are feeding too. My lover has autism , as a adult with autism he deals with it every day.Can't wait tonight he gets back and his mother is doing better. I know my sister won't write back, but I sent her a present. I guess I will do the right tack. Grace under fire. Trying to stay alive and no depression yet. Day by day. Hour by hour. minute by minute. George Bush has me upset and so do the new people in government. I think they both lie and misuse the public good. Neither ones know what to do. I mean. How can George Bush run the government he can't even talk right. Watch him as he trys to say something from out of his head and he really misses up. I think that some else is behind the scenes. Were at war with no leadership and and no way to solve it. Oil for money. Yarn get into knots, maybe if the president work more with yarn he could get himself out this tie up. Rolling yarn is not easy either. I think he needs to wrap yarn and realize he is his on worst enemie.I don't he'll recover. Two more years.!!!!!!! When he is gone.Victory for the people. Bush out of office day.I am going to have a party. I will be free. He is a terrorist, every day I awake up to his terror and lies. So much blood is on his hands. Terrible karma. He has so much pride he needs prostrations. How come we don't even mention that teaching Arabic to our troops would help with understanding cultures. At least the alphabet and numbers.I taught myself how to count and the alphabet and now I know how too count and never knew numbers could be so much fun in Arabic .The Arabic Alphabet is great to the human soul . It is bare bone. Very much like the ancient Chinese bones. Basic and telling.
The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.
Mohammed
Writing as a Form of Art
The Roman and Arabic alphabets are cousins. Each has inherited different features of their North Semitic grandfather. For the Roman it is a similarity to Semitic letter shapes and the alphabetical order. For the Arabic it is the minimal use of vowel letters and the leftward direction of writing.
Arabic is a most efficient way of writing. It is stripped to the minimum: all styles are cursive and geared to rapid penwork, and most vowels are ignored.
The Arabic alphabet is one of the most important in the world. It is used by the followers of the Islamic faith--about 950 million people. Today's commercial developments in this area have brought this script into prominence in the rest of the world as well.
As the Dark Ages fell across Europe and the classics of Greece and Rome were being lost or destroyed, Muslim scholars continued to eagerly collect and translate them into Arabic.
Great universities were established at Islamic centers, where the classics and translations of works from many other cultures were studied. Notable contributions in mathematics, medicine and science were made at these centers. For many centuries the Islamic world carried the torch of civilization.
The European Renaissance resulted largely from the rediscovery of Europe's roots--preserved in the Arabic language and alphabet--and their translation back into Latin, the common language of European scholarship.
Islam disapproved of representing natural forms. This channeled creative endeavor in the Islamic world into other arts, the chief of which has always been calligraphy.
Meditate upon the equality of self and others and the need to be helpful to other beings.
"Had a drink with winter today, he broke out the ice. " Snowing
Interviews are odd. You take your whole work history and explain why you want to work for this company. We will call you . I mean time slows down and you are so unimportant . At best I am learning about interviews. Oh I see your from Alaska. The means you are from another place. Why America is America. I guess. I will just keep trying. I learn that a good work history is important. Like credit rating. Now I pay the price for for not having a good work history. So far I had a hire for one job. But am I smart enough to do the job. Fears. Where is my confidence?
You are not alone.
There are others. on their way on the same track,
Travellers from nowhere to nowhere, on their way from nothing to nothing.
The track may be narrow and steep and boring and frightening but everybody walks on it.
You are not alone but linked to everything around you
Tang Poet: Han Shan
Cold Mountain: "A Hundred Poems "
bouddhisme, artiste, champêtre, érotique, sensuel
Buddhist Personal Practice and Awarness about taking life. Pride at work. "KICKED MY ASS"
Going to make a apple pie for a present and make blankets for another gift. Giving a book on," Alexander the Great "as a present. I have several jade plants ready for the holiday.The dog bring toys to pay for there supper.They been digging up my yard. I am a day care for dogs . Got to get them some chew toys.They have slowed down eating and no fights. They are now really built in the frame.They have chests that are prould and happy. They are a benefit around here. They play all the time together.Got the dogs some chew toys. They took off with them and now I guess there gone. Ha. Funny thing what on the way to meeting the Buddha. I can't eat flesh any more. I was brought up on a meat family and plenty of chicken. Farmers. Now I actually get sick thinking about the animal I am eating. I just can't do it any more. Not because I choose too change . It just happen. Do no harm comes to mind. I pay attention to the motives about my food. In a spirit sense. Do no harm. It has really throwen me for a loop. It just happen. What to do ? I mean it has come too this. Not to kill. How many beings have I eaten? Many. I know understand and that has made a big difference. Like growing up and leaving the past behind. Tofu? I am not saying not to eat flesh. Only that some one can realize the suffering and because of personal practice mature and change their ways .Thinking taken for granted states a fact of killing. You eat because of something you need. You don't have the will or the education of not killing. Awarness that tames the beast. Thanks for that teachings. I did not expect it to happen. Sudden. Like out of nowhere. Still have surprize and trying to cope with all these teachings.I now feel better , that I talk with some one about this. Growing up. Not ready? Ha . I guess what I want to get across it that you can't force the issue of not killing until you feel that what you have perpare before you has suffered.This goes against the teachings I restore my self every day.Something has to give. I am not saying it is you or it is for you to decide. It is my own story of what I say and do. It comes as natural as drinking water. Before I did not understand.Now I understand my Ignorance. What was I thinking? Taking life or having life taken for my own personal consumption. Selfish and ego being. No end of killing no end of consumption pride . My ego needs taming. Compassion.I walk these 3 miles walks and I see trash in the most wonder full lanes, of where I walk. I ask you what to do ? Walk past the trash day after day? Or bring a trash bag along with you and maybe 10 mins pick up trash.And leave the bag on the road and pick it up later. . I learn that in the Army about picking up trash and policing areas. Leave it the way others would like to have it. I guess if you see a guy with a bag of trash along the road picking up it's me. ha.I just can't walk past it every day. It bothers me. It sucks. Practice and out . May all beings be free.
Crust
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
5-7 tablespoons COLD water
Mix shortening, salt, flour with a fork until crumbly
Add 5 tablespoons water and mix well, adding more water if too dry
Apple Filling
6-8 tart apples (Macintosh, Granny Smith)
Pare, core and thinly slice
3/4 - 1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/2-1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter (or margarine)
Slice apples
Combine sugar, flour, cinnamon in a bowl
Add apple slices and mix well
Take 1/2 of the pastry and roll flat with rolling pin
Line a 9" or 10" pie plate with the pastry
Fill with apple mixture
Dot with butter (or margarine)
Take the remaining pastry dough and roll flat
Place dough on top of apple pie mix
Crimp along edges creating a scalloped edging
Take a knife and cut slits into top pastry for steam to escape
Bake in a 400 oven for 50 minutes or until crust is brown
Let cool and serve
Enlightenment has two aspects: An awakening experience and the knowledge that experience reveals.
The Self
O Master,
Tell me how to find
Detachment, wisdom, and freedom!
Child,
If you wish to be free,
Shun the poison of the senses.
Seek the nectar of truth,
Of love and forgiveness,
Simplicity and happiness.
Earth, fire and water,
The wind and the sky -
You are none of these.
If you wish to be free,
Know you are the Self,
The witness of all these,
The heart of awareness.
Set your body aside.
Sit in your own awareness.
You will at once be happy,
Forever still,
Forever free.
You have no caste.
No duties bind you.
Formless and free,
Beyond the reach of the senses,
The witness of all things.
So be happy!
Right or wrong,
Joy and sorrow,
These are of the mind only.
They are not yours.
It is not really you
Who acts or enjoys.
You are everywhere,
Forever free.
Forever and truly free,
The single witness of all things.
But if you see yourself as separate,
Then you are bound.
"I do this. I do that."
The big black snake of selfishness
Has bitten you!
"I do nothing."
This is the nectar of faith,
So drink and be happy!
Know you are one,
Pure awareness.
With the fire of this conviction,
Burn down the forest of ignorance.
Free yourself from sorrow,
And be happy.
Be happy!
For you are joy, unbounded joy.
You are awareness itself.
Just as a coil of rope
Is mistaken for a snake,
So you are mistaken for the world.
If you think you are free,
You are free.
If you think you are bound,
You are bound.
For the saying is true:
You are what you think.
The Self looks like the world.
But this is just an illusion.
The Self is everywhere.
One.
Still.
Free.
Perfect.
The witness of all things,
Awareness
Without action, clinging or desire.
Meditate on the Self.
One without two,
Exalted awareness.
Give up the illusion
Of the separate self.
Give up the feeling,
Within or without,
That you are this or that.
My child,
Because you think you are the body,
For a long time you have been bound.
Know you are pure awareness.
With this knowledge as your sword
Cut through your chains.
And be happy!
For you are already free,
Without action or flaw,
Luminous and bright.
You are bound
Only by the habit of meditation.
Your nature is pure awareness.
You are flowing in all things,
And all things are flowing in you.
But beware
The narrowness of the mind!
You are always the same,
Unfathomable awareness,
Limitless and free,
Serene and unperturbed.
Desire only your own awareness.
Whatever takes form is false.
Only the formless endures.
When you understand
The truth of this teaching,
You will not be born again.
For God is infinite,
Within the body and without,
Like a mirror,
And the image in a mirror.
As the air is everywhere,
Flowing around a pot
And filling it,
So God is everywhere,
Filling all things
And flowing through them forever.
Yesterday,
I lived bewildered,
In illusion.
But now I am awake,
Flawless and serene,
Beyond the world.
From my light
The body and the world arise.
So all things are mine,
Or nothing is.
-Ashtavakra Gita
800 hundred prostrastions today. We have 1000 to make a period of practice. May whatever arises may it benefit all beings. May all beings wishes come true.And the Full Moon is coming. Moon Viewing Parties
Where ever I go I carry and wear prayer beads. They are a bight orange. The wrist types brakes often. A mala makes me aware of the richness of your nature. Beads are for worry.The mala is a teaching in its self. " When you are mindfull of the Buddha, The Buddha is mindfull of you. "My cats eyes are clear for the day. I often use the eyes of my cats to tell the weather. Sunshine today and clear sky. Going and looking forward to walking. Lots of song birds out today. I did not go over band length for the site so I 'll save some money. It does cost to have this site. It's not free. I hope you enjoy it? Thanks for your support. You are very important to me, so keep coming back.
Robins are everywhere. Went for my 3 mile walk and I have walked a good 6 miles. Now I am 242 pounds. I was 248 pounds thats 6 pounds. 150 pounds is how much my lover weights.I weight 92 pounds more then my lover. Ha. Another person Ha. Oh well. Rain.
The Snowman
by Uday Lalan
NATURE AS SNOW MAN
I have been moulded by many a caring little hand
I have come to life as if a fairy has waved a wand
I can now listen to the children’s joyful sound
In the midst of a battle: snowballs are hurled around
Children return to mothers arms as shadows grow longer
And every passing minute here makes my life shorter
They’ve named me Fatso, though I’ve never been fed
And now I am left alone with eternal fireflies overhead-
Sooner or later I will be a cloud again to carry
Water to wild flowers on a distant mountain and ferry
Down to an underground torrent, join the sea as a stream
To help ships sail until lifted up again by sun’s beam-
Oft it’s my sacred duty to carry water to the brave
Soldier’s epitaph to keep the surroundings green at his grave
And when I carry seasonal rain dancing farmers make me blush
And I, speak through a poet’s pen and a painter’s brush!
Uday Lalan
The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves.
-Shunryu Suzuki, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind"
My skin and bone
are turned to gold.
I am the reservoir of love
alive as the waves.
A single drop of water
has grown into a sea,
unnavigable.
-Lalanl, Chickadee, Dove. Goldfinch , Grossbeak, Junco, Finches, Nuthatch. Titmice. Woodpecker. Male. Felmale
553 prostrations may all wishes come true. May all be free . Still we have more to go for a 1000. Thanks for helping me and your help in practice.
Physical Benefits of Prostrations
Prostrations strongly influence the balance and harmony in our body. Blocks in its energy channels gradually dissolve. This helps us avoid diseases, lack of energy, and other problems. Our mind becomes clearer. Our ability to understand increases.
Made sure all the dogs got Turkey. Working clearing the woods of vines. Hauling off cut vines. Excess trees that take up water. Picking up leaves and hanging out in the nice sun that blesses the pine trees . I am trying to grow on my hills pine trees. Our homeless family member has food stamps and goes to lectures about the lord. He has a job and looks good and we all spent thanksgiving together. What a blessing . He has two pets which are cats. And heat for his home. We all put together our love and it worked out well.
the musicians played instruments of bread
Kindly remember that.
understand
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God
To everyone of us there must come a time when the whole universe will be found to have been a dream, when we find the soul is infinitely better than the surroundings. It is only a question of time, and time is nothing in the infinite."unboundedness."
-Sai Baba
PUMPKIN PIE
3/4 cup pumpkin
2 tablespoons molasses
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
2 eggs, separated
milk combined with 1 can of evaporated milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
2 tablespoons Myers rum
Pie shell
Separate eggs. In a clean bowl beat egg whites only until slightly foamy.
In a measuring cup, add 1 can of evaporated milk. Add regular milk until level in measuring cup reaches 1 1/2 cups total.
In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except egg whites. Beat one minute. Gently fold in egg whites.
Pour into pie shell.
Bake at 425°F for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°F and continue baking for 30 more minutes.
"To move is to live"
METHOD OF PROSTRATION
Join hands together, bend thumbs inwards. Place joined hands at top of head pointing upwards
Place joined hands at forehead, chin, and heart pointing upwards
Drop hands palms down to the floor and slide body down on floor
Stretch body as much as possible as palms move forward
Hands together place upwards, above and over head
Slide back, press floor with palms and get up. Return to original position.
OM NAMO MANJUSHRIYE
I pay homage to the Buddha
Bring the two palms to the throat and recite
NAMO SUSHRIYE
I pay homage to the Dharma
Bring the palms to the heart and recite
NAMO UTAMA SHRIYE SOHA
I pay homage to the Sangha
I place socks two on both hands this helps you slide.
Ego is pretty clever at hiding when it doesn’t want to be seen. Prostration helps us flush it out. All I ever have to do is barely two or three and up it pops, virtually shouting at me. "Hey, hey, hey!" says Ego, "What’s all this? It’s humiliating. Don’t do this. People are watching… Stop it right now!" And at that instant I know right where Ego is. I can see a really big chunk of it. How many hours would I have to sit for this kind full report? Having lured Ego from his lair, hopefully I am now a shade or two less vulnerable to assault from this deceptive and oh-so-powerful enemy.
marpa
Naropa (Tibetan; Sanskrit: Nadaprada, 1016-1100) was an Indian Buddhist mystic and monk, the pupil of Tilopa and brother, or some sources say partner, of Niguma. Naropa was the main teacher of Marpa.
Naropa is part of the Golden Garland, meaning a lineage holder of the Tibetan Buddhist Kagyu lineage, and was considered an accomplished scholar. A great meditator, he is best known for having enumerated and developed the six yogas of Naropa. These practices were designed to help achieve a more rapid attainment of enlightenment.
Many subsequent Kagyus Karmapas have been particularly adept at one or more of these six yogic practices, which were given by the Buddha, and have been passed on through an unbroken lineage via Tilopa to Naropa up to the present day.
Naropa was born a Brahmin and from an early age showed an independent streak, hoping to follow a career of study and meditation. Succumbing to his parents wishes, he agreed to an arranged marriage with a young brahmin girl. After 8 years they both agreed to dissolve their marriage and become ordained.
At the age of 28 Naropa entered the famous Buddhist University Nalanda where he studied both Sutra and Tantra. He gained the reputation as a great scholar and faultless debater, essential at that time as the tradition of debate was such that the loser automatically became a student of the winner. He eventually become Gatekeeper of the North; engaged in many debates, taught and won many students.
One day whilst studying, a dakini appeared and asked if he understood the words. He replied that he did and when she seemed so happy with his response, he added that he also understood their meaning. At this point the dakini burst into tears, stating that he was a great scholar, but also a liar, as the only one who understood the teachings was her brother Tilopa. On hearing the name Tilopa, he experienced an intense feeling of devotion, and realised he needed to find the teacher in order to achieve full realization. He abandoned his studies and position at the university and set out to find Tilopa.
Naropa underwent what is known as the 12 minor hardships in his quest to find his teacher, all hidden teachings on his path to enlightenment. When he finally met Tilopa, he was given the 4 complete transmission lineages which he then began to practice. While studying and meditating with Tilopa, he had to undergo a further 12 major hardships, trainings to overcome all obstacles on his path, culminating in his full realization of Mahamudra.
He stayed in Pulahari where he taught his students and at the age of 85 he passed out of this life. Naropa spent a total of twelve years with Tilopa. He is remembered for his trust and devotion to his teacher, which enabled him to attain enlightenment in one lifetime.
He is considered one of the eighty-four mahasiddhas, the 'saints' of tantric Buddhism. Naropa University was named in his honour.
naropa
The Karma Kagyu lineage traces itself back over two hundred years before the first Karmapa, to the Indian source of their knowledge - Tilopa. He is often to be seen at the top of the traditional paintings or thangkas of Kagyu refuge trees and looking every inch the ascetic. A Brahmin, from East India, Tilopa was only a boy when he encountered the famous master Nagarjuna, whose supernatural abilities later caused a state oracle to select Tilopa as ruler of a small Indian kingdom.
Some years later, disenchanted with worldly power, he became a monk at the Tantric Temple of Somapuri in Bengal. We are told that one day a dakini (a female wisdom-giver) came to him in a vision, and offered him her knowledge as a route to enlightenment. Seizing his opportunity, Tilopa requested her teachings, and received the initiation into the Chakrasamvara Tantra - which, such were his abilities, he was easily able to understand. For twelve years he practiced this teaching at Somapuri, but when the monastery saw him take a female consort for the practice of union yoga, he was forced to quit the community.
Tilopa profited from his expulsion by travelling throughout India, searching out many teachers, and learning their methods. He earnt his living during this period by grinding sesame seeds ('Til' in Sanskrit) for oil - giving him the name by which we know him today. He was given direct transmission of the Mahamudra and other teachings, by the Buddha Vajradhara (Tib. Dorje Chang), who became his root guru. Although he chose to live in remote and inhospitable regions, his fame as a meditation master brought him excellent students, from whom he selected Naropa as the lineage holder.
Womb embryo seed giving birth to buddhahood.
50 more prostrations for a total of 450. Our homeless family member, might have a job and thanked us for helping him. Good news. Off to hear "RAT DOG" .Don't know what to expect. If you want to be uplifted and prould as a human being and enjoying others be happpy go to a "Rat Dog Concert" Wonderfull it was like going to chruch for the first time and being turned on.I have started to read this book , called "On Buddha Essence"A Commmentary On Rangjung Dorje's Treatise makes teachings come alive and relevant to the audience. All about teachings. Tilopa to Naropa to Marpa.
By Khenchen Thrangu
It recalls all that I had learn and forgot only now to be found just as refreshing. In the temple I learn all these principles about compassion. Did practice and understood emptyness and form. Took over and lived life as the temple was replaced by a Post Office. Now I come back too quality and nature of luminosity allowing for unceasing manifestation.Planting jade plants today. For this book follow the outline and it is a better read.The treatises are important because they explain profound concepts. Teachings.Shastra (bstan bcos) A treaise or commentarty by a later master on teachings of the Buddha. Outline of the text
"Walt Witman "
Once you realize universal emptiness, all objects are spontaneously penetrated: integrating the world and beyond, it contains all states of being within. If you lose the essence, there is nothing after all; if you attain the function, there is spiritual effect. The genuine path of unminding is not a religion for the immature.
-Fen-yang
Tranquillity” (SPOT) We are a process rather then a product .
In our own practice today we did fifty and that adds up to 400 Prostrations. We need another 600 for a 1000 . So far so good for us. May what ever merrit arise from this come your way.All jewel wish fulfilling come true.Did zazen for 1 hour and 20 min. Did the, "The Heart of the
Great Wisdom Sutra"Great Wisdom Beyond Wisdom Heart Sutra
These core tenets of Buddhism are expressed in the teaching known as the Heart of the Great Wisdom Sutra.
Although it is the shortest of all the sutras, containing only 632 characters in the traditional Chinese translation, it explains the essence of Buddhism, which is KU, or Emptiness.
While the English translation of the Hannya Shingyo may sound unusual the actual meaning is that by letting go of your preconceived notions, opinions, and attachments, you can become open to all the wonders of our life.
All things are empty. This is the realization of nothingness. But, emptiness or nothingness does not just mean nothing. It means not being attached to anything#&151;especially your own perceptions and ideas&##151;so that you can see our life clearly.
Chanting
Heart of Wisdom Surtra
MAKA HANNYA HARAMITA SHINGYO
KANJIZAI BOSATSU GYO JIN HANNYA
HARAMITA JI SHO KEN GO UN KAI KU
DO ISSAI KU YAKU SHARISHI
SHIKI FU I KU KU FU I SHIKI
SHIKI SOKU ZE KU KU SOKU ZE SHIKI
JU SO GYO SHIKI YAKU BU NYO ZE
SHARISHI ZE SHO HO KU SO FU SHO
FU METSU FU KU FU JO FU ZO FU GEN
ZE KO KU CHU MU SHIKI MU JU
SO GYO SHIKI MU GEN
NI BI ZETS SHIN NI
MU SHIKI SHO KO MI SOKU HO
MU GEN KAI NAI SHI MU I SHIKI KAI
MU MU MYO YAKU MU MU MYO JIN
NAI SHI MU RO SHI YAKU MURO SHI JIN
MU KU SHU METSU DO MU CHI YAKU MU TOKU
I MU SHO TOKKO BODAISATTA E HANNYA
HARAMITA KO SHIN MU KE GE
MU KE GE KO MU U KU FU
ON RI ISSAI TENDO MU SO
KU GYO NEHAN SAN ZE SHO BUTSU E
HANNYA HARAMITA KO TOKU A NOKU TA RA
SANMYAKU SAMBODAI KO CHI HANNYA HARAMITA
ZE DAI SHIN SHU ZE DAI MYO SHU
ZE MU JO SHU ZE MU TO DO SHU
NO JO ISSAI KU SHIN JITSU FU KO
KO SETSU HANNYA HARAMITA SHU
SOKU SETSU SHU WATSU
GATE GATE
PARAGATE
PARASAMGATE
BODHI SVAHA
(Repeat mantra until bell sounds)
English translation:
Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva
when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita
perceives that all five skandhas are empty
and is saved from all suffering and distress.
Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness,
emptiness does not differ from form.
That which is form is emptiness,
that which is emptiness form.
The same is true of feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.
Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness;
they do not appear or disappear,
are not tainted or pure,
do not increase or decrease.
Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.
No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch,
no object of mind;
no realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind counsciousness.
No ignorance and also no extinction of it,
and so forth until no old age and death
and also no extension of them.
No suffering, no origination,
no stopping, no path, no cognition,
also no attainment with nothing to attain.
The Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita
and the mind is no hindrance; without any hindrance no fears exist.
Far apart from every perverted view one dwells in Nirvana.
In the three worlds all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita
and attain Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi.
Therefore, know that Prajna Paramita
is the great transcendent mantra
is the great bright mantra,
is the utmost mantra,
is the supreme mantra,
which is able to relieve all suffering
and is true, not false.
So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra,
proclaim the mantra which says:
gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha
gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha
gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha
'The Associate Press reported that Rabbi Yosef Elnikaveh, a prominent religious leader, said allowing the parade to proceed was surrendering to "mental illness." The mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Hussein, the top Muslim cleric in the Palestinian territories, said being gay is a crime and demanded police punish those involved in the parade. Christian evangelical groups in Jerusalem have called the parade "provocative" and demanded the venue be changed. It is nice to hear that three major religious leaders agree on something. Too bad it is about promoting bias against others.'
Commonly Associated Conditions in Tourette Syndrome
The most frequent associated conditions are:
• Obsessions and compulsions i.e. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Inattention i.e. Attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• Learning disabilities
• Behavioral problems i.e. quick temper, mood swings, over-reaction.
• Impulsiveness i.e. Echolalia (the urge to repeat other's words), echopraxia(the urge to mimic other's actions), palilalia (the urge to repeat your own words or thoughts).
Tourette syndrome is found among all social, racial and ethnic groups,[39][54] and males are affected 3 to 4 times more often than females.[4]
Tourette syndrome is frequently misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed, partly because of the wide expression of severity, ranging from mild (the majority of cases) or moderate, to severe (the rare, but more widely-recognized and publicized cases). Because the tics of Tourette syndrome tend to remit or subside with maturity, such that a diagnosis may no longer be warranted for many adults, prevalence rates in pediatric populations are higher than those in adult populations
Since the incidence may be as high as one in a hundred people, up to 530,000 U.S. school-age children may have Tourette's,[2] with the more common tics of eye blinking, coughing, throat clearing, sniffing, and facial movements. People with Tourette's have normal life expectancy and intelligence. The severity of the tics decreases for most children as they pass through adolescence, and extreme Tourette's in adulthood is a rarity. Notable individuals with Tourette's are found in all walks of life.[3]
Individuals describe the need to tic as a buildup of tension[17] which they consciously choose to release, as if they "had to do it
People with Tourette's are sometimes able to suppress their tics to some extent for limited periods of time, but doing so often results in an explosion of tics afterward.[4] People with Tourette's may seek a secluded spot to release their symptoms, or there may be a marked increase in tics, after a period of suppression at school or at work.[12]
Repoting all my plants that I brought from outside. I even have a extra pot.Getting ready for Spring now. Planting bulbs everywhere. Sent some bulbs to my sister for her Birthday. Water them all and repoting my plants. They are growing and no longer in my bath tub. I took a pond plant that grew all summer and saved it from the cool weather. It's in our bath tub. The frogs and fish are doing good and are big and are beautiful. Putting the pond in. Has really worked out. Bags of leaves everywhere. Picking them up and into bags. The fish are orange red and hide under the many color leaves that have sunk down into the pond. I clear out the leaves. The frog is so handsome. Dragon flies are still alive. The dogs help me all the time. They sit in the sun and soak up the rays and birds light the clear ground.
There is no one here
except the Lord of Love.
Only He exists.
In truth, He alone is.
-Mundaka Upanishad
Most people fail to see this reality, for they are attached to what they cling to, to pleasures and delights. Since all the world is so attached to material things, it's very difficult for people to grasp how everything originates in conditions and causes. It's a hard job for them to see the meaning of the fact that everything, including ourselves, depends on everything else and has no permanent self-existence.
-Majjhima Nikaya
Today I will walk with the homeless. When some body decides to become homeless and there a family member what do you say?How to approch a being that has drugs over their own welfare. Should we forget about them.Much tension about what we may do. I know I am upset and worried and feel that he got so far down that we may not be able to help. I don't what to do expect.Moment by moment. He now lives in a empty building in a trash filled room on the floor. We got him some clothes and a room for the night. He had no ID. Tommorrow we are going to try to get him into a homeless shelter. I am confused with what to do next?Trust does not exist from my point of view.Upset .
Help out your Family and the Homeless. Cold is coming. At least buy some food and give to the food bank in your community. Don't judge just listen and be there for some one with a hug or two. I was in shock in helping out a family member this week.
Going to a Music concert.
“It shows that over a third of LGB people have mental health issues, with more than half reporting having had suicidal thoughts at some point in their lives.
“At least a quarter of LGB people with mental health needs have never accessed a mental health service. “Less than half of the mental health agencies monitor the sexual orientation of their service users, which makes it difficult for them to assess the needs of the LGB community and to tailor services to meet these needs.
Peer pressure to get drunk and use recreational drugs,
Forgiveness
Religions are different roads converging on the same point. What does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal? I believe that all religions of the world are true more or less. I say "more or less" because I believe that everything the human hand touches, by reason of the very fact that human beings are imperfect, becomes imperfect.
-Mahatma Gandhi
Thought that you all would be interested.
Absolutely unbelievable how are beautiful horses are being inhumanely and cruelly slaughtered. We must support H.R. 503. This bill is before the House now. Write your congressman and show your support. Go to www.congress.org to find out who your congressman is and get his/her e-mail address. Do it today!http://www.hr857.com/ or http://www.returntofreedom.org/ or http://www.senate.gov/
http://annekaringlass.com/drawing.htm
Happy is one who knows samsara and nirvana are not two.
-Milarepa, "Drinking the Mountain Stream"
Ideas or brain storming for the week.
200.B.C.E. in Afghanistan
being able to give birth to buddhahood
A treatise is a formal, systematic written analysis of a subject.
Clouds of Good Wishes
Uttaratantra
Rattnagotravibhaga
kleshas
The kleshas are emotional obscurations; in contrast to intellectual obscurations. The three primary kleshas, the three poisons, are attachment or desire, aversion or anger, and ignorance or delusion. Along with pride and envy, these are usually referred to as the five kleshas.
Chuang Tzu
Chuang Tzu is believed to lived in the Fourth or Third Century BCE. His thought is contained in the 33 chapters that remain of the Chuang Tzu, which describes both his philosophy and his way of life. In it, he enlarges on the teachings of Lao Tzu in a lively discourse that opposes the ideas of Confucius and Mo Tzu. He argues that humanity should seek to live at one with nature and not impose upon it, doing more by doing nothing. His dislike of formal structures lead him to put forward his ideas in imaginary dialogues.
0xi ,I put on pounds . 148 pounds. I got to get control. Oh well here's to walking and not drinking sugar soda and 2% milk. I know I can do . Depression sucks. At least I weight my self and I knew that I had put on the pounds. Where is that task master. Ha.
Psychologically, all that we experience is dependent upon ourselves.
Loving kindness to all creatures;
Compassion for all who suffer;
Sympathetic joy for all who are happy;
And equanimity, a pervading calm.
Equanimity (E`qua*nim"i*ty) (?), n.
[L. aequanimitas, fr. aequanimus: cf. F. équanimité. See Equanimous.]
Evenness of mind; that calm temper or firmness of mind which is not easily elated or depressed; patience; calmness; composure; as, to bear misfortunes with equanimity.
Sympathetic joy is the feeling which arises when one regards all beings (beginning with oneself and one’s own family and friends but not stopping there) with loving-kindness and then perceives those who are happy and have created a lot of merit or even attained liberative insight. We rejoice that in the good fortune of others and particularly for those who have attained enlightenment. In this way we overcome resentment, envy, and jealousy and even find inspiration in the accomplishments of others.
"Impermanent are all created things;
Strive on with awareness. "Last words of the Buddha
Sit for a hour and a half today and we did 100 prostrations today. 350 Total prostrations. May all wishes come true. 650 more to go for 1000. Thanks for your help in finding practice and bowing with me. You are good teachers/prayeres to you in the ten directions.May all be free and may all that you need come your way. May this be so. OM
Putting out corn and sunflowers seeds for the outside animals. The dogs have gone through another bag of food. They look great and are healthy.Now it's time to give my dog a bath.
In China Bats are good luck.
Rain pouring on to the glass. A disfuse color of yellows reds greens in the pouring rain. Bowing to the earth and and heavens, I commit myself to practice even though I am lazy and pride everywhere. I wash my feet and body and then I go to my bedroom and put on gloves and begain climbing the mountains of awareness. Now I am empty and all that is left a sharp awareness of decay and impermanence. Ghosts of leaves and raindrops haunt me. I think of the many souls their are in existence. Leaves of all forms disappear in to a pile and they will keep the dogs warm when they are dry. Even after there use in the trees. They still give in color, shape, smell. A memory and a marking of a season. We seek decay and fall helpless to the ground. But how bright we and so many of use together in the same mass. Light changes us just like the leaves. It is a time of renewal and looking forward to the rest of the season.Plan now because its soon upon us. I feel like I am fence in. All for my protection making me further removed from the world and not safe. So many deaths this month in both wars. What will America answer be to the veil being worn in public?Things I think about.For those that read this. I write to you and sing songs TO YOU and hum to you.The unity of the expanse and wisdom.
"I like to just sit and watch my breath." You make a vow, and say, "I sit in the morning. If not, I sit in the evening." And make that commitment. Then you sit.
Mediterranean Bells get ready for Spring
Decay all around. leaves of reds, orange, browns, golden yellows, pear green. Wind and temperature drops.
Get out and vote. Vote early and avoid the rush. I don't how you think get out and vote. Vote VOTE VOTE VOTE
http://www.giantexplorer.com/result/older+nudes.com
Persian Blue Allium plant now for spring colors
Sweetly fragrant.Excellent for cutting .Come back year after year.Sturdy stems
Beds for the dogs to sleep in for the cold. The dogs watch and played in the yard as I began picking up leaves. The grass goes to hell and mud takes over. I Can't take life without working to get ready for the fall. Cutting down trees that suck up water. Planting new trees for spring and taking out trees that have died.Planting flowers for spring. Woke up and no cat in the tree. Change and newness . I figure that I like and need Tulips and more Muscari Armeniacum . good choice for the well-kept garden, where its lovely light blue flowers go perfectly with early daffodils. Plant in Fall and blooms in Spring. Some
Magic Iris 10,8Giant Tulips Van Eljk, 6 Daffodils Dutch Master Improved King Alfred.I guess it's nice exercise and in the spring colors will cheer you up. Bird food is out and the leaves remove so they can find the food put out. The Doves have returned. I have put on weight and it's back to watching my weight and working out more. I know I can do it. Some planning and more awareness about what I am eating. Thinking about it all I guess that I will see lots of Yellow and Blues and Plurple and Reds this spring.Flowers come out at diffrent times and your in tune with the summer and mid spring flowering blooms. "Burden of Proof "materials that deal with weapons of mass destruction. Cash payments to North Korea from South Korea 1718 Chapter 8. Closed/ Open . Bargain away . Carrots. I just relized that I have set myself up for projects. Busy. First depression then work, work, work. Give a me a break. I put off all these projects. And now I feel that I must take charge and get them done. Clam down.
There is no fire like greed and no crime like hatred. There is no sorrow like being bound to this world; there is no happiness like freedom.
-Dhammapada
Cat in a tree. Vermont in the fall. Winds of change. The economy of George Bush Sucks. Not enough pay rises to the lower bottom the workers. A dumb stock market and future in gas prices will rise. No goverment in Iraq . Stay the course and don't change when your losing the people of this country. People killing each other in the name of God or 'ism'. Brother against brother. Depression comes to many places. Thanks that the sun comes up every day and giving water to your brother makes peace made simple. I don't like being told lies as when I lived at home growing up. LIES were the truth. Vote, Vote, Vote. I have a cat up a tree and far up. Don't know how to get it down I feel so helpless. The very fact that Asia and Western powers don't really care about the people of Korea. Only that the power elite that kills its people to stay in charge. I mean what would really happen if the goverment of North Korea fell and people began to move towards China ,Russia and South Korea. What would the world do? What about Cuba and China when there government falls. I don't think the world is prepare for a new North Korea when the government falls there.This government sells drugs and and has weapons of mass destruction in this country. A new China or Cuba? I don't think how the six party talks is going to work .To change a country going on Fifty Years of mass murder.Direct Talks? Is the only way. It's all about face and the North Korea feels it has no face .They are still fighting Japan and American. The world needs to think and help the people make major changes in thinking and consequents. Now back to that cat. Thinking out loud. Upset about the cat. It seems he feel alseep up there. I put some food down by the base of the tree. As they say in "Gone with the wind." Tomorrow is another day. I think China needs to rethink it's support of North Korea. China has much to lose . It has lost face..20 minutes was all China was given . Too close. Threats and terrible deeds will go on. Where is there a world conference about North Korea. I just watched the news and I watched a PRChinese border guard shoot and kill a Tibetan buddhist . Wow.May he be reborn in the pure land. Thinking of him in prostrations. I relize that buddhist are killed for there faith and prostrastions. May all be free and no harm come to them. May this be so. I saw it with my own eyes. Shame on China.
http://recherche.gaycrawler.com/V2/uk/index.asp
Prostrations
Purify the pride that is the cause of our actions and have accumulated through our countless lifetimes thinking." I am right," "I am better than others," or" I am the most important one" We bow down to purify all situations from the past where we did not respect others. Being interested in our own satisfaction and ourselves we did many negative actions.
The big black lab with three legs came back .I fed him this morning and this evening. Don't get in his way he plows into the bowl of food and spills quite a bit. He needs a break so he hung out here. He walks with the childern to catch the school bus. But sometimes he forgets where his home is. And stays here. Then I don't him feed as much. He goes home. I realized today that everyone you meet is apart of God. Woke me right up.
The everyday life of people is like clouds and water, but clouds and water are free while people are not. If they would get to be as free as clouds and water, where would people's compulsive mundane routines arise?
-Dogen, "Rational Zen
Family Dinner for all
Basic lasagna recipe with ricotta cheese.
INGREDIENTS:
• 8 ounces lasagna noodles
• 2 tablespoons salt for cooking water
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 16 ounces low fat ricotta cheese sold in the store.
• 8 ounces sliced Mozzarella cheese
•
Sauce
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 pound ground chuck or round
• 1 large can (28 ounces) tomatoes
• 1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons salt
• pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 cups water
PREPARATION:
Start sauce about 30 to 45 minutes in advance.
Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil until onions are soft; add ground beef and brown. Pour off excess fat. Add remaining ingredients; stir well.
Simmer slowly, uncovered, for 1 hour.
Cook noodles in boiling water with 2 tablespoons of salt for about 25 minutes, or until tender, stirring frequently to prevent sticking. Drain; add 1 tablespoon olive oil. Arrange noodles in a shallow 2 1/2-quart baking dish. Make 3 layers each of noodles, ricotta cheese, Mozzarella cheese, meat sauce, and Parmesan cheese. Bake, uncovered, at 325° for 45 minutes.
Serves 6.
I ask more and more what is going on in NATO so many people in the army are being killed pay attention to that one. Questions I ask my self of late. How many ? More each day.
Pride and bowing. I find when I have too much pride I should take to practice and bow to the earth and the ten directions. May all beings know enlightment and be free from harm . In all the directions may this be so may none be left behind. Bowing teaches me pride but a more helpful teacher of pride in the teachings and blessing to all around me. Like a rainbow you give off light and you have no say where it goes. Do some prostrations today and be set free from your pride, learn to share it for the welfare of others
Those who attain perfect wisdom are forever inspired by the conviction that the infinitely varied forms of this world, in all their relativity, far from being a hindrance and a dangerous distraction to the spiritual path, are really a healing medicine. Why? Because by the very fact that they are interdependent on each other and therefore have no separate self, they express the mystery and the energy of all-embracing love. Not just the illumined wise ones but every single being in the interconnected world is a dweller in the boundless infinity of love.
-Prajnaparmita
Take naps at work it impoves the ability to produce. No bull naps are overlook as a resource for workers.
Modern moon-viewing parties often take place on hilltops, parks, beaches or rooftops. Anywhere with a good view of the moon is acceptable. Occasionally, tsukimi is really just a good excuse for a banquet and the moon isn’t even visible from the party’s location! The party brings families and/or co-workers together for an evening of merrymaking. Vast quantities of traditional foods, sake and other drinks are served as everyone relaxes and enjoys the beauty of the moon.
Rockets took off today. We have 100 prostrations. May all enjoy and be set free. You all were there. sending your rainbows of light may all your wishes become true.Prayers to all .May this practice help others. By the way we want to reach a goal of 1000 prostrations.
Como esta usted?Yo vivo largo.Mucho gusto. Yo soy judson nudes. Son amigos mios.Estoy seguro/a que te gustara.Deacuerdo Que te parece?
Te parece bien? Que amable es usted. Habia estado/venido
aqui antes?Ha/sido usyed/ustedes muy amable/s
Es/Ha sido un placer conocerlo/a Thank you. This is my first attempt to write spanish.
http://members.home.nl/tolsma/- Moody & atmospheric male erotic art from the Netherlands
Original works of erotic imagery by this talented Dutch artist. Save the works to your hard-drive. Or, make one of these masterpieces your computer wallpaper! New works just added!
Male erotic art by Hero Tolsma from the Netherlands
- Moody & atmospheric male erotic art from the Netherlands
Original works of erotic imagery by this talented Dutch artist. Save the works to your hard-drive. Or, make one of these masterpieces your computer wallpaper! New works just added!
Models, are hard to find. Someone that will pose. It's not sexual to have someone pose. Maybe if I painted or drew in the nude, it might help. Skin and color are the energy of paints. Posing and taking up the personal muse with another human being naked. Light and how it frames the being is so important. Respect those that pose they give there immortal frame to light and being and time.
"Older Walt Witman "
https://shopping.freedomisnotfree.com
"Wonderful Dreams "
Thoughts about shapes and dark and light. Taking pencils and playing a thought out.
As a bee without harming the flower, its colours or scent, flies away, collecting only the honey, even so should the sage wander in the village.
Brain storm these ideas. These are ideas I learn today and now have in my head. Thought I would share.
'timeless present moment '
"nimitta is a refection of the "
"citta" the mind"
"Fasting"
"Twilight Language"
" Thus have I heard "
"one who unites with the womb"
"weaving"
"Warm breath fresh, immediate personal as a whisper, such are the blessings of the dakinis " trolung " warm breath"
"Tantra is the irrepressible intrinsic awarenss that pervades both clarity and confusion"
"Continunity""Thread" both have the meaning- like threads of a weaving the sutra providing the woof or cross wise threads while the tantra is the wrap.
"Le Village".http://www.answers.com/topic/gay-village-montreal
http://www.serhanmurat.com/_sgg/m1_1.htm
No matter who you are, get out and VOTE, VOTE, VOTE , VOTE
I found this lifeless plant in a store on the floor. Took it home and planted it near a apple tree planted for my lovers father that pass on in October last year. Now the plant blooms red color plants and is so happy to be alive that it gives me happyness seeing it. Bring yours plant indoors Sit them on the porch at first. Then bring them in at the first Frost. Getting your garden ready for fall and winter. I think that this going to be a colorful fall.Have live plants in your house for the winder. I have eight cats and if I can do it anyone can. Live plants blooming in December is great for the whole home life. Fall colors are here the leaves are falling.Recreating our selves proves the season is here. Refection and service, examine yourself and reconnect with what is truly most important in your life. I learned very young to make sure people have something to eat. Have you eaten today , I ask?
I offer food all the time to people.
"My trying to teach myself Arabic is my reaction to the world. Knowledge is power. I so want to learn in life.... Judson"
My attempt to write" Great in Arabic" "Great" in Arabic. 
The DHaa is written with a dot a above. My lesson self taught for me today. I am trying to learn this word. Hard to write and learn"azeem "I like it's strength in learning to write it." Great! AZEEM"
In that the little white dog is walking on all her four paws. Her leg is better and she eat well tonight very good shape. I patted her and rubbed her chest.She has the best brown eyes and melts into your soul. The chow and her rest on the deck outside waiting for night fall and bugs.
HIGHER GROUND/ Rules of War. How to question people, Guidelines for torture,Trust us. War on Terror Program, Our troops at risk, Standard, Save lives, 1949 Geneva Convention, Input for the times, Drowning people, Simulated drowning, Are you scared? Killings of people in the streets. Where is faith?Thinking about what has happen this week. Get out and VOTE, VOTE,VOTE.
Inquiry about Comission of Painting
COMMISSION OF PAINTING Commisson of painting send me a picture or an idea for a commission. Would like to hear from people and ideas. Writings, thoughts.
like a fresh mountain breeze in the midst of the debilitating heat of apathy and worldly concerns
What is yesterday,
Tomorrow,
Or today?
What is space,
Or eternity?
I sit in my own radiance.
What is the Self,
Or the not-Self?
What is thinking,
Or not thinking?
What is good or evil?
I sit in my own splendor.
-Ashtavakra Gita 19:3-4
http://www.kcwaters.com/Great.htm
Featuring The Erotic Art of Larry Hill
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http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LovingFoodResources/
It seems like when you give up hope that's when it works out for the best. Results don't count. You gave up. Like a special something that pulls you through and it's the best result. Unexpected and plain good luck. A treat when I felt so low.
Intention is the core of all conscious life. It is our intentions that create karma, our intentions that help others, our intentions that lead us away from the delusions of individuality toward the immutable varities of enlightened awareness. Conscious intention colors and moves everything.
My attempt to write Arabic today. The word for the day "taaksee "or in English" Taxi ". It helps to take tracing paper and place over the words in Arabic and trace over and follow the ease of writing Arabic. Take your time and have fun, learning to trace Arabic Text.
When after a while our body and mind feel rested again, our mind becomes agitated. This is the sign to start prostrations again. When we alternate doing prostrations with calming the mind we can practice ceaselessly.
Took care of the white dog tonight she has a bandage on her paw. She is putting her leg down and using it to itch. I still will take her to the vet if she is not be
