tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71519969881514322662024-02-08T09:51:41.740-10:00Data Processing CenterDPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comBlogger334125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-22281898104565458462012-04-12T10:54:00.005-10:002012-08-21T21:20:22.359-10:00The Art of Peace<center><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/aikido-kanji.jpg" /><br /><br /><br /><center><b>The Art of Peace</b><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morihei_Ueshiba" target="_blank">Morihei Ueshiba</a>(1883-1969) <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />One<br /><br />The Art of Peace begins with you. <br />Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace.<br />Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, <br />a body that can be trained in some manner,<br />a suitable path to follow. <br /><br />You are here for no other purpose<br />than to realize your inner divinity<br />and manifest your innate enlightenment.<br /><br />Foster peace in your own life <br />and then apply the Art to all that you encounter<br /><br /><br />Two<br /><br />One does not need buildings, money, power, or status<br />to practice the Art of Peace. <br />Heaven is right where you are standing, <br />and that is the place to train.<br /><br /><br />Three<br /><br />All things, material and spiritual, <br />originate from one source and are related <br />as if they were one family. <br /><br />The past, present, and future <br />are all contained in the life force. <br /><br />The universe emerged and developed from one source,<br />and we evolved through the optimal process<br />of unification and harmonization.<br /><br /><br />Four<br /><br />The Art of Peace is medicine for a sick world. <br />There is evil and disorder in the world because people have forgotten<br />that all things emanate from one source. <br />Return to that source and leave behind all self-centered thoughts,<br />petty desires, and anger. <br /><br />Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything.<br /><br /><br />Five<br /><br />If you have not <br />Linked yourself <br />To true emptiness, <br />You will never understand <br />The Art of Peace.<br /><br /><br />Six<br /><br />The Art of Peace functions everywhere on earth,<br />in realms ranging from the vastness of space <br />down to the tiniest plants and animals. <br />The life force is all-pervasive and its strength boundless.<br /><br />The Art of Peace allows us to percieve and tap into<br />that tremendous reserve of universal energy.<br /><br /><br />Seven<br /><br />Eight forces sustain creation: <br />Movement and stillness, <br />Solidification and fluidity, <br />Extension and contraction, <br />Unification and division.<br /><br /><br />Eight<br /><br />Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, <br />we are as good as dead. <br />The Art of Peace is a celebration of the bonding of heaven, earth, and humankind.<br /> It is all that is true, good, and beautiful.<br /><br /><br />Nine<br /><br />Now and again, it is necessary to seclude yourself <br />among deep mountains and hidden valleys <br />to restore your link to the source of life. <br />Breathe in and let yourself soar to the ends of the universe;<br /> breathe out and bring the cosmos back inside. <br />Next, breathe up all fecundity and vibrancy of the earth. <br />Finally, blend the breath of heaven and the breath of earth with your own, <br />becoming the Breath of Life itself.<br /><br /><br />Ten<br /><br />All the principles of heaven and earth are living inside you. <br />Life itself is the truth, and this will never change. <br />Everything in heaven and earth breathes. <br />Breath is the thread that ties creation together.<br />When the myriad variations in the universal breath can be sensed,<br />the individual techniques of the Art of Peace are born.<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/MoriheiUeshiba-1.jpg" /><br /><br />Eleven<br /><br />Consider the ebb and flow of the tide. <br />When waves come to strike the shore,<br />they crest and fall, creating a sound. <br />your breath should follow the same pattern, <br />absorbing the entire universe in your belly with each inhalation.<br />Know that we all have access to four treasures: <br />the energy of the sun and moon, the breath of heaven,<br />the breath of earth, and the ebb and flow of the tide.<br /><br /><br />Twelve<br /><br />Those who practice the Art of Peace<br />must protect the domain of Mother Nature,<br />the divine reflection of creation, <br />and keep it lovely and fresh.<br />Warriorship gives birth to natural beauty. <br /><br />The subtle techniques of a warrior <br />arise as naturally as the appearance of spring, summer, autumn, and winter.<br />Warriorship is none other than the vitality that sustains all life.<br /><br /><br />Thirteen<br /><br />When life is victorious, there is birth; <br />when it is thwarted, there is death. <br />A warrior is always engaged in a life-and-death struggle for Peace.<br /><br /><br />Fourteen<br /><br />Contemplate the workings of this world,<br />listen to the words of the wise,<br />and take all that is good as your own. <br />With this as your base, open your own door to truth.<br /><br />Do not overlook the truth that is right before you. <br />Study how water flows in a valley stream,<br />smoothly and freely between the rocks. <br />Also learn from holy books and wise people. <br />Everything - even mountains, rivers, plants and trees <br />should be your teacher.<br /><br /><br />Fifteen<br /><br />Create each day anew <br />by clothing yourself with heaven and earth, <br />bathing yourself with wisdom and love,<br />and placing yourself in the heart of Mother Nature.<br /><br /><br />Sixteen<br /><br />Do not fail to learn from the pure voice<br />of an ever-flowing mountain stream <br />splashing over the rocks. <br /><br /><br />Seventeen<br /><br />Peace originates with the flow of things,<br />its heart is like the movement of the wind and waves. <br />The Way is like the veins that circulate blood through our bodies,<br />following the natural flow of the life force. <br />If you are seperated in the slightest from that divine essence, <br />you are far off the path.<br /><br /><br />Eighteen<br /><br />Your heart is full of fertile seeds,<br />waiting to sprout.<br />Just as a lotus flower springs from the mire to bloom splendidly, <br />the interaction of the cosmic breath<br />causes the flower of the spirit <br />to bloom and bear fruit in this world.<br /><br /><br />Nineteen<br /><br />Study the teachings of the pine tree, <br />the bamboo, and the plum blossom.<br /> The pine is evergreen, firmly rooted, and venerable. <br />The bamboo is strong, resilient, unbreakable. <br />The plum blossom is hardy, fragrant, and elegant.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Ueshiba20Morihei.jpg" /><br /><br />Twenty<br /><br />Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky,<br /> the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts.<br /> Always keep your body filled with light and heat.<br /> Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.<br /><br /><br />Twenty One<br /><br />As soon as you concern yourself with the "good" and "bad" of your fellows,<br /> you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. <br />Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you.<br /><br /><br />Twenty Two<br /><br />The penetrating brilliance of swords wielded by followers of the Way <br />strikes at the evil enemy lurking deep within their own souls and bodies.<br /> <br /><br />Twenty Three<br /><br />The Art of Peace is not easy.<br /> It is a fight to the finish,<br /> the slaying of evil desires and all falsehood within. <br />on occasion the Voice of Peace resounds like thunder,<br /> jolting human beings out of their stupor.<br /><br /><br />Twenty Four<br /><br />Crystal clear, <br />sharp and bright, <br />the sacred sword allows no opening <br />for evil to roost. <br /><br /><br />Twenty Five<br /><br /><br />To practice properly the Art of Peace, you must:<br />calm the spirit and return to the source.<br />Cleanse the body and spirit by removing all malice, selfishness, and desire.<br />Be ever-grateful for the gifts received from the universe, <br />your family, Mother Nature, and your fellow human beings.<br /><br /><br />Twenty Six<br /><br />The Art of Peace is based on Four Great Virtues: <br />Bravery, Wisdom, Love, and Friendship, <br />symbolized by Fire, Heaven, Earth, and Water.<br /><br /><br />Twenty Seven<br /><br />The essence of the Art of Peace<br /> is to cleanse yourself of maliciousness,<br /> to get in tune with your environment,<br /> and to clear your path of all obstacles and barriers.<br /><br /><br />Twenty Eight<br /><br />The only cure for materialism<br /> is the cleansing of the six senses<br /> (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind).<br /> If the senses are clogged, one's perception is stifled. <br />The more it is stifled, <br />the more contaminated the senses become. <br />This creates disorder in the world, <br />and that is the greatest evil of all. <br /><br />Polish the heart,<br /> free the six senses <br />and let them function without obstruction, <br />and your entire body and soul will glow.<br /><br /><br />Twenty Nine<br /><br />All life is a manifestation of the spirit, <br />the manifestation of love. <br />And the Art of Peace is the purest form of that principle. <br />A warrior is charged with bringing a halt to all contention<br /> and strife. Universal love functions in many forms; <br />each manifestation should be allowed free expression.<br /><br /> The Art of Peace is true democracy.<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/osensei38.jpg" /><br /><br />Thirty<br /><br />Each and every master, regardless of the era or place, <br />heard the call and attained harmony with heaven and earth<br />. There are many paths leading to the top of Mount Fuji, <br />but there is only one summit - love.<br /><br /><br />Thirty One<br /><br />Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. <br />Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice.<br /> The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love.<br /><br /><br />Thirty Two<br /><br />Economy is the basis of society. <br />When the economy is stable, society develops.<br /> The ideal economy combines the spiritual and the material, <br />and the best commodoties to trade in <br />are sincerity and love.<br /><br /><br />Thirty Three<br /><br />The Art of Peace does not rely on weapons <br />or brute force to succeed; <br />instead we put ourselves in tune with the universe, <br />maintain peace in our own realms, <br />nurture life, and prevent death and destruction.<br /><br /> The true meaning of the term samurai is one who serves <br />and adheres to the power of love.<br /><br /><br />Thirty Four<br /><br />Foster and polish the warior spirit while serving in the world; <br />illuminate the path according to your inner light.<br /><br /><br />Thirty Five<br /><br />The Path of Peace is exceedingly vast, <br />reflecting the grand design of the hidden and manifest worlds.<br /> A warrior is a living shrine of the divine, <br />one who serves that grand purpose.<br /><br /><br />Thirty Six<br /><br />Your mind should be in harmony with the functioning of the universe; <br />your body should be in tune with the movement of the universe; <br />body and mind should be bound as one, <br />unified with the activity of the universe.<br /><br /><br />Thirty Seven<br /><br />Even though our path is completely different<br /> from the warrior arts of the past, <br />it is not necessary to abondon totally the old ways.<br /> Absorb venerable traditions into this Art <br />by clothing them with fresh garmets, <br />and build on the classic styles <br />to create better forms.<br /><br /><br />Thirty Eight<br /><br />Daily training in the Art of Peace allows you inner divinity<br /> to shine brighter and brighter.<br /> Do not concern yourself with the right and wrong of others. <br />Do not be calculating or act unnaturally. <br />Keep your mind set on the Art of Peace, <br />and do not criticize other teachers or traditions. <br />The Art of Peace never restrains, restricts, or shackles anything. <br />It embraces all and purifies everything.<br /><br /><br />Thirty Nine<br /><br />Practice the Art of Peace sincerely, <br />and evil thoughts and deeds will naturally disappear.<br /> The only desire that should remain is the thirst <br />for more and more training in the Way.<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/osensei89-1.gif" /><br /><br />Forty<br /><br />Those who are enlightened never stop forging themselves. <br />The realizations of such masters<br /> cannot be expressed well in words or by theories.<br /> The most perfect actions echo the patterns found in nature.<br /><br /><br />Forty One<br /><br />>Day after day train your heart out, <br />Refining your technique: <br />Use the One to strike the Many! <br /><br />That is the discipline of the Warrior.<br /><br /><br />Forty Two<br /><br />The Way of a Warrior <br />Cannot be encompassed by words or in letters: <br />grasp the essence and move on toward realization!<br /><br /><br />Forty Three<br /><br />The purpose of training is to tighten up the slack,<br /> toughen the body, and polish the spirit.<br /><br /><br />Forty Four<br /><br />Iron is full of impurities that weaken it;<br /> through forging, it becomes steel <br />and is transformed into razor-sharp sword. <br />Human beings develop in the same fashion.<br /><br /><br />Forty Five<br /><br />From ancient times, <br />deep learning and valor <br />have been the two pillars of the Path: <br /><br />Through the virtue of training,<br /> enlighten both body and soul.<br /><br /><br />Forty Six<br /><br />Instructors can impart only a fraction of the teaching. <br />It is through your own devoted practice <br />that the mysteries of the Art of Peace are brought to life.<br /><br /><br />Forty Seven<br /><br />The Way of a Warrior is based on humanity, love, and sincerity; <br />the heart of martial valor is true bravery, wisdom, love, and friendship. <br />Emphasis on the physical aspects of warriorship is futile, <br />for the power of the body is always limited.<br /><br /><br />Forty Eight<br /><br />A true warrior is always armed with the three things:<br /> the radiant sword of pacification;<br /> the mirror of bravery, wisdom, and friendship; <br />and the precious jewel of enlightenment.<br /><br /><br />Forty Nine<br /><br />The heart of a human being<br /> is no different from the soul of heaven and earth. <br />In your practice always keep in your thoughts<br /> the interaction of heaven and earth, water and fire, yin and yang.<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/osensei1_3.jpg" /><br /><br />Fifty<br /><br />The Art of Peace is the principle of nonresistance.<br /> Because it is nonresistant, it is victorious from the beginning. <br />Those with evil intentions or contentious thoughts are instantly vanquished.<br /> The Art of Peace is invincible because it contends with nothing.<br /><br /><br />Fifty One<br /><br />There are no contests in the Art of Peace.<br /> A true warrior is invincible because he or she contests with nothing. <br />Defeat means to defeat the mind of contention that we harbor within.<br /><br /><br />Fifty Two<br /><br />To injure an opponent is to injure yourself. <br />To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.<br /><br /><br />Fifty Three<br /><br />The totally awakened warrior can freely utilize all elements contained in heaven and earth.<br /> The true warrior learns how to correctly perceive the activity of the universe<br /> and how to transform martial techniques into vehicles of purity, goodness, and beauty. <br />A warrior's mind and body must be permeated with enlightened wisdom and deep calm.<br /><br /><br />Fifty Four<br /><br />Always practice the Art of Peace<br /> in a vibrant and joyful manner.<br /><br /><br />Fifty Five<br /><br />It is neccessary to develop a strategy that utilizes all the physical conditions <br />and elements that are directly at hand. <br />The best strategy relies upon an unlimited set of responses.<br /><br /><br />Fifty Six<br /><br />A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind.<br /><br /><br />Fifty Seven<br /><br />The key to good technique is to keep your hands, feet, and hips straight and centered.<br /> If you are centered, you can move freely.<br /> The physical center is your belly; if your mind is set there as well,<br /> you are assured of victory in any endeavor.<br /><br /><br />Fifty Eight<br /><br />Move like a beam of light: <br />Fly like lightning, <br />Strike like thunder, <br />Whirl in circles around a stable center.<br /><br /><br />Fifty Nine<br /><br />Techniques employ four qualities that reflect the nature of our world.<br /> Depending on the circumstance, you should be: <br />hard as a diamond, <br />flexible as a willow, <br />smooth-flowing like water, <br />or as empty as space.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.aikido-techniques.com/sitemap.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/aikido2.gif" /></a><br /><br />Sixty<br />If your opponent strikes with fire, counter with water,<br /> becoming completely fluid and free-flowing.<br /> Water, by its nature, never collides with or breaks against anything.<br /> On the contrary, it swallows up any attack harmlessly.<br /><br /><br />Sixty One<br /><br />Functioning harmoniously together, <br />right and left give birth to all techniques.<br /> The left hand takes hold of life and death;<br /> the right hand controls it. <br />The four limbs of the body are the four pillars of heaven, <br />and manifest the eight directions, <br />yin and yang, <br />inner and outer.<br /><br /><br />Sixty Two<br /><br />Manifest yang in your right hand, <br />balance it with the yin of your left, <br />and guide your partner.<br /><br /><br />Sixty Three<br /><br />The techniques of the Art of Peace are neither fast nor slow,<br /> nor are they inside or outside. <br />They transcend time and space.<br /><br /><br />Sixty Four<br /><br />Spring forth from the Great Earth; <br />Billow like Great Waves; <br />Stand like a tree, sit like a rock; <br />Use One to strike All. <br />Learn and forget!<br /><br /><br />Sixty Five<br /><br />When an opponent comes forward, move in and greet him; <br />if he wants to pull back, send him on his way.<br /><br /><br />Sixty Six<br /><br />The body should be triangular, the mind circular.<br /> The triangle represents the generation of energy <br />and is the most stable physical posture.<br /><br /> The circle symbolizes serenity and perfection, <br />the source of unlimited techniques.<br /> <br />The square stands for solidity, the basis of applied control.<br /><br /><br />Sixty Seven<br /><br />Always try to be in communion with heaven and earth; <br />then the world will appear in its true light. <br />Self-conceit will vanish, and you can blend with any attack.<br /><br /><br />Sixty Eight<br /><br />If your heart is large enough to envelop your adversaries, <br />you can see right through them<br /> and avoid their attacks.<br /> And once you envelop them,<br /> you will be able to guide them along the path<br /> indicated to you by heaven and earth.<br /><br /><br />Sixty Nine<br /><br />Free of weakness, <br />no-midedly ignore the sharp attacks of your enemies: <br />step in and act!<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Ueshiba.jpg" /><br /><br />Seventy<br /><br />Do not look upon this world with fear and loathing.<br /> Bravely face whatever the gods offer.<br /><br /><br />Seventy One<br /><br />Each day of human life contains joy and anger, <br />pain and pleasure, darkness and light, growth and decay. <br />Each moment is etched with nature's grand design,<br /> do not try to deny or oppose the cosmic order of things.<br /><br /><br />Seventy Two<br /><br />Protectors of the world <br />and gaurdians of the Ways of gods and buddhas, <br />the techniques of Peace enable us to meet every challenge.<br /><br /><br />Seventy Three<br /><br />Life itself is always a trial. <br />In training, you must test and polish yourself <br />in order to face the great challenges of life.<br /> Transcend the realm of life and death, <br />and then you will be able to make your way <br />calmly and safely through any crisis that confronts you.<br /><br /><br />Seventy Four<br /><br />Be grateful even for hardship, setbacks, and bad people. <br />Dealing with such obstacles<br /> is an essential part of training in the Art of Peace.<br /><br /><br />Seventy Five<br /><br />Failure is the key to success; <br />each mistake teaches us something.<br /><br /><br />Seventy Six<br /><br />In extreme situations, the entire universe becomes our foe; <br />at such critical times, unity of mind and technique is essential,<br />do not let your heart waver!<br /><br /><br />Seventy Seven<br /><br />At the instant a warrior confronts a foe, <br />all things come into focus.<br /><br /><br />Seventy Eight<br /><br />Even when called out by a single foe, <br />remain on gaurd, <br />for you are always surrounded by a host of enemies.<br /><br /><br />Seventy Nine<br /><br />The Art of Peace is to fulfill that which is lacking.<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/osensei-001.jpg" /><br /><br />Eighty<br /><br />One should be prepared to receive ninety-nine percent of an enemy's attack<br /> and stare death right in the face in order to illumine the Path.<br /><br /><br />Eighty One<br /><br />In our techniques we enter completely into, <br />blend totally with, <br />and control firmly an attack.<br /> Strength resides where one's ki is concentrated and stable; <br />confusion and maliciousness arise when ki stagnates.<br /><br /><br />Eighty Two<br /><br />There are two type of ki: <br />ordinary ki and true ki. <br /><br />Ordinary ki is coarse and heavy; <br />true ki is light and versatile. <br />In order to perform well, <br />you have to liberate yourself from ordinary ki <br />and permeate your organs with true ki. <br />That is the basis of powerful technique.<br /><br /><br />Eighty Three<br /><br />In the Art of Peace we never attack. <br />An attack is proof that one is out of control.<br /> Never run away from any kind of challenge, <br />but do not try to suppress or control an opponent unnaturally. <br />Let attackers come any way they like and then blend with them. <br />Never chase after opponents. <br />Redirect each attack and get firmly behind it.<br /><br /><br />Eighty Four<br /><br />Seeing me before him, <br />the enemy attacks, <br />but by that time I am already standing <br />safely behind him.<br /><br /><br />Eighty Five<br /><br />When attacked, unify the upper, middle, <br />and lower parts of your body.<br /> Enter, turn, and blend with your opponent,<br /> front and back, right and left.<br /><br /><br />Eighty Six<br /><br />Your spirit is the true shield.<br /><br /><br />Eighty Seven<br /><br />Opponents confront us continually, <br />but actually there is no opponent there.<br /> Enter deeply into an attack and neutralize it <br />as you draw that misdirected force into your own sphere.<br /><br /><br />Eighty Eight<br /><br />Do not stare into the eyes of your opponent: <br />he may mesmerize you. <br /><br />Do not fix your gaze on his sword: <br />he may intimidate you. <br /><br />Do not focus on your opponent at all: <br />he may absorb your energy. <br /><br />The essence of training is to bring your opponent completely into your sphere.<br /> Then you can stand where you like.<br /><br /><br />Eighty Nine<br /><br />Even the most powerful human being <br />has a limited sphere of strength.<br /> Draw him outside of that sphere <br />and into your own, <br />and his strength will dissipate.<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/a_osensei_hor-1.gif" /><br /><br />Ninety<br /><br />Left and right, <br />avoid all cuts and parries. <br />Seize your opponents' minds <br />and scatter them all!<br /><br /><br />Ninety One<br /><br />The real Art of Peace is not to sacrifice<br /> a single one of your warriors to defeat an enemy. <br />Vanquish your foes by always keeping yourself <br />in a safe and unassailable position; <br />then no one will suffer any losses. <br /><br />The Way of a Warrior, the Art of Politics,<br /> is to stop trouble before it starts.<br /> It consists in defeating your adversaries spiritually <br />by making them realize the folly of their actions. <br />The Way of a Warrior is to establish harmony.<br /><br /><br />Ninety Two<br /><br />Master the divine techniques of the Art of Peace, <br />and no enemy will dare to challenge you.<br /><br /><br />Ninety Three<br /><br />In your training do not be in a hurry, <br />for it takes a minimum of ten years <br />to master the basics<br /> and advance to the first rung. <br /><br />Never think of yourself as an all-knowing, perfected master; <br />you must continue to train daily with your friends and students<br /> and progress together in the Art of Peace.<br /><br /><br />Ninety Four<br /><br />Progress comes to those who train and train; <br />Reliance on secret techniques will get you nowhere.<br /><br /><br />Ninety Five<br /><br />Fiddling with this and that technique <br />is of no avail. <br />Simply act decisively without reserve!<br /><br /><br />Ninety Six<br /><br />If you perceive the true form of heaven and earth, <br />you will be enlightened to your own true form.<br /> If you are enlightened about a certain principle, <br />you can put it into practice. <br />After each practical application,<br /> reflect on your efforts.<br /> Progress continually like this.<br /><br /><br />Ninety Seven<br /><br />The Art of Peace can be summed up like this:<br /> True victory is self-victory;<br /> let that day arrive quickly!<br /> "True victory" means unflinching courage; <br />"self-victory" symbolizes unflagging effort; <br />and "let that day arrive quickly" represents the glorious moment of triumph <br />in the here and now.<br /><br /><br />Ninety Eight<br /><br />Cast off limiting thoughts and return to true emptiness.<br /> Stand in the midst of the Great Void. <br />This is the secret of the Way of a Warrior.<br /><br /><br />Ninety Nine<br /><br />To truly implement the Art of Peace, <br />you must be able to sport freely <br />in the manifest, hidden, and divine realms.<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/osensei28.gif" /><br /><br />One Hundred<br /><br />If you comprehend the Art of Peace, <br />this difficult path, <br />just as it is, <br />envelops the cirle of heaven.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred One<br /><br />The techniques of the Way of Peace change constantly; <br />every encounter is unique, <br />and the appropriate response should emerge naturally.<br /> Today's techniques will be different tommorrow. <br /><br />Do not get caught up with the form <br />and appearance of a challenge.<br /> The Art of Peace has no form,<br /> it is the study of the spirit.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Two<br /><br />Ultimately, you must forget about technique.<br /> The further you progress,<br /> the fewer teachings there are. <br /><br />The Great Path is really No Path.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Three<br /><br />The Art of Peace that I practice <br />has room for each of the world's eight million gods, and I cooperate with them all. <br />The God of Peace is very great <br />and enjoins all that is divine and enlightened in every land.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Four<br /><br />The Art of Peace is a form of prayer that generates light and heat. <br />Forget about your little self, detach yourself from objects, <br />and you will radiate light and warmth. <br /><br />Light is wisdom; warmth is compassion.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Five<br /><br />Construction of shrine and temple buildings is not enough.<br /> Establish yourself as a living buddha image.<br /> We all should be transformed into goddesses of compassion<br /> or victorious buddhas.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Six<br /><br />Rely on Peace to activate your manifold powers; <br />pacify your environment and create a beautiful world.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Seven<br /><br />The Divine is not something high above us<br />. It is in heaven, it is in earth, it is inside of us.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Eight<br /><br />Unite yourself to the cosmos, <br />and the thought of transcendence will disappear. <br />Transcendence belongs to the profane world. <br />When all trace of transcendence vanishes, <br />the true person - the Divine Being - is manifest.<br /> Empty yourself and let the Divine function.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Nine<br /><br />You cannot see or touch the Divine with your gross senses.<br /> The Divine is within you, not somewhere else.<br /><br /> Unite yourself to the Divine, <br />and you will be able to perceive gods wherever you are, <br />but do not try to grasp or cling to them.<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/MoriheiUeshiba1.jpg" /><br /><br />One Hundred Ten<br /><br />The Divine does not like to be shut up in a building. <br />The Divine likes to be out in the open.<br /> It is right here in this very body.<br /> Each one of us is a miniature universe, a living shrine.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Eleven<br /><br />When you bow deeply to the universe, it bows back; <br />when you call out the name of Creator,<br /> it echoes inside you.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Twelve<br /><br />The Art of Peace is the religion that is not a religion; <br />it perfects and completes all religions.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Thirteen<br /><br />The Path is exceedingly vast. From ancient times to the present day, <br />even the greatest sages were unable to perceive and comprehend the entire truth; <br />the explanation and teachings of masters and saints express only part of the whole.<br /> It is not possible for anyone to speak of such things in their entirety. <br /><br />Just head for the light and heat, <br />learn from the gods, <br />and through the virtue of devoted practice of the Art of Peace, <br />become one with the Divine.<br /><br /><br />One Hundred Fourteen<br /><br />The divine beauty of heaven and earth! <br />All creation, <br />members of One family. <br /><br /><br /> <img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/peace1.jpg" /><br /><br />{From "<a href="http://www.aikidojournal.com/bibliography_details.php?id=190" target="_blank">The Art of Peace</a>", translated by John Stevens.}<br /><br /><br /><br /><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://c.gigcount.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEzMzQyNjgyNDc4MzkmcHQ9MTMzNDI2ODI1MTQ1NSZwPTE4MDMxJmQ9Jmc9MSZvPTFlMTlhYmNkYzZmYzRlNWZiNTQw/NGQ4N2Y1M2U1MGZj.gif" /><embed src="http://assets.mixpod.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf?myid=88618932&path=2012/04/12" quality="high" wmode="transparent" flashvars="mycolor=fcfcfc&mycolor2=f5f5f5&mycolor3=FFFFFF&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false" width="400" height="180" name="myflashfetish" salign="TL" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" border="0" style="visibility:visible;width:400px;height:180px;" /><br><br /></center></center><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-28601022333660729802010-11-26T12:54:00.004-10:002012-03-16T18:24:46.886-10:00Soil Sex Third Eye Star<br><Br><DIV STYLE="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><center><br /><a href="http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-proverbs.html"target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/0_out_of_chaco_canyon.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><font style="Monaco" color= "FF9900"><strong>Twelve Principles of Native American Philosophy</strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />1. WHOLENESS. All things are interrelated. Everything in the universe<br />is part of a single whole. Everything is connected in some way to<br />everything else. It is only possible to understand something if we<br />understand how it is connected to everything else.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />2. CHANGE. Everything is in a state of constant change. One season<br />falls upon the other. People are born, live, and die. All things<br />change. There are two kinds of change. The coming together of things<br />I and the coming apart of things. Both kinds of change are necessary<br />and are always connected to each other.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />3. CHANGE OCCURS IN CYCLES OR PATTERNS. They are not random or<br />accidental. If we cannot see how a particular change is connected, it<br />usually means that our standpoint is affecting our perception.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />4. THE PHYSICAL WORLD IS REAL. THE SPIRITUAL WORLD IS REAL. <br />They are two aspects of one reality. There are separate laws which govern<br />each. Breaking of a spiritual principle will affect the physical<br />world and visa versa. A balanced life is one that honors both.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />5. PEOPLE ARE PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL BEINGS.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />6. PEOPLE CAN ACQUIRE NEW GIFTS, BUT THEY MUST STRUGGLE TO DO SO. <br />The process of developing new personal qualities may be called "true<br />learning."<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />7. THERE ARE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF TRUE LEARNING. <br />A person learns in a whole and balanced manner when the mental, spiritual, physical, and<br />emotional dimensions are involved in the process.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />8. THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT HAS FOUR RELATED CAPACITIES:<br /><br /><br />* the capacity to have and to respond to dreams, visions,<br />ideals, spiritual teachings, goals and theories.<br />* the capacity to accept these as a reflection of our unknown<br />or unrealized potential.<br />* the capacity to express these using symbols in speech, art<br />or mathematics.<br />* the capacity to use this symbolic expression towards action<br />directed at making the possible a reality.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />9. PEOPLE MUST ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR OWN POTENTIAL.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />10. A PERSON MUST DECIDE TO DEVELOP THEIR OWN POTENTIAL. <br />The path will always be there for those who decide to travel it.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />11. ANY PERSON WHO SETS OUT ON A JOURNEY OF SELF-DEVELOPMENT WILL BE AIDED<br />. Guides, teachers, and protectors will assist the traveler.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />12. THE ONLY SOURCE OF FAILURE IS A PERSON'S OWN FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE TEACHINGS.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />~<a href="http://www.angelfire.com/art/nativeherb/index.html"target="_blank">source</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ca/Indian/stories.html"target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/0_young_men_shall_have.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>Primal Religions</strong><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Huston Smith characterizes both African and native North and South American religions as "primal", or alternatively, "tribal". These primal religions are far older than the so-called "historical religions" that have supplanted them in many parts of the world. Primal religion is "the religion of peoples who live in small communities, on subsistent economies that are the direct product of their own efforts, and without depending on writing". (Smith 365) Primal religion is now found only in parts of "Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, Siberia, and among the Indians of North and South America." (ibid)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />The following are some important differences between primal and modern religions and world-views:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />1. Unlike modern societies, tribes feature relatively little division of labor. Tribes typically do differentiate between the tasks of men and women, but they don’t distinguish between clergy and laity, or between sacred and secular, human and animal, animate and inanimate. In that sense, the tribal world is unfragmented. Tribal people are embedded in the natural world around them, and that whole world partakes in the sacred. Because primal religions see humans at one with nature, and all nature as sacred, primal religions revere all aspects of the natural world. There is little distinction between the individual and the tribe, or between the tribe and its environment, or between the human and the non-human. There is no metaphysical hierarchy of being in terms of which humans are "higher" or "better" than animals or plants or even rocks; every individual thing is alive and important. Animals and plants are usually thought of as "people" too. Hence there is no distinction between religious and non-religious activities: every interaction with the world has religious significance. Primal religions celebrate nature in the cycle of the seasons, and often in totemism (the symbolic joining of a tribe or clan with an animal species).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />2. Primal religions assume a single reality, which includes two kinds of being, and thus can be experienced in two different ways. One sort of being is temporal, and is the stuff of "normal" experience of the world. Temporal beings go in and out of being; the seasons change, people are born and die. The second sort of reality includes unchanging entities which are always potentially present in ordinary experience. Humans can partake in the immortal and give significance to their lives by ritually re-creating eternal archetypal patterns. For the Aborigines and Native Americans the normally unseen world is populated by eternal archetypes of not only things (the man, the woman, the fish, the wolf, the eagle, the bear, etc.) but also activities (hunting, lovemaking, war). An individual in the temporal world can partake of eternity by identifying completely with the archetypes in daily life: by "becoming" not a hunter or warrior but the Hunter or the Warrior. The Aborigines call these states of ritual identification "the Dreaming"; they are the closest thing to "worship" that we find in Aborigine culture. Primal religions frequently use natural hallucinogens and other drugs (alcohols, mushrooms, peyote, cannabis, mescaline, cocaine) to facilitate this identification with the archetypes. For example, Castaneda "becomes" The Crow only while tripping.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />3. Primal cultures are oral cultures; they have no tradition of literacy. The "texts" of primitive religions are myths, which are transmitted orally. "Oral transmission" includes drama and spectacle in addition to simple storytelling. Since primal peoples cherish their ancestors (who are thought to be closer to the primal Source of being), they have the highest respect for the myths given to them by their ancestors, and they treat the myths with the utmost respect, memorizing them carefully, and repeating them often. The myths contain not only stories of archetypal heroes, but specific instructions for hunting, gathering, building houses and boats, cooking, preparing medicines, etc., so memorizing them correctly is important for the continued well-being of the tribe. According to Smith, orality is important for primal religion because it keeps primitive people focused on their own experience of the world. Sacred texts cannot assume undue importance; oral cultures can still "sense the sacred through nonverbal channels" (Smith 370). Orality ensures that primal peoples do not fill their heads with endless trivia; if something is learned, it is used or it is forgotten. Orality also protects primal people from over-valuing thought itself (a tendency of the lettered, according to Smith).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />4. Primal religions value individuality; they see the uniqueness of things and places. One bird is not interchangeable with another. One corner of the room might be more suitable for sitting in than another; and the same corner might not be suitable for me and for you. (Don Juan tells Castaneda to find the place in the room that feels right for him.) One man’s house is not interchangeable with another’s. You cannot uproot a person from one place and expect that she will necessarily thrive elsewhere. A human is not like a machine that needs only electricity to run well, that can be transported anywhere and just plugged in. A human is not like an angel, a pure intellect that can flourish no matter where it lives or what it is nourished by. Animals and humans are much more like plants; they thrive in some habitats but not in others.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />5. Primal nature rites focus mainly on maintaining the regular course of natural events. The rites do not try to force nature to do anything supernatural; rather, the tribe seeks merely that rainfall and temperature and local wildlife supply stay normal. This cooperative orientation toward nature makes primal peoples essentially conservative about making large-scale alterations to the natural world that would upset nature’s norms or damage individual plants and animals, e.g., dams, cities, highways, etc. Indeed, they are conservative about small alterations. Environmentalists often look to primal peoples as models of proper human interaction with nature.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />6. The natural world and the body are valued in primal religious thought, unlike in most historical religions. Thus there is little interest in escaping the body or despising the world. As Smith says, "Primal peoples are ... oriented to a single cosmos, which sustains them like a living womb. Because they assume that it exists to nurture them, they have no disposition to challenge it, defy it, refashion it, or escape from it. It is not a place of exile.... Its space is not homogeneous; the home has a number of rooms, we might say, some of which are normally invisible. But together they constitute a single domicile. Primal peoples are concerned with the maintenance of personal, social, and cosmic harmony, and with attaining specific goods – rain, harvest, children, health – as people always are. But the overriding goal of salvation that dominates historical religions is virtually absent from them, and life after death tends to be a shadowy semi-existence in some vaguely designated place in their single domain." (377)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />7. Primal religions appear on the surface to be polytheistic, but in fact usually suppose one High God or Ultimate Power or Supreme Being. But the High God is often not named or even spoken of directly; it is assumed unknowable. Naming the High God would also conceptually separate that God from the world, thus draining some of the holiness from the ordinary world, since the conceptual separation makes clear that the world is not the High God (yet in the primal view, it is). The ordinary world is thought to be obviously a manifestation of the Great Power. Obviously, to the primal mind, the world of the senses is not the whole story. That sensible world signifies; it can be only if there is something More. Nothing is merely as it appears; rather, everything is symbolic, "transparent" to its divine source.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Western philosophers find the primal approach intriguing but problematic, especially in its rejection of ordinary metaphysical categories. But there lies its attraction for other Western minds. Curious reversals abound. In the American colonial times and through the 19th century, white Americans were fascinated with the natives. "Indian captivity narratives" were a popular literary form, e.g., James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. The popular captivity narratives usually pictured native Americans as cruel savages (e.g., Ethan Allen’s accounts) in order to build popular support for the expansionist goals of the young America. But in fact as early as the 16th century, captured Europeans often voluntarily rejected their culture to live with Native American tribes; Daniel Boone was the most famous example. The hero of the recent film Dances with Wolves is another. Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1753: "When white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and have lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay ... yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them."<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Nowadays, as Richard Rodriguez points out, native Guatemalans embrace Mormonism while "blond animal-rights activists in Orange County are becoming the new pantheists, California’s new tribe of <a href="http://silveropossum.homestead.com/index.html"target="_blank">Indians</a> – proclaiming the equality of all living things."<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />~<a href="http://westvalley.edu/ph/intro.html"target="_blank">source</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Wisdom/wisdom.html"target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/0_bear_woman_dancing.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Paintings By: <a href="http://www.turningpointgallery.com/"target="_blank">Susan Seddon-Boulet</a><br />Content from <a href="http://www.myspace.com/soilsexthirdeyestar"target="_blank">Soil Sex Third Eye Star</a><br />Additional Programming by DPC<br /><br /><br /><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.11NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyOTA4MTUwMzU4OTMmcHQ9MTI5MDgxNTA*MDM1NSZwPTE4MDMxJmQ9Jmc9MQ==.gif" /><embed src="http://assets.mixpod.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf?myid=72495975&path=2010/11/26" quality="high" wmode="transparent" flashvars="mycolor=ff9900&mycolor2=fadc44&mycolor3=f09424&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false" width="400" height="180" name="myflashfetish" salign="TL" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" border="0" style="visibility:visible;width:400px;height:180px;" /><br></embed></font></center><br /><br /></DIV>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-10860749343668371642010-01-25T22:38:00.001-10:002010-01-25T22:40:33.756-10:00The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali<br><br><br><br><br><center><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/DPC%20share/GJ2xH1hczlz027ljJMOJqn1to1_500.jpg"></center><br><br><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><font color="F76F22"><font style="font-family: Times; font-size: medium; " size="3"><h3><center>The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali<br>The Threads of Union<br></center></h3>Translation by BonGiovanni<br><br><br><hr>1. on Contemplations<br>2. on Spiritual Disciplines<br>3. on Divine Powers<br>4. on Realizations<br><hr><div>Before beginning any spiritual text it is customary to clear the mind of all distracting thoughts, to calm the breath and to purify the heart.</div><div></div><div>1.1 Now, instruction in Union.</div><div>1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.</div><div>1.3. Then the seer dwells in his own nature.</div><div>1.4. Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.</div><div>1.5. The thought-streams are five-fold, painful and not painful.</div><div>1.6. Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, fancy, sleep and memory.</div><div>1.7. Right knowledge is inference, tradition and genuine cognition.</div><div>1.8. Wrong knowledge is false, illusory, erroneous beliefs or notions.</div><div>1.9. Fancy is following after word-knowledge empty of substance.</div><div>1.10. Deep sleep is the modification of the mind which has for its substratum nothingness.</div><div>1.11. Memory is not allowing mental impressions to escape.</div><div>1.12. These thought-streams are controlled by practice and non-attachment.</div><div>1.13. Practice is the effort to secure steadiness.</div><div>1.14. This practice becomes well-grounded when continued with reverent devotion and without interruption over a long period of time.</div><div>1.15. Desirelessness towards the seen and the unseen gives the consciousness of mastery.</div><div>1.16. This is signified by an indifference to the three attributes, due to knowledge of the Indweller.</div><div>1.17. Cognitive meditation is accompanied by reasoning, discrimination, bliss and the sense of 'I am.'</div><div>1.18. There is another meditation which is attained by the practice of alert mental suspension until only subtle impressions remain.</div><div>1.19. For those beings who are formless and for those beings who are merged in unitive consciousness, the world is the cause.</div><div>1.20. For others, clarity is preceded by faith, energy, memory and equalminded contemplation.</div><div>1.21. Equalminded contemplation is nearest to those whose desire is most ardent.</div><div>1.22. There is further distinction on account of the mild, moderate or intense means employed.</div><div>1.23. Or by surrender to God.</div><div>1.24. God is a particular yet universal indweller, untouched by afflictions, actions, impressions and their results.</div><div>1.25. In God, the seed of omniscience is unsurpassed.</div><div>1.26. Not being conditioned by time, God is the teacher of even the ancients.</div><div>1.27. God's voice is Om.</div><div>1.28. The repetition of Om should be made with an understanding of its meaning.</div><div>1.29. From that is gained introspection and also the disappearance of obstacles.</div><div>1.30. Disease, inertia, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, laziness, sensuality, mind-wandering, missing the point, instability- these distractions of the mind are the obstacles.</div><div>1.31. Pain, despair, nervousness, and disordered inspiration and expiration are co-existent with these obstacles.</div><div>1.32. For the prevention of the obstacles, one truth should be practiced constantly.</div><div>1.33. By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.</div><div>1.34. Optionally, mental equanimity may be gained by the even expulsion and retention of energy.</div><div>1.35. Or activity of the higher senses causes mental steadiness.</div><div>1.36. Or the state of sorrowless Light.</div><div>1.37. Or the mind taking as an object of concentration those who are freed of compulsion.</div><div>1.38. Or depending on the knowledge of dreams and sleep.</div><div>1.39. Or by meditation as desired.</div><div>1.40. The mastery of one in Union extends from the finest atomic particle to the greatest infinity.</div><div>1.41. When the agitations of the mind are under control, the mind becomes like a transparent crystal and has the power of becoming whatever form is presented. knower, act of knowing, or what is known.</div><div>1.42. The argumentative condition is the confused mixing of the word, its right meaning, and knowledge.</div><div>1.43. When the memory is purified and the mind shines forth as the object alone, it is called non-argumentative.</div><div>1.44. In this way the meditative and the ultra-meditative having the subtle for their objects are also described.</div><div>1.45. The province of the subtle terminates with pure matter that has no pattern or distinguishing mark.</div><div>1.46. These constitute seeded contemplations.</div><div>1.47. On attaining the purity of the ultra-meditative state there is the pure flow of spiritual consciousness.</div><div>1.48. Therein is the faculty of supreme wisdom.</div><div>1.49. The wisdom obtained in the higher states of consciousness is different from that obtained by inference and testimony as it refers to particulars.</div><div>1.50. The habitual pattern of thought stands in the way of other impressions.</div><div>1.51. With the suppression of even that through the suspension of all modifications of the mind, contemplation without seed is attained.</div><div>End Part One.</div><center><h3><br>Part Two<br><br>on Spiritual Disciplines<br></h3></center><br><br><div></div><div>2.1 Austerity, the study of sacred texts, and the dedication of action to God constitute the discipline of Mystic Union.</div><div>2.2 This discipline is practised for the purpose of acquiring fixity of mind on the Lord, free from all impurities and agitations, or on One's Own Reality, and for attenuating the afflictions.</div><div>2.3 The five afflictions are ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and the desire to cling to life.</div><div>2.4 Ignorance is the breeding place for all the others whether they are dormant or attenuated, partially overcome or fully operative.</div><div>2.5 Ignorance is taking the non-eternal for the eternal, the impure for the pure, evil for good and non-self as self.</div><div>2.6 Egoism is the identification of the power that knows with the instruments of knowing.</div><div>2.7 Attachment is that magnetic pattern which clusters in pleasure and pulls one towards such experience.</div><div>2.8 Aversion is the magnetic pattern which clusters in misery and pushes one from such experience.</div><div>2.9 Flowing by its own energy, established even in the wise and in the foolish, is the unending desire for life.</div><div>2.10 These patterns when subtle may be removed by developing their contraries.</div><div>2.11 Their active afflictions are to be destroyed by meditation.</div><div>2.12 The impressions of works have their roots in afflictions and arise as experience in the present and the future births.</div><div>2.13 When the root exists, its fruition is birth, life and experience.</div><div>2.14 They have pleasure or pain as their fruit, according as their cause be virtue or vice.</div><div>2.15 All is misery to the wise because of the pains of change, anxiety, and purificatory acts.</div><div>2.16 The grief which has not yet come may be avoided.</div><div>2.17 The cause of the avoidable is the superimposition of the external world onto the unseen world.</div><div>2.18 The experienced world consists of the elements and the senses in play. It is of the nature of cognition, activity and rest, and is for the purpose of experience and realization.</div><div>2.19 The stages of the attributes effecting the experienced world are the specialized and the unspecialized, the differentiated and the undifferentiated.</div><div>2.20 The indweller is pure consciousness only, which though pure, sees through the mind and is identified by ego as being only the mind.</div><div>2.21 The very existence of the seen is for the sake of the seer.</div><div>2.22 Although Creation is discerned as not real for the one who has achieved the goal, it is yet real in that Creation remains the common experience to others.</div><div>2.23 The association of the seer with Creation is for the distinct recognition of the objective world, as well as for the recognition of the distinct nature of the seer.</div><div>2.24 The cause of the association is ignorance.</div><div>2.25 Liberation of the seer is the result of the dissassociation of the seer and the seen, with the disappearance of ignorance.</div><div>2.26 The continuous practice of discrimination is the means of attaining liberation.</div><div>2.27 Steady wisdom manifests in seven stages.</div><div>2.28 On the destruction of impurity by the sustained practice of the limbs of Union, the light of knowledge reveals the faculty of discrimination.</div><div>2.29 The eight limbs of Union are self-restraint in actions, fixed observance, posture, regulation of energy, mind-control in sense engagements, concentration, meditation, and realization.</div><div>2.30 Self-restraint in actions includes abstention from violence, from falsehoods, from stealing, from sexual engagements, and from acceptance of gifts.</div><div>2.31 These five willing abstentions are not limited by rank, place, time or circumstance and constitute the Great Vow.</div><div>2.32 The fixed observances are cleanliness, contentment, austerity, study and persevering devotion to God.</div><div>2.33 When improper thoughts disturb the mind, there should be constant pondering over the opposites.</div><div>2.34 Improper thoughts and emotions such as those of violence- whether done, caused to be done, or even approved of- indeed, any thought originating in desire, anger or delusion, whether mild medium or intense- do all result in endless pain and misery. Overcome such distractions by pondering on the opposites.</div><div>2.35 When one is confirmed in non-violence, hostility ceases in his presence.</div><div>2.36 When one is firmly established in speaking truth, the fruits of action become subservient to him.</div><div>2.37 All jewels approach him who is confirmed in honesty.</div><div>2.38 When one is confirmed in celibacy, spiritual vigor is gained.</div><div>2.39 When one is confirmed in non-possessiveness, the knowledge of the why and how of existence is attained.</div><div>2.40 From purity follows a withdrawal from enchantment over one's own body as well as a cessation of desire for physical contact with others.</div><div>2.41 As a result of contentment there is purity of mind, one-pointedness, control of the senses, and fitness for the vision of the self.</div><div>2.42 Supreme happiness is gained via contentment.</div><div>2.43 Through sanctification and the removal of impurities, there arise special powers in the body and senses.</div><div>2.44 By study comes communion with the Lord in the Form most admired.</div><div>2.45 Realization is experienced by making the Lord the motive of all actions.</div><div>2.46 The posture should be steady and comfortable.</div><div>2.47 In effortless relaxation, dwell mentally on the Endless with utter attention.</div><div>2.48 From that there is no disturbance from the dualities.</div><div>2.49 When that exists, control of incoming and outgoing energies is next.</div><div>2.50 It may be external, internal, or midway, regulated by time, place, or number, and of brief or long duration.</div><div>2.51 Energy-control which goes beyond the sphere of external and internal is the fourth level- the vital.</div><div>2.52 In this way, that which covers the light is destroyed.</div><div>2.53 Thus the mind becomes fit for concentration.</div><div>2.54 When the mind maintains awareness, yet does not mingle with the senses, nor the senses with sense impressions, then self-awareness blossoms.</div><div>2.55 In this way comes mastery over the senses.</div><div></div><div></div><center><h3>Part Three<br><br>on Divine Powers<br><br><br></h3></center><div>3.1 One-pointedness is steadfastness of the mind.</div><div>3.2 Unbroken continuation of that mental ability is meditation.</div><div>3.3 That same meditation when there is only consciousness of the object of meditation and not of the mind is realization.</div><div>3.4 The three appearing together are self-control.</div><div>3.5 By mastery comes wisdom.</div><div>3.6 The application of mastery is by stages.</div><div>3.7 The three are more efficacious than the restraints.</div><div>3.8 Even that is external to the seedless realization.</div><div>3.9 The significant aspect is the union of the mind with the moment of absorption, when the outgoing thought disappears and the absorptive experience appears.</div><div>3.10 From sublimation of this union comes the peaceful flow of unbroken unitive cognition.</div><div>3.11 The contemplative transformation of this is equalmindedness, witnessing the rise and destruction of distraction as well as one-pointedness itself.</div><div>3.12 The mind becomes one-pointed when the subsiding and rising thought-waves are exactly similar.</div><div>3.13 In this state, it passes beyond the changes of inherent characteristics, properties and the conditional modifications of object or sensory recognition.</div><div>3.14 The object is that which preserves the latent characteristic, the rising characteristic or the yet-to-be-named characteristic that establishes one entity as specific.</div><div>3.15 The succession of these changes in that entity is the cause of its modification.</div><div>3.16 By self-control over these three-fold changes (of property, character and condition), knowledge of the past and the future arises.</div><div>3.17 The sound of a word, the idea behind the word, and the object the idea signfies are often taken as being one thing and may be mistaken for one another. By self-control over their distinctions, understanding of all languages of all creatures arises.</div><div>3.18 By self-control on the perception of mental impressions, knowledge of previous lives arises.</div><div>3.19 By self-control on any mark of a body, the wisdom of the mind activating that body arises.</div><div>3.20 By self-control on the form of a body, by suspending perceptibility and separating effulgence therefrom, there arises invisibility and inaudibilty.</div><div>3.21 Action is of two kinds, dormant and fruitful. By self-control on such action, one portends the time of death.</div><div>3.22 By performing self-control on friendliness, the strength to grant joy arises.</div><div>3.23 By self-control over any kind of strength, such as that of the elephant, that very strength arises.</div><div>3.24 By self-control on the primal activator comes knowledge of the hidden, the subtle, and the distant.</div><div>3.25 By self-control on the Sun comes knowledge of spatial specificities.</div><div>3.26 By self-control on the Moon comes knowledge of the heavens.</div><div>3.27 By self-control on the Polestar arises knowledge of orbits.</div><div>3.28 By self-control on the navel arises knowledge of the constitution of the body.</div><div>3.29 By self-control on the pit of the throat one subdues hunger and thirst.</div><div>3.30 By self-control on the tube within the chest one acquires absolute steadiness.</div><div>3.31 By self-control on the light in the head one envisions perfected beings.</div><div>3.32 There is knowledge of everything from intuition.</div><div>3.33 Self-control on the heart brings knowledge of the mental entity.</div><div>3.34 Experience arises due to the inability of discerning the attributes of vitality from the indweller, even though they are indeed distinct from one another. Self-control brings true knowledge of the indweller by itself.</div><div>3.35 This spontaneous enlightenment results in intuitional perception of hearing, touching, seeing and smelling.</div><div>3.36 To the outward turned mind, the sensory organs are perfections, but are obstacles to realization.</div><div>3.37 When the bonds of the mind caused by action have been loosened, one may enter the body of another by knowledge of how the nerve-currents function.</div><div>3.38 By self-control of the nerve-currents utilising the lifebreath, one may levitate, walk on water, swamps, thorns, or the like.</div><div>3.39 By self-control over the maintenance of breath, one may radiate light.</div><div>3.40 By self-control on the relation of the ear to the ether one gains distant hearing.</div><div>3.41 By self-control over the relation of the body to the ether, and maintaining at the same time the thought of the lightness of cotton, one is able to pass through space.</div><div>3.42 By self-control on the mind when it is separated from the body- the state known as the Great Transcorporeal- all coverings are removed from the Light.</div><div>3.43 Mastery over the elements arises when their gross and subtle forms,as well as their essential characteristics, and the inherent attributes and experiences they produce, is examined in self-control.</div><div>3.44 Thereby one may become as tiny as an atom as well as having many other abilities, such as perfection of the body, and non-resistence to duty.</div><div>3.45 Perfection of the body consists in beauty, grace, strength and adamantine hardness.</div><div>3.46 By self-control on the changes that the sense-organs endure when contacting objects, and on the power of the sense of identity, and of the influence of the attributes, and the experience all these produce- one masters the senses.</div><div>3.47 From that come swiftness of mind, independence of perception, and mastery over primoridal matter.</div><div>3.48 To one who recognizes the distinctive relation between vitality and indweller comes omnipotence and omniscience.</div><div>3.49 Even for the destruction of the seed of bondage by desirelessness there comes absolute independence.</div><div>3.50 When invited by invisible beings one should be neither flattered nor satisfied, for there is yet a possibility of ignorance rising up.</div><div>3.51 By self-control over single moments and their succession there is wisdom born of discrimination.</div><div>3.52 From that there is recognition of two similars when that difference cannot be distinguished by class, characteristic or position.</div><div>3.53 Intuition, which is the entire discriminative knowledge, relates to all objects at all times, and is without succession.</div><div>3.54 Liberation is attained when there is equal purity between vitality and the indweller.</div><div>End Part Three</div><div></div><center><h3>Part Four<br><br>on Realizations<br></h3></center><div></div><div><br><br><br>4.1 Psychic powers arise by birth, drugs, incantations, purificatory acts or concentrated insight.</div><div>4.2 Transformation into another state is by the directed flow of creative nature.</div><div>4.3 Creative nature is not moved into action by any incidental cause, but by the removal of obstacles, as in the case of a farmer clearing his field of stones for irrigation.</div><div>4.4 Created minds arise from egoism alone.</div><div>4.5 There being difference of interest, one mind is the director of many minds.</div><div>4.6 Of these, the mind born of concentrated insight is free from the impressions.</div><div>4.7 The impressions of unitive cognition are neither good nor bad. In the case of the others, there are three kinds of impressions.</div><div>4.8 From them proceed the development of the tendencies which bring about the fruition of actions.</div><div>4.9 Because of the magnetic qualities of habitual mental patterns and memory, a relationship of cause and effect clings even though there may be a change of embodiment by class, space and time.</div><div>4.10 The desire to live is eternal, and the thought-clusters prompting a sense of identity are beginningless.</div><div>4.11 Being held together by cause and effect, substratum and object- the tendencies themselves disappear on the dissolution of these bases.</div><div>4.12 The past and the future exist in the object itself as form and expression, there being difference in the conditions of the properties.</div><div>4.13 Whether manifested or unmanifested they are of the nature of the attributes.</div><div>4.14 Things assume reality because of the unity maintained within that modification.</div><div>4.15 Even though the external object is the same, there is a difference of cognition in regard to the object because of the difference in mentality.</div><div>4.16 And if an object known only to a single mind were not cognized by that mind, would it then exist?</div><div>4.17 An object is known or not known by the mind, depending on whether or not the mind is colored by the object.</div><div>4.18 The mutations of awareness are always known on account of the changelessness of its Lord, the indweller.</div><div>4.19 Nor is the mind self-luminous, as it can be known.</div><div>4.20 It is not possible for the mind to be both the perceived and the perceiver simultaneously.</div><div>4.21 In the case of cognition of one mind by another, we would have to assume cognition of cognition, and there would be confusion of memories.</div><div>4.22 Consciousness appears to the mind itself as intellect when in that form in which it does not pass from place to place.</div><div>4.23 The mind is said to perceive when it reflects both the indweller (the knower) and the objects of perception (the known).</div><div>4.24 Though variegated by innumerable tendencies, the mind acts not for itself but for another, for the mind is of compound substance.</div><div>4.25 For one who sees the distinction, there is no further confusing of the mind with the self.</div><div>4.26 Then the awareness begins to discriminate, and gravitates towards liberation.</div><div>4.27 Distractions arise from habitual thought patterns when practice is intermittent.</div><div>4.28 The removal of the habitual thought patterns is similar to that of the afflictions already described.</div><div>4.29 To one who remains undistracted in even the highest intellection there comes the equalminded realization known as The Cloud of Virtue. This is a result of discriminative discernment.</div><div>4.30 From this there follows freedom from cause and effect and afflictions.</div><div>4.31 The infinity of knowledge available to such a mind freed of all obscuration and property makes the universe of sensory perception seem small.</div><div>4.32 Then the sequence of change in the three attributes comes to an end, for they have fulfilled their function.</div><div>4.33 The sequence of mutation occurs in every second, yet is comprehensible only at the end of a series.</div><div>4.34 When the attributes cease mutative association with awarenessness, they resolve into dormancy in Nature, and the indweller shines forth as pure consciousness. This is absolute freedom.</div><div></div><div></div><center><span style="font-family: Times; "><br>The end of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali</span><br><a target="<br />blank" href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnNhY3JlZC10ZXh0cy5jb20vaGluL3lvZ2FzdXRyLmh0bQ==">*source*</a><br>programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter"target="_blank">DPC</a><br></center></font><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=42291093&path=2010/01/25&mycolor=F76F22&mycolor2=3B2700&mycolor3=FFDD9A&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=400&oh=180"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=42291093&path=2010/01/25&mycolor=F76F22&mycolor2=3B2700&mycolor3=FFDD9A&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=400&oh=180"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></div></center></font></div>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-33915832219519306332010-01-18T23:54:00.008-10:002010-01-19T01:55:43.560-10:00Nobody<br><DIV STYLE="margin-left:150pt; margin-right:150pt"><center>
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<br />You have to become a nobody. The moment you are nobody, a silence descends on you, followed by a contentment. It is not contentment with the world; it is contentment with existence, with the stars, with the roses, with the ocean, with the rocks, with the mountains. It is not contentment with being a president of a country or a prime minister; it is not contentment with being the richest man in the world. It has nothing to do with your so-called world of ambitions. It is a very non-ambitious state. You are utterly empty, even empty of yourself. Only in that emptiness, contentment blossoms, flowers -but that contentment is divine.
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<br />OSHO
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<br />DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-8462402689539248102010-01-14T12:27:00.008-10:002010-01-14T13:16:30.036-10:00excerpt from Dhammapada<br /><br /><center><p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="180" width="400">
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<br /></object><br /><br /><center><font face="baskerville" size="4" color="de819b"><br />All beings tremble before violence.<br />All fear death.<br />All love life.<br /><br />See yourself in others.<br />Then whom can you hurt?<br />What harm can you do?<br /><br />He who seeks happiness<br />By hurting those who seek happiness<br />Will never find happiness.<br /><br />For your brother is like you.<br />He wants to be happy.<br />Never harm him<br />And when you leave this life<br />You too will find happiness.<br /><br /><br /><font size="3">~<br />excerpt from Dhammapada<br />translated by Thomas Byron<br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/DPC%20share/337-0042.jpg" /><br />art by <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmhlbGxlcmdhbGxlcnkuY29tL2FydGlzdHMvcGVyZXR0aV9zaWJ5bGxlL2luZGV4LnBocA==" target="_blank">Peretti Sibylle</a>/programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></font></font></center></p></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-21516669336905133902009-12-20T17:59:00.001-10:002009-12-20T17:59:48.665-10:00Twelve Understandings<br><center><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><br><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/121099293035906-3-2.gif"><br><br><br><font face="baskerville" size="5" color="Yellow"><b>Twelve Understandings</b><br><br><br><font size="4">1. You will receive a body. <br>You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours the entire period.<br><br>2. You will learn lessons. <br>You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Life. <br>Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.<br> You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.<br><br>3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.<br>Growth is a process of trial and error: experimentation. <br>The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."<br><br>4. A lesson is repeated until learned. <br>A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. <br>When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson. <br><br>5. Learning lessons does not end. <br>There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.<br> If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.<br><br>6. "There" is no better than "here." <br>When your "there" has become a "here,"<br> you will simply obtain another "there" <br>that will again look better than "here."<br><br>7. Others are merely mirrors of you. <br>You cannot love or hate something about another person <br>unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.<br><br>8. What you make of your life is up to you. <br>You have all the tools and resources you need. <br>What you do with them is up to you.<br> The choice is yours.<br><br>9. Life is exactly what you think it is. <br>You create a life that matches your beliefs and expectations.<br><br>10. Your answers lie inside you. <br>The answers to life's questions lie inside you. <br>All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.<br><br>11. You will forget all this.<br><br>12. You can remember it whenever you want.<br><br><br><br><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/121099293035906-6.gif"><br><font size="3"><a href="http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=33770414&MyToken=fbc83e65-2f9e-4791-8c79-1d3d87a7ff75" target="_blank">DPC</a></font></font></font></div></center><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-10062088955305000922009-12-20T17:58:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:59:03.575-10:00Immutable<br><center><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZWlyZWVuLmRldmlhbnRhcnQuY29tLw==" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/33vesnp.jpg"></a><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><br /><br><br><br><font size="3" face="Tahoma">...consciousness is not a product of matter, <br>and is instead a symptom of the soul. <br> all living beings, are distinct from their current body,<br> the nature of the soul being eternal, <br>immutable and indestructible without any particular beginning or end....<br /><br><br><br /><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZW4ud2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpL0dhdWRpeWFfVmFpc2huYXZpc20=" target="_blank">***</a><br /><br><br><br><br /><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=38108086&path=2009/12/13&mycolor=881640&mycolor2=C7124B&mycolor3=F72545&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=4&grad=false&ow=400&oh=180"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=38108086&path=2009/12/13&mycolor=881640&mycolor2=C7124B&mycolor3=F72545&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=4&grad=false&ow=400&oh=180"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></div></center></font></div></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-83910328722914735312009-12-20T17:56:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:58:00.978-10:00An Ode to the Tree People<br><center><font face="baskerville" size="4"><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><br /><font color="99ccff">Editor’s <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vdGhlY29hc3RuZXdzLmNvbS9wYWdlcy9mdWxsX3N0b3J5L3B1c2g/YXJ0aWNsZS0tT25lK2xhc3Qrb2JzZXJ2YXRpb24tK3NhdmUrdGhlK3RyZWVzLSUyNTIwJmlkPTE5NzM0NjUtLU9uZStsYXN0K29ic2VydmF0aW9uLStzYXZlK3RoZSt0cmVlcy0maW5zdGFuY2U9bGVhZF9zdG9yeV9sZWZ0X2NvbHVtbg==" target="_blank">note</a>: Bob was a force to be reckoned with. Whether they agreed with him or not, people read “<a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJvYnNlcnZhdGlvbnMuY29tLw==" target="_blank">Observations from the Edge.</a>” In the many years he wrote for The Coast News Group, no person or issue elicited more Letters to the Editor than Bob Nanninga. His passion was admirable, his energy infectious. Here at the office, we will miss his unannounced visits, which were always a welcome and entertaining break in our workdays. We will also miss his voice, which was sometimes loud and at times dramatic, but it was always true. The following is Bob’s final column for The Coast News Group, written from his hospital bed days before his death.<br /><br><br><br><br><br />***<br /><br><br><br /><font size="3">Greetings from the ICU ward. It would seem I needed some critical “me” time after the 2008 Encinitas City Council race. Rundown and profoundly disappointed, I didn’t see the pneumonia coming until I was panting like a dog struggling to breathe on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.<br /><br><br><br />Pneumonia is as gnarly as it gets. Everything works but the lungs. Lungs give breath. To breathe is to live. My mind is as active as ever. I want this to be done.<br /><br><br><br />There is Earth Day to plan for, Encinitas Environment Day to organize. Poetry to publish and a novel to be finished. And I still have yet to see Prairie Dogs in the wild.<br /><br><br><br />Lying in bed, news filters back about life and community in Encinitas. It is nice to know the tree people are getting creative. Thank you, Andrew, and all who gave him support during his week at the Orpheus front line.<br /><br><br><br />Trees are the lungs of the planet. Without trees, lots of trees, soon everyone and everything will be gasping for air, victims of planetary pneumonia, so not good.<br /><br><br><br />With that observation, allow me<br> to self-indulge with a poem written in honor of those who fight and plant trees.<br /><br><br><br />Plant an oak, save the world.<br><br><br><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/BobTreevanessa.jpg"></font><br><br /><br><br><br><br /><font face="baskerville" size="4"><br /><br />Who are the people who speak for the trees<br><br /><br><br />Giving them voice from root tip to leaves<br><br /><br><br />I know they are out there<br><br /><br><br />I’ve heard the tales<br><br /><br><br />Of proud David Chain and Julia Butterfly Hill<br><br /><br><br />A redwood named Luna<br><br /><br><br />Watched her friends fall<br><br /><br><br />Victims of the greed<br><br /><br><br />Now killing us all<br><br /><br><br />Victims of indifference<br><br /><br><br />Trees continue to fall<br><br /><br><br />As the climate changes<br><br /><br><br />And biodiversity fades<br><br /><br><br />Planet is diminished<br><br /><br><br />As the trees fall away<br><br /><br><br />Where are the warriors<br><br /><br><br />Who will fight for the trees<br><br /><br><br />Knowing full well without trees we’re not free<br><br /><br><br />Humans are primates<br><br /><br><br />We came from the trees<br><br /><br><br />Before braving the grassland<br><br /><br><br />And our now history<br><br /><br><br />Thuggish and brutish<br><br /><br><br />Forests were cleared<br><br /><br><br />To make room for the primates<br><br /><br><br />Who hold nothing dear<br><br /><br><br />Happy to cut down<br><br /><br><br />Trees, as long as they’re there<br><br /><br><br />Well, I’ll speak for the tree people<br><br /><br><br />And count them as friends<br><br /><br><br />This warrior undaunted a message will send<br><br /><br><br />In the green revolution<br><br /><br><br />Allies stand tall and take to the trees<br><br /><br><br />Spreading the call<br><br /><br><br />Trees are our future<br><br /><br><br />Trees built our past<br><br /><br><br />Trees must become sacred<br><br /><br><br />If mankind is to last<br><br /><br><br />So all hail the tree people<br><br /><br><br />Those that fight for the trees<br><br /><br><br />Those that understand ethics<br><br /><br><br />Beyond avarice and greed<br><br /><br><br />A battle is coming<br><br /><br><br />Pitting man against man<br><br /><br><br />Man against nature<br><br /><br><br />So do as you can<br><br /><br><br />It’s time to take sides<br><br /><br><br />Not just do as you please<br><br /><br><br />Make no mistake<br><br /><br><br />I stand with the trees.<br><br /><br><br /><br><br /><br /><font size="2"><i>An Ode to the Tree People</i> by <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJvYnNlcnZhdGlvbnMuY29tLw==" target="_blank">Bob Nanninga</a><br><i>Bob Tree</i> Painting by <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vdmFuZXNzYWxlbWVuYXJ0LmNvbS8=" target="_blank">Vanessa Lemen</a><br /><br><br><br /><br /><br /><br><br><br><br><br></font></font></font></div></font></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-59173837866732480662009-12-20T17:55:00.002-10:002009-12-20T17:56:51.181-10:00*k<font size="3" style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; border-collapse: collapse; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; "><br><center><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="385" width="480"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QIicqULYhGw&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&autoplay=1"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QIicqULYhGw&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&autoplay=1" height="385" width="480" wmode="transparent"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br> <font face="baskerville" size="3">Even if I now saw you<br>Only once,<br>I would long for you<br>Through worlds,<br>Worlds.<br><br><font size="2">Izumi Shikibu (c.974) <br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vYXJjYW5lYWR2aXNvcnMuY29tL2FyY2hpdmVzL1lvZ2EvWW9nYUt1bmRhbGluaS5wZGY=" target="_blank">***</a><br><br><font size="1">music by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/theheliosequence" target="_blank">The Helio Sequence</a><br>programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a><br><br></font></font></font></center></font><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-86403030852836983252009-12-20T17:55:00.001-10:002009-12-20T17:55:57.583-10:00Revolver<br><center><br /><br /><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><br /><font face="baskerville" size="4" color="93AF70"><br />One constructs being and nirvana by oneself;<br><br />In vain do people fetter themselves.<br><br />I don't know the inconceivable yogi;<br><br />How can birth and death exist?<br><br />Where there is birth, there is death;<br><br />Living and dying have no difference.<br><br />Whoever is apprehensive of birth and death here<br><br />Should desire the rejuvenating elixir.<br><br />Whoever roams the universe, even the heavens<br><br />Never becomes free of old age and death.<br><br />Whether action's caused by birth, or birth by action,<br><br />Saraha says, the Truth is inconceivable.<br><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>One constructs being and nirvana by oneself;<br><br />In vain do people fetter themselves.</i><br><br><br /><br />Buddha said, "It is by oneself that evil is done, it is by oneself that one is afflicted. It is by oneself that evil is done, it is by oneself that one is purified. Purity and impurity are individual matters; no one purifies another."<br><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>I don't know the inconceivable yogi;<br><br />How can birth and death exist?</i><br><br><br /><br />The emperor of China asked the founder of Zen, "What is the ultimate meaning of the holy truths?" The Zen founder replied, "Empty, nothing holy." The emperor asked, "Who are you?" The Zen founder replied, "I don't know."<br><br><br /><br />The "inconceivable yogi" is the Buddha-nature, or true self, which is not the socially conditioned personality, or the idea of self or image of the ego. Because this nature is not identical to the subjective stream of consciousness, it does not come and go.<br><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>Where there is birth, there is death;<br><br />Living and dying have no difference.</i><br><br><br /><br />Whatever is born must die; this is the nature of transitory existence. Buddhists therefore seek liberation from psychological subjection to impermanent things. According to the <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJ1ZGRoYW5ldC5uZXQvZGhhbW1hcGFkYS9pbmRleC5odG0=" target="_blank">Dhammapada</a>, Buddha said, "What attachment is there when one has seen these white bones as like gourds discarded in autumn?"<br><br><br><br><br /><br /> <br /><br /><i>Whoever is apprehensive of birth and death here<br><br />Should desire the rejuvenating elixir.</i><br><br><br /><br />The Sufi master Hadrat Ali said, "The world is a transitory abode, not a permanent abode. And the people in it are of two sorts; one who sells his soul and ruins it; and one who ransoms his soul and frees it." Buddha said, "What mirth is there, what joy, while constantly burning? Shrouded in darkness, why not seek a light?"<br><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>Whoever roams the universe, even the heavens<br><br />Never becomes free of old age and death.</i><br><br><br /><br />Buddha said, "There is nowhere in the world---not in the sky, not in the sea, not in the depths of the earth---where death will not overcome you." The Sufi master Ali said, "Whoever capitulates to the perishing of this world and the next perishes in them."<br><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /><br /><i>Whether action's caused by birth, or birth by action,<br><br />Saraha says, the Truth is inconceivable.</i><br><br><br /><br />The <i>Flower Ornament Scripture</i> says, "All consequences are born from actions; like dreams, they're not truly real. They continually die away, moment to moment, the same as before and after. Of all things seen in the world, only mind is the host; by grasping forms according to interpretation, it becomes deluded, not true to reality. All philosophies in the world are mental fabrications; there has never been a doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things."<br><br><br><br><br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/l_57ded3a2d7c029b8f90667afea18c9-1.jpg"><br><font size="3">{Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a>}<br><br><br><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" 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/><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Apocalypto_by_88grzes.jpg"><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=33580880&path=2009/10/30&mycolor=050505&mycolor2=000000&mycolor3=000000&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=400&oh=180"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=33580880&path=2009/10/30&mycolor=050505&mycolor2=000000&mycolor3=000000&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=400&oh=180"></embed><br /></object><br></div></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-20856839890898365112009-12-20T17:53:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:54:00.471-10:00Clearing Away the Unreal<br><center><br /><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3Lm1pY2hhZWx3aGVsYW4uY29tLw==" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/24075545_1209746243_Micheal_Whelan.jpg"></a><br><br><br><font face="baskerville" size="4" color="3ABD5B"> Even if there is anything beyond nirvana, <br>I say it too is like a dream illusion...<br><br><br><font size="3">~an ancient sage<br /><br><br><br><br><br><br><br /><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br /><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=35605271&path=2009/11/21&mycolor=31856C&mycolor2=3ABD5B&mycolor3=A8D982&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=400&oh=180"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mp-sk.swf" height="180" width="400" style="width:400px;height:180px" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=35605271&path=2009/11/21&mycolor=31856C&mycolor2=3ABD5B&mycolor3=A8D982&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=400&oh=180"></embed><br /></object><br></div></center></font></font></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-55122692183576912892009-12-20T17:52:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:53:14.464-10:00s.<br><center><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><font face="baskerville" size="4" color="66CCFF"><br><br><br>the silence <br>of nature<br>within.<br><br>the power within<br>the power<br><br>without.<br><br>the path is whatever passes---no<br>end in itself.<br><br>the end is,<br>grace---ease---<br><br>healing,<br>not saving.<br><br><i>singing</i><br>the proof<br><br>the proof of the power within.<br><br><br><br><font size="3">{<i>Without</i>, by Gary Synder}<br><br><br><br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZW4ud2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpL0hvbGlzbQ==" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/lighter-then-wind.jpg"></a><br>[Picture Linked/Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a>]<br><br><img border="0" width="0" height="0" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyNTMxMjQ3ODYxNjAmcHQ9MTI1MzEyNDc4Nzg*MiZwPTE4MDMxJmQ9Jmc9MSZvPTVhNzExMmNhNDU5NzRlYTliZTEzMWE2MWViZjJkMTc*.gif"><center><div><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="190" width="135"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-bear.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=29802736&path=2009/09/16&mycolor=9CD9D8&mycolor2=68C0CC&mycolor3=307E91&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=135&oh=190"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-bear.swf" height="190" width="135" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=29802736&path=2009/09/16&mycolor=9CD9D8&mycolor2=68C0CC&mycolor3=307E91&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=135&oh=190"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br><br /><font size="3"><i>It is rare to hear the truth even in immense eons, <br><br />that is why adepts and virtuous ones of the past forgot their bodies, <br><br />or even lost their bodies, for the sake of truth. <br><br />There certainly is a meaning to this. <br><br><br /> <br />Ordinary human beings, animals, ants, mosquitoes, <br><br />outsiders with erroneous views, all have bodies and life, <br><br />but as long as they have not yet heard the truth <br><br />they cannot be honored or esteemed. <br><br><br /><br />For innumerable lives, birth after birth, <br><br />how many times have they been embodied? <br><br />Yet theirs is not yet a good life. <br><br /> If one gets to hear the truth, <br><br />that is a good life.</i><font size="2"><br><br>~<br>excerpt from <i>Universal Book of Eternal Peace</i><br>translated by Thomas Cleary for Shambhala Publications, Inc.<br>ISBN 1-59030-220-6</font></font></div><font size="3"><font size="2"></font></font></center><font size="3"><font size="2"></font></font></font></font></div><font face="baskerville" size="4"><font size="3"></font></font></center><font face="baskerville" size="4"><font size="3"></font></font><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-5090253449936333352009-12-20T17:51:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:52:17.765-10:00Censored 2010<br><center><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><font face="chalkboard" size="2" color="999999"><br>{Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a>}<br><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/tumblr_komr8mYhWn1qz6f9yo1_400.jpg"><br><br>The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2009: <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnByb2plY3RjZW5zb3JlZC5vcmcvdG9wLXN0b3JpZXMvY2F0ZWdvcnkveS0yMDA5Lw==" target="_blank">Read Here</a><br><br><br><font face="baskerville" size="3">Some news is just too hot to cover and Project Censored for 34 years have been exposing the most under-covered censored news stories of the year with their annual release of the Censored yearbooks. <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnByb2plY3RjZW5zb3JlZC5vcmcv" target="_blank">http://www.projectcensored.org/</a>, Censored 2010 will be available for shipping of <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnByb2plY3RjZW5zb3JlZC5vcmcvc3RvcmUv" target="_blank">pre-orders</a> in early September.<br><br>Censored stories even include valid academic studies completed by university professors and scientific professional researchers. It appears that certain topics are simply forbidden inside the mainstream corporate media today. To openly cover these news stories would stir up questions regarding “inconvenient truths” that many in the U.S. power structure want to avoid.<br><br>For example, current research indicates that public schools in the United States are more segregated today than they have been in more than four decades. According to a new civil rights report, published at the University of California, Los Angeles, schools in the U.S. are 44 percent non-white, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students in the United States. Latinos and blacks, the two largest minority groups, attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights movement 40 years ago. Millions of non-white students are locked into “dropout factory” high schools, where huge percentages do not graduate. The most severe segregation in public schools occurs in the Western states, including California—not in the South, as many people believe. Most non-white schools are segregated by poverty as well as race. Schools in low-income communities remain highly unequal in terms of funding, qualified teachers, and curriculum.<br><br>Other taboo stories include civilian death rates in Iraq and questions on 9/11. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University and a professional survey company in Great Britain, Opinion Research Business (ORB) report that the United States is directly responsible for over one million Iraqi deaths since our invasion six and a half years ago. In a January 2008 report, ORB reported that, “survey work confirms our earlier estimate that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003…. We now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000.” A 2006 Johns Hopkins study confirmed that U.S. aerial bombing in civilian neighborhoods caused over a third of these deaths and that over half the deaths are directly attributable to U.S. forces. Iraqi civilian death levels in the summer of 2009 likely now exceed 1.2 million.<br><br>Then there is <a href="http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=74072867&albumID=2764436&imageID=46506164" target="_blank">9/11</a> -- former Brigham Young University physics professor Dr. Steven E. Jones and some 700 scientific professionals in the fields of architecture, engineering, and physics have now concluded that the official explanation for the collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings is implausible according to laws of physics. Especially troubling is the collapse of WTC 7, a 47-story building that was not hit by planes, yet dropped in its own “footprint” in 6.6 seconds in the same manner as a controlled demolition. To support this theory, Jones and eight other scientists conducted chemical research on the dust from the World Trade Centers. Their research results were published in a peer-reviewed scientific periodical “Open Chemical Physics Journal,” Volume 2, 2009. The authors write, “We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.” Thermite is a pyrotechnic composition of a metal powder and a metal oxide, which produces an aluminothermic reaction known as a thermite reaction and is used in controlled demolitions of buildings.<br><br>Each of these hot news stories is based on solid scholarly research. These stories represent the failure of the corporate media in the United States to keep the American people democratically informed on important issues. This lack of coverage of critical and potentially political news stories is what many thousands of people in the United States are now calling a Truth Emergency. This Truth Emergency is being addressed daily by Project Censored at our web sites featuring independent news sources, <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vbWVkaWFmcmVlZG9tLnBubi5jb20vNTE3NC1pbmRlcGVuZGVudC1uZXdzLXNvdXJjZXM=" target="_blank">http://mediafreedom.pnn.com/5174-independent-news-sources</a>, and our daily blog at, <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZGFpbHljZW5zb3JlZC5jb20v" target="_blank">http://dailycensored.com/</a>. Benchmark each of these sites on your desktop and stay abreast of the current news not covered in the corporate media. <br><br></font><font face="chalkboard" size="2" color="999999">Power To The People</font></font></div></center><br><br><br>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-66973086935577553502009-12-20T17:50:00.002-10:002009-12-20T17:51:36.490-10:00Heartfulness<br><center><br><br><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><br><font face="baskerville" size="4" color="CC0033"><i><br>"So the heart is the beginning of life, the Sun of the Microcosm, <br>even as the Sun deserves to be call'd the heart of the world; <br>for it is the heart by whose virtue and pulsation the blood is moved, <br>perfected, made apt to nourish, and is preserved from corruption and coagulation; <br>it is the household divinity which, discharging its function, nourishes, cherishes, <br>quickens the whole body, and is indeed the foundation of life, the source of all action."<br></i><br><font size="3">~ William Harvey, 1628<br><br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnNtbS5vcmcvaGVhcnQvaGVhcnQvcHVtcGluZy1mLmh0bQ==" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/W1358Human-Heart-c-1979-Red-with-1.jpg"></a><br><br><br><br>On any one day the adult human heart will beat over a 100,000 times... The heart is one of the most important organs in the entire human body. It is really nothing more than a pump, composed of muscle which pumps blood throughout the body, beating approximately 72 times per minute of our lives. The heart pumps the blood, which carries all the vital materials which help our bodies function and removes the waste products that we do not need. For example, the brain requires oxygen and glucose, which, if not received continuously, will cause it to loose consciousness. Muscles need oxygen, glucose and amino acids, as well as the proper ratio of sodium, calcium and potassium salts in order to contract normally. The glands need sufficient supplies of raw materials from which to manufacture the specific secretions. If the heart ever ceases to pump blood the body begins to shut down and after a very short period of time will die.<br><br>The heart is essentially a muscle(a little larger than the fist). Like any other muscle in the human body, it contracts and expands. Unlike skeletal muscles, however, the heart works on the "All -or-Nothing Law". That is, each time the heart contracts it does so with all its force. In skeletal muscles, the principle of "gradation" is present. The pumping of the heart is called the Cardiac Cycle, which occurs about 72 times per minute. This means that each cycle lasts about eight-tenths of a second. During this cycle the entire heart actually rests for about four-tenths of a second.<br><br>In this way the Heart continually works as a pump, moving blood around our bodies to nourish every cell. Used blood, that is blood that has already been to the cells and has given up its nutrients to them, is drawn from the body by the right half of the heart, and then sent to the lungs to be reoxygenated. Blood that has been reoxygenated by the lungs is drawn into the left side of the heart and then pumped into the blood stream. It is the atria that draw the blood from the lungs and body, and the ventricles that pump it to the lungs and body. The output of each ventricle per beat is about 70 ml, or about 2 tablespoons. In a trained athlete this amount is about double. With the average heart rate of 72 beats per minute the heart will pump about 5 litres per ventricle, or about 10 litres total per minute. This is called the cardiac output. In a trained athlete the total cardiac output is about 20 litres. If we multiply the normal, non-athlete output by the average age of 70 years, we see that the cardiac output of the average human heart over a life time would be about 1 million litres, or about 250,000 gallons(US)!<br><br><br><br><br><i><br><font size="4">From early days,<br>Beginning not long after that first time<br>In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch,<br>I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart<br>I have endeavor'd to display the means<br>Whereby this infant sensibility,<br>Great birthright of our Being, was in me<br>Augmented and sustain'd.</font></i><font size="4"><br><br><font size="3">~ William Wordsworth (1850), <i>The Prelude</i><br><br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnJ1aGFuaXNhdHNhbmd1c2Eub3JnL2luZGlhbi9pbmRleC5odG0=" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Picture13.jpg"></a><br><br><br><br>The metaphorical meaning of the heart as the experiential origin of sentient emotions is characterized as caring, as love, as concern, as passion, as courage, as well as such conflictual phenomena as the broken heart, the troubled heart, the weakened heart springing forth from sadness, betrayal, confusion, and bewilderment. This suggests there is a reactionary emotional backdrop for the health of our body, whose study is the modern day evolution of holistic medicine, which incorporates all psycho-somatic or mind-body relationships. Shamanically speaking, the beating of our heart and its pumping of nourishing blood is a living symbol of our essential organic/spiritual vitality, as it is the heart that sustains us, drives us, engorges our sexual organs with vitality and rigor for union and procreation, allows us to run, to eat, to breathe, to be here now in the body we are in, to think these thoughts, feel emotions, and imagine the infinity of ourselves into self-realization, to be aware of our own cognition while embodied in human form. As such, the care of a human heart is within the domain of love's wisdom, for only love can bridge all voids of meaninglessness and collective indifference to create understanding of the complexities of the human heart's driving passion to beat and BE.... <br><br>The heart is as wild and mysterious as we ourselves are, it's innate behavior of constant ebb and flow are a mirror image of the undulating tides of life and creation where change is a constant and flow depends upon acceptance of what IS, which is the fundamental basis of non-attachment. In this way only love can create a quality of acceptance for the human condition with its ups and downs, desires and longing, dreams and expectations, visions and disillusionments, that provides a healthy psycho-somatic foundation for a well balanced lifestyle of human being. The understanding that "<b>there is no truth without love</b>" seems plain and simple to those who live through their heart center, since it is common sense to lovingly consider and care for what we are relating to. Whether that be: ourselves, others, or nature and reality in general; ideas which come into our mind; our feelings and emotional body; our physical body; our sense of spiritual or transcendental identity in the universe; the mysterious contents of our imagination --- all is some form of truth to be related to in a caring and considerate way, which is the true meaning of LOVE, and the true purpose of a beating heart. <br><br>Each rhythmic pumping involves the entire body working synergistically, and though this divine mechanism of organic biological complexity may be used to create death and destruction, it is love that is essential in objectively relating to life on Earth and which manifests sustainable futures of empathetic clarity through transcendental morality. Hence, the difference between caring and not caring is vitally important since carelessness may lead to not only metaphorical heart break and psychologically destructive feelings in our interpersonal relationships with ourselves, others, and nature --- carelessness may also lead to serious injury and death, possible social alienation and upheaval, bloody revolutions and riots, starvation, economic depressions, and even extinction of our species. Still, complexity persists, because it is also clear that one may care from a self-oriented survival aspect devoid of concern for others or the environment, and thus evidence a fractal of egocentricity which may lead to destructive behavior patterns because of intentions and actions rooted in narrow minded self-interest only... <br><br>In contrast, one typically loves from a selfless orientation geared towards the greater good of whatever or whoever she/he/it loves. For instance, if one loves oneself, then in recognition that the body and all its organs, such as the heart, need clean air, clean water, clean food, a rational conclusion is reached that paves the way for ever deeper insights on why being on Earth in a harmonious manner is vitally important to humanities' evolution as a sentient species. Therein it is a factual reality while existing within a spherical symbiosis of biological/spiritual consequence, that Love as a behavioral paradigm is the only choice, and that the heart of every new born beats towards love's endeavor becoming the 'norm' of human understanding and action/reaction. And any scientific/political/economic/martial/institutional or religious ideologies that seek to separate us from ourselves, each other, and nature, consciously or unconsciously creating civilized realities of behavioral immorality and violence, unethical uncleanliness and industrial toxicity, such forms of ignorance spurned by a lust for greed and power wrought in fear and terrific bloodshed for control of humanity and reality, are obviously ignorant and self-destructive and must be done away with through personal and collective, even political/legal/corporate/military/religious embodiments of grace, compassion, acceptance, understanding, and forgiveness. <br><br>To this degree of application there is no mystery to love's truth, it is common sense, it is caring about others as one must care about oneself... Still, there is a great deal of unspoken confusion because our heart keeps beating even while killing and raping and stealing and cheating and hating and cursing, which conflicts with our sense of love and the reasons for our beating heart of existence. That the word 'love' has many uses becomes obvious as we grow up, not all of which are really caring, or considerate... As in, someone may say/think/feel: "I loved murdering him;" "I love beating my prisoners;" "I love criticizing and teasing others;" "I love making money even if it means the industrial pollution of nature and the death of innocent women, men, and children;" "I love interrogating and torturing people as my job;" "I love playing the field and cheating on my wife because I love all that sex," "I love the money I make experimenting on animals in the lab," "I love the money and power I have even it means I had to sacrifice myself and what I know is right to gain these...." So 'love' in the modern linguistic mutation into collective meaninglessness has come to represent the often malignant and misguided fallacies of the deluded character/ego, and thus may be used to describe anything we enjoy, even if causing others or ourselves to suffer directly or indirectly is what we consciously or unconsciously enjoy. This indicates that enjoyment and happiness have necessarily nothing to do with right action, right thought, or right behavior, because joy and happiness are relative experiences that different people experience for different reasons. <br><br>Certainly a big deal has been made of joy and happiness as signifying the 'better,' more healthy, positive, advanced, evolved choice of being, but there is much misunderstanding on this issue which has prevented truth from circulation. These so-called 'positive' emotions, hedonistic ways of being (a backlash from centuries of religious/governmental/cultural oppression), are experiences of the emotional body and general state of being, and are only conducive to the wellness of the individual and the whole system of earth when realized from a ground of opened awareness, correct understanding, proper belief, and right action. Whereas if a positive state of being is used as a shield against negativity, when happiness is used to mask fears of the unknown or insecurity in general - or to create a facade of invulnerability, when joy is used to feel above others - as in superior, or when the evolved choice is paraded around as something which separates us from those who may be suffering or beneath us because of their general state of being, then we have surpassed the humility required to be Love and honor the gift of our beating heart of consciousness. A notable example of how dangerous joy is, the modern destruction of the Earthen environment achieved while humanity has succumbed to the imbalanced egocentric ignorance of beliefs and technologies which have no love or respect for the sanctity of the very Nature which sustains us, the creatures, and the overall symbiosis we are an integral part of.... As a global collective this is all due to being possessed of a faulty foundation of beliefs devoid of love, however joyful and happy the individual may be, the effects upon the whole have been catastrophically unsustainable and anti-ecological. <br><br>While complex systems of denial are implemented, evolved facades are applied, and willfully executed technologies of mind shun the embodiment of an emotionally mature and spiritually realistic humanity, personal/global 'harmony and peace' are but myths of fanciful thoughts and feelings yet unrealized in this dimension of Earth. With all our human nonsense born of unexplored and often denied psychosis as a reference point of 'what love is not,' let's make the distinction for the purpose of this written expression that the 'love' being referred to here is that quality of being and consciousness which leads to clarity, freedom, insight, acceptance, forgiveness, healing, wellness, health, and harmony. And though love in the mainstream is most often associated with romance, passion, and sexual intimacy, at present this is a dangerous association since it appears humanity has a great many sexual wounds being worked through and healed. Because of this vulnerable-raw-trigger-happy aspect of our wounded sexual-relational aspect, both psychologically and pscho-somatically the concept of love is disadvantaged and the innumerous charged projections concerning familial/romantic/sexual love often lead many individuals into fear, negativity, bias, mistrust, and disbelieving cynicism concerning the relevant uses of love in all facets of life. Thus as a result of being betrayed or let down via our expectations: of familial/romantic love and intimacy with other equally flawed human beings; and ideas of reality and God we have been given by systemized belief systems --- we may observe that some human beings often give up on love all together. In failing to recognize that we are already possessed of a great many childhood wounds, our adult relational experiences often serve to back up any jaded views and reactions we may be inadvertently harboring within, leading to a reinforcement of our particular severity of disenchantment concerning the magical/miraculous/scientifically healthy and logically sound qualities of love. <br><br>It is currently a fatal flaw to think that material or social success in the human world is truth... This is a collective lie and an illusion of popularity pole-based realities being perpetuated by all who have succumbed to the pleasures of convenience. Rather, such lifestyles are not truth, are not sustainable, and are not actively involved in helping to heal humanity, and are instead merely concerned with benefiting those who are on the receiving end of the financial spokes turning each particular wheel spewing half-truths, legalized drugs, and trash technologies to help others hide from their truth and feel secure in a world of unceasing struggle and strife. Healing our wounds of the broken heart-mind instead requires a great deal of strength and courage, insights whose awareness and development demands stillness/patience/and time, as well as powerful qualities of the sovereign mindful-being that many of us in the haze of our human imprinting and the inhumane pace of capitalistic systems where time is money and the bills and taxes pile up by the minute, are not prepared to deal with.... Because we have not been given a proper model of how to create peace, nor the functional tools to accept ourselves or our issues and heal them accordingly, we find our familial/cultural/societal/governmental/militarized/legal/socio-economic programming automatically creates the relational dysfunction which abounds on earth at present. Worse still, even psychology, western medical drugs, science, education, and religion, nothing ultimately can save us but our own understanding and implementation of love! This is because all axioms of belief existing within the system are part of the problem, as it is the system as a whole which is killing the earth and hence killing us, so one must step outside the box of all present philosophies and ways of being to give birth to a new belief system and behavior pattern which works for this present version of life on Earth. Realistically, what we WILL to be may consist of a mixture of what has come before, because it is in reflecting upon all experiential wisdom that has come before us that we may weed out what works and what does not, and thus implement lasting change from the ground up.... All paths ultimately must lead back to this one single convergence of a human being learning to BE, to be LOVE., if not, planetary civilizations digress into abject nihilism and myriad possible variations of unending battles ending in total annihilation... To be love requires we free up our truth, yet due to the large number of opinions and viewpoints, powerful minds and arrogant egos, spiritual materialists, and the reigning paradigms of fear/mistrust and competition --- the individual may find it difficult to form an original synopsis about what they are experiencing. One may wonder, which feelings or thoughts matter, what is real, who is right, who is wrong, who can I trust, what should I believe, is what serves me always the best, what about the big picture, how can I know the truth, who am I, why does my truth matter, what is my truth, how do I find it?<br><br> Without going into any heady explorations of metaphysical transcendence of our earthly experience where all sense data is illusion and this is all but a dream of quantum Potentia, it seems simple enough to observe that sometimes our truth is in our feelings, and sometimes our truth is in our thoughts. Sometimes our truth is an other's truth, sometimes our truth is what has been, and sometimes our truth is something that has never been (as far as we know or are aware of).... It seems evident that perhaps there is no absolute method to discover the balance of truth between our emotions and thoughts, new and old ideas, tried and true or false and misleading 'ways', that there is seemingly no exact 'way' that may deliver us into the auspices of the heart throne wherein love's wisdom and clarity abound as a matter of fact. Still, if one follows <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZW4ud2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpL1RoZV9SYXpvcidzX0VkZ2U=" target="_blank">the razors edge</a> between all extremes and is delivered to the purified respiration of simply Being As Is, to being as pure and strong as the heart which innately drives us ever onward towards an unknown series of events, to being Love by the strength of our will and the grace of our trust and patience in the process of life, then a humble intuitive understanding of self, others, and reality is matter-of-factly afforded us.... And along the way towards being our own personal savior and genius, one may begin to discover an array of judgements concerning our mental/emotional/intuitive truth. We may find that if we express how we feel, or if we think too much and are over-analytical and examine things too deeply, if we are too sensitive according to others, certain expressions may be judged as radical or weird. In a world where most are hiding their vulnerability of truth, competing and killing for what others have told them is true, cowardice and varying levels of ignorance abound as the heros, the stars, the leaders... and so the blind lead the blind and the Earth is toxic and biological life as we now know it is an endangered phenomena. So what slows and prevents change? Often our ideas and concepts of how things 'should,' or 'could' be, may seem too fantastic to others or even our own inner critic. <br><br>Cynicism touts, "that is not possible!" Still, we progress towards paradigm change one step after another, perhaps noticing that in our ascension unto awakening and awareness and higher intelligences, there are often judgements and hopelessness shared with us by others and inner aspects of ourselves that are afraid of change, fearful of the unknown, mistrustful of the infinity of our potential contrasted with the seeming heaviness of our past and all those types of suffering and disappointments we have experienced.... We may feel wary of any way of being that suggests we are being mysteriously carried towards our own personal freedom and away from the maddening crowd of normality. We may also discover that a great many beings including ourselves are in and out of denial of the causes and effects of the current reigning paradigms of competition, struggle, and strife. Many of our minds have learned to find comfort in the mainstream media illusions fueled by corporate greed and governmental manipulation, we may not want to hear about global nihilism because we are shunning awareness of our self destruction, ie. suicidal tendencies.... In honest self-reflection we may observe our usage of legalized drugs such as sugar, caffeine, nicotine, and pain killers, hoping to deny any inner intuition of what is real and true in reality and self. Look at the debts, the wars, the pollution, the abuse, the harassment, and all of humanity can be observed to be engaged in some form of nihilism whether we are aware of it or not... This information is not meant to shame the reader, there is no room for shame in self-realizing truth, shame and the punishment of guilt only block awareness and fuel self hatred, instead this realization is meant to induce the observation that a great many psychological aspects of the human being restrict the journey towards truth and love, which restricts the body and the heart. In realizing it is our negativity, avoidance, and beliefs which prevent healing and change, then we may free ourselves by freeing our mind, which frees our soul, which brings us closer to the innate intelligence of the human heart of which we find beating within us as evidence of our multi-faceted presence and purpose upon Earth... To Be Love. <br><br><br>~ <i>Towards A Center-Point</i>, by Brennpunkt of the DPC<br><br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmdhaWFoZWFydC5jYS9tYW50cmFzLmh0bWw=" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/528336406_fb440f22d4.jpg"></a><br><br><br><br><i><br><font size="4">The paved highway of belief through touch<br>And sight leads straightest into the human heart<br>And the precints of the mind.<br></font></i><font size="4"><br><font size="3">~ Lucretius (c. 60 B.C.), <i>De Rerum Natura</i><br> <center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="110" width="110" style="visibility:visible;width:110px;height:110px;" border="0"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf?myid=19123677&path=2009/03/05"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="mycolor=CC0033&mycolor2=000000&mycolor3=CC0033&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf?myid=19123677&path=2009/03/05" height="110" width="110" style="visibility:visible;width:110px;height:110px;" border="0" wmode="transparent" quality="high" flashvars="mycolor=CC0033&mycolor2=000000&mycolor3=CC0033&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false" salign="TL"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br></div></center></font></font></font></font></font></font></div></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-74551946799324901412009-12-20T17:50:00.001-10:002009-12-20T17:50:55.376-10:00The Connective Tissue of Transformation<br><br><center><br /><br /><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="E36810"><br />"When we command movement of an arm or a leg <br>we establish all the conditions to effect<br> movement of several long levers in organized action.<br> The wisdom lies not in man's "command,"<br> but in the various systems cooperating with <br>the neuromuscular mechanisms to establish right conditions."<br /><br><br><br><br /><font size="2">~Mabel Ellsworth Todd, <i>The Thinking Body</i><br /><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmFjY2Vzc3RvaW5zaWdodC5vcmcvaW5kZXguaHRtbA==" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Picture9-1.png"></a><br /><br><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><font size="4">The word for faith in Pali is Saddha. While sometimes translated as "confidence" or "trust," the literal meaning of saddha is "to place your heart upon." When we give our hearts over to a spiritual practice, it is a sign of confidence or trust in the path we have embarked upon. Faith opens us to what is beyond our usual, limited, self-centered concerns. In Buddhist psychology, faith is called a gateway to all good things, because it sparks our initial inspiration to practice meditation and also sustains our ongoing efforts. Faith empowers us to move towards compassion, loving-kindness, and freedom.<br><br><br /><br />Yet the concept can be difficult for some people. Faith may be associated with mindless belief, or it may imply the need to proclaim allegiance to a creed or doctrine. Then we fear being judged, by ourselves or by others, for our degree of compliance. When we use the word faith in a Buddhist context, it is quite different from this. And this difference is crucial.<br /><br><br><br />To "place the heart upon" does not at all mean to believe in something so rigidly that we become defensive about opening our minds to new ideas. Nor does it mean that we use what we have faith in as a way of feeling separate from and superior to others. We do not need to subjugate others because of our faith, or declare the vessel of our faith as the one true vessel. When we talk about saddha, we are talking about a heartfelt confidence in the possibility of our own awakening.<br><br><br /><br />Faith does not need to be viewed as a fixed, solid thing, that we either have or don't have. We experience faith on many levels. In a classical Buddhist text entitled <i>The Question of King Milinda</i>, a monk named Nagasena uses an allegory to illustrate this. A group of people, gathered on the edge of a flooding stream, want to go to the far shore but are afraid. They do not know what to do, until one wise person comes along, assesses the situation, takes a running leap, and jumps to the other side. Seeing the example of that person, the others say, "Yes, it can be done." And then they also jump.<br><br><br /><br />In this story, the near shore symbolizes our usual confused condition, and the far shore is the awakened mind. Inspired by witnessing one another, we say, "Yes, it can be done." This is one level of faith. But after we have jumped ourselves, when we say, "Yes, it can be done" because we know it from our own experience, then we have entered into quite another level of faith.<br /><br><br><br />The first instance is an example of what is called "bright faith." This is the kind of faith that happens when our hearts our opened by encountering somebody or something that moves us. Perhaps we are inspired by a person's qualities of wisdom or kindness. Whether it is someone we know or a historical figure, like the Buddha or another great being, we begin to sense the possibility of a different, happier way of being.<br /><br><br><br />Bright faith is a wonderful feeling and an important beginning, but it is also unreliable. We might encounter one teacher one day and another teacher another day, and be moved powerfully by each of them, but in different directions. If we are looking for someone outside of ourselves to sustain our faith, we can easily become distracted by whatever influence comes into our lives next.<br /><br><br><br />The deeper level of faith is called "verified faith," meaning that it is grounded in our own experience. This is a mature faith, anchored in our own sense of the truth, centered in an understanding of the nature of the mind and body that we come to through our own awareness. The inspiration and confidence we feel, rather than coming from something outside of ourselves, arises from within, and it fuels further inquiries into our own understanding.<br /><br><br><br />It is a great turning point in our lives when we move from an intellectual appreciation of our spiritual path to the heartfelt confidence that says, "Yes, it is possible to awaken. I too can." A tremendous joy accompanies this confidence. When we place our hearts upon the practice, the teachings come alive. That turning point, which transforms an abstract concept of a spiritual path into our own personal path, is faith.<br /><br><br><br><br /><br /><font size="3">{<i>A Heart As Wide As The World</i>, by Sharon Salzberg}<br /><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnBpbmtsb3R1cy5vcmcvLSUyMEtZJTIwS3JpeWElMjBmb3IlMjBFbGV2YXRpb24uaHRt" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/global_pop_by_JohnPowell.jpg"></a><br><br />{Images Linked/Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a>}<br /><br><br><br><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="190" width="135" style="width:135px;height:190px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-bear.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=26065633&path=2009/07/26&mycolor=E36810&mycolor2=ffa621&mycolor3=000000&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=135&oh=190"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-bear.swf" height="190" width="135" style="width:135px;height:190px" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=26065633&path=2009/07/26&mycolor=E36810&mycolor2=ffa621&mycolor3=000000&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=135&oh=190"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br /><br /><font size="3">"In a real sense, all of life is interrelated. <br>All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,<br> tied in a single garment of destiny. <br> Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. <br> I can never be what I ought to be<br> until you are what you ought to be,<br> and you can never be what you ought to be<br> until I am what I ought to be. <br> This is the interrelated structure of reality."<br><br><br><br /><br /><font size="2">~Martin Luther King, Jr.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br></font></font></div></center></font></font></font></font></div><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="E36810"><font size="2"><font size="4"><font size="3"></font></font></font></font></center><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="E36810"><font size="2"><font size="4"><font size="3"></font></font></font></font>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-72895061682140414552009-12-20T17:47:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:48:40.062-10:00A temporary name...<br><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><center><font size="2" face="papyrus">A person able to decipher their meaning properly <br>would soon be able to dispense with the written <br>or the spoken word altogether.<br> The more I think of it, there is something futile, <br>mediocre, even (I am tempted to say) foppish about speech. <br>By contrast, how the gravity of Nature and the silence startle you, <br>when you stand face to face with her, undistracted, <br>before a barren ridge or in the desolation of ancient hills. <br><br><br /><br /><font size="2" face="baskerville">(<a target="_blank" href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZW4ud2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpL0pvaGFubl9Xb2xmZ2FuZ192b25fR29ldGhl">Goethe</a>)<br /><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/paulbourke2.jpg"><br /><br><br><br><br /><br><br><br /><font size="3">The Scripture on Infinite Light says, <br>"Rivers, lakes, birds, trees, and forests all invoke Buddha, Truth, and Communion."<br /><br><br><br><br />In a moment of awareness without discrimination, great wisdom appears. <br>This is like pouring water<br> into the ocean, like working a bellows in the wind.<br /><br><br><br />Furthermore, how do you discriminate? <br> "Buddha" is a temporary name for what cannot be seen when you look, <br>what cannot be heard when you listen, <br>whose place of origin and passing away cannot be found when you search.<br /><br><br><br><br />It covers form and sound, pervades sky and earth, penetrates above and below. <br> There is no second view, no second person, no second thought. <br> It is everywhere, in everything, not something external.<br /><br><br><br><br />This is why the single source of all awareness is called "Buddha."<br /><br><br><br><br />It doesn't change when the body deteriorates, it is always there. <br>But you still cannot use what is always there. Why? <br>Because, as the saying goes, <br>"Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes it obstructs vision." <br> Although buddhahood is wonderful, if you are obsessed with it it becomes a sickness.<br /><br><br><br><br />An early Zen master said, <br>"It is not mind, not Buddha, not a thing -- what is it?" <br>This says it all. <br> It has brought us the diamond sword that cuts all obsessions.<br /><br><br><br><br />Another classical Zen master said, <br>"The slightest entangling thought can cause hellish actions; <br> a flash of feeling can chain you indefinitely.<br> Just end ordinary feelings, <br>and there is no special perception of sages to seek <br>-- the perception of sages appears where ordinary feelings end."<br /><br><br><br><br />To learn to be a Buddha, <br>first you should break through the seeds of habit with great determination, <br>and then be aware of cause and effect so that you fear to do wrong.<br> Transcend all mental objects, stop all rumination. <br>Don't let either good or bad thoughts enter into your thinking, <br>forget about both Buddhism and things of the world. <br> Let go of body and mind, like letting go over a cliff. <br> Be like space, not producing subjective thoughts of life and death, or any signs of discrimination. <br> If you have any views at all, cut them right off and don't let them continue.<br /><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><font size="2"><i>The Perception of Sages</i>, by Zen Master Xiatang<br><br />translated by Thomas Cleary<br /><br><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /><br /><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/varo02.jpg"><br><br />{Programming by <a target="_blank" href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter">DPC</a>}<br /><br><br><br /><br /><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="110" width="110" style="width:110px;height:110px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=27210914&path=2009/08/12&mycolor=ffffff&mycolor2=000000&mycolor3=FFFFFF&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=110&oh=110"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf" height="110" width="110" style="width:110px;height:110px" wmode="transparent" flashvars="myid=27210914&path=2009/08/12&mycolor=ffffff&mycolor2=000000&mycolor3=FFFFFF&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=110&oh=110" salign="TL" scale="noscale" quality="high"></embed><br /></object><br></div></center></font></font></font></font></center></div><font size="2" face="papyrus"></font><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-15503753178452588852009-12-20T17:45:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:46:08.328-10:00?<br><center><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="FF3333">What we see is not Nature, <br>but Nature exposed to our method of questioning .<br><br><font size="2"> ~ W. C. Heisenberg<br><br><br><br><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/blog11-1.jpg"><br><br><br><br><font size="3">I've never met anyone who does not struggle with self-discipline. The problem with self-discipline is usually identified as a lack of willpower, a lack of follow through. You commit to a program with every good intention, and wake up a few days later having 'failed.'<br><br>A few of us are on the other side of the continuum, so disciplined we ' fail' at things like kindness, spontaneity, and relaxation. One way or another, the struggle to be disciplined takes a lot of energy, often misspent.<br><br>There is a convoluted belief about self-discipline that many of us have taken on.<br><br><br><br><b>The Belief</b><br>"If I were different - better, smarter, thinner, richer, more in control (which I would be if only I had more self-discipline!) - life would be as it should be and I would be happy. As it is, life isn't the way it should be and it's my fault!"<br><br>I contend that what we think of as the problem with self-discipline is not the problem at all, and the solutions we try, sincere as they are, lead to frustration and failure. So, as I see it, this belief is not true.<br><br>Nothing in life is as matter of fact as 'fault'; no amount of self-discipline will ever give anyone control over life (control is an illusion); happiness does not depend on circumstances; and life is always exactly as it is!<br><br><br>There are two kinds of self-discipline:<br><br>1. Strict, harsh, and punishing.<br><i>"Do not give in to weakness."<br>"Your lack of resolve is pathetic."<br>"Push ahead no matter what."<br>"You're a failure if you quit."</i><br><br>2. Supported, assisted, and nurtured.<br><i>"I will not abandon myself no matter what."<br>"Deep down this is what I really want."<br>"I will ask for help if I need it."<br>"I know I cannot fail if I do this with love."</i><br><br><br>The first is familiar to us all.<br><br>The second, compassionate self-discipline, is nothing other than being present rather than engaged in distracted, unfocused, addictive behaviors based in an I-need-to-fix-myself mentality.<br><br>That person is actually paying attention, focusing on what is here to do in this moment, bringing compassion to all aspects of daily life, and discipline has nothing to do with it. We don't lack self-discipline, we lack presence. Compassionate self-discipline is simply allowing the intelligence and generosity that is your authentic nature to guide you in every moment.<br><br>With this guidance you will be not only disciplined, you will be spontaneous, clear, awake, aware, efficient, appropriate, respectful, grateful, kind, honest, sincere, expressive, steady, dependable, responsible, peaceful, joyful, and satisfied. These are only a few descriptions of the experience.<br><br><br><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/blog2-1.jpg"><br><br><br>Discovering compassionate self-discipline may be easier and harder than you thought. On the one hand, it is not necessary to come up with more sophisticated methods for making your "self" do what your self does not want to do. No more planning, hoping, fearing, and failing. On the other hand, you will need to choose in-the-moment presence over the habitual patterns of a "conditioned mind."<br><br><br><b>Conditioned Mind</b><br><br>The everyday mind through which we interact with life is the result of a system of brainwashing called 'socialization.' From the first moment of life a child is taught what is right, wrong, ugly, beautiful, worthless, who the right people are, which values are important, which god to believe in, what heaven is, what hell is, how a person should be, how others should be, how the world should be, how people should be punished, what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman... In other words, every aspect of life has been programmed (For most people, 'going beyond' their childhood socialization is simply doing the opposite of what they were taught.) This program -- Whether adhering to it or rebelling against it -- is what we call conditioned mind.<br><br>Everything you have attempted for as long as you can remember has been under the direction of a socially and karmically conditioned mind.<br><br>"You may now safely turn off your human..."<br><br>Every conditioned human being is in a constant, primary relationship with a voice in their head telling them, second by second, what is so, real, true, right, good, beautiful, worthwhile, important, and desirable, as well as what is wrong, bad, to be avoided, unpleasant, ugly, and so on. The voice let's them know how they feel and if they're being the 'right' person. It scans for what's wrong and points out mistakes. In other words, it creates and maintains the reality of each individual.<br><br>As you read this the process I am describing is going on. Conditioned mind is taking this in and looking to see if the information is true. Perhaps it's beginning to argue, "Do I agree with this? I don't have a voice in my head pointing out that stuff to me second by second."<br><br>That's it! That's the voice.<br><br>A casual observation will show you that you are constantly looking somewhere to get the information you're getting about every aspect of life. For instance, you decide to learn a new skill.<br><br>The decision, the approach, the beliefs about your abilities, success, failure, and so forth, arise in conditioned mind. You may be aware of voices of enthusiasm or trepidation, and you may hear negative, even punishing voices saying you can't succeed because you have some built-in flaw that will prevent success. As you proceed, you are constantly following the directions, assumptions, and assessments coming from conditioned mind. You look to conditioned mind to tell you how you're doing. Depending on the response you get, you will feel good or bad. Are you learning this new skill quickly and easily? You get to feel good, proud, pleased. Are you learning it faster than others? Better still! Not meeting the standards? Oops. We know what that says about you.<br><br>Conditioned mind is framing your life.... We are going to turn the tables on it. Rather than 'it' being in charge, calling the shots, making the decisions about what you do and how you feel, 'you' will have the opportunity to observe 'it' and to realize that you can have your own present moment experience of life. You will have a chance to be in life without the filter of conditioning.<br><br>So the question is not <br>"How do I become more disciplined?" <br>The question is <br>"How do I learn to live in the present?"<br><br><font size="2"><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmFtYXpvbi5jb20vTWFraW5nLUNoYW5nZS1Hb29kLUNvbXBhc3Npb25hdGUtU2VsZi1EaXNjaXBsaW5lL2RwLzE1OTAzMDIwODc=" target="_blank"><i>Making A Change For Good</i></a>, by Cheri Huber<br><br><br><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Love_Struck_Salvage_Bot_by_JohnP-1.jpg"><br>{Art by <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vam9obnBvd2VsbGFydC5ibG9nc3BvdC5jb20v" target="_blank">John Powell</a>/Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a>}<br><br><br></font></font></font></font><center><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="FF3333"><font size="2"><font size="3"><font size="2"></font></font></font></font><div style="visibility:visible;"><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="FF3333"><font size="2"><font size="3"><font size="2"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="110" width="110" style="width:110px;height:110px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=26926553&path=2009/08/08&mycolor=000000&mycolor2=FF3333&mycolor3=000000&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=110&oh=110"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf" height="110" width="110" style="width:110px;height:110px" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=26926553&path=2009/08/08&mycolor=000000&mycolor2=FF3333&mycolor3=000000&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=110&oh=110"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br><font size="3">Soft is stronger than hard,<br>water stronger than rock,<br>love stronger than force.<br><br><font size="2">~ Hermann Hesse<br><br><br></font></font></font></font></font></font></div></center></div></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-63004828823615675502009-12-20T17:43:00.001-10:002009-12-20T17:45:25.174-10:00Transcendental Symmetry<br><center><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vYXJ4aXYub3JnL2h0bWwvZ3ItcWMvOTkxMTA1M3Y5" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Mistaken_Identity_by_ken_wong.jpg"></a><br><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="8FBE00"><br><br>T'ien-t'ung said in verse:<br><font size="4"><br>The totality of forms is so steep,<br>But passing through to infinity blocks the eyes.<br>Who has the strength to sweep out his garden?<br>Hidden in human hearts, it turns into feelings.<br>A boat crosses a rustic fjord, steeped in the azure of autumn,<br>Rowing into the reed flowers reflecting the light off the snow.<br>An old fisherman with a bolt of silk takes it to the market,<br>Floating lightly in the wind, a single leaf traverses the waves.<br><br><br><font face="papyrus" size="3" color="8FBE00"><br>The totality of forms is steep, but passing through to infinity blocks the eyes, this means that the way of the true Buddhist is through the world, not avoiding its difficulties, not plunging into oblivion in the absolute.<br><br>Who has the strength to sweep out his garden? The emptiness of the absolute is not realized by rejecting or denying things, or by trying to blank the mind.<br><br>Hidden in human hearts, it turns into feelings; if you become fixated upon "emptiness" as a principle or as a state of mind, this gives the sense of something there, which obstructs penetrating illumination of insight.<br><br>A boat crossing a rustic fjord steeped in the azure of autumn refers to stagnation in the stillness of the absolute; rowing into the reed flowers reflecting the light off the snow refers to being dazzled by direct perception of the absolute. Wan-sung quotes, "When pure light shines in your eyes, it seems you have missed your home; turning around in pure clarity, you fall into that state."<br><br>The last two lines describe what is known as "entering the marketplace with hands extended," transcending transcendence to re-enter the ordinary world, "not avoiding the wind and waves," neither rejecting nor denying things, realizing the nonresistance of the absolute without making that into an object either, being in the world but not of the world, free to come and go. <br><br>The Flower Ornament Scripture says, "Beings teach, lands teach, all things in all times teach, constantly, without interruption." Disputation is not the way to hear this teaching, while your emotions and your intellect are arguing back and forth, reality passes you by, as you "stumble past without being aware of it." <br><br>Emotions and intelligence are like shoes, which enable us to walk, to act efficiently, by cushioning us from the impact of the world at large. Emotion cushions us by alerting us to instinctive feelings of attraction and danger, while intelligence cushions us by enabling us to make sense of an otherwise chaotic world. <br><br><br><font size="2">{<i>Classic of Buddhism and Zen</i>, translated by Thomas Cleary}<br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmpvaG5hZ293YW4ub3JnLw==" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/I__ll_Be_Watching_You_by_Razriel.jpg"></a><br>{Images Linked/Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a>}<br><br><img border="0" width="0" height="0" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyNDc3NzY*NjIwNDMmcHQ9MTI*Nzc3NjQ2Njc*NSZwPTE4MDMxJmQ9Jmc9MSZvPWMxODQzMDJiOGQ1MDQ1NTk4YjIzM2Y*ZDhiNjRiZjA*.gif"><center><div><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="190" width="135"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-bear.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=25435316&path=2009/07/16&mycolor=F9F2E7&mycolor2=AEE239&mycolor3=8FBE00&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=135&oh=190"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-bear.swf" height="190" width="135" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=25435316&path=2009/07/16&mycolor=F9F2E7&mycolor2=AEE239&mycolor3=8FBE00&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=135&oh=190"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br><br><font size="3">Oneness is achieved by recognizing yourself.<br><br><font size="2">Yogi Bhajan</font></font></div><font size="3"><font size="2"></font></font></center><font size="3"><font size="2"></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="8FBE00"><font size="4"><font face="papyrus" size="3" color="8FBE00"></font></font></font></center><font face="baskerville" size="3" color="8FBE00"><font size="4"><font face="papyrus" size="3" color="8FBE00"></font></font></font><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-7730566021697879512009-12-20T17:42:00.001-10:002009-12-20T17:42:58.345-10:00Junk Food News<br><br><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><font face="chalkboard" size="3"><br>The late New York University media scholar Neil Postman once said about America, “We are the best entertained least informed society in the world.” Since the mid 1980’s, Project Censored has examined this phenomenon in the culture of the 24/7-television news cycle. Looking beyond what the corporate news media undercover or ignore, Project Censored surveys what they do spend precious airtime and column inches on while not covering the top censored stories or others in the public interest. Which news stories have been found consistently by such surveys in this so-called information age? “Junk Food News,” said Project Censored founder Dr. Carl Jensen. “It’s like a Twinkie, not very nourishing for the consumer.” This is how Jensen described it back in 1984 when he first began looking at how tabloid sensationalism had inundated the nightly news with the “Where’s the Beef” campaign. Jensen still considers Junk Food News a major problem in journalism and corporate media, particularly on today’s cable and television news. In that tradition, Project Censored “celebrates” the 25th anniversary of Junk Food News this year… <br><br><center>Please continue reading this article here: <br> <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnByb2plY3RjZW5zb3JlZC5vcmcvYXNzZXRzLW1hbmFnZWQvcGRmL0p1bmtfRm9vZF9OZXdzLnBkZg==" target="_blank">Junk_Food_News.pdf</a><br><br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vb3JhbmtpZGVzaWduLmNvbS9pbGx1c3RyYXRpb241Lmh0bWw=" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/brandweek_kansi_web.jpg"></a><br><font size="2">{<a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnByb2plY3RjZW5zb3JlZC5vcmcv" target="_blank">Source</a>/Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a>}</font></center><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></font></div>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-58468867098831906562009-12-20T17:41:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:42:04.044-10:00Home<br><br><br><br><center><br><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><font size="2" face="Helvetica"><br>*Click picture to watch movie...<br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnlvdXR1YmUuY29tL3dhdGNoP3Y9anF4RU5NS2FlQ1U=" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/awanttobelievefinal.jpg"></a><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><font size="3">"The more I learned of the intentions, successes, and advances of analysis, the more I had to realize that it could not have but an undermining effect on the existence that owed its strongest impulse precisely to the fact that it did not know itself, that by its own heavy and blessed secret it was inexhaustibly part of all the secrets of the world and even of Creation, and was secretly and magnanimously sustained from there."<br><br><font size="2">~<i>Rilke and Benvenuta: an Intimate Correspondence</i><br><br><br><br><br>{Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a>/<a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vZGF0YXByb2Nlc3NpbmdjZW50ZXIuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY29tLw==" target="_blank">DPC Blogger</a>/Music by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/planetboelex" target="_blank">Planet Boelex</a>}<br><br><img border="0" width="0" height="0" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyNDY*NzMxMDAyODgmcHQ9MTI*NjQ3MzEwMjI1MSZwPTE4MDMxJmQ9Jmc9MSZ*PSZvPWM1ZDJiNDk2MTIwOTRiOGE5Yzk5OGM2MjA3OWY3NWE*.gif"><center><div><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="110" width="110"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=24508797&path=2009/07/01&mycolor=FFFFFF&mycolor2=FFFFFF&mycolor3=FFFFFF&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=110&oh=110"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf" height="110" width="110" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=24508797&path=2009/07/01&mycolor=FFFFFF&mycolor2=FFFFFF&mycolor3=FFFFFF&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=110&oh=110"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></div></center></font></font></font></div></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-16530708048087624272009-12-20T17:39:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:41:08.194-10:00Pure and Glistening<br><br><br><center><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/catspaw_noao_big.jpg"><br /><br><font face="baskerville" size="2" color="DE1D0B">{NGC <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vYXBvZC5uYXNhLmdvdi9hcG9kL2FwMDgwMzA0Lmh0bWw=" target="_blank">6334</a>: The Cat's Paw Nebula}<br><br> <br /><br><br><font face="baskerville" size="4"><br />“If you will now and at all times, whether walking, standing sitting, or lying, only concentrate <br>on eliminating analytic thinking (mentation), at long last you will inevitably discover the truth. <br> Because your strength is insufficient, you may be unable to leap beyond the<br> phenomenal sphere with a single jump but, after three, five, or perhaps ten years, you will<br> certainly have made a good beginning and be able to go of your own accord. <br> It is because you are not capable of this [eliminating of analytic thinking (mentation)] that<br> [you feel] the necessity of using the mind to ‘study Dhyana’ and ‘study the Way.’ <br> How will the Dharma be able to help you? So it is said: ‘All that was spoken by the Tathagata<br> was for the purpose of influencing men.’ It was like using yellow leaves for gold to stop<br> the crying child, and was decidedly not real. If you take it for something real, you are not <br>one of our sect, and, moreover, what relation can it have to your real self? <br> So the sutra says: ‘[To know that] in reality there is not the smallest thing which<br> can be grasped is called supreme, perfect wisdom.’ If you can understand this meaning, <br>you will see that the Way of the Buddhas and the way of the devil are equally wrong.<br> In reality, everything is pure and glistening, neither square nor round, big nor small, long nor short; <br>it is beyond passion and phenomena, ignorance and Enlightenment.”<br><br><br>~Hsi Yun<br /><br /><br><br><br><br /><br><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="170" width="140" style="width:140px;height:170px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-ninja.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=23389493&path=2009/06/12&mycolor=A80807&mycolor2=DE1D0B&mycolor3=4DD1AA&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=140&oh=170"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-ninja.swf" height="170" width="140" style="width:140px;height:170px" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=23389493&path=2009/06/12&mycolor=A80807&mycolor2=DE1D0B&mycolor3=4DD1AA&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=140&oh=170"></embed><br /></object><br></div></center></font></font></center><font face="baskerville" size="2" color="DE1D0B"><font face="baskerville" size="2" color="DE1D0B"></font></font>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-32765105935989836132009-12-20T17:38:00.003-10:002009-12-20T17:39:56.353-10:00Silent Learning<br><br><br><br><br><center><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/4a355d62e-1f9c-4512-a519-6091a11ad7.jpg"><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vYWx0cGhvdG9zLmNvbS9HYWxsZXJ5LmFzcHg/JmE9TWVtYmVyR2FsbGVyeSZtZW1iZXJpZD0zMjY=" target="_blank">**</a><br><br><br><br /><br><br><br><br /><font face="baskerville" size="4"><br />"Death's grip can break our bodies, not our souls; <br><br />If death take him, I too know how to die. <br><br />Let Fate do with me what she will or can; <br><br />I am stronger than death and greater than my fate; <br><br />My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me <br><br />Helpless against my immortality."<br><br /><br><br><br><br /><font face="baskerville" size="2" color="666666">Sri Aurobindo, "Savitri"<br><br />Book VI: The Book of Fate Canto I<br>Programming by <a href="http://www.myspace.com/dataprocessingcenter" target="_blank">DPC</a><br><br><br><br /><br /><br /> <br><center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="190" width="135" style="width:135px;height:190px"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-bear.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="scale" value="noscale"></param><br /> <param name="salign" value="TL"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=23179645&path=2009/06/08&mycolor=000000&mycolor2=666666&mycolor3=000000&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=135&oh=190"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-bear.swf" height="190" width="135" style="width:135px;height:190px" wmode="transparent" quality="high" scale="noscale" salign="TL" flashvars="myid=23179645&path=2009/06/08&mycolor=000000&mycolor2=666666&mycolor3=000000&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=135&oh=190"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></div></center></font></font></center><font face="chalkboard" size="3"><font face="chalkboard" size="3"></font></font>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-68227463075457162552009-12-20T17:38:00.001-10:002009-12-20T17:38:52.095-10:00Brief Intermission<br><center><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/monument_pacholkaN-full.jpg"><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="155" width="218" align="middle" border="0"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/myflashfetish-mp3-player.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=10899081&path=2008/07/13&mycolor=682478&mycolor2=610875&mycolor3=7A2277&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=16"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/myflashfetish-mp3-player.swf" height="155" width="218" align="middle" border="0" wmode="transparent" quality="high" flashvars="myid=10899081&path=2008/07/13&mycolor=682478&mycolor2=610875&mycolor3=7A2277&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=16"></embed><br /></object><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br></div></center></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7151996988151432266.post-62191109889967847392009-12-20T17:37:00.000-10:002009-12-20T17:38:15.161-10:00To act accordingly and abundantly<br><center><div style="margin-left:100pt; margin-right:100pt"><br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vYXJjYW5lYWR2aXNvcnMuY29tL2FyY2hpdmVzL3JhamF5b2dhLnBkZg==" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/m-way.jpg"></a><br><br><font size="+1"><font face="Baskerville"><font color="FF3366">J. Krishnamurti<br><br>ATHENS, GREECE 1ST PUBLIC TALK 24TH SEPTEMBER 1956<br><br><br><font size="3">Question: What makes up a problem? And is any problem solved by dissecting it and finding its cause? <br><br>Krishnamurti: What is a problem? Please do not just wait for an answer from me. You are not merely listening to someone talking, but we are trying to find out together what creates a problem. You each have your own problems. How do they come into being? <br> <br>We have contradictory desires, do we not? I want to be rich, let us say, and at the same-time I know or have heard that wealth is detrimental to the discovery of truth. So there is a contradiction in my desires - the contradiction of wanting and not wanting. It is this conflict of contradictory desires in us that creates a problem, is it not? We have many contradictory desires, many conflicting pursuits, ambitions, urges, and all these contradictions create a problem. Now, can the mind ever resolve the problem of self-contradiction by imposing one desire on another? <br><br> Take hatred, for example. What causes hatred? Surely, one of the biggest factors is chauvinism; another is the sense of superiority or inferiority created by economic differences; still another is the division created between man and man by what are called religions. These are the principal causes of hatred, and they give rise to many other major problems in the world today. Knowing all this, can the individual free himself from hatred? This is where our difficulty lies, and if you will listen carefully I think you will see it. <br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vYXJjYW5lYWR2aXNvcnMuY29tL2FyY2hpdmVzL1RoZUFydG9mVHJ1ZUhlYWxpbmcucGRm" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Genesis.jpg"></a> <br><br> When I say "I know the cause of hatred", what do I mean by the words "I know"? Do I know it merely through the word, the intellect, or do I know it with the totality of my being? Am I aware of the root of hatred in myself, or do I know its cause only intellectually or emotionally? If the mind is totally aware of the problem, then there is freedom from the problem; but I cannot be aware of it with the totality of my being if I condemn the problem. It is very difficult for the mind not to condemn; but to understand a problem there must be no condemning of that problem, no comparing of it with another problem. <br><br> I do not think we realize that we are all the time either condemning or comparing. Let us not try to excuse ourselves, but just watch our daily life, and we shall see that we never think without judging, comparing, evaluating. We are always saying "This book is not as good as the other one", or "This man is better than that man; there is a constant process of comparison, through which we think we understand. But do we really understand through comparison? Or does understanding come only when one ceases to compare, and just observes? When your mind is integrated, you have no time to compare, have you? But the moment you compare, your attention has already moved elsewhere. When you say "This sunset is not as beautiful as that of yesterday", you do not really see the sunset, for your mind has wandered off to the memory of yesterday. <br><br> When the mind is capable of not condemning, not comparing, but merely examines the problem, then surely the problem has undergone a fundamental change; and then the problem ceases. Simple awareness is enough to put an end to the problem. <br><br> <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmphaW5pc20ub3JnLw==" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/on_the_edgejoe_tucciarone.jpg"></a> <br><br> What do we mean by awareness? If you observe your own mind you will see that it is always comparing, judging, condemning. When we condemn or compare, do we understand? If we condemn a child, or compare him with his brother, obviously we do not understand him. So, can the mind be simply aware of a problem, without condemning or comparing? This is extremely difficult, because from childhood we have been brought up to condemn and to compare. And can the mind cease to condemn and compare without being compelled? Surely, when the mind sees for itself that to condemn or to compare does not bring about understanding, then that very perception frees the mind from all condemnation and comparison. This means a complete separation of the mind from all traditions and beliefs. <br><br> To free one's mind in this deep sense requires a great deal of insight, because the mind is very easily influenced. It is always seeking security, not only in this world, in society, but also in the so-called spiritual world. If you go into the whole process of your own mind, you will see that this is so; and a mind that is seeking security can never be free. <br><br> To observe the total process of the mind without condemnation or comparison, to be conscious of it without judgement,to recognize and understand it from moment to moment - this is awareness, is it not? <br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vYXJjYW5lYWR2aXNvcnMuY29tL2FyY2hpdmVzL015c3RpY3Nfb2ZfSXNsYW0ucGRm" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/Fivebill.jpg"></a><br><br> You have listened to what is being said, and probably you either approve or disapprove of it, which means that you accept or reject it. But we are not just dealing with ideas, which can be accepted or rejected; we are not putting new ideas in the place of old ones. We are concerned with the totality of the mind, the totality of yourself, of your whole being, which cannot be approached through ideas. Please do not accept or reject, but try to find out, as you listen, how your own mind is operating. Then you will see that the mere observation of the process of the mind is in itself sufficient to bring about a fundamental transformation within the mind. <br><br> We see that there must be in us a radical change, and we think that we have to make an effort to bring it about. But any effort in that direction is merely another form of wanting a result, so we are back again in the same old process. What is necessary, surely, is not more control, more knowledge, but rather awareness of the totality of oneself, without any sense of condemnation or approval. Then you will find that the mind is renewed and absolutely still. For this an exceptional amount of energy is required; but it is not energy spent in the usual way, on comparison, on suppression, on the imposition of discipline, nor is it the energy acquired through prayer. It is the energy that comes with full attention. Every movement of thought in any direction is a waste of energy, and to be completely still the mind needs the energy of absolute attention. When the mind is alert, aware, wholly attentive, it becomes very quiet, very still; and only then is it possible for that which is immeasurable to come into being. <br> <br><br>September 24, 1956<br><br><br><a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmVubGlnaHRlbmVkYmVpbmdzLmNvbS9lbmxpZ2h0ZW5tZW50Lmh0bWw=" target="_blank"><img src="http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll32/dpc888/t_impact_1280-1-1.jpg"></a><br><br><font size="2">{Images Linked/Art by <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vbWVtYmVycy5hb2wuY29tL0lOVEVSU1RFTEwvYXJ0Lmh0bWw=" target="_blank">Joe Tucciarone</a>/Programming by <a href="http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3Lm15c3BhY2UuY29tL2RhdGFwcm9jZXNzaW5nY2VudGVy" target="_blank">DPC</a>}<br><br><br><br><br><br>[Page vi] <br>THE LORD BUDDHA HAS SAID<br><br><font size="3"><i>...that we must not believe in a thing said merely because it is said; nor traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity; nor rumors, as such; nor writings by sages, because sages wrote them: nor fancies that we may suspect to have been inspired in us by a Deva (that is, in presumed spiritual inspiration); nor from inferences drawn from some haphazard assumption we may have made; nor because of what seems an analogical necessity; nor on the mere authority of our teachers or masters. But we are to believe when the writing, doctrine, or saying is corroborated by our own reason and consciousness. "For this," says he in concluding, "I taught you not to believe merely because you have heard, but when you believed of your consciousness, then to act accordingly and abundantly."</i><br><br><font size="2">(Secret Doctrine, Vol. III, page 401.)<br><br> <center><div style="visibility:visible;"><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" height="110" width="110" align="middle" border="0"><br /> <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="never"></param><br /> <param name="allowNetworking" value="internal"></param><br /> <param name="movie" value="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf"></param><br /> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><br /> <param name="quality" value="high"></param><br /> <param name="flashvars" value="myid=10845213&path=2008/07/11&mycolor=FF3366&mycolor2=000000&mycolor3=FF3366&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0"></param><br /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="never" allownetworking="internal" src="http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/mff-circle.swf" height="110" width="110" align="middle" border="0" wmode="transparent" quality="high" flashvars="myid=10845213&path=2008/07/11&mycolor=FF3366&mycolor2=000000&mycolor3=FF3366&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0"></embed><br /></object><br></div></center></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div></center>DPChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00137672273074479940noreply@blogger.com