Data Processing Center

Soil Sex Third Eye Star

2010-11-26T12:54:00.004-10:00

Twelve Principles of Native American Philosophy

1. WHOLENESS. All things are interrelated. Everything in the universe
is part of a single whole. Everything is connected in some way to
everything else. It is only possible to understand something if we
understand how it is connected to everything else.

2. CHANGE. Everything is in a state of constant change. One season
falls upon the other. People are born, live, and die. All things
change. There are two kinds of change. The coming together of things
I and the coming apart of things. Both kinds of change are necessary
and are always connected to each other.

3. CHANGE OCCURS IN CYCLES OR PATTERNS. They are not random or
accidental. If we cannot see how a particular change is connected, it
usually means that our standpoint is affecting our perception.

4. THE PHYSICAL WORLD IS REAL. THE SPIRITUAL WORLD IS REAL.
They are two aspects of one reality. There are separate laws which govern
each. Breaking of a spiritual principle will affect the physical
world and visa versa. A balanced life is one that honors both.

5. PEOPLE ARE PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL BEINGS.

6. PEOPLE CAN ACQUIRE NEW GIFTS, BUT THEY MUST STRUGGLE TO DO SO.
The process of developing new personal qualities may be called "true
learning."

7. THERE ARE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF TRUE LEARNING.
A person learns in a whole and balanced manner when the mental, spiritual, physical, and
emotional dimensions are involved in the process.

8. THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT HAS FOUR RELATED CAPACITIES:

* the capacity to have and to respond to dreams, visions,
ideals, spiritual teachings, goals and theories.
* the capacity to accept these as a reflection of our unknown
or unrealized potential.
* the capacity to express these using symbols in speech, art
or mathematics.
* the capacity to use this symbolic expression towards action
directed at making the possible a reality.

9. PEOPLE MUST ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THEIR OWN POTENTIAL.

10. A PERSON MUST DECIDE TO DEVELOP THEIR OWN POTENTIAL.
The path will always be there for those who decide to travel it.

11. ANY PERSON WHO SETS OUT ON A JOURNEY OF SELF-DEVELOPMENT WILL BE AIDED
. Guides, teachers, and protectors will assist the traveler.

12. THE ONLY SOURCE OF FAILURE IS A PERSON'S OWN FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE TEACHINGS.

~source

Primal Religions

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)

The following are some important differences between primal and modern religions and world-views:

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).

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.

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).

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.

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.

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)

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.

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."

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 Indians – proclaiming the equality of all living things."

~source

Paintings By: Susan Seddon-Boulet
Content from Soil Sex Third Eye Star
Additional Programming by DPC

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

2010-01-25T22:38:00.001-10:00

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
The Threads of Union

Translation by BonGiovanni

1. on Contemplations
2. on Spiritual Disciplines
3. on Divine Powers
4. on Realizations

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.

1.1 Now, instruction in Union.

1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.

1.3. Then the seer dwells in his own nature.

1.4. Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.

1.5. The thought-streams are five-fold, painful and not painful.

1.6. Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, fancy, sleep and memory.

1.7. Right knowledge is inference, tradition and genuine cognition.

1.8. Wrong knowledge is false, illusory, erroneous beliefs or notions.

1.9. Fancy is following after word-knowledge empty of substance.

1.10. Deep sleep is the modification of the mind which has for its substratum nothingness.

1.11. Memory is not allowing mental impressions to escape.

1.12. These thought-streams are controlled by practice and non-attachment.

1.13. Practice is the effort to secure steadiness.

1.14. This practice becomes well-grounded when continued with reverent devotion and without interruption over a long period of time.

1.15. Desirelessness towards the seen and the unseen gives the consciousness of mastery.

1.16. This is signified by an indifference to the three attributes, due to knowledge of the Indweller.

1.17. Cognitive meditation is accompanied by reasoning, discrimination, bliss and the sense of 'I am.'

1.18. There is another meditation which is attained by the practice of alert mental suspension until only subtle impressions remain.

1.19. For those beings who are formless and for those beings who are merged in unitive consciousness, the world is the cause.

1.20. For others, clarity is preceded by faith, energy, memory and equalminded contemplation.

1.21. Equalminded contemplation is nearest to those whose desire is most ardent.

1.22. There is further distinction on account of the mild, moderate or intense means employed.

1.23. Or by surrender to God.

1.24. God is a particular yet universal indweller, untouched by afflictions, actions, impressions and their results.

1.25. In God, the seed of omniscience is unsurpassed.

1.26. Not being conditioned by time, God is the teacher of even the ancients.

1.27. God's voice is Om.

1.28. The repetition of Om should be made with an understanding of its meaning.

1.29. From that is gained introspection and also the disappearance of obstacles.

1.30. Disease, inertia, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, laziness, sensuality, mind-wandering, missing the point, instability- these distractions of the mind are the obstacles.

1.31. Pain, despair, nervousness, and disordered inspiration and expiration are co-existent with these obstacles.

1.32. For the prevention of the obstacles, one truth should be practiced constantly.

1.33. By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.

1.34. Optionally, mental equanimity may be gained by the even expulsion and retention of energy.

1.35. Or activity of the higher senses causes mental steadiness.

1.36. Or the state of sorrowless Light.

1.37. Or the mind taking as an object of concentration those who are freed of compulsion.

1.38. Or depending on the knowledge of dreams and sleep.

1.39. Or by meditation as desired.

1.40. The mastery of one in Union extends from the finest atomic particle to the greatest infinity.

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.

1.42. The argumentative condition is the confused mixing of the word, its right meaning, and knowledge.

1.43. When the memory is purified and the mind shines forth as the object alone, it is called non-argumentative.

1.44. In this way the meditative and the ultra-meditative having the subtle for their objects are also described.

1.45. The province of the subtle terminates with pure matter that has no pattern or distinguishing mark.

1.46. These constitute seeded contemplations.

1.47. On attaining the purity of the ultra-meditative state there is the pure flow of spiritual consciousness.

1.48. Therein is the faculty of supreme wisdom.

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.

1.50. The habitual pattern of thought stands in the way of other impressions.

1.51. With the suppression of even that through the suspension of all modifications of the mind, contemplation without seed is attained.

End Part One.

Part Two

on Spiritual Disciplines

2.1 Austerity, the study of sacred texts, and the dedication of action to God constitute the discipline of Mystic Union.

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.

2.3 The five afflictions are ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and the desire to cling to life.

2.4 Ignorance is the breeding place for all the others whether they are dormant or attenuated, partially overcome or fully operative.

2.5 Ignorance is taking the non-eternal for the eternal, the impure for the pure, evil for good and non-self as self.

2.6 Egoism is the identification of the power that knows with the instruments of knowing.

2.7 Attachment is that magnetic pattern which clusters in pleasure and pulls one towards such experience.

2.8 Aversion is the magnetic pattern which clusters in misery and pushes one from such experience.

2.9 Flowing by its own energy, established even in the wise and in the foolish, is the unending desire for life.

2.10 These patterns when subtle may be removed by developing their contraries.

2.11 Their active afflictions are to be destroyed by meditation.

2.12 The impressions of works have their roots in afflictions and arise as experience in the present and the future births.

2.13 When the root exists, its fruition is birth, life and experience.

2.14 They have pleasure or pain as their fruit, according as their cause be virtue or vice.

2.15 All is misery to the wise because of the pains of change, anxiety, and purificatory acts.

2.16 The grief which has not yet come may be avoided.

2.17 The cause of the avoidable is the superimposition of the external world onto the unseen world.

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.

2.19 The stages of the attributes effecting the experienced world are the specialized and the unspecialized, the differentiated and the undifferentiated.

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.

2.21 The very existence of the seen is for the sake of the seer.

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.

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.

2.24 The cause of the association is ignorance.

2.25 Liberation of the seer is the result of the dissassociation of the seer and the seen, with the disappearance of ignorance.

2.26 The continuous practice of discrimination is the means of attaining liberation.

2.27 Steady wisdom manifests in seven stages.

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.

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.

2.30 Self-restraint in actions includes abstention from violence, from falsehoods, from stealing, from sexual engagements, and from acceptance of gifts.

2.31 These five willing abstentions are not limited by rank, place, time or circumstance and constitute the Great Vow.

2.32 The fixed observances are cleanliness, contentment, austerity, study and persevering devotion to God.

2.33 When improper thoughts disturb the mind, there should be constant pondering over the opposites.

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.

2.35 When one is confirmed in non-violence, hostility ceases in his presence.

2.36 When one is firmly established in speaking truth, the fruits of action become subservient to him.

2.37 All jewels approach him who is confirmed in honesty.

2.38 When one is confirmed in celibacy, spiritual vigor is gained.

2.39 When one is confirmed in non-possessiveness, the knowledge of the why and how of existence is attained.

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.

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.

2.42 Supreme happiness is gained via contentment.

2.43 Through sanctification and the removal of impurities, there arise special powers in the body and senses.

2.44 By study comes communion with the Lord in the Form most admired.

2.45 Realization is experienced by making the Lord the motive of all actions.

2.46 The posture should be steady and comfortable.

2.47 In effortless relaxation, dwell mentally on the Endless with utter attention.

2.48 From that there is no disturbance from the dualities.

2.49 When that exists, control of incoming and outgoing energies is next.

2.50 It may be external, internal, or midway, regulated by time, place, or number, and of brief or long duration.

2.51 Energy-control which goes beyond the sphere of external and internal is the fourth level- the vital.

2.52 In this way, that which covers the light is destroyed.

2.53 Thus the mind becomes fit for concentration.

2.54 When the mind maintains awareness, yet does not mingle with the senses, nor the senses with sense impressions, then self-awareness blossoms.

2.55 In this way comes mastery over the senses.

Part Three

on Divine Powers

3.1 One-pointedness is steadfastness of the mind.

3.2 Unbroken continuation of that mental ability is meditation.

3.3 That same meditation when there is only consciousness of the object of meditation and not of the mind is realization.

3.4 The three appearing together are self-control.

3.5 By mastery comes wisdom.

3.6 The application of mastery is by stages.

3.7 The three are more efficacious than the restraints.

3.8 Even that is external to the seedless realization.

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.

3.10 From sublimation of this union comes the peaceful flow of unbroken unitive cognition.

3.11 The contemplative transformation of this is equalmindedness, witnessing the rise and destruction of distraction as well as one-pointedness itself.

3.12 The mind becomes one-pointed when the subsiding and rising thought-waves are exactly similar.

3.13 In this state, it passes beyond the changes of inherent characteristics, properties and the conditional modifications of object or sensory recognition.

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.

3.15 The succession of these changes in that entity is the cause of its modification.

3.16 By self-control over these three-fold changes (of property, character and condition), knowledge of the past and the future arises.

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.

3.18 By self-control on the perception of mental impressions, knowledge of previous lives arises.

3.19 By self-control on any mark of a body, the wisdom of the mind activating that body arises.

3.20 By self-control on the form of a body, by suspending perceptibility and separating effulgence therefrom, there arises invisibility and inaudibilty.

3.21 Action is of two kinds, dormant and fruitful. By self-control on such action, one portends the time of death.

3.22 By performing self-control on friendliness, the strength to grant joy arises.

3.23 By self-control over any kind of strength, such as that of the elephant, that very strength arises.

3.24 By self-control on the primal activator comes knowledge of the hidden, the subtle, and the distant.

3.25 By self-control on the Sun comes knowledge of spatial specificities.

3.26 By self-control on the Moon comes knowledge of the heavens.

3.27 By self-control on the Polestar arises knowledge of orbits.

3.28 By self-control on the navel arises knowledge of the constitution of the body.

3.29 By self-control on the pit of the throat one subdues hunger and thirst.

3.30 By self-control on the tube within the chest one acquires absolute steadiness.

3.31 By self-control on the light in the head one envisions perfected beings.

3.32 There is knowledge of everything from intuition.

3.33 Self-control on the heart brings knowledge of the mental entity.

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.

3.35 This spontaneous enlightenment results in intuitional perception of hearing, touching, seeing and smelling.

3.36 To the outward turned mind, the sensory organs are perfections, but are obstacles to realization.

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.

3.38 By self-control of the nerve-currents utilising the lifebreath, one may levitate, walk on water, swamps, thorns, or the like.

3.39 By self-control over the maintenance of breath, one may radiate light.

3.40 By self-control on the relation of the ear to the ether one gains distant hearing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

3.45 Perfection of the body consists in beauty, grace, strength and adamantine hardness.

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.

3.47 From that come swiftness of mind, independence of perception, and mastery over primoridal matter.

3.48 To one who recognizes the distinctive relation between vitality and indweller comes omnipotence and omniscience.

3.49 Even for the destruction of the seed of bondage by desirelessness there comes absolute independence.

3.50 When invited by invisible beings one should be neither flattered nor satisfied, for there is yet a possibility of ignorance rising up.

3.51 By self-control over single moments and their succession there is wisdom born of discrimination.

3.52 From that there is recognition of two similars when that difference cannot be distinguished by class, characteristic or position.

3.53 Intuition, which is the entire discriminative knowledge, relates to all objects at all times, and is without succession.

3.54 Liberation is attained when there is equal purity between vitality and the indweller.

End Part Three

Part Four

on Realizations

4.1 Psychic powers arise by birth, drugs, incantations, purificatory acts or concentrated insight.

4.2 Transformation into another state is by the directed flow of creative nature.

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.

4.4 Created minds arise from egoism alone.

4.5 There being difference of interest, one mind is the director of many minds.

4.6 Of these, the mind born of concentrated insight is free from the impressions.

4.7 The impressions of unitive cognition are neither good nor bad. In the case of the others, there are three kinds of impressions.

4.8 From them proceed the development of the tendencies which bring about the fruition of actions.

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.

4.10 The desire to live is eternal, and the thought-clusters prompting a sense of identity are beginningless.

4.11 Being held together by cause and effect, substratum and object- the tendencies themselves disappear on the dissolution of these bases.

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.

4.13 Whether manifested or unmanifested they are of the nature of the attributes.

4.14 Things assume reality because of the unity maintained within that modification.

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.

4.16 And if an object known only to a single mind were not cognized by that mind, would it then exist?

4.17 An object is known or not known by the mind, depending on whether or not the mind is colored by the object.

4.18 The mutations of awareness are always known on account of the changelessness of its Lord, the indweller.

4.19 Nor is the mind self-luminous, as it can be known.

4.20 It is not possible for the mind to be both the perceived and the perceiver simultaneously.

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.

4.22 Consciousness appears to the mind itself as intellect when in that form in which it does not pass from place to place.

4.23 The mind is said to perceive when it reflects both the indweller (the knower) and the objects of perception (the known).

4.24 Though variegated by innumerable tendencies, the mind acts not for itself but for another, for the mind is of compound substance.

4.25 For one who sees the distinction, there is no further confusing of the mind with the self.

4.26 Then the awareness begins to discriminate, and gravitates towards liberation.

4.27 Distractions arise from habitual thought patterns when practice is intermittent.

4.28 The removal of the habitual thought patterns is similar to that of the afflictions already described.

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.

4.30 From this there follows freedom from cause and effect and afflictions.

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.

4.32 Then the sequence of change in the three attributes comes to an end, for they have fulfilled their function.

4.33 The sequence of mutation occurs in every second, yet is comprehensible only at the end of a series.

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.

The end of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
*source*
programming by DPC

Nobody

2010-01-18T23:54:00.008-10:00

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.

OSHO

{image linked/programming by DPC}

excerpt from Dhammapada

2010-01-14T12:27:00.008-10:00

All beings tremble before violence.
All fear death.
All love life.

See yourself in others.
Then whom can you hurt?
What harm can you do?

He who seeks happiness
By hurting those who seek happiness
Will never find happiness.

For your brother is like you.
He wants to be happy.
Never harm him
And when you leave this life
You too will find happiness.

~
excerpt from Dhammapada
translated by Thomas Byron

art by Peretti Sibylle/programming by DPC

Twelve Understandings

2009-12-20T17:59:00.001-10:00

Twelve Understandings

1. You will receive a body.
You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons.
You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called Life.
Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons.
You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.
Growth is a process of trial and error: experimentation.
The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."

4. A lesson is repeated until learned.
A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it.
When you have learned it, you can then go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end.
There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons.
If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better than "here."
When your "there" has become a "here,"
you will simply obtain another "there"
that will again look better than "here."

7. Others are merely mirrors of you.
You cannot love or hate something about another person
unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you.
You have all the tools and resources you need.
What you do with them is up to you.
The choice is yours.

9. Life is exactly what you think it is.
You create a life that matches your beliefs and expectations.

10. Your answers lie inside you.
The answers to life's questions lie inside you.
All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

11. You will forget all this.

12. You can remember it whenever you want.

DPC

Immutable

2009-12-20T17:58:00.000-10:00

...consciousness is not a product of matter,
and is instead a symptom of the soul.
all living beings, are distinct from their current body,
the nature of the soul being eternal,
immutable and indestructible without any particular beginning or end....

***

An Ode to the Tree People

2009-12-20T17:56:00.000-10:00

Editor’s note: Bob was a force to be reckoned with. Whether they agreed with him or not, people read “Observations from the Edge.” 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.

***

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

With that observation, allow me
to self-indulge with a poem written in honor of those who fight and plant trees.

Plant an oak, save the world.

Who are the people who speak for the trees

Giving them voice from root tip to leaves

I know they are out there

I’ve heard the tales

Of proud David Chain and Julia Butterfly Hill

A redwood named Luna

Watched her friends fall

Victims of the greed

Now killing us all

Victims of indifference

Trees continue to fall

As the climate changes

And biodiversity fades

Planet is diminished

As the trees fall away

Where are the warriors

Who will fight for the trees

Knowing full well without trees we’re not free

Humans are primates

We came from the trees

Before braving the grassland

And our now history

Thuggish and brutish

Forests were cleared

To make room for the primates

Who hold nothing dear

Happy to cut down

Trees, as long as they’re there

Well, I’ll speak for the tree people

And count them as friends

This warrior undaunted a message will send

In the green revolution

Allies stand tall and take to the trees

Spreading the call

Trees are our future

Trees built our past

Trees must become sacred

If mankind is to last

So all hail the tree people

Those that fight for the trees

Those that understand ethics

Beyond avarice and greed

A battle is coming

Pitting man against man

Man against nature

So do as you can

It’s time to take sides

Not just do as you please

Make no mistake

I stand with the trees.

An Ode to the Tree People by Bob Nanninga
Bob Tree Painting by Vanessa Lemen

*k

2009-12-20T17:55:00.002-10:00

Even if I now saw you
Only once,
I would long for you
Through worlds,
Worlds.

Izumi Shikibu (c.974)

***

music by The Helio Sequence
programming by DPC

Revolver

2009-12-20T17:55:00.001-10:00

One constructs being and nirvana by oneself;

In vain do people fetter themselves.

I don't know the inconceivable yogi;

How can birth and death exist?

Where there is birth, there is death;

Living and dying have no difference.

Whoever is apprehensive of birth and death here

Should desire the rejuvenating elixir.

Whoever roams the universe, even the heavens

Never becomes free of old age and death.

Whether action's caused by birth, or birth by action,

Saraha says, the Truth is inconceivable.

One constructs being and nirvana by oneself;

In vain do people fetter themselves.

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."

I don't know the inconceivable yogi;

How can birth and death exist?

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."

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.

Where there is birth, there is death;

Living and dying have no difference.

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 Dhammapada, Buddha said, "What attachment is there when one has seen these white bones as like gourds discarded in autumn?"

Whoever is apprehensive of birth and death here

Should desire the rejuvenating elixir.

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?"

Whoever roams the universe, even the heavens

Never becomes free of old age and death.

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."

Whether action's caused by birth, or birth by action,

Saraha says, the Truth is inconceivable.

The Flower Ornament Scripture 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."

{Programming by DPC}

the Unspoken

2009-12-20T17:54:00.001-10:00

Clearing Away the Unreal

2009-12-20T17:53:00.000-10:00

Even if there is anything beyond nirvana,
I say it too is like a dream illusion...

~an ancient sage

s.

2009-12-20T17:52:00.000-10:00

the silence
of nature
within.

the power within
the power

without.

the path is whatever passes---no
end in itself.

the end is,
grace---ease---

healing,
not saving.

singing
the proof

the proof of the power within.

{Without, by Gary Synder}

[Picture Linked/Programming by DPC]

It is rare to hear the truth even in immense eons,

that is why adepts and virtuous ones of the past forgot their bodies,

or even lost their bodies, for the sake of truth.

There certainly is a meaning to this.

Ordinary human beings, animals, ants, mosquitoes,

outsiders with erroneous views, all have bodies and life,

but as long as they have not yet heard the truth

they cannot be honored or esteemed.

For innumerable lives, birth after birth,

how many times have they been embodied?

Yet theirs is not yet a good life.

If one gets to hear the truth,

that is a good life.

~
excerpt from Universal Book of Eternal Peace
translated by Thomas Cleary for Shambhala Publications, Inc.
ISBN 1-59030-220-6

Censored 2010

2009-12-20T17:51:00.000-10:00

{Programming by DPC}

The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2009: Read Here

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. http://www.projectcensored.org/, Censored 2010 will be available for shipping of pre-orders in early September.

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.

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.

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.

Then there is 9/11 -- 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.

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, http://mediafreedom.pnn.com/5174-independent-news-sources, and our daily blog at, http://dailycensored.com/. Benchmark each of these sites on your desktop and stay abreast of the current news not covered in the corporate media.

Power To The People

Heartfulness

2009-12-20T17:50:00.002-10:00

"So the heart is the beginning of life, the Sun of the Microcosm,
even as the Sun deserves to be call'd the heart of the world;
for it is the heart by whose virtue and pulsation the blood is moved,
perfected, made apt to nourish, and is preserved from corruption and coagulation;
it is the household divinity which, discharging its function, nourishes, cherishes,
quickens the whole body, and is indeed the foundation of life, the source of all action."

~ William Harvey, 1628

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.

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.

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)!

From early days,
Beginning not long after that first time
In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch,
I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart
I have endeavor'd to display the means
Whereby this infant sensibility,
Great birthright of our Being, was in me
Augmented and sustain'd.

~ William Wordsworth (1850), The Prelude

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....

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 "there is no truth without love" 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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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 the razors edge 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.

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.

~ Towards A Center-Point, by Brennpunkt of the DPC

The paved highway of belief through touch
And sight leads straightest into the human heart
And the precints of the mind.

~ Lucretius (c. 60 B.C.), De Rerum Natura

The Connective Tissue of Transformation

2009-12-20T17:50:00.001-10:00

"When we command movement of an arm or a leg
we establish all the conditions to effect
movement of several long levers in organized action.
The wisdom lies not in man's "command,"
but in the various systems cooperating with
the neuromuscular mechanisms to establish right conditions."

~Mabel Ellsworth Todd, The Thinking Body

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.

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.

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.

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 The Question of King Milinda, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

{A Heart As Wide As The World, by Sharon Salzberg}

{Images Linked/Programming by DPC}

"In a real sense, all of life is interrelated.
All persons are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality,
tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
I can never be what I ought to be
until you are what you ought to be,
and you can never be what you ought to be
until I am what I ought to be.
This is the interrelated structure of reality."

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

A temporary name...

2009-12-20T17:47:00.000-10:00

A person able to decipher their meaning properly
would soon be able to dispense with the written
or the spoken word altogether.
The more I think of it, there is something futile,
mediocre, even (I am tempted to say) foppish about speech.
By contrast, how the gravity of Nature and the silence startle you,
when you stand face to face with her, undistracted,
before a barren ridge or in the desolation of ancient hills.

(Goethe)

The Scripture on Infinite Light says,
"Rivers, lakes, birds, trees, and forests all invoke Buddha, Truth, and Communion."

In a moment of awareness without discrimination, great wisdom appears.
This is like pouring water
into the ocean, like working a bellows in the wind.

Furthermore, how do you discriminate?
"Buddha" is a temporary name for what cannot be seen when you look,
what cannot be heard when you listen,
whose place of origin and passing away cannot be found when you search.

It covers form and sound, pervades sky and earth, penetrates above and below.
There is no second view, no second person, no second thought.
It is everywhere, in everything, not something external.

This is why the single source of all awareness is called "Buddha."

It doesn't change when the body deteriorates, it is always there.
But you still cannot use what is always there. Why?
Because, as the saying goes,
"Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes it obstructs vision."
Although buddhahood is wonderful, if you are obsessed with it it becomes a sickness.

An early Zen master said,
"It is not mind, not Buddha, not a thing -- what is it?"
This says it all.
It has brought us the diamond sword that cuts all obsessions.

Another classical Zen master said,
"The slightest entangling thought can cause hellish actions;
a flash of feeling can chain you indefinitely.
Just end ordinary feelings,
and there is no special perception of sages to seek
-- the perception of sages appears where ordinary feelings end."

To learn to be a Buddha,
first you should break through the seeds of habit with great determination,
and then be aware of cause and effect so that you fear to do wrong.
Transcend all mental objects, stop all rumination.
Don't let either good or bad thoughts enter into your thinking,
forget about both Buddhism and things of the world.
Let go of body and mind, like letting go over a cliff.
Be like space, not producing subjective thoughts of life and death, or any signs of discrimination.
If you have any views at all, cut them right off and don't let them continue.

The Perception of Sages, by Zen Master Xiatang

translated by Thomas Cleary

{Programming by DPC}

?

2009-12-20T17:45:00.000-10:00

What we see is not Nature,
but Nature exposed to our method of questioning .

~ W. C. Heisenberg

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.'

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.

There is a convoluted belief about self-discipline that many of us have taken on.

The Belief
"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!"

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.

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!

There are two kinds of self-discipline:

1. Strict, harsh, and punishing.
"Do not give in to weakness."
"Your lack of resolve is pathetic."
"Push ahead no matter what."
"You're a failure if you quit."

2. Supported, assisted, and nurtured.
"I will not abandon myself no matter what."
"Deep down this is what I really want."
"I will ask for help if I need it."
"I know I cannot fail if I do this with love."

The first is familiar to us all.

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.

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.

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.

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."

Conditioned Mind

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.

Everything you have attempted for as long as you can remember has been under the direction of a socially and karmically conditioned mind.

"You may now safely turn off your human..."

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.

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."

That's it! That's the voice.

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.

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.

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.

So the question is not
"How do I become more disciplined?"
The question is
"How do I learn to live in the present?"

Making A Change For Good, by Cheri Huber

{Art by John Powell/Programming by DPC}

Soft is stronger than hard,
water stronger than rock,
love stronger than force.

~ Hermann Hesse

Transcendental Symmetry

2009-12-20T17:43:00.001-10:00

T'ien-t'ung said in verse:

The totality of forms is so steep,
But passing through to infinity blocks the eyes.
Who has the strength to sweep out his garden?
Hidden in human hearts, it turns into feelings.
A boat crosses a rustic fjord, steeped in the azure of autumn,
Rowing into the reed flowers reflecting the light off the snow.
An old fisherman with a bolt of silk takes it to the market,
Floating lightly in the wind, a single leaf traverses the waves.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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.

{Classic of Buddhism and Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary}

{Images Linked/Programming by DPC}

Oneness is achieved by recognizing yourself.

Yogi Bhajan

Junk Food News

2009-12-20T17:42:00.001-10:00

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…

Please continue reading this article here:
Junk_Food_News.pdf

{Source/Programming by DPC}

Home

2009-12-20T17:41:00.000-10:00

*Click picture to watch movie...

"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."

~Rilke and Benvenuta: an Intimate Correspondence

{Programming by DPC/DPC Blogger/Music by Planet Boelex}

Pure and Glistening

2009-12-20T17:39:00.000-10:00

{NGC 6334: The Cat's Paw Nebula}

“If you will now and at all times, whether walking, standing sitting, or lying, only concentrate
on eliminating analytic thinking (mentation), at long last you will inevitably discover the truth.
Because your strength is insufficient, you may be unable to leap beyond the
phenomenal sphere with a single jump but, after three, five, or perhaps ten years, you will
certainly have made a good beginning and be able to go of your own accord.
It is because you are not capable of this [eliminating of analytic thinking (mentation)] that
[you feel] the necessity of using the mind to ‘study Dhyana’ and ‘study the Way.’
How will the Dharma be able to help you? So it is said: ‘All that was spoken by the Tathagata
was for the purpose of influencing men.’ It was like using yellow leaves for gold to stop
the crying child, and was decidedly not real. If you take it for something real, you are not
one of our sect, and, moreover, what relation can it have to your real self?
So the sutra says: ‘[To know that] in reality there is not the smallest thing which
can be grasped is called supreme, perfect wisdom.’ If you can understand this meaning,
you will see that the Way of the Buddhas and the way of the devil are equally wrong.
In reality, everything is pure and glistening, neither square nor round, big nor small, long nor short;
it is beyond passion and phenomena, ignorance and Enlightenment.”

~Hsi Yun

Silent Learning

2009-12-20T17:38:00.003-10:00

**

"Death's grip can break our bodies, not our souls;

If death take him, I too know how to die.

Let Fate do with me what she will or can;

I am stronger than death and greater than my fate;

My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me

Helpless against my immortality."

Sri Aurobindo, "Savitri"

Book VI: The Book of Fate Canto I
Programming by DPC

Brief Intermission

2009-12-20T17:38:00.001-10:00

To act accordingly and abundantly

2009-12-20T17:37:00.000-10:00

J. Krishnamurti

ATHENS, GREECE 1ST PUBLIC TALK 24TH SEPTEMBER 1956

Question: What makes up a problem? And is any problem solved by dissecting it and finding its cause?

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

September 24, 1956

{Images Linked/Art by Joe Tucciarone/Programming by DPC}

[Page vi]
THE LORD BUDDHA HAS SAID

...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."

(Secret Doctrine, Vol. III, page 401.)

Viewpoint 135,009,324,546: On Self Contentment

2009-12-20T17:36:00.000-10:00

Self-contentment gives a man the power to control any of his attraction towards the wrong path.
If a person is not self-satisfied, he will always have ever increasing greed.
Even control over the universe would not give him satisfaction.

*

One thing is certain: no one who has ideals and imagination can be happy and content
merely in the personality. The personality gets hurt, suffers, is frustrated, angry, etc.

It has aspirations of some kind or other and is by no means content with whatever comes pass.
Therefore, happiness and contentment come from something in us which is not affected
by the personality. We can call this "something" Manas in the body—not higher or lower Manas,
but that consciousness or awareness in us which is able to analyse and commune with itself
from its already known premises, and therefore to understand what is happening around
and within its vehicles of emotion, desire, etc., without being coloured or absorbed by them.

When, for example, things go wrong, when adversity besets us, we have to make our mind
steady and undisturbed. Only then can we view these troubles without letting
the emotions of anxiety, fear and anger arise, and when these do not arise,
contentment, if not happiness, results.

How can we view adversity with such equanimity unless we have realized, to some extent,
that there is that centre in us, the Self, which is beyond these happenings and which is
not fundamentally anxious that this or that should or should not happen, is not
fearful of what may happen, or angry at whatever does happen! Let us search for
the root of these emotions. We learn that the first thing to forsake is "desire"—not just one
desire, but every desire that enters into our heart. Heart here stands for the seat
of emotions and is not to be confused with the mind or thinking faculty.
If we are asked to forsake every desire that arises from the emotions, then we must be
distinct and separate from those desires that are thought-produced and emotion-produced.
To realize this, is the first stage.

A later stage is reached when we go beyond our present thought-world.
To find who we are, we have by effort to get to some point within us which remains
undisturbed by our ordinary daily life of feeling-thought.
There must be such a centre, for what happens in daily life to desires,
emotions, etc., shows us a permanent aspect of our being which goes
through all such daily happenings. We know that all passes away in time,
that we move on to new surroundings each day, new desires arise,
new difficulties crop up, but the same we experiences them. We, therefore,
are not the desire, nor the anger, nor the anxiety, nor the fear that we experience; we remain
separate from all these thoughts and feelings unless we become absorbed by them.

Thus, in time, we come to understand that no happenings, whether favourable or unfavourable,
can really affect us if we are not too anxious, or fearful, or angry, about
the results of actions. Hence we are told not to think of happenings as favourable
or unfavourable, pleasant or unpleasant, good or evil. In time we shall be happy—not
emotionally excited, but at peace and without anxiety, fear, or anger, quietly accepting
all that comes, content and unruffled. The really happy person is not bothered whether
things are going well or ill, for with his personal desires and dislikes at rest he
receives all with an equal mind.

Likes and dislikes originate in the senses and organs. What the senses like, we call pleasure;
what they do not like, we call pain. The senses have become the agents of
mind-desire activity. We are thus led away by our senses instead of controlling them
and getting from them just the help we need in our evolution. Having let them go
astray, we now must begin to control them. The senses and organs are the horses that
draw the chariot and that run away with it (producing disease, pain, etc.) and also
with the driver of the chariot, leading him into all kinds of difficulties. Hence the
advice to withdraw them from their wonted purposes or sensations, and make them
draw our chariot where we will.

But even this control is not enough; it may lead to hatha-yoga. The further stage is to
understand what being happy and content "through the Self" means. Beyond that
which we call "I" is the power and strength and wisdom of the Self whose ray the "I"
in the body is. It is only when the "I" turns towards this Self that the real wisdom
of that Self can manifest. Tranquility of thought comes when the heart is obedient to the will,
when the "I" realizes that it is no longer the actor or possessor of anything,
even though it acts without covetousness, selfishness or pride, having abandoned all
desires. Desires will still arise in the heart, but they will no longer affect the person
or disturb him, because they are not mind-fostered. If we realize that desires,
lusts, etc., can never be gratified to the full, for they ever keep growing,
we shall see their falsity and shall let them die as they arise in the mind.

Ceasing to be obsessed by desires and emotions, the "I" is able to become the instrument
of the Self whose ray it is. It then begins to "embrace wisdom from all sides."

src

{Images linked/Programming by DPC}

In and Out

2009-12-20T17:35:00.002-10:00

All sages since remote antiquity
have entered the pit of life and death,
gone into the fire of ignorance,
to help people out.
What about you?
How do you enter?

If people can enter,
this can be called not burning in fire,
not drowning in water.

If people cannot enter,
they not only cannot help themselves,
they cannot help others.

*Zen Master Huanglong*

{Programming by DPC/DPC Blogger}

Anahata opening...

2009-12-20T17:35:00.001-10:00

This meditation focuses on the fourth chakra, the heart.
It is represented by the color green.

Posture & Mudra
Sit in easy pose with your spine straight. Bend your elbows and lift your hands up in front of your chest, facing each other but not touching. Allow the palms to look up toward the sky and spread the fingers wide apart. Keep the fingers stretched out as antennas of energy and visualize your heart opening up. Fill your heart with a glowing green light.

Affirmation
I open my heart to myself, release the sorrow, and replace it with the pure light of love.

Breath
Long, deep and slow breathing.

Focus
Close your eyes and focus on the third eye, look at the point between the eyebrow with your physical eyes. Roll your eyes upwards 30degrees creating a slight tension on the optical nerve.

Duration
Continue for 5-11 minutes. With practice the time may be expanded to 31 and 62 minutes. For maximum results, repeat for 40 consecutive days for at least five minutes.

Source: www.gongmaster.org

{Images linked/Programming by DPC}

Viewpoint 1,999,007,639

2009-12-20T17:27:00.001-10:00

If you go searching for the Great Creator, you will come
back empty-handed.
The source of the universe is ultimately unknowable, a
great invisible river flowing forever through a vast
and fertile valley.
Silent and uncreated, it creates all things.

All things are brought forth from the subtle realm into
the manifest world by the mystical intercourse of
yin and yang.
The dynamic river yang pushes forward, the still valley
yin is receptive, and through their integration
things come into existence.
This is known as the Great Tai Chi.

Tai Chi is the integral truth of the universe.
Everything is a tai chi: your body, the cosmic body,
form, appearance, wisdom, energy, the unions of
people, the dispersal of time and places.
Each brings itself into existence through the
integration of yin and yang, maintains itself, and
disperses itself without the direction of any creator.

Your creation, your self-transformation, the
acccumulation of energy and wisdom, the decline
and cessation of your body: all these take place by
themselves within the subtle operation of the
universe.

Therefore agitated effort is not necessary.
Just be aware of the Great Tai Chi.

{Hua Hu Ching: The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu ~ Number 39}

{Image linked/Programming by DPC}

The Psychic Being

2009-12-20T17:26:00.000-10:00

The most vital issue of the age is whether the future progress of humanity
is to be governed by the modern economic and materialistic mind of the West
or by a nobler pragmatism guided, uplifted, and enlightened by spiritual culture and knowledge....

Sri Aurobindo

The Psychic Being,
(assimilated directly from Kheper)

A very important concept in Sri Aurobindo's yoga is the principle of the being known as the "Psychic Being". This is not found in any other Indian teaching (where the emphasis is instead on the realisation of the Universal Self or Atman), although it is referred to sometimes in Western esotericism, especially Theosophy. The Psychic Being is the individual Divine Soul, the Higher Self within that grows and develops through successive lifetimes, and which dwells symbolically?) in the Heart (or Heart-chakra). It is also the key to the spiritual transformation.

Direct equivalents can be found as mentioned in Theosophy are the Upper Manas or Immortal Ego of Madame Blavatsky, and the Higher Triad of Alice A. Bailey.

There are also strong similarities with the Soul in later Neoplatonism (perhaps Iamblichus(1) but more especially Proclus), the Neshamah (Divine Soul which derives from the World of Beriah) in Kabbalah (but not the Lurianic form?), and the psychogogue of Jung. The Atma-Buddhi-Manas or Ego in Steiner's Anthroposophy seems to be a combination or confusion of several concepts.

The following summary is from Growth Online
The Makeup of the Individual Human - The Personal Evolving Soul (the Psychic Being)

Psychic Being
(The Personal Evolving Soul)

Resides inside the Subliminal; actually in a cave of the subliminal.

Each individual has a soul, a spark of the Divine.
The psychic being is the deputy of or an extension of the soul.

The psychic becomes formed as we reach a threshold of growth,
which puts us in contact with it.

It is an evolving entity absorbing those aspects of the individual it inhabits growth that are useful for its own growth. When it can no longer absorb soul insight from the current host, it moves to another host through death and rebirth.

Going within and connecting to it enables great progress for the individual.

When we connect to it, vast change in the individual's consciousness begins. (Ego, separateness, Ignorance are overcome; one experiences a great Delight of Being; one connects to and can utilize universal forces and powers; it becomes our Personal Guide showing us what and what not to do, what aspects of ourselves need improvements; it enables descents of direct light and intuitions of knowledge into our minds.)
[see Psychicisation, Psycho-Spiritual Transformation]

"The true soul secret in us, -- subliminal, we have said, but the word is misleading, for this presence is not situated below the threshold of waking mind, but rather burns in the temple of the inmost heart behind the thick screen of an ignorant mind, life and body, not subliminal but behind the veil, -- this veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense unconsciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outward nature.

It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it towards the Knowledge.

It is the concealed Witness and Control, the hidden Guide, the Daemon of Socrates, the inner light or inner voice of the mystic.

It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from birth to birth, untouched
by death, decay or corruption, an indestructible spark of the Divine.

Not the unborn Self or Atman, for the Self even in presiding over the existence of the individual is aware always of its universality and transcendence, it is yet its deputy in the forms of Nature, the individual soul, caitya purusa, supporting mind, life and body, standing behind the mental, the vital, the subtle-physical being in us and watching and profiting by their development and experience.

These other person-powers in man, these beings of his being, are also veiled in their true entity, but they put forward temporary personalities which compose our outer individuality and whose combined superficial action and appearance of status we call ourselves: this inmost entity also, taking form in us as the
psychic Person, puts forward a psychic personality which changes, grows, develops from life to life; for this is the traveller between birth and death and between death and birth, our nature parts are only its manifold and changing vesture.

The psychic being can at first exercise only a concealed and partial and indirect action through the mind, the life and the body, since it is these parts of Nature that have to be developed as its instruments of self-expression, and it is long confined by their evolution. Missioned to lead man in the Ignorance towards the light of the Divine Consciousness, it takes the essence of all experience in the Ignorance to form a nucleus of soul-growth in the nature; the rest it turns into material for the future growth of the instruments which it has to use until they are ready to be a luminous instrumentation of the Divine.

It is this secret psychic entity which is the true original Conscience in us deeper than the constructed and conventional conscience of the moralist, for it is this which points always towards Truth and Right and Beauty, towards Love and Harmony and all that is a divine possibility in us, and persists till these things become the major need of our nature. It is the psychic personality in us that flowers as the saint, the sage, the seer; when it reaches its full strength, it turns the being towards the Knowledge of Self and the Divine, towards the supreme Truth, the supreme Good, the supreme Beauty, Love and Bliss, the divine heights and largenesses, and opens us to the touch of spiritual sympathy, universality, oneness.

On the contrary, where the psychic personality is weak, crude or ill-developed, the finer parts and movements in us are lacking or poor in character and power, even though the mind may be forceful and brilliant, the heart of vital emotions hard and strong and masterful, the life-force dominant and successful, the bodily existence rich and fortunate and an apparent lord and victor. It is then the outer desire-soul, the pseudo-psychic entity, that reigns and we mistake its misinterpretations of psychic suggestion and aspiration, its ideas and ideals, its desires and yearnings for true soul-stuff and wealth of spiritual experience. If the secret psychic Person can come forward into the front and, replacing the desire-soul, govern overtly and entirely and not only partially and from behind the veil this outer nature of mind, life and body, then these can be cast into soul images of what is true, right and beautiful and in the end the whole nature can be turned towards the real aim of life, the supreme
victory, the ascent into spiritual existence."

The Life Divine (10th ed.), pp.225-7 by Sri Aurobindo

"The word "psychic" in our ordinary parlance is more often used in reference to this
desire-soul than to the true psychic. It is used still more loosely of psychological and other phenomena of an abnormal or supernormal character which are really connected with the inner mind, inner vital, subtle physical being subliminal in us and are not at all direct operations of the psyche. Even such phenomena as materialisation and dematerialisation are included, though, if established, they evidently are not soul-action and would not shed any light upon the nature or existence of the psychic entity, but would rather be an abnormal action of an occult subtle physical energy intervening in the ordinary status of the gross body of things, reducing it to its own subtle condition and again reconstituting it in the terms of pass matter.

At the beginning the soul in Nature, the psychic entity, whose unfolding is the first step towards a spiritual change, is an entirely veiled part of us, although it is that by which we exist and persist as individual beings in Nature. The other parts of our natural composition are not only mutable but perishable; but the psychic entity in us persists and is fundamentally the same always: it contains all essential possibilities of our manifestation but is not constituted by them; it is not limited by what it manifests, not contained by the incomplete forms of the manifestation, not tarnished by the imperfections and impurities, the defects and depravations of the surface being. It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can pollute its purity or extinguish the flame. This spiritual stuff is immaculate and luminous and, because it is perfectly luminous, it is immediately, intimately, directly aware of truth of being and truth of nature; it is deeply conscious of truth and good and beauty because truth and good and beauty are akin to its own native character, forms of something that is inherent in its own substance. It is aware also of all that contradicts these things, of all that deviates from its own native character, of falsehood and evil and the ugly and the unseemly; but it does not become these things nor is it touched or changed by these opposites of itself which so powerfully affect its outer instrumentation of mind, life and body. For the soul, the permanent being in us, puts forth and uses mind, life and body as its instruments, undergoes the envelopment of their conditions, but it is other and greater than its members."

Sri Aurobindo

{Programming by DPC/DPC Blogger}

The Place of the Heart

2009-12-20T17:25:00.000-10:00

CaNte Ista. Those are the Lakota words used to describe a way of seeing that is good and true. When one has crawled out of the Initi, the sweat lodge, that is the way one may see. Within that small lodge, the red-hot stones have throbbed with heat, alive and vibrant as a heart-beat. The scent of sweetgrass and cedar have filled one's senses. The steam has risen as water was poured on the stones, and strong old songs of healing and thanks have risen as well. Cleansed of impurities of spirt and body by the four great powers of the world---earth, air, fire, and water---one may perceive things in a different way: CaNte Ista, through the Eye of the Heart.

The spiritual and symbolic place of the heart is as central to american Indian cultures as the physical heart is within the human body of a human being. When the heart is in the right place, when a person is in alignment with everything that is touched by the heartbeat, then there is true balance and peace. All things are equal and related to each other. That vision of the heart is a very democratic thing. I have heard it said, in fact that the heart of a good chief beats with the heart of the people. The heart of a chief is in the center of the circle of the nation. The good chief is like the heart in that he works for everyone, not just for himself.

The heart is literally the center and source of life. It is like the fire in the lodge that enables the people to survive the winter. When that fire goes out, we perish. The heart, California Indian people say, is fire. Without a heart, life cannot continue. Hunting has been of vital importance to every American Indian culture, and one of the oldest understandings among hunters is that a wound to the heart is invariably fatal. A good hunter knew the place of an animal's heart and how to aim an arrow or spear to strike that mortal spot. A common motif in american Indian art, especially among the people of the Great Plains, is an "x-ray" drawing of an animal with a line extending from its mouth to its heart. When the line of breath to the heart is cut, life ends. That is the natural way of things.

On the other hand, when the heart is unnatural--doubled like the hearts of Navajo skinwalkers or removed by sorcery from its normal location--then the balance is broken. When the heart is in the wrong place, chaos and evil enter the world. We see this in the Cattaraugus Seneca tale, "Turkey Boy Squeezed the Hearts of sorcerers." Related by George Jimerson in 1903 and published twenty years later by Arthur Parker in his landmark volume Seneca Myths and Folk Tales, it is a story filled with symbolic and direct references to the heart.

A boy named Turkey lives with his grandmother in a "lonely lodge a long ways from a settlement." One day, she shows him a hidden room full of clothing and weapons and many strange things, among them a great drum. She tells him these things belonged to his family. Now, however, all the people are gone. They have been devoured by a monster wizard who eats human flesh. His lodge is to the east in the midst of a bed of strawberries as large as human hearts. (The relationship of the shape of the strawberry to the heart is an interesting one that we see in other Native American traditions. In the Cherokee story of First Man and First Woman, first Woman leaves her husband because they quarrel. Grandmother Sun, the Great Apportioner, stops her by making the first strawberries--each shaped like a human heart--grow in her path. They are so sweet that First woman stops to pick some for her husband, allowing him to catch up to her and beg her pardon. So it is that the sharing of strawberries is associated with the love and understanding in our hearts.)

Turkey is fascinated by his grandmother's story. The next day, while she is away, he returns to the hidden room. He finds a lacrosse stick and ball and plays with them. Then he begins to beat the drum. He beats it so loudly that his grandmother returns, fearful that the sound will lead the monster wizard to them. "Tell me more about the monster," Turkey demands. His grandmother reveals that the cannibal wizard is named Deadoendjadasen and that he has seven sisters. "Make me a pair of moccasins," Turkey says. Then, wearing those moccasins, he sets out toward the east.

Upon reaching the monster's lodge, which is indeed surrounded by strawberries as large as hearts, Turkey sees a strange thing. A human skin tied to a cord is hung from a pole to keep watch on the lodge while Deadoendjadasen is away. To avoid being seen, Turkey shrinks down to the size of a mole and burrows over the pole. He convinces the skin Boy to tell him more about the monster, promising to set Skin Boy free. Skin Boy then tells him that the wizard and his seven sisters have all removed their hearts from their bodies so that they cannot be killed. (This is a common motif in American Indian traditions. Another notable example can be found in Chippewa Cree storyteller Ron Evans' wonderful telling of the story of Round Like a Ball Boy, in which the hero discovers that the hearts of the cannibal monsters are hung in a tree.) The eight hearts are hidden under the wing of a loon that swims in a little pool beneath the bed in Deadoendjadasen's lodge. Turkey obtains the hearts, and when the seven evil sisters and Deadoendjadasen try to catch him, he weakens them by squeezing on their hearts. Finally he kills them by hurling their hearts one by one onto a rock where they "each cracked open like a fint stone." He then freed Skin Boy---who becomes fully alive and human at his touch and turns out to be his lost brother--and brings back to life all of his people, whom the cannibal wizard had eaten.

As in many other cultures around the world, for most Native Americans the heart has been and remains associated with aspects of the emotion and cognition that modern science now attributes solely to the brain. Rather than seeing this as a lack of sophistication on the part of Native people, it might be remembered that despite all evidence to the contrary, the heart still holds its place as the symbol of love for the Western world. A heart made of stone is not just found in Iroquois stories. Moreover, there is a great deal of logic to the symbolism of the heart found in American Indian cultures.

Mohegan people say that the first lesson that we learn is from the heart. Harold Tantaquidgeon, a Mohegan elder, explained that to me many years ago while he was cutting wood outside the Mohegan Indian Museum in Uncasville, Connecticut. A child's first job is to listen, he said, his words punctuated by the rhythmic thud of the ax into the maple log. That was as far as he went with words. Like many things I've been taught by elders, the full meaning didn't hit me until many years later, when I thought back on that day and realized that the thumping regularity of each ax blow was much the same as the beat of a drum---or a heart.

The heartbeat is the first sound a child hears. Before that child draws breath, tastes food, or places her feet upon the earth, the child hears the heartbeat of her mother. In those many months before birth, the baby moves with the rhythm of the mother's heart and dances to the first song. Then, when a child has entered this world, seen the light, breathed the air, begun to walk, that child's feet are ready to dance when she hears the beating of a drum.

The place of the heart is also the place of the drum---remember the drum found by Turkey in the hidden room. This connection between the heart and the drum is often present in our languages. In Abenaki, the word for heart is pahko. To create the word for drum, we add the suffix ligan, which roughly means "to make something." Pahkoligan, the Abenaki word for drum, might then be translated as "that which makes a heart." This link between the drum and the heart is universal among Native Americans, though not every native language makes it quite so explicit. The mother's heart, the drum, and all of life are joined by a common understanding---frequently voiced at powwows, where the ceremonial fire and the drum are at the center of everything---that "the drum is the heartbeat of Mother Earth."

That is where the true place of the heart is---within that circle where all things are connected. The heart was meant to be part of that song whose rhythm is all of life.

(The Place of the Heart, by Joseph Bruchac)

{Programming by DPC}

A Real Way?

2009-12-20T17:24:00.002-10:00

What is evil, what is good? One of the greatest Chinese Zen masters was asked by a disciple, "What should I do?" The master said, "I won't tell you what to do; my concern is that you see straight." This is why Buddhism is not just a matter of doing good and not doing evil; it is necessary to purify the mind.

The "Seven Buddhas" refers to specific individuals, but in general it is an expression representing enlightened people of antiquity or prehistory. The seventh of the Seven Buddhas was Shakyamuni Gautama Buddha, who is commonly considered the founder of Buddhism. Other accounts speak of twenty-four ancient Buddhas, or up to an unlimited number of Buddhas; the point of this is the idea that there is only one real truth, and that the enlightened are discoverers of truth, not founders of dogmatic religions.

According to ancient Buddhist literature, Shakyamuni himself denied that he had founded the religion. He likened himself to one who has discovered an ancient road leading to an ancient city. The road and the city were abandoned and overgrown by jungle, but the traces remained; leading others to the same discovery, Shakyamuni Buddha was able to "clear the road and restore the city." This symbolizes the restoration of the original knowledge of humanity, which has in a sense always existed, and is periodically rediscovered and recommunicated.

According to a most ancient teaching of Buddhism, the general precept of this original knowledge is to refrain from what is bad, to do what is good, and to purify the mind. Dõgen says, "We should contemplate this principle carefully" ---This should be given careful consideration in the context of the question of what human beings are doing on earth.

It may seem redundant to say that the Way of the Seven Buddhas must be like the Way of the Seven Buddhas, but this actually has a deep meaning: that is to say, just as the Seven Buddhas realized what was good and bad in their times, we too must find out what is good and bad in our times. And just as the Seven Buddhas purified their minds, we too must purify our minds. The Way of the Seven Buddhas does not mean talking about the Way of the Seven Buddhas; it must be like the Way of the Seven Buddhas. It must be expressed in the present, it must be a quality of the present being-time, so it must be "herein," which "conveys a message." The message is the living communication of the Way of the Seven Buddhas in the present.

"Unoriginated" means that "evil" does not come from itself, but exists only in contrast to "good" and "indeterminate." Since one implies the others, the attribution of evil depends on the attribution of good and indeterminacy; there is no set point of origin in objective reality.

Since there is no definite point of origin, there is no absolute in "evil," so the nature of evil is pure in the sense of being without fixed existence; and this "purity" or "emptiness" is its ultimately real characteristic.

Yet even though there is no absolute good or evil because "evil" is not evil of itself and "good" is not good of itself, nevertheless in the relative world phenomena are good, evil, or indeterminate, in their particular context.

What is the same about evils in different places and times is that they are evils, or considered evils, in their place and time. What is different about evils in different places and times is what is specifically evil or considered evil in each specific place and time.

"Evil" might be taken to mean the same thing as "considered to be evil," or it might be taken to mean objectively evil in the sense of militating against the real welfare of the living. These may or may not coincide. The saying of the Zen master quoted earlier, "I am only concerned that you see straight," refers to the actual ability to distinguish between what people want and what people need.

The "evil of the way" if when the way of the way in one time and place is taken to be the fixed way of the way for other, or all, times and places.

The "good of the way" is when the way the way is carried out is really effective in context.

The "indeterminacy of the way" is when there is a possibility of rising from an imitation way to a real way.

In Zen literature these aspects of the way are commonly spoken of in terms of the question of whether the branches are taken for the root, whether the root and branches are understood through each other, or whether one is on the brink of the possibility of connecting the root and branches.

~Classics of Buddhism and Zen, Thomas Cleary

{Programming by DPC}

Monomyth

2009-12-20T17:24:00.001-10:00

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder:
fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won:
the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

The term Monomyth (often referred to as the hero's journey) as used within the field of comparative mythology refers to a basic pattern supposedly found in many narratives from around the world. This widely-distributed pattern was described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949). An enthusiast of novelist James Joyce, Campbell borrowed the term monomyth from Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

In the monomyth, the hero begins in the ordinary world, and receives a call to enter an unknown world of strange powers and events. If the hero accepts the call to enter this strange world, the hero must face tasks and trials, either alone or with assistance. At its most intense, the hero must survive a severe challenge, often with help earned along the journey. If the hero survives, the hero may achieve a great gift or "boon." The hero must then decide whether to return to the ordinary world with this boon. If the hero does decide to return, the hero often faces challenges on the return journey. If the hero is successful in returning, the boon or gift may be used to improve the world. The stories of Osiris, Prometheus, Moses, Buddha, and Christ, for example, follow this structure very closely.

Campbell describes some seventeen stages or steps along this journey. Very few myths contain all seventeen stages — some myths contain many of the stages, while others contain only a few; some myths may have as a focus only one of the stages, while other myths may deal with the stages in a somewhat different order. These seventeen stages may be organized in a number of ways, including division into three sections: Departure (sometimes called Separation), Initiation, and Return. "Departure" deals with the hero's adventure prior to the quest; "Initiation" deals with the hero's many adventures along the way; and "Return" deals with the hero's return home with knowledge and powers acquired on the journey.

Departure (or Separation)

The Call to Adventure
The adventure begins with the hero receiving a call to action, such as a threat to the peace of the community, or the hero simply falls into or blunders into it. The call is often announced to the hero by another character who acts as a "herald". The herald, often represented as dark or terrifying and judged evil by the world, may call the character to adventure simply by the crisis of his appearance.

Campbell: The Call To Adventure – "A blunder – apparently the merest chance – reveals an unsuspected world, and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood."

Classic examples: Sometimes the call to adventure happens of the character's own volition. In the story of the Minotaur, Theseus learns the tale of the beast and the terrible sacrifice to appease it, which sets him on a quest to destroy it. In Herman Hesse's book Siddhartha the titular character, becomes weary of his way of life and decides he must venture away from his accustomed life in order to attain spiritual enlightenment. Most Buddhist myths describe the Buddha as becoming bored with his royal life and venturing into the world. Other times, the hero is plunged into adventure by unforeseen events. In Homer's Odyssey, Odysseus is caught in the terrible winds of the angered god Poseidon and sent off to distant lands.
Refusal of the Call

In some stories, the hero initially refuses the call to adventure. When this happens, the hero may suffer somehow, and may eventually choose to answer, or may continue to decline the call.

Campbell: Refusal of the Call – "Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or 'culture,' the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved."

Classic examples: Mythology is rife with examples of what happens to those who refuse the call too long or do not take it seriously. A Persian city was turned to stone, inhabitants and all, for refusing the call of Allah[citation needed]. In Judeo-Christian mythology, Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt for looking back with longing to her old life when she had been summoned forth from her city by Yahweh and is thus prevented from being the "hero". One of the clearest references to the refusal and its consequences comes in the voice of Yahweh in Proverbs 1:24-27 and 32:
Because I have called, and ye refused ... I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. ... For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

Supernatural Aid
After the hero has accepted the call, he encounters a protective figure (often elderly) who provides special tools and advice for the adventure ahead, such as an amulet or a weapon.

Classic example: In Greek mythology, Ariadne gives Theseus a ball of string and a sword before he enters the labyrinth to confront the Minotaur.

The Crossing of the First Threshold
The hero must cross the threshold between the world he is familiar with and that which he is not. Often this involves facing a "threshold guardian", an entity that works to keep all within the protective confines of the world but must be encountered in order to enter the new zone of experience.

Belly of The Whale
The hero, rather than passing a threshold, passes into the new zone by means of rebirth. Appearing to have died by being swallowed or having their flesh scattered, the hero is transformed and becomes ready for the adventure ahead.

Classical Example: In the story of Dionysus, Hera sends hungry titans to devour the infant Dionysus. The titans tear apart the child and consume his flesh. However Dionysus's heart is saved by Hestia, goddess of the hearth, allowing Dionysus to be reborn as a god.

Initiation

The Road of Trials
Once past the threshold, the hero encounters a dream landscape of ambiguous and fluid forms. The hero is challenged to survive a succession of obstacles and, in so doing, amplifies his consciousness. The hero is helped covertly by the supernatural helper or may discover a benign power supporting him in his passage.

Mother as Goddess
The ultimate trial is often represented as a marriage between the hero and a queenlike, or mother-like figure. This represents the hero's mastery of life (represented by the feminine) as well as the totality of what can be known. When the hero is female, this becomes a male figure.

Woman as Temptress
His awareness expanded, the hero may fixate on the disunity between truth and his subjective outlook, inherently tainted by the flesh. This is often represented with revulsion or rejection of a female figure.

Atonement with the Father
The hero reconciles the tyrant and merciful aspects of the father-like authority figure to understand himself as well as this figure.

Apotheosis
The hero's ego is disintegrated in a breakthrough expansion of consciousness. Quite frequently the hero's idea of reality is changed; the hero may find an ability to do new things or to see a larger point of view, allowing the hero to sacrifice himself.

The Ultimate Boon
The hero is now ready to obtain that which he has set out, an item or new awareness that, once he returns, will benefit the society that he has left.

Return

Refusal of the Return
Having found bliss and enlightenment in the other world, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world to bestow the boon onto her fellow human.

Classic examples: After obtaining Nirvana, Buddha doubted whether he could communicate the path to enlightenment (though some Buddhist traditions hold that this was only cunning politics by Buddha: by saying this he gave people the impression that he didn't want to teach them, which made them curious and eager to hear all about it).

The Magic Flight
When the boon's acquisition (or the hero's return to the world) comes against opposition, a chase or pursuit may ensue before the hero returns.

Rescue from Without
The hero may need to be rescued by forces from the ordinary world.
This may be because the hero has refused to return
or because he/she is successfully blocked from returning with the boon.
The hero loses his/her ego.

The Crossing of the Return Threshold
The hero returns to the world of common day and must accept it as real.

Master of Two Worlds
Because of the boon or due to his/her experience,
the hero may now perceive both the divine and human worlds.

Freedom to Live
The hero bestows the boon to her fellow human.

Campbell's proposed structure has been expanded and modified since its conception. Many modern characterizations of it add in new steps (such as the hero having a miraculous birth) or combine or prune others.

For instance, Phil Cousineau, in his book, The Hero's Journey, divides it up into the following eight steps:

The Call to Adventure
The Road of Trials
The Vision Quest
The Meeting with the Goddess
The Boon
The Magic Flight
The Return Threshold
The Master of Two Worlds

Another eight-step formulation was given by David Adams Leeming in his book, Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero:

Miraculous conception and birth
Initiation of the hero-child
Withdrawal from family or community for meditation and preparation
Trial and Quest
Death
Descent into the underworld
Resurrection and rebirth
Ascension, apotheosis, and atonement

(For linked version, see source: wikipedia)

{Art by: Kinuko Y. Craft /Programming by DPC}

Are you the hero of your life story on Earth?
Using these models, where are you at in your hero's journey?

*

2009-12-20T17:23:00.000-10:00

"There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly

what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear

and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

Douglas Adams
Image linked/Programming by DPC
Sonic Mix by Dj Sssoooiii

From the first not a thing is...

2009-12-20T17:22:00.001-10:00

The unicorns were the most recognizable magic the fairies possessed,
and they sent them to those worlds where belief in the magic was in danger of failing altogether.
After all, there has to be some belief in the magic,
however small, for any world to survive.

~Terry Brooks, The Black Unicorn

What are scientific revolutions, and what is their function in scientific development? Why should a change of paradigm be called a revolution? In the face of the vast and essential differences between political and scientific development, what parallelism can justify the metaphor that finds revolutions in both?

One aspect of the parallelism must already be apparent. Political revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense, often restricted to a segment of the political community, that existing institutions have ceased adequately to meet the problems posed by an environment that they have in part created. In much the same way, scientific revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense, again often restricted to a narrow subdivision of the scientific community, that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way. In both political and scientific development the sense of malfunction that can lead to crisis is prerequisite to revolution. Furthermore, though it admittedly strains the metaphor, that parallelism holds not only for the major paradigm changes, like those attributable to Copernicus and Lavoisier, but also for the far smaller ones associated with the assimilation of a new sort of phenomenon, like oxygen or X-rays. Scientific revolutions, as we noted at the end of Section V, need seem revolutionary only to those whose paradigms are affected by them. To outsiders they may, like the Balkan revolutions of the early twentieth century, seem normal parts of the developmental process. Astronomers, for example, could accept X-rays as a mere addition to knowledge, for their paradigms were unaffected by the existence of the new radiation. But for men like Kelvin, Crookes, and Roentgen, whose research dealt with radiation theory or with cathode ray tubes, the emergence of X-rays necessarily violated one paradigm as it created another. That is why these rays could be discovered only through something’s first going wrong with normal research.

This genetic aspect of the parallel between political and scientific development should no longer be open to doubt. The parallel has, however, a second and more profound aspect upon which the significance of the first depends. Political revolutions aim to change political institutions in ways that those institutions themselves prohibit. Their success therefore necessitates the partial relinquishment of one set of institutions in favour of another, and in the interim, society is not fully governed by institutions at all. Initially it is crisis alone that attenuates the role of political institutions as we have already seen it attenuate the role of paradigms. In increasing numbers individuals become increasingly estranged from political life and behave more and more eccentrically within it. Then, as the crisis deepens, many of these individuals commit themselves to some concrete proposal for the reconstruction of society in a new institutional framework. At that point the society is divided into competing camps or parties, one seeking to defend the old institutional constellation, the others seeking to institute some new one. And, once that polarisation has occurred, political recourse fails. Because they differ about the institutional matrix within which political change is to be achieved and evaluated, because they acknowledge no supra-institutional framework for the adjudication of revolutionary difference, the parties to a revolutionary conflict must finally resort to the techniques of mass persuasion, often including force. Though revolutions have had a vital role in the evolution of political institutions, that role depends upon their being partially extrapolitical or extrainstitutional events. Like the choice between competing political institutions, that between competing paradigms proves to be a choice between incompatible modes of community life. Because it has that character, the choice is not and cannot be determined merely by the evaluative procedures characteristic of normal science, for these depend in part upon a particular paradigm, and that paradigm is at issue. When paradigms enter, as they must, into a debate about paradigm choice, their role is necessarily circular. Each group uses its own paradigm to argue in that paradigm’s defence.

The resulting circularity does not, of course, make the arguments wrong or even ineffectual. The man who premises a paradigm when arguing in its defence can nonetheless provide a clear exhibit of what scientific practice will be like for those who adopt the new view of nature. That exhibit can be immensely persuasive, often compellingly so. Yet, whatever its force, the status of the circular argument is only that of persuasion. It cannot be made logically or even probabilistically compelling for those who refuse to step into the circle. The premises and values shared by the two parties to a debate over paradigms are not sufficiently extensive for that. As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice – there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.

***
IX. The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions
by Thomas Kuhn (1962)

Programming by DPC

There is no Bodhi-tree,
Nor stand of mirror bright,
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight?

~Hui-neng, "Hon-rai mu-ichi-motsu"

Hopupu

2009-12-20T17:21:00.000-10:00

For a society to live or survive,
it is necessary for something to exist
alongside production and reproduction
that is unproductive.

~Michel Maffesoli, French sociologist

In certain [yoga] postures, especially when relaxing,
it seems to me that I experience the same sensation
as in the best moments of surfing.

~Yves Bessas, French surfer

What all human beings have in common, and yet strangely enough what also makes each of us a unique individual, is our relationship with ourselves---the discovery of each detail and its manifestations, at once multiple and universal, perceivable through the total experience of being.

When moving into the tube, impelled and enveloped by trance, no external thought can break in and distract the surfer without causing a fall, or at least a swerve. This is especially important if there happens to be a layer of coral reef beneath the wave.

In certain places there are no more than a few inches of water between the surfer's board and the razor-sharp ridges of the coral below. At the Pipeline, in Hawaii, Gerry Lopez's favorite surfing spot, the bottom is strewn with large growths of coral that create caves that can catch you or where you can get cut to shreds. No need to comment further on the fact that you need to clear your mind before letting yourself be seduced by a Pipeline tube, no matter how smooth and powerful it may be and no matter how beautifully it diffuses the light.

This process, this path of surfing, presents similarities with the paths of all people who have sought meaning and found their essence, whether through surfing, practicing zazen(*), or studying the Tao, those whom the best selling author Dan Millman calls "the peaceful warriors." Dominique Godréche, a journalist who works with the Paris review Psychologies, expresses this idea clearly:

For the Hawaiian champions, it is not only a physical
performance but also formidable training in self-mastery,
control of the emotions, and management of basic
energy--- ha in Hawaiian and chi/qi in Chinese philosophy.

Whether they refer to chi or ki or prana, all warriors of planet Earth---the meaning of warrior is extended here to all those who consciously accept confrontation with the tragedy that life sometimes is---cultivate experiences that make it possible to opt in favor of the joy that fills us and empties us when we take pleasure in the simple fact of being alive, free from dwelling on life's absurdities.

Fundamental to surfers trying to become one with their own nature, to unify their physical, spiritual, and mental dimensions, is that they must be capable of mastering the inner forces of being so as to tap into their source. Dig yours heels in on the curve and chase time, point your nose, strike a proud figure, and spread your wings. Don't be anybody anymore, but feel, all at once, the whole that is in fact always already there, forgotten. Be a faucet of joy.

Today we find that joy, just old-fashioned happiness,
is one of the most essential elements of life.

~Jacqueline Carol Marshall, educator

Guided by the vision of a wave, itself inspired by an undulation without significance for the average observer, surfers head off in a direction where only their senses can guide them. This is the direction of intuition, the sensation that enables us to understand the world and traces the route leading to the state of being called hopupu, in Hawaiian, or stoked in American English, the state that leaves our mouth agape and makes possible the appreciation pf life at a high level. This is the sensory reward for having surfed well.

We are speaking here of a quest for the same sensation that children are seeking who let themselves roll down a steep hill or run until they have reached a point of exhaustion, shouting out cries of joy the whole while. They do that as they follow their minds down an imaginary path that is often circular.

The intuitive search for hopupu appeared to me as a kind of off-road excursion---the road here being the progressivist and materialist vision of life today---a glide toward a region of being that is still natural but has gone missing. I read somewhere that balance is a synonym for freedom

The Secret of Balance

The Secret of Balance

In each wave, as in each moment and in each potential movement, I believe there exists an element of truth that can be expressed in myriad ways. These ways of being and acting are natural and spontaneous in people who have plunged into the present, who are attentive to the details of reality, who are masters of their own ideas and free in the actions they take. There lies genuine wisdom.

It is this same power of truth that allows some people to surf in a calm and balanced fashion, true to themselves, independent of environmental conditions. Others seem never to be able to reach this point. They even persuade themselves that balance is not part of their nature.

Of course things do fall apart -- our job comes to an end, or somebody cheats us. But what is all of that right now, when a human being is animated by, and imbued with, a phenomenal capacity to imagine, to act, to receive, and to give? Regardless of the path one chooses in the search for balance, the search itself teaches us to live in the glory of each moment. Those who experience it become more authentically themselves.

To place high value on riding a wave is to find balance in one's life and surroundings, to accept change, to recognize the reality of an ephemeral world, to be conscious of the only thing that will always exist: change.

The challenge of adapting to change is usually more psychological than biological. In order to remain a little bit constant in a universe where everything is in flux, one has to have the kind of reliable confidence that stands up to the transitory nature of life, the confidence of someone who knows he or she is alive.

The sensation of balance that a surfer feels, that a painter experiences as he or she works on a picture, or that a dancer feels giving all for the simple pleasure of being alive for a moment -- that is what makes confidence possible. When the fear of falling disappears, it becomes easier to imagine oneself riding free. At that moment, life appears as a vast and inviting wave.

{Dancing the Wave, by Jean-Étienne Poitier}

{Programming by DPC/DPC Blogger}

Buddha points to the ground

2009-12-20T17:14:00.000-10:00

Wan-sung says,

"The moment one particle is brought up,
the whole earth is contained in it.
Who is it that can open the borders and extend the land as alone rider with a single lance,
and so can be the master anywhere and encounter the source in everything?"

If everything is interdependent, then everything is part of the existence of every thing. Using this one quintessential understanding of universal interdependence, it is possible to extend the horizons of consciousness by means of the infinite network of causality. In this way, we are in the midst of the limitless even in the midst of the finite, what determines the depth and breadth of our world is the richness or poverty of our perception.

Once as the Buddha was walking along with a group,
he pointed to the ground and said,
This place is suitable for building a sanctuary."

Shakura, Emperor of Angels,
struck a blade of grass in the ground and declared,
"The building of the sanctuary is done."

The Buddha smiled.

Buddha traveled in the company of all beings. Shakra, the Emperor of Angels, is also called Indra. In the Avatamasaka teaching, the pearl net of Indra in the skies above reflecting the world below represents the infinite network of interdependence phenomena and principles.

Buddha points at the ground and says it is suitable for a sanctuary; this stands for the universal principle, which is everywhere. Indra plants a blade of grass in the ground and declares the sanctuary built; this stands for the concrete manifestation of principle in phenomena. Realizing the perfect correspondence of the abstract and the concrete is the third of four realms of reality in Avatamasaka Buddhism and the third of five ranks in the Ts'ao-Tung school of Ch'an Buddhism.

T'ien-t'ung said in verse:

Infinite spring in the hundred grasses;
Picked up in what comes to hand, it's used familiarly.
The glorious embodiment of virtuous qualities,
Leisurely Buddha leads by the hand into the red dust,
Able to be master in the dust;
A visitor shows up from outside Creation,
Life enough as it is whenever he is,
Not minding if he's not as clever as others.

The infinite spring in the hundred grasses is the universal principle underlying phenomena. When this universal principle is realized, it can be illustrated in anything.

An embodiment of virtuous qualities represents Buddha as embodying abstract truth in concrete manifestations. The practice of enlightenment is actualized in the ordinary world, while the enlightenment of the practitioner is independent of objects.

The Emperor of Angels is the guest from outside of Creation. The idea of being "outside Creation" in this case refers to a total perspective on the whole of being, rather than a limited perspective from an isolated point of view. The sufficiency of his life wherever he is refers to his ability to experience everything as part of everything else; unconcern for his comparative lack of cleverness refers to the actual reality of universal interdependence, which does not need to be artificially constructed to be true.

Classics of Buddhism and Zen, Volume Three, the collected translations of Thomas Cleary
Programming by DPC

Introduction to Kensho

2009-12-20T17:13:00.000-10:00

Zen Buddhism emerged in China fifteen hundred years ago as a gnostic revival of Buddhism. According to tradition, Zen was, in essence, originally a response to the spiritual sterility into which Buddhism had fallen through formalism.

The special focus of the Zen dispensation was publicized by the famous Hui-neng (*), who is accustomed with the founding of the so-called Sudden school of Zen in China nearly thirteen hundred years ago.

The complete discourse of all Buddhas of past, present, and future are inherent in the essence of the human being. If you cannot realize this on your own, you need the guidance of a teacher to see it. As for those who do realize on their own, they do not need to seek elsewhere.
If you insist that a teacher is necessary to attain liberation, you are wrong. Why? Because there is a teacher within your own mind who enlightens you spontaneously!
If you create confusion, false thinking, and delusion, even a teacher's instruction cannot save you!
If you cultivate the observant perception of true insight, then false thoughts die out at once. And if you know your own essence, with this one realization you arrive at enlightenment.

In Sino-Japanese, this Zen insight into the essence of one's own being is called kensho. There is no Zen without kensho, complete kensho is what is known as satori, Zen awakening. This realization is likened to finding an inexhaustible treasure, for it means the awakening of the whole potential for the experience of experience itself.

The Zen master Dogen, who brought Zen to Japan nearly eight centuries ago, explained, this heart of Zen to layman in his famous essay "The Issue at hand":

Learning the way of enlightenment is learning selfhood.
Learning selfhood is forgetting oneself.
Forgetting oneself is being enlightened by all things.

In zen, the meaning of the true self is none other than Buddha nature, which Buddhist scripture defines as "Pure, Blissful, Permanent Selfhood."

To learn about the self in zen means to study the false self, or the ego, and the true self, or Buddha-nature. Learning selfhood, in Zen terms, means learning to see through the doings of the ego's self-image in order to find the nature of the real self as it is in itself, by itself.

Seeing through the doings of the vain and suggestive ego makes it possible to be immune to its seductions. This is a kind of "forgetting oneself," in the sense of leaving behind the foibles of this vanity.

finding the nature of the real self makes it possible to be oneself, without self-consciously trying. This is also "forgetting oneself," in the sense of leaving behind self-importance.

When egocentric realizations do not occupy the mind, then actualities can inform it. When spontaneous awareness opens the mind, then realities can instruct it. The awakened Zen self is like a mirror as big as cosmic space, reflecting the whole universe within it.

The popular fourteenth-century Japanese preacher Keizan described this Zen practice and experience over and over in his classic Transmission of Light: "Even if you seem to be a beginner, if the mind is turned around for a moment to reveal its originally inherent qualities, nothing at all is lacking. Together with the realized ones, you will commune with all Buddhas."

{Classics of Buddhism and Zen, Volume Three, the collected translations of Thomas Cleary}

{Programming by DPC/DPC Blogger}

"The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out,
for if you want the kernel, you must break the shell."

-- Meister Eckhart

Optimism

2009-12-20T17:07:00.000-10:00

More and more I have come to admire resilience.

Not the simple resistance of a pillow,
whose foam returns over and over to the same shape,
but the sinuous tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,

it turns in another.

A blind intelligence, true.

But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs--all this resinous,
unretractable earth.

poem by Jane Hirshfield

{Art by Ethe/Programming by DPC}

Intense Energy

2009-12-20T17:06:00.000-10:00

Intense Energy

..the planetary energy at this time is intense.

those who do not tune in to it will be fractured by it.

those who learn to move with its subtleties will be

energized

revitalized

stregthened

empowered

reborn

in this magnificent light.

...things will never be the same again on the planet.

the apple cart has been upset.

all bets are off.

all previously scheduled programs have been canceled.

the future is up for grabs.

the future is yours

if you dare to step to the center of your stage.

to master the new energy you must

follow your own path

relate to your own unique essence

become consciously your own cause of creation.

to merge with the new energy you must

move into your primal being

evoke your instinctual self

unleash your wild self

be unconditionally spontaneous

actively invite the vastness of cosmic creation

rebuild your foundation from the molten force

deep within Mother Earth.

eMpowerment reQuirements

...your initiation into your power requires you

to be able to separate your identity

from what happens around you

to observe other's actions and

not see them as a reflection of yourself

to observe what others do and say

without judgement or emotional involvement.

at the same time, you must acknowledge your feelings.

if something feels terrible, admit it.

if something is not okay, it is not okay.

just remember not to take other's idiocies personally.

...to initiate yourself into your own power

you cannot settle for less than who you are.

you will get what you want

when you cease to sell yourself short

when you realize that you are priceless.

"The Destiny of Women is the Destiny of the World," by Guru Rattana, Ph.D.

{WEave by Psychic Signal Intelligence Agency & ID√m/Programming by DPC}

Earth: The spiritual grinding stone.

2009-12-20T17:03:00.000-10:00

You want reality unmasked? Choose death!

~Mathnawi

A man started to break up the earth with a spade.

A fool came and shouted at him, "Why are you ruining the soil?"

"You idiot!" the man cried. "Go away and don't bother me!
Understand the difference between destruction and growth.

How could this soil become a rose garden or wheat field
Before it's broken up and ruined and made ugly?

How could it become orchards and harvests and leaves and fruit
Before it is utterly destroyed and worn down?

Before you pierce an abscess with a knife
How can it heal and how can you regain your health?

Until the doctor purifies your humors with his cures
How can your illness disappear and true healing arrive?

When a tailor cuts up a cloth, piece by piece,
Does anyone go up to him and strike him and say,
"Why have you torn up this beautiful satin;
What can I do with scraps of torn-up cloth?"

Each time that builders come to repair an old building
Don't they begin by destroying what was there before?

Look at the carpenter or the blacksmith of the butcher;
With them too, you'll find destruction precedes renewal.

If you don't subject wheat to the grinding millstone
How will bread ever come to decorate your table?"

~Mathnawi

{Images linked/Programming by DPC}

System Acid

2009-12-20T17:02:00.000-10:00

Shamans were humankind's earliest mystics, according to numerous students of comparative religion, including Mircaea Eliade ( 1964 ) and Ken Wilber ( 1981 ). Of course, both shaman and mystic can be defined in various ways, and scholars have debated both terms for years. Here I will assume a definition of mystics as people who access transcendental knowledge through direct intuition.

Shamanism I would define as a family of traditions whose practitioners focus on voluntarily entering altered states of consciousness in which they experience themselves or their spirits traveling to other realms at will and interacting with other entities in order to serve their community ( Walsh 1989). Shamans are "cosmic travelers" who experience themselves having controlled out-of-body experiences in which they, or their spirits, traverse the cosmos at will in order to learn, acquire power, help, and heal.

This focus on cosmic travels, which are also known as soul flights or journeys, is what distinguishes shamans from other magico-religious healers. For example, priests may lead rituals and medicine men may heal, but they rarely enter altered states; mediums may enter altered states but do not journey; Tibetan Buddhists may sometimes journey, but this is not a central focus of their practice; those suffering mental illness may enter altered states, but they do so as helpless victims rather than as choiceful creators of these states.

To travel the cosmos, the shaman must be able to enter specific states of consciousness, and much of shamanism centers on ways of inducing these states. Of course, shamans are not the only ones who have developed means for altering consciousness. Fully 90 percent of the world's cultures have one or more institutionalized altered states of consciousness, and in traditional societies these are almost without exception sacred states. This is, to say the least, "a striking finding and suggests that we are, indeed, dealing with a matter of major importance"( Bourguignon 1973 , 11). Clearly, humankind has devoted enormous energy and ingenuity to altering consciousness. Indeed, it may be that the "desire to alter consciousness periodically isan innate normal drive analogous to hunger or the sexual drive" ( Weil 1972 , 17).

So shamans are hardly alone in seeking alternate states of consciousness. Mystics of numerous other traditions also seek them and claim that it is in these states that their deepest realizations are born. In fact, mystical traditions the world over have developed families of techniques for altering consciousness in systematic ways. These techniques constitute the so-called technology of the sacred, or technology of transcendence, and mystical traditions serve as road maps for using this technology to attain transcendent states. From this perspective, we might say that mystical traditions and religions are created and sustained by people who reach transcendent states of consciousness and then provide instructions whereby others can also reach them, thereby recreating the founder's insights. Ideally, mystical traditions serve to preserve and transmit these insights and instructions; the first such tradition was shamanism.

At its best, the shamanic tradition transmits a body of information and techniques that
allows novices to recreate the altered states, experiences, and abilities of their predecessors. Each generation, thereby, can perpetuate and refresh a living and continuously recreated tradition and even add to its accumulated treasure of wisdom and technique. It is this direct personal experience of the sacred that defines the mystic and that properly allows shamanism to be called humankind's first mystical tradition.

However, transmission can fail. When this occurs, a tradition no longer focuses on or even appreciates direct experience of the transcendent. Then what is left is an institution largely devoid of direct experience of the sacred, without firsthand understanding of transcendental experiences and the altered states by which they are reached. Altered-state-inducing techniques give way to symbolic rituals, experience is replaced by belief, and "live doctrine fossils into dogmatism" ( Steindl-Rast 1989).

Shamanism and Early Human Technology:
The Technology of Transcendence
by
Roger Walsh
A professor of psychiatry and philosophy,
Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior,
University of California at Irvine.
His personal and research interests include
the nature of psychological well-being,
the comparison and integration of different schools of psychology,
meditation, Asian psychologies and philosophies,
and the psychological causes and costs of contemporary global crises.
His books include Beyond Ego: Transpersonal Dimensions in Psychology
and, on the global crises, Staying Alive: The Psychology of Human Survival.

{Programming by DPC}

dynamic Metaphors

2009-12-20T17:00:00.000-10:00

Joseph Campbell said:

"What is a myth? The dictionary definition of a myth would be stories about gods. So then you have to ask the next question. What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe--the powers of your own body and of nature. The myths are metaphorical of spiritual potentiality in the human beings, and the same powers that animate our life animate the life of the world. But also there are myths and gods that have to do with specific societies or the patron deities of the society. In other words, there are two totally different orders of mythology. There is the mythology that relates you to your nature and to the natural world, of which you're a part. And there is the mythology that is strictly sociological, linking you to a particular society. You are not simply a natural man, you are a member of a particular group. In the history of European mythology, you can see the interaction of these two systems. In the nineteenth century, scholars thought of mythology and ritual as an attempt to control nature. But that is magic, not mythology or religion. Nature religions are not attempts to control nature but to help you put yourself in accord with it."

Within the text of our myths we have found the deeper symbols, the deeper pathways that our ancestors knew and used and taught, that wisdom which was considered so important it was placed into story-form and handed down mouth to ear for thousands of years. We certainly don't look to the modern (meaning after the Jacobian era) fairy tales, as those are something entirely different.

We have come to understand that we search mythology to find an aspect of myth that relates to our own life. Myth provides four functions:

Mystical Function -- realizing what a wonder the universe is, and what a wonder you are, and experiencing awe before this mystery. Myth opens the world to the dimension of mystery, to the realization of the mystery that underlies all forms. If mystery is manifest through all things, the universe becomes a holy picture.

Cosmological Dimension -- the dimension with which science is concerned -- showing you what the shape of the universe is, but showing it in such a way that the mystery again comes through. The greatest scientists will tell you they dont have all the answers, they're just telling you how it works.

Sociological Function -- supporting and validating a certain social order and the dictates of Ethical laws.

Pedagogical Function -- how to live a human lifetime under any circumstances.

{SRC}

{Images linked to Artists/Programming by DPC}

Mehr Links:

Encyclopedia Mythica
Windows to the Universe

OSHO

2009-12-20T16:59:00.002-10:00

From: Nenia

OSHO: Don't Use this Planet Like a Waiting Room

This is what...

2009-12-20T16:59:00.001-10:00

{Images Linked/Programming by DPC}

Danger: Uranium Mining Near Grand Canyon

2009-12-20T16:58:00.000-10:00

Did you know that recently the Department of the Interior approved new mining operations near the Grand Canyon?

New uranium mining near Grand Canyon

The U.S. Department of the Interior authorized a Canadian mining company to drill for uranium near the Grand Canyon. This approval may only be the beginning. Since 2003, the number of mining claims within five miles of Grand Canyon National Park has increased from 10 to more than 1,100. Most, if not all, of these claims are for uranium that has left a legacy of cancer and contamination throughout the southwestern United States.

Click here to watch my commentary on CNN and take action today.

Mining near the canyon will not only threaten our greatest national treasure, but will also pose risks to the Colorado River that flows through the canyon. The river provides drinking water for 25 million Americans.

It's not too late to stop the mining and protect this valuable water supply.

Tell Sec. Salazar to make the land near the Grand Canyon off-limits to mining.

The Grand Canyon area is a natural treasure that must be protected. The Administration can stop these mining activities.

Thank you for partnering with EWG - we're stronger together.

In partnership,

Dusty Horwitt
Senior Analyst, Environmental Working Group

The Environmental Working Group is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization dedicated to using the power of information to protect human health and the environment. The EWG Action Fund is a legislative advocacy organization that uses EWG research to promote healthy and sustainable policies.

HEADQUARTERS 1436 U St. NW, Suite 101 | Washington, DC 20009 | (202) 667-6982

{Programming by DPC}

Dangers of Uranium Mining

Uranium ore, waste, and tailings are a toxic mixture of numerous, hazardous materials.

Natural uranium consists of three isotopes: uranium-238, uranium-235, and uranium-234. Uranium isotopes are radioactive. The nuclei of radioactive elements are unstable, meaning they are transformed into other elements, typically by emitting particles (and sometimes by absorbing particles). This process, known as radioactive decay, generally results in the emission of alpha or beta particles from the nucleus. It is often also accompanied by emission of gamma radiation, which is electromagnetic radiation, like X-rays. These three kinds of radiation have very different properties in some respects but are all ionizing radiation-- each is energetic enough to break chemical bonds, thereby possessing the ability to damage or destroy living cells.

The most serious health hazard associated with uranium mining is lung cancer due to inhaling uranium decay products. The radioactive materials, notably radium-226, and heavy metals (e.g., manganese and molybdenum) contained in uranium mill tailings can also leach into groundwater. Near tailings piles, water samples have shown levels of some contaminants at hundreds of times the government's acceptable level for drinking water.

Radon-222 gas emanates from tailings piles and has a half life of 3.8 days. This may seem short, but due to the continuous production of radon from the decay of radium-226, which has a half life of 1600 years, radon presents a long term hazard. Further, because the parent product of radium-226, thorium-230 (with a half life of 80,000 years), is also present, there is continuous production of radium-226. Radon gas can travel a thousand miles in just a few days, with a light breeze. As it travels low to the ground (it is much heavier than air) it deposits its “daughters”—solid radioactive fallout—on the vegetation, soil and water below; the resulting radioactive materials enter the food chain, ending up in fruits and berries, the flesh of fish and animals, and ultimately, in the bodies of human beings.

Additional health and environmental dangers are posed by the heavy metals and other contaminants frequently associated with uranium.

DPC Recommendations

End all radioactive/nuclear related technologies world wide till scientist can safely and properly deal with the harmful byproducts, and there are no more ignorant violent governments and human beings threatening to kill the entire planet through varying degrees of socially venerated insanity...
(Known Facts and Hidden Dangers of Uranium)

~Additional Links~

EWG story

BLM authorizes Grand Canyon uranium exploration

Quaterra Resources Inc. (canadian mining company)

Bureau of Land Management

Uranium mining dangers being hidden, expert warns

The Absolute

2009-12-20T16:55:00.000-10:00

No mind, no form, I only exist;

Now ceased all will and thought;

The final end of Nature's dance,

I am it whom I have sought.

A realm of Bliss bare, ultimate;

Beyond both knower and known;

A rest immense I enjoy at last;

I face the One alone.

I have crossed the secret ways of life,

I have become the Goal.

The Truth immutable is revealed;

I am the way, the God Soul.

My spirit aware of all the heights,

I am mute in the core of the Sun.

I barter nothing with time and deeds;

My cosmic play is done.

The Absolute, by Sri Chinmoy

Programming by DPC/Art by Meats Meier

Raising Environmentally-Conscious Kids + 12 Green Habits

2009-12-20T16:53:00.000-10:00

***
An Article by Earthwatch Institute
Found at http://www.treehugger.com/
****

Is creating the next generation of environmental stewards as easy as sending your kids outside to play? Research suggests the answer is yes. A study done several years ago by Louise Chawla tried to understand what factors went into the make-up of people who demonstrated significantly pro-environmental behavior. After doing a psychometric profile of these people Chawla found they all had one characteristic in common: they all spent a significant amount of time outdoors playing in the wild.

Recent research has continued to expand and support the idea that more than any other factor the act of getting children outdoors will powerfully impact their desire to preserve the natural world. As prominent environmental educator David Sobel eloquently stated, "One transcendent experience in nature is worth a thousand nature facts." It turns out that children who have an immersive experience in nature between the ages of 5 and 10 foster a deep love of the environment that they carry with them their entire lives. Aside from significantly increasing the likelihood that they will actively work to preserve the important life-giving aspects of the environment as adults, an engagement with nature has other positive cognitive impacts, from improved performance in school to moral development to a greater involvement and concern for community well-being. A recent study of 300 of the world's most innovative thinkers and leaders showed clear links between childhood immersion in nature and an out-of-the-box creativity and tireless commitment to society.

A recent book entitled Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv highlights the social reality that rather than connecting our kids with nature, American families are increasingly removing their kids from the wild. Conducting interviews with kids across America, Louv documented how today's children are distanced from nature and issues of sustainability in a number of ways that ultimately lead to a devaluing of the environment. Whether they cloister themselves indoors to watch TV and play video games (which studies have shown have a negative impact on brain development), or are kept indoors by nervous or over-achieving parents, the long-term trend which is separating children from nature has dramatic future consequences for our collective survival.

If you read or listen to the news at all, you encounter daily accounts about the widespread environmental challenges that we all must deal with. This trend is both disheartening and bewildering. Disheartening because we know our children will not share the same world we grew up in; bewildering because despite all the evidence, we are not doing much to reinvest ourselves and our kids with time spent in imaginative, unstructured play outside.

If we wish to raise environmentally-conscious children who will be engaged with the issues of sustainability, it is time we placed significant effort on bringing them back outdoors. Of course, for many of this, this task is easier said than achieved, especially for families living in urban areas. Not to worry. Bringing kids to play in a park, getting them involved with gardening also have positive add on effects-just to as strong as those encountered by an experience in the woods, by a pond, or in the mountains.

By: Alan Fortescue

12 Simple Habits to Help the Environment

Let’s face it: we all want to help the environment, but many times we are too busy with our daily lives to make the big changes that we think are needed to develop a more sustainable lifestyle and a more environmentally friendly culture. We don’t have time to lobby for climate change initiatives, or get involved with Green Peace, or fit our houses with solar panels, or even buy a hybrid car.

Fear not, my friends, there is another way: make small, simple, easy habit changes that all add up to a more environmentally friendly lifestyle.

You don’t need to incorporate them all at once. Do them one at a time, until you’re doing all or most, and you can be proud of what you’ve done. These are nothing new, but it’s useful to consider adopting them into our daily lifestyles. Here they are:

Use CFLs. These energy-saving lightbulbs are a little more expensive than regular lightbulbs, but they last much longer and will lower your power bill in the long run. The habit to develop is to buy a couple of these at a time, instead of the regular incandescent bulbs, and replace your bulbs with CFLs as they burn out. In a few months, your entire house will have energy-saving bulbs. Simple!

Buy used first. Instead of going straight to the store to buy a new gizmo, gadget, widget or hoozit, see if you can find a used one instead. If it’s already been used, you’re lengthening the lifetime of that product, and reducing the need for new ones, which in the end saves the environmental impact of creating and selling that item. And it’s an easy habit: ask around, and someone might have a used hoozit to give away for free (or cheap), or look in used shops or yard sales. Plus it’s fun!

Donate your stuff. Got a bunch of stuff you want to get rid of? Don’t contribute to the landfill. If it’s usable, give it to someone who needs it. Or donate it to a charity thrift shop — they can sell it for a little bit of fund-raising cash, so you’re not only lengthening the life of that item but helping a good cause. The habit to develop: when weeding out your old stuff, put them in a box or basket near the door. Then when you run errands, grab the box and drop it off at a charity shop. If it’s an expensive item, you could email your friends and family to give them the first shot at it.

Recycle. Yeah, this is old hat. But it’s important. Many of you will live in cities or towns where recycling is easy — you just put your glass, paper, plastic and cans in bins at the curbside, and the recycling truck picks it up like the regular garbageman does. For those of us who don’t live in such progressive areas, we have to find a recycling center and drop it off. Either way, the simple habit to develop is to have separate containers for each type of recyclable good, and simply separate them at the point of disposal instead of tossing them in the trash. For those of us who have to drop them off somewhere, just throw the boxes in your trunk (along with your donation box) and drop them off on errand day.

Buy energy-efficient appliances. Similar to the CFL item above, this can be done on a replacement basis — no need to run out and buy a bunch of new stuff. But when you do need to buy a new washer or fridge or anything, really, make energy efficiency one of your top criteria. This goes for cars as well.

Use less stuff. One of the biggest problems we have as a society is overconsumption. We buy, consume, and throw out a huge amount of stuff. More than any other society in history. The habit to develop is to see if you can do without something instead of running out and buying it. When you feel the urge to buy something, hesitate. Put it on a 30-day list, and don’t buy it until 30 days have elapsed since you put it on the list. Instead, while you’re waiting, think about whether it’s truly necessary, and again, are there ways to get it used or to do without it.

Use cloth grocery bags. Paper or plastic? Paper is better, but cloth is even better than that. It’s a very easy habit: buy a few cloth grocery bags (or better yet, make your own or get them used!) and take them to the grocery store. Some stores will even give you a discount for using reusable bags. If expense is an issue, just buy 1-2 at a time, until you eventually are using all cloth bags.

Turn things off. Many times we have a habit of leaving things on. This wastes energy, which contributes to the burning of more fossil fuels and global warming. Instead, develop the habit of turning things off when you don’t use them: lights, air conditioners, water heaters, computers, televisions, etc.

Walk and cycle more. Cars are one of our biggest polluters and fuel wasters. Do as David does, and try to go carless! Even if this is not practical for you on a daily basis, you can try to use the car less often — walk to the store or school for short trips, and try making many of your medium-distance trips on bike. Bonus: you’ll burn more calories and lose weight!

Think about packaging. Besides the production and waste of the goods themselves, the packaging of products is hugely wasteful. The habit to develop: when you’re shopping, look for products that use less packaging than others. Some companies go out of their way to minimize packaging. Bulk products are also good for this. And avoid styrofoam products and packaging as much as possible, because of the harmful pollutants used to produce them.

Eat local foods. One thing most of us rarely think about when we eat something is how far that food had to travel to get to our plate. Oftentimes its thousands and thousands of miles — sometimes halfway around the world! Think about how much fuel is wasted bringing those items to you, when similar food is often grown right there in your area. The habit to develop: when shopping at a grocery store, see if there are any fruits and vegetables labeled as “grown locally”. It’s also great to shop at farmer’s markets and other such venues with locally grown foods.

Avoid McDonald’s. Well, not just McDonald’s, but they’re the worst. Not only is their food nutritionally empty, and actually harmful to your health, but they are one of the worst polluters and destroyers of the environment. Their huge supply of beef requires the destruction of rainforest and a huge contribution to global warming. Not to mention all their unnecessary packaging. Actually, all fast food companies are guilty of this. Habit to develop: adopt the attitude of the Slow Food movement (basically, the opposite of fast food), eat at home or at sit-down restaurants, and take the time to enjoy your food. Your palate, your stomach, your heart and the environment will thank you.

It’s a simple list, but I’m sure you could easily think of a dozen more. The main point is to change your lifestyle in small and easy ways, over time, and soon you’ll be just as much of an eco-head as David! Bonus: almost all of these habits save money!

{Images linked/Programming by DPC}

Take Action
http://www.change.org/actions

Loving it all....

2009-12-20T16:52:00.000-10:00

there is no other way

{photo by DPC}

Beyond Wild

2009-12-20T16:51:00.000-10:00

We have to appreciate the Mind that floats our many selves, gives
shelter to our hard-won information and word hoards, and yet remains
a sea of surprises. (Whatever made people think Mind isn't rocks,
fences, clouds, or houses?---Dogen's ingenuous question.) Meditation
is the problematic art of deliberately staying open as the myriad things
experience themselves. Another one of the ways that phenomena
"experience themselves" is in poetry. Poetry steers between non-verbal
states of mind and the intricacies of our gift of language (a wild system
is born with us). When I practice zazen, poetry never occurs to me, I
just do zazen. Yet, one cannot deny the connection.

~Gary Snyder

Ikkyu says, "Humans are endowed with the stupidity of horses and cattle."
I think Ikkyu is full of shit.
Humans are endowed with a stupidity all their own.
Horses and cattle know what to do.
They do it well.
He is right about poetry as a work out of hell.
We ought to know.
Phenomena experience themselves as themselves.
They don't need poetry.
We are looking at a mystery here.
How do these things have such an obstinancy
and yet are dependent on my consciousness?

When I practice fishing with two teenagers
poetry never occurs to me.
But later it does.
I can go over the whole day.
Hooray! That's what being human is all about.
It is just as much a weakness as a strength.
You say language is (a wild system born with us.)
I agree.
It is wilder than wild.
If we were just wild we wouldn't need language.
Maybe we are beyond wild.
That makes me feel better.

~Kanaka Creek, by Doe Dachtler/ISBN 1-57062-602-2

{Programming by DPC}

ESEI: The Only Way Forward Is Back to Gaia's Garden

2009-12-20T16:50:00.000-10:00

From the blog of BlueGreenEarth / ESEI

http://www.ecoearth.info/blog/2009/04/earth_meanders_the_only_way_fo.asp

EARTH MEANDERS:

The Only Way Forward Is Back to Gaia's Garden

Geo-engineering
madness will complete the destruction of the biosphere and human
being(s). It is critical that we reject industrial geo-engineering, to
instead embrace a program of sufficient global ecological protection
and restoration.

By Dr. Glen Barry, Ecological Internet
Earth Meanders come from Earth's Newsdesk

Human Hubris
Gaia
(or the Earth System if you rather) is not a science project, it is
alive (albeit sick) and fully inhabited. To speak of geo-engineering
the climate before having exhausted local, national and international
efforts to reduce emissions, protect and restore old forests, reform
industrial agriculture, and other ecologically sufficient policies to
sustain being, is rash and foolhardy. Continued ill-conceived
technological, industrial diminishment of naturally operating
ecosystems can only hasten and ensure global ecological collapse.

Sadly, President Obama's new science advisor, John Holdren, has
indicated the administration is investigating geo-engineering --
massive planetary alterations such as shooting aerosols into the upper
atmosphere -- to 'solve' climate change and associated ecological
crises. The Obama administration is clearly signaling it is going to
take a compromising, technology heavy approach to climate change
policy. Social change and personal transformation necessary to achieve
global ecological sustainability have received nary a mention.

Obama's climate policies will not be guided by what science tells us
is required to stop hazardous warming. Rather, the U.S. government will
only pursue policies that do not threaten economic growth, and rely
upon more industrial technologies at the expense of natural ecosystems.
Given America's history of exceptionalism, I suppose such hubris --
going from doing nothing to address climate change, directly to
seriously considering engineering the biosphere, completely skipping
the stages of self-examination and national transformation -- is to be
expected.

Climate change is exhibiting itself as abrupt and highly unpredictable changes in
climate consistency. So what we do now is throw more variability into
the system? Geo-engineering will lead inexorably to more climate
variability, biological diminishment and loss of natural ecosystems,
precisely at the time when we must stop digging our ecological hole
(grave). Surely there will be as many or more losers as winners as
climate predictability breaks down further with unexpected outcomes. To
even consider such outrageous actions distracts from the urgent
measures that need to be taken now on energy efficiency, conservation,
renewables and a whole host of ecologically sufficient policies that
require sacrifice.

Geo-engineering is Madness, Shear Madness

Geo-engineering is a lot of malarkey and can never work. The
atmosphere and biosphere of which it is part is simply too complex to
manipulate in a dependable, predictable way. Humanity is unable to
control exotic species, keep plastics out of the oceans, stop illegal
logging and fishing, and provide clean water for all; yet now we have
the ecological expertise and political will to commandeer the Planet?

For 3.5 billion years the Earth has maintained conditions conducive
to life and continued evolution; and now, in order to avoid giving up
and sharing with the poor our large homes, cars, air travel and other
conspicuous consumption, humans (including scientists that should know
better) are considering taking the risk of humans ourselves maintaining
the atmosphere and all attendant water, energy and nutrient flows. Even
considering this as an option puts off the necessary actions to stop
climate change and onrushing global ecological collapse by falsely
suggesting there are technologies to avoid the necessary social changes
required to lighten and reverse humanity's footprint upon natural
ecosystems.

Nothing even remotely comparable to humanity engineering the Earth's
biosphere has been attempted. Fertilizing the oceans, making charcoal
of its ecosystems to bury, space mirrors, aerosol sprays, giant
umbrellas -- are we crazy, or just in denial? Setting aside the
ecological uncertainties for a moment, how would such a program be
carried out socially? Who makes the rules of who can change the
climate? I would suppose it is American business interests and not
peasants more intimately dependent upon natural climatic patterns. What
is proposed is similar yet even grander than Mao's Great Leap Forward
and numerous megalomaniacal attempts to conquer the world throughout
history.

Age of Ecological Restoration

Gaia is full of unbelievably varied, evolved, co-dependent and
precious life. The biosphere, the relatively thin zone of life from
under the soil and ocean depths, through terrestrial and marine
ecosystems, to the top of the atmosphere; is the finely honed skin upon
Gaia, of unbelievable complexity and sensitivity. Water and oceans are
her precious blood. The sum total of over 3.5 billion years of
evolution in organisms and Gaia, the super-organism, is a habitable
Earth.

Eight millennia of forest clearance for agriculture, three hundred
years of accelerating industrial fossil fuel dependence, and a century
of growth in human population and inequitable consumption, have
resulted in us all cutting and burning Gaia to death. We have misplaced
our faith in technology, failing to understand it is the Earth System
which supplies both natural and technological resources. You cannot eat
a cell phone or money.

There exists a fundamental split between those that are willing to
use technologies such as the Internet when they are appropriate, while
generally proposing ecologically based policies; and those whose only
response to environmental harm is further industrial technology at the
continued expense of ecosystem diminishment. These decisions regarding
which is the best path forward to global ecological sustainability --
geo-engineering and continued economic growth, or ecological
regeneration and powering down to a steady state economy-- are
questions of life and death for us all.

Humanity must return to nature, limiting our excesses, not complete
her dismemberment. It is beyond our capabilities to dependably engineer
a biosphere. At this moment of awakening of our oneness with the Earth,
and the fact we have done her wrong, I intuit with all my being and
ecological knowledge that we must return to nature's fold and not
pursue more of the same resource industrialism that has brought us to
ruin. A biosphere cannot be engineered, but it may be able to be
restored. There is still time, just barely, to get back to Gaia's
garden.

Restoring Gaia's Garden

Together the human family must commit itself to an Age of Ecological
Restoration, disavowing geo-engineering proposals and minor reforms, in
order to single-mindedly pursue global ecological protection and
restoration. It is up to our best and brightest to aid ecosystems to
regenerate with large-scale, targeted restoration ecology efforts
placed to maximally benefit landscapes -- both ecologically and in
terms of sustainable agro-ecological food and other plant material
production.

Significant ecosystems, animals and genetic materials still exist as
seed stock and blueprints for the new garden. Restoring the Earth is
labor intensive and will provide many jobs and means of sustenance from
healthy land. And restoring old woodlands where they historically
occurred will absorb massive amounts of carbon. This is a sort of
geo-engineering, but based upon restoring the natural systems that we
have ripped asunder.

The hairless ape with opposable thumbs must return to Gaia's garden
and restore and expand natural ecosystems, while reclaiming the
industrial agricultural landscape with agro-ecological farming such as
permaculture and other systems of sustainable agriculture that renew
natural resources, increase natural diversity and enrich local
ecosystems.

Land degradation is a much larger component of climate change and
general ecological decline than generally supposed. We must not
prematurely give up on Gaia's resiliency and the ability of her
ecosystems to be restored and to persevere, even as human industrial
society powers down to avoid further ecological collapse.

Now is the time to return to the land, sea and water; and begin
rebuilding core strictly protected ecosystems and buffering
agro-ecological ecosystems of abundance and joy, adequate to maintain
being for humanity and all Gaia's creatures. Natural systems continue
to exist that can be restored and aided to regenerate. Important
remnants exist as roadmaps and seeds to allow their expansion and
reconnection.

We must reject further industrial capitalism, brought to a maddening
crescendo with ill-conceived geo-engineering proposals, and instead
allow ourselves to be bioengineered at Gaia's command. Together we can
create with natural stocks, and our hands, minds and communities;
Gaia's new, old garden.

One Year for Governments and Then a Stewardship Revolution?

We could choose to give one year for the current governments (with
plenty of escalating protest action) to get their act together and
start taking ecologically sufficient policy measures on climate,
forests, water and oceans; and reject geo-engineering, or it will be
our and the human family's deepest calling to take whatever actions are
necessary to destroy the industrial growth machine and begin powering
down industrial society.

A Stewardship Revolution to stop industrial ecosystem liquidation,
including its intensification through geo-engineering, may best serve
humanity and the Earth's long-term prospects. It may be better to crash
the global industrial economy now, to relieve unsustainable pressures
upon ecosystems, than to allow the technological madness to advance to
a state where humanity and indeed all complex life are irreparably lost
forever. A credible revolutionary threat may spur governments to
required ecologically sufficient action.

A mighty buck deer comes to my window when the moon is full to tell
me these things. And a lifetime of ecological education helps too. I
have found my oneness with Gaia. I encourage you to do so too, by
seeing the natural world around you, and what it is saying to you, and
by studying and acting upon political ecology. When you understand and
feel the enormity of looming global ecological collapse, which if not
acted upon will devastate you and your family, I encourage you to act
accordingly, and with suitable urgency, using all actions within your
power.

We are fighting for shared survival. Please start by fully
understanding that we will never, ever, ever be able to design and run
a biosphere. To try is ecocide and must be resisted using all means
necessary by all ecologically knowledgeable, clear minded and free
thinkers. But we may be able to recreate natural ecosystems and new
agro-ecological systems. There is one chance for the
corporate/industrial/military complex controlled governments to get
ecological sustainability policy right at Copenhagen in late 2009, and
if they fail, it will be up to global citizens to take the biosphere
into our own hands.

Posted by Dr. Glen Barry on April 9, 2009

Images linked
Additional programming by DPC

Centers of Change

2009-12-20T16:48:00.002-10:00

Every head is a world.

~Cuban proverb (Feldman, A World Treasury)

Man judges himself in accordance with his value to society

The general tendency toward social improvement in our day has led directly to a disregard, rising to neglect, for the human material of which society is built. The fault lies not in the goal itself--which is constructive in the main---but in the fact that individuals, rightly or wrongly, tend to identify their self-images with their value to society. Even if he has emancipated himself from the educators and protectors, man does not strive to make himself any different from the pattern impressed upon him from the outset. In this way society comes to be made up of persons increasingly alike in their ways, behavior, and aims. Despite the fact that the inherited differences between people are obvious, there are few individuals who view themselves without reference to the value attributed to them by society. Like a man trying to force a square peg into a round hole, so the individual tries to smooth out his biological peculiarities by alienating himself from his inherent needs. He strains to fit himself into the round hole that he now actively desires to fill, for if he fails in this, his value will be so diminished in his own eyes as to discourage further initiative. These considerations must be borne in mind to appreciate fully the overwhelming influence of the individual's attitude toward himself once he again seeks to foster his own growth, that is, to allow his specific qualities to develop and reach fruition.

Judging a child by his achievements robs him of spontaneity

During his early years a child is valued, by and large, not for his achievements, but simply for himself. In families where this is the case, the child will develop in accordance with his individual abilities. In families where children are judged primarily by their achievements, all spontaneity will disappear at an early age. These children will become adults without experiencing adolescence. Such adults may from time to time feel an unconscious longing for the adolescence they missed, a desire to seek out those instinctive capacities within themselves that they were denied their youthful will to develop.

Self-improvement is linked to recognition of the value of the self

It is important to understand that if a man wishes to improve his self-image, he must first of all learn to value himself as an individual, even if his faults as a member of society appear to him to outweigh his qualities.

We may learn from persons crippled from birth or childhood how an individual may view himself in the face of obvious shortcomings. Those who succeed in looking at themselves with a sufficient, encompassing humanity to achieve stable self-respect may reach heights that the normally healthy will never achieve. But those who consider themselves inferior because of their disabilities, and overcome them by sheer power, tend to grow into hard and embittered adults who will take revenge upon fellow men who are not at fault and, moreover, who may not be able to change the circumstance even if they wanted to do so.

Action becomes the main arm in self-improvement

Recognizing one's value is important at the start of self-improvement, but for any real improvement to be achieved, regard for the self will have to be relegated to second place. Unless a stage is reached at which self-regard ceases to be the main motivating force, any improvement achieved will never be sufficient to satisfy the individual. In fact, as a man grows and improves, his entire existence centers increasingly on what he does and how, while who does it becomes of ever decreasing importance.

The difficulty of changing an earlier pattern of action

A man tends to regard his self-image as something bestowed upon him by nature, although it is, in fact, the result of his own experience. His appearance, voice, way of thinking, environment, his relationship to space and time---to choose at random---are all taken for granted as realities born with him, whereas every important element in the individual's relationship to other people and to society in general is the result of extensive training. The arts of walking, speaking, reading, and of recognizing three dimensions in a photograph are skills the individual accumulates over a period of many years, each of them depends upon chance, and on the place and period of his birth. The acquisition of a second language is not as easy as that of the first, and the pronunciation of the newly learned language will be marked by the influence of the first; the sentence structure of the first language will impose itself on the second. Every pattern of action that has become fully assimilated will interfere with the patterns of subsequent actions.

Difficulties arise, for instance, when a person learns to sit according to the custom of some nation other than his own. As these early patterns of sitting are not the result of heredity alone, but derive from the chance and circumstances of birth, the difficulties involved lie less in the nature of the new habit than in the changing of habits of body, feeling, and mind from their established patterns. This holds true for almost any change of habit, whatever its origin. What is meant here, of course, is not the simple substitution of one activity by another, but a change in the way an act is performed, a change in its whole dynamics, so that the new method will be in every respect as good as the old.

There is no awareness of many parts of the body

A person who lies down on his back and tries to sense his entire body systematically---that is, turning his attention to every limb and part of his body in turn---finds that certain sections respond easily, while others remain mute or dull and beyond the range of his awareness.

It is thus easy to sense the fingertips or lips, but much harder to sense the back of the head at the nape, between the ears. Naturally, the degree of difficulty is individual, depending on the form of the self-image. Generally speaking, it will be difficult to find a person whose whole body is equally accessible to his awareness. The parts of the body that are easily defined in the awareness are those that serve man daily, while the parts that are dull or mute in his awareness play only an indirect role in his life and are almost missing from his own self-image when he is in action.

A person who cannot sing at all cannot feel this function in his self-image except by an effort of intellectual extrapolation. He is not aware of any vital connection between the hollow space in his mouth and his ears or his breathing, as does the singer. A man who cannot jump will not be aware of those parts of the body involved that are clearly defined to a man who is able to jump.

{Awareness Through Movement, by Moshe Feldenkrais, ISBN 0-06-250322-7}

{Images Linked/Art by Matt Sewell/Programming by DPC}

The Earth is the center of the Universe
The house is the center of the earth
The family is the center of the house
The person is the center of the family

~Basque song

Another Flying Cathedral

2009-12-20T16:47:00.000-10:00

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed,
but nature does not depend on us.
We are not the only experiment.

I live on Earth at present,
and I don't know what I am.
I know that I am not a category.
I am not a thing
— a noun.

I seem to be a verb,
an evolutionary process
— an integral function
of the universe.

~ R. Buckminster Fuller/Programming by DPC

Harnessed Foci

2009-12-20T16:46:00.002-10:00

We are not always sitting down concentrating on a flower in the search for the Self. Once you have decided that Self Realization is the ultimate goal for you, go on living your normal life. Everything you do in life can collectively be channeled toward the ultimate goal, for what you need is a dynamic will. You need a strong willpower. Willpower is the channeling of all energies toward one given point for a given length of time. This will can be brought out from within in everything that we do through the day. It's a powerful will. It's available to everyone. It is channeling the rarefied energies in the body, of awareness itself, into attention and concentration upon everything that we do through the day.

How do we cultivate the will power? What do we mean by will? Will means that if you're going to complete something, you complete it. Finish that which you begin. Finish it well, beyond your expectations, no matter how long it takes. If you are going to do something, do it well, no matter if it is a simple task or a complicated one. If you're going to read a book and intend to finish the book, then read the book, finish the book, and understand what it had to offer you, for that was the purpose for reading it.

It is not developing a strong will by having a lot of half-finished jobs. It is not developing a strong will by starting out with a bang on a project and then fizzling out. These only attach awareness to that which it is aware of and lead us into the distraction of thinking the external mind is real. Then we forget our inner goal of Self Realization because the subconscious becomes too ramified with, basically, our being disappointed in ourselves, or the will power being so diversified, or awareness being so divided in many different ways that whatever we want to do never works out because there is not enough will, or shove, or centralization of energy, or awareness is not at attention over the project enough, to make it into completion. A tremendous will is needed on the path of Self Realization, of drawing the forces and energy together, of drawing awareness away from that which it is aware of constantly, of finishing each job that we begin in the material world, and doing it well, so that we are content within ourselves. Make everything that you do satisfy the Inner scrutiny of your inner being. Do a little more than you think that you are able to do. That brings forth just a little more will.

~Merging With Shiva, by Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami

{Programming by DPC}

The Field & Garden of Circe

2009-12-20T16:46:00.001-10:00

"The roar of the sea,
largeness of the tide,
the blue horizon,
the sun burning,
excite it."

[Richard Jeffries, Sun Life]

Even though you are heavier now
you will float on water & be like ice.
Everywhere you look you will be a parent
swelling & drifting, layer by layer,
pressed to the black stone known as coal
for millions of years on a piece of shale
the explorer's dogs were absorbed
for a liquid to turn to gas
for the chaffinch grateful for help
for the elegant delicate beak
for the glucose flurry "building with light"
naked & crouched in a nook of rubble
a dog a horse a self-willed wolf
like guarding a house with a bumpy tongue
& it doesn't take much just a
few young buds is usually enough,
a succulent slit while the taller the door
her hazardous egg their mouth agape
to skeleton, organs, affection & food
to making noises' spiky case
stippled with heat off a gulf of leaves
so small revolving honey pelt
so hottest point a flaunted sap
the fossil record most assent
so equinox decay remains
a good & solid boiler does,
in freshwater snail, in corms of crocus,
in pollen compulsion these flailing salts
this many shines, active a petal
& mineral mysteries list them plough,
a slow alive,
a solemn earth,
a miracle parent, a carrot,
amazing butters that hundreds of out,
that hollowed ocean algae worm by several noun,
sargasso elms not gills but lunge,
such coat of moisture bigger but danger,
nature around the year on over
a crop of sap, a possible rock-hard pear,
cocoon or dormant facet house,
produces branching bees as well,
anatomy rapidly animal lakes,
anatomy rapidly animal lakes,
grumble thorax splashed with yellow
flexible trump & soon may fly
browned on wingtip pumice
immortal maya soaring pillow
each beech attach a history of Venus
--pingala blush in obelisk--
anatomy rapidly animal lakes
the fossil record most assent
to soar on murmur swells the
patter numerical obstinate
loam of the pressure of years
of the story is very invited
and longs for names or
skullbone glues her
syrup a sun life shore to bone
shortwave for years to become
excited the story as light
is food we animal
membrane's karezza narcosis
to fend
these cool veins blue past throng
a thaw that soared ..s
by way of manifold pranks
in debts of protein end on end
O
"...there is a massive convergence of mobile minds
flying upward on a gradient of surprise..."
just waiting waiting & sweet untold "you know
biology branch in memory alive
biology branch entire hill in memory saliva
said to the fly
there probably is"
the spider to being alive
the purge desire to fatten its secret
indulge desire to memor erupt

origi
origin
in ast
astrophe
vertig
amor
ashing a for
a passion forest
a metal blur on sunblind sea shone clouded roar
nor even the need to attain
a mooth smapping of surf
lits into folds & cusplike rrific absor

{The Field & Garden of Circe, by Jed Rasula}

"...the conviction that an antibiosis is at hand in the human world. As an 'association between two or more organisms that is injurious to one of them," the humanization of the planet has instituted goverance as such---including any and all political regimes whether left or right---as injurious to the organisms of earth with which we're bound, no longer in symbiosis, but in antibiosis. These writings conscientiously handle a hyperbolic and presumptuous apparatus: the withered and stunted public language in our time. This cosmetic gadgetry---the artificial life-support system that constitutes common parlance today---sustains a smothering fiction of history as a developmental/evolutionary maturation of the species.

...the writerly surface is flushed with a rhetoric that makes the language bristle with all its accumulated alien parasites, its abrasions and contusions, as it is pressed into service for the prevailing emotional greed of the century's twilight. This kind of writing, in its own very different way, attempts a reclamation of our right to language, which I would affirm, in all my work, as the most inalienable of all rights...."

{Programming by DPC}

Recycle Ur Sonics

Intermission

2009-12-20T16:43:00.001-10:00

{Prismacolor pencil drawing by Shen Orion}

"What do you do with the mad that you feel?"

2009-12-20T16:42:00.002-10:00

In 1969, Fred Rogers appeared before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Communications. His goal was to support funding for PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, in response to significant proposed cuts by President Nixon.

Won't you be my neighbor?

2009-12-20T16:42:00.001-10:00

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood,
A neighborly day for a beauty,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So let's make the most of this beautiful day,
Since we're together, we might as well say,
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please,
Won't you please,
Please won't you be my neighbor?

Spoken: Hi television neighbor, I'm glad we're together again....

= )

O nei

2009-12-20T16:41:00.001-10:00

***********

Sleepy Town Manufacture - "O nei"
Music Video From Free MP3 Compilation "Intelligent Toys 5" from Phlow on Vimeo.

This music video clip for Sleepy Town Manufacture's "O Nei" song was made by no_joy (iliustracija.net) whose art has become already a solid part of the Intelligent Toys Compilation Series. It took more than three months to draw everything by hand and turn it into an animation. The music and the video clip are shared under a creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/

Check out the whole free mp3 music compilation with 39 tracks ranging from ambient to idm to electronica on Lithuanian netlabel called Sutemos.net.

This video was uploaded by Phlow-Magazine.com

Solo ida. Lugares comunes

2009-12-20T16:39:00.000-10:00

The universe has free people
whom nothing whatever concerns,
Controlling their thoughts,
they stop all illusions
to find one whole reality.
Having forgotten all about glory,
how could they worry about disgrace...
Athough you may say
the green mountains are fine,
Still know they are objects outside.

~ Free People, by Wen-siang

{Programming by DPC}

10 Ways To Bring Spirit Into Your Relationships

2009-12-20T16:37:00.000-10:00

10 Ways To Bring Spirit Into Your Relationships

by Avalon De Witt @ eaglespiritministry.com

Whether you want to deepen your marriage, attract a mate or just get along better with your boss, it always helps when you bring Spirit into your relationships. Many times we get caught up in "taking care of business" in relationships and we go through the motions, forgetting all about Spirit. When you bring Spirit to your relationships, you are drawing from a power that is infinite. How can we do that more? Here are some starters:

1) Listen - Really listen. Don't try to "do active listening," or any other listening technique. When you're concentrating on a technique, you're not listening. Just take in what the other person has to say. Receive the meaning of the message, without immediately jumping to respond to the message. Listening helps you connect with people. Spirit loves to show up when people are connecting.

2) Practice Non-judgment - You never know how something might serve the ultimate good in the long run. It is not up to us to decide that the other person is right or wrong, good or bad. This does not mean you cannot assess things in your relationships. You can assess whether someone is being sincere, honest, trustworthy and so on. We just don't have to assign a value judgment to that, by saying it is good or bad. It just IS. And what you make of it - is up to you.

3) Seek to Understand the Other - Don't worry about being misunderstood. When you drop your concern about that, and get curious about understanding the other person, two things happen. First, you stop stressing yourself about what others think of you. Second, you show the other person that they are important to you. When the other person sees that they are genuinely important to you, they will generally return the feeling. Not to mention, being able to understand another person just feels good, and feeling good always brings Spirit to relationships.

4) Be Honest - If someone likes you for something that you're not, then it's not you that they like. Be who you are. Most people will respect you for your honesty, even if they don't agree with you. But don't go along with others just to please them, if it doesn't please you too. People will sense your discomfort and yet may not know why, which will create tension in the relationship where it's not necessary. Be true to yourself by speaking up and telling the truth about who you are and what you desire. I always say, "If you're not being true to yourself, you're not being true to anyone else."

5) Eat Together - You've got to break bread together. There is no substitute for sitting down and sharing a meal with a person. Animals will not eat when they are threatened. When you eat with someone, you are showing them that you trust them. And when two people are trusting each other, THERE is Spirit.

6) Stop Analyzing the Relationship - Stop analyzing, stop worrying about the future of your relationship and just BE in the relationship. Enjoy the relationship here and now. The here and now - is your bridge to the future. If you are spending your todays worried about your tomorrows, you're not here, in today, doing what it takes to build something that can endure.

7) Say Thank You - The more you are thankful, the more you will have to be thankful for. And of course, people usually like being thanked. Saying thank you is like returning what's been given to you, with interest, except it doesn't cost you anything. Most of the time, thanking someone will make you feel just as good as the other person feels hearing it, sometimes even better.

8) Look to See What You Can Learn - When we are open to learning, we are expanding. When we are expanding, we are growing. When we are growing, that's the work of Spirit. There is always something more for us to learn. When we stop learning, we stop growing, and when we're not growing, we're dying. Learn and live!

9) Be Selfish - I'm talking Selfish, NOT selfish. Self with a big "S," not a small one. What you are doing in the relationship needs to be more important to you than what the other person is doing in the relationship, if you want Spirit to show up. You can't control the other person. You can't always know what another person's intentions are. But you can control yourself, and you can know your own intentions. When you concentrate on your own desires, intentions and actions, rather than those of the other person, you are taking responsibility for your part in the relationship. No one else can do that for you.

10) Know that You Are Beautiful - The spirit inside of you came from The Divine Light. If you are alive, you have light inside of you, and that light is beautiful. When you see the beauty in yourself, it's easier to see it in others. Enjoy the beauty that is in you. Admire it. Let it make you smile, the way the beauty of a child or a sunset makes you smile. Your sense of beauty will become contagious.

Remember that the purpose of relationships is spiritual growth. Every interaction is one more opportunity to become more of who you truly are. Spirit is the breath of life in relationships. Without it, we fall short of connecting with others. Bring more of Spirit to your relationships and watch how much easier it is to get along and to find fulfillment in all your interactions!

Lightworkers

THE DIRTY DOZEN

2009-12-20T16:35:00.002-10:00

"To put the world in order we must first put the nation in order.
To put the nation in order,
we must first put the family in order.
To put the family in order,
we must cultivate our personal life,
we must first set our hearts right."

Unknown

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

THE DIRTY DOZEN
**ONLY YOU CAN STOP THEM**

April 1, 2009

Below is a list of 12 Senators: the Dirty Dozen.

These 12 Senators are the ones who are leading the charge to force new nuclear reactors on the American public, regardless of the costs, regardless of the dangers, regardless of the lethal radioactive waste these reactors would create, regardless of the plentiful safer, cleaner, cheaper energy sources available.

They are the ones who are this week pushing amendments to President Obama's FY 2010 budget, trying to pave the way for more taxpayer subsidies for new nuclear reactors later this year.

They are the ones who tried to get $50 billion in taxpayer loan guarantees for new reactors in February--but they were defeated then.

And they can be defeated now--with your help.

Pick up the phone and call your Senators, and tell them to vote against any and all amendments (and there are a number of them) to the budget bill that would provide subsidies for nuclear power. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.

And if your Senator is listed below, you might want to call him (this list is all men) and give him a piece of your mind: tell him to try representing his constituents for once instead of the nuclear power industry!

If you haven't yet sent an e-mail to your Senators, please do so here.

If you have sent your e-mail, forward this Alert to five of your friends and ask them to contact their Senators as well.

Votes on these amendments are likely to begin tonight (appropriately, April Fool's Day, in honor of the fools pushing nuclear technology), and continue throughout the day Thursday and perhaps Friday.

We know we've been asking a lot of you already this year. That's because the nuclear industry is getting desperate, and they're doing everything they can to get more of your money, since they can't raise any of their own. We thank you for all your activism and action, and we hope you'll keep it up now and throughout the year.

Thanks for all you do,

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

nirsnet@nirs.org

www.nirs.org

THE DIRTY DOZEN

Sen Barrasso, John [R-WY]
Sen Bennett, Robert F. [R-UT]
Sen Brownback, Sam [R-KS]
Sen Cornyn, John [R-TX]
Sen Enzi, Michael B. [R-WY]
Sen Graham, Lindsey [R-SC]
Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [R-UT]
Sen Inhofe, James M. [R-OK]
Sen Risch, James E. [R-ID]
Sen Vitter, David [R-LA]
Sen Voinovich, George V. [R-OH]
Sen McCain, John, [R-AZ]

{Images linked/Programming by DPC}

religion Before religion

2009-12-20T16:35:00.001-10:00

Man is an aspect of nature,
and nature itself is a manifestation of primordial religion.
Even the word "religion" makes an unnecessary separation,
and there is no word for it in the Indian tongues.
Nature is the "Great Mysterious,"
the "religion before religion"...

~Peter Matthiessen

<3
DPC

4u

2009-12-20T16:34:00.000-10:00

The love for the Eternal is the essential passion that burns in the heart of all things. Beings know it not, and so they suffer. When we turn our face away from this one Reality, we open the door to self-imprisonment. No achievement, either on earth or in heaven, no greatness pertaining to the world of name and form, is worth considering. The love of life is based on the love of the Self.

"Not, verily, for the love of the all is the all dear,
but for the love of the Self is the all dear."

-Brih. Up. II. 4. 5.

All actions are done for the sake of the Self, not for external persons and things. It is not the existence of joy in the object as such that brings pleasure to the individual enjoying it, but the cooling of the fire of craving that is brought about by its contact with a particular object which is specially demanded by that special mode of desire generated in the ego-consciousness. The satiation is caused by a temporary turning back of the mind to the Self. The whole of the happiness of the world is, thus, purely negative, an avoiding of the unpleasant, and not the acquirement of any real, positive joy. This positive bliss is found only in the Self, the root of existence. The bustle of life's activity is a struggle to respond to the cry of the anxious ego which has lost itself in the wilderness of its separation from the Eternal Principle. The grieving self bound by fetters in the prison of life is ransomed by the knowledge of the non-dual nature of Existence.

~Source
Programming by DPC

Learn to Love Loneliness

2009-12-20T16:33:00.000-10:00

"Humanity is the mold to break away from,
the crust to break through,
the coal to break into fire,
the atom to split."
And what fools us out of our limits in this way?

...wild loves that leap over the walls of nature,
the wild fence-vaulter science,
Unless intelligence of far stars,
dim knowledge of the spinning demons that make an atom.

poem by Robinson Jeffers
an excerpt from Joseph Campbell's, "Myths to Live By"
friday the 13th programming by DPC

If you eat non-organic, please read...

2009-12-20T16:31:00.001-10:00

Pesticide Health Effects: The Latest Science

Every year, new research is published demonstrating the toxicity of pesticides to human health and the environment, often at doses previously declared "safe" by the pesticide industry and the government.

As acknowledged by the U.S. and international government agencies, different pesticides have been linked with a variety of toxic effects, including:
Nervous system effects
Carcinogenic effects
Hormone system effects
Skin, eye and lung irritation

Pesticides are unique among the chemicals we release into the environment; they have inherent toxicity because they are designed to kill living organisms – insects, plants, and fungi that are considered "pests." Because they are toxic by design, many pesticides pose health risks to people, risks that have been acknowledged by independent research scientists and physicians across the world.

Ignorance Does Not Equal Safety

Even in the face of a growing body of evidence, pesticide manufacturers continue to defend their products, claiming that the amounts of pesticides on produce are not sufficient to elicit safety concerns. Yet, such statements are often made in the absence of actual data, since most safety tests done for regulatory agencies are not designed to discover whether low dose exposures to mixtures of pesticides and other toxic chemicals are safe, particularly during critical periods of development. In general, the government demands, and companies conduct, high dose studies designed to find gross, obvious toxic effects. In the absence of the appropriate tests at lower doses, pesticide and chemical manufacturers claim safety since the full effects of exposure to these mixtures of chemicals have not been conclusively demonstrated (or even studied).

The majority of the U.S. population has detectable concentrations of multiple pesticide residues in their bodies, as detected in biomonitoring studies by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The ubiquitous pesticide exposures are further compounded by exposure to hundreds of industrial chemicals that contaminate human bodies and are even found in the developing fetus. The full health effects of exposure to these mixtures of chemicals are not yet known; true public health protection would require a consideration of cumulative risks of exposure to multiple toxic chemicals at a time.

Children Are Especially at Risk

Protecting our families' health from chemical exposures can start with minimizing children's exposure to pesticides. It is now well established that pesticides pose a risk to vital organ systems that continue to grow and mature from conception throughout infancy and childhood. Exposure to pesticides and other toxic chemicals during critical periods of development can have lasting adverse effects both in early development and later in life. The metabolism, physiology, and biochemistry of a fetus, infant or child are fundamentally different from those of adults; a young, organism is often less able to metabolize and inactivate toxic chemicals and can be much more vulnerable to the harmful effects of pesticides. The nervous system, brain, reproductive organs and endocrine (hormone) system can be permanently, if subtly, damaged by exposure to toxic substances in-utero or throughout early childhood that, at the same level, cause no measurable harm to adults. The developing brain and endocrine system are very sensitive, and low doses at a susceptible moment of development can cause more of an effect than high doses. It is especially important to reduce pesticide exposures of babies and young children so as to minimize these risks.

Doesn't The Government Regulate These Chemicals?

When consumers realize the magnitude of the health threat posed by pesticides, they naturally wonder: Doesn't the government regulate these toxic chemicals? The answer is that, unfortunately for human and environmental health, government action has been far too slow. It is important to remember that the government said that highly toxic pesticides like DDT, chlordane, dursban and others were safe right up to the day the EPA banned them. And considering that we are talking about toxic chemicals whose effects on children's health may be irreversible, no delay is justifiable.

The Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 was designed to require protection of infants and children from pesticides. This law produced several notable achievements and fundamentally improved the health standards in pesticide law by requiring explicit protection of infants and children. But a lot remains to be done, especially in protecting human health from pesticide mixtures and chemicals that have endocrine disrupting properties. Not surprisingly, pesticide makers and agribusiness groups have been fighting strict application of the statute, particularly provisions that require an extra 10-fold level of protection for infants and children.

Souce

Click Here to View a Full List of 47 Non-Organic Fruits and Veggies, Ranked Worst Pesticide Containing Food to Least Dangerous

{Programming by DPC/Image from http://www.organicgardeninfo.com/soil.html}

Help End Dangerous Nuclear Reprocessing Scheme

2009-12-20T16:30:00.002-10:00

From the Blog of Union of Concerned Scientists

The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) is a costly and dangerous program that attempts to reuse—or "reprocess"—commercial nuclear waste by extracting plutonium and other materials from spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. Sure, these separated materials can be used to fuel reactors, but they also can be used in nuclear weapons and would be dangerously vulnerable to theft or misuse. That's why the United States stopped nuclear reprocessing more than 30 years ago. Not only will reprocessing seriously undermine U.S. efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and materials, it won't do anything to solve the problem of nuclear waste.

In the waning days of the Bush administration, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a required environmental assessment of the proposed GNEP program that is now open for public comment. Write the DOE today to urge them to cancel the dangerous GNEP program.

Just a heads up, the deadline for comments is March 16, so write soon! Take action today at https://secure3.convio.net/ucs/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1884&s_src=socnet&s_subsrc=myspace

{Images linked/Additional Programming and Linkage by DPC}

**Note**
Half-life: the time it takes a radioactive substance to lose half its radioactive energy. After two half lives, a quarter of the sample is unchanged and after three, an eighth. Many highly radioactive materials such as plutonium must go through several half-lives before they become safe to handle without protection. Plutonium has a half-life of 24,000 years.

Links:

Depleted Uranium: Ethics Of The Silver Bullet
The Nuclear Guardianship Library
Victims of the Nuclear Age
Nuclear radiation and its biological effects
Wikipedia: Nuclear reprocessing
Article by Union of Concerned Scientist
Fact Sheet
CRS Report for Congress
Chernobyl Global Radiation Patterns
World Nuclear Association

**Note**

To pretend, as the nuclear industry often does, that a few experiments, test bores or geological surveys is all that is needed to deal with radioactive waste is simply disingenuous or scientifically illiterate or possibly both. Adequate proof will take tens of thousands of years.

The two main dangers inherent in the burial of nuclear waste are air and water contamination.

Air Contamination

Explosive or slow releases of gases from an underground disposal site is theoretically possible. There is unfortunately no reliable way of estimating this danger - there are too many uncertainties concerning actual methods of burial and of possible chemical interactions within a real environment.

Water Contamination

This is generally taken as the most likely mechanism of pollution in connection with waste disposal in rock. Underground waters may come in contact with radioactive elements that have leached out from the waste and contaminate the drinking water of local and distant communities.

In addition to underground burial, various on-site storage schemes are being investigated. Of primary interest is the storage of the spent fuel in large steel or concrete containers. While on-site storage of spent fuel keeps the material at the point of its creation and reduces transportation risks, hundreds of communities around the world are threatened with de facto high level dumps on their doorsteps. Plans also exist for consolidating containerised spent fuel at a few above-ground regional facilities, resulting in a huge number of road transports in containers not designed to withstand credible accidents.

The best solution for the future is that no more nuclear waste should be produced anywhere in the world.

Source

Tending the Inner Garden

2009-12-20T16:30:00.001-10:00

Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the anger of hate, of anger, of fear. We forget that in us there are other kinds of energy that can manifest also. If we know how to practice, we can bring back the energy of insight, of love, and of hope in order to embrace the energy of fear, of despair, and of anger.

Inside every one of us is a garden, and every practitioner has to go back to their garden and take care of it. Maybe in the past, you left it untended for a long time. You should know exactly what is going on in your own garden, and try to put everything in order. Restore the beauty; restore the harmony in your garden. If it is well tended, many people will enjoy your garden.

With the energy of mindfulness, you can look into the garbage and say, "I am not afraid. I am capable of transforming the garbage back into love."

The energy of mindfulness contains the energy of concentration as well as the energy of insight. Concentration helps you to focus on just one thing. With concentration, the energy of looking becomes more powerful. Because of that, it can make a breakthrough that is insight. Insight always has the power of liberating you. If mindfulness is there, and you know how to keep mindfulness alive, concentration will be there, too. And if you know how to keep concentration alive, insight will come also. So mindfulness recognizes, embraces, and relieves. Mindfulness helps us look deeply in order to gain insight. Insight is the liberating factor. It is what frees us and allows transformation to happen. This is the practice of taking care of anger.

Every time you feel lost, alienated, or cut off from life, or from the world, every time you feel despair, anger, or instability, practice going home. Mindful breathing is the vehicle that you use to go back to your true home.

~ Taming the Tiger Within, by Thich Nhat Hanh

{Images Linked/Programming by DPC}

...also, here are some Kundalini Yoga kriyas to help with this process...
Press Here
**If you have any questions regarding these exercises, please feel free to ask the DPC**

flashfire

2009-12-20T16:26:00.000-10:00

soul's flight humming strumming matter streaming meandering flash-fire flood of spontaneous being

photo by DPC

Pulsation

2009-12-20T16:22:00.000-10:00

*img link'd

Saraha

2009-12-20T16:20:00.000-10:00

One constructs being and nirvana by oneself;
In vain do people fetter themselves.
I don't know the inconceivable yogi;
How can birth and death exist?
Where there is birth, there is death;
Living and dying have no difference.
Whoever is apprehensive of birth and death here
Should desire the rejuvenating elixir.
Whoever roams the universe, even the heavens
Never becomes free of old age and death.
Whether action's caused by birth, or birth by action,
Saraha says, the Truth is inconceivable.

One constructs being and nirvana by oneself;
In vain do people fetter themselves.

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."

I don't know the inconceivable yogi;
How can birth and death exist?

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."

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.

Where there is birth, there is death;
Living and dying have no difference.

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 Dhammapada, Buddha said, "What attachment is there when one has seen these white bones as like gourds discarded in autumn?"

Whoever is apprehensive of birth and death here
Should desire the rejuvenating elixir.

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?"

Whoever roams the universe, even the heavens
Never becomes free of old age and death.

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."

Whether action's caused by birth, or birth by action,
Saraha says, the Truth is inconceivable.

The Flower Ornament Scripture 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."

~The Ecstasy of Enlightenment, Cleary, ISBN 1-59030-219-2

{Images Linked/Programming by DPC}

L

2009-12-20T16:19:00.000-10:00