Tuesday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Home free

Oh my. Take a look at this:

Everything matters: how we vote, how we tie our shoelaces, how we respond to the faintest whisper of a thought. And nothing matters, because (look!) it's already gone. When we understand this, we're home free.

It's from Stephen Mitchell's new translation of the works of Lao-tzu's disciple Chuang-tzu and Confucius's grandson Tzu-Ssu. It's called The Second Book of the Tao.

Harmony and resonance

A lifetime may not be long enough to attune ourselves fully to the harmony of the universe. But just to become aware that we can resonate with it -- that alone can be like waking up from a dream.

~~David Steindl-Rast

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Something about dreams and choice

It's hard to put into words how the passage I'm sharing with you today affected me when I read it. I have viewed reality this way for a very long time - decades, really. But I have never before seen it expressed so well:

All men and women are born, live, suffer and die; what distinguishes us one from another is our dreams, whether they be dreams about worldly or unworldly things, and what we do to make them come about... We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time and conditions of our death. But within this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we live.

-- Joseph Epstein

Consoling advice

Available here

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

"Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness. It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs when we let our minds rest on a rosebud, a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall."

-- Fulton J. Sheen

I remember loving Bishop Sheen's television programs when I was a kid. He was really a lovely person.

Letting go of delusion

We often talk about "peeling off the layers" as part of the process of doing inner work. Here's something Meister Eckhart said about just that:

A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or a bear’s, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.

Remember that "Oh human being, know yourself!" has long been consdered the most significant utterance of the ancient Oracle of Delphi.

This is the work, dear people. This is the work.

Life's hazards

The following insight is hard to take on board, I know. But notice that Charlotte Beck is careful to state that it takes years of meditative practice to see life this way:

Life itself is hazardous. . . . There are sharp rocks everywhere. What changes from years of practice is coming to know something you didn't know before: that there are no sharp rocks — the road is covered with diamonds.

— Charlotte Joko Beck in Nothing Special

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Blogging delay

Dear Readers,

My computer is in the shop at the moment and so there will be a slight delay in posting. (Not sure how long that will be but I just didn't want anyone to worry.)

Wednesday life form blogging

This is Smokey, the wonderful pit bull whose human is my dear friend, Bill Miller.

I've posted a number of Bill's photos year over the past couple of years. You might like to visit Bill's blog: Tulsa Gentleman

My kind of dog

Did I ever share this with you? Most of you know that I have a new dog, Bernice. She was spayed yesterday and is recovering well.

Choosing A Dog

"It's love," they say. You touch
the right one and a whole half of the universe
wakes up, a new half.

Some people never find
that half, or they neglect it or trade it
for money or success and it dies.

The faces of big dogs tell, over the years,
that size is a burden: you enjoy it for awhile
but then maintenance gets to you.

When I get old I think I'll keep, not a little
dog, but a serious dog,
for the casual, drop-in criminal —

My kind of dog, unimpressed by
dress or manner, just knowing
what's really there by the smell.

Your good dogs, some things that they hear
they don't really want you to know —
it's too grim or ethereal.

And sometimes when they look in the fire
they see time going on and someone alone,
but they don't say anything.

~ William Stafford

Well, Bernice is neither small nor serious. Maybe I'm just not quite old enough yet! :-)

All I know is that having a dog greatly supports my mental health. I also can take pleasure in knowing that, by adopting a rescue, I have given happiness and security to another sentient being on this wonderful earth that is full of both beauty and cruelty.

Erin Go Bragh!

Here are some wonderful Irish toasts that I wish for all of you!

May you get all your wishes but one.
So you always have something to strive for.
...
May your blessings outnumber
The shamrocks that grow,
And may trouble avoid you
Wherever you go.
...
May your neighbors respect you,
Troubles neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And Heaven accept you.
...
May the best day of your past
be the worst day of your future.
...
May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.

Here's a wonderful brief bio of St. Patrick. Enjoy!

Monday meditative picture blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The edge of mystery

I've told you before, I think, about the marquee outside the Nazarene Church down on the corner from my house. Seems to me that they've outdone themselves with this message:

We all live on the edge of mystery --
But most choose to ignore it.

Awareness

The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That's what poetry does.

-- Allen Ginsberg

And so does meditation. For my money, I'll take both! :-)

Happy Pi Day!!!

Just for those who may have forgotten over the years: Pi is what you get when you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter. When you try to represent it in decimal form, it goes on forever --- that is, it never ends or repeats. (It starts off with 3.14 --- March 14. Get it?)

How is this pertinent to meditation? Well, it gives us an appreciation for the complexity of reality and that helps us take a more spacious approach to how we view the world. And, heck. It's just fun! (And fascinating.)

Okay. For those of you whose eyes glaze over at anything mathematical but who like words, I give you a poem in honor of the day:

Pi

The admirable number pi:

three point one four one.

All the following digits are also initial,

five nine two because it never ends.

It can't be comprehended six five three five at a glance,

eight nine by calculation,

seven nine or imagination,

not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison

four six to anything else

two six four three in the world.

The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.

Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.

The pageant of digits comprising the number pi

doesn't stop at the page's edge.

It goes on across the table, through the air,

over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky,

through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.

Oh how brief - a mouse tail, a pigtail - is the tail of a comet!

How feeble the star's ray, bent by bumping up against space!

While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen

my phone number your shirt size the year

nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor

the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents

hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code,

in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert

alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,

as well as heaven and earth shall pass away,

but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,

it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five,

its uncommonly fine eight,

its far from final seven,

nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity

to continue.

-- Wislawa Szymborska (Polish Nobel Laureate: 1996)

Love it! Just love it!

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Seeing

This is really worth pondering, I think:

People only see what they are prepared to see.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson