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Liz did a good job of doing the reading.

Just in case people wanted to here Carl Sagan's delivery here is a youtube clip:

it's quite great set with some dreamy music on that clip. Does anyone know where the audio clip comes from?

this is one of my favorite audio excepts. Carl Sagan's voice is always filled with awe and the want of understanding in all of his documentries. Hearing him talk about the world from this perspective helped me not only appreciate the planet, people/other living beings, and nature but also the time that we have been alive and the time we are alive right now.

I have the youtube clip bookmarked and I always come back and take a listen whenever my head is somewhere else.
"The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there -- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

is one of my favorite sentances in all of little english oratory history that I know.

I liked how in the Deepa Mehta movie, Water, when Gandhi-ji appears at the end he says, "My dear brothers and sisters, for a long time I believed that God is Truth. But  Today I know that Truth is God. The pursuit of truth... is invaluble to me. I trust it will be the same for you"

I guess to me, non-attachement is a state of mind and Love is a 4 letter word... Just kidding. I was telling my friend about a great rap "Love's Gonna Get ya" and it's about material love("I love my chain, my car, that girl over there that I don't even know"). And the moral of the story is that if you find yourself plotting and scheming for "love," it'll get you and the people you love into trouble. So if that mother in the previous post is trying to plot and scheme to passive agressively break up the couple, it makes me think she's closing the doors. Maybe the son should just keep shining until she comes back. He should let her go and not be attached to her and both of them will learn something :-). The 3 of them should just talk about what they don't like about each other and have a big fight and have faith that they'll make up again -- easier said than done, or is it? let natural feelings take their course...

Also... I'm pretty sure Mary Magelene was NOT a prosititue. She was a gnostic that may have believed "in the teaching that humans are divine souls trapped in a material world created by an imperfect god"

Anyways... I liked this reading. It reminded me not to think too much. My favorite sentance in it is "Her happiness came by making me happy." It's not our strong feelings for other humans that causes us grief, but maybe our own insecurities and our want to control others or others wanting to control us that makes us have all this emotional suffering. It takes a bit of effort and understanding to seperate the resulting feeling from the different causes, but we all can do it if we take a moment to check it out.

 

 

 

 

I liked reading these findings by Drs Blair & Rita Justice from this dailygood article: http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=3641

Researchers have found that when we think about someone or something we really appreciate and experience the feeling that goes with the thought, the parasympathetic -- calming-branch of the autonomic nervous system -- is triggered.  

An example of practicing gratitude is volunteering to help others in return for having been helped. As an experience, it is felt in the same frontal regions of the brain that are activated by awe, wonder and transcendence.   

 

I think the perfect counter to the statement, "If you are practicing desire, you are suffering." is Khalil Gibran's "On Passion and Reason". It's about being at peace when you realize that we rest in reason and move in passion. That being said. The thought that came to me is that desire isn't what causes suffering. It's when we keep our selves unconciously engaged in patterns that end up landing us in a wall or building a wall. Desire unquenched can drive us away from choice. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was "If it don't flow, let it go". You can use it in your daily routine, in relationships, music, art, invention, etc. The most important idea I took from this thought is that we shouldn't forget that we'll always have a choice in resting whatever drive desire brings us. is there a difference in the desire of impulse as opposed to the desire of wanting? "you know you have a choice" A great practice of desire is to dance with her and observe letting her go and watching her come come back?

here's an interesting mathematical way of looking at this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXKe0SiATwQ You can think of mysterious phenomena that are interdependant with time and think about how your brain may work to connect and project it. Some people might try to think about how non-existant gods that know all all-times, might look at us and might try to communicate with us. That might drive someone like me "bonkers". So, I'd advise to just think of this as an experiment with dimensions (aspects) and perspective and how we logically can deal with making a model (perception) of how independent ways can be captured at some level and thought of as interdependant.

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of humans experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -- Helen Keller I tell myself that a lot when I need to do something out of the ordinary.

I had the same thought Vinay had when I read "That's why only friends can become enemies. You cannot suddenly become an enemy unless you have first become a friend." I don't buy into that. It bugged me so much so that I had to find a resolution to that before I could really get into the rest of the passage. Sometimes passages become sentences (eg, prison sentences). Some spirtual words are carelessly put out just to prove some other point. And it makes me stuck and can't move through the passage. In my experience, the friends that become enemies were never friends at all. I think Osho would himself say that those kinds of friends are the ones we never got to know, ie, we "fell in love with an illusion". I think the more useful aspect is to note the times I have started off as enemies with some people. Just started off on the wrong foot. But one day, they 'll surprise me with some un-forseen kindness and then I get reminded why we should never throw anyone out. And with familiarity and understanding some level of friendship happens. Some of those words can become mental traps. Enemies are enemies and friends and friends and change can come. But that's not the point, the point is to know the "karma" behind it. How did it result? Do you need to know how it resulted? What do you want from the result? Do you want anything at all? That answers Judy's question. My opinion is that you shouldn't strive for one mode of being alltimes. Sometimes you need momentum. Sometimes you need to stay in the middle. You need to learn when you need what. We'll always be growing if we choose to learn how to (as one of the other meditaton reminders) reminded us to "time shift" as well as time manage. The times that I'm born to seems to demand that we go go go. But then I get a nice meditation reminder that the clock don't always need to move, I can reset it whenever I want if I choose to let it stop. It's not a question of "good" or "bad". It's a question of when t... [View Full Comment] I had the same thought Vinay had when I read "That's why only friends can become enemies. You cannot suddenly become an enemy unless you have first become a friend." I don't buy into that. It bugged me so much so that I had to find a resolution to that before I could really get into the rest of the passage. Sometimes passages become sentences (eg, prison sentences). Some spirtual words are carelessly put out just to prove some other point. And it makes me stuck and can't move through the passage. In my experience, the friends that become enemies were never friends at all. I think Osho would himself say that those kinds of friends are the ones we never got to know, ie, we "fell in love with an illusion". I think the more useful aspect is to note the times I have started off as enemies with some people. Just started off on the wrong foot. But one day, they 'll surprise me with some un-forseen kindness and then I get reminded why we should never throw anyone out. And with familiarity and understanding some level of friendship happens. Some of those words can become mental traps. Enemies are enemies and friends and friends and change can come. But that's not the point, the point is to know the "karma" behind it. How did it result? Do you need to know how it resulted? What do you want from the result? Do you want anything at all? That answers Judy's question. My opinion is that you shouldn't strive for one mode of being alltimes. Sometimes you need momentum. Sometimes you need to stay in the middle. You need to learn when you need what. We'll always be growing if we choose to learn how to (as one of the other meditaton reminders) reminded us to "time shift" as well as time manage. The times that I'm born to seems to demand that we go go go. But then I get a nice meditation reminder that the clock don't always need to move, I can reset it whenever I want if I choose to let it stop. It's not a question of "good" or "bad". It's a question of when to choose what's useful When it comes to 4th noble truth where the 8-fold path lives I was told that we can replace the word "Right: with "skillful". Skillful Understanding Skillful Thought Skillful Speech Skillful Action Skillful Effort Skillful Livelihood Skillful Mindfulness Skillful Concentration that makes me think more of a mental tool set and reminds me the need for "Practice" as opposed to "Discipline". These are just words and we make our own existence from them, right? So maybe to stay in balance we need to think about being centered as well as moving and growing? Maybe I need to learn to move through passages as opposed to being sentanced into convictions :-)[Hide Full Comment]

someone explained to me that overcoming addiction has something to do with really realizing what is in our own self-interest. Addiction is ok if you do entertain yourself for awhile. As long as you aren't gripped by it. Nothing is wrong with a usual and frequent escape. But when I want to escape completely even if it's just to lounge around with a "silent" mind, then there is nothing constructive. But if out of that silent mind comes something creative and sustaining and it allows for new views, understandings, searchings, learnings to complmenetn the waunderings and longings, then it's good.

'He cheated me, he insulted me, he beat me, he robbed me'--surely letting go of such thoughts will bring peace." --attributed to Buddha "The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations." --David Friedman I think it's ok to fight. It's a part of life. But we can avoid so many petty bouts of negativity if we can over-stand a situation and see things objectively if we try to understand where another person's opposition comes from. It's surprising sometimes how quickly you can analyze a situation for the best outcome if you just practice taking one step back.

this was a good reminder for me. The blues, the doldrums, crappy days seem to sneak up on me. One thing I've learned in trying to meditate is that there is always a personal freedom to ignite or stoke my awareness. When I'm in tune, I'm aware of the choices I can make and those that I know I have to adjust to and that subtle perception can make a big impact towards appreciating how the day happens. Learning to observe is difficult yet pleasant.

I thought about this same idea the last few weeks but in a different way. There is something inside me that will never be happy no matter how "well off" I am. Sometimes this frustrates me. Sometimes it is the motivation that keeps me feeling alive. There's a song I like right now called "keep on wanting more". The first verse seems to be about either a social activist or a singer (or both) that want to fill the world with meaningful words or songs. There's another verse that might be about a someone that isn't quite aware of what he wants. That resonated alot with me. I think we will at some level always want our lives to be something more than what it is and we may question it even past our own understanding. It seems very human to do this. The other thought I had was that I don't quite agree that peace is a release. There is some aspect of that. But when I read what Gandhi wrote or what Gil Scot Heron wrote, I understand that peace is something to work for. Something to move towards. Kind of like in calculus class they say a function approaches infinity. Peace is a very good word for motivating us. Service is a good way to move towards peace. It requires a lot of work to self-realize what someone wants to do. Meditation is also a good way to work on oneself. I don't think anyone ever means they want move out of human existence when they speak of peace. Peace is a human concept. It's not moksha or heaven. It's something we can build within ourselves and something we can express with the help of the rest of society to ourselves as we get "closer".

A lot of times I tend to blame my family, schooling, work, government,etc for the stresses in my life. Reading this made me realize that sometimes I forget the utimate freedom I have in how I carry on my interactions/work/conversations/collaborations/observations. I even have the freedom to not choose how I go about doing something. Every stroke paint could be an oppurtunity to invent a new technique? While my friends and I were discussing this thought, I remembered a work book I came across called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". She tells people that the way we were taught to draw in classes were wrong (probably because they focus on the techniques and not about fostering the ablity to think creatively). Her work book has exercises that are more like "sit in front of the mirror and draw yourself. Do it for 3 hours. Try it again after the 5th lesson". She does go into different techniques that she uses or some of the techniques her students uses, but it's only as a 2ndary tool. It also made me think about how some endeavors like "end poverty" or "end hunger" sometimes/enevitably fail because these big movement sometimes get stuck on "the how". How to get food from places of abundance to places of scarcity is very hard. But if we do it a simple scale of sharing, maybe it can happen. Sharing not just our food or money, but also our different distrubtion techiniques and doing it as an iterative experiment to find the right techinique for the right situation and creating a versatility to be able to change modes of operation as time goes on. I also think we see something about the need to for get being stuck on following a singular recipe in movies like "The Matrix" or when Yoda keeps remiding the freedom fighters to "Use the Force".

I deal with depression alot. Lately I'm taking advice from a therapist that likes the Cognative Behavioral approach (basically it gives people mental tools to be aware of how our thought, actions, behavior affect and feedback into each other, telling us to think critically but not judge mentally about ourselves). one thing I'm learning is that it takes a lot of work to get out of being depressed. It takes a lot of work to just be aware of my own laziness, anger, false-pride, I don't think it's even necessary to say "moral courage". It takes courage in it's natural and general sense. It's so easy to not practice oberving in a reaction-free way. Martial artists speak of a "Mind like water". There's a very favmous interview by Bruce Lee that where he says "Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend". Being ready to be empty can help me be freee) to react which can give me more courage to be more aware and more ready...

I read this a few times, and it is very confusing. When I read it out loud it sounded very nice. But yet for something that speaks of silience it is a bit fluffy and long winded (probably purposfully?). I don't know if silence cannot be described, maybe it doesn't need to be described and that's probably her point. Sometimes we take it for granted just like we take "peace" for granted as only a concept. Silence is very real just like peace can be. The main idea in me at this point: The mind knows of silence just like it can contain the concept of nothingness :-). But, I don't agree that Silence is our TRUE nature, but I think it is part of our nature that we tend to take for granted. Sometimes I equate silence with not being awake. Then I realize maybe the point of reading this is to be aware. I don't know if things dissapper into this type of Silence. It become more like a less muddy pond where clarity appears :-P

While I was traveling in Sri Lanka with Be The Cause, there was some bomb blasts going off. The official cease-fire was ending. There never really was a end to the killing so all the end of the cease-fire meant was that killing would be more frequent again. While we were traveling we wanted to do something for peace. We visited Sarvodaya in Morotuwa and learned "Peace Meditation". Later I had a chance to talk to kids at a rural school about what Peace means to them. I learned alot from that. Sukh started to speak through me when I asked them that everytime they hear of a bomb blast that they should motivate themselves to work for peace to do something small or big personally or by creating a team. But 2 more more bomb blasts happened and I was not able to keep my promise and do something at that moment (I'm still trying to conceive something, I think). One great big tool for me was reading Gandhi-ji's "Criticsm of Modern Civilisation". In it he says that Satyagrahists should be able to look into the barrel of a cannon with a smile, even if it meant being turned to cannon fodder while smiling. I think that's the same way South Asians need to approach ridding the area of "terrorism". Sometimes I agree that the terrorism we see in the sons and daughters of satayagrahists is the by product of foreign partition and gun sales. I don't think it will be armies that end terrorism. it will be humans engaging humans with compassion and fearlessness. As an american who does not march to my officials asking not to spend my tax money on bombs, it's hard for me conceptualize how to start a program. I guess I need to mediate more...

here is what I found from last night. I noticed I was reacting to annoyances with too much weight. When my leg was falling asleep or I got an itch my mind reacted with some bad attitudes. In a better state of mind, I would just spread my leg for a few minutes or just touch the itch or just let it be. Hearing about one of my friends mention what she thought of the thought of the week made me think that you can't really think about past experiences and future expectations while meditation. You can only practice being mindful and observing my own body is a really good tool. Knowing how I reacted to little bit of suffering from sitting still made me think of how differently I can be. There was a little reading I got from Visha Niketan in Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, and it said to try to have a slight smile while focusing on my breath. I tried that. It felt silly, but different. as far as what the solution to my bad mood, that hasn't become apparent yet. Maybe it's just to be patient while I adjust to how I've changed? In any case there's a quote about how we sometimes need to be able to wait for mud to settle before trying to catch a fish in muddy waters (something like that?).

After returning to the US after a short 2 week service trip to Sri Lanka, I feel a lot of the difficulties in my ways of thinking and outside in broader life too. I left depressed but came back refreshed and reaffirmed. But now as I meditate, I find myself depressed and confused again so much so that I feel a desire to leave the US for good. Right now, I don't know if that's the right thing to do. So, I shall see tuesday night how I am and where my mind is at. I think the my homeboys like Siddartha Gautama, would have told me the same advice as in this TOW. To try to get a feel of what perceptions and mental structures have conditioned this"bad mood" in me. If I have progressed I might be able to see one level deeper into what caused those conditions and as I get better at meditation, I'll probaby be able to have an understanding how some conditions are chained together and be able to react with much better ease. I practice annpanna sati at the hour long tuesday meditations. Some friends that come to meditate with me practice vipassna and say it's slightly more intense. I used run away from having to think about why I'm in a wierd mood, but now I'm actually studying on techniques to practice getting a feel for myself.

at be the cause we share a document that has cool quotes and a small list of random acts of kinds people can do: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pk9hAXKWfT57FWpBvH8eUeA. I don't believe in gods or really understand the concept of blessings, but I did enjoy the thought for this week. Doing small service projects is a good way to put yourself into this space so you can be like that more and more. I do have a rationale to why I smile and people: it makes me feel good when I get one returned my way. A smile from a pretty woman or anyone else can be the highlight of my whole boring month sometimes. It's a natural anti-depressant and cures dis-ease :-) sending and receiving good vibes is self-perpetuating, that's probably what she means by "blessings"?