…i just heard an ad that said, “Eighty percent of feeling good is looking good”…hint hint – so buy our product.
really?
good luck with that.
when it fails, i’ll be here ready to share a Treasure that has no need to be sold…
other writing
true practice lives in every moment…
Our practice continues off the cushion, not just in our contemplation, but in every action that follows. It reminds me of when I went to church as a kid and they would remind us that it wasn’t just a “Sunday thing”…True practice lives in every moment and so does the possibility of awareness and enlightenment.
~ j
a response to Chick-fil-A…the only truth is Love…or become a vegetarian ;)
“It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.” ~ Chinese proverb
there are many running around shouting, “Truth, Truth!” let them shout.
the only truth is Love, dear ones.
you are beautiful, your love is beautiful. it may take a while for the world to catch up to such beauty. you’re doing your part, the Sacred work of just by being Present and continuing to live in Love. let the rest falter in their folly. Love will open their hearts in time. who can contend with Love?
take heart, have peace…or become a vegetarian 😉
namaste ~ j
letting go…
“Letting go does not mean not caring about things. It means caring about them in a flexible and wise way.”
~ Jack Kornfield
…far from indifference, letting go is about being spacious and at ease, even as we are actively engaged with Life. i think it speaks to a trust of Life and Love as something vast. something that is the very ground upon which we stand. a place where we don’t have to be defensive or reactive, rather we can be in a state of mind where we can choose the way we want to act…hopefully without harming or adding to the suffering of this world.
namaste
~ j
a letter to Aurora…
a letter to Aurora…
to all those who are suffering from this horrific tragedy in Aurora, our prayers are with you. to all those who are suffering from their own personal tragedies in this life, our prayers are with you. we are connected in our suffering, in our pain, in our confusion as to how such violence can occur. we are connected in these dark moments of life, where our hearts break and our minds spin with emotion, we are connected in our sense of loss as life seems to have lost all that is good.
it is important to feel these emotions, to sit with these emotions. to be where we are at, to grieve. so many of us, in our confusion, our pain, our anger are running from this horrible event. it isn’t easy to sit with tragedy, to be awake with suffering. it is far easier (and even feels good to have some brief relief) to blame. to blame the existence of guns, to blame a broken system, to blame a single individual who has forgotten what it means to be human, to be connected in life and love. and there too, we connect. we connect into groups with missions and we feel some brief relief as we find a place to place our anger, our pain, our suffering…forgetting our truer connection, that we are One.
but there is another way we are connected. we are connected in our Light, in our Love, in Life.
so as we sit in this darkness, in this night of tragedy and pain, let us look to Aurora itself. Aurora means “dawn”…the coming of day. that sacred, beautiful time when the night moves from twilight to day.
there is pain here. there is confusion and anger. but, my friends, there is also hope. the day will come again and with it the sun, shining bright the light of love and life. the Light that lives in all of us – both passed and still present, and the Love that connects us – whether we have passed or are present, whatever may come.
wishing peace and freedom from suffering for us all.
namaste ~ j
Friday, July 20th 2012
surrounded by Life, a meditation…
a meditation ~
“Aware of your own breathing, connecting to each present moment. Breathing in, breathing out. These moments, each moment, is a reminder that we are alive. The person next to us is alive, the tree reaching for the sun is alive, the bird singing her song is alive, and we together with them are Life. Aware of that, we are also aware that we are never alone, but are always surrounded by Life.”
~ j
simplicity, humility, grief on the Path…
“Thinking about Joshu: One of the most beloved masters in early China was Joshu, admired for his economy and spirit. Zen Master Joshu was born in 778 CE and became a monk when he was 18 years of age. He stayed with his teacher Nansen for 40 years. When Nansen died, Joshu grieved for some years, and then, at the age of 60, after his grief had worn through, he said “I think I’m going to wander around for a while.” He spent the next 20 years traveling about China, visiting various Zen teachers and letting them check his mind. He was checking their minds too.
At the age of 80 he thought, “It’s time to settle down now,” and he became the head of a small temple, where students would come and go, and he would have quiet, pointed interactions with those who met him. It was said that a kind of light shown around his mouth, he was so direct, purified, simple, non-greedy about his own mind and his own practice. Modest and having submitted for so long, he became who he really was. He died at the age of 120, and thus he had the advantage, once he had settled down at the age of 80, to have another 40 years of discovery, enjoying peculiar and unmediated interactions with those who found their way to his modest temple.”
~ Roshi Joan Halifax
i don’t know that it is important to believe the specifics of this story, as some have questioned.
rather, the power for me is in the message of the story, the simplicity of purpose, the humility of spirit. i really connected with these.
i am always impressed by the amount of grief these stories expose of students when their masters/teachers pass. so beautiful, so human and sacred. the path of awakening is not something that helps us escape these heavy things in life, but the practice gives us the grounding to sit, to walk, and to live with it…and what we find is that we have this heart with an incredible capacity to hold Life.
thank you for sharing, Roshi Joan.
~ j
the role of suffering in awakening…
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
~ Carl Jung
this is the second time i’ve seen this Jung quote recently and its theme feels so present both on the micro level for my own journey and on the macro level in seeing the way the world is facing things regarding economics and the environment….all the while looking for quick ways to end the suffering without facing our own shadow’s relationship to this. i am reminded that “stuff” doesn’t just go away…it may be suppressed for a while, but it must rise and make itself known. when we do finally face it and recognize it and know it, then – then healing and transformation can take their rightful place.
namasté, friends ~ j
Transformational living…
“Give me everything mangled and bruised, and I will make a light of it to make you weep. And we will have rain & begin again.” ~ Deena Metzger
i simply love the emphasis on transformation within this selected piece of writing by Deena Metzger. the well known Franciscan Richard Rohr often says that what we don’t “transform” we then often “transmit”. there is something so connected and intuitively right on with these messages of tranformation. within such a perspective, everything EVERYTHING is grist for the mill. is this not incarnation? don’t we see that this path, this sacred journey has been tread before? lived out in the life of Jesus, grounded in the sitting of the Buddha? and did not they both invite us to experience this and to live this ourselves?
we have the profound ability to take the ugliest of hurts and make them beautiful, to shine our light – setting aglow all that is sacred here and now. what’s more, is that we have the divine right and even responsibility to do so. the capacity of heart to hold the entire world, knowing it in Love, so that it can be recognized for what it is.
namasté
~ j
a moment of zen…
i was pulling out of the McDonald’s parking lot, after a failed attempt to ween myself from the consumption of an iced vanilla coffee (a relatively inexpensive treat ~ a cost more to my health than my wallet).
it was then that i saw her, with her curly, gray-blond hair falling to her shoulders. she was wearing comfortable pants a little high of her ankles, her feet within well-worn sneakers, and her eyes viewing the world through simple-framed glasses. she stood there, wrapped in a wool wrap at the exit of the parking lot.
no chance, really, to avoid her wanting gaze. nor did i want to. on the contrary, my heart felt drawn to her. i found myself noticing her beauty. she didn’t seem quite homeless, perhaps just down ‘n out – a victim of these challenging economic times.
i looked in my wallet, finding just a couple of 1’s and a 5 dollar bill. normally, i’d not think twice about keeping the 5 where it was and releasing the 1’s to a new home. after all, i live paycheck to paycheck like many. but this time i thought, “what the heck. i’ll give her the 5. she needs it more than i, no doubt.”
i wish i could say this was all ego-less generosity born out of my heart’s evergrowing compassion, but i’m pretty sure it was my ego, indeed, that was looking forward to seeing her notice it was a 5 dollar bill rather than a 1 dollar bill.
i rolled down my window and handed her the 5 dollar bill along with a smile. she readily received the 5, smiled in return with pleasant appreciation. then, as if trying to reassure me of my contribution to her need, she said, “thank you. every little bit counts.”
every little bit counts?!
ha! i drove away with a huge smile, a laugh, and joy in my heart. the little quirky, down ‘n out beauty gave me a great gift…an ego reality check and a moment of zen.
The Metta Garden 