My Little Problem

Live Oaks

2011-04-17T23:30:00.001-05:00

Live Oaks, a photo by _william on Flickr.

The branches seemed to twist in the air and reach over the path, but the air was laden with pollen and the spanish moss hung still. motionless.
I had no idea how far she might have gone or i she even came this way.

shells in the case

2011-04-12T01:51:00.001-05:00

shells in the case, a photo by _william on Flickr.

these are some specimens displayed in the hall at Eckerd College

2010-12-23T12:42:00.000-05:00

She is
Turning away.
The arc of a stone tossed;
A splash in the peaceful waters.
Ripples

Interdependence Day

2010-07-04T12:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Independence Day,
While Most of the Country is celebrating freedom, or Americanism, or BBQ and fireworks, I thought I'd write to my friends.
Just to say Hi, and celebrate our Interdependence.
Although, I can't say exactly how we are all connected, there is a different thread for each one of us, and when one of us twitches, the others can feel it, however indirectly.

I recently found an old friend on line, and he appears to be a lot crazier than he was when we roomed together in college. Technically, I think he fits the diagnostic category of Paranoid-Schizophrenic. However, he is lucid enough to remember shared experiences, and wish me well.
I don't really want to be too specific about his delusions, but in his perception, a series of small coincidences in his life reveal a pattern of monstrous evil unfolding in the world -- and of course much of it has been directed towards him, as a kind of punishment for seeing that such evil exists.
I have looked at quite a few of his writings, and I don't want to share or pass on his fantasies, because they can be disturbing and even painful to read,
But I will tell you that I have felt something very much like what he describes, particularly after meditating on certain passages from the Bhagavad Gita (chapters 10 =11). My experience was more like bliss than what my friend describes.

I'm not certain if this is good dharma or not, but I ask that you say a little prayer for my friend Jim.

Many years ago, Allen Ginsburg visited Eckerd College, and taught poetry and meditation to a few classes. That evening a few hundred folks from around the community crowded into a small lecture hall to hear him read a few of his celebrated works.
There was one thing he said which really struck a chord in me:
If you see something Horrible don't hold on to it. let it go.
If you see something Beautiful don't hold on to it. let it go.
So, today we have two visions of America; one where each individuals pursuit of happiness overlaps to for a community of common nurture and goodwill, and another where our smallest cravings drive the collective engine of corporate greed.

Of course each of us has only a small sphere of influence individually, but we are connected and by our actions effect we effect each other. I know that it is only a small thing when I make some gesture of generosity towards a homeless person, or make an ecologically sensible purchase. Sometimes the very idea of helping seems like a futile sacrifice until I remember:
The relative good that each of us can do serves the larger aim of greater liberty and deeper happyness for all beings.

To me a prayer is like a vision of the outcome I would like to see, just the way an architect draws out his vision of the house he would like to build. Some of us pray to G*d, and others skip the deity and go right to the vision. I imagine things emerging from a well of limitless potential and infinite creativity.

Sometimes it seems to me that everyone I know shares a little bit of that awful inter-connected delusion that Jim suffers from.
Mine is real to me and yours is real to you. It is only when someone's nightmare is vividly different from our own that we think them crazy. I know that if I were suffering a little less, it would make it easier on the folks around us. That sounds selfish, but it's also true that if folks around me hurt a little less, (friends and enemies both,) my life might be a little easier.

I guess that what I'm asking is that you each take a little time today to liberate your self and those around you from the conceptual knots that hold you subject.
In short; Feel Free!

peace
w

Vitakkasanthana Sutta: The Relaxation of Thoughts

2010-06-03T01:16:00.001-05:00

translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying at Savatthi, in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's monastery. There he addressed the monks, "Monks!"

"Yes, lord," the monks replied.

The Blessed One said: "When a monk is intent on the heightened mind, there are five themes he should attend to at the appropriate times. Which five?

"There is the case where evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — arise in a monk while he is referring to and attending to a particular theme. He should attend to another theme, apart from that one, connected with what is skillful. When he is attending to this other theme, apart from that one, connected with what is skillful, then those evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it. Just as a skilled carpenter or his apprentice would use a small peg to knock out, drive out, and pull out a large one; in the same way, if evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — arise in a monk while he is referring to and attending to a particular theme, he should attend to another theme, apart from that one, connected with what is skillful. When he is attending to this other theme, apart from that one, connected with what is skillful, then those evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.

"If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is attending to this other theme, connected with what is skillful, he should scrutinize the drawbacks of those thoughts: 'Truly, these thoughts of mine are unskillful, these thoughts of mine are blameworthy, these thoughts of mine result in stress.' As he is scrutinizing the drawbacks of those thoughts, those evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it. Just as a young woman — or man — fond of adornment, would be horrified, humiliated, and disgusted if the carcass of a snake or a dog or a human being were hung from her neck; in the same way, if evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is attending to this other theme, connected with what is skillful, he should scrutinize the drawbacks of those thoughts: 'Truly, these thoughts of mine are unskillful, these thoughts of mine are blameworthy, these thoughts of mine result in stress.' As he is scrutinizing the drawbacks of those thoughts, those evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion, or delusion — are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.

"If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is scrutinizing the drawbacks of those thoughts, he should pay no mind and pay no attention to those thoughts. As he is paying no mind and paying no attention to them, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it. Just as a man with good eyes, not wanting to see forms that had come into range, would close his eyes or look away; in the same way, if evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is scrutinizing the drawbacks of those thoughts, he should pay no mind and pay no attention to those thoughts. As he is paying no mind and paying no attention to them, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.

"If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is paying no mind and paying no attention to those thoughts, he should attend to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts. As he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it. Just as the thought would occur to a man walking quickly, 'Why am I walking quickly? Why don't I walk slowly?' So he walks slowly. The thought occurs to him, 'Why am I walking slowly? Why don't I stand?' So he stands. The thought occurs to him, 'Why am I standing? Why don't I sit down?' So he sits down. The thought occurs to him, 'Why am I sitting? Why don't I lie down?' So he lies down. In this way, giving up the grosser posture, he takes up the more refined one. In the same way, if evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is paying no mind and paying no attention to those thoughts, he should attend to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts. As he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.

"If evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then — with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he should beat down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness. As — with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he is beating down, constraining, and crushing his mind with his awareness, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it. Just as a strong man, seizing a weaker man by the head or the throat or the shoulders, would beat him down, constrain, and crush him; in the same way, if evil, unskillful thoughts — imbued with desire, aversion or delusion — still arise in the monk while he is attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts, then — with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he should beat down, constrain, and crush his mind with his awareness. As — with his teeth clenched and his tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth — he is beating down, constraining, and crushing his mind with his awareness, those evil, unskillful thoughts are abandoned and subside. With their abandoning, he steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it, and concentrates it.

"Now when a monk... attending to another theme... scrutinizing the drawbacks of those thoughts... paying no mind and paying no attention to those thoughts... attending to the relaxing of thought-fabrication with regard to those thoughts... beating down, constraining and crushing his mind with his awareness... steadies his mind right within, settles it, unifies it and concentrates it: He is then called a monk with mastery over the ways of thought sequences. He thinks whatever thought he wants to, and doesn't think whatever thought he doesn't. He has severed craving, thrown off the fetters, and — through the right penetration of conceit — has made an end of suffering and stress."

That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, the monks delighted in the Blessed One's words.

Provenance:

Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.

Jade Buddha For Universal Peace

2010-04-16T01:45:00.001-05:00

Jade Buddha For Universal Peace
Originally uploaded by _william

Zen Ethics

2010-01-08T16:27:00.000-05:00

"Zen ethical principles, like all systems of ethics, are derived from an exhaustive observation of life and are a synthesis of painstaking induction. So where does the critical difference lie between Zen ethics and other traditional ethical systems? It lies in the way a Zen Buddhist works with ethical principles. For the Zen Buddhist, an ethical precept is a question to be held up to the light of circumstance, an inquiry rather than an answer. And the nature of this inquiry is not so much the dubious enterprise of trying to figure out the right thing to do as it is an offering of an unaided heart. After all, it’s from this heart of ours that the precepts themselves once arose. At the threshold of choice, the Zen Buddhist trusts this ancient heart above all other authority. It’s not that the Zen Buddhist reinvents the ethical wheel every time he faces a new situation; it’s just that he goes back to the source itself. Ethics is not an invention but an expression of the heart’s core. What’s most needed in the moment of choice is an empty hand."
Lin Jensen

home is where you make it

2009-12-02T23:57:00.000-05:00

I guess it is just too painful for you,
To hear what I have to say.
I let this thing between us go to long.

Alice Keating Cheney

2009-11-13T03:26:00.000-05:00

In Memoriam: Alice Keating Cheney,
November 12, 1897
Co-founder of The Jitney Players.

Rose

2009-11-01T07:13:00.000-05:00

The beauty of the rose is not seen
in perfect symmetry,
nor in her crimson color.
She reveals her truth
opening as a tender bud
then shedding all
her garments
one by one.
As her petals fall
we glimpse the echo
of our lives, and catch
the lingering scent
of what we are.

The Dream of a Tall Horse - (running dream)

2009-10-17T12:51:00.000-05:00

Across the wide grass running
A thousand meters high
The red cloud at sunset
Burned in back of my mind
Everything halting
Like statues on a train
The mumbling of passengers
Who never said hello.
The place reeks of poetry
And bad investments
Sawdust in the corner
Like robbery
And holding nothing dear
They come rumbling to a stop
Apocalyptic pencil shavings
and crumpled newsprint
The empty seats stare back at you
All those mornings yesterday
Came back in a rush
More horses in the rain
Running from thunder.
Concrete follows
Like a lean dog
In the undergrowth
Grinning with panic
The pain stumbles after
Hobbles the mind
Fetters the blood
A small dream
Of rabbits in the garden
Tattooed cats
And words
that crystallize in the sun.
I’m letting this get away from me
Because you were with me then
And we both had something in our eyes.
It almost gets you going
when you think it cant get worse
then the running happens
everything crashing after
just because the words didn’t fit their meaning.
There’s no need for you in the room tonight
this blue baby
catch your breath.
Leave us alone we bury our own.
Now the rain can come.
I really was crazy.
Everyone said I was.
Now it’s true.
You know whatever happens, they’ll come back to this moment.
I waited all these years, thinking it would be all right.
They are gone.
It never was all right.
Abandoned.
And why should I care.
You never see light like that in the city.
Always staring at the sky -
-till the needle breaks
and splits
like fire in the night.

home is where you make it

2009-09-30T06:45:00.000-05:00

From My Little Problem

You can really tell a lot about my driving habits from this photo

Health Care

2009-09-28T07:41:00.001-05:00

Here, I borrowed links from someone else's blog. Healthcare these days is kinda scary. A single mother i know can't afford coverage for both her and her kid. she also can't afford the time to invest in herself and get a better job. myself? most of my income goes to premiums, and debts for hospitalization. I am almost paid off for a small hospitalization in 2007. I had this little tiny cat bite on my hand--just a pinprick on the knuckle of my left index finger. didn't even notice it at the time. A day later it looked like a melon, and i was in the hospital getting IV antibiotics. Levaquin.

Think Progress: Uninsured 22-Year-Old Boehner Constituent Dies From Swine Flu

Update: Report: Miami U. Grad Did Not Have H1N1 - Kimi Young Died Of Viral Pneumonia

The New Republic: WealthCare

The Atlantic: How American Healthcare Killed My Father

bromeliad

2009-09-16T15:58:00.001-05:00

bromeliad
Originally uploaded by _william

Monday morning, I went out just after first light and went down to the Pink Streets, hoping to find some good views at the parks along the waters edge. I passed this house just as the golden rays of sun were starting to penetrate the haze, and filter through the trees this one impressive bromeliad caught my attention as I passed.

chodron

2009-09-02T16:11:00.000-05:00

Pema Chodron talks about her early reluctance to join into an unconditional relationship with Trungpa Rinpoche

"Steadfastness with one particular person translates into steadfastness with any situation that you could possibly encounter."

"I consider myself a spiritual friend to my students. I’m not a guru."

"The teacher serves as a mirror but also encourages your ability to trust in yourself."

"What is it that encourages a person to hang in there so that the minute
the teacher does something that you don’t like you don’t say, “I’m
outta here”? We Westerners have a strong habitual tendency to idealize
our authority figures. We romanticize them.

For Western students what
needs to be communicated is that the mind of the teacher and student
meet, not by the student making the teacher all pure or all evil, but
in the ambiguity between those two, in the capacity to sustain
uncertainty.

Otherwise, in the name of true devotion you’ll get a kind
of worship that inevitably flips into vast disillusionment because
sooner or later the teacher does something that the student can’t
handle."

"What I was left with from Trungpa Rinpoche was this: that between the
teacher and the student there can be a meeting of minds, a mutual
communication. The job of the teacher is to help the student experience
that their mind and the mind of the teacher are the same."

Dharma Quotes,

2009-08-09T16:32:00.000-05:00

The Buddha taught the Three Dharma-seals," i.e. all dharmas made of components, arising from conditions, are
1) dukkha: subject to decay and destruction and thus, inherently unsatisfactory, tending to
suffering,
2) anatta: not-self;
3) anitta: transient and impermanent.

Four Stations of Mindfulness:
1) the body is impure;
2) feelings lead to suffering;
3) thoughts are
transient;
4) all dharmas are no-self

Going and returning with no border,
Movement and stillness have one source.
Opening and disclosing the mysterious and the subtle,
Understanding the mind and all its states;
Deep and wide and interfused,
Vast and great and totally complete....

Flower Adornment Sutra Preface

ZUG TONG PA WO TONG PA NYID ZUG SO
Form is empty Emptiness is form

ZUG LE TONG PA NYID ZHEN MA YIN
Form is none other than emptiness

TONG PA NYID LE KYANG ZUG ZHEN MA YIN NO
Emptiness is also none other than form

Posting from Library.

2009-06-29T10:56:00.002-05:00

Loitering in the library today, awfully quiet at this branch. Very pleased at how fast the blog loads.

I've been collecting various links for a series of posts on Ngöndro at Gaia / Zaadz

Tulku Thondrup's Enlightened Journey comes to mind...

Advice from Hafiz

2009-06-27T01:12:00.000-05:00

Last Night, as Half Asleep I Dreaming Lay

My friend, before you wander in Love’s street,

Do not forget to take with you a guide—

So perilous for your undirected feet

The twists and turns once you are inside.

Yet many wonders you will meet with there,

And of the many this one not the least—

That there the timid deer it is pursues

The lion, and pulls down the lordly beast.

And when in doubt of what to do or think,

Hafiz, raise high, drain deep, the golden cup:

Take counsel of the vine, Hafiz, and drink

At once the wine and the dilemma up.

Poor Hafiz! After all, the spring is gone,

The roses and the nightingales are going;

Yet of the roses you have plucked not one,

Nor drunk one cup of wine, for all its flowing.

Ode 44

I can no longer call...

Dream of a black rabbit (continued)

2009-06-17T04:46:00.002-05:00

My dream returned
like a late crescent moon
riding high over placid waters.
A black rabbit hidden by his own shadow:
still, in the grass at the edge of the road.

My ship came home empty,
a cargo of whispers
tossed in the easy wind
without the weight of apples
and iron to hold it's course.

And this summer storm has summoned
rain lilies from under the dessicated oak,
filled the gutters with new bamboo leaves,
washed the windows of the drunkard's cottage
and driven the old cat
from his post on the wall
at the end of the garden,
to the shelter of a window ledge,
where he watches the grey squalls
sweep across the bay.

He is older than I.
He has forgotten his name.
We call him by the sound he makes
when hunger wakes and claws inside.

I have not forgotten what the rabbit told me,
or what I read in "The Book of Dreams and Shadow"
on the dusty shelf of the old botanica.

I still recall the hours full of counting.
the lists of great importance.
Categories and expenses.
The taste of secrets.

How did this become the past?
Why can't I put the sky into all of my poems?
Or tell you what the rabbit hides from?
How have my dreams become,
These scraps of paper in an empty drawer?

(c) William C. Wheeler 2009

Rinoni

2009-05-01T01:00:00.001-05:00

Rinoni
Originally uploaded by rreze

http://rinoni.gaia.com/

i still see you running

2009-03-28T04:06:00.000-05:00

I remember , you were breathless on the beach from running, sand in your shoes,
A Black feather in your hand, from some sea crow. You said we could make a pen,
If we plunged it hot sand , to temper, and then carved the nib to shape the angle
Of the words. But you are gone and only words describe You now.

If we talked more, about seashells , or feathers and rain, instead of taxes,
Wills and estates, We could have been,
I mean we were, but somehow, we missed.,
Something. Ourselves.

I still see you running up to me, by the grey green waters.
with a feather in your hand. You said, "It's cancer."
Your eyes already deep.
I took the feather
and you said
your doctor's name.
again
but i still see you running...

loose in the depths

2009-03-28T03:48:00.001-05:00

Unstrung the knot of my heart,
Loosed the chords that held me,
Let slip the quick fish of memory,
To flash in the green sea depths,
Among uncounted schools:
Alive, nameless, free
In the vast expanse
Of open water

<°)))><

Over the bowsprit, where the ship plows the new waves ,
cascades of white stampedes rear and plunge ahead,
racing across the surface. Blocks of sunlight
angle through the deep, like shifting cathedrals
built on the abyss. I still hear the sirens choir
through the years, the child, enthralled,
leaning too far over the rail...

Personal Narative (reblog)

2009-03-28T03:09:00.003-05:00

Its a funny world where you can't waste time at work by doing personal
correspondences! maybe that kind of thinking is the reason no place
that I've ever worked wanted me near a computer. I started applying
for graphics jobs back in the eighties when i worked for GTE
publishing. They print the phone books for the southeast US Ohio and
the Nynex=New York books. It was the dawn of the whole computer thing
and The company bought a system that allowed you to do graphics for
those little yellow page ads. While I worked there I watched the whole
Art Department change from people that drew stuff to people that sat
in front of a terminal. I wanted in because I could have gotten in at
the ground floor of a major publishing revolution. I stead I spent the
year running the little ads through a wax machine so that they could
paste them up in the traditional manner. Some parts of the system took
longer to catch up. After I got passed over for a few openings I
dropped out to work for The local Renaissance Festival. I'd have to
get up at sunrise on Saturdays and ride the bus for two hours. In
costume. The bus stopped at the county Jail.
At the festival I sold Bamboo flutes for a man who made them. Since I
was a paid Performer, I also marched in the parades, and tootled
little jigs and reels for hat money. Mostly I flirted with attractive
young women. (it's part of the job.)
That was fun. But ...I didn't feel like traveling around the country
at the time so that left a whole year to fill up between festivals. I
worked as a file clerk for various temp agencies. All the while I
watched Other people struggling with their Macs and PCs envious, but
physically active. Can you Imagine how much paperwork there is for the
Insurance claims department at a major drugstore chain? I used a fork
lift to take down pallets, then sorted through the alpha numerically
stacked boxes looking for a single sheet of paper, which i would then
copy and take back to the office where no one would speak to me
because i was a temp. Most of the tome there was just me in a
warehouse with a million documents.
For fun I would hang around Downtown St Pete where the bars and banks
are. Friday afternoons if i wasn't working i could easily pick up
thirty bucks with a few Bach and O'Carolan tunes. One day A guy
stopped While I was playing Shakuhachi out side of a liquor store.
"You Should Come work Where I work," He said. Turns out that he meant
the hands on / children's museum which had just opened up."I already
applied," I told him.
"Well, they're hiring again. and you could use me as a reference," he
told me. So that was the next five years. School Tours, Insect Petting
Zoos, Sanitizing the 'Touch Tunnel.' Some of my friends used to call
my car 'The Black Hole.' It took years to figure it out. The Museum
had a portable planetarium. Really and inflatable dome and a
projector. I ended op being the guy who used it so, mornings i would
show up and stuff the "universe," into the back of my Toyota Celica,
and drive off to one of Pinellas County's's questionable schools.
Later, I told folktales with a guy names Uwezo Sudan. when he left, it
wasn't quite the same. I felt lost telling kids about Anansi and
trying to fake a Jamaican accent.
I dabbled in college but my heart was no longer in my work. then I
took some interest in a young lady who had been working at the museum
since i started. she had taken off for about a year and then returned
after her fiance/ business partner left her in charge of a sign
painting business. (she had trained me to Typeset on a GSP vinyl sign
cutter, so during her absence, I made the signage for exhibits and
what not.) She was in charge of special events and she considered me
responsible so, I would stay over at the Museum with her when we had a
sleepover for children. We also did little workshops where kids and
families could make masks or learn about fossils by making a
plastercast of a shell or something. We never dated, but we did talk
seriously about life and stuff. One day she came to me, very upset,
wanting to know what I did with the money from the folklore project.
Apparently there was a budget I was never told about. I always
provided my own musical instruments and props for the show. Then they
hired a new story teller who began spending money on educational stuff
like silly string.
Then we were told that My friend had been in an accident. We were
given a gag order not to speak of it. Then were were told that she had
been attacked and left for dead at her apartment. She never regained
the ability to speak due to extensive brain damage. I was terminated
soon after. The reasons differed. Some people were told that I sold
Drugs at the museum. (False) that i showed up late for work, (True)
Other people seemed to realize that I had been assaulted by the
Education Director who was in charge of The Folktales budget.
No one said much to me after I left.
I only saw my friend once after she came out of her coma. Her parents
hovered around her protectively, and she looked like some one who had
been sewn back together. I know she couldn't talk, l but there was
something in her eyes, that I understood. We both cried. I lost faith
in the human race on that day.
She still owes me a book. I loaned it to her about a month before her
assault.The book was "Song of the Forest" by Colin McKay
It's Out Of Print.

nautalis shell

2009-03-28T03:04:00.000-05:00

I found this shell, a fragment on the sand;
A poets perfect spiral cracked by time,
Crushed by tides, abandoned on the shore.

The gulls were done with what had lived within.
The striped shell and pearl insides, both picked clean.
Snails and crabs had scoured the smallest chambers.

The empty test left me dreaming of whorls;
Imperfect spirals wrapped around my heart.
Each cell extended life another day.

Between the sun and wave I lost my self`.
A great sound echoed in that broken shell:
Cupped against my ear, something lost returned.

All along the beach a great silence fell.
My empty head against a broken shell.

small world

2009-02-12T02:08:00.001-05:00

create your own personalized map of the USA

notes towards a paper on Jesus (part two)

2009-01-26T00:48:00.000-05:00

"if jesus taught reincarnation then it stands to reason that he should have clearly taught the rabbi’s that the torah was woefully insufficient as a text document concerning metaphysics."

The more orthodox version of Jesus holds that we will be reborn in heaven and / or reincarnated the flesh at the end of the world.

Messianic Jews do not believe that. For them Jesus was a redeemer, who taught Orthodox Judaism. The doctrine of successive rebirths over time is not orthodox, but some believe that this may have been an idea that was circulating at the time. Certainly when Father Origen later made case for this, he felt that it was in accord with Pythagoras and Plato.

The Biblical Jesus does say "You must be reborn." to Nicodemus, and taken with the rest of the teaching, I find it plausible that the Jesus did teach something about successive reincarnation to some of his followers. He does clearly teach different messages to the disciples from what he says to his flock as a whole.

Why do you assert that the Torah is inadequate? Clearly it is not so for millions of Jews. Additionally they have the Talmud Which is more like commentary, including Mishnah which is mostly about law (as far as I can tell I claim no expertise here.) Oh Yeah, there's also the Kabballah, which is usually not taught to young or immature people. Lots of metaphysical knowledge there.

My own feeling is that metaphysics are particularly useless when it comes getting on with life ... life tends to be rather short and we need a way to make it beautiful and worthwhile. Having a set of core values and practical guide lines for how to live makes life not just easier but possible...

Apart from "The Anointed," non-divine, version of Jesus, there is "In principio erat Verbum" at the beginning of John. Probably written around 90 AD not later than 125 AD
This is very metaphysical, and for many (non traditional interpreters,) this passage draws from Greek philosophy where the "word" is equated with an ideal rational governing principle. This concept of God is very abstract, and distinct from the idea of God as an old man with a white beard an also different from the Gods as Embodied natural elements found in the Rig-Vedas.
There is a later ontology of Shiva creating the world through the utterance of Om. The Seven Musical Notes of the scale are said to emerge from this one Syllable, and in other accounts, the syllables of the Sanskrit alphabet are said to emerge.
The Kabbalah does have a rather complex metaphysics describing the creation of the world through the generation of numbers and letters.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us .?.?." (John 1:1-3, 14)

It would be over simplifying to say that the Greek Logos, the Kaballah and the ontogenesis of the world through the Shiva's drum all had a common origin. A student of Karl Jung would be quick to point out an 'archetype' in the collective consciousness, which had something to do with our ability to describe the world through language.
The differences between these "systems," their history and the role they play in their respective cultures,-- the differences are too numerous to ignore. For me If I study these metaphysics to long without some teacher to ground me and keep me on course, I start to loose my ability to discriminate, make decisions and function. When I did first study Kaballa and Tarot, in my early twenties, I had experienced "God" Through the fellowship of worship as a young Christian. I'd also had a kind of ecstatic awareness of divine presence just as a child walking in the woods. Some of the ministers I knew acknowledged this, but showed me how to keep this secret private relationship free from words concepts and the judgment of others. I also did some work with a 'Dance' company which introduced me to a level of body awareness and social interaction which I had never experienced before. All these prior religious and spriritual experiences prepared me in different ways for The kind of intellectual melt down I felt. I could literaly use up my whole life trying to describe what I saw, but there would be no real point. It was a spiritual crisis, and I could have benefited from having a teacher who knew the way.

One of the other overlays on Jesus is the imprint of Roman Emperor worship. Julius Caesar was the first Emperor and the Roman Senate officially elevated him to the status of deity two years after his assassination. The phenomenon of "god-kings' is hardly unique to Rome. It is interesting that Caesar had A close relationship with Cleopatra, considering Egypt's history of divine kings.
I speculate somewhat when I suggest that the apotheosis of Caesar may have 'evolved' from primitive ancestor worship. It is not unusual to find elevated and idealized ancestors playing a spiritual role in tribal cultures. In a preliterate society, a strong leader or a good hunter, can easily transform into a powerful legendary figure. Of course "worship" doeas not always mean that ancestors are elevated to the status of gods. A modern version could be as simple as praying for your grandmother, or laying flowers on a grave at Easter.
I think there is some consensus that early forms of ancestor worship are based on a basic fear that the dead would come back and interfere with the affairs of the living. So rituals range from offerings and appeasement, to some kind of banishment.

The role of martyr ....

notes towards a paper on Jesus

2009-01-21T03:44:00.000-05:00

I apologize if I am speaking out of turn, but it seems to me That site has too many flashing, turning things. It all seems a bit hyperbolic.

I did like this quote though...
"Judaism needed to be preserved separate, in order to preserve the bedrock from which truth could once again emerge more easily in the future."
I do remember reading some things about the collection of writings referred to as the dead sea scrolls which do seem to inform the idea of a true or original teaching which has been obscured.
Some scholars have concluded that the four gospels all share some references, in other words they are quoting some other older texts, and there appear to be three or four of these texts. Some of the references are shared by some of the dead sea scrolls, so it is possible to piece together a king of hazy image of what those original lost texts might have contained.
Another observation about these ancient texts is that the four gospels were treated as independent books and often included with some of the other texts like the books of Thomas and Philip. I guess it was a little like the way that American Buddhists might have Titles by Thich Na Han, Chogyam Trungpa and Shunryu Suzuki all on the same shelf.
It is clear from looking over the material, that some of the Texts share references to texts that did not inform any of the four Biblical gospels. Taken all together these texts do portray a very different Jesus from the one the Catholic Church shows us.
These collections of text were likely maintained by groups or individuals who had a regular practice of proto-Christian worship, and it is most likely that they were very scholarly. The texts would have been commissioned to be copied in Coptic or Greek. It seems that there must have been an original in Aramaic or Hebrew. The consistencies between the texts from Oxyrhyncus and those found at Nag Hamadi. I suspect that these early Christian may also have been reading Plato and Phythagoras. I'm not sure where I got that idea but the history of Neo-Platonism in Christian writings is well known. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism

The issue of Gnosticism inevitably comes up here, and there is often an almost reflexive rejection of this by more traditional Catholic and Fundamental Christians. I know that generally Salvation is thought to be earned through good works and strong faith, That is how I was brought up Episcopalian, but the core Gnostic idea - that one can find salvation through direct experience of the divine, - that does seem to pre-date the historical Jesus. It is interesting to me that so many modern Christian put a strong emphasis on accepting Jesus as a personal savior and having direct communication with him. To me it sounds like a kind of gnosis - experiencing The Divine directly and being guided by this divine intuition. It does seem a bit hypocritical to reject the apocryphal texts or the Gnostic view of Christ, if one is claiming that he or she receives direct guidance from God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnostic_Gospels

My view is that there is an historical Jesus, or perhaps two of them. One was certainly allied with John The Baptist and I think that part of his ministry was encouraging people to disengage from the branches of Judaism which had come under the complex influence of the Roman empire and the Persians.
For the followers of John and Jesus, it was important to go out and set up a community apart from the cities and the Synagogues. The Baptism has something to do with this, the process of washing off the world and being reborn into a new community is integral to Christian life back then as it is today. Of course I don't think that they were trying to start a new faith, they were trying to purify themselves from the corruption and entanglements of history and their own political world. It has been suggested that the baptisms were done in a cave actually in the womb of the earth, by the light of little oil lamps. So imagine yourself in that situation, underground, and perhaps the water is springing directly from the earth, icy cold an pure, or they might have drawn the water into special basins carved in the rock and added herbs to heighten the sense of cleansing and purification. They would have done this more than once, repeating the ritual with prayers and confessions until one emerged into the light of day reborn as a new person.

I really don't know Judaism well enough to know if there is any precedent for this kid of ritual bathing. I know that the Romans loved their baths, but this is different. There is a precedent in Greek religion. The Eleusisan Mystery Cult revolved around an experience similar to what I have described. The Romans did borrow Greek architecture and Pantheon of Deities, but I'm fairly certain that the resemblance between the two cultures is a very subjective and superficial thing. We tent to see the Greeks through Roman eyes and our view of the Romans is similarly filtered through centuries of Christian history. As far as I know, the Romans had a very complex array of religious practices. On the one hand were the Cult of the State, and the well known pantheon of deities borrowed from the Greeks. These were often composite deities blending elements of Etruscan gods with the more recognizable Greek figures. On the other hand there were household gods of the hearth, doorways, and the very personal ancestral deities, the lares and penates. Additionally there were local deities of field and stream, perhaps more like nature spirits.
http://www.roman-empire.net/religion/religion.html

I suspect that ancient Greeks as a similar, if not richer religious life. Simply put, the 12 or thirteen Olympians are more of a synthesis, while actual worship varied from one region to another. There were also hero cults, forms of ancestor worship and oracles. One practice which has always interested me is the Pharmakos where a person, usually a slave was beaten stoned and expelled from the city. This scapegoat was supposed to take with him the collective sins and defilements of the community. The Greek Tragic plays like Sophoclese Oedipus Rex, were supposed to have taken the place of such sacrifice, by placing the cathartic action in a symbolic context on a stage, for all the community to see. Some suggest that the early dramatic festivals actually culminated with the sacrifice of a goat, hence the word 'scapegoat'. I tend to think that catharsis was the actual expulsion of a person rather than a ritual execution. This is after all what happens to Oedipus in his tragic cycle. First he is cast out by his father, to prevent the fulfillment of a prophecy and later in the action of the play he blinds himself and exiles himself in punishment for his own crimes of incest and patricide. The real sin here is hubris which can be translated as something like pride, ambition, or the vain notion that one could actually outsmart the gods. Later In the cycle, Blind Oedipus achieves apotheosis where he achieves a state of grace, having transcended his flawed human condition through suffering and through recognition of his own true nature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_ancient_Greece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakos

So is the sacrifice of Jesus a "Greek" idea? Or is this a kind of universal role -- that of a dying god-- tied to agriculture in the origin myths of cultures around the world?
I can find those threads in George Frazer's Golden Bough, or Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces.
http://orias.berkeley.edu/hero/

What about Jesus as a reformer of Judaism? I can see him as a radical figure, leading his people out of the influence of Rome and puppet kings like Herod, towards a simpler, more righteous lifestyle. This thread continues up to the present, from the Puritans and the Shakers up to the contemporary Amish, and the communes of the seventies like the Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. There is a strong message of simplicity and voluntary poverty in the Gospels, This is likely ot a Greek or Roman idea. There is also the aspect of opening up faith of the Hebrews to others, not born out of Jewish bloodlines. This is one of the most radical concepts in Jesus' message. Judaism still remains a very conservative almost tribal religion, while the faiths of Christianity and Islam are open to all - and all ore seen as equal in the eyes of God.

As far as the Christ being a divine being offering salvation through knowledge, We can see that this also has roots in Neo-Platonic philosophy. This is also where many also find the influence of Asian religion. In fact some Indian people do revere Jesus as an avatar of Vishnu - like Lord Krishna.

I don't intend this as a research paper, or an exegesis of my personal beliefs. These are some thoughts I wanted to explore and I hope that others might want to read some of the materials and form their own opinions. I do apologise for the repetitive rambling nature of this post, - spelling errows typo's etc. - I just wanted to put this out and get some reactions before I go back and do some actual research. This roughly follows some beliefs of mine, formed at a much earlier age. I reserve the right to change my position on any of these ideas.

Perhaps you have other thoughts on this?

Pax Vobiscum
-william

misc. lincs
http://www.kheper.net/topics/Neoplatonism/Plotinus.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Thomas

Quotes:
"The Gnostic myth also describes the exile of the soul in the material world as a form of bondage or enslavement to the body, a type of ignorance or forgetting, and as a state of being asleep."
???

"Woe to you who put your hope in the flesh and the prison that will perish. How long will you forget and suppose that the imperishables will perish?"
Didymus Jude Thomas

"I am the light that presides over all. I am all: it is from me that all comes, and to me that all goes. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there."
Thomas

2009 Writers in Paradise Evening Reading Series

2009-01-17T12:00:00.000-05:00

Eckerd College - Saint Ptersburg, Florida

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Stewart O'Nan

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Peter Meinke & Les Standiford

Monday, January 19, 2009

Ann Hood & Sterling Watson

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Tom Perrotta & Scott Ward

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

No Readings

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Jill Bialosky, Nahid Rachlin and Helen Wallace

Friday, January 23, 2009

Michael Koryta & Laura Lippman

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Dennis Lehane

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A multitude of ties (first star)

2009-01-16T14:13:00.000-05:00

(draft)

it wasn't the first in a long chain
the memories strung
back through the years
Christmas cards and photographs
the old family
ornaments preserved
all this time
clusters on the mantlepiece,
drapes the banister
and festoons every surface.

Somewhere in the middle,
you and i popped in,
appearing in our appropriate order.
the spun glass trumpet from Uncle Ed
A quartet of felt elves
the year mother folded
all the cards into a wreath

The accumulation goes back
a few generations. That angel
on the top with unpeakably dirty yarn
for hair appeared in your
great grandmother's time
we never met but she too takes part
in this pageant.

The stories change over time
depends who's telling.
The shabby pine cones
from a visit to california
The wooden creche was mine
you made these snowmen in school

The brightest star appeared
for me, when i first remembered this
and took my place in the ritual
hung the ornaments just so
and learned to repeat the tales
of high and far off times.
perhaps it was the same for you.

For me the thread is broken now.
I imagine that it continues for you
And perhaps your children
have grown into that continuous
chain that connects the generations.

Sun, December 28, 2008 - 10:17 PM

What am I missing? (Besides the point.)

2008-12-08T10:25:00.000-05:00

Naiveté implies a kind of innocence, which can be expectedas opposed to ignorance, which implies a condition of being grosslyunconscious. There is also a sort of blindness, which, like the absence ofvision, cannot really be overcome.
I'm tempted to declare that women and money were my two major blind spots,growing up. Those are fairly obvious. The subtleties of both are such that evenan experienced man can always find new turns in the familiar. The differencethought is that money, while complex and often elusive, can be quantified, andunderstood through largely mechanical methods. Women on the other hand aresubtle and certainly not understood as objectively.

What I did not understand about money was that hard work andintelligence did not guarantee an income. Even when it was possible for me tobe resourceful in finding work, the complexities of office politics ofteneluded me. Actually it was kitchen politics in my first few jobs, but theoffice was no less complex. Even to day, I have trouble figuring out whatalliances and enmities lie beneath the surface, but I know that there will besome. The secret of money I found is that of providing a service andtransforming something ordinary into something else. A friend of mine referredto it as the “Art of Turning Gold into Gold”. Just as a n example what he usedto do is buy gold jewelry and coin, melt it down and make new jewelry out ofit. He was of course a talented artist, and his jewelry spoke not only of theradiance and value of the materials but also the glory of life itself and thetranscendence of the human into the divine. It turns out that people will payfor that. Of course it is possible to do the same thing with les valuablematerials. But then you are relying on your own talent, and while I’ve alwaysfound my own talent to be reliable, people can be very fickle about otherpeople’s talent. For example there are many talented people who paint in oils,many better than I, at making a likeness of choosing a balanced array ofcolors. The majority of people will admire the artist who appears to have thebest ability to draw attractive subjects.

This all sound a little out there. Art is not really thebest way to make money, but what I’m trying to say is that there is an art tomaking a business work. Even if you have all the accounting, the best location,well-made products or services, it isn’t hard to fail. So if that happens wheredoes all that investment go? For my one friend, It’s gold, Even the stuff thathew bought as stock – raw materials – has tripled in value. That’s pretty goodAnd the interest in his work is still pretty good because the raw material hasintrinsic value. Now it really does take a lot of work to make these fie goldpieces but it doesn’t feel like that awful ‘work’ that people complain aboutbecause it really is something that he loves doing. I actually taught him howto do the casting, so he could keep more of the profits for himself. I didn’tget paid for it, I enjoy doing it so much that I just shared what I knew and castmany of his pieces myself. I didn’t even know I was being generous because tome it was part of doing my own work. I needed to have control over the castingprocess in order to make sure that no one over heated the kiln or damaged thecentrifuge. I just got in the habit of casting every ones work because it was easier for me to stand there withthe torch and do one flask after another. Later on, there were some otherpeople in the studio who kind of took advantage of me, and it was not pleasant.The difference was that they expected me to show them how to do it correctly orthat they just wanted it done for them. And worst of all there were a few whojust presumed that they could go ahead and cast without regard for any oneelse.

So what was I naive about? Some readers are probablythinking; “everything.” I was Naive inthinking that money and business were not like school where work was rewardedwith a grade. And school was not entirely like that either, Looking back I cansee that there was a fair amount of prejudice in elementary school, and evenmore in high school... I just thought it would be expressed upfront, as if theteacher were going to come up and say, “I don’t like you.” Some of them did tobe true, but they were actually fairly reasonable and objective believe it ornot. I really did not care for sportsthat much as I was not really a strong athlete, (asthma). Later I realized howmuch I benefited from learning to pass the ball to other players and spotweakness in the other team. Some times a strong athlete could be a weak linkbecause of their ego. So I was prettyclueless about my ability to make money, in part because that people would sortof work as a team at different jobs. I just didn’t know how subtle andcompetitive people were in the world and I also did not realize how much ofthat was driven by the need to acquire money.

My problems with Women are partly the same. I’m not thatgood at determining peoples motivation, I cannot always tell if women like me,and the one time I was married, thinkthat the girl was ‘after my money’. Itwas actually my parent’s money and she might not have been conscious of it atthe time. I think she liked the sex too, but she was not so keen on intimacy asfar as I could tell. Not at first. It was the kind of long monotonousrepetitive sex that . . . well I have nothing to compare to. She would justwant to get on top very soon and her face would sort of go away. There was akind of animal ecstasy to it. But I could go for a long time like that. It waslike a drug or a trance. I think that she was kind of looking for disposablerelationships. She had a girlfriend that she really admired, and maybe they hada sexual thing at one time, but it was only after a long time that she seemedto care about me. I mistook the whole sex thing as real affection, but poorfool that I was, I had littleexperience to compare to. The other part of that relationship was the class difference. I really did not seeit at the time, but I had this veneer of the educated elite. I went to boardingschool and my adoptive parents both attended a very elite New England collegeand taught there for a time.

Well, I know that I’m not coming to the pointhere. There was something missing withthis girl. I don’t know if it was me or not. I suspect that yeah I was off too.I’d always felt horrible lonely starting in elementary school. Sexually dthewhole desire thing started when I was about eleven. I don’t know if any oneelse other boys had those feelings at that age or not. Some of the kids pairedoff imitating what they say on Welcome Back Kotter, (weird because it seemedlike the girls idea and they had no roles in the TV show besides arm candy). Ithink it had more to do with social ranking. They had to sit in a particular orderin the class room. There was actual kissing at some point, but I don’t actuallyknow about intimacy. Later ther were a couple of kids who had a lot moreexperience, they went to public school where there was a lot more peer pressureand less adult presence. The first time I had a relationship that had mutualfeelings of wanting to kiss, was with some one I’d known since nursery school.We really grew up together, so it wasawkward to try to change the way we were together. I really missed out on how important that relationship was.People seemed to think that I was a late bloomer. Any way I was pretty muchaware of the opposite sex, and I read alot about human sexuality, my mother was an anthropology professor so shethought it was important to have all this knowledge early on. We didn’t reallytalk about it. So in that way it was kind of useless. I was rather religious inmy own way. I had a definite Idea of love and how it was mutual and reciprocaland how people could trust and care for each other. My first official girlfriend was very religious in her own way and romantic in a way that was sort ofunreal and more about role play. We never seemed to talk about real stuff. Likethe fact that I stopped a guy from raping her in the woods. He also tried tohave sex with me a few times. (This was at a Christian Youth camp. He triedsomething with another person and was asked to leave the program). I was in arelationship with her for about a year but we mostly exchanged letters as welived in different states. When I saw her the next year, she really didn’t carefor me much but she sort of kept things going until the very end of theretreat. I think that it had a lot to do with keeping up appearances. But as itturned out there was another girl who liked me, so my girl might have beenplaying me to save herself the embarrassment of finding some one new. So in one year we went from being verysimilar and kind of innocent, (despite getting sexually assaulted by the sameperson,) to a relationship where she was pretty much morally superior and I wasemotionally devastated because of things that happened at boarding school thatyear. I don’t know maybe she was emotionally devastated too. She nevermentioned it.

Facial

2008-12-06T15:20:00.001-05:00

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back to black

2008-12-05T21:52:00.002-05:00

I decided to return to the 'black' background for my blog. the colored fonts look like little Christmas lights. I had it printed in yellow on green for a long time because I read somewhere that this was very readable on a computer. I think dark green type on a light green background would be really readable, and not so far off from what people expect. But as I said I like the colors against black and the Texture behind the header fades to black edges. I like the effect. I'm still trying to work with the format that allows swapping in 'gadgets' from google. some of them, like FriendFeed, sort of clash with anything but icy blue and white. Against black the little windows seem disembodied. which seems OK right now.

No novel writing month

2008-12-05T18:44:00.001-05:00

well. . .
I survived the great NaNoWriMo -- by not participating -- again. I don't know what it is about these absurd arbitrary deadlines that makes me balk. Perhaps I'm just being pragmatic.
Any way it went by and once again I didn'd writ a novel. this year I even signed up, so if I could post something if I had written it. but i was not inspired. Actually I had a sense of relief because after the first day, I knew that I had no intention of writing a novel that month. I admit that I am lazy in that respect, that I am justifying inactivity with a sense of self assuredness, and that I'm not going to get anywhere with that kind of attitude, but i think that the right thing to do is give up when you over-commit. I've taken on excessive work before, particularly in school, where iwas taking 18 credit hours one semester and working two part time jobs. some times the right thing to do is say no, or pass the job on to someone else. While I managed OK in school, there were other times when I knew I couldn't finish all the papers I had unless I buckled down, and I would just not do it. I was obsessing all the time about writing this or that, or maniacally running over conversations in my mind about how this should be worded, an how wonderful it would be if i did write it. But I'd never get stuff done. It was all a kind of fantasy that I was doing all this writing in my head while i put nothing on paper.
The Idea behind writing a novel in a month is not really as far fetched as people seem to think. the reality is that a professional writer gets about three or four months to write a book and get it to a publisher and most people (even writers) are prone to a lot of thinking about writing before they actually put stuff on paper. The thinking and pre-editing tends to get in the way of good ideas and real creativity.

offering Tsok feast Mantra

2008-09-29T15:08:00.002-05:00

oṃ guru deva ḍākiṇī gaṇacakra pūjā hoḥ ucchiṣṭa baliṃ te khāhi

Short mandala offering

From Rigpa Wiki

sa shyi pö chü juk shing métok tram
The ground is purified with scented water and strewn with flowers

rirap ling shyi nyidé gyenpa di
It is adorned with Sumeru, the king of mountains, the four quarters of the universe, and the sun and the moon;

sangyé shying du mik dé pulwa yi
Thinking of it as the blessed buddha-fields, I offer it

dro kun namdak shying la chöpar shok
By virtue of this offering, may all beings here and now attain the happiness of that pure land!

tram guru ratna mandala pudza megha samudra saparana samaye ah hung

ṛ

ṝ

ḷ

ḹ

aṃ a

Consonants of the Sanskrit Alphabet

ka	kha	ga	gha	ṅa
ca	cha	ja	jha	ña
ṭa	ṭha	ḍa	ḍha	ṇa
ta	tha	da	dha	na
pa	pha	ba	bha	ma
ya	ra	la	wa
śa	ṣa	sa
ha	kṣa

---------

Vowels

a	aa	i	ii	u	uu	R	RR
L	LL	e	ai	o	au	aM	aH

Consonants

k	kh	g	gh	G
c	ch	j	jh	J
T	Th	D	Dh	N
t	th	d	dh	n
p	ph	b	bh	m
y	r	l	v
z	S	s	h

Writing

2008-09-17T13:14:00.002-05:00

One of the things about writing is that i find myself needing excuses to write. I know there are lots of reasons and perhaps nearly as many excuses not to write, but i still find myself needing reasons to put stuff down on paper or into the hard-drive, datasphere ..what ever.
writing about writing is one of the best methods or writing about not writing. Every once in a while i find myself reading an article that lists ten or so habits of good writing. Even though the world may already have enough lists of articles about writing, I can't see any harm in writing more. the rest of the junk and clutter may have covered over the previous lists, reducing them to compost. Any way lists are always a good thing to put on your blog. They look so attractive with the little numbers - it almost makes me want to start tweaking the layout- so lets get on with it what are my reasons to write?

I don't really have a career, writing makes me feel important. it' also time consuming and terribly intellectual. half the people i meet are a little bit afraid of writing because of some bad experience they had in grammar school of college.
Writing helps me keep my body in shape. Let's face it - if i didn't write then my little fingers would get fat and we all know how unattractive that is.
Writing is good for the ego. I know it looks like I've already covered this, but when i write i can pretend to be whom ever i wish. thats very liberating - even if it is a little delusional.
Writing exercises that part of my brain that would otherwise be driving me nuts. A part of me is always fiddling with stuff and reviewing statements arguments and re-doing it the way it should have been. I can't really win any arguments from the past but i can improve my arguments in a paper i wrote, and i can rewrite the arguments for fictional characters. If I didn't have writing to work on that part of my brain would be trying to edit parts of my life. I can't hep thinking that's not healthy.
Writing makes my mother proud. I don't need to say more on this do I?
Writing improves my writing. I know this seems obvious, but its the same thing with my guitar playing, it really sounds better when i play more often - even if it is the same couple of songs I learned in high school.
Writing is the face you present to the world. OK this doesn't apply to all you real worlders. but in academia and here on the interwebs, Its pretty much all words unless you are a programmer.
Writing can make money. This is probably the worst reason to write unless you write books about making money by writing, in which case you may attract quite a few fans among the ranks of destitute writers.
Writing is creative. writing makes something out of nothing. in the worst cases writers just rearrange words that other people have used before (as I'm doing here) but even that creates a new perspective. Even if you just fill up a page a day in an old ring binder, you will eventually look back and find something impressive. Every so often I go through the old boxes in my garage, chase away the silverfish, and read some of my old notebooks. When my life seems rather insignificant, i look back and remind my self who I was back then and get impressed by what a good writer i was back then.
Writing is how I connect to other people. I' sure this is starting to sound redundant but I do think about people in terms of words, and words are the tools i use to comfort (and hurt) others in my life. writing them down seems to give them more solidity and substance. I genuinely like people and I enjoy communicating with others. It's really cool to be able to do this with my fingers.

That's about all that i can think of right now.
You don't have to take it very seriously. Its just an exercise - list ten reasons why you write. something else to fill those voluminous spiral notebooks with.
What got me started was this article pointed out to me by some one on Friend Feed. Give it a look for a more sober take on 10 Reasons to Write Every Day

Believe

2008-08-23T05:04:00.001-05:00

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."
-E.E. Cummings

Technorati Tags: inspiration

Shortcut

2008-08-06T01:12:00.002-05:00

*
The road not taken veers off to the left behind me, choked with rhododendrons and mountain laurels. It's not that I never noticed it before. I passed this way coming home every day for eleven years of my life. I rode my bicycle past it a hundred times each summer as my sister and I raced around the block. Our world was bounded by this circular cul-de-sac in the wooded slopes of Mount Misery. I'd never though about it much, that the road might lead somewhere, or have a name. We merely passed it by and Halloween weed walk right past without a word from Mrs. Merchant to the Acker's house where my sister's best friend lived. If I had know the crumbling tar and gravel lead to some other place, I would have gone there, and I'm sure I went everywhere else that I could have. Growing up as I did in an old stone house surrounded by trees made the impulse to explore very strong. I wandered around the old Krup house, abandoned since his death, and found the secret garden in the back, burgeoning with daffodils and tulips planted by his wife I guess, many years before my birth. I wandered in the thick laurel and dogwood that sloped away behind the mulberry tree in our back yard. There was an old oak there whose roots curled around to make a basin lined with moss and even in the dry summer months this pool sparkled with dark water I was afraid to touch. Far bellow that I followed the ravine down to where it opened out onto the harbor beach and an artesian spring trickled out across the sand next to a weathered stone wall where some one had built a bonfire some time in the past month.
I was always alone then, there seems no reason I would have not gone up that road. I can't remember any thing about it except the parting glance I had just before we moved away. I asked myself where does that go?
Now years later I can see what I did not know. The maps reveal that little has changed over all this time, I can see how different my life would have been If I had known the short cut to Diane's house. But then would that first kiss and that last good by have been as sweet, if I could have gotten there in just ten minutes instead of an hours ride up to the ridge and then around the golf course?

Technorati Tags: blog, story, memory, diane, personal, history, port jefferson

wings outside the door.

2008-07-31T10:55:00.001-05:00

wings outside the door.
Originally uploaded by _william

from her morning walk

2008-07-16T03:26:00.001-05:00

A shoe in the window, or it's a cat
She seemed to say, with her mouth half open
Pointing with both hands. See. There. Look at that.
Face damp with spray (or tears from the ocean.)
"it came out less than I intended,"
She said clearly, I could hear. Both eyes
Look at me. The cat...
"I walked there," making coffee,
"Couldn't see the point," she said,
"Clearly." The soft grey in the corner.
And curled around her ankle.
Faint moaning in the distance,
She shakes the droplets from her hat brim.
A little cry of hunger from below.

george carlin

2008-06-25T11:11:00.001-05:00

Psychology Today Blogs

The jester makes jokes, he’s funny, he makes fun, he ridicules. But if his ridicules are based on sound ideas and thinking, then he can proceed to the second panel, which is the thinker—he called it the philosopher. The jester becomes the philosopher, and if he does these things with dazzling language that we marvel at, then he becomes a poet too. Then the jester can be a thinking jester who thinks poetically.

Dear Lama...

2008-05-17T07:03:00.001-05:00

Dear Lama,
It has been a few months since we talked.i think of you during guru yoga and I remember how you told us to keep things simple.. It was strange we we talked because i felt that i would be taking up your time. I thought that I should have a spiritual question about what level of meditation i should be on. i guess that i wanted to be recognized as a person who had done some spiritual work.
What I actually asked was more ordinary. I don't even know if it was a spiritual question. I wanted to know what to do about these things in my life that made it so difficult to practice. It seems over the years that I've become so estranged from my parents, well they were dead and i had not seen them in twenty years. they just rejected me and said that i was never to come to their house that i was no longer a part of their life. What was bothering me was the sense that I had done something wrong and that I could never fix that.You said that above all that my problems were small and told me how your mother was imprisoned by the government and your brother died of TB. your parents sent you away so that you would not catch it but you were young and did not understand until much later.you also spoke of Jesus and how he suffered and about the Dalai Lama and how these people had everything taken from them. My problems were small you said. and then you suggested that maybe my father wanted me to be strong and self reliant. maybe that is why he pushed you away. I thought that i told you about the child I had during my breif marriage and how the child died.but things were confused. I had other things on my mind that night. my mother was recently dead. y sister was quick to say how full of rage i was and there was the matter of my small inheritance, and the rather grand sum that my sister received. yeah, I did feel jealous, but ti felt that there was some falsehood at the bottom of it. I never mentioned her drug dealing, how she used the post office to mail drugs to another town as she traveled, or how she uses stolen credit cards to make long distance phone calls. You said that I should make up with her, because she is the only sister I have. I never mentioned that we were both adopted or that I have a half brother in Scotland. I made some efforts.She sent me a package full of Kindergarten artwork and some brass cuff links that belonged to a grandfather that i never knew. There was nothing that acknowledged an adult. apparently my parents had discarded all my landscapes and of course my library and records. One photo had a picture of the two of us just after my father returned from Japan. She was holding a beautiful doll which she later complained that mother had decided was hers. She asked what it was in my hand and i said an Ivory elephant.I asked if I might have it back and she said it was badly damaged, with a crack in it. I also asked about a framed painting of two dragons and a small token of Amitabha. but she had no recollection of those things.
I know this is cloudy painful stuff, but i wanted to be honest about it. I don't feel that i can develop much compassion if i am still caught up in the world of childish toys and things. i guess i just have to swallow pride and tell my sister what a wonderful person she is and constantly remind her that everything she did for mother was good and that she is a saint. I don't feel that way, but it sounds like she wants that validation from me.
I can't seem to shake the feeling that I'm not a good enough person and that i don't do enough prostrations or that my prayers don't have enough joy in them.
But then you say that I should find a stronger livelihood. I guess that means make more money. I make so little selling silver rings and bangles, i don't see how i'm going to do better with shells and driftwood as you suggested. I know that work will bring a better sense of self esteem, but i don't find a way to make work meaningful. It is always dependent on someone wanting something that they don't need.I' starting to feel sorry that i didn't become a doctor or a nurse. maybe i can go back into food prep. there is not much esteem in that but it is honorable. And teaching? how could I possibly do that? I thought I could when I was younger, but one bad job reference through me off that track. Teachers make so little anyway and the students treat them like dirt. It seems like every week there is a new scandal involving sex with students.Where were all these crusading reporters when my teachers were molesting me?
I know this isn't a very spiritual letter. This is just the stuff that buzzes around in my head when I'm not paying attention. When I meditate, i can see flashes of you and flashes of Tara. I can imagine a wheel of mantras radiating light out into the world and I can imagine Vajrasattva pouring light into me, purifying all the dark nasty thoughts.obviously i need to do more of that meditation.i don't meet with the Dharma group any more. I grew tired of all the harsh stares and bitter attitudes. If I can't pay money I don't feel welcome there.The ones who pay a lot, who volunteer on the board, they make sure that the rest of us sit in the back and well its clear that the practice doesn't work if one can't make a sizable offering. I've been told that i should practice on the beach or something.
So maybe someday i will be ready for this kind of Dharma practice, but i know i am not worthy of this group.
Till we meet again,
Yours in the Dharma
sherab

Silver and Silicon

2008-05-09T11:17:00.001-05:00

Silver and Silicon
Originally uploaded by _william

Remember all the evenings we spent looking at the sky turned red and gold with purple clouds in the east an the water growing still. It seem that sunset has much less these days. Perhaps my eyes have gotten weak over time looking at video monitors.
Could it be true that we have all seen better sunsets?

I can also remember grey rocks bristling with lichen and moss as if the life sprang from within.
I can still see the surface of the stone in my dreams, where you laid a blanket so that we could sit and watch the day slide into night

Amitayus

2008-05-08T06:20:00.002-05:00

Hri Du Sum Sang Gye Kun Gyi Ngo Wo Nyi
(Hri essence of the buddhas of the three times)

Dro Nam Ma Lu Drol Way Dep Pon Chok
Sublime guide who frees all beings

Or Gen Pema Rig Dzin Tse Pak Me
Orgyen Pema Rigdzin Tse.pa.me

Dak Gi Lu Ngak Yid Sum Jin Lob La
Bless my body speech and mind

Chi Me Tse Yi Ngo Drup Tsal Du Sol
Bestow the power of immortal life

OM, GURU AYU SIDDHI, HUNG, HRI.
AMARANI JIVANTAYE, SWAHA (100 x)

Ge Wa Di Yi Nyur Du Dag
By this virtuous practice

Tse Pag Me Gon Drub Jur Ne
May I quickly attain the realisation of Amitayus

Dro Wa Chio Chang Ma Lu Pa
Accomplishing this, may I liberate all
Sentient beings without exception

De Yi Sa Lo Go Par Shog
Into that same realisation.

Dream of the Black Rabbit

2008-05-02T03:38:00.001-05:00

Dream of the Black Rabbit
Originally uploaded by _william

This dream rabbit comes back to me from time to time Last time it was someone dressed in a rabbit costume Sleeping
Now the rabbit is a shadow which I cannot see.
Just outside my window, she waits in the dew damp grass, still, under the one bright planet.
A sleepy bird chirps unconvincingly in the dark.

The Other John Wheeler

2008-04-21T01:27:00.002-05:00

When I was younger, i often wondered if Dr. John Wheeler was some how connected with my family. My Dad had many secrets and on of them was his brother John. I never did meet my uncle and I have long felt that my Dad kept his where abouts secret from me. as i discovered a few years ago, Uncle john lived quite near me here in the Tampa area, and my Dad visited him several times. Naturally he did not tell me this oh the two occaisions that he was down here to see me, in 1986 and again in '88. Come to think of it he did mention that John lived in Florida. but I did not know that it was so near.
At any rate, back in the eighties, I did suspect that John might be the famous Physicist. Dad was a Physicist before his career turned towards academic administration. I still know very little about Uncle John. But like the more famous Physicist, he lived in Texas at one point, and had connections to Los Alamos. Since my Father also worked in the field It is not surprising that they attended some of the same conferences. What surprises me even now are fact such as Wheelers vacationing in Maine, and on son who lives in Ardmore, PA, a towm where i once lived with my family.
Here is a link to The Times Obit

John A. Wheeler, a visionary physicist and teacher who helped invent the theory of nuclear fission, gave black holes their name and argued about the nature of reality with Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, died Sunday morning at his home in Hightstown, N.J. He was 96.

I'll pull up the short Bio of John Brooks Wheeler from My archives and post it here later.

Cherry Blossoms

2008-04-20T16:29:00.001-05:00

桜
Originally uploaded by studiocherry

The edge worn, the garment thin,
I try to cover what remains.
In my bodies age
I begin to see the new truth.

We are all laid bare in a melody.
Our hearts in our mouths as we sing.
And children dance along beside us.
With flowers and teddy bears as though it were spring

But for them, when the cherry blossoms fall,
We will be like naked trees till new leaves
Bud from the crooked branches.

So let them play in the soft fallen petals
And rejoice in the soft fleshy rain,
So they know what it is to be mortal
before they know mortal pain.

© William C. Wheeler 2006-2007

Manjushri

2008-03-21T11:11:00.001-05:00

Manjushri
Originally uploaded by _william

Meditate on the wisdom of your actions before you do something.

Free Tibet

2008-03-17T12:34:00.001-05:00

Free Tibet
Originally uploaded by Kenny Maths

Follow the link for the photographers account of his own visit to Lhasa.

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha

2008-02-20T03:33:00.002-05:00

21 Praises to Tara

Om.
Jetsun-ma Pakma drolma
La chag tsallo
chag tsal tare nyurma pamo
tuttararyi jigpa selma
ture dön kun jin pä dölma
sohä yi ge khye la dü do

Sent from BlueOrganizer

Crist sets special elections for March 25, April 15

2008-02-15T15:55:00.001-05:00

I wonder about all this Juggling Going on around the nation.

Crist sets special elections for March 25, April 15
Published Thursday, Feb. 14, 2008 at 1:02 p.m.

Election day just got a lot sooner for thousands of voters in Manatee and Sarasota County.

Gov. Charlie Crist today set a special primary election for March 25 and a special general election for April 15 to fill the now vacant state House District 55.

The seat became vacant last week when Crist appointed Rep. Frank Peterman Jr., D-St. Petersburg, to be the new secretary of the Department of Juvenile Justice.

The bulk of District 55 is located in south St. Petersburg, but almost 40 percent of the district’s voters are from Manatee and Sarasota counties. The district includes large portions of Palmetto, Bradenton, Tallevast and Newtown.

Already three Democratic candidates have filed to run for the seat. Former Sarasota resident and activist Charles McKenzie Jr., attorney Darryl E. Rouson, and St. Petersburg city councilman Earnest Williams have all filed to run.

No Republicans have filed yet.

District 55 is almost certain to remain in Demcoratic hands. Of the 69,291 voters in the district, 70 percent are registered Democrats.

The winner of the election would not take office until until the last two weeks of the spring Legislative Session, which starts on March 4 and runs through the first week of May.

For Sarasota the special election now means Sarasota's Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent, will have to run four elections in six weeks. On March 11, Dent was already set to hold elections for special districts like Holiday Park, then on March 18 Longboat Key holds its town council elections. Then after District 55 elections, Dent could get a fifth election on May 6, the date county commissioners are looking at putting a countywide issue on the ballot.

Including the presidential primary in January, the regular primary in August, and the general election in November, Sarasota will have had 8 elections over 11 months.

"We used to joke that we are having elections quarterly," Dent joked. "But now we've just decided to have them monthly."

The good news is that the state will reimburse Sarasota and Manatee for costs associated with the District 55 special election.
The Seven Points of Mind Training
08.jpg (JPEG Image, 683x1024 pixels)

Chakras

2008-02-13T03:57:00.002-05:00

7. The CROWN chakra or HEAD chakra is positioned at the top of the head. It is associated with cosmic awareness, highest spirituality, and complete integration with Source.
VIOLET is the color of the crown chakra and the musical note is B. - 123.47 Hz (the note B is also called H)
6. The THIRD EYE chakra is located in the center of the forehead. This chakra is also called the AJNA center. It is associated with intuition, understanding, visualization, and inner vision.
DARK INDIGO BLUE is the color of the third eye chakra and the musical note is A. - 110.00 Hz

5. The THROAT chakra is positioned in the base of throat. It is associated with communication, expression and speaking one's truth.
AZURE BLUE is the color of the throat chakra and the musical note is G. - 98.00

. 4 The HEART chakra is positioned in the center of the chest, usually shown to be even with the nipple line. The heart is associated with compassion, friendship, empathy and the ability to give and receive love.
GREEN is the color of the heart chakra and the musical note is F. - 87.31 Hz
Sometimes the heart chakra is shown as pink, especially in relation to sending love out from the heart.

3. The SOLAR PLEXUS chakra or THIRD chakra is located midway between the end of the breastbone and the navel. It is associated with issues of personal power, emotions (especially blocked emotions), passion for living, and the ability to protect oneself from being the target of negative or aggressive emotions.
YELLOW is the color of the solar plexus chakra and the musical note is E. - 82.41 Hz

2. The SACRAL chakra, also called the SECOND chakra or the SEXUAL chakra, is positioned in the area between the navel and the pubic bone. Depending on which sources you read, it can be shown to be centered on the navel itself or to be aligned with the sexual organs - ovaries in women and testes in men. It is associated with creativity, sexuality, relationship, and reproduction.
ORANGE. is the color of the sacral or second chakra and the musical note is D. - 73.42 Hz

1. The ROOT chakra, also called the FIRST or BASE chakra, is located at the base of the spine. It is associated with issues of survival, drive, ambition, grounding one's energy in the physical dimension, your life forces, and balancing experiences that create "fight or flight".
RED is the color of the root chakra and the musical note is C. - 65.41 Hz

From The One Voice Chord

cutting through

2008-02-13T03:39:00.001-05:00

Here's a description printed in a flyer from Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche's sangha given out freely as an excerpt from a talk on Troma and Chod given by him in Los Angeles April 9, 1986, so I feel comfortable sharing it openly, since it was originally given out openly:

"Troma, the Black Vajra Mother is the true heart essence of Guru Padmasambhava. It is also the method of many of the great siddhas from the forefathers Sarahaba until it was revealed by the very noble siddha and terton, Dudjom Lingpa, who is the previous incarnation of H.H. Dudjom Ronpoche.

Chod by definition is "to cut through". The essence of chod is the prajnaparamita: the pervasive permanent unalterable absolute nature of emptiness. Emptiness is not nothingness, it is the full resplendent quality of subtle appearance and is called unstoppable clarity: the inner capacity of the nature of emptiness. It arises as the display of the five Dhayana Buddhas' consorts. Emptiness is inseparable from its resplendent capacity for manifesting beneficial appearances, the Five Wrathful mothers, Troma, also known as Vajra Khrodikali.

What must be understood about the cutting Chod, is what is to be cut and how it is that we cut it. The answer to what must be cut is the root of samsara. Samsara is the cycles of endless suffering of forever becoming: we must look at what causes that and that cause must be cut.

For us, non-realization of our absolute nature is not because we once realized our nature and then forgot it. It isn't that we had it and then lost it. The essential primary nature of absolute purity is innate in our being. Non-actualized purity is ignorance and so ignorance must be cut. It must be destroyed. It must be liberated.

Next to ignorance of Nature, the poison of desire must be cut. We have basic self-centered recognitions which function as our "I" or "me" or any manner of self-perceptions. Beyond this comes the recognition of everything which isn't "me", generally named "other". through this process of "I" and everything else that is not "I" a dualistic mode begins to function between the two. From this dualism arises the judgment of "it's so pretty" and the subtle attachment of "yes, I like it" which gives way to the gross attachment of "I need it" which is where suffering begins. If we need it and we can't get it, then we suffer: if we need it and we get it and we find out that we didn't want it, then we also suffer. If we need it and we get it and it fades away and dissolves into nothingness as all temporary things will, we suffer... .

Desire is also a stepping stone to hatred which is aversion or the other side of desire. Because I want something, then I have some vested interest in that particular phenomena happening: something comes along such as rain, for example, and blocks the fulfillment and "I don't like that." It's because I had some invested interest in what I wanted that aversion developed. Whatever prevents me from getting what I want results in this same aversion and so we find that at the forefront of aversion is desire.

From the poisons of ignorance, desire, and aversion the mind further complicates its delusion with a very beguiling pride of its own confusion and from this arises jealousy. These complete the full array of the poisons of the mind. In Chod, there is always what are called the four demons or the four maras which are the four obstructing influences.

The first obstruction is the personal defilements of mind: the defilements are the five poisons: ignorance, desire, aversion, pride and jealousy. The second demonic influence is the obstruction of false contentment which is somewhat like pride. One takes for granted good situations thinking that they will go on forever: this is a very big obstacle because it wastes opportunities. The third demonic influence that obstructs the realization of enlightenment is based on self-holding and other-holding. The mind zig zags back and forth from "I like this" and "I don't like that" "this is pretty, that is not" "I need this" "I don't need that". Our mind enticed by the appearance of objects goes to the object and becomes dynamically involved there, totally seduced by samsaric appearances. The fourth obstruction is the root of the other three obstructions, the self-centeredness of one's "I".

The method to cut through these demonic influences is called Chod. One's pure motivation is the blade that cuts though the faults of self-centeredness.

Chod is the practice of generosity with one's most valuable possession, the body. There is nothing we value more, so this is what we use as our gift. Our mind is deathless, our body is not, so we transfer our mind out of our body and pure mind stands complete in space. The body, like a shell, is an empty remain.[sic] Through mantra and visualization, the practitioner transforms the body into a vast and wholesome offering of whatever would be satisfying. The offering is not just substance, but it is also wisdom nectar which fills the vastness of space. This is then offered to all of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, to any and all wisdom beings beyond the limit of our understanding. Further it is offered to every sentient being whoever they are, wherever they are. Whatever their particular need is is completely met by this offering and they're completely satisfied and fulfilled immediately and ultimately.

This trains the mind to cut through attachment. By this practice, one accomplishes both the accumulation of merit through generosity and the accumulation of wisdom through understanding the basis of non-reality of our physical form. One understands the nature of emptiness that pervades all beings and this accumulates wisdom. Enlightenment is produced by the two accumulations of merit and wisdom, so this is a path capable of rendering full realization of enlightenment."

Ishvarra

2007-12-01T16:50:00.000-05:00

Who sees in all of us the same despair and crippling sickness.
Who holds us all as precious.
who hears our cries, tends our wounds and waits how ever long he must, for our eventual arrival. Chenrezig pure of form and color; be the kindness in our emptyness

Coffee cup

2007-12-01T16:46:00.002-05:00

This perfectly ordinary blue cup,
a simple vessel for coffee or tea,
belonged to my mother for many years
She kept it beside her through out the day,

It joined her when she talked on the phone,
Stayed on the desk when she she wrote.
She would top it off with warm coffee
And hold it close to her heart with both hands
When she sat deep in thought,
Her eyes fixed on some distant interior.

This cup was such a part of her
I cannot see it without seeing her.
She attached to the objects around
So deeply that they seemed human.
Animated by constant use until
They stood on their own.

The great leather bag she lugged about
With all her things: pencils, notebooks,
Bus fare, photographs: all necessities
For day to day encounters in the world.
Sometimes the bag seemed so heavy,
That i wondered how her small frame
Could shoulder so much.

The cup always stayed at home
Seldom washed and put away.
Blue, it waited by the typewriter,
Or on the counter by the stove,
An ounce or two of black sugarless
Liquid, cooling in the bottom,
For her eventual return.

Poetry links

2007-10-24T09:20:00.001-05:00

A short reading list

Ripples

Running

So it Goes

Shell

After the Fall

Ducks and Swans

And a place to put your own, and to collaborate with others.

sonnet shed: A PoetryWiki

Two time lover

2007-08-15T14:14:00.001-05:00

At best I could resist you with a nod,
A turn of the cheek, and when there's music.
I'd duck my head and shuffle to the beat,
We'd touch to say that we were here tonight.
But we'll both fade before tomorw comes.
I'll dance though I've got promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep. Let's go!
I told her I worked late in the studio.
This much was true but then you were there.
I'd mark the pale white canvas with my thoughts
Of you and then I'd want to hide my love
In twisted lines and crypitic shaded verse.
This double love is difficult to keep
With two to please, I never get my sleep.

Dancing By Firelight

2007-08-15T06:18:00.001-05:00

The storm outside echoes the heart within.
Your breast trembles with the night's gentle breath,
And soft ground stares up. wordless affection.
My vacant eyes know your dancing vision
And still recall the phantom ghosts of night.
Amongst our vacant selves, both of us know,
You have your one constant in life, This dance!
And last, this woman draws the night in,
Enfolding us in darkness, her secret.
Phantom thought, antiquated beauty's breath
Flickers at your feet while you draw fire in.
Just ghosts, my thoughts, of beauty's last exit,
Divided by the thunder and the flash,
Still dancing you and she act out a name,
The union of the darkness and the flame.

Alphabets of Night

2007-08-12T05:02:00.001-05:00

Have I but known you, loved you 
Just your thought your breath 
And you known the unsaid thought 
Under the ground of thought, alphabets. 
Under your perfect self, 
You love the one breath 
I, a stranger amongst your thoughts 
I have your constance, you, your name.

Together, like pure makers of the night 
Phantom appearance tells about ghosts. Existing 
Is like fictional dancing described.    
Our vision united must draw stares.  
Ladies described and she of this same seeming.
 
Existing person, antiquated concern 
Fine, I'm a muse tonight, her's in a sense, 
Last in the described Self. 
Why complain of lies? 
As one, I muse beauty's night. both must dance. 
As a vacant one, this seems Existing 
divided heart and flesh a way. 
depths can't plumb affection. 
My fiction dancing subsided 
While she still dreams
And what about her? Both night and words strung
The stares. Woman with woman by the act 

Dharma Activities for Kids

2007-08-12T02:32:00.002-05:00

Martyr

2007-07-24T03:49:00.001-05:00

In your own day
People listened,
When you stood and spoke,
We offered hearts and minds
Questioned you and your ways,
Yet you always prevailed,
Bearing the spirit of support
A burden that became
A flaming torch
As you crossed the line.

I kneel to pray
I hold you in my thoughts
Image of an artist
With the taste of vision.

You burned more candles
Than the night could bear,
Lifted rags up and filled them
With men and women.
You gave us voice for song
When we could only squeek,
Clap hands and chortle
In our delight.

When you left us, we had
Acres of desolate sand,
Dry trees an wilderness,
Waiting for a spark.

Now rains deluge us
Beyond reason.

We drown in your absence.

We are not afraid that we are weak, we are afraid that we are strong...

2007-07-24T02:12:00.001-05:00

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight
in the bud was more painful than the risk
it took to blossom.”
~Anaïs Nin

If we open ourself to blossom then we risk the indignities of exposure, and in that naked state, the bees who pollinate and seed us with new ideas.
Then of course we die as flowers must. leaving a scrap of ourselves pressed in some poets book, or a seed on the un-turned ground waiting for fertile weather.
We must as artists, do more to cultivate the future of our craft.
What child, at the the circus, does not wish to walk on stilts, juggle flaming clubs, or ride upon elephants?
If writing is to survive as a craft, then we must inspire a younger generation to balance on the wire, making every line count.

wcw

Considering Pranjaparamita

2007-07-16T23:50:00.001-05:00

Twelve Link Chain of Causation or The Cycle of Interdependence (pratityasamutpada):

1. From ignorance (avida) arises volitional action

2. From volitional action (karma) arises consciousness

3. From consciousness (vijnana) arises mental and physical phenomena

4. From mental and physical phenomena (nama-rupa) arises the six senses

5. From the six senses (shadayatana) arises sensorial contact

6. From contact (spasha) arises sensation

7. From sensation (vedana) arises desire

8. From desire (trishna) arises grasping

9. From grasping (upadana) arises the process of becoming

10. From the process of becoming (bhava) arises birth

11. From birth (jeti) arises death, pain, decay . . .

12. From sickness, old age and death (jana-marana), sorrow, lamentation, suffering and distress occur. Thus arises the whole mass of suffering

The cycle starts when an individual becomes aware of itself as a being separete from the universe. It becomes ignorent of its true nature and this leads to metal activity (karma). Karma leads to consciousness which leads to metal and physical phenomena. This is the opposite of the way we usually think of creation. For the Buddhists, the mind itself creates the phenomenal world. Here we see the five skandas come into play as the self becomes aware of the objective world though the senses. When the self becomes aware of the other, desire arises. "I want what is outside myself." It has forgotten through ignorance that the object is just a creation of its own mind. Desire leads to grasping, trying to get something, which leads to becomming and birth, the consciousness has taken physical form. Now physical form is subject to all the ill of the world: pain, decay, sickness, old and and ultimatly death. From death arises ignorance and the process starts over again.

The process of Buddhist meditation and practice is to reverse the cycle. Through the extinction of ignorance, karma ceases, and so on,up to the ceasation of birth, meaning escape from the the cycle of birth and death (samsara), into nirvana, the stopping of the cycle.

Yet, the Heart Sutra says "no ignorance and also no extinction of it" and the same for the other twelve factors. In this process there is no first cause and there is no self-being. Each factor in the process is relative and interdependent with the other twelve factors and therefore empty.

Dorsem Mantra

2007-07-16T22:58:00.001-05:00

OM VAJRA SATTVA SAMAYA
MANU PAHLAYA
VAJRA SATTVA TWENOPA TEETHA
DRIDHO ME BHAWA
SUTO KHYO ME BHAWA
SUPO KHYO ME BHAWA
ANU RAKTO ME BHAWA
SARVA SIDDHI MEM PRAYATSA
SARVA KARMA SUTSA ME
TSITOM SHRIYA KURU
HUNG
HA HA HA HA HO
BHAGAWAN
SARVA TATHAGATA
VAJRA MAME MUNYTSA VAJRI BHAWA
MAHA SAMAYA SATTVA A H:

No WMDs

2007-07-05T06:04:00.001-05:00

YouTube - Rice and Powell in 2001 saying Iraq had no WMDs

Fredrik deBoer

2007-07-03T01:59:00.001-05:00

Sitting in the still morning,

Pale spider on a leaf

Guards the pink impatience flower.

Voices sing of divine visions.

Dewdrops sparkle in a web.

Cultural Creative

2007-06-26T15:27:00.001-05:00

You scored as Cultural Creative, Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

81%

Postmodernist

81%

Existentialist

63%

Modernist

56%

Idealist

50%

Romanticist

31%

Materialist

13%

Fundamentalist

13%

What is Your World View?

created with QuizFarm.com

My blog sucks

2007-06-26T14:39:00.001-05:00

My blog sucks

Fredrik deBoer

2007-06-25T10:00:00.001-05:00

I'm looking for a former Theater Professor at Wesleyan University, Connecticut

Co-authored Kaja and Kelod: Balinese Dance in Transition: with I. Made Bandem

Some results:

List of persons missed

DICHOTOMY! - Folks, just plain folks.

Balinese Collection at Wesleyan.

Zaba Search F deBoer

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan Station

Middletown, Connecticut

06459

It Should Be Known

2007-06-14T22:33:00.000-05:00

HARVEY A STACKMAN Born Jan 1944
7851 LAKE JUDSON RD
COTTONDALE, AL 35453 (205) 553-5070

Harvey A. Stackman
Biology Lab Service Assistant
216 Biology Bldg
Phone: 348-1804
Fax: 348-1786

7851 LAKE JUDSON RD COTTONDALE, AL 35453

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=7851+LAKE+JUDSON+RD+COTTONDALE,+AL++35453&sll=37.09024,-110.126953&sspn=35.631106,88.59375&ie=UTF8&ll=33.143157,-87.465591&spn=0.073591,0.11673&z=13&iwloc=addr&om=1

Will Stackman 1941 - 2007

2007-06-09T12:16:00.001-05:00

This biography was most likely written by Will himself, for his website On The Aisle. To honor his influence, friends and colleagues have been sending insertions. Contributors include Gordon Talley, John and Marcia Westby, and Marianne Donnelly.

William Stackman 1941-2007
"Prof. Will", as he's known around Beantown, did theatre, including puppetry, in these parts for a quarter century or more. His theatre adventures began back in his hometown of Madison CT in the early '50s, as part of the Nutmeg Players. That still viable community theatre traces its roots to the peripatetic Jitney Players who were headquartered there on the Connecticut shore in the early '30s. The Jitney’s co-founder, Alice Keating Cheney, who in her career performed with John and Ethel Barrymore, Hume Cronyn, and many other seminal stage and film actors, was an early teacher and mentor who exerted a profound influence on Will’s theatrical life.

Active in theatre at Mount Herman where he graduated in '58, Will became hyper-active at DePauw University (Greencastle, IN), where he managed a student experimental theater, directed an opera, played various minor roles, and still managed to graduate Phi Beta Kappa in 1962.

After studying Psychology at Yale for a year as an NIMH Fellow headed for a PhD, he switched to the Theatre program at Wesleyan (Middletown, CT), working as a grad assistant, and earning an M.A. for Theatre in Production in 1965. Hanging out for the rest of the 60's at Cornell, he spent four years studying and doing theatre and film, but never submitted his thesis -- a chronicle of the relationship between Broadway and Hollywood in the decades before and after talkies took over. While at Cornell he managed the studio theatre, created several experimental productions, house-managed film series, and acted now and then -- a favorite role was Lanthorn Leatherhead "Master of Motions", the fairground puppeteer in Ben Jonson's "Bart'l'mew Faire," directed by Gordon Beck, now Professor Emeritus from Evergreen State College. Will’s seminal production of 79 Cents was a precursor to the movement towards theater “happenings“ in the 1960s. Likewise, his scratch film “Head ‘Em Off at the Pass” showed audiences how the viewer creates meaning in art.

Leaving Ithaca, the Prof. taught at Cal. State/Long Beach during the year Reagan shut down state campuses to stifle dissent, then returned east to teach technical theatre for two years at Rutgers. When New Jersey rejected their first income tax and the University budgets were slashed, Will decided he'd been in school too long and came up to Boston to concentrate on puppetry, and became a Punch Professor.

He became part of the technical staff at the still-missed Orson Welles Complex, but it wasn't long before he was back to teaching at Pine Manor College in Brookline: building scenery, directing musicals, and lecturing on Theatre for Young Audiences. He also continued performing various versions of the traditional "Tragical Comedie and Comical Tragedie of Punch and Judy" as Boston's senior Punch Professor. He taught at Boston Conservatory, Wheelock College, and Newton North High, and directed the
Gateway Puppeteers in Brookline.

Throughout the 70s Will was technical director, dramaturge, and covert fourth member of Threeater, a Theater of Three. This traveling troupe from Maine, which performed throughout the eastern US and on the Fringe of the Edinburgh Festival, included Masha Stackman, his ex-wife, with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. Threeater’s works allowed him to exercise another of his passions, compact set design. For their bicentennial Commedia dell’Arte, 1576!, Will folded an entire Italianate city into the trunk of a Peugeot station wagon.

In the '70s and '80s Will worked on the first decade of FIRST NIGHT, ran two editions of Summer START at Fort Point Channel, and then for the Cambridge Arts Council was Technical Director for the Cambridge River Festival, while supervising Arts Lottery projects and other community efforts.

When the United States Pitch of the Worldwide Friends of Punch and Judy formed, in 1997, Will was elected (a too-formal description of an exuberant and raucous process) its first “Mayhew,” or historian. At the 1999 Seattle gathering of the Puppeteers of America, he produced a 40-foot-long streamer of biographies of American Punch performers from the 19th century to the present.

He was a staunch supporter of all things theatrical, especially populist events. In 2001 he helped Marianne Donnelly, his companion of 20 years, found Butterflies Over Boston, an annual celebration of the Monarch migration.

Will was a founding board member and Technical Director for the first years of Boston's Playwrights' Platform, and active in the A.T.A., N.E.T.C., and the Puppeteers of America, Boston Area Guild, Ch#9 thereof. He was also on the advisory board of the late lamented Boston Computer Society, and could be found by old friends at the MIT Electronics Flea Market and BMUG meetings.

Will's reviews of Boston-area theatre can be found on AisleSay.com (a national compendium), Larry Stark's Theater Mirror (a local resource), and his own site ON THE AISLE. He was part of the Independent Reviewers of New England's (IRNE) Awards committee, and a tireless advocate for good work under Spartan conditions in obscure venues.

Memorial plans so far include:

The Cambridge Arts Council at the Cambridge River Festival:

Mini parade at 5:00 pm Saturday June 16th on the Festival site celebrating Will Stackman and Ritchie Goldstein, junk percussionist extraordinaire who was a part of many Boston area festivals, most notably Spontaneous Celebrations' Wake Up the Earth. Includes Puppeteers Cooperative, stilt walkers & drummers.

Memory Wall: Bring your contribution -- a note, a sign, a photo, a puppet, to place on a Community Bulletin Board celebrating Will -- or carry it in the parade.

Play Reading: Will wrote some 10-minute plays in recent years. If there is interest, we have a beautiful little park that could be used at 4:00pm if actor/director volunteers come forth to read them. Contact: Jane Beal, Cambridge Arts Council, 617-349-4381, jbeal@CambridgeMA.gov.

Playwrights Platform at Boston Playwrights Theatre:

A first annual Will Stackman Award for Excellence in Directing Award will be voted and presented at the Platform's Annual New Play Festival wrap party after the final 8pm shows Saturday June 16th.

Puppet Showplace in July: There will be a Memorial at the Showplace in Brookline Village about a month, to be organized by Marianne Donnelly and Kris Higgins. Details TBA on the www.TheaterMirror.com web site

Comments and memories of Will are at several Internet sites. Among them:

mirroruptolife.blogspot.com/2007/06/will-stackman-rip.html

www.rwinters.com/deaths/

blogs.townonline.com/cambridge/?p=6141

hubreview.blogspot.com/2007/06/will-stackman-rip.html

The Boston Globe is preparing an obituary.

Antlers:

2007-05-09T03:03:00.001-05:00

Antlers:
You found yours
early morning.
on a walk with Dad.
Jealous, i searched
the woods and found
A horn in the boggy marsh
Where I had walked
several times before.
Together we found
A death, deep in the woods.
A skeleton lain
in an aura of disapated fur.
The skull was gone,
so i took away the jawbones.
and left the ribs and spine
in the still fir clearing.
Later I realized that my antler
Had been planted by Dave Jacobus
Yours was the larger of the two
we traded once or twice.
But i returned this one to you
Pointing out the old toothmarks
Of some rodent and the moss
that still fills the abrasion.
Yours was the wild mossy
Antler of the woods,
And mine was clean and bleached.
I can't remember which was which,
But i remember showing you
the marks and the moss
which suggesed
that the horn had lain
there for some time.
I thought the marks
had some meaning

Quenched in the Stream

2007-05-09T03:02:00.001-05:00

The dead speak for them selves.
Insects in the ossuary,
The gentle encroachment
Of lichen on the marble
The absence of Your presence.

Banish the notion that
All of us will perish.

Hold fast your grip
On the eternal.

Branches dipped
In the running stream.

Before the flood,
Before the drought,
Before the fire
Takes us all as kindling.

Seven-Line Prayer to Padma Sambhava, the Lotus Born Guru

2007-05-07T15:47:00.001-05:00

Seven-Line Prayer to Padma Sambhava, the Lotus

Born Guru

HUNG. OR GYEN YUL GYI NUB JANG TSAM

PEY MA GEY SAR DONG PO LA

YAM TSEN CHOG GI NGÖ DRUB NYEY

PEY MA JUNG NEY ZHEY SU DRAG

KHOR DU KHAN DRO MANG PÖ KOR

KYEY KYI JEY SU DAG DRUB KYI

JIN GYI LAB CHIR SHEG SU SOL

GURU PEY MA SIDDHI HUNG

White Room

2007-05-07T15:45:00.001-05:00

ARTIST: Cream

TITLE: White Room

In the white room with black curtains near the station

Blackroof country, no gold pavements, tired starlings

Silver horses ran down moonbeams in your dark eyes

Dawnlight smiles on you leaving my contentment

/ Am C D FG Am C D FG / / / /

I'll wait in this place where the sun never shines

Wait in this place where the shadows run from themselves

/ G - D - F - E - / G - D - F - G - A - - - /

You said no strings could secure you at the station

Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows

I walked into such a sad time at the station

As I walked out, felt my own need just beginning

I'll wait in the queue when the trains come back

Lie with you where the shadows run from themselves

At the party she was kindness in the hard crowd

Consolation for the old wound now forgotten

Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes

She's just dressing, goodbye windows, tired starlings

I'll sleep in this place with the lonely crowd

Lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves

MicroFinance

2007-05-07T13:44:00.001-05:00

WEBSITES AND ORGANIZATIONS

CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist
the Poorest)

CGAP is a consortium of 33 public and private development agencies working

together to expand access to financial services for the poor in developing
countries.
CGAP is a resource center for the microfinance industry, where it incubates
and supports new ideas, innovative products, cutting-edge technology, novel
mechanisms for delivering financial services, and concrete solutions to the
challenges of expanding microfinance.
CGAP publishes many papers on microfinance which are available for download
at this site.
FINCA International

FINCA
International Founder John Hatch developed the village banking method,
which uses the philosophy "Give poor communities the opportunity, and
then get out of the way!" The village banking method is unique in the
responsibility and autonomy given borrowers in running their banks and
in its emphasis on community, as well as individual, development.

Grameen Bank

Grameen Bank started in 1976 when Prof. Muhammad Yunus loaned $27 to 42 women

in a village in Bangladesh. Today Grameen Bank has 5.89 million borrowers
and has disbursed over USD $5.4 billion with a 98% recovery rate.
As Grameen Bank is now a formal bank it is often viewed as the ideal development
of a microfinance institution.
For an overview of Grameen Bank visit http://www.grameen-info.org/bank/GBGlance.htm

This site also includes a number of papers Prof. Yunus has written on microcredit
and social entrepreneurism.

The Microcredit Summit Campaign

The Microcredit Summit Campaign is a project of RESULTS Educational Fund,
and was launched to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families with
credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by the
year 2005.
The Campaign publishes an annual report "The State of the Microcredit Summit
Campaign" which documents their progress towards achieving this goal. You
can download the latest report here. [PDF]

The Microfinance Gateway

The Microfinance Gateway is managed by CGAP and is a comprehensive source
of information for and about the microfinance industry including research
and publications, discussion groups, specialized resource centers, organization
and consultant profiles, and the latest news, events, and job opportunities
in microfinance.
If you are new to microfinance and would like to get more involved in the
industry, this is a great way to find events and organizations in your area.

The MIX (Microfinance
Information eXchange)

The MIX is a not-for-profit private organization supported by CGAP, the Citigroup

Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Rockdale Foundation, and other
private foundations.
The MIX intends to address one of the key challenges of the microfinance
industry: the lack of reliable, comparable and publicly available information
on the financial strength and performance of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs),
which underpins the development of the market for microfinance services.
This is a great place to get more information about specific microfinance
institutions.
UNCDF Microfinance

resource for basic facts about microfinance, as well as learning what the UNCDF
is doing in this area.
The United Nations Capital Development Fund Microfinance website is a great

United Nations International Year of Microcredit 2005

The International Year of Microcredit 2005 called for building inclusive financial sectors
and strengthening the powerful, but often untapped, entrepreneurial spirit
existing in communities around the world.
Check out the official UN website for this event to see what you missed.

The Virtual Library on Microcredit

This resource began as a homepage on Informal Credit Markets and over time

became The Virtual Library on Microcredit, one of five programs of the Global
Development Research Center.

Today the Virtual Library on Microcredit is a repository of information
on alternative, non-conventional financial systems and microfinance/microcredit
issues. A great place to find microfinance book reviews, papers and news and
events.

Lost in the Shuffle

2007-04-24T14:20:00.001-05:00

reply

2007-04-22T10:11:00.001-05:00

I read somewhere, that one should not search for the miscellaneous causes of things.

When my own son died, just after birth, people offered many

consolations and suggestions. Most people acknowledged that they were

only offering a temporary crutch. I learned that people did this

because they had a desire to be compassionate, and help Diedre and me to

feel better. Usually, I thanked people and sometimes I said, "You

know, that doesn't really help, but thank you for being kind."

What Lone-Mountain said is

true, there is no good reason to dilute your experience with "some

karmic/bardo crutch." But even her suggestion is Dharma, and

commentary, intended to help you on the path towards realization.

For me, Tracy's question reminds me of the impermanent nature of life.

Death will certainly come, for all of us. This is a good reason to try

and remain clear minded and focused on the present.

The trouble with suffering is that one person's suffering can spill

over into other lives, cause them loose clarity and to commit actions

which bring immeasurable suffering to countless others. But the same is

also true of happiness. One person can touch countless lives in a

positive way.

In the Buddha Dharma, there is only one 'real' and lasting happiness,

which is the realization of one's true nature. Our true nature is

always with us but we just don't get to look at it very often.; So we

turn to the Dharma for help with that, knowing that Buddha found a way

to realize his own true nature and saw fit to share that with others.

I've heard it said that Buddha gave eighty four thousand different

teachings in his lifetime, so that all different types of people would

be able to approach the Path to enlightenment. I think that number is

just meant to mean a lot of different teachings. As i understand, all of

that was to help people free themselves from attachments and aversions

which are the source of all their suffering.

From my own experience, the desire to search for answers, caused people

to offer many harmful suggestions for the cause of my son's death.

number of them focused& on& the speculation that I carried some

unknown genetic flaw, (I was an adopted child.) Others suggested

negligence...even murder. I was able to keep my head together and be

present for most of it. But blame and guilt effectively tore my family

apart.

I spoke with Pamela, the nurse/midwife who attended the birth recently,

after more than two decades, she remembers everything vividly. She and

one of the other attending midwives had found a possible cause for

Owen's sudden death: a strain of streptococcus virus. Since she attends

many birthings, she has made it her mission to test for this and spread

awareness about the virus.

I find that Pamela's reaction is the most practical. For her the child's death

was a sudden reminder that life is short and fragile, and that it is very

often something simple and preventable which causes the most

suffering. Because she learned a way to

prevent other similar deaths, and shared it with people, her explanation seems closest to a

Bodhisattva's intention: to end suffering.

From a medical view, she found a likely cause of death, found ways to diagnose it, treat it and share her knowledge.

Spiritually...how

should i know...as far as i know, Pamela was one of the most spiritual

people i have met. She did not appear to have much self indulgent

behavior. Zen for her, happened every day. She knew the washing

dishes meditation and the Dharma of Diapers. She smuggled

anti-biotics into Amish communities and served as an elections officer

in her county. She also spent a lot of time listening to the parents

of a dead kid. I think that she said, "Yeah," Wow," and "Far Out!"

And she said, "You can have other babies," and, "Nothing can replace your child."

Kurt Vonnegut said that the purpose of life is to fart around.

I tend to agree. [no purpose]

If we make commitments or try to serve a higher purpose, (as Mr. V did,) then obviously we might do more than fart around.

Some commitments can have adverse affects on people,

While other commitments give people more chances to do more beneficial things for all people.

The poetry escapes me now,

But babies can't be held

Responsible for life,

Or lack of life.

Babies do represent

All potential, yet

They are not resposiable for the causes of their existence.

Few of us choose to be alive and fewer choose to be dead.

So listen,

To others,

To your self,

And to the handfuls of wisdom,

The world hands out every day.

So what if nothing

Makes sense.

I love the Heart Sutra.

I do not understand it.

the Sutra flows around my feet

Like a wave

Swallows my head like I'm going under

Do you think i will survive ?

Where are you, in all of this, watching?

My son died and dinner seems stolen.

I went to college for my dead child's

Sake, and found a world of people like me;

Old, predatory, and focused on shades of greatness

People look at death and see rebirth

Thinking mostly of themselves.

See your self in every one

And you might glimpse the truth. . .

For now.

A dharma friend of mine

Listened to my story,

He said, "My mother saw

Her brothers and cousins

Killed in Tibet. The Dalai

Llama lost his whole country."

My friend said "Even Jesus

died for a thief." but you

Feel bad?"

"quote":

"Among Buddhists death is regarded as an occasion of major religious significance, both for the deceased and for the survivors. For the deceased it marks the moment when the transition begins to a new mode of existence within the round of rebirths. When death occurs all the kammic forces that the dead person accumulated during the course of his or her lifetime become activated and set about determining the next rebirth. For the living, death is a powerful reminder of the Buddha's teaching on impermanence; it also provides an opportunity to assist the deceased person as he or she fares on to the new existence.
Both aspects of death — the message of impermanence, and the opportunity to help the departed loved one — find expression in the Buddhist funeral rites of Sri Lanka. Naturally, the monastic Sangha plays a prominent role in the funeral proceedings. One of the most important parts of the funeral rites is the ritual called "offering of cloth on behalf of the dead" (mataka-vastra-puja). This is done prior to the cremation or the burial of the body. Monks are assembled in the home of the dead person or in the cemetery. The proceedings begin with the administration of the Five Precepts to the assembled crowd by one of the monks. This is followed by the recitation in chorus of the well-known stanza:

Anicca vata sankhara, uppadavayadhammino.

Uppajjitva nirujjhanti tesam vupasamo sukho.
Impermanent alas are formations, subject to rise and fall.

Having arisen, they cease; their subsiding is bliss.

Next follows this ritual, which consists of the offering of a length of new white cloth to the monks. The cloth, called a pamsukula — literally, a dust-heap cloth — is intended to be cut into pieces and then stitched into a robe.

After offering it, the close relatives of the deceased sit together on a mat, assume a reverential posture, and together they pour water from a vessel into a cup placed within a plate until the cup overflows. While the water is being poured, the monks intone in unison the following stanzas extracted from the Tirokuddha Sutta of the Khuddakapatha:

Unname udakam vattam yatha ninnam pavattati

evameva ito dinnam petanam upakappati.

Yatha varivaha pura paripurenti sagaram

evameva ito dinnam petanam upakappati.
Just as the water fallen on high ground flows to a lower level,

Even so what is given from here accrues to the departed.

Just as the full flowing rivers fill the ocean,

Even so what is given from here accrues to the departed.

The context shows that the pouring of water in this manner is a ritualistic act belonging to the field of sympathetic magic, symbolizing the beneficial inheritance of the merit transferred by the living to the dead, as a kind of dakkhina or offering. The entire ritual is hence an act of grace whereby merit is transferred to the departed so that they may find relief from any unhappy realm wherein they might have been born.

Another funeral rite is mataka-bana or "preaching for the benefit of the dead." The usual practice is to conduct a monk to the house of the dead person, generally on the third day (or occasionally on any day within a week) after the funeral and to request him to preach a sermon suited to the occasion. Accordingly he preaches a suitable sermon for about an hour's duration to the assembled audience, which inevitably consists of the deceased's relatives and the neighbours of the household. At the end of the sermon, the monk gets the relatives to recite the necessary stanzas to transfer to the deceased the merits acquired by organizing the event. Following this, a gift is offered to the monk, and the invitees are also served with refreshments.

Three months from the date of death, it is customary to hold an almsgiving (sanghika dana) in memory of the deceased and thence to repeat it annually. As in the case of the rituals mentioned earlier, here too the purpose is to impart merit to the deceased. Hence it is called the offering in the name of the dead (mataka-dana). The basis of the practice is the belief that if the dead relative has been reborn in an unhappy existence (i.e., as a peta or unhappy spirit), he or she would expect his or her living relatives to transfer merit in this manner as these departed spirits or petas are incapable of performing any meritorious deed on their own. Even their hunger and thirst, which is perpetual, subside only in this manner. Hence they are referred to as "living on what is given by others" (paradatta-upajivi). This custom can be traced to the Buddha's own time when King Bimbisara was harassed by a group of his departed kinsmen, reborn as petas, because the king had failed to give alms to the Buddha in their name. Once this was fulfilled as requested by the Buddha, the petas became happy and ceased to give any more trouble (KhpA. 202f; PvA.19ff). This was the occasion on which the Buddha preached the Tirokuddha Sutta referred to earlier, which further says that once these rites are performed, these contented spirits bless the donors in return.
These rites, it may be mentioned here, resemble the sraddha ceremonies of the Hindus in some ways. And it is also significant that, according to the Buddha himself, only the dead relatives who have been reborn as petas are capable of receiving this benefit "

in a fungal fugue

2007-04-19T15:56:00.001-05:00

Cry-O-Life
Originally uploaded by _william.

Masha and Marie

2007-04-19T06:58:00.001-05:00

Masha and Marie
Originally uploaded by _william.

Polaroid

happier days

2007-04-19T06:55:00.001-05:00

mash marie
Originally uploaded by _william.

masha and marie

masha-marie

2007-04-19T06:53:00.001-05:00

masha-marie-retouch
Originally uploaded by _william.

Two friends

A Late Walk

2007-04-19T06:44:00.001-05:00

A-Late-Walk
Originally uploaded by _william.

For Alice Cheney.

Overt Deception

2007-04-17T14:01:00.001-05:00

I heard stern resolve in their young voices,
Saw the gentle dignity of their youth
Guide them past the empty shock of their loss
Towards the wakening of a stranger truth.

The world is full of weeping: yet we stand.
I can find no way to make this pain less.
We live and die, like trees eagles and moss.
Past Greed, the only mark we leave is Kindness.

More Auditory Oddities

2007-04-12T02:12:00.001-05:00

Long way Home

Keep Going We're Not There Yet.

Water Machines

Enjoy! -- William Wheeler

unfinished

2007-04-09T04:32:00.001-05:00

In the midst of it all, I stood alone

In the laughter and the traffic of the day.

I could not bring myself to call the names,

Nor could I, be a martyr, to atone

For the sins which i supported in my Heart,

Those unnamed persons who have died for me

Like fish netted from the endless sea

Their blood is paint that makes my fragile Art

I wish this poem had the ring of salvation,

Because my

Days

are numbered

as yours

But something better

Than the Bland

Protest of complacency

Should haunt our conscience.

Technorati Tags: poem, easter,

Heart

2007-04-07T22:14:00.000-05:00

gone beyond

2007-04-05T14:24:00.001-05:00

No More Mordor!

(for Alice)

gone beyond

2007-04-03T09:33:00.001-05:00

The Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya (Heart) Sutra

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva
When practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita
Perceived that all five skandhas are empty
And was saved from all suffering and distress.
“O Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness;
Emptiness does not differ from form,
That which is form is emptiness,
That which is emptiness, form.
The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness.
O Shariputra, all Dharmas are marked with emptiness;
They do not appear nor disappear,
Are not tainted nor pure,
Do not increase nor decrease.
Therefore in emptiness, no form,
No feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness;
No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
No color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind;
No realm of eyes and so forth until no realm of mind-consciousness;
No ignorance and also no extinction of it and so forth until
No old age and death and also no extinction of them;
No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path;
No cognition, also no attainment.
With nothing to attain
The Bodhisattva depends on Prajna Paramita
And the mind is no hindrance.
Without any hindrance no fears exist.
Far apart from every perverted view the Bodhisattva dwells in Nirvana.
In the three worlds all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita
And attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.
Therefore know the Prajna Paramita
Is the great transcendent mantra,
Is the great bright mantra,
Is the utmost mantra,
Is the supreme mantra,
Which is able to relieve all suffering
And is true not false.
So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra,
Proclaim the mantra that says:

Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasmagate! Bodhi! Svaha!

Tribe Friends

2007-04-03T07:20:00.001-05:00

Want TribeCast on your site?Get your own!

The Noble Eight-Fold Path

2007-04-02T10:56:00.001-05:00

(Wisdom)

1. Right View

Recognizing the impermanence of things, ideas,and even our own mortality.
Understanding the law of Karma, that actions have consequences both good and bad.

2. Right Intention

The intention of renunciation: resistance to the pull of desire.
The intention of good will: resistance to feelings of anger and aversion
The intention of harmlessness, meaning not to think or act cruelly, violently, or aggressively, and to develop
compassion.

Behavior)

3. Right Speech />To tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when
necessary.

Abstain from false speech, especially not to tell
deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully.
Abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against
others
Abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others.
Abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose
or depth.

4. Right Action

To abstain from harming
sentient beings, especially to abstain from taking life (including suicide) and doing harm intentionally or delinquently.
Abstain from taking what is not given.
Abstain from sexual misconduct.

5. Right Livelihood

Not dealing in weapons.
Not dealing in living beings, such as slave trade,prostitution or raising animals for slaughter.
Not working in meat production or butchery.
Not selling poisons or drugs.

(Mental Attitudes)

6. Right Effort

To prevent the arising of unarisen unwholesome states.
To abandon unwholesome states that have already
arisen.
To arouse wholesome states that have not yet arisen.
To maintain and perfect wholesome states already
arisen.

7. Right Mindfulness

To remain aware without conceptualizing the experience of our senses. This is the beginning of meditation

contemplation
of the body.
contemplation of feeling (repulsive, attractive, or neutral).
contemplation of the state of mind.
contemplation of the phenomena.

8. Right Concentration

Concentration in this context is described as one-pointedness of mind,
meaning a state where all mental faculties are unified and directed
onto one particular object. Right concentration for the purpose of the
eightfold path means wholesome concentration, i.e. concentration
on wholesome thoughts and actions.

This is the development of meditation.

April 20th

2007-03-26T15:31:00.001-05:00

What Are You Doing April 20th?

It's a friday. You must be free. If not, get free.

Come

by allied ALL DAY, where I'll be writing original poetry and prose,

realtime, in memory of my father, who died of pancreatic cancer in his

30s.

Your job? HELP ME RAISE $500 for PANCAN!

Sponsor me in The First Annual BLOG POETRY FEST for PANCAN here on allied.

All funds go to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PANCAN), an advocacy group for patients and families dealing with pancreatic cancer. The event is set up through FirstGiving in conjunction with PanCan to raise awareness and funds for continued research, education, and advocacy.

More information will be coming soon, but in the mean time, inspire me and save the date.

clock

2007-03-26T15:29:00.003-05:00

Current local times in selected cities


Tampa (U.S.A. - Florida) Thu 3:14 PM *	rowspan="1"> align="center">Adelaide (Australia - South Australia) Fri 4:44 AM	rowspan="1"> align="center">San Francisco (U.S.A. - California) Thu 12:14 PM *	rowspan="1"> align="center">Baghdad (Iraq) Thu 10:14 PM

Aggregates

2007-03-26T15:29:00.001-05:00

Buddhist doctrine describes one physical and four mental aggregates: ^[1]^[2]

"form" or "matter" (sa., pi. rūpa):

includes both external and internal matter. Externally, rupa is the physical world. Internally, rupa includes the material body and the physical sense organs.^[3] Alternately, it is described as the tangible manifestation of ignorance, the basis for the creation of a dualistic relationship between "self" and "other."^[4]
"sensation" or "feeling" (sa., pi. vedanā):

sensing pleasant, unpleasant or neutral (neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant).^[5] Generally considered not to include "emotions."^[6]
"perception" or "cognition" (sa. samjñā, pi. saññā):

registers whether sense data is recognized or not (for instance, the sound of a bell or the shape of a tree). From samyutta-ñana, conditioned knowledge. It is ordinarily conditioned by ones past sankhara, and therefore conveys a coloured image of reality. ^[7]
"mental formations" or "volition" (sa. samskāra, pi. sankhāra) />

all types of mental habits, thoughts, ideas, opinions, compulsions, and decisions.^[8] Sankhāra arise from contact with form or from other mental factors. Sankhāra are the source of karma.
"consciousness" (sa. vijñāna, pi. viññāṇa^[9]):

the base that supports all experience.^[10] Alternately, it is envisioned as series of rapidly changing interconnected discrete acts of cognizance.^[11]

Overt Deception

2007-03-26T15:26:00.001-05:00

World Peace through Inner Peace: Gathering of the Yogis 2007

2007-03-26T15:16:00.002-05:00

Gone for Now

Pancreatic Cancer

2007-03-18T18:11:00.001-05:00

PanCAN - Working Together for a Cure™

People Trying to help.

Awesome singing Bowls from Tibet / Nepal

2007-03-16T09:41:00.001-05:00

eBay Store - Silver Sky Imports: Singing Bowls, Tingshas, Tibetan Prayer Flags

Check out these auctions on EBay.
Amazing old singing bowls. Auctions start at under $10.00
Over seventy unique singing bowls, many Healing Grade instruments with beautiful tone.
These instruments often sell for as much as $1200.
Don't miss out on a chance to bid!

Mind And Emptiness

2007-03-12T16:03:00.001-05:00

Mind And Emptiness

Analysis of texts from SHENPEN ÖSEL

Som really great teachings here. Comments from Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche, and Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

The nature of mind itself is what we term "emptiness" in Buddhism. Mind itself has no color, form, shape, or size. Mind has no limiting characteristics that one can ascribe to it. So, in speaking about the mind, one is speaking about that which is intangible. Mind is completely empty or devoid of these kinds of limiting characteristics. We might use the example of open space, such as the space in this room, when talking about the nature of the mind. Because mind is as intangible as the space in this room, you cannot describe it. The space in this room has no color, shape, nor size. There is simply space in the room.

Maine

2007-03-12T12:29:00.001-05:00

http://24.39.1.142/
Portland Public Schools
Administrative Offices
196 Allen Avenue
Portland, Maine 04103
Telephone: (207) 874-8100

faith

2007-02-23T15:03:00.001-05:00

Faith is a quality akin to confidence and courage.
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Writer Alan Watts summed up the difference simply and pointedly as, ‘Belief clings, faith lets go.’ ‘”~ Sharon Salzberg

---
If you want to lose your faith, make friends with a priest.
G. I. Gurdjieff
---

Faith is a passionate intuition.
William Wordsworth

In the Kasibharadvaja Sutta of the Samyutta Nikaya, we have the relationship of faith, practice and wisdom:

Faith is the seed, practice the rain,

And wisdom is my yoke and plough.

Modesty’s the pole, mind the strap,

Mindfulness my ploughshare and goad.

In this the seed of faith only grows bigger with practice and wisdom of discernment.

---

focused his teachings on empiricism and faith. Although his first noble truth requires that we observe suffering until we comprehend it, we have to take on faith his assertion that the facts we observe about suffering are the most important guide for making decisions, moment by moment, throughout life. Because his third noble truth, the cessation of suffering, is a truth of the will, we have to take it on faith that it's a possible goal, a worthwhile goal, and that we're capable of attaining it. And because the fourth noble truth — the path to the cessation of suffering — is a path of action and skill, we have to take it on faith that our actions are real, that we have free will, and yet that there's a causal pattern to the workings of the mind from which we can learn in mastering that skill. As the Buddha said, the path will lead to a direct experience of these truths, but only if you bring faith to the practice will you know this for yourself. In other words, "faith" in the Buddhist context means faith in the ability of your actions to lead to a direct experience of the end of suffering. ---Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Sraddha is a beautiful Sanskrit word that is imprefectly mapped to Faith. Sraddha has connotations of trust, perseverance, humility and steady effort. Sraddha is the result of thorough reasoning and accumulated experience.