Changing Places

“If your spiritual aspirations produce socially beneficial qualities in you such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, then they can be considered something more that a mere psychological defense. In contrast, if you are overcome by qualities such as impatience, distractibility, impulsiveness, demandingness, conflict, discord, and scorn for others, then you are growing weeds, not fruit.”
- Raymond Richmond (via Mike Garafalo)

I think I’ve been a bit distractible and impatient lately.Time to get back to patience and self-control for a while…..

“If you make room for the energy you wish to bring into your life, there is a much better chance of receiving it. Make a space at your table, both literally and metaphorically. Expect the fulfillment of your heart’s desire, and let your home reflect it.” — Beth Owl’s Daughter

I like this thought — that I ought to make room in my life for what I would like to show up in it. Not so much law of attraction, but just to clear the space for what I want in my life. Plus I enjoy physically clearing space when I’m trying to create new things. We just took out our front lawn in anticipation of putting in a more drought-tolerant, native landscape. So here we are actually clearing the space for something new to come into our lives.

“The symbolism we encounter in art and in our dreams serves to bridge the individual to the universal., the microcosm of our inner life to the macrocosm of existence… Symbolism adds to the beauty and the mystery of art and life. It captures the essence of our experiences. ” — Fred White, The Daily Writer

This gets to something that I encounter a lot — how to explain the things I am thinking to other people in a way that is universally understandable. So much of our individual experience is only relevant to our own lives, or the lives of those close to us, to the touchstones we have created for ourselves. To make those experiences understandable to others, we need a language or symbology we can use to translate it for other people.

Sometimes the imagery of religion or spirituality is confused with some mundane reality, and people get frustrated that they don’t have those exotic experiences that others describe. But many times, the reality is that the metaphorical language or symbols actually describe a rather common experience that anyone might feel, and people think they are missing it only because they didn’t get that particular symbol, like missing a joke because you don’t understand it.

The trick is to elevate this experience to an artistic level, rather than just the mundane level. It may not reach as many people as describing it in mundane terms, but it becomes a more enriching and transcending experience because of the symbology. We want to understand the everyday, but we also want to be inspired by the extraordinary. When you truly see the extraordinary in the everyday, your entire life is elevated to that new spiritual level. What great artists try to do is to inspire that experience in others, so that they too can “get” that the everyday is actually the spiritual experience. Georgia O’Keefe didn’t paint flowers, she painted her experience when looking at flowers.

Decide to Network
Use every letter you write
Every conversation you have
Every meeting you attend
To express your fundamental beliefs and dreams
Affirm to others the vision of the world you want
Network through thought
Network through action
Network through love
Network through the spirit
You are the center of a network
You are the center of the world
You are a free, immensely powerful source
Of life and goodness
Affirm it
Spread it
Radiate it
Think day and night about it
And you will see a miracle happen:
The greatness of your own life.
In a world of big powers, media, and monopolies
But of six billion individuals
Network is the new freedom
The new democracy
A new form of happiness.

–Robert Muller, Under Secretary General of the United Nations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Muller

via Kathryn

(I blogged this three years ago, but Rambling Taoist is posting on this book today, so thought I would repost this here).

Wellspring of energy
Rises in the body’s core
Tap it and be sustained.
Channel it, and it will speak.

The source of all power is within yourself. Although external circumstances may occasionally hamper you, true movement comes solely from within yourself. The source is latent in everyone, but anyone can learn to tap it. When this happens, power rises like a shimmering well through the center of your body.

Physically, it will sustain and nourish you. But it can do many other things as well. It can give you gifts ranging from unusual knowledge to simple tranquility. It all depends on how you choose to direct your energies.

We cannot say that a person will become enlightened solely by virtue of having tapped this source of power; energy is neutral. It requires experience, wisdom, and education to direct it. You may gain power from your meditations, but it is possible for two people with the same valid attainment to use it in two different ways, even to the extremes of good and evil. Finding the source of spiritual power is a great joy; deciding how to direct it is the greatest of responsibilities.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

I wrote this in 2005:

I don’t really have a lot to say about spiritual power today. It is a wonderful feeling when you feel it, and when that energy is flowing within you things seem to become effortless. I can’t keep mine flowing consistently but then i don’t tend to spend a lot of time in meditation. My energy source is definitely lying coiled and resting today. Perhaps I’ll push myself along to yoga later and get the juices flowing again… yawn. First maybe a dip in the spa and a long hot shower to get moving…

Five years later, a lot has changed for me. I would say that I flow very well from within my source, my life is fairly effortless these days. But I am beginning to feel the power rising; I do not yet know where and how it will be channeled. I’ve been sustained for a long time now and haven’t felt the need to do much, other than my political efforts, which I’m told have been very powerful at inspiring others, and my pet therapy work, which I hear the same about. I don’t actively try to inspire or create action these days; I mostly move with the Tao and allow myself to be a channel for whatever creative force wants to flow through me. This is hard to explain to people sometimes, but I don’t actually try to force my own will so much as I go along with whatever seems to need to be done at the moment. It is rare that I will tell people no if they ask something of me.

So I don’t always know exactly where I am headed, or even what the day will bring. I prefer not to bring my expectations to the day anymore, but rahter to let myself move along with whatever the day may bring. I’m not always able to do this, of course, and do get out of sorts, but I don’t expect everything to just flow to me either. It’s not about the law of attraction, it’s about the law of following for me. I don’t so much attract what I want — I turn it around to want what is attracted to me. It’s a different attitude, but it leads to a great deal of happiness and fulfillment.

Do not confuse the pointing finger with the moon….

“You are flawed, you are stuck in old patterns, you become carried away with yourself. Indeed you are quite impossible in many ways. And still, you are beautiful beyond measure.”
– John Welwood via Whiskey River

“The greatest work of all is to show up each day willing to not be “there” yet. So long as we believe we should be better than we are, we will be blind to our own light and resentful of the light of others. Our greatest error is to interpret failure to be present as evidence that we are irredeemably flawed. There is no way back to ourselves and to each other that does not begin with compassionate awareness that we’ve once again lost our way.” – Molly Gordon

An ancient gnarled tree:
Too fibrous for a logger’s saw,
Too twisted to fit a carpenter’s square,
Outlasts the whole forest.

Loggers delight in straight grained, strong, fragrant wood. If the timber is too difficult to cut, too twisted to be made straight, too foul-odored for cabinets, and too spongy for firewood, it is left alone. Useful trees are cut down. Useless ones survive.

The same is true of people. The strong are conscripted. The beautiful are exploited. Those who are too plain to be noticed are the ones who survive. They are left alone and safe.

But what if we ourselves are among such plain persons? Though others may neglect us, we should not thing of ourselves as being without value. We must not accept the judgment of others as the measure of our own self worth. Instead, we should live our lives in simplicity.

Surely, we will have flaws, but we must take stock in them according to our own judgment and then use them as a measure of self-improvement. Since we need not expend energy in putting on airs or maintaining a position, we are actually free to cultivate the best parts of our personalities. Thus, to be considered useless in not a reason for despair, but an opportunity. It is the chance to live without interference and to express one’s own individuality.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Sabi by itself means “the bloom of time.” It connotes natural progression-tarnish, hoariness, rust-the extinguished gloss of that which once sparkled. It’s the understanding that beauty is fleeting. The word’s meaning has changed over time, from its ancient definition, “to be desolate,” to the more neutral “to grow old.” By the thirteenth century, sabi’s meaning had evolved into taking pleasure in things that were old and faded. A proverb emerged: “Time is kind to things, but unkind to man.”

Sabi things carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace: the chilly mottled surface of an oxidized silver bowl, the yielding gray of weathered wood, the elegant withering of a bereft autumn bough. An old car left in a field to rust, as it transforms from an eyesore into a part of the landscape, could be considered America’s contribution to the evolution of sabi. An abandoned barn, as it collapses in on itself, holds this mystique.

There’s an aching poetry in things that carry this patina, and it transcends the Japanese. We Americans are ineffably drawn to old European towns with their crooked cobblestone streets and chipping plaster, to places battle scarred with history much deeper than our own. We seek sabi in antiques and even try to manufacture it in distressed furnishings. True sabi cannot be acquired, however. It is a gift of time.

The Wabi-Sabi House: The Japanese Art of Imperfect Beauty

Can you celebrate your flaws, enjoy the sabi in your nature? Can you paint your cracks with gold, and learn that the flaws in your nature are what make you whole?

You are you. But somewhere deep down you want to become a Buddha or a Jesus and then you go around in a circle that will be unending. Just see the point of it — you are you. And the whole, or existence, wants you to be you.

That’s why existence has created you, otherwise it would have created a different model. It wanted you to be here at this moment. It did not want Jesus to be here in place of you. And existence knows better. The whole always knows better than the part.

So just accept yourself, If you can accept yourself, you have learned the greatest secret of life, and then everything comes on its own. Just be yourself.

There is no need to pull yourself up; there is no need to be a different height from what you are already. There is no need to have another face. Simply be as you are, and in deep acceptance of it, and a flowering will happen and you will go on becoming more and more yourself.

Once you drop the idea of becoming somebody, there is no tension. Suddenly all tension disappears. You are here, luminous in this moment. And there is nothing else to do but to celebrate and enjoy. — Everyday Osho

“To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself.” — Mark Twain

“A book should be luminous not voluminous.” — Christian Nevell Bovee

“The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.” — Isadora Duncan

“Life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning” — Virginia Woolf

“It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.” — Arthur Conan Doyle

“Words become luminous when the poet’s finger has passed over them its phosphorescence.” — Joseph Joubert

“There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

“In some photographs the essence of light and space dominate; in others, the substance of rock and wood, and the luminous insistence of growing things…” — Ansel Adams

“Thou dost not know thy own destiny and dost not know that it gets its worth from thee — otherwise the luminous ruby is only a piece of stone.” — Muhammad Iqbal

“Painting is by nature a luminous language.” — Robert Delaunay

“Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night.” — Victor Hugo

“Our dreams are luminous, a cast fire upon the world.
Morning arrives and that’s it.
Sunlight darkens the earth.”
— Charles Wright

“Luminous is this mind, brightly shining, but it is colored by the attachments that visit it. This unlearned people do not really understand, and so do not cultivate the mind. Luminous is this mind, brightly shining, and it is free of the attachments that visit it. This the noble follower of the way really understands; so for them there is cultivation of the mind.” — Anguttara Nikaya

Fueki Ryuko — ‘Constancy and change.’ The enduring patterns in the ever changing stream of nature. Sometimes understood to be the eternal truths that poets try to communicate.

“permanence and change“,
synthesis between tradition and innovation
Fueki Ryuko 不易流行（ふえきりゅうこう）

fuga no makoto is a result or product of the dynamism of two colliding forces: fueki ryuko, which is another important teaching of Basho.
Fueki simply means “no change” and refers to values of a permanent and enduring nature.

Ryuko, on the other hand, means “changing fashions of the time” and refers to newness, innovation, originality or unconventional values that would break with old ways in a revolutionary manner.

For instance, Beethoven created new and innovative music, ushering in a new age and setting a new trend. However, he did not do so without first having been steeped in classical music of an old tradition. Thus he had fueki ryuko and left legacy of permanent value.
None of us is Beethoven, but all of us can become a little Beethoven! Fueki ryuko is an abbreviation of senzai-fueki ichiji-ryuko (eternal no-change and temporary fashion).

When fueki and ryuko collide and interact in a dynamic explosion of creative haiku writing, the result could be like a newly born baby taking after both parents but different from both. And there is a single ultimate value that lies beyond fueki ryuko, and that is nothing but fuga no makoto.

– Susumu Takiguchi

“”Fueki ryuko”… is one of the essential principles of what I call Basho’s dialectic poetics. It should be given much greater significance than was originally perceived. This is because it now applies to almost all aspects of modern Japan where the balance between fueki, or permanent values, and ryuko, or changes, is shaky. A similar situation is also seen elsewhere in the world.

The two words can be interpreted in more ways than one. Fueki, for instance, can represent unchanging tradition while ryuko can represent changing fashion. Since the two are contradictory there should be a kind of creative tension generated between them. This tension should keep haiku fresh, creative and interesting. If people cling to tradition and neglect newness (or atarashimi) inherent in fashion, then haiku could become stale, imitative and boring. If, on the other hand, people indulge in newness without tradition, haiku could become gimmicky, incomprehensible and nonsensical. Needless to say, fueki should be genuine fueki, and ryuko should be genuine ryuko. And here starts one of the most important arguments, “What makes fueki and ryuko genuine?”" — Susumu Takiguchi

When a haijin (a writer of haiku) writes a haiku about something wabi sabi she will often attempt to capture both its transient beauty and the abiding qualities within the beauty, what haiku masters in years past called, Fueki Ryuko. Such haiku stimulate feelings of favorable melancholy. The most successful haiku of this type produce a clarity of perception in which the reader sees the subject of the haiku for what it is. There is a release of any desire to repair or arrest the effects of time, experience, or age. Everything is just right the way it is, defects and all. — Richard R. Powell

More on fueki ryuko here.

“Friendship arises out of mere companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.” We can imagine that among those early hunters and warriors single individuals — one in a century? one in a thousand years? — saw what others did not; saw that the deer was beautiful as well as edible, that hunting was fun as well as necessary, dreamed that his gods might be not only powerful but holy. But as long as each of these percipient persons dies without finding a kindred soul, nothing (I suspect) will come of it; art or sport or spiritual religion will not be born. It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision — it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude… In this kind of love, as Emerson said, “Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?” — Or at least, “Do you care about the same truth?” The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer.” — C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

One of the formative lessons every writer (and editor) learns is that the adjective is the uranium-235 of language. Adjectives are to be treated as highly radioactive material: when used correctly, they can light up a city; used with laze, stupidity, and excess, they can turn you and your work into the artistic equivalent of Chernobyl. — Brian Donohue

It is well established that listening to action words such as lick, pick and kick activates the brain areas that control the tongue, hand and foot. Pulvermuller’s research goes a step farther, suggesting that the brain’s action system does more than respond to meaning — he believes that it contributes to it.

To test this theory, Pulvermuller ran a study in which he stimulated different parts of the action system using TMS while volunteers listened to tongue, hand and foot-related words. The level of TMS was enough to increase the neuronal activity, but not enough to knock out the region. He found that stimulating the hand region made people quicker to comprehend hand-related words, such as stitch and pick. The same was true for foot-related words, such as kick and run, when he stimulated the foot area of the brain. “We found it wasn’t just a one-way flow from the language system to the motor system. People actually use these brain areas to understand the word,” he said.

Showing that we use our “foot area” to know what “kicking” means may sound like a trivial advance. But it demonstrates scientifically what great writers have instinctively known all along: that we don’t just understand words, we feel them.

Words have effects, sometimes very physical effects. In sharing our visions of what we want our world to be like, in developing our friendships and other relationships, we have to consider the words we use with others and make sure they are the ones we intend. We also have to understand how others may be using their words to manipulate us. Remember that action words can strongly affect other people and that they affect you, too. If you want a peaceful, calm, Taoful world, then use peaceful, calm, Taoful words. And be aware when others are using words that create strong reactions in you. Realize you can control those reactions and think about your response before automatically becoming angry or annoyed. And that responding in a calm, peaceful way will change their responses to you in return.

“Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful. One without the other leaves you short of elegant. And sometimes the “unusual simplicity” isn’t about what’s there, it’s about what isn’t. At first glance, elegant things seem to be missing something… Elegant ideas—products, services, performances, strategies, whatever—all have some degree of these four elements: symmetry, seduction, subtraction, and sustainability. ” — Matthew E. May

“For me, elegance is not to pass unnoticed but to get to the very soul of what one is.” — Christian Lacroix

“Be patient, do nothing, cease striving. We find this advice disheartening and therefore unfeasible because we forget it is our own inflexible activity that is structuring the reality. We think that if we do not hustle, nothing will happen and we will pine away. But the reality is probably in motion and after a while we might take part in that motion. But one can’t know.” — Paul Goodman, “Five Years: Thoughts During a Useless Time” via Whiskey River

“Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.” — Coco Chanel

“Desires are many, needs are few. Needs can be fulfilled; desires, never. A desire is a need gone crazy. It is impossible to fulfill it. The more you try to fulfill it, the more it goes on asking, asking, asking….Once you start learning how to choose the peaceful, a small room is enough; a small quantity of food is enough; a few clothes are enough; one lover, a very ordinary man, can be enough of a lover.” — Osho, “Everyday Osho”

“Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common – this is my symphony.” — William Channing

“What if deep poetry flowed through your day-to-day life? What if writing that poetry was a path to enlightenment? Basho, the grandfather of haiku poetry, named this path, “the Way of Elegance” because it connects you to grace and fills your life with subtle beauty….

One of the key concepts on the way of elegance is “furyu.” Basho discovered in his life of reading and thinking and wandering and teaching and writing that all of these things contributed to Furyu which literally means “in the way of the wind and stream”. It is putting yourself in the traffic, launching yourself into the action, not necessarily as a player, but deliberately, as the eyes and ears and taste buds and sense of smell. Furyu is a powerful tool that shows you what you like, and also what you love.

When a person has followed the Way of Elegance for a while she reaches a state where all she wants is to attend to quality moments with focused acceptance. Such a stance is hard to amintain; her family and friends will push her to distraction, pressure her to be normal. If you see her in this situation, enter her sabi, show her your wabi. Encourage her to follow furyu with you.” — Richard R. Powell, “Wabi Sabi for Writers”

“Furyu” is composed of two characters meaning, “wind” and “flowing.” Like the moving wind, it can be sensed but not seen. It is both tangible and intangible in its suggested elegance. And like the wind, furyu points to a wordless ephemeral beauty that can only be experienced in the moment, for in the next instant it will dissolve like the morning mist.

“The simplicity of wabi-sabi is best described as the state of grace arrived at by a sober, modest, heartfelt intelligence. The main strategy of this intelligence is economy of means. Pare down to the essence, but don’t remove the poetry. Keep things clean and unencumbered, but don’t sterilize. (Things that are wabi-sabi are emotionally warm, never cold.) Usually this implies a limited palette of materials. It also means keeping conspicuous features to a minimum. But it doesn’t mean removing the invisible connective tissue that somehow binds the elements into a meaningful whole.” — Leonard Koren, “Wabi-sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers”

“As a human being, I can only say that the future is yet to be made. Let us go forth and make it, but let us make it as beautifully as we can. The degree of elegance is determined by our will and the perfection of our own personalities. — Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

Express yourself:
That is meaning.

Ask yourself each day, “What remains unexpressed within me?”

Whatever it is, bring it out. But be judicious. The rantings of mad people do not yield greater freedom. Those who are with Tao use expression to find greater understanding of themselves and so find liberation from ignorance and circumstance.

All that is good and unique in you should be brought out. If you do not do this, you will be stunted. Never hold back, thinking that you will wait for a better time. The good in you is like the water in a well: The more you draw from it, the more fresh water will seep in. If you do not draw from it, the water will only become stagnant.

What is dark, perhaps even evil, inside you must be expressed in a proper way too. Lust, hatred, cruelty, and resentment — these must all be carefully taken out of yourself, like finding a bomb and taking it to be detonated harmlessly. Your heart may be quite a mine field, but you must persevere in clearing it if you are to plant crops and frolic without concern.

Ask yourself each day, “What remains unexpressed within me?” Unless you can express it, you will not clarify your inner nature.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

The multitude of things are innumerable,
But they travel circularly.
Those who accord with Tao
Understand rise and fall
And gain clarity and insight.
Those who do not accept rise and fall,
Ride recklessly with misfortune.

Thus it is said: the secret of Tao lies in returning.

Deng Ming-Dao, Everyday Dao

Stillness, clarity, and consciousness are more immediate than any number of expeditions into the distant lands of one’s mind. Such expeditions, however stimulating, distract both the leader and the group members from what is actually happening.

By staying present and aware of what is happening, the leader can do less yet achieve more.

Tao of Leadership

We should have regular times to be alone, meditate alone, even sleep alone. This gives us clarity. Then we can bring this understanding to our relationships. Friendships will be all the more wonderful. Once we understand moderation, we move between the solitary and the social without any mistake.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“Whoever knows he is deep, strives for clarity; whoever would like to appear deep to the crowd, strives for obscurity. For the crowd considers anything deep if only it cannot see to the bottom: the crowd is so timid and afraid of going into the water.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity” — Francois Gautier

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.” — Melody Beattie

“Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what he loves.” — Blaise Pascal

“In a creative life, droughts are a necessity. The time in the desert brings us clarity and charity. When you are in a drought, know that it is to a purpose.”  — Julia Cameron

“In California in the early Spring, There are pale yellow mornings, when the mist burns slowly into day, The air stings like Autumn, clarifies like pain -– Well, I have dreamed this coast myself.” -– Robert Hass

“I experience a period of frightening clarity in those moments when nature is so beautiful. I am no longer sure of myself, and the paintings appear as in a dream.” — Vincent van Gogh

“Seek neither fullness nor emptiness; seek only clarity. Where there is clarity, the connection between the individual self and the cosmic whole is formed and held, and the balance between attraction and effort finds its natural and holographic point of moving, living equilibrium.” — Brian Donohue

Spent the afternoon in my garden, cleaning up after the tree trimmers and taking a bit more off the pepper trees where they needed it. The best part is I smell like sage, from the wonderful native sages on my hillside. So there is a little more clarity in my life now than this weekend. I feel a little bit more restored.

“And whatever your path is at this moment, every single step is equal in substance. Every step actualizes the self. Every moment of practice is always the koan of having to agree to your condition, to bring unlimited friendliness to what you are, just as you are, right now. Even your obnoxiousness, your failures, your rank inadequacy is it. Your best revenge is to include it as you.” — Susan Murphy, via Whiskey River

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” –- Ansel Adams

“If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: “He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned.”” — Epictetus

“Let no one say that he is a follower of Gandhi. It is enough that I should be my own follower. I know what an inadequate follower I am of myself, for I cannot live up to the convictions I stand for. You are no followers but fellow students, fellow pilgrims, fellow seekers, fellow workers.” — Mohandas Gandhi

The highest Virtue seems empty;
Great purity seems sullied;
A wealth of Virtue seems inadequate;
The strength of Virtue seems frail;
Real Virtue seems unreal.

- – Tao Te Ching 41

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?”

Actually, who are you not to be? — – Nelson Mandela, Inaugural Speech 1994

Actions in life can be reduced to two factors: positioning and timing. If we are not in the right place at the right time, we cannot possibly take advantage of what life has to offer us. Almost anything is appropriate if an action is in accord with the time and the place. But we must be vigilant and prepared. Even if the time and the place are right, we can still miss our chance if we do not notice the moment, if we act inadequately, or if we hamper ourselves with doubts and second thoughts. When life presents an opportunity, we must be ready to seize it without hesitation or inhibition. Position is useless without awareness. If we have both, we make no mistakes. — Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

“Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.”

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

I am feeling a bit inadequate today. As much as I try to follow Tao, to be unattached to things and people and results, some days it is too much for me, and I fail to live up my promises. I really hate letting other people down, or letting my impulsive actions become a problem for someone. Some days I am simply not the person that I want to be and know that I can be, and usually am. This weekend has been a difficult one for me. Between being stupid and losing my beautiful ash tree, it’s been a really tough time. There have been good moments — wonderful dinners out with my husband, and a beautiful moonlit evening at La Jolla cove, with one of the most gorgeous full moons I’ve ever seen in my life. But my inadequacies are overwhelming the good things for me right now.

“Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement.”
– Alfred Adler

“Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.” — Booker T. Washington

“To sit patiently with a yearning that has not yet been fulfilled, and to trust that fulfillment will come, is quite possibly one of the most powerful “magic skills” that human beings are capable of. It has been noted by almost every ancient wisdom tradition.” — Elizabeth Gilbert

“No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.” — T.S. Eliot

“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.” — Garth Henrichs

“To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.” — George MacDonald

“You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough” -– Frank Crane

“Trust that little voice in your head that says “Wouldn’t it be interesting if..”; And then do it.” — Duane Michals

“You must trust and believe in people or life becomes impossible.” — Anton Chekhov

Every time I think I know what trust means, something comes along and makes me learn it all over again. Right now I’m trusting in magic, believing in future possibilities that may or may not happen, and yet I know they will happen. Trying to be non-attached to the result, but still wanting it all right now, instead of patiently waiting for it to unfold in its own time.

Trusting myself, trusting others, trusting in magic. Believing in magical possibilities… my challenges for the day.

Satori — Michelle Curiel

Satori (悟り?) (Chinese: 悟; pinyin: wù; Korean 오) is a Japanese Buddhist term for “enlightenment.” The word literally means “understanding.” “Satori” translates as a flash of sudden awareness, or individual enlightenment, and while satori is from the Zen Buddhist tradition, enlightenment can be simultaneously considered “the first step” or embarkation toward nirvana.

Satori is typically juxtaposed with a related term known as kensho, which translates as “seeing one’s nature.” Kensho experiences tend to be briefer glimpses, while satori is considered to be a deeper spiritual experience. Satori is as well an intuitive experience and has been described as being similar to awakening one day with an additional pair of arms, and only later learning how to use them.

“Meditation opens seldom glimpsed areas of our subconscious. When that happens, extraordinary thoughts and awareness come to us with seeming spontaneity. We realize truths that were opaque to us before; we perceive events that were previously too distant… All the power of transcendence is also within us. Tap into it and you tap into the divine itself.”
– Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

“Inner truth is only glimpsed by disconnecting the mechanism of interpretation. If we can withdraw the activities of the senses and isolate that part of the mind responsible for filtering sensory input, then we can temporarily shut off the ongoing process of interaction with the outside world. We will then be in a neutral place that is wholly turned inward. We are left with an absolute state, entirely without distinction or relativity. This is called nothingness, and it is the truth underlying all things.”

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Once you realize that the true Tao is to be found within yourself, you shift your attention. Then worship becomes recognition. Your own spirit arises, and you learn to tap into it on your own. If someone had told you what to look for, you might never be sure of your experiences. What comes from outer suggestion is not the true Tao.

Glimpsing the source leaves no doubts.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Tao is continuous, flowing, and changing, but there is no knowing it in a single view. We rely on composite images that we form in ourselves. For a beginner, glimpses of Tao will be random and fleeting. You will stumble on it from time to time, or you will see it in the brief spaces between events. For the mature practitioner, your composite view comes from training, technique, research, and the experience of self-cultivation. But even after years, it is impossible to take in the totality.

There is a way to know Tao directly and completely. It requires the awakening of one’s spiritual force. When this happens, spirituality manifests as a brilliant light. Your mind expands into a glowing presence. Like a lighthouse, this beacon of energy becomes illumination and eye at the same time. Significantly, however, what it shows, it also knows directly. It is the light that sees.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Invocation becomes declaration.
Worship becomes recognition.
When blessings mature,
One glimpses the source.

When one is young in Tao, all practices begin as external procedures. Sometimes, it is difficult to understand their significance — we don’t know what to expect. This is proper: Not daring to interfere with growth and discovery, those who follow Tao hesitate to go beyond technical instruction.

Take worship, for example. At first, an invocation is something external. You repeat it, but really, it means very little. You kneel down at the altar because you need something on which to focus. Once you realize that the true Tao is to be found within yourself, you shift your attention. Then worship becomes recognition. Your own spirit arises, and you learn to tap into it on your own. If someone had told you what to look for, you might never be sure of your experiences. What comes from outer suggestion is not the true Tao.

Glimpsing the source leaves no doubts.

Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

I guess what bothers me most about religion is that it fails in its main purpose so much of the time. Religion to me was always about invoking a higher spirit, and retaining that spirit within yourself so that you could get beyond your own petty needs and wants, and really tune in to the world and to other people. It calls out, invokes, the best in us so that we can share it with others.

But this gets distorted and perverted into worshipping some other, giving that other power and then excusing yourself from having to make decisions about life, saying what happens to other people is just “God’s will” or assuming bad things happen to people because they aren’t holy enough. I look at the man just elected Pope, and see someone who is so caught up in the doctrine of the Church that he has forgotten why the Church is even there. He lives to force doctrine on others instead of making their lives better.

So in Tao, what is it we want to invoke, to call upon?

Something I learned in business school and process management was the concept of alignment. What creates friction and frustration in business processes is when the purpose of the business is not aligned with its processes. People become confused over whether to follow the principles they know are correct, or the processes they know are wrong, but are told to follow. I think that is what we want to invoke when we call upon the Tao – to bring ourselves into alignment with the Tao, with the natural forces of the world and the way things work, and in doing so, eliminate friction and frustration from our lives.

Stop working at cross purposes to what your inner spirit tells you is right. Invoke the Tao, recognize it within yourself, tap into the source within yourself. Have a cup of tea and a cookie, go out to the garden and smell the roses and the clean, clear air. Ah. Isn’t that better?

Now, go share that feeling with someone else, and spread it along…

Once in a vision
I came on some woods
And stood at a fork in the road
My choices were clear
Yet I froze with the fear
Of not knowing which way to go
One road was simple
Acceptance of life
The other road offered sweet peace
When I made my decision
My vision became my release….

“There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say “It is yet more difficult than you thought.” This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work — and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” — Wendell Berry via Kerrdelune

“As everything changes overnight, I praise the breaking of promises. Whatever love wants, it gets. Not next year, but now. I swear by the one who never says tomorrow, as the circle of the moon refuses to sell installments of light, it gives all that is has.” — Rumi

Choose what makes you happy this time, instead of what you think you’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to be happy in our lives. Settling for less will only make us unhappy, and if we are unhappy we cannot make the world any better. We can only release the light within us if we allow it to shine as brightly as possible, and that cannot happen if our souls are not rising and singing. We have to do what makes our souls sing. Sing as you travel over the obstacles in your path. — Me

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.” -– Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 67

“One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self; of all mines of treasure, one’s own is the last to be dug up.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“If out of all mankind one finds a single friend, he has found something more precious than any treasure, since there is nothing in the world so valuable that it can be compared to a real friend.” — Andreas Capellanus

“Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.” — Carol Lynn Pearson

“Success, happiness, peace of mind and fulfillment -– the most priceless of human treasures –- are available to all among us, without exception, who make things happen -– who make “good” things happen –- in the world around them” — Joe Klock

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” — Joseph Campbell

“Treasure each other in the recognition that we do not know how long we shall have each other.” — Joshua Loth Liebman

You’ve awakened something deep inside my soul
And every moment, every breath I feel it more
Your hidden treasure that you kept down deep inside
We make love freely as we watch the new sunrise
I’d live a thousand lives if every one I lived could be with you…

– Journey, “Kiss Me Softly”

Take a walk down by, take a walk down by the river
There’s a lot that you, there’s a lot that you can learn
If you’ve got a mind that’s open, if you’ve got a heart that yearns

If you listen to, if you listen to the water
You will hear the sound, you will hear the sound of life
There’s a million different voices, there is happiness and strife

Message in the deep, from a strange eternal sleep
That is waiting there, that is waiting there for you
Like hidden treasure

– Traffic, “Hidden Treasure”

My morning meditation consists of listening to music, reading from various books, surfing through Tao blogs and other things I run across as I ease into my day. Sometimes these thoughts and ideas come together with a single theme, some days they do not. Some days I share what I find here, other days I store these things up while I think about them until they build into a blog post or perhaps simply fade into my being. Some things spring unbidden into my head and I find I must simply write them down. Those are the best things. It is all Tao, and it is all good. Of course some mornings are busy so I don’t get a chance to post until later. Today is one of those days.

So here is the day’s collection ….

__________

“Gifting” is the giving and receiving of love and energy between individuals in all of its possible forms: with words of affection, acts of service, quality time, physical touch. It is a process that requires you to be open to the world around you and find the strength in your own vulnerability. He writes:

“For your life to feel profound and full of love’s power, practice opening at all times, including times of hurt. Feel and breathe your heart’s deep hurt, and the hurt of others, without closing. Offer the openness of your heart to everyone, and especially to those who are wounding you. The only alternative is to close and live unfulfilled.” ~ David Dieda

How is man to live in a world dominated by chaos, suffering, and absurdity?
According to the mystic/philosopher Chuang Tzu: Free yourself from the world.

Chuang Tzu tells the story of a man named Nan-jung Chu who went to visit
the Taoist sage Lao Tzu in hopes of finding some solutions to his worries.
When he appeared, Lao Tzu promptly inquired,
“Why did you come with all this crowd of people?”
The man whirled around in astonishment to see if there was someone standing behind him.

Needless to say, there was not; the “crowd of people” that he came with
was the baggage of old ideas, the conventional concepts of right and wrong,
good and bad, life and death, that he lugged about with him wherever he went.
It is this baggage of conventional values that man must first discard before
he can be free.

“Free yourself from the world!”

“You know that in all tombs there is always a false door?”
Renisenb stared. “Yes, of course.”
“Well, people are like that too. They create a false door—to deceive. If they are conscious of weakness, of inefficiency, they make an imposing door of self-assertion, of bluster, of overwhelming authority—and, after a time, they get to believe in it themselves. They think, and everybody thinks, that they are like that. But behind that door, Renisenb, is a bare rock… And so when reality comes and touches them with the feather of truth—their true self reasserts itself.”

— Agatha Christie

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Dr. Howard Thurman

Just think, if you had a life of a thousand years you would miss many things, because you would go on postponing. But because life is so short, only seventy years, one cannot afford to postpone. Yet people do postpone — and that at their own cost.

Imagine if somebody comes and tells you that you have only one day’s life left. What will you do? Will you go on thinking about unnecessary things? No, you will forget everything You will love and pray and meditate, because only twenty-four hours are left. The real things, the essential things, you will not postpone.

And love and meditation are the two basic essentials. Meditation means to be oneself, and love means to share one’s own being with somebody else. Meditation gives you the treasure, and love helps you to share it. These are the two most basic things, and all else is non-essential.

Everyday Osho — 365 Daily meditations for the here and now by Osho

Life is a constant series of opportunities. If we don’t reach out for things, if we don’t take advantage of what comes our way, then we cannot be in harmony with the essential nature of life. —   Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

Don’t think that creativity is only for artists, writers, and musicians. Creativity is an essential element for everyone. Unlike the outer-directed creativity of making art, solving problems, or writing, the creativity that everyone can engage in is learning.  — Deng Ming-Dao, 365 Tao

“The deep root of failure in our lives is to think, ‘Oh how useless and powerless I am.’ It is essential to think strongly and forcefully, ‘I can do it,’ without boasting or fretting.” — Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Risk is essential. There is not growth of inspiration in staying within what is safe and comfortable. Once you find out what you do best, why not try something else?” — Alex Noble

“It is essential to our well-being, and to our lives, that we play and enjoy life. Every single day do something that makes your heart sing.” — Marcia Wieder

Why do we hold back? There is some fear that if we don’t hold back,if we give all, then we have nothing else to give. So we give only in parts, we keep the carrot dangling. We want to remain mysterious.

When you don’t allow the other to enter into your whole being and know it totally, it is because of the fear that once the other knows you totally he or she may become disinterested. You keep a few corners of yourself aloof so that the other goes on wondering, “What are those corners? What more do you have give?” And the other goes on searching and seeking and persuading and seducing…. And in the same way, the other is also holding back.

There is some animal understanding behind it that once the mystery is known, the thing is finished. We love the mystery, we love the unknown. When it is known, mapped, and measured, it is finished! Then what else is there? The adventuring mind will start thinking of other women, other men. This has happened to millions of husbands and wives: They have looked into each other totally –  finished! Now the other has no soul because the mystery is no longer here-and the soul exists in mystery.

This is the logic in it. But when you are truly independent, and you are surrendered to the god of love, then you can open yourself totally. And in that very opening you become one. When two people are open, they are no longer two. When the walls disappear, the room is one. And that is where the fulfillment is. That’s what every lover is seeking for, searching for, hankering after, dreaming about, desiring. But not understanding rightly, you can go on seeking and searching in a wrong direction.

Everyday Osho — 365 Daily meditations for the here and now by Osho

Shift from anger to creativity, and immediately you will see a great change arising in you. Tomorrow the same things will not feel like excuses for being angry.

Out of one hundred people suffering from anger, about 50 percent suffer from too much creative energy that they have not been able to put into use. Their problem is not anger, but they will go on thinking their whole life that it is. Once a problem is diagnosed rightly, half of it is already solved.

Put your energies into creativity. Forget about anger as a problem; ignore it. Channel your energy towards more creativity. Pour yourself into something that you love. Rather than making anger your problem, let creativity be your object of meditation. Shift from anger to creativity and immediately you will see a great change arising in you. And tomorrow the same things will not feel like excuses for being angry because now energy is moving, it is enjoying itself, its own dance. Who cares about small things?

Everyday Osho — 365 Daily meditations for the here and now by Osho

I started cleaning when I was angry about something. It helps give you something to do with the energy, and gives you an activity instead of venting at someone. It gives you time to think things through and lose the anger. Even when I don’t feel like cleaning anything else, I often sweep the floor. Just that little bit makes things feel so much cleaner to me, getting the bits of dirt out from under my feet and making things look that little bit better.

Dragon of anger
Calls for us to take action
Anger is the fuel

“A friend of mine once noted that anger was not possible without a goal. No goal, no possibility of anger. I thought about this a long time and realized that no matter how modest or unimportant the goal, the moment I have something I want, an outcome I desire more than other possible outcomes, there arises the possibility for anger, and farther along that spectrum, the possibility of cruelty if I am willing to pursue my goal at any cost, even at the expense of another living being. We may not take the achievement of a goal to Machiavellian extremes. But simply shaping a goal and focusing on it has the additional effect of narrowing our perspective.” — Suzanne Clothier, “Bones Would Rain From the Sky”

When the Madwoman is transformed from destructive paths and embodied in creative ways, a woman will not give up her vision. Rid of the resentments, paranoia, and isolation that result when her anger is suppressed or goes unrecognized or unacknowledged, she will be free to create. Her vision will be clear and congruent, and she will have the courage and wisdom to embody it in the world. — Linda Schierse Leonard, Meeting the Madwoman

Nurture the darkness of your soul
until you become whole.
Can you do this and not fail?
–Tao Te Ching, 10

“When you are feeling depreciated, angry and drained, it is a sign that other people are not open to your energy.” — Sanaya Roman

“The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough.” — Bede Jarrett

“At the core of all anger is a need that is not being fulfilled.” — Marshall B. Rosenberg

“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems — not people; to focus your energies on answers — not excuses.” — William Arthur Ward