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 19 Jan 2006 @ 10:34
In Zen meditation we think non-thinking---that is, we think nothing. What this means is that our whole psychological mind ceases to function, and as a result, our whole being becomes united with the essence of mind, which we signify by Mind. You call this essence the God within you, absoluteness, ultimate reason---it doesn't matter. No matter what you call it, to unite with this essence is the very reason we are gathered here to meditate.
---Robert Aitken
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
---Henry David Thoreau
People with opinions just go around bothering one another.
---The Buddha
In the photo the writer and his wife listen to Paul Hackett, candidate for the US Senate from Ohio in the upcoming Democratic primary. [link]
I woke up this morning with a vow in my head to ignore the news and controversies of the day. Like many people in the United States and around the world, I've come to think the news endangers my health. I know many people who are adamant about not wanting to learn what's going on. They say even if you do find out, what do you believe? Everybody lies and twists and distorts. It's all maddening so for a balanced and positive outlook on life, it's better not to look, think about it or know about it. This morning I tried not to think or to look. How did I do? More >
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 16 Dec 2005 @ 10:36
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
---George Bernard Shaw
Searching for words, hunting for phrases, when will it end?
Esteeming knowledge and gathering information only maddens the spirit.
Just entrust yourself to your own nature, empty and illuminating---
Beyond this, I have nothing to teach.
---Bankei
Dying cricket,
His song so full
of life.
---Basho
Mary Hufford took this photograph of mountain top removal. This and others are at the Library of Congress site Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia. [link]
One of the first questions people ask when they move to a mining area of the Appalachians---or even just drive through mountains of West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio---is "What's happening over there?" They're referring to a startling bare spot on the horizon, out in the middle of nowhere, no towns around, maybe a big crane thing sticking up. What you're seeing is called strip mining or mountain top removal, and the little part of the machine inadvertently visible from the highway might be something like The Big Muskie, which was the largest mobile land machine in the world [link] . It would take a stack of books to describe the history of coal mining and its effect on the lives of the people here---and certainly other regions of the Earth too---but did you know that history continues? Mining goes on here, providing jobs and taking them away, with mountain folks wrestling the same issues they've had to deal with for 200 years. More >
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 15 Dec 2005 @ 10:54
Truly, the greatest gift you have to give is that of your own self-transformation.
---Lao Tzu
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 Henry Channing
Our reason has driven all away. Alone at last, we end up by ruling over a desert.
---Albert Camus
The picture is from a Fox News PhotoEssay entitled Iraq Vote.
I understand President Bush is blaming faulty intelligence for the White House Christmas card this year. It greets his supporters with "Best wishes for a holiday season of hope and happiness." The CIA hadn't told him the War on Christmas has escalated to the incendiary point shots would be fired over his use of "holiday." John Breneman says Rove quickly reworded the inscription to read, "Merry Birth Anniversary of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior who died on the cross for our sins so that we may ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven." [link] The President has planned an address to cadets at West Point later today to wish everyone a "Merry Christmas, especially all our friends in the Muslim world," and of course to credit the CIA with doing a heck of a job. More >
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 27 Nov 2005 @ 10:48
I would like to beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. LIVE the questions now.
---Rainer Maria Rilke
Truth is something you stumble into when you think you are going someplace else.
---Jerry Garcia
Watching the moon
at dawn,
solitary, mid-sky,
I knew myself completely:
no part left out.
---Izumi Shikibu
William Blake (1757-1827)
The Omnipotent
Oil on canvas, 1794
I'm not much of a joiner and never have been. I haven't sought out many groups in my life. Such pursuit never entered the picture much. My parents came from individually quite different backgrounds, weren't joiners either, and didn't bring with them any cultural baggage that got me involved in groups. They both were something like 3rd generation Swedes in America, but they didn't celebrate any traditions from the "old country" except smorgasbord at Christmas...and then it was at a paternal relative's house and not ours. Those people still could speak some Swedish, but I never heard but a few words in my house. Maybe the farming Swedes on my mother's side had been on these shores longer because I never saw a flake in them of any traditions except universally countrified ones. Their generation came out of the Depression and went to World War II, both of which catastrophes encouraged a style of surviving that was tightly knit to the institutions of the United States. My family was middle class America in the 1940s and 1950s, and if any "group" came out of that it probably was The Organization Man. More >
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 19 Nov 2005 @ 11:57
Is it then not a mistake to precipitate the time of awakening? Not the greatest master can go even one step for his disciple; in himself he must experience each stage of developing consciousness. Therefore he will know nothing for which he is not ripe.
---De Lubicz
I gave up my house
and set out into homelessness.
I gave up my child, my cattle,
and all that I loved.
I gave up desire and hate.
My ignorance was thrown out.
I pulled out craving
along with its root.
Now I am quenched and still.
---Sangha
Seek simplicity and distrust it.
---Alfred North Whitehead
Tara Esler, a physical therapist and therapy director, and Negar Adlib, physical therapist, at work at the Children's Center in Washington DC
My early Saturday morning coffee usually is spent scouring through the online newspapers. I try to read more carefully stories I only had time to glance at through the week...and usually Washington sources like to sneak out releases late Friday afternoon they hope will be lost in Friday night and Saturday afternoon football activities. I do all this before going to my favorite blog sites for the more cutting edge stuff. I've found this week's main stories rather earthshaking.
The NY Times arrived in this emailbox a couple hours late this morning...and no wonder. For the second night in a row, the House of Representatives went into loud extra innings fighting over the war in Iraq and budget cuts to education and Medicaid. Last night's debate was on a hastily-drawn resolution to support the President's vow this morning to stay the course "until we have achieved the victory that our brave troops have fought for." [link] More >
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I don't know about you, but sometimes I work a long time, cumulatively for hours, on comments I make on these News Logs. I plan to edit this Log regularly and delete things. Before I do that, I want to assure you, I shall notify each commentator of such an amendment so you may have time to copy anything you wish to save and paste somewhere else. Create your own News Log in your profile. |
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