St. Francis

Asked this the other day and found the answer to be that St. Francis did not write the prayer of peace of St. Francis. It is really lovely nonetheless.
Friends are wonderful gifts. Thank you all.

Daily Meditation

The first step of the Eightfold Path is Right Views, which means Knowledge of the Four Noble Truths.
The four noble truths deal with suffering and the cessation of suffering. Being aware of and coming to the end of suffering allows us to begin to venture on a path to freedom and enlightenment. It is suffering in my mind that is getting me down. I am all alright with life and living and being and working and the creation of my days. And yet I suffer in my mind as things are not as I would have them. Growth does not come fast enough. Change is slow. Progress impeded. All things are as they are for a purpose unknown. Breathe.

Daily Meditation

Turn your mind away from things which are not permanent. - Buddha
That which is fleeting is just that. It is not here, it is here, and it is gone. Transfixed upon those things that come and go and fill life with the small details. Those things which are nothing and move to nothing. I suppose the key then is to cultivate those things and relationships in which the impermanent in our lives becomes always present and there and with us in mind heart and body.

Daily Meditation

Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes. - Buddha
Don't give up five minutes before the miracle arrives is a common saying. So true it is easy to give up. Sticking with it will bring about untold gifts.
I got a new video camera for the classroom. It records great. You can not play the disc it recorded to on the computer. You can not edit the file on the computer. You can put the disc in a DVD player and play it. The needed discs are near impossible to find. Returning the camera. All day long. Reading, researching, trying different things. Finally. Conclusion. Give up and try something different.

Daily Meditation:

Whosoever has heard the law of virtue and vice is as one who has eyes and carries a lamp, seeing everything and will become completely wise. - Buddha

Having not heard that lesson or forgetting to pay attention in class in am not too sure. Maybe I was asleep during this lecture. Been thinking too I am more of a lamp under the bushel kind of guy.

Daily Meditation:

The seeing of Truth cannot be dualistic (a 'thing' seen). It cannot be seen by a see-er, or via a see-er. There can only be a seeing which itself is Truth. 'All Else is Bondage; Non-Volitional Living' - Wei Wu Wei

So there is truth. There are not versions of truth. It is. Belief in truth makes it so. Is truth for one truth for all? Universal truths vs. beliefs?

Just not enough time to process and write as of late. Sorry for the lack of depth.

Yesterday's Daily Meditation:

An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea. - Buddha

Into action. Coming up with and creating. How many times have we thought or heard, I thought of that. Some one else thought of it too and put that thought into action and created.

I am rethinking the coffee cup. How can we make one better? Keep the coffee hot. Clean, disposable or able to carry around for several days. Does not leak. Will not break. Fits in cup holder in car or has a built in leg system for staying in place. So how does one go about designing and implementing a new design? Like a smart new green building in and urban environment. We need new coffee cups.

Daily Meditation:

The seeker is the found, the found is the seeker - as soon as it is apperceived that there is no time. 'Posthumous Pieces' by Wei Wu Wei

Apperceived is the coming to knowledge through past experiences. That which we are seeking is within us already. That which we desire to know we know. That which eludes us only does so because we are not ready to see or to know. That which is is and that which is not is too. We call to us what we need. Manifest. If we call to us the good logic dictates we call forth the bad as well. Why would we manifest negative in our lives. We don't. Really.

Daily Meditation:

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. - Buddha

At church on Christmas Eve we light a candle and from it everyone in the congregation lights a candle. The whole is lit from one and thus the message of the season is wrapped up in a single act of servitude. Share the light that is within you today with the world. Let each and everyone know .

Daily Meditation:

A man who is seeking for realization is not only going round searching for his spectacles without realizing that they are on his nose all the time, but also were he not actually looking through them he would not be able to see what he is looking for! - Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei

Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see. - Grateful Dead

Learning to see. We have all the spectacles we need. We have the ability to perceive and to know. It is a matter of seeing again for the first time. We have looked for too long and simply to not know. Is it a matter of removing the blinders? Our shields on the perception of reality? Open not the eyes but the mind connected to the eyes.

Daily Meditation:

There are moments when one feels free from one's own identification with human limitations and inadequacies. At such moments one imagines that one stands on some spot of a small planet, gazing in amazement at the cold yet profoundly moving beauty of the eternal, the unfathomable; life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution nor destiny; only Being. - Albert Einstein

Albert was visited by aliens from outer space. They gave to him the secrets of the universe and he was able to understand quantum physics and could travel through time. Transcending both time and space he was able to live everywhere. Truly free he communicated with the world on freedom of the mind. Science, religion, and mysticism all came together and was.

Daily Meditation:

Destroy 'the ego', hound it, beat it, snub it, tell it where it gets off? Great fun, no doubt, but where is it? Must you not find it first? Isn't there a word about catching your goose before you can cook it? The great difficulty here is that there isn't one. - 'Posthumous Pieces' by Wei Wu Wei

Realizing there is no ego. It is a construct of the mind and of philosophers who need a driving force within man to control and actions and outcomes of our thoughts and the reasoning behind them. Difficult it is to overcome the destructive nature of the drive and the seeming need to eliminate it. Instead of working against ourselves and fighting and defeating our beings when we embrace who we are and desire to make a change there is no longer something to eliminate since that something has never been there?

Eliminate what we do not know and what we have not seen. Change to become something other then who we are and how we are driven. Yes, destructive are we, am I. Change I can.

Daily Meditation

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. - Oliver Wendell Holmes
It is important to stretch. We work out (at least on rare occasion) and have learned the importance of stretching before hand. Stretching the mind allows room for growth and change. I have learned in just the past little while how intolerant I truly am. Unwilling to change and accept others and events. My mind closed to possibilities. Strange to say that as I think of myself as accepting and tolerant. Blind to that which I do not want to see. Seeing in others that which I myself need to work on the most.
This also floats with peak expriecnes and what happens when we witness something so very changing in life. Blowing the mind it can never return to the other state it once knew. Often I think it is like people who have been to the moon, they are never able to relate to the normal human being again, their experiences being so far afield of the rest of us.

Daily Meditation:

We say, "In calmness there should be activity; ' in activity there should be calmness." Actually, they are the same thing; to say "calmness" or to say "activity" is just to express different interpretations of one fact. There is harmony in our activity, and where there is harmony there is calmness. - D.T. Suzuki

Calmness is not without action. There is activity but it does not have to be hurried or overwhelming. We can act and be calm. We can think and not rush. We can be and act and integrate meditation into our being. I have been interested in the wu wei. The action without action. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. Taking the full force of what there is to be done and not doing nothing but doing things in such a way without doing. Peace and care and yet eliminate the stress. Don't do but be. When we do the work it consumes us differently then when we are the work. In being we become that which needs to be completed. In doing we are separate again and struggle through to completion. and so once again be don't just do. Be the Ball.

Daily Meditation

I teach that the multitudinousness of objects have no reality in themselves but are only seen of the mind and, therefore, are of the nature of maya and a dream. ...It is true that in one sense they are seen and discriminated by the senses as individualized objects; but in another sense, because of the absence of any characteristic marks of self-nature, they are not seen but are only imagined. In one sense they are graspable, but in another sense, they are not graspable. -Buddha

The multitudinousness of thought today is not allowing for any additional discourse on subjects other then technology and moving a glass studio.

Daily Meditation:

If you want to have friends, you must be friendly. If you want to make peace, you must be peaceful. - Peace Pilgrim

It is the be the change you want to see in the world. to be happy you must build the things in life to make you happy. To share love one must make themselves lovable. To be at one with the universe it is necessary to remove oneself from the position of being god. To enjoy a morning cup of coffee one must start with the best bean available.

Daily Meditation:

It is important to recognize the power of our emotions--and to take responsibility for them by creating a light and positive atmosphere around ourselves. This attitude of joy that we create helps alleviate states of hopelessness, loneliness, and despair. Our relationships with others thus naturally improve, and little by little the whole of society becomes more positive and balanced. - Tarthang Tulku

The effort involved in making ourselves into the positive and joyous people that spread love and light is not an easy task. With the pain and suffering we inflict our negative increases and the move and more it builds that negative becomes more destructive. It continues to feed and grow. Negative pulls more toward it just as positive also attracts positive. When focus is upon the negative and the destructive it is troublesome and hurtful and yet no way is seen out. The walls just continue to grown and the deeper the well becomes. One brick at a time. One movement one dismantling at a time. Tear down the walls of the negative and begin to build the positive. Happiness, growth, joy, peace. Foster these things that help us to be who it is we want to be today. It is a process and setbacks occur. Forgiveness and understanding.

We create the joy that takes us out of despair. Talking and relating and being with others helps to eliminate the loneliness and helplessness we feel. Just a bit at a time. Little by little.

Daily Meditation:

I have not explained that the world is eternal or not eternal. I have not explained that the world is finite or infinite. - Buddha

Well. I have no idea on this one. The world is eternal and not eternal both finite and infinite. Either way it was not explained. Cryptic to say the least. Perceived or not. We are still only left with this given moment. Right now. just this point. The stream is flowing around us and through us and we are there in the moment. just being. Not waiting for the beginning or the end. Just waiting. Coming along it is. It goes on for ever it does. So much so we can not even grasp.

Daily Meditation:

Let us live gladly! Quite certainly we are free to do it. Perhaps it is our only freedom, but ours it is, and it is only phenomenally a freedom. 'Living free' is being 'as one is'. Can we not do it now? Indeed can we not-do-it? It is not even a 'doing': it is beyond doing and not-doing. It is being as-we-are. This is the only 'practice'. 'All Else is Bondage; Non-Volitional Living' - Wei Wu Wei

This one returns again. It is an enjoyable reminder to live in the moment and live for right now. The future is a possibility, unknown and unknowing. It is not happening yet and never will happen and yet it has already occurred and wrapped in the present moment too. So be free today in the moment. Be free and live fully and happily.

It is so difficult to stay happy in the moment. Just to be. Do not let the outside forces effect what we do think and feel. It is just being and content with ourselves. No judgements and resentments. No obsession of what could have been done better or more complete. No fear. To late.

Daily Meditation:

A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? Robert Browning

That which we hold onto and that for which we continue to reach. Stretching. Growing. Trying. Maybe those things that I was once reaching come along and were in my grasp. Holding onto them I saw no need to reach for more. Content to just sit with what I had. Not knowing the emptiness of holding on. I stopped reaching. I stopped seeking. I don't know when that started. Just a little bit each day perhaps. Building up into nothingness. Pieces being added or taken away. Varnish applied once again.

Stripping away. Sanding. Stripping. Scraping. Filling in the pitted places with putty to make the surface smooth once again. Character in places leaving colored scars deep into the wood.