Daily Meditation for Friday:

Nirvana is the utter extinction of all that is base in us, all that is vicious in us. Nirvana is not like the black, dead peace of the grave, but the living peace, the living happiness of a soul which is conscious of itself and conscious of having found its own abode in the heart of the Eternal. - Gandhi

Nirvana. We only know it as a band. We hear the word and think of it is the place of afterlife and once departed from this world we achieve that place of eternal bliss. I must be rid of the negative. I must cleanse myself of the thoughts and manifestations which hold me back. I must allow myself to be myself regardless of the conventions of society? It is not that I do not fit in this world I am just not sure how to be in the world. That may be it. I am not conscious of myself. I do not know myself, how if not knowing myself would it even be possible to share my life and existence with another. How can I be me without self knowledge? How can happiness follow, or come into my heart without preparation. So begs the question how does one go through life for nearly 39 years and not know the self? Have i always been unaware? Why did the awakening that took place in June also make known the unknown? Not knowing the self was not an issue. Wandering through life in bliss unawares. Why would an awakening of the spirit bring also this about. Perhaps I knew before but now I question? I have questioned in the past. Questioned my path and direction. Question my life and method of living. Question and accept? Oh yes, and change. I have not had to question in a long time. Just sitting and waiting and letting life occur. Questioning the presence. Questioning the ability. Questioning the necessity. Questioning the material. What is needed, what is desired, how to live and serve. Happiness in service to another. not serving another but serving the self? Removal of the self, the ego, from the process to be pure in the attitude. And so misery is a state of being reflecting only the desires that go unfulfilled. Happiness from the connection with the spirit, connection with others, and connection with the self. Release the desire. Release the unobtainable. Release that over which we have no control. Live life today in this moment.

Daily Meditation:

Past and Future are a duality of which Present is the reality. The now-moment alone is eternal and real. - Why Lazurus Laughed by Wei Wu Wei

The now. Current. The past is not real, the future is not real only this moment and it is eternal. The future is what gets me. It is the gig. What is to come about? What future pain will be endured? What pleasure will come? How is it possible? Living in the present looking always to the future state of what might be and lost then is the moment. Just so with the past. It is past. Gone. Hardly a memory as not much is remembered any longer. But the haunting of the past. Those incidences that return to mind and consume. The past as a specter of doom. Consumed by a thousand forms of fear. Current - Interesting. The river is the current. The stream from the spirit is also the current. Current, right now this moment. The same river twice because when we step out of the river we are stepping out of the current and into either the past or future. River current sweeping us along and carrying us to a destination of love. Let yourself go to be consumed and wrapped up in the current moment the stream of universe. Drifting in the current with faith.

Grace. I want to speak on grace. It for now is the word that resounds within my mind and speech. Walk in beauty and grace. Act with grace. Each movement we make filled with grace. The Grace of the spirit fills us and permeates our being. The grace. Tell me about grace. When action contains grace there is no self. "Full of hope, full of grace is the human race." I do hope there is more on grace to follow.

Daily Meditation:

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together. - The Beatles

We each of us comes from dust and to dust we shall return. Regardless of culture, regardless of training, regardless of believe in the divine whatever occurs we come into this world and we depart from this world. Everything in-between is life and living and dying. Measure our existence in love. Create and give and grow in love. Foster love in your heart and soul and give to each a measure of love worthy of return. Is love pain? How can the love in the heart hurt so very much? Bitter. Like a strong pulled shot of double espresso that was roasted for a minute too long. Bitter.

My friend Ed lost his father this morning. They were all together on the Cape for a visit. Being an old man where better a place could one want to go and die. If you would please lift up Ed and his family today in your prayers. Greatness is not so much in deed. Father and son reconciled before death. Forgiveness on both parts.

Once in a dream, remember I do not know my dreams often. I saw a place a place of bright white lights streaming through darkness, traveling in space it seems. Coming together and coalescing. Great comfort in knowing this too was in that we are all one bound in a fabric of light. We all each of us has within a divine spark. Bright light within that shines forth. Let your light shine through your eyes, the windows to your soul.

Wondering. A day of wondering. Thought just now of suffering. The nature of suffering. The theory states that energy can not be created or destroyed. There is suffering in the world. the world has all the suffering it will ever have. We accept and take on the suffering of the world. In taking on the suffering, we alleviate and lessen the suffering of another. The law of the conservation of energy also states that energy can change forms. Therefore it seems that suffering can be transmuted into love and love into suffering.

Keep the peace of the divine in your heart today. Share it with all to whom you come in contact. Know the peace of happiness and joy and love.

What is a real man? Define. By society and self.

Daily Meditation:

The Void is not of the nature of a black abyss or a bottomless pit. Rather is its nature 'vast and expansive like space itself'. It is apprehended as 'serene, marvelous, all-pure, brilliant and all-inclusive'. Above all does it partake of the nature of light. And it is not anything. For Void is Mind Itself, and Mind Itself is Void. - Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei

The void. at this time the void is like a hollow place in my stomach and heart. A vast expanse that heaves with the pain of a wound being left open. The void of the self and the knowledge that one day the void will be healed and whole again just for myself. And so we make the journey to the edge of the abyss and must take the leap of faith to jump. Standing at the precipice the light is bright and nothing else can be seen. Stepping off into darkness or stepping off into light we enter a place of faith within ourselves. Choosing in the past to take a leap of faith from the lions head...Choosing to trust in God. Choosing to walk guided by the spirit. Why then take back the walk, why recant?

The void of the universe. The void of the spirit. Filled with everything and filled with nothing. The void containing the essence of life. The void containing all of that which is impossible to define and control. The void which is understood at a base level. Knowledge of the void and its being truly innate. Like putting your hand in a flowing stream of pure crystal waters. Feeling the flow of the cool blood of the earth coursing. Knowing too that is the feeling of the spirit washing over and through every cell and fiber of being. Knowing the peace that comes from being at one. Why then is this so elusive. Why then do I not stay in that place and dwell in the comfort of the spirit all the time. why is it necessary to take back and destroy that connection? Why interrupt the flow. Building dams in the streams. Why block that which is natural and good and healing. Why accept the pain and suffering when the solution to the pain and suffering is so easy so right there so grand. One step. One baby step.

Peace.

Daily Meditation:

Living should be perpetual and universal benediction. - Why Lazurus Laughed by Wei Wu Wei

I forgot this idea over the past week. Not really forgot but lacked full practice. I have spent a week in pain and depression. Spent time feeling sorry for myself and in pity for losses. People lost, pets lost, family lost, position and place lost. Set adrift without mooring. Forgetting the eternal bond to the spirit. Tied to the dock of the universe as it were. The ocean waves washing and trashing even close to port. Safe harbor of the lord. An appeal for help. Oh god I am in need of your healing touch. I am need of your guidance and care and grace. Give myself to you, all of me. I seek and do your will in my life today. Make be a vessel, a hollow bone. Work through me and in me this day. With every step with every breath allow me to remember to look toward you.

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. I am ready for action. I have a concept. I have an idea. I have a place to be in the world and an ability to create. I have the equipment to outfit a glass studio. I need a place to outfit. I am learning who I am. I need to know where I am going. I keep thinking of the collective conscience and the 100th monkey.

The 100th monkey story... A monkey finds a sweet potato in the sand and eats it. It is dirty. Monkey figures out he can wash the potato in the stream to get the sand off of the potato. Another monkey sees this and mimics the behavior. Mothers teach their children monkeys how to wash potatoes before dining. Other groups of monkeys see this behavior and pattern after. Soon whole bands of monkeys are washing the potato. When the 100th monkey learns to wash the potato a tipping point on the collective conscience is reached and then every monkey instinctively knows how and does wash the potato before eating. Granted this is just a fable but it illustrates a possibility.

There are too many people with the same idea. An idea of a public access art center in Oklahoma City with a glass blowing studio as a cornerstone. That is the idea. How to make it a reality? How to put into action the creation and implementation of such a place.

There are many questions to be answered. There are questions of which I have not even yet thought. There are questions without answers. There are answers just waiting to be discovered.

Daily Meditation:

Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height. - Buddha

Knowing truth, keep the truth. The lamp. What is a lamp? Bringing forth the light of love and peace and truth. The lamp not hidden away but shining bright from within. The lamp of the heart, of the soul. The lamp is a symbol of knowledge and truth and the light of the spirit. Across cultures the lamp is seen as a that which dispels darkness and ignorance. You are the truth, you hold the truth. It is up to each of us to be the holders of the light within ourselves and let our truth shine forth. The seeking of truth from another is not possible. The truth given by others is good. but one cannot take the truth of another and use it alone. That universal truth, the common grounding force but be taken in and assimilated into the being of the individual. That truth that comes from teachings but not remain written in a book and known in the mind. That truth must come out of the book and impressed upon the heart. In knowing and showing and fostering truth one becomes.

Reminds me of an old saying on the road. Oh ye Grateful Dead - Keepers of the Eternal Flame...Can I bum a light.

Daily Meditation:

This is the way of peace: "Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." - Peace Pilgrim
Love, truth, good...peace. Overcome. Overcome. Walk in the way of peace. with each step forward into the world know the peace that comes from being in contact. Establish that contact often. Take no action without forming that contact. Bring forth your relationship with the spirit in everything you do. That being established, being felt, and being seen, go out. Go out into the world and walk in peace. How? Start with the above. Do good, praise good, foster good in yourself and others. Plant seeds of goodness wherever it is you go. Evil is easy. It is fast and sly. Evil is not known as evil until late. Evil cloaked in good. See through the veils that hid the underneath. See through deception. See through fear and anger, find the root. Evil is a harsh word. the evil in our hearts can be as small as self loathing. The evil in our minds as easy as self deception. The evil in our bodies in not taking care of ourselves. Evil creeps. To call it evil is painful but as you say truth hurts.
Knowing truth we overcome the lies. Telling ourselves lies and half truths. Contradictions. The things I thought two weeks ago are not the same as I think today. Taking care of myself two months ago and the protections and walls that were build can be taken down today. Truth is both changing and immutable. The truth that stands universal and the truth that we know for a moment. The river is the river and yet the river is a different river each time we step into it. Wants and needs balanced with truth and love.
Love overcomes all. Love of man, love of self, love of the spirit. There is no room anymore for hate. There is not room any more for anger. The pain and the anger must be cast aside once again. We have to clean out our hearts and minds and places inside where we keep our hate and associated feelings and thoughts. With nurturing love we will open up to the whole of ourselves once again to the possibilities.

Daily Mediation:

Honen Shonin taught people that it was enough to simply recite Nembutsu. He firmly believed that true Buddhism should be able to be practiced easily anywhere and at any time.

Whereas the base of this meditation does not sound inspiring it contains a truth on prayer and mediation. It can and should be practiced everywhere, all of the time. It is too easy for us I think to look at our time with God as separate from the rest of our day and our being. Let us take a moment in the morning to clear our heads and make ourselves known to the universe. Welcome into my life on this day...help me to be of greatest service today...And then a moment at night upon our knees before bed. It is the in between that needs the walk with the spirit. And so we make that contact and the threads that connect us to that being thin and fray, they stretch and pull and at times yes are broken. The thing about that connection with the spirit of the universe is wondrous in that when that connection is severed it is easily reestablished with a simple act. Simple is the action. Difficult is the release of the ego, difficult is the becoming humble, difficult is letting go, difficult is belief. It is time child. It is time.

Daily Mediation:

...always try to be sincere and to be introspective. 3. We extend the circle of prayer help one another and try to contribute to the promotion of social purification as well as to peace and welfare.

I trimmed down the mediation today following the take what you like and leave the rest philosophy. Accepting everything as part and parcel as the whole it not always necessary. It is alright to hear something we like and integrate that into our philosophy and not pick up the whole. Granted there are some teachings that belong together as an entire grouping and philosophy and way the taking bits and pieces out of that cosmology is not fair to either the belief system or too ourselves as practishioners of those beliefs.

Pray for peace. Be peace. Change in the world comes first from change within ourselves. Prayer has the ability to transform. It transforms the heart and the soul. Often times we hear that when there is something wrong with the world and a situation that has gotten us upset that there is something also wrong with us. We hear that when someone has disturbed us. When we feel slighted or hurt or angry over another. That is the time we need to make prayers for them. Focus on them and pray for their health and help and that God may become known to that person and the grace fill them completely. And so in our anger and pain we reach outside of ourselves and pray for that from which our pain is cause and thusly we transform ourselves and our suffering to be joyful in another. I think in this way we build, we build ourselves and the positive in our hearts. We transform and purify ourselves. That place inside that has been building with anger and pain must be transmogrified. To maintain and feed that does damage mainly to ourselves but colors all the relationships we have with others. The color of that pain is reflected outward and touches others, touches our interactions and perceptions. Freeing ourselves allows all other relationships to flourish and grow in a loving manner the way chosen for us to live by the will of our creator. Heard yesterday - before I can pray for the health and help and healing of others it is necessary for me personally to be in a state of humility ready to be healed myself.