Build a Workbench/Cart from Bed Frame Angle Iron

Build a Workbench/Cart from Bed Frame Angle Iron
Great project.

Daily Meditation:

It is less what one is that should matter, than what one is not. - Wei Wu Wei, "Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon"

I think that says what we are not is more important. Confusing. I think spiritual writers often are set upon confusion. If it sounds really cool and mystical and somewhat shrouded in mystery then it must be of a higher truth. Whereas I think sometimes the expression of the spirit can not be put into words and it makes it difficult to understand and translate into what we can comprehend. One of the gifts of the spiritual talking is to be able to say anything at all even contradictions and it makes perfect sense. Oh yes, I see. Correct. How insightful....(ten minutes later) what the heck did he just say?

Cool Site of the Day:

instructables : altoids clock
Now this is cool. Thanks dude, for the tip.

Daily Meditation:

This is the way of peace: "Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love." - Peace Pilgrim

Doesn't that sound easy. Oh yes, be good, be true, and love. There is really no greater mandate is there? All the saints, all the sages, all the prophets, all the children say love. Be truth, speak truth, seek truth. Even when bad is done we know the good, why is it so difficult then to act in goodness and mercy? Awareness of actions. Awareness of our actions upon others. All too often I act in accordance with myself. I act not in a way in accordance with the harmony of the universe. I act and give little thought to feelings or impact upon others. Stop now before action. Stop and give thought to the process. Stop and acknowledge the action and movement and impact. Make changes before the action. Slow down. Think. Act in accordance with the nature. The golden rule of which every culture is taught. My actions do not reflect that rule. But in slowing down, thinking, changing and then acting perhaps my actions can become the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Daily Meditation:

There is none dwelling in the house but God. When a man is awakened he melts and perishes. - Jalaluddin Rumi

Rumi is a really interested fellow. When I was on the road there was a group of folks at dead shows called the Spinners. Joseph was their "leader" and there was a structure and hierarchy to a group with no structure. They made patchwork dresses and sold them for cash and would travel to Guatemala twice a year for cloth and what not. I kicked around with them in Berkeley for a while. They had some land donated to the tribe in Philo CA. Stephen "earth dog" Temple took me up there in the summer of 91. It was a great place. Communal, they had a great room and a really nice temple. We would wake in the mornings and go to temple. We would great the day with chanting and then spinning. It was a nice time there in Philo. I could have stayed I think. The spinner took aspects of many religions and combined them into something of their own. It was a sort of blend of Rastafari, Krishna (Hindi), Sufism (thus the spinning in the nature of the Whirling Dervish), Deadheadism, some animism, and Christian influence as well. So the influence of Rumi was great in this sect of mad spinners from the dead tours. They had priests and prophets. I have not heard anything as of late about them. Come and go and touch our lives and leave impressions upon our souls.

When man awakens. We become one with the spirit. The spirit moves through us and in us and we are one with the spirit. The constraints of who we are dissipate and we are whole. maintaining that state of being seems to be the difficult part. Looking forward to a time of peace within. I think that when everything settles out all will be well in the world. I know this is not really true. Life continues and the struggles go on but there is a lessening of pressure. I am ready to have things completed. Ready to move forward. Seemingly stuck. Wonder still where it is I am supposed to be and do. It is like a massive alteration in life and what is to be.

letting go of the self. Like the pebble letting go of the bottom of the stream. letting go to float up and be taken by the current. remove the self and let the spirit carry us to where it is we are to be. Letting go and flowing on. forward, sometimes caught up in a whirlpool circling for a while to be tossed out and back into the flow. Ron said last night if you are coasting in this life then you are going downhill. I just think I am ready for direction and completion. Obviously not or I would be complete and where it is I need to be. And so it is when I am ready. The place is ready. The time is ready. All of those things ready. It will be to where it needs to be.

I guess it begs the question. What is it I want? And still I can not answer that question. I have ideas. I have notions. but I do not really know what it is I want. I see aspects of what I want in many things and yet the just perfect direction is not clear. If what I want has everything that goes along with it makes the change. I know I was somethings that I can not have. I know I want and desire and those will never be fulfilled.

Do they say to just give up looking. Stop seeking. It is then it will arrive? That is difficult to do. Certainly give up the need, give up holding on, give up the dream? If we give up the dream what then do we have?

Time to move on...

On NPR

Heard today. We have survived the death of our first sun. What a great analogy.

Coffee Musings

Who ever said god does not have a sense of humor has not seen my life. It is a tragedy designed soley to crack up the Spirit.

Posted via cell phone, edited later via browser.

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

Well so it seems the universe speaks loudly and i am nearly deaf. Thunderous voices, flaming arrows, 2x4's all combine to get my attention and oblivious am i. Create joy, create happiness, live today and fully today. These three are like horsemen the hopelessness, loneliness and despair are tragic. tragic. They spread and infiltrate. an underlying current. Overcome them with joy. overcome them with love and compassion. Everyone effected by those three and others when living in that negative space. It is time to get rid of the negative. Going through that process. Seeing the negative and its impact in my life and the lives of those I touch has been sobering.

Thank you for bareing with me.

Daily Meditation:

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. - Buddha

I think often times we believe what we hear. We take, for lack of a better word, it as gospel. Often we do not even run these things through our personal filters and mechanisms for knowing truth. Of course we have spoken of subjective truth and the dynamic nature of said truth. That which is right in the moment is not right in the future. I suppose that is the nature of the metaphor. What if it is not really a metaphor. What if it is a truthful situation and the tale is told the words are not understood and thus become a metaphor so we really do not have to understand what was being said or communicated. It is easier to say. Oh it is a metaphor instead of having to know what it truly means.

I say things all the time and then later I wonder what it is I said. People will say something I said and I do not even remember what it was I said. The context changes as well. Those things said in one situation do not apply to another and even in the same situation the words no longer apply the same way. It is like words are that flowing stream. It changes all the time. The words flow and change and evolve. Did you ever play that game where you say something and then the next person tells someone and then the next. How often does everything change? Does it ever come back correctly? We hear that often. Words we have spoken taken out of context or different meanings for the words we use. One technique used in counseling is to make a statement and have the other person repeat what was said or what they heard in order to assure the conveyance of ideas is accurate.

More to come... I hope if time allows.

Daily Meditation:

Play your part in the comedy, but don't identify yourself with your role! - Why Lazurus Laughed by Wei Wu Wei

How sad it is, I have been playing a part in a tragedy over the past few little whiles instead of playing in a comedy. Time to shift the focus. I am me. I am not a role. I am the whole of me always. Different situations call for different assets and aspects to be pronounced but it is still the whole of me in that situation. of course not knowing the self it is difficult to be. So the role is what we think others want us to be. Acting the way others expect us to act. Doing what we think society desires. Conforming to a ideal that can really never be achieved or assimilated into who it is we are. Yet, forced to behave in socially accepted ways. It can not be done. It is so very against my nature. Try as I might I fail.

Daily Meditations:

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

There is no ego? There is no ego. There is us. Just us. The whole of who we are. There is no separation within ourselves of the Id, Ego, or SuperEgo. There is not diversion. There is our thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions. We are who we are. All else is mute. arguments and oppositions, didacticism and Socratic philosophies aside, we are simply us. And so it is thus that the struggle over the past few months has been for naught. Battling an ego that does not exist. Fighting against a nature. Fighting an enemy that is not really there. Doing battle in an arena where the only one to show is the self and the self locked to eliminate the self. A mirror image of the self locked swords. a vision of the Colosseum in Rome. Alone among all the seat. Standing in the dust. drawn and ready, heavy of breath and heavy in armor. waiting for the release of the lions. waiting for the arrival of a foe. Waiting for the arrival of the king and court and citizens ready to witness a battle. But alas always and forever alone even there where others are meant to be.

And so. like the dog chasing the tail. Round and round. round and round. Thank you for a real good time. The illusion of the self. illusion of the ego. It is fun. It gives us something to do. It allows us a diversion. We do not have to really change. We do not have to grow. We do not have to be any different then we ever have been. Why would we want too? Can we really make a change? Fundementally, at our base, is it possible to change who we are? Do we accept who and what we are, accept our true nature? We go on. We make progress and change in areas about ourselves. We do thinks differently today. We think before acting. We seek counsel before acting. We pray before acting. We seek. And now these things are different within us so our actions are different. But as we are differnet in aspects of ourselves are we really different at our core? Is my authentic self the same or has it evolved and grown or devolved and withered?