Daily Meditation:

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden. - Buddha
It is true. The holiday there was no storm. Expected storm. prepared for storm. Harmony occurred. In a peaceful place. one. relax. Removal from the fray of my own making in my mind.
Good stuff.

Daily Meditation:

What we appear to be is a fleeting shadow, a distorted and fragmentary reflection of what we all are when we no longer assume that we are that phenomenal appearance. "The Tenth Man" by Wei Wu Wei

a glimmer...blowing away the illusion. Parting the curtain as it were. There behind the curtain is the reality of who we are. Like that disembodied head of the Oz. Strip away the ego the largeness of who it is we think we are and there left just a man. Big talk of wondrous and frightening truths. Left with that which we can see and do and touch and taste and feel. Strip off the old.

Feeling just a little off. Sort of the holiday jitters. Something about the holiday season really gets me off kilter. There is the gathering of people. Expectations. Of course this year will be pie and brownies, and sweet stuff I am no longer partaking. Need to get some food to take on Thursday. Maybe some cheese. Mediteirian Deli tomorrow and some of that good ham. I think the expectations. I just have a difficult time trying to figure out what to say to people. It is not horrible. I enjoy seeing folks and eating and hanging out, but there is just some thing off. This is also the first year I am going alone in many years. This adds to the stress somehow.

It is all going to be alright. This I know.

Daily Meditation

There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth -- not going all the way, and not starting. - Buddha

The journey always begins with the first step. So they say. Who is they? If you do not take that first step there will be no progress along the route. One step then another and baby steps of Bob.

At which point does the journey end? Truth. We talk of truth. Truth hurts? Why should truth hurt? Why cause pain? If it is truth is should set up free should it not?

Too busy to process this today.

More to come...

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.