Daily Meditation:

It is not for us to search but to remain still, to achieve Immobility not Action. - Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon by Wei Wu Wei

Wu Wei - when nothing is done, nothing is left undone. This is interesting on many levels. Adding to it on this day is the not doing. Not searching. Look around. look around. Where did I put my keys, my wallet, that $20, my mind, my center, my calm, my peace, Where did that elusive go? Looking and searching outside the self for those things that are within just not ready to be exposed.

I think we are busy all the time. Running and doing and driving and thinking and eating and manipulating and controlling and trolling and praying and meditating and exercising and studying and reading and thinking and crying and laughing and... When do we not? When do we let go and just be? When do we sit still and let the spirit enter into us into our lives. Let ourselves go if only for a moment to allow stillness, not searching. Just be if only for a moment. How to just be?

Daily Meditation:

But if you do not find an intelligent companion, a wise and well-behaved person going the same way as yourself, then go on your way alone, like a king abandoning a conquered kingdom, or like a great elephant in the deep forest. - Buddha

And so it is. Drifting through life. Walking alone on occasion. Walking with others on occasion. Looking being, sharing time with another to have direction and guidance, friendship, companionship along the way. I give thanks to the many friends and family that have walked along side me for so long. Thank you also for knowing when I needed to walk alone along the way.

Happiness

I speak on happiness on occasion here. I found the 43 Folders website discussing Life Hacks - ways to change, improve the experience of living. They do have a nice page on hacking happiness... http://wiki.43folders.com/index.php/Happiness
Check it out

Daily Meditation:

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. - Heraclitus

Interesting that this one arrives again. I think it is reminding me to give up my adult constraints. Give up the need to control. Trust in the spirit with the faith of a child. I think that we put our trust in God. We put ourselves in God. Bad things happen, good things happen. We lose are trust in god. We lose are belief. Maybe not lose but why would god do this to me? to them? Release the pain, the shame, the questioning.

Even when you lose, don't lose the lesson. Same goes for winning.

Daily Meditation:

There I was, poised in space, a disembodied eye, invisible, incorporeal, seeing but not seen. - R. Gordon Wasson, 1957

Transcendence. To rise up. Every once in a while a glimpse of what is possible is given and then pursued. The moment of leaving the body. Connected and yet disconnected. Free again.

I have enjoyed a description of enlightenment used in Judica. I thought the enlightenment of the Buddha is one that once it comes it is forever there. A state of being that is enlightened. I heard then that enlightenment comes and goes. There is a state that is achieved and then it dissipates and normal living continues until next time enlightenment arrives. This is much better for me to grasp. It also gives hope in that I have had those moments of enlightenment. Moments of clarity. The blinders removed and the way clear.

There are shortcuts to enlightenment.

Read "Be Here Now" by Baba Ram Das. This book will transport you to that place with it's wisdom. Being there it is good. but we have done little work to get to that place. We have bypassed the learning along the way of the journey. It is really not the destination. It is the learning that takes place along the route to the destination. All to often we are wanting to arrive, to get to that place. We forget about the process of getting there.

And the Wheel turns round.

Daily Meditation:

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play. - Heraclitus

Intent. The single moment. Transfixed by the passion of the moment. Nothing else exists except for that place and that moment. So light how can it be serious?

Mike Black and the Stingrays

Happy Birthday, Elvis.

The Townies

The Norman Townies

Smokin' hot at the Blue Moon on the Paseo.

Music musings: drifting in and out of harmony with self, god, the universe, and mankind.

Daily meditation:

The true holy person who follows their practice and the words of the Buddha, who applies that teaching to their everyday life, will light up the world with their beauty. (The Holy Person, v381-382)

Their practice is key. Each of us separate and alone make up the belief that is each of us and the universe. The universal one is that which is each of us. Every one has a singular belief. Many share an idea of God. They attend the same services, the listen to the same teachers, they follow prescribed rituals. These things on the outside give the illusion of belief in the same higher power and yet individually there is only one true god. That one true god is yours and yours alone. When you practice your faith and your beliefs the world is aware. You shine from within and the reflection of that relationship is the loving force drawing in. Look now not to others but to the self to assure your relationship with your guiding force of the spirit.