"Just do the next thing, one thing at a time." - Glennon Doyle Melton A dharma friend Zoomed and asked what special event I had planned for the thousandth blog. I appreciated the enthusiasm, but I had to tell her I had forgotten about it. A few weeks ago I had noticed it was coming... Continue Reading →
"Give, only if you have a little." - Buddha, aka, Gautama It's always felt like a silly little word, give. A lot of power though, not in the giving, but in the letting go. In Zen Buddhist terms giving is called "Dana." And in the west we invariably equate Dana with money. And all the... Continue Reading →
"It's strange how simple things become, once you see them clearly." - Ayn Rand I am always fascinated by the idea that in some way I can see things clearly. It's a big encouragement in some meditation circles, to see clearly. See it for what it is! Don't buy into your stories, just see life... Continue Reading →
"A disciplined mind brings happiness." - Buddha No it doesn't. I mean it could if it existed, but for me in my experience, it doesn't. Wow, how arrogant I must be to go against the words of the wonderful always right Buddha. But listen, this is another comment attributed to the same guy. Buddha's having... Continue Reading →
"A person playing a role will eventually forget their lines....... Pay attention, the act can't go on forever." - Kendrick Perkins I'm always wobbling around when I end up with a role. I was involved in a project and part of a group discussion. My "role" was to formulate an agenda with another person and... Continue Reading →
"If you try to fix people, sooner or later you're going to be the one who needs fixing." - Dr. Nitin Perhaps this is why I avoid the label "Teacher." It narrows to this fine line, am I "teaching" or am I "fixing?" Do I want to "teach" from a position of sharing information and... Continue Reading →
"When the heart truly understands, it lets go of everything." - Ajahn Chan If you're a meditator you've probably heard the "Let go" phrase a lot. Spiritual authority is build on the silliest things. Like the awesome skill of "JUST LETTING GO." We have these images of people floating through personal disasters and the evils... Continue Reading →
"An ending is not the end." - k. Tolnoe It's all relative. I mean everything. Contingent. Mysterious. Unknown. It seems every time I think I know something, I don't. Ah-ha turns to Oh-no. No wonder I occasionally suffer from anxiety, worry, fear, and the dreaded feeling that I'm never going to figure out what my... Continue Reading →
"You are the answer to all your questions." - Ama Ma When I initially discovered Zen and Buddhism I was thrilled that soon, I would end world suffering and probably my own. Like a small child I raced around for a while attempting to find some Guru who lead me directly to myself. Finally a... Continue Reading →
"I'm not jealous (greedy, self-obsessed, narrow-minded,) but what's mine is mine." - unknown Mine. It's mine, they are mine, and that's mine. Inside, in my strange little interior world that only I know, I live out of two perspectives. And lately I've been noticing I'm not the only one. It feels as though we all... Continue Reading →
"To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give." - Taisen Deshimaru Giving is a wonderful thing. I have, then you have. A simple direct transaction. A movement from A to B. As a species you would think we would have this down, this giving thing. But what I find over and over, is... Continue Reading →
"Every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unmapped mysteries." - Dean Koontz Sometimes I don't have to pay attention to life's unfolding miracles, it raps me on the forehead yelling "Hey, look!." Life has these mysterious threads of people, places, and things that seem to gravitate and gain my attention at different times,... Continue Reading →
"We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings." - Albert Einstein Occasionally, due to an inability to grasp reality, I find myself at odds with humanity. In my experience, when I have no contact with humans, life is pretty balanced and understandable. Things work, or they don't. Things are or they aren't.... Continue Reading →
"I would like to live as a river flows, carried by the surprise of it's own unfolding." - John O'Donohue I am angry at my left foot. Well, left leg really. In some beliefs the body is seen as a vehicle, in others its seen as a part of whole. And lots of different chatter,... Continue Reading →
"Death is not the greatest loss of life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us as we live." - unknown. That's it isn't it? A few people seek to expand an inclusive view of accepting life by meditating. Sitting quietly and experiencing the flow of useless thoughts that they once found so fascinating. And... Continue Reading →
"The only thing I keep learning over and over is, I don't know nothing." - Dwayne Johnson Exactly so, Dwayne. Some Dharma friends and I are examining what constitutes Deeper Teachings. You know, really deep, deep, teachings. What seems really important is finding someone who is the possessor of said deep teachings so they can... Continue Reading →
Sometimes people come into your life for a moment, a day, or a lifetime. It matters not the time they spent with you but how they impacted your life in that time. - unknown Which I guess means I need to try to pay attention to them. And it's not just people, butterflies too. Carol... Continue Reading →
The difference between responding or reacting is choice. - Henry Cloud Except a reaction is based on reflex and reflex is an automatic conditioned movement. It's not a choice. For me, it becomes a choice only after the reaction has risen and I have experienced it in attention. It's like flipping the light switch when... Continue Reading →
"The only spiritual life you need is not to react. - Robert Adams Reflexive reaction? Or measured response? Robert's statement means more to me than I ever could have believed. Although he's wrong about not reacting, for me spiritual means to acknowledge the trigger and the feeling of reaction, and wait through the feeling until... Continue Reading →
"Sometimes the most profound feelings are the ones words fail to express." AbcRadio.fm How are Ya?............................. I'm Ok.....................How are you? I wonder how many thousands of times I've been through the above in one form or another? It's always been the opening salvo in the Midwest. Testing the waters. It works well, this "Hello, lets... Continue Reading →
"The biggest risk a person can take is to do nothing." - Robert T. Kiyosaki Of course, Bob isn't talking about meditation. Because in meditation there's nothing to do. I'm just sitting and being. That is the point. Being is the point, not doing. Despite all the activities the "spiritual authorities" like to spin around... Continue Reading →
"I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life." - George Burns What an exciting time of year, of life, really. Yesterday I noticed a lot of buds on everything. The Japanese Maple is fun to watch as it dresses itself quickly once the buds appear. Seemingly... Continue Reading →
"It was sad music. But it waved it's sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done it all it could, but you were still alive." - Terry Pratchett I am so tired of people attacking sadness. As though it's some Covid like emotional ailment that couldn't possibly be a "normal" part of... Continue Reading →
"Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out." - Robert Collier Well, I'm not really sure about that. I have this image of someone working on a factory line doing a numbingly small task day after day for 50 years. But maybe that is success. I know people who... Continue Reading →
"Never apologize for what you feel, it's like being sorry for being real." - Lil Wayne He nailed this. Not from Gautama the Buddha, but from the American music scene. Yesterday was the rarest of days, in terms of being human in a state of being. I was fortunate to have two different conversations that... Continue Reading →
"The challenging is not to be perfect, it's to be whole." - Jane Fonda A wonderful quote from someone who was famous for reasons I never understood. Like a lot of "famous" people in this world, she grew up famous already. If mom or dad is famous, so are you, it's a default issue. Yesterday... Continue Reading →
"I love mankind! It's people I can't stand." - Linus van Pelt Linus has a point. As unpleasant a point as it is, it's still a major philosophy among the human species. How do I know this? Every time I find myself in a group of people, whether I know them or not, and someone... Continue Reading →
"Do something today that the future you will thank you for." - Unknown I always think of the future me way up the timeline somewhere. Like the future me exists only after so many days have passed to be official. The official "me" of the future is almost always an improved me, at least in... Continue Reading →
"The Sound of the Rain needs no Translation" - Alan Watts and Impermanence 1956, The family had this molded vinyl, beige record player and it weighed a ton, the harbinger of the newest pollutant, plastic. It had 33 1/3, 45, and 78 as the preselected speeds one could use to play records. One of the... Continue Reading →
"The Truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable." - James A. Garfield Only if you think it's TRUE. The TRUTH. Identification of something that is always exactly what it is, permanently. No matter what. I don't know if you've noticed, but nothing in this part of the universe is exactly... Continue Reading →
"What Story will you Tell?" - Advertisement A commercial appeared for hair dye and presented this statement at the end, with shots of redone blondes, brunettes, and redheads, smiling, having fun, and hanging around with the upper class. Racing cars and going hot air ballooning. Of course all the models were the 1% of 1%... Continue Reading →
Having a need and needing help isn't a sign that you're weak. It's a sign that your human." - Kate Northrup A while ago I came to the conclusion that being human has to be the most challenging experience in the universe. It's a life sentence of changing perspectives on self and others, attempting to... Continue Reading →
"We are all craving to be deeply loved." - unknown Sometimes we talk about things like wanting, craving, and desire. There are some pretty powerful statements about moving away from the pull of these things in the world of meditation. "Let go of wanting, craving, and desire, and you'll be, you guessed it, HAPPY! (It's... Continue Reading →
Yesterday you said tomorrow, just do it." - Nike Nike. I like the assertive tone, It's like having an irritated parent. But, I'm an expert in delaying things. Mostly things that I don't really want to do anyway. So it's helpful to have rude companies around to remind me that I'm a responsible adult. "Just... Continue Reading →
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." - Henry David Thoreau I love movies. I was one of those children who became addicted to television at a young age. I'm convinced my mother was thrilled with the new babysitter/mentor/parent that now sat against one wall. I would carefully place a... Continue Reading →
"Determination, energy, and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something. We take risks that unimaginable in any other context." - Margaret J. Wheatley Another way of saying the background matters. Backgrounds are interesting. A play needs props for it to be what it is. A script written about the civil war needs civil... Continue Reading →
"In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which." George R. R. Martin I guess. The hard part for me is the whole idea that there's nothing that's truthful anymore. It' started with the words, "Fake news." And people selling lie after lie. And that's the... Continue Reading →
"I used to tolerate a lot because I didn't want to lose people, but now I realize those aren't my people. Set boundaries." B. Ongany Boundaries feel selfish, egotistical, and they probably aren't a way to achieve permanent popularity. And they don't fit the popular "spiritual notions" of a giving person. The Boddhisattva image. "I... Continue Reading →
"Love everybody, but never sell your sword." - Paulo Coelho Well, that's it. In a focus group yesterday a woman was going on and on about Peace. Mostly about how we are all going to expire if global peace doesn't break out soon. So, after twenty minutes or so, I interrupted and asked if she... Continue Reading →
It's becoming more truthful, at least for me, that life is indeed made up of moments that are cobbled together, the gaps filled in with miscellaneous illusional/delusional memory, and presented as my "Journey." And it's whatever happens to be retained, maintained, and remembered that counts. You know, the big stuff. One of my reoccurring memories,... Continue Reading →
"If you have the ability to love, love yourself first." - Charles Bukowski Generally I really like most of what C. Bukowski offers, and that includes the above sentence, it feels so truthful and meaningful. It seems to open a door inside, that reaches to a greater, deeper, emotional field. Of course, I have no... Continue Reading →
"Your perspective on life comes from the cage you were held captive in." - Shannon L. Alder Social/cultural conditioning accounts for a lot of what flows in streaming thoughts, how I feel about most things, what moods rise and fade, and how I make my so called "independent decisions." I'm not sure I'd voice it... Continue Reading →
"Every Ego wants to be special. If it can't be special by being superior to others, it's also quite happy with being especially miserable." Eckart Tolle I think one of the most difficult life lessons is about seeing my own ego. We call the self-centered-if-it's-not-all-about-me-it's-not-about-anything part of us by a lot of names. Ego, Conditioned... Continue Reading →
"Between the way things are, and the way things should be, there is a field of suffering when I cling to the way things should be. - Ama Ma
"Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself." - Tom Wilson Although one does wonder about the trajectory and perspective that spending time experiencing planet earth's experiential offerings give us as a gift. Perhaps a form of compensation as we become increasingly age experienced, a way to balance life.... Continue Reading →
"That feeling when you don't know what the hell you're feeling." - Unknown It started with the garbage. It's not just the garbage, but lately, despite knowing how lame the recycling system is, I keep hoping to cut down on us building anymore refuse mountains next to our freeways, by gamely separating stuff, to make... Continue Reading →
"We don't have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known." - Anthony D'Mello If Tony is right, and I believe he is, no wonder there's so much fear and anxiety on this planet. Giving up the known. That's an interesting phrase, isn't it? But is it the "known" or... Continue Reading →
"Everything has beauty, not everyone see's it." - Confucius "Well, look on the bright side." Sometimes I want to cringe when I hear that. Part of being human is being a bag of chemical and electrical interactions that will drive how I think and feel, and creates much of what I call the perspective of... Continue Reading →
Attention is the rarest and purist form of generosity. - Simone Weil Recently I've been paying more attention to attention. Especially what's called undivided attention. And I've realized how important attention is to us as a species. When we are present with each other we have our attention. When one of us isn't present, it... Continue Reading →
"Being alone has a power that very few people can handle." - Steven Aitchison Of course, I'm not sure "power" is the right word. I mean who would I think I was powerful over? Myself? It feels more "safe" than powerful. There's an Ok-ness about being being alone that doesn't rise when I'm with others.... Continue Reading →
"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them." - Ernest Hemingway Very Zen. Very Practical. We were exploring trust in a small group yesterday and the subject of "learning to trust" came up. It seemed to be a theme all day yesterday. How do people who don't "trust"... Continue Reading →
"People who know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do." - Isaac Asimov I wonder what Isaac's nickname is? Recently I've become more aware of how many superior advanced people there are on the planet. The meditation culture, regardless of what formula you want to follow, is made of people who... Continue Reading →
“Opinions are fantasy. They may be based on fact or not. Opinion presents personal bias and pre-conclusion. Opinions are language trading cards, we use them to gain value and hope to make them true. – People’s Dharma Circle
“The quality of your life will depend entirely upon the focus of your attention.” – Huber
Visions of a People's Dharma 