River's Chi House

A Revision and Re-Post of the Introduction to My Blog

2011-07-20T15:55:00.013-05:00

The first post of the blog starts at http://riverschihouse.blogspot.com/2006/07/meetings-with-remarkable-men-and-women.html but the content has been revised and posted here.

Sunday, July 30, 2006Meetings With Remarkable Women and Men!

(to see the photos found on the original post click the link above that leads to the original post but read this updated revision,)
The photographs going from top to bottom and left to right: Yulan Fucius also known respectfully and with love as Lady Fxi. My Gibeaut. River Gibeaut. Sheik Fazal Inyat Khan. Sheik Hazart Inayat Khan,. Sheik Nur-al Jerrahi and Kuan Yin.

My intent for this blog was originally to be a place where people can come to learn to heal with chi. It was to be a place to share information about chi kung or qi gong (pronounced chee kung) in general and medical chi kung in particular. I have revised my initial intent and so I am revising this post and will continue to revise it and other posts on this blog as time goes by. The world and my life are not static and just as the world and I change so will this blog.
My current intent for this blog is NOW changing as I write this into what I do not know yet. It was first just about healing and was then about being a place that examines the Unity of All things and how that dynamic unity effects us as a species and as individuals. Now it is just a place that I hope some people find helpful.
What a thing of wonder this self-awareness called life is. We know so little and are so young as a conscious species. We have no idea where we are or what we can and cannot do but we must make choices based on some kind of hope or understanding almost every second. We are in many important ways spiritually, socially, psychotically, and physically a reflection of our choices but we are so much more than that. It is very helpful to appreciate the impossibility of understanding more than a fraction of almost anything that is important in our lives yet even the smallest seemingly insignificant choice we are compelled to make can have enormous consequences through time and space and dimensions. The more we can appreciate the almost absurd beauty and comedy of living with so little understanding the more beautiful our lives can be for us. The good thing is that understanding even a little of the dynamics of the interactions between our self-awareness and the energies within the Unity can help us be more successful in realizing our intentions as we navigate the winds and currents of the Unity.
I have posted various studies and observations about a wide range of topics as well as my own experiences and thoughts about the nature of various relationships within the Unity including chi kung and healing. I urge you to feel free to submit posts or make comments. Not very many people have chosen to do so over the years but hope spring eternal in my chest. I will also be posting links to other sites where you can deepen your understanding and experience about some of the things I think are helpful to study and practice. Breathing techniques, posture training, practitioner, teachers, healers, and support groups and much more, inshAllah will be here in a variety of forms.

Now for a little about chi kung.

What is chi kung? Chi kung is an ancient and integral part of Chinese scientific and healing culture. Chi means energy or life force and kung means theory and practice or science. So loosely translated chi kung can mean the science of energy or the theory and practice of energy cultivation.
Many western people have a hard time understanding chi kung because there is no western equivalent. Sense yoga has been a part of western culture for a far longer time it might be helpful to see chi kung as Chinese yoga. Chi kung is a recent term for what might be understood as Chinese yoga. It has been called many names by it's practitioners before chi kung. But chi kung is now the widely accepted term used for the study and practice of energy cultivation. India and China have a long history with each other and yoga and chi kung practitioners have influenced each other for hundreds if not thousands of years.
Like yoga, chi kung recognizes a human being as a radiating field of energy that is an integral part of larger and smaller fields of energy. These interrelated fields exists within an all encompassing field of energy. Mystics call this field many things from God to the Void. Scientist in the West might call it the unified field. The Chinese call the energy field of the earth, Earth energy and the rest of creation Heaven energy. They say all existence is comprised of Heaven and Earth and exists within the Void.
Western medicine sees and understands a human as a physical/psychological/social being. While western scientist can understand man as energy and part of greater fields of energy, western medicine does not. This is slowly and erratically changing. Touch for health and Reiki and chi kung are showing up more and more in individual western medical practitioner treatments. But for all practical purposes there is no integrated energy medicine in the west like there is in Asia.
What benefits are there to understanding and practicing chi kung? Well lets think about that. If we are in fact, energy beings and our energy field does manifest as a body/mind than it makes sense that the stronger the energy field the stronger and healthier the body/mind. By the same logic the weaker the field of a human being the weaker the body/mind manifestation nest pas? So if you want to maximize your health and strength, than learning how to cultivate your energy field is very important. It is particularly important if you are sick or hurt in any way. Chronic fatigue and in indeed, any autoimmune problems are clear examples of problems that desperately need chi knug treatments and practices.

I believe we live in very difficult and dangerous times. The institutions that were created to help and guide humanity through times like these are, to say the least, suspect. They have far to often, hurt more people than they have helped. Religion has become a place of exclusion and repression. Schools have turned students into test takers, dropouts, and cynics. Medicine, including alternative medicine, is like playing Russian Roulette with your health and your wallet. As for the political leadership here and around the world, I find them corrupt,criminal and contemptible in the extreme. Even marriage and the family is more myth than reality when it comes to being a safe place of love , trust, and openness. Now that I have said the above I must also say that there are many many exceptions, thank God. The Sufis say that a good student can learn from anything, even a sign on a road. Bad students learn very little even from the best teachers. So that is what I believe about this so called civilization that is to me more a cage than a shelter for humanity. Now, what is there to do given the nature of the beast that has us by the throat? I say first we learn how to be good student of the games of Life. Than lets play. Perhaps we can turn this cage into a womb, or we can make friends with the beast and turn it into something a lot more useful and beautiful. Who knows what is possible until we try?

I think some of the best games life has to offer deal with being healers, explorers and adventurers. Let us set out from the safe harbors of our beliefs and cultures and see what we find beyond the horizon. Let's be like travelers who meet in oasis's and taverns and camp fires and exchange information and stories from and about the lands and adventures we have encountered on our travels. Let us particularly share stories and information that can help straighten and heal the planet and all the beings on it.

I come in a good way

There is an expression that is used by some tribal people when entering a village for the first time that I like and use. "I come in a good way" or "I walk in a good way". It means I come in peace and my intent is good and harmonious. So I come in a good way and I walk in a good way to be with you who read this blog.

I will post as many chi kung exercises as I can on this blog. I will also post non Chinese exercises and practices as well when I think they will be helpful. I urge anyone who practices an exercise to share their experience with us. Anyone who knows good healing energy exercises feel free to post them here. Before I post my first exercise I just wanted to let you know about how I see the social world we live in and explain a bit of my intent.

A little more about me.
I am an American of French/English/Shawnee/Cherokee blood. I spent a lot of time outside the US and entered the dervish (Sufi) path in 1972 after meeting and living with Fazal Inayat Khan. ( grand-son of Hazart Inayat Khan). You can learn more about them at their web site. http://www.sufimovement.org/ I had my first introduction to the healing arts at his school ( Four Winds) in southern England. I took hand (joined) with Sheik Nur al-Jerrahi (Lex Hexon) and the Halveti-Jerrahi Dervish order in New York City. You can find more about them by visiting their web site. http://www.nurashkijerrahi.org/lineage.htm My most loved Sufi teacher is Sheik Gemel a Turkish sheik of the Halvetti-Jerrahi living in Toronto Canada. I love and honor him in this world and the next for his friendship and guidance. I have always considered myself a student of Jahladin Rumi and Shems of Trabiz. They are Sufi mystical teachers from 13th century Turkey. I urge you to visit a web site devoted to them.http://sunlightgroup.blogspot.com/
I am also a chi kung student/teacher for the last 15 years and a medical chi kung practitioner and massage therapist. Mr Hilton Tam from Cleveland Ohio is my teacher and friend and inspiration. I recommend his treatments and teachings to any and all in need of help or of a teacher. (I was told recently that Mr Tam has now retired.) ( HILTON TAM. 2999 PAYNE AVENUE 44114 CLEVELAND UNITED STATES phone (216) 861-1447 fax (301) 884-8499) It is through Mr Tam that I came to know and love Kwan Yin the Chinese Goddess of Mercy ( fourth photo ) . I will be posting a number of her pictures on this blog. I have had the privilege and pleasure to have studied with many other teachers, Hanna Kruger and Lady Fxi being two of my favorite and most inspiring.
I am happily married to a wonderful woman named My and I have two step sons Asher 16 and Diamond 19.
There is a Sufi saying that " God treats you like you treat your lover." I believe that if you do nothing else found on this site except to chose to treat your lover the way you want God to treat you your life will become much more beautiful and fulfilling to you. There I think that is enough for now. (smile)
If you are in the Pittsburgh PA area I live and teach and practice in Etna feel free to contact me. Rivgibeaut@msn.com or through this site. If you want to explore this site in some kind of order it might be easiest to start in the beginning and move foreword from there, just click to the beginning at the top of this page and start there.

The Guest-House
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture. Still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice –meet them at the door laughing,and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
(Mathnawi V, 3644-46, 3676-80, 3693-95)Coleman Barks, "The Essential Rumi," Castle Books, 1997

Daskalos & the Researchers of Truth -

2011-02-15T21:24:00.000-05:00

Daskalos & the Researchers of Truth -

From the web site.

Daily Introspection Practice
Each night just prior to sleep (when your subconscious is more porous)
inhale and exhale in a 4:4 pattern and relax completely. (4 beats of the
heart during the in breath and 4 beats of the heard during the out breath)
Either lying in bed or sitting up (try not to fall asleep!) begin to recall the day
from start to finish. Review each event, each encounter, of the day and
with full impunity and leniency towards yourself and others ask yourself the
following questions:

What did I think or feel that I should not have thought or felt?
What did I not think or feel that I should have thought or felt?

What did I say that I should not have said?
What did I not say that I should have said?

What did I do that I should not have done?
What did I not do that I should have done?

The goal is not to scold (nor to praise!) yourself or others, but simply to
observe your activity and work to correct your behavior. With time you
will grow more accomplished at seeing yourself and will find that your
moral, spiritual and mystical life will accelerate in growth.

2010-12-02T09:34:00.000-05:00

Notes from the Open Path are short contemplations written by Elias Amidon on aspects of "the Open Path" - an approach to living whole-heartedly and in clear awareness.

If you would like to receive Notes from the Open Path directly, send an email to openpath@sufiway.org with that request.
December, 2010

Coming to Terms with Death

A woman recently asked me for a spiritual practice that would help her “come to terms” with her serious cancer. I gave her a number of practices that I trust will be of benefit. But her request is still present with me – perhaps because all my life “coming to terms” with my own and others’ dying has been an ever-recurring theme.

What are death’s terms? We can believe all sorts of things about this: judgment, heaven, hell, reincarnation, annihilation, nirvana – but what do we know for sure? Perhaps the only thing we can know for sure is death’s inevitability. What death is, in itself, remains a mystery. And can we even say that death is?

Inayat Khan, the great 20th century sufi mystic, once remarked, “It is death that dies, not life.” Death dies? Life lives? What could he mean?

It is obvious that our personal lives and our individual bodies come to an end when we die. On the other hand, it is also obvious that a continuous stream of endings has been taking place every moment since we were born. I remember my father phoning to tell me, some thirty years ago, of a vivid dream he had of me. In the dream I was about four years old, curly-headed and cute, just as he remembered me. When he woke up he suddenly realized that that little kid was no longer here. “He was dead,” is how my father put it. And then my father cried his heart out.

Indeed, my four year-old self has vanished, along with all my other past ages. My body is nothing like it was at four years old. Neither is my personality. If I look closely I can even see that now, day to day, the assumptions I make about being a specific person who will stay the same until death, are just that: assumptions. When I look deeply for “me” I don’t find anything that stays the same.

Of course there is a sense of subjective continuity that is fueled by seeing the same face in the mirror every day, having the same tone of voice, the same general likes and dislikes, the same opinions, habits, and memories. But if I step back and look at all these seemingly constant attributes of myself over the space of a few years, I see that they too are as impermanent as everything else in my life. “I” don’t seem to be anything but a current of experiences and thoughts. And since the current is always changing I could say that I am always dying – dying to the previous moment. This dying is so ever-present, so simple and natural, that I don’t even register it is happening.

In this view, death’s inevitability is not simply a future event – it is spontaneously occurring for each of us every moment. You can check this for yourself by asking: Is anything the same as it was a moment ago? We can see that even our loyalties such as “I love you” are flowing from one depth to the next without ever repeating. Yes, we have the “same” memories, but even then we never recall them in exactly the same way or with the same affect.

While all this may be evident – the utter impermanence of everything we experience – do we not also have a sense of some “quality” that does abide as the essence of our being moment to moment? What is it? What is this that we feel is not subject to change?

For an answer we might return to Inayat Khan’s pointing out: “It is death that dies, not life.” I understand this to mean, firstly: that our idea of death, our projections and expectations about it, these die. Secondly: once free of all expectations and “terms,” free of all attachment to embodied forms, we realize the nature of the life that does not die.

What “life” is this that does not die? We may think this is a nice religious notion, but can it be experienced by us now? I believe it can, and that this experience of undying life is not simply a religious concept but is the very nature of our being at this moment.

Let’s go slowly here. It is obvious that organic life-forms die. But we can also recognize them as radiant and impermanent expressions of the infinite energy-event that is occurring spontaneously everywhere now. The spontaneity of this infinite occurrence is the life Inayat Khan is speaking of. This spontaneity, this life, is not a thing, nor is it a specific organic process. It doesn’t come and go, and it isn’t subject to birth or death. Spontaneity in this sense, and life in this sense, transforms the idea of now into a verb.

I know this is difficult for our minds to be comfortable with. We are used to thinking of life as organically based. We think of inorganic forms – minerals, elements, atoms – as non-living since they don’t reproduce. But imagine for a moment the vibrational nature of matter and energy, how its “humming” keeps everything going. What invisible grace powers each frequency of wave form? What is this “energy” that we speak of so easily? Is it not alive in the most primal way, “reproducing” the entire universe moment by moment?

We don’t need to get too metaphysical with all this. We can simply turn our attention back to the “quality” I mentioned above: the sense we have of an abiding essence of our being, moment to moment. Notice that this “essence” cannot be experienced as a substance or an entity. It is simply an awake presence, spontaneously occurring. To say anything more about it would be misleading, and even saying that much may tempt our minds to objectify it.

This spontaneously occurring awake presence is the universal life we are. It is identical to the spontaneously occurring energy-event that spins atoms and galaxies, crashes waves on the shore and thunder in the clouds, grows babies in the wombs of mothers, puts joy in our laughter and grief in our hearts. It is the life behind all forms. It is so resplendent and generous it appears as everything we know, yet it doesn’t fix itself as anything whatsoever.

If we want to “come to terms” with death, we should start by noticing the impermanent nature of everything that appears. Once impermanence is fully embraced, the fear of death diminishes. Beyond that, we learn to welcome the direct recognition of this spontaneously occurring awake presence that we are right now. It is beyond our personalities, memories, likes and dislikes. This may be the most exacting challenge of our coming to terms with death – and with life: leaving all hopes, fears, demands and terms behind.

Full Body Massage (50 Minutes)

2010-08-28T16:08:00.001-05:00

Now for a bit of a break and a good healing. Can you imagine that the one getting the massage is you? Just let yourself feel as though you are being massaged as you watch as much or as little of this film as you like.

200+ Table Stretching Techniques (57 Minutes)

2010-08-28T15:50:00.000-05:00

Mark Shefsiek is a healer worth going to see

2010-08-19T16:22:00.000-05:00

My friend and healer, Mark Shefsiek, now has a blog on his thoughts and ideas on healing that is worth visiting on a regular basis. I know I will. Mark worked on me for many weeks after my second operation for cancer. His work helped ease a lot of pain and suffering I was going through. He is a man and healer who walks his talk.
http://meditativemedicine.wordpress.com/

2010-08-05T04:36:00.005-05:00

I have used Jin Shin Jyutsu for years for a host of problems, The techniques are very easy to learn and do and very helpful. I urge you to try some of them. The 2 links below are good places to go for more information. You can also check my post on Jin Shin Jyutsu, http://riverschihouse.blogspot.com/2007/04/blog-post.html

http://jsj-holds.blogspot.com/

http://www.flowsforlife.com/

2010-08-02T11:05:00.001-05:00

From the Sufi poetry of Hafiz, as rendered by Daniel Ladinsky:

Not With Wings
Here soar
Not with wings,
But with your moving hands and feet
And sweating brows--
Standing by your Beloved's side
Reaching out to comfort the world
With your cup of solace
Drawn from your vast reservoir of Truth.
Here soar
Not with your eyes and senses
That turn their backs
On the earth's sweet stumbling dance
Which needs you.
Here love, O here love...
And with your heart on duty
To the souls of rivers, children, forest animals,
All the shy feathered ones,
O here, Pilgrim
Love
On the holy battleground of life
Where there are bleeding men
Who are calling for a sacred drink,
A gentle word or touch from man
Or God...

BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | James Kwak and Simon Johnson Pt 1 and 2 | PBS

2010-08-01T17:28:00.004-05:00

Click the title above to go to Bill Moyer's Journal and get more informationion,

How did Big Finance grow so powerful that its hijinks nearly brought down the global economy – and what hope is there for real reform with Washington politicians on Wall Street's payroll? Bill Moyers talks with authors Simon Johnson and James Kwak, two of the nation's most respected economic experts and authors of the new book 13 BANKERS: THE WALL STREET TAKEOVER AND THE NEXT FINANCIAL MELTDOWN.

Magical Travel: 25 Places With Healing Powers - Online Nurse Practitioner Schools

2010-07-27T06:32:00.000-05:00

Magical Travel: 25 Places With Healing Powers - Online Nurse Practitioner Schools

Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells - Hardcover - Random House

2010-07-25T19:02:00.001-05:00

I just finished "Pandora's Seed" and am reading "The Journey of Man" both by Spencer Wells. The two books have helped me to understand a little more about the birth and development of the central paradigms we have lived under for the last 10,000 years. If we do not understand how we got here it will be even more difficult to find our way to a more healthy and meaningful paradigms. We need to educate ourselves way beyond our current understanding if we are going to take part in a peaceful and loving evolutionary Revolution. Click the link below to read about them.

Pandora's Seed by Spencer Wells - Hardcover - Random House

2010-07-25T16:19:00.000-05:00

Fear of the Inexplicable
by Rainer Maria Rilke

But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished
the existence of the individual; the relationship between
one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of
endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the
bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively
from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of
the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident
that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a
place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and
down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous
insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in
Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons
and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.

PsyArt is an online, peer-reviewed journal

2010-07-24T13:23:00.000-05:00

A Course in Consciousness

2010-07-24T13:04:00.003-05:00

home

2010-07-22T19:54:00.003-05:00

8 PIECES OF SILK BROCADE

Chi Kung / Chi Gung for Asthma - excellent Chinese exercise set

Chi Kung / Chi Gung for Arthritis - excellent Chinese exercise set

Introduction to Chi Kung

2010-07-22T18:31:00.001-05:00

Changing minds and persuasion -- How we change what others think, believe, feel and do

2010-07-20T07:03:00.000-05:00

Changing minds and persuasion -- How we change what others think, believe, feel and do

Deepak Chopra - Learn how to meditate

2010-07-19T12:51:00.001-05:00

TechnoCalyps - Part I

2010-07-17T18:03:00.005-05:00

TechnoCalyps - Part II - Preparing for the Singularity

FDR Fireside Chat. 2nd Bill of Rights

2010-07-10T19:56:00.001-05:00

See how far we have come or not. Obama needs to find his inner FDR>

RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism

2010-07-10T15:33:00.000-05:00

Come with me and Hafiz and sing and dance with LOVE!!!

2010-07-09T19:47:00.000-05:00

A Golden Compass

Forget every idea of right and wrong

Any classroom ever taught you

Because

An empty heart, a tormented mind,

Unkindness, jealousy and fear

Are always the testimony

You have been completely fooled!

Turn your back on those

Who would imprison your wondrous spirit

With deceit and lies.

Come, join the honest company

Of the King’s beggars –

Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns

And those astonishing fair courtesans

Who need Divine Love every night.

Come, join the courageous

Who have no choice

But to bet their entire world

That indeed,

Indeed, God is Real.

I will lead you into the Circle

Of the Beloved’s cunning thieves,

Those playful royal rogues –

The ones you can trust for true guidance –

Who can aid you

In this Blessed Calamity of life.

Hafiz,

Look at the Perfect One

At the Circle’s Center:

He Spins and Whirls like a Golden Compass,

Beyond all that is Rational,

To show this dear world

That Everything,

Everything in Existence

Does point to God.

--Hafiz

Pema Chödrön- Why I Became a Buddhist

2010-07-09T17:49:00.001-05:00

This woman is a TRUE HUMAN BEING. I have read almost all her books and have benefited by them all.

Bo Lozoff -- Life is Deep (prison talk)

2010-07-09T17:41:00.000-05:00

Gulf Oil Spill : Toxic Popsicle or Extinction Event?

2010-07-09T17:26:00.000-05:00

The post below is from the Rag Blog which you gan find by clicking the tiltle above.

A speckled crab -- and an American flag -- are encased in a thick layer of oil just offshore from the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge. Photo from BP Slick.

Methane in the Gulf:
Is the oil spill a toxic popsicle
Or an extinction event?

By Bruce Melton / The Rag Blog / July 6, 2010

Tar balls have hit Galveston now, observations from Monday show patches of oil south of Vermillion Bay, Lousiana, half way between New Orleans and Texas, but poor observation conditions due to rough seas may be hampering the identification of oil.

The oil spread models for the Gulf south of Western Louisiana and Eastern Texas show that strong southeast winds have set up a strong westward current that could result in impacts to Texas.

NOAA says there is a 60% chance that Miami Beach will be hit, and although the models show the oil ejecting far out into the North Atlantic on the Gulf Stream, NOAA is saying that it is increasingly unlikely that anything north of North Carolina will be affected.

It is also interesting to understand how these models work. The current NOAA model says that the "coastlines with the highest probability for impact (81 to 100 percent) extend from the Mississippi River Delta to the western panhandle of Florida...”

Science is science. There are industry standards in the world of science that dictate how scientists behave. To say that there is only an 81% probability of oil hitting the coast from Louisiana to Florida, may be perfectly valid to a computer modeler. But tell that to the wildlife, the fishermen, the business owners and the generation (generations?) of people who will have to live with the results of this modeling.

The model uses 90 days of spill at 33,000 barrels per day, or just about 3 million barrels (120 million gallons). The official Deepwater Horizon Spill Response numbers for what is actually coming out of the blowout are between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day or up to 2.5 million gallons per day.

As of July 6, the 77 days of spill could have released 4.6 million barrels or 193 million gallons of oil. This would be equal to 17 Exxon Valdez spills. This volume of oil is now approaching the level of the largest spill ever -- the Gulf War spill in Kuwait.

British Petroleum (BP) says they have captured about 10 million gallons of oil and 28 million gallons of oily water.

Eighty one thousand square miles of the Gulf are closed to fishing, an area larger than the six New England States and New Jersey combined. Enough boom has been placed to almost stretch from Pheonix, Arizona to Pensacola, Florida. More than 45,000 personnel are working the spill with the on and offshore response. More than 1.7 million gallons of dispersant have been deployed.

Five hundred miles of shoreline are oiled, but the area of marsh impacted is not readily available. I was able to dig up this quote from Plaquemines Parish (on the Mississippi delta in Louisiana) president Billy Nungesser: “Well, they can go to Pensacola and find tar balls. If they want to find 4,000 acres of thick oil, destroying wildlife, eating up the marsh, where everything is dead, come to Plaquemines Parish.”

What Nungesser is saying is something that is feared in the environmental community. When oil soaks a marsh, it not only kills the vegetation, but it can form a seal on the marsh muck where the marsh plants have their roots. Once this happens, oxygen is cut off and the roots of the plants die, along with all of the life that lives in the muck (a lot more than just crabs and crawdads).

Without this life, the countless number of air channels and decomposition gas pockets (think of rotten eggs) and root paths that gave the marsh muck that good old mucky feel -- well, all of that collapses. Once it collapses, it can take years, or even decades to regenerate.

So now we have a situation similar to that in the Rockies, where the forests are dying because their changed climate is just too warm. The foresters say that the trees will grow back in 100 years but in 100 years the temperature will be 13 degrees warmer than it is now. (The Rockies will warm like the polar regions -- at a much greater rate than the rest of the planet.)

If the forests are dying now because of a few degrees of temperature change, how will they grow back with five times that much change?

In Lousiana, the marshes are already struggling with sea level rise, subsidence, and lack of sediment nourishment. But that will not complete the death sentence of the marshes. Sea level rise is rapidly accelerating.

For most of the 20th century sea level rise was about 1.5 mm per year. Since the turn of the Century it has jumped to 3.4 mm per year and is rapidly accelerating.

I know 3.4 mm per year doesn’t sound like much, but it is cumulative. And the Army Corp of Engineers has recently published a report stating that, in healthy ecosystems, when sea level rise reaches 7 mm per year, the dynamical processes will begin to disintegrate -- meaning that even healthy marshes will disappear. How will these marshes devastated by oil be able to cope?

To keep some of the spill from hitting shore, 275 fires have been set in the Gulf to burn oil corralled by containment booms. These fires are the fires that have reportedly burned sea turtles alive, confirmed by testimony from NOAA scientists in a Huffington Post article on July 2.

The wildlife report below is of course the official statistics for the subject. None of the turtles burned in the 275 offshore fires were included in this report. These are just the numbers of reported impacts by the official collectors and rehabilitates. The actual number of impacted individual animals is also unknown, but it's likely to be far in excess of the official statistics.

CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE.
The Ixtoc blowout in the Bay of Campeche in the far southwestern Gulf of Mexico in 1979, the second largest oil spill ever, dumped 140 million gallons in nine months. The Deepwater Horizon spill surpassed this milestone in late June, after about three months. The difference in scale too is dramatic. The Ixtoc was in 160 feet of water and the well was 10,000 feet deep. The Deepwater Horizon is in 4,100 feet of water and the well is 18,000 or maybe even 25,000 feet below the ocean bed (there seems to still be some uncertainty involving the permitted and actual numbers).

There is a big difference between the Deepwater Horizon oil and that from most other oil wells because of the amount of natural gas in this particular oil field. As a result, this spill contains enormous amounts of natural gas, or methane.

This methane has caused a lot of trouble beginning with the actual blowout itself. Natural gas in an oil well is common, but not in large amounts and it is usually not a good thing. A lot of natural gas makes things even worse.

This well pushes the limits in many ways -- with the combination of the deep water, the deep well, and the high natural gas concentration -- and then we add in the technical mistakes, which we won't be able to fully determine until sometime in the future.

The methane continued to cause problems, as the oil recovery devices started to became clogged with methane ice, or what is really called methane clathrates -- a combination of methane and water ice that can freeze when the temperature is above 32 degrees and the pressure is high enough (like at the bottom of the ocean).

But this is not the worst that methane can do. Texas A&M Oceanographer John Kessler says that deep-ocean methane levels from the Deepwater Horizon blowout are hundreds of thousands of times higher than background levels and even approached one million times higher than normal in some of the samples that his team made while researching the “oil plumes” around the blowout.

One million times greater than background is indeed astonishing, but when put into context it becomes all the more sobering.

Methane is the same as the natural gas that we burn in our stoves. It is a greenhouse gas with one carbon and four hydrogen atoms. It has a global warming potential many times that of carbon dioxide, but when burned as a fuel only emits 71% as much CO2 as oil and 56% as much as coal. (Some say it could be a good transition fuel to get us off of coal.)

This well has a tremendous amount of natural gas, estimated to be 40% by weight of the total spill by Kessler and 50% by Samantha Joye at the University of Georgia. This is compared to about 5% from normal oil deposits.

By day 160 of the blowout we will hopefully have the pipe plugged. It should be well into August when the relief wells are finished. But we should note that it took the Mexican oil firm Pemex nine months to get their relief well to work on the Ixtoc blowout -- a well that was only 10,000 feet deep in 160 feet of water. And by the time 160 days have elapsed, the Deep Horizon will have spilled 236 million barrels of natural gas.

To put this much methane into perspective, we have to understand its global warming potential. Normally, we know that methane, as a greenhouse gas, is capable of capturing about 25 times more heat than carbon dioxide. But recent studies have shown this to be low. Because our planet is warming and the natural CO2 sinks are slowing, methane really has about 34 times the heat trapping capacity of CO2.

But wait, that’s not all.

The figure of 34 times the heat trapping capacity is for time spans of 100 years. In the not too distant past, this was an appropriate time span to consider for climate change. But that was 20th century climate change. A decade -- a half generation -- has passed since those times. The climate change times scale of relevance today is 20 or 30 years, not a century.

So when we realize that the heat trapping capacity of methane should now be based on a short 20 or 30 year times scale, the number increases to something more like 62 times more potent, not 34, or even 25.

So methane has a warming capacity that is 62 times more than carbon dioxide. And when we calculate the global warming potential of those 236 million barrels of methane, it is equal to about 5 percent of the total U.S. transportation fleet emissions of carbon dioxide. This is one incredibly huge well.

But are the emissions really important? Doctors Kessler and Joye are finding that little of the methane is making it to the surface. It is becoming dissolved in the great ocean depths and suspended with the oil in those massive plumes.

Microbiologoic activity then begins to consume the methane (and the oil). It is this bioactivity that consumes the oxygen in the water and creates hard times for the organisms that live there. Kessler and Joye said that oxygen depletion had not reached a critical level yet, only falling about 30 to 40 percent below normal. But this was about three weeks ago and at the time they said that, levels were falling 1 to 2 percent per day.

This oxygen depletion would put the waters in question down in the 4 ppm (parts per million) range. Levels of 2 ppm stress most fish. Levels below 1.4 ppm are deadly. The plumes are still 30 to 40 miles long, miles wide and thousands of feet thick. The closer to the well you get, the lower the oxygen content is, and the higher the methane concentrations.

From all over the oil-impacted coastal areas, we are hearing anecdotal reports of strange fish behavior, of sharks and turtles congregating near shore, dolphins disappearing, and that sort of thing. There are also reports about other oxygen deprived waters in the Gulf that are not associated with the great Mississippi Delta dead zone for which there are no ready explanations.

Dead zones are increasing significantly in our world’s oceans because the oceans are getting warmer (warmer water holds less oxygen) and because of increased nutrient runoff from agricultural industrialization. But further study is needed concerning these new Gulf of Mexico dead zones.

Methane occurs naturally in sea water; it is released as a byproduct of the decomposition of organic material. The organic material gets there because of the constant cycling of life; fish live and die and organic debris is washed into the oceans from rivers, but mostly it comes form what is called primary productivity. This is the planetary sized mass of life that creates half of the oxygen on Earth -- the algae and plankton of the oceans.

These single and few celled organisms are like grass and trees on land. They are the fundamental building blocks of life in the oceans. There are approximately 50 gigatons of primary productivity in our oceans (one gigaton is a billion tons). To put this to scale, there are about 2 gigatons of crops on earth.

Over tens and hundreds of thousands of years, this natural production of methane collects in sediments. Below a couple of thousand feet in depth, pressures are so high and water temperature is generally cool enough that the methane decomposition products can freeze, just like the natural gas coming out of the busted blowout preventer froze and clogged up the top hat spill collector that BP had deployed.

The frozen methane, or methane clathrates, collect in the ocean sediments and over tens and hundreds of millions of years form oil deposits deep below the ocean floor.

This is where the methane that clogged the top hat oil collector that BP deployed came from -- four to five miles beneath the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

But the formation of the shallow methane clathrates continue to this day. The Gulf of Mexico contains some of the greatest shallow methane clathrates deposits in the world and the oil giants are itching to get their hands on them.

There is only one problem. Methane clathrates are very unstable. They form on the edge of the envelope of pressure and temperature. Just a little warming and they become unstable. The recent Congressional inquiry into the Deep Horizon incident brought up this point:

Offshore drilling operations that disturb methane hydrate-bearing sediments could fracture or disrupt the bottom sediments and compromise the wellbore, pipelines, rig supports, and other equipment involved in oil and gas production from the seafloor.

Destabilization of methane clathrates has also been identified as a likely culprit in some of Earth’s more punctuating moments. These moments usually took tens to hundreds of thousands of years, as the earth’s climate naturally changed from warm to cold because of solar influences and natural feedbacks.

But at some point, an additional forcing, like an asteroid striking the Yucatan Peninsula, caused a perturbation in the natural cycle. The additional warming triggered the instability of the methane clathrates, great amounts of methane were released causing great warming, and abrupt climate changes occurred that caused great extinction events.

This is a very critical path that our planet occasionally follows . Right now mankind is increasing the CO2 concentration on this planet faster than at any time in the last 20 million years and likely as fast as when the giant asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula and the dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago.

Methane concentrations on earth have started to rise again after a decade of stability. It is thought that contemporary agricultural techniques and their expansion across the world had halted the increase in our planet’s methane emission, and this is probably what happened.

The new increase is likely coming from methane clahtrates in the Laptev Sea on the edge of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean. This area of the planet has warmed 7 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 20 years and the methane clahtrates on the bottom of the Laptev sea have started to vent.

The venting is so great that it rivals all the rest of the methane emissions from all of the rest of the world’s oceans combined.

The methane gas also melts beneath the clahtrates. The heat of the earth can cause free methane gas to collect beneath the solid sheet of methane ice in the sediments at the bottom of the sea. This sheet of ice has become perforated in the Laptev Sea. But what happens when the clathrates are on a slope like in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi Canyon where the Deepwater Horizon is?

In the past, phonemena called methane outburst occurred when their overlying methane ice laden sediment became destabilized. Scars from dozens of massive tsunami causing landslides along the continental shelf of the east coast are evident from prehistoric times.

These things happen when our climate is rapidly changing. Eight thousand years ago when Earth had just warmed out of the depths of the last ice age, a great undersea landslide took place off of the shores of Norway.

It is called the Storrega slide. It was 200 miles across and the slide traveled for 800 miles under the Atlantic Ocean, most of the way to Greenland. The tsunami it produced was 65 to 82 feet tall. The 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, that killed 200,000, was 50 feet tall.

I am not saying that anything of the sort is imminent. I am saying that there are important things to understand about our Earth and the way it operates. So the important things to understand now are that clathrates are unstable on slopes, the Deepwater Horizon is on a big slope, and the product coming out of the blowout is 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

[When Bruce Melton, P.E., isn't practicing civil engineering, he's studying climate change and writing about it. Melton was one of eight Austinites named in the "Heroes of Climate Change" article published in The Good Life magazine in July 2007. To read more of his work on climate change, visit his website, Melton Engineering Services Austin.]

References:

EIA Transportation Sector Emissions in 2008 –
Total CO2 emissions from transportation sector in the U.S. = 1.93 billion tons
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html

Primary Produtivity 50 Gtons in the oceans, 2 gtons in world crops
http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/30382

Methane GWP 20 year timeframe – 62 times more potent than CO2
Nisbet, Have sudden large releases of methane from geologic reservoirs occurred since the last Glacial Maximum, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 2002.

Dr, John Kessler, Texas A&M University, Department of Oceanography
http://tamunews.tamu.edu/2010/05/26/prof-heads-out-to-study-gulf-oil-spill-with-first-nsf-grant/

Samantha Joye, University of Georgia
http://solveclimate.com/blog/20100701/methane-dead-zones-gulf-waters-confirmed-gas-levels-100-000-times-normal

Methane clathrates:
Laherrere, Oceanic Hydrates - more questions than answers, Energy Exploration and Exploitation, May 2000.

The national Methane Hydrates R&D lab
http://www.netl.doe.gov/technologies/oil-gas/FutureSupply/MethaneHydrates/projects/DOEProjects/MH_5668EMCharGOM.html

NOAA Modeling Threat
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100702_longterm.html

Wildlife Report – July 5, 2010
http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/WildLifeConsolidated5july.739707.pdf

Gulf Oil Spill – The Plight of the Sea Turtles, Huffington Post, July 2, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/02/gulf-oil-spill-the-plight_n_634083.html

Stats July 5, 2010, Government Monitor
http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/florida-releases-july-6-2010-gulf-oil-spill-situation-update-34982.html

Tsunamis India 2004: Australian Bureau of Meteorology

The North Atlantic tsunami caused by a methane clathrate slide:
Record Breaking Height for Tsunami in the North Atlantic 8000 yrs BP, EOS, 2003

Stability of methane clathrates on slopes:
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Selected Issues for Congress
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41262.pdf

The oil coming out of the seafloor in Mississippi canyon is about 180 degrees F.
A July 1 interview on the American Geophysical Union blog of marine goechemist John Farrington, one of a group of scientists of the Consortium of Ocean Leadership at Louisiana State University.
http://blog.agu.org/geohazards/2010/07/01/oil-spill-science/

The Rag Blog

Posted by thorne dreyer at 10:00 PM
Labels: British Petroleum, Bruce Melton, Climate Change, Climate Science, Ecology, Environment, Global Warming, Gulf Coast, Nature, Oil Spill, Rag Bloggers

4 Make/read comments:
Anonymous said...
Besides the obvious ecological damage, had the BP well (and the entire potential oil field) been developed safely, logic dictates that this field would have served America's oil needs for the next century.
Of course, this in itself brings up a three-fold problem.. (1)Lotsa Oil Equals no interest in alternative fuels. (2) The cost to develop alternative fuels is still cost prohibitive. (3) Any actual Production of Alternative Fuels is also too cost prohibitive (has been since the mid-'60's!)
Never understood the second and third parts.. If "corn squeezin's" are so damn cheap, why are we being charged so much for it?? Oh, I know.. Government Regulations, Subsidies, etc. To pay the BIG Oil Companies making BILLIONS of dollars in Profits PER QUARTER!!
Never Been a fan of Government run anything, but "Nationalized Oil Companies" (not seeking a 75% profit margin), run by competent people, NOT political appointees nor elected buffoons, just might result in plentiful and affordable gasoline (sans alcohol and stable at under $2.00/Gallon) for the masses.
Bottom line: The USA NEEDS a complete and comprehensive regulatory position, as it relates to oil production, that is strictly enforced by knowledgeable people... NOT former Oil Company Execs, Lobbyists, and other criminals.
It has been fairly commonplace when Tech Industries move into a geographical area to "set-up shop" that during the time the facilities are being constructed, the area "Junior Colleges, as well as mainstream colleges and universities taught a syllabus related to the job requirements of the Tech Industry, resulting in an available and educated workforce. Could not the same be done for US Govt Regulatory Agencies? After all, we have four years to "prepare" (well, two, now) till the next election cycle.)..
Or am I being "pie-in-the sky", or just too hopeful that our government and citizenry would do "The Right Thing"?? (actually, it's a "Left Thing" Idea!!).
Charles.

Jul 7, 2010 7:34:00 AM
my little life said...
This is a brilliant article -- and the photo OMG should be on the cover of TIME mag. With so much censorship on this spill, I cannot thank the author enough for this information.

Jul 8, 2010 1:37:00 PM
Anonymous said...
The three devils;Oil, Arms & Drugs.
They are hard to deal with.
smp

Jul 8, 2010 9:43:00 PM
Extremist to the DHS said...
Since you guys have all gotten the WH talking points and continually refer to the BP Oil Spill (which it is). Can we start to refer to the economy as the Obama Death March for Jobs? (which it is)

Jul 9, 2010 12:23:00 PM
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Wake Up and Laugh! Learning to see the world as it truly is

2010-07-07T03:14:00.000-05:00

This post is from a beautiful Buddhist blog found by clicking the title link above.

Seon Master Daehaeng – Discover your courage

July 6, 2010 by Chong Go Sunim

No matter how many thousands of things confront you,

no matter how painful or difficult,

even if someone you love is about to die,

entrust all of these to your foundation,

your inherent nature,

your true essence.

It’s always been taking care of me,

it’s guiding me even now,

so what’s there to worry about?

Just entrust everything there

while going forward.

You need this kind of attitude.

All of those things that confront you are your homework,

the path through which you can grow.

If everything in your life is smooth and trouble free,

you won’t be able to rise above the level

of an unenlightened being,

or understand the hardships facing others.

It all depends upon how well you can handle good and evil,

on how non-dually you can let go of both sides,

even including the Buddha.

Frustration, stress, and loneliness,

and situations where success seems unlikely,

all of these things are the raw materials of your spiritual practice.

So, when difficulties and suffering come,

be grateful for them.

For through these

you are able to practice and to grow.

–Daehaeng Kun Sunim

Portraits & Passages A Memoir of an Artist

2010-07-06T19:59:00.001-05:00

Click the above title to go to his webpage.

NARCISSUS DANCING

An Introduction to a Memoir

The word prodigy used in the sense that the Renaissance gave it has all but been eliminated from use when speaking of contemporary art. No room is given it in the current dialogues of what constitutes mastery, for the visual arts have been subjected to the suzerainty of cultural theory whose agents provocateurs are blind to the magic of the visual executed directly by hand and eye.

Where does that leave an individual born with the innate ability to make a line or a brushstroke come alive on the form of a face or a limb of a body and who loves the poetry in the human image? It leaves him stranded.

So here in a nutshell is where this story begins of someone born to the call of the visual, is allowed in childhood and in youth to fine tune his gift, and then in early adulthood hits the brick wall of a culture turning its back to the enchantment of the hand drawn image.

That’s the basis for the story, but then, something incredible gets overlaid on top of it. This unique individual is also born into a privileged artistic breeding ground whose other participants become the leading artists of their day, and they, by virtue of their artistic decisions, strong arm him from their ranks. And so he finds himself alone.

But that’s only part of the story which takes on the aspect of a Hollywood fantasy as this young artist, who by nature is an unadventurous homebody, stumbles time and time again into worlds that few have access to in any manner that engages, if ever so briefly, real personal dialogues whose substance forms over time a polemic dispute of some significance.

Who would have imagined such an unassuming person would have found himself for over half a year a regular at the family dinner table of the greatest publishing family in the world! It is not something one can set out to do; there is no calculated strategy that could have orchestrated that!

Nor can one suppose it purely serendipity alone; some other factor in play makes this episode but one of a number of intertwining events that now viewed decades later make a compelling dramatic background for the paintings that were made without support or applause.

And how does one judge such a person who fails to win anyone’s favor, who can’t find a niche anywhere, who neither thinks himself brave or belligerent, but simply someone who must turn away from the negativity addressed to him and regain each time a hard earned enthusiasm to start another painting?

Still, this would only be another tale but for the historic moment where the artistic choices of half a century have turned sour and depleted leaving no way out of the nihilistic morass we find ourselves. We are pressed on all fronts by a surfeit of phenomena fragmented and made mute by the weakness of form and the hollowness of intent.

If only we can be freed of the superfluous mindset of the technocratic program we live, we might begin to see ourselves more clearly. The inundation of trivia by non-images parading as art keeps us weighed down in commentary. It is truly an iconoclastic rub. Isn’t popular culture’s mirroring the state we’re in sufficient reflection? Do we need inquiry into the baggage of our frantic lives?

There is no time for respite. Isn’t that exactly what art once gave us- time to regain ourselves, time to let go of the non-essential. But seeing our essential nature is mercilessly rejected by the purveyors of cultural enlightenment who insist they are guiding us to superior comprehension.

The nightmare of this duplicity is the evil of the academic bureaucracy hiding behind what is approved. Just one glance at the outright passive acquiescence of the editors, critics, and professors of “enlightened theory” during the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan says it all. They were all too preoccupied by trivia to focus on events that murdered over a million people. Who among them voiced concern as the artists they wrote about almost universally ignored the subject of war and the direction of our foreign policy? Doesn’t that suggest a complete denial of art as a carrier of consciousness! Shouldn’t that lack of backbone alone be sufficient to demand their stepping down from their exalted stations!

The dispute this artist has with the entrenched avant-garde establishment is their unwillingness to face the essential human condition in any sociopolitical matter of consequence and their reversal of all moral logic and responsibility in its expression.

So, as in one very controversial case addressing the exhibition “Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art” they praise artists who mask genocide in media mockeries while disclaiming as ‘obscene’ the lack of discretion by an artist who employs sophomoric bravado in making images of the horrific. Granted, if in the second instance, the artist ignores aesthetic restraint and turns images of atrocity into illustration more appropriate for the fancies of Hieronymus Bosch; the first instance whitewashes depravity by a numbing pseudo-infantile playacting reducing meaning to parody intent on amnesia. If it were a delicate call on the part of critical oversight to distinguish the two approaches, each failing to convince at opposite poles of the other, the last thing we need is demagoguery; for to do it self-righteously is the greatest danger and illustrates what brought about the Nazi pollution to begin with.

That lack of restraint on the part of critical authority suggests that they are afraid of art’s power to reach the heart and mind of the viewer without the need of their august instruction and its excessive polemical liturgy that, as in the case above, supports farce in place of the integral melding of aesthetic to empathetic purpose. If Kafkaesque immersion has superseded much of our lives; all the more do we need the grounding of the human image made humanely, respectfully.

Now that the aesthetic component in an artwork which once allowed for the viewer the freedom of individual perception and interpretation has been banished from the authorized dialogues, these arbiters of what is important in an artwork have appointed themselves as the supreme judiciary safeguarding enlightened practice. They have taken on the role of priest and prelate in pronouncing the definitive interpretation on any contextual expression obligating the viewer beforehand to what is expected from his or her experience in a programmed response affirming the authorized world view.

Art has always been subject to the dictates of state religion and the supervision of that doctrine’s watchful priesthood by which everyone knows his place on earth and how to petition God in the correct manner. Like the institution of The Inquisition, the Church of the Museum of Modern Art and its avant-garde curia have run the art world with an iron fist, and like all theocracies it ruthlessly eliminates with religious zeal any threats to its sovereignty.

It is amazing the universal condemnation of anyone who deviates from the teachings sanctioned by the leadership and instead offers a simpler and more humane view. Whether in religion or art, it remains a small council of elders and bishops and doctorial critics who lead the flock, and it is only the wayward fool or criminal who leaves their protection and guidance. So this artist finds out what it means to disregard compliance to the new orthodoxy at the given call to obedience to empire – but in this case instead of Pharisee or Jesuit or KGB policing adherence to God and Caesar, it is the avant-garde dispensing justice.

What is startling to the artist is to review a lifetime’s preoccupation on the imagery of death and on man’s inhumanity towards others and see in his earliest images of lamentation and mourning inspired by the structural magnetism of the human figure and its intense evocation of pathos that an obvious parallel demands to be included in the conversation on his works - that the image of the Crucifixion of Jesus symbolically represents a minority demonized and punished for following a different path.

Still, it would take almost forty years before paintings such as The Escape through the Desert would be fully acknowledged as symbolic of the terror inflicted upon the Jewish people. He had not imagined the subject of that persecution to become the core expression of a life’s work, or that his most important images arrive from two parallel stories on the recurrent theme of the suppression and punishment of unique individuals – from the Old Testament Joseph in the Pit and from the New Testament The Passion of Jesus.

One might suppose it seems hubris to paint oneself as Jesus as this artist did in The Burial of Christ, but back in 1964, his sophomore year at Carnegie Tech and wishing to emulate the great painting by Titian, he had no one who could model for it but himself. Yet even then at nineteen he had the prescient knowledge that he would in his own way suffer chastisement for his ambition.

As a youngster of seven or eight he was compelled by the beauty of form and its overwhelming sense of compassionate sorrow in the great figure paintings that mostly were from the Christian repertoire. Later, when facing the instituted iconoclasm of utopian modernism’s quest for abstract purity that at the time of his leaving school turned minimal and conceptual, he would not abandon his passion for the power of the hand drawn figure. He needed no official sanction justifying his dream. He had been summoned.

Of course this artist understood the implications of his use of the Christian iconography. But to paint that way was alien to what was approved that he avoided making polemical statements; it was as yet a private matter. One didn’t understand it was a calling separate yet inseparable from the act of painting. For him the attraction embraced his whole person from the beginning. To paint figuratively meant to paint a holy person, as all persons are holy in that moment that invariably speaks of our mortality yet is of a greater continuum and a greater mystery that all the while returns back to the holiness of a person.

So from the very beginning he understood instinctively to the very depths of his being that painting is the language of compassion – that one approaches painting as to another world, a silent world, and as such remains outside the boundaries of representation by that very enigma. That enigma is the attraction at the heart of representation that holds us suspended - an enchantment if we can use that word to speak of the allure of the question that is never answered – where in the depths of time and space does the soul go.

One never thought or needed to put words to it, to formally think it agenda. Simply, it is a sacrament – a feeling more holy in its doing than any other one performed. One had no appetite for approval dependent on argument and how one measures against another. The holy is simply holy - the work before one that affirms the holiness of life.

The power in those images is exactly what the strict observance against graven images rejects outright. But the purpose behind this artist’s borrowings was compelled not by idolatry but by compassion for the terrible consolation in the act of witnessing. It was never an attempt to express the ineffable, but his images of the Holocaust are treated as sacrilege by those who insist that the vacancy of abstraction is the only decent manner of remembrance and any attempt to express it in human form the sin of iconography and a violation of the humanity of those who were victimized.

Why contemporary art criticism has this iconoclastic abhorrence of visual representation and in its place favors the conceptual play of text and the power of the word is principally a literary demand of techno critics whose pedagogy ascribes greater value to signage than to poetry; and so the ascendancy of the verbally-biased hieroglyphic over visual representation seems a puritanical continuation of the ancient Hebraic prohibition.

Obedience to the commandment against representation had become the central proof of allegiance to the new creed; whereby even the barest trace of content would hold the artist apostate. De Kooning sidetracked this prohibition by violence directed at his women; Rothko would deny even the suggestion of the spiritual. Otherwise, only negation towards sincerity in representation that arrived with the full blast of iconophobic sarcasm of the postmodern would escape judgment.

But this Modern-era renunciation of sympathetically representing human form, especially where it concerns tragedies, makes an insurmountable barrier for art to embrace the whole person of the viewer approaching an image on an empathetic level.

In a letter to the editor, that never saw print, on The New York Times article BONN JOURNAL, Germans, Jews and Blame, New Book, New Pain (April 25, 1996), this artist wrote about why: “It is understandable that the Germans wish to discourage the ‘mystification’ of the Holocaust… It is only through mystification that the collective imagination can build poetic instruments to hold knowledge cross generations, otherwise it evaporates.”

But it is not only on this subject that contemporary criticism rejects a non-ironic representation of the human image. Yet one suspects these pundits’ motives are neither religious nor altruistic, but simply the disingenuous ravings of those in academia who have made art the step-child of critical discourse.

They have used up their stated purview of making art more accessibly democratic to the common intelligence by making it a common pastime celebrating the most banal and often degenerate aspects of contemporary existence but dependent upon their enlightened instruction. So reliance on their intellectual foreplay has become an industry unto itself; and consequently has so emasculated the power of art that it can’t reach the heart and soul of its audience simply by its own means.

If it were not for the promise of the avant-garde having failed us, first during Vietnam, and then Iraq, and now simply the unwillingness of its constituents, its institutions, its periodicals to let go of self-righteous jingoism that for over half a century have held all other views in contempt, this story might not have needed to be written. We have lost our way in this jaded closure of intellectual decadence - a sophistication which long ago denied the simple truth that the human image made compassionately has always had something to tell us about ourselves. If we can only get the avant-garde to get off our backs, we might regain what art once offered in support of our humanity.

Still, despite the example of following in a great heritage far exceeds any other claim for our attention; this artist’s memoir is viewed as vanity. Clearly it is of minor concern but for the cultural stasis imposed on us by our leading institutions. If it were error to align one’s purpose with that tradition now eclipsed by the pedagogical entitlement of the common dressed in the dandy calculation of neo- Duchampian cunning; his parading deserves our displeasure.

So if you’re wondering how the title Narcissus Dancing arrived; frankly it came by accident as this artist twirled before a painting while being photographed in an open space where he often dances alone. Aptly, the painting is called Narcissus as it is the artist who is its model. Still people like to judge; but if others see meanness in self-sufficiency, so be it. He’ll dance to that!

Believing in oneself is the greatest blessing of all; for no one undertakes a great journey without an abundance of faith; for only those with courage go alone to listen in its silence to what the heart can hear and see; how else to find your fate but to enter into sacred places alone.

* * * * * *

Windmill-boom-curbs-electric-power-prices From Bloomberg.com

2010-07-06T15:31:00.000-05:00

To see the source click on the title above.

On windy nights in northern Germany, consumers are paid to keep the lights on.

Twice this year, the nation’s 21,000 wind turbines pumped out so much power that utilities reduced customer bills for using the surplus electricity. Since the first rebate came with little fanfare at 5 a.m. one October day in 2008, payments have risen as high as 500.02 euros ($665) a megawatt-hour, about as much as a small factory or 1,000 homes use in 60 minutes.

The wind-energy boom in Europe and parts of Texas has begun to reduce bills for consumers. Electricity-network managers have even ordered windmills offline at times to trim supplies. That hurts profit for wind-farm operators, said Christian Kjaer, head of the European Wind Energy Association, which represents RWE AG of Germany, Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Dong Energy A/S of Denmark.

“We’re seeing that wind energy lowers prices, which is great for the consumers,” Kjaer said at his group’s conference in Warsaw this week. “We as producers have to acknowledge that this means operating the existing plant fewer hours a year, and this has an effect on investors” and profit.

After years of getting government incentives to install windmills, operators in Europe may have become their own worst enemy, reducing the total price paid for electricity in Germany, Europe’s biggest power market, by as much as 5 billion euros some years, according to a study this week by Poeyry, a Helsinki-based industry consultant.

Wind Capacity

Germany has doubled capacity to generate power from wind since 2002 and has turbines producing about 7.5 percent of the nation’s electricity, according to the German Wind Energy Association. That compares with 4.8 percent for the European Union and about 1 percent in the U.S. The turbines operate about a third of the time and are idle in calm weather.

“Wind is playing an important role in spot-price volatility because it’s very difficult to predict when more power is coming on line,” said Ruxandra Haradau-Doeser, an analyst at Bankhaus Metzler in Frankfurt.

The erratic nature of weather makes it difficult for utilities to estimate by how much wind power pushes down revenue they earn from competing energy sources such as natural gas. A spokeswoman at Bilbao, Spain-based Iberdrola, the world’s largest wind-power operator, declined to estimate.

Spanish power prices fell an annual 26 percent in the first quarter because of the surge in supplies from wind and hydroelectric production, the Spanish wind-industry trade group said in a statement yesterday on its Web site.

Negative Prices

RWE, Germany’s second-largest utility, minimizes the risks of having to pay consumers to use power by using a “broad” range of different generation technologies in different markets, a spokesman for the company said. Rebates, or negative prices, do not have a big negative effect on the company, he said.

“Negative electricity prices happen when supply outstrips demand and we literally don’t know where to put it,” Peter Smits, head of central Europe at Swiss power-equipment maker ABB Ltd., said in an interview on April 20 in Hanover. “We will see this happen more often in the future.”

One solution is more investment in transmission systems to move power from northern Germany wind farms to heavy industry in the south, he said. “Power transmission is the bottleneck.”

Power trading needs to be expanded further, Kjaer said. Tying European markets together, already done among France, the Netherlands and Belgium, lets temporary surpluses flow toward electricity-poor zones. Germany plans to join them on Sept. 7.

Price Volatility

Trading more electricity across markets reduces price volatility, spreading any excess capacity from wind and solar power plants across a broader area, he said.

Storing electricity may be another fix. In Scandinavia, Danish wind power is used to pump water into Norwegian and Swedish reservoirs and later released to drive hydroelectric plants when the wind is not blowing.

Nord Pool, the Nasdaq OMX Group Inc.-owned Scandinavian power bourse, last year took steps to encourage generators to limit production by implementing a minimum price. The most generators would pay users to take their power is 200 euros per megawatt hour if there is excess electricity from too much wind.

The measures are meant to “increase the effectiveness of the market forcing power generators to consider reducing their electricity generation or having to pay for delivering electricity,” the company said on its Web site.

Wind’s impact on prices results from its “low marginal costs,” which pushes more expensive technologies including natural gas and coal out of the market, the Poeyry study said. Fossil-fuel burning relies on fuel, which can boost the price of electricity from those sources.

Negative Power Prices

Texas had so-called negative power prices in the first half of 2008 because wind turbines in the western part of the state weren’t adequately linked with more populated regions in the east, according to the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas.

Until there’s more integration and better transmission grids, prices probably will fluctuate, leading to negative prices, in which payment to consumers is reflected as a discount on their monthly bills.

That hasn’t yet stopped the expansion of wind power. Britain now has wind turbines with the capacity to generate 1 gigawatt of power offshore, enough for 653,000 homes, the industry group RenewableUK said today.

China WindPower Group Ltd., Iberdrola and Duke Energy Corp. will lead development of an estimated $65 billion of wind farms, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Around the world, the potential output of electricity from wind is already 157.9 gigawatts, according to the Global Wind Energy Council, a Brussels-based industry group.

Projects in Danger?

“I haven’t yet seen that negative pricing is a danger to new projects,” said Andrew Garrad, chief executive officer of GL Garrad Hassan, a wind consulting company. “We do need to get the right market mechanisms in place” to better integrate wind power into energy grids.

Wind power is as cheap as electricity made from burning coal on windy days, and those lower costs drive down power prices. In parts of Texas, some utilities are using wind power because it’s the cheapest form of energy, said Garrad.

China is the most attractive nation for developing wind energy, followed by the U.S. and Germany, Ernst & Young said yesterday in a study. The consultant surveyed factors such as unexploited energy resources, power rates, taxes and financing.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy van Loon in Warsaw via jvanloon@bloomberg.net

Waking Life the movie

2010-07-04T11:49:00.000-05:00

Think Reflect Explore Create Transcend

"A boy has a dream that he can float, but unless he holds on, he will drift away into the sky. Even when he is grown up, this idea recurs. After a strange accident, he walks through what may be a dream, flowing in and out of scenarios and encountering various characters. People he meets discuss science, philosophy and the life of dreaming and waking, and the protagonist gradually becomes alarmed that he cannot awake from this confusing dream,"

The Stimulus Of Last Resort - Decline of the Empire

2010-06-29T19:06:00.000-05:00

The Stimulus Of Last Resort - Decline of the Empire

Click here for Paul Krugmans oped piece, The Third Depression

2010-06-28T08:26:00.004-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28krugman.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

I am posting more about economics and politics than healing or so it seems. The reality is that I believe that you cannot be truly healthy or balanced in an unhealthy and unbalanced society. Our societies throughout the world are unhealthy and imbalanced and are getting more so all the time. We need to face that truth and explore what is causing it. To not address economic and political problems would be to deny the fundamentally toxic effects unfair and repressive economic and political forces have on human beings. By that I mean when people all over the world either have no jobs or jobs that pay very little relative to their needs and can barely feed, cloth and shelter themselves or their families the medical consequences compounded by the stress levels create or exasperate the majority of the physical and psychological problems we all suffer from in one form or another. Couple this with repressive governments and manipulated and controlled media and you have a situation where physical and mental health are impossible for the vast majority of people.
So what is to be done? I wish I knew. But for starts we can begin to stop living in denial about our societies and their effects on us and our families and start exploring ways we can change things for the better.
We need to pull or heads out of the complacent and fear avoiding sands and face the reality of what is happening to all of us. If you were once radically active but are now living comfortable lives it is time to stop living in your past glories and do more now to help stop the inevitable train wreck ahead. One thing we can do is to help create more alternative media. We need to be alternative media. We need to talk honestly and openly with our friends, neighbors, and strangers in public dialogues. We need to face the truth about what is happening to our families, our societies and our world as a result of the corrupt and amoral casino capitalist societies that dominate our lives. We cannot depend on the media or the politicians to help us. We need to educate and help ourselves and each other. If economist like Paul Krugman are right we are headed for even more dangerous times that we are living through now. The near future could very will bring longer lasting economic hardships for more people and more political repression. The time to prepare for both is growing shorter with every passing day.

Bubble Bath - By Chrystia Freeland | Foreign Policy

2010-06-28T07:55:00.000-05:00

To read the article click the title.

It is in the nature and structure of Capitalism that booms will always lead sooner or later to busts and when that happens the majority of people who are not wealthy will be hurt the most. The quote from the following article sums it up.
"The same human instinct that prompts us to look for villains again has us looking for saviors. That's a worrying impulse: Our problems were systemic -- and our solutions must be, too."
We need to replace Capitalism with a more equitable and sane way of sharing the wealth of this planet with ALL the people of the world. Socialism may not be the answer but Capitalism is clearly not the answer either.

Bubble Bath - By Chrystia Freeland | Foreign Policy

Extreme Measures: Arming the Zealotocracy, Serving the Elite

2010-06-27T18:33:00.000-05:00

Here is a good explanation of how the elites use religion and faith of the poor and working people to protect and preserve their rule here and around the world.

Extreme Measures: Arming the Zealotocracy, Serving the Elite

JFK told us the TRUTH.

2010-06-27T10:48:00.000-05:00

This is the kind of speech I wish Obama would give and mean. The person who posted it claims Kennedy was talking about the Fed but that is BS. Kennedy was speaking about Communism, that is, Russia and China. While Kennedy was talking about Communism in one place in the speech it could just as easily be used to talk abo...ut the Oligarchies. What he said about the news media and it's relationship to the goverment and the people is more true today than it was in Kennedy's day.

Financial Reform — We Get F**ked Again - Decline of the Empire

2010-06-25T17:45:00.000-05:00

Financial Reform — We Get F**ked Again - Decline of the Empire

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Entering the Old Well - and Open Thread

2010-06-23T08:57:00.000-05:00

BP's Deepwater Oil Spill - Entering the Old Well - and Open Thread

The Oil Drum

2010-06-23T08:53:00.000-05:00

If you want to understand what enginers think is happening in the Gulf click the tile above. We all need to know what is going on there the impact is wold wide.

As the Middle Class Collapses and the American Poverty Rate Soars, the Economic Elite Have Never Had It Better [Audio & Transcript]

2010-06-20T13:54:00.000-05:00

As the Middle Class Collapses and the American Poverty Rate Soars, the Economic Elite Have Never Had It Better [Audio & Transcript]

"Cries From The Gulf" by Lea Morris

2010-06-20T12:02:00.000-05:00

Plato - The Apology

2010-06-14T15:20:00.000-05:00

Plato's Cave (animated version)

2010-06-14T15:16:00.000-05:00

New Blog riverswineceller.blogspot.com/

2010-06-14T08:17:00.001-05:00

I have a new Blog where I post things that I want to store for future pleasure. Feel free to visit. Some of the posts are here as well as on my FaceBook. I call it Rivers wine cellar. You can click the title or check my Link section. http://riverswineceller.blogspot.com/

ZEITGEIST, The Movie - Remastered / Final Edition - Full Production.

2010-06-14T07:41:00.002-05:00

David Olney "Sweet Poison" June 15, 2007 @ The Basement, Nashville, TN

2010-06-12T14:43:00.000-05:00

Winds of Fate - Ella Wheeler-Wilcox (by Maggie Smith)

2010-06-12T14:41:00.000-05:00

Terence Mckenna - Culture is your operating system

2010-06-10T06:25:00.000-05:00

Perception - The reality beyond matter

2010-06-09T17:32:00.000-05:00

Introduction to Sufi Islam

2010-06-09T17:26:00.000-05:00

Meditator's Toolbox

2010-06-09T04:33:00.004-05:00

Click the tilte to go to Tricycle Buddhist Review

Tibetan Buddhist nun and author Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron

Meditator's Toolbox
21 tips to power your practice.

Bodhidharma tore off his eyelids. Jack Kornfield’s teacher told him to meditate at the edge of a well. The Buddhist tradition is full of stories of practitioners who have found unique techniques for stimulating and maintaining their practice. In fact, anyone who has sat on a zafu more than once probably came up with a trick or two for staying there. To tap into this resource, we’ve asked seasoned Buddhist teachers and longtime practitioners to share their favorite meditating tools. Check out what they have to offer.

1 Just get in the posture

“Try making a commitment to getting into the meditation posture at least once a day. You don’t have to sit for any particular length of time, just get on the cushion. A lot of times, the hardest part is getting there. Once you’re sitting down, you think, 'I might as well sit for a few minutes,’ and more often than not, you’re getting full sessions in.” —Insight Meditation Society co-founder Joseph Goldstein
2 Reflect on the big picture

“The breath is not only a useful object of concentration but also a sign of life. A little reflection can bring a sense of gratitude and delight to each breath, which is further enhanced by sensing what the Indian mystic and poet Kabir called 'the breath within the breath,’ the mystery that is riding along on each inhale and exhale.” —Author and meditation teacher Wes Nisker

3 Use a timer

“When you sit in meditation, use a timer instead of a clock. If you have to keep opening your eyes to check on the time, restlessness can be exacerbated. By using a timer, one frees oneself from the concept of time and discovers a deepening of relaxation and a sense of the timeless.” —Cambridge Insight Meditation teacher Narayan Liebenson Grady

4 Get your priorities straight

“If meditation is a priority, then it’s helpful to take that word literally and put meditation first. An example would be my rule of not turning on the computer before I’ve meditated. Simple, but effective. Probably the most trenchant advice I ever heard was in eight words from Suzuki Roshi: 'Organize your life so you can sit well.’” —Senior Shambhala teacher David Schneider

5 Be patient

When you plant seeds in the garden, you don’t dig them up every day to see if they have sprouted yet. You simply water them and clear away the weeds; you know that the seeds will grow in time. Similarly, just do your daily practice and cultivate a kind heart. Abandon impatience and instead be content creating the causes for goodness; the results will come when they’re ready.” —Tibetan Buddhist nun and author Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron

6 Play with postures

“Even though we generally refer to meditation as 'sitting,’ when you find that hard to do, you can also 'sit’ lying down. When I wake up at night with insomnia, I pay attention to the breath or do lovingkindness practice. One year, I could only get myself to 'sit’ by lying on the ground in the backyard, sensing the layers of the earth, and listening to the sounds of a garden in the city.” —Barbara Gates, co-editor of the journal Inquiring Mind

7 Make a vow

“Don’t give yourself a choice. Don’t ask yourself: 'Do I want to get up and do this?’ because you will think of a million other things to do. Just set your alarm and get up and meditate—no questions. It also helps to make a vow. Try promising the Buddhas that you’ll meditate every day for a month and see what happens.” —Tibetan Buddhist nun and author Ani Tenzin Palmo

8 Use incense

“Time a stick of incense. Once you know how long it takes to burn, you can use it to determine the lengths of your sessions.” —Tricycle founder Helen Tworkov

9 Widen your practice field

“Don’t put arbitrary limits on the field of practice. Trying to live graciously, reading and reflecting wisely, appreciating virtue in others, not making those around you miserable, being a mensch—practicing in this way, which is pretty traditional, there is never a lack of opportunity. As for sitting meditation itself—that’s something we do for others, so that maybe we can have a more generous spirit and be less of a pain in the neck.” —Tricycle editor-at-large Andy Cooper

10 Still the mind in unusual positions

“I like to interpret what the Buddha said when he talked about the four postures suitable for meditation—seated, standing, walking, and lying down—as an invitation to watch the mind in any position, any place, any time. I begin my practice periods with a breathing practice from my teacher Mingyur Rinpoche; then I get into a yoga posture and stay in it for some time. Working in this way, I can watch my mind play around with discomfort, effort, desire, and aversion. Plus I receive the benefits of the pose by staying in it longer.” —Vajra Yoga founder Jill Satterfield

11 Sit with others

“Find others to sit with. Sometimes showing up for others is easier than showing up for yourself.” —Tricycle editor and publisher James Shaheen

12 Make the right decision

“Every practitioner I know who has been able to continue to practice for years has had to deal with their resistance to sitting. It seems that when we hurl ourselves in a particular direction with vigor and intention, we are also creating a shadow of resistance at the same time. This matter is resolved over time by the decisions we make in the immediate situation: do we watch TV or sit? Do we schedule a date with a friend during our usual sitting time? Do we skip our sangha night when our parents visit or do we ask them to join us (or excuse us)? Deciding to sit over and over again through every possible seduction establishes the vigor of our intention.” —Russian River Zendo teacher Darlene Cohen

13 Experiment with the breath
“My teacher Than Geoff has always reminded me that when the mind is fighting the meditation, ask it, 'What kind of breath would feel really good right now?’ It tricks you into experimenting with the breath, and usually the breath becomes interesting enough and pleasurable enough that concentration can settle in.” —Tricycle contributing editor Mary Talbot

14 Drink coffee

“Some people say that it was actually Buddhist monks who discovered coffee. The story goes that they were wandering around in the forest somewhere when they came across the beans. They started chewing them and thought, 'These are great. we can use this energy for our meditation practice.’ If you are going to get up in the morning and sit, it doesn’t have to be first thing. Get up and have a cup of coffee if it helps. It’s when you start taking out the newspaper and doing other stuff that you lose the freshness of mind you have when you first wake up. But if you can have coffee without turning on your cell phone, go for it.” —Downtown Meditation Community teacher Peter Doobinin

15 Sit because you need to

“I’d say to meditators pretty much what Rilke said to poets: don’t do it unless you have to! In my little experience, any other motivation than necessity demeans meditation to a conceit, another tool for ego-consolidation of one form or another. Not for nothing is the first point of the Big B: There is SUFFERING. That’s the one and only actual gate.” —Contributing editor Eliot Fintushel

16 Don’t cheat

“If you’re counting the breaths, for example, don’t let it be Enron style. An honest accounting works wonders for the spiritual bottom line.” —Contributing editor Mark Magill

17 Tune up by reading something you love

“I don’t mean a text that you’re studying—you don’t want to encourage the mind to cogitate. Near the place where you like to sit, keep a little selection of readings that inspire happiness or quiet; they can be from any tradition. Recently I’ve had by my side Thomas Merton’s Thoughts in Solitude, the Avadhuta Gita, and a folder of short poems and quotations from past issues of Tricycle and other sources. For a session when the mind is really stirred up, here’s a wonderful quote to put it in pause mode, from the mind training teachings in The Great Path of Awakening:

When I am in this kind of mood
My mat is by far the best place to be.
This present mental state is fine.
Moreover, by putting up with this unpleasantness,
I won’t be born in the hell realms. How wonderful!
I won’t be baked or roasted. How wonderful!”

—Tricycle copyeditor Karen Ready
18 Check in before you start

“Once you sit down, in addition to doing a quick scan of your body for tension, take a moment to look at your heart and mind before you 'start’ officially. Sure, maybe you just rolled out of bed, but what is your mood like—annoyed? Excited (or anxious) at the prospect of a new day? Is your brain still in slo-mo, or was it jolted into a panic by the alarm clock? It can be good to notice where you’re at before you start counting breaths.” —Associate editor Andrew Merz

19 Have faith

“Seek the support of a Power Beyond the Self. Dogen says, 'Throw body and mind into the house of Buddha, so that all is done by Buddha.' If we rely only upon our own resources in trying to develop a meditation practice, we will quickly exhaust ourselves. It is important to know that the Buddha himself supports us in all kinds of ways, some easy to recognize (through the teaching passed down from master to disciple, for instance), and some not. Some of those supports become visible to us only when we believe in the Buddha. Belief in Buddhahood as a Power Beyond the Self can encourage us when nothing else seems to work. That statue on your altar isn’t just a decorating idea.” —Contributing editor Clark Strand

20 Don’t push

“There’s an old Zen saying, 'When you sit Buddha, you kill Buddha.’ Whatever else it might mean about blowing away preconceptions or that kind of thing, it always stuck with me as a very friendly reminder not to try too hard, or push too hard, don’t try to be a Buddha when you’re sitting.” —Tricycle webmaster Philip Ryan

21 End carefully

“When you end your meditation, be very careful with how you open your eyes. Try to maintain your center inside rather than letting it flow outside. Then, maintaining your center, get up from the cushion and keep the center inside as long as you can. As my teacher Ajaan Fuang instructed: 'When you start out sitting in meditation, it takes a long time for the mind to settle down, but as soon as the session is over you get right up and throw it away. It’s like climbing a ladder slowly, step by step, to the second floor, and then jumping out the window.’” —Metta Forest Monastery Abbot Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Still don't believe in UFOs????

2010-06-07T09:31:00.000-05:00

Buddhist song 嗡嘛呢叭弥弘 Om Mani PadMe Hum

2010-06-07T08:55:00.000-05:00

Yogin

2010-06-07T08:29:00.000-05:00

Sisyphus was a woosey. Screw the rock and move on!

2010-06-06T17:13:00.002-05:00

Agapi Stassinopoulos.Author and motivational speaker
Posted: June 6, 2010 08:00 AM on The Huffington Post. Click the title to go there and read more.

We all have habitual, negative thinking, feeling and doing patterns that sabotage our success, happiness and well-being. They become so ingrained that we think we have no power to change them. They simply become part of our daily life.

Being passionate about Greek mythology and archetypes, I thought of how the myth of Sisyphus might relate to our lives. For those of you who aren't familiar with the myth, let me tell you about it.

Sisyphus -- a crafty and arrogant man -- was condemned by Zeus for his bad deeds to roll a rock up a hill, only to have it roll right back down before he could get it to the top. He would have to repeat this task day after day for eternity -- a punishment you might not wish on your worst enemy, unless perhaps he was an ex-husband, wife or lover who left you for your best friend.

So, everyday he rolled that rock up the hill, and lo and behold, down came the rock. Sisyphus was under a spell -- a severe punishment from the gods. But what could Sisyphus do to break the spell? If you're anything like me, you would look for a way to stop with the rock already! One way I'd say to handle the challenge is one of the most time-tested (and fairy-tale embedded) methods: Whistle while you work. Even the most mundane or difficult things in life become a little easier when you whistle, don't you agree? That certainly would have made it more fun!

Or he could give up and not do anything the next day but sit on the rock and gaze out into the beautiful Mediterranean landscape. Focusing more on the beauty around would be an excellent escape.

He could shout for help from someone... two people rolling that rock up the hill is much easier than one. Or, instead of letting the rock do it's thing and roll right back down, when he got to the top, he could defy the expectations and push that bloody rock over the top of the hill. Maybe pushing a little bit harder would break the spell.

Or, what if, while he was up there, he kicked the rock with such force that it rolled all the way down the mountain, into the valley and through the river? He'd have to follow it to find it, and the rock would show him a whole new way! What if he sang "rock a bye, baby" to the rock and rocked himself to sleep? The point is, there are many ways to break through self-imposed habits that can feel like punishment from the gods.

But, I think the best way to handle it would have been if Sisyphus didn't buy into the absurdity of the sentence in the first place. Many of us are like Sisyphus, in that we perpetuate our own suffering and buy into the condemnation. We create our own (seemingly interminable) sentences. It really comes down to how we choose to see these situations that seem like such dire punishments.

Let's imagine what would have happened if Sisyphus woke up one morning and said, "This is a myth! I don't have to push that rock up and down ever again if I don't want to. I don't have to make believe it will be different tomorrow. I don't have to suffer... I can leave that rock, and I can leave that mountain, and I can go to another place! I can go to the plains where there are no mountains, or I can go to a field of flowers, or a river, or a big city!" What if Sisyphus knew he had choices?

Even though the traditional myth hasn't allowed him to break the spell of his punishment, I say, you are not enslaved like Sisyphus. Sometimes our rock is a struggle and we can't give up the struggle. We are invested in the fact that we're the only ones who can solve the puzzles of our situations -- but there are many other people in this world who would be happy to extend their help with our obstacles. Maybe the way to break the spell is to ask. Ask, but don't stop when you get a "no." Ask until you get help.

So now I ask you: What is your rock you've been rolling up the hill? Is it your relationship with your significant other? Is it your complaining about your job? Is it an addiction to sugar, coffee and/or alcohol, or being an emotional eater? Is your Sisyphean rock broken promises or future wishing with no action? Is it being the savior or the martyr, always taking care of others and neglecting yourself? Or is it a certain resentment that keeps festering inside?

It could also be comparison, guilt, competition, anger, procrastination, an attitude of defeat or a belief that love will never find you. Or is it your expectations of how things should be that cuts off your ability to live in the moment? Holding onto these rocks gives us sense of self-rejection or self-abandonment, which lock in the negative beliefs and patterns within ourselves that spoil what is good in our daily life. I always have to put down the rock of my critical voice, my resistance to doing those things that uplift me and ride up that mountain with the joy lift.

What rock keeps draining your life force? Isn't it time you put the rock down and walked into your clear path, which is right down the mountain from where you are standing? Stop investing in your myth and invest in you. You are much more worthy than your myth or the rock you are carrying on your back! You may be thinking that the gods are punishing you, but you're the only one who can give them that authority. It's time that you demystified those punishing gods inside of you and put them in their place. Tell them to go take a hike. Take your authority back from them. And when you do, you can be an example -- a light to others to show them how you stepped out of your Sisyphean gridlock and broke the chains.

I'd love to know what is your personal "Sisyphus rock." and what you did with it.

Write me at Agapi@thesevengoddesses.com or leave me a comment here.

Energy Spring Qigong-Stimulating Qi points

2010-05-25T01:31:00.000-05:00

Another Way Of Discribing The Golden Sphere Healing Technique

2010-05-24T08:36:00.000-05:00

The Golden Sphere Healing Technique

If you have any pain or discomfort anywhere in your body try the following exercise. Nothing works for everyone all the time. This will work for many most of the time. Some times the pain will go away completely. Sometimes the pain will just be reduced. Will it return? It probably will unless the roots of the pain are addressed. But it is still better and safer than most pharmaceutical remedies. If or when the pain returns, feel free to use the golden sphere to reduce or eliminate it again. It is free and has no negative side effects. This exercise has helped me more times than I can count. It is worth trying and mastering.

First bring your attention fully to a specific area of your body that hurts right now. Imagine and feel, if you can, a radiating spinning golden sphere of light appearing in that painful area. Let the sphere completely fill the painful area. It may or may not feel warm. Remember and feel and see the sphere radiating and spinning. The more you do this exercise the more you will see and feel the golden sphere spinning or rotating and radiating. The more you can see and feel the golden sphere the more powerful will be the effects.

Just keep your attention focused on the area of your body you are treating and stay focused on the golden sphere radiating and spinning. This is like a meditation so if you find your mind wondering away just let thoughts and emotions come and go and gently return to the body area and the golden radiating rotating sphere.

Using the golden sphere is as simple as that. Just place it in a painful area and let it radiate and spin. Sometimes it is quick and the pain dissolves right away. Other times it takes awhile. Sometimes the pain does not go away and you stop. After you stop doing the exercise a few minutes later you might notice the pain is gone or greatly reduced. Sometimes the pain does not even reduce in intensity and you might feel discouraged. I urge you to let go of the discouragement and try the golden sphere again at another time. There is a Sufi saying I use when things do not go according to my intention, “In the persistence of you desire lays the answer.” Try, try again. Never give up. To really begin to understand the power and the possibilities of the golden sphere exercise I urge you to do it a lot over a long period of time. Also I urge you to investigate the roots or causes of the pain and address the causes directly if the pain keeps reoccurring. You can also use multiple golden spheres in your body at the same time once you master the technique. My heart is with you as you try this wonderful healing technique. Namaste.

2010-05-22T14:56:00.001-05:00

I HAVE COME INTO THIS WORLD TO SEE THIS
I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands even at the height
of their arc of anger
because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound
and it is His - the Christ's, our
Beloved's.
I have come into this world to see this: all creatures hold hands as
we pass through this miraculous existence we share on the way
to even a greater being of soul,
a being of just ecstatic light, forever entwined and at play
with Him.
I have come into this world to hear this:
every song the earth has sung since it was conceived in
the Divine's womb and began spinning from
His wish,
every song by wing and fin and hoof,
every song by hill and field and tree and woman and child,
every song of stream and rock,
every song of tool and lyre and flute,
every song of gold and emerald
and fire,
every song the heart should cry with magnificent dignity
to know itself as
God:
for all other knowledge will leave us again in want and aching -
only imbibing the glorious Sun
will complete us.
I have come into this world to experience this:
men so true to love
they would rather die before speaking
an unkind
word,
men so true their lives are His covenant -
the promise of
hope.
I have come into this world to see this:
the sword drop from men's hands
even at the height of
their arc of
rage
because we have finally realized
there is just one flesh
we can wound.
~ Hafiz ~

(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices

2010-05-21T09:05:00.001-05:00

This video is very important to watch because this could be our future
if we stand silent or inactive in the face of religious extremist of
all faiths who think they have the right to impose their beliefs on
those who do not agree with them. The same holds true for political
extremist. How sad that we are just a few steps away from a theocracy
or a dictatorship. Even sadder is the reality that many people all over the world are forced to live in that horrible reality NOW!

Draw Muhammad Day: Censorship, Sabotage, Threats & Murder

2010-05-21T08:52:00.001-05:00

Draw Muhammad Day: Censorship, Sabotage, Threats & Murder

The very real and dangerous problems with religious fanatics are not going to go away in our lifetime. Religious and for that matter political, authoritarian murdering manipulative extremists demand a response from all people of good will who believe in democracy, freedom of speech and the separation of religion and State. "For evil to triumph all good people have to do is nothing." That is a paraphrase. (smile) Don't do Nothing!

The following article can be found by clicking the title above.

Draw Muhammad Day: Censorship, Sabotage, Threats & Murder

By Liam Fox
NEWS JUNKIE POST

May 20, 2010 at 12:06 am Print This Post

Draw Muhammad Day is not an assault on Islam or Muslims, and certainly not on Arab people of any nation. The protest is not racist or ethnocentric. The protest is not an attempt to infringe on the rights of others or curtail any individual’s religious freedom. The protest is in defense of individual freedom of expression. The protest is against one group forcing its religious doctrine on everyone, and censoring other’s rights of free speech and expression.

The protest was launched because serious threats were issued by Islamic Fundamentalists against the creators of South Park after an episode was aired showing a cartoon depiction of Muhammad.

Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, aka Zachary A. Chesser of Virginia, took exception to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s satire of Muhammad and immediately launched a campaign of intimidation.

On April 15, the day after the first of two episodes of South Park featuring Muhammad aired, Chesser made his first comment about the program through his Twitter feed. “May Allah kill Matt Stone and Trey Parker and burn them in Hell for all eternity. They insult our prophets Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses…” Chesser posted similar entries to his Mujahid Blog as well as the Revolution Muslim website later that same day. The post included a graphic picture of the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh laying dead on the ground with a knife in his chest after he had been assassinated by a Muslim extremist in 2004. Under the photo was the caption: “Theo Van Gogh – Have Matt Stone And Trey Parker Forgotten This?”

Draw Muhammad Day: Censorship, Sabotage, Threats & Murder

By Liam Fox
NEWS JUNKIE POST

May 20, 2010 at 12:06 am Print This Post

Draw Muhammad Day is not an assault on Islam or Muslims, and certainly not on Arab people of any nation. The protest is not racist or ethnocentric. The protest is not an attempt to infringe on the rights of others or curtail any individual’s religious freedom. The protest is in defense of individual freedom of expression. The protest is against one group forcing its religious doctrine on everyone, and censoring other’s rights of free speech and expression.

The protest was launched because serious threats were issued by Islamic Fundamentalists against the creators of South Park after an episode was aired showing a cartoon depiction of Muhammad.

Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, aka Zachary A. Chesser of Virginia, took exception to Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s satire of Muhammad and immediately launched a campaign of intimidation.

On April 15, the day after the first of two episodes of South Park featuring Muhammad aired, Chesser made his first comment about the program through his Twitter feed. “May Allah kill Matt Stone and Trey Parker and burn them in Hell for all eternity. They insult our prophets Muhammad, Jesus, and Moses…” Chesser posted similar entries to his Mujahid Blog as well as the Revolution Muslim website later that same day. The post included a graphic picture of the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh laying dead on the ground with a knife in his chest after he had been assassinated by a Muslim extremist in 2004. Under the photo was the caption: “Theo Van Gogh – Have Matt Stone And Trey Parker Forgotten This?”

In the same post, Chesser provided the address to Stone and Parker’s offices in California, telling readers to “contact them” or “pay Comedy Central…a visit.” He also posted the link to a Huffington Post article that described a Colorado retreat owned by the two men. Chesser also noted: “We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh if they do air this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”

The threats resulted in Comedy Central censoring the episode and removing it from online distribution.

If an individual wants to create some depiction as part of their own personal expression, that act deserves the same tolerance and freedom from persecution as those who accept, as part of their own religious idiology, that they are not allowed to make such a depiction. In a democratic society that protects the equal rights of individuals; if Muslims are to ensure that their own rights are protected, they must work just as hard to protect the same rights for all, whether they agree with them or not. To be the recipients of religious tolerance does not mean that you have the right to impose religious dogma on individuals that do not adhere to your belief system.

There are many individuals of other faiths and world views who do not agree with the doctrines of Islam and who diligently defend the rights of Muslims to practice their own religion without persecution or oppression. These same individuals have the right to eat pork, draw Muhammad, engage in intimate relations with same gender partners and declare that they have negative feelings about Islam. These rights too must not only be tolerated, but vigorously defended if the right of Muslims to practice their religion is to also be ensured.

America is by no means alone in dealing with the public imposition of Sharia law within a democratic society. Discord has been growing in England as laws requiring Muslim Prayer rooms in public buildings, including privately owned work places, must be provided at tax payer or employer expense. Also causing disharmony has been the establishment of Muslim only swim days at public community pools. Apparently non-Muslims may only attend if they wear traditional Muslim dress, otherwise they will not be allowed to participate.

As Muslim immigration increases throughout Europe conflicts of this nature increase. In 2004 Theo Van Gogh was brutally murdered because of a film he made that Muslims found insulting.

Van Gogh’s film Submission aired on Dutch television August 29, 2004. The film depicted four semi-nude women in dark, opaque veils, who had texts from the Qur’an written in calligraphy on their bare skin. The women had what appeared to be red whip marks on their backs and legs, on which were written Qur’anic texts that described the physical punishments prescribed for disobedient women. The highly controversial 10-minute film sparked outrage from the Muslim community.

On November 2, 2004, at approximately 8:45 am, an unknown assailant dressed in a traditional Moroccan “djelleba,” viciously attacked Mr. Van Gogh as he bicycled to work in central Amsterdam. The attacker shot and repeatedly stabbed him in the chest despite his pleas for mercy. Mr. Van Gogh struggled against his injuries to flee and managed to get as far as the other side of the street before his attacker shot and stabbed him yet again. The assassin then slit Mr. Van Gogh’s throat with a butcher knife as shocked onlookers screamed in horror.

On January 2 of 2010 a Danish cartoonist was attacked in his home by an ax wielding assailant intent on carrying out a fatwah that called for the mans death. Kurt Westergaard, a cartoonist who had received death threats for publishing images of Muhammad, managed to survive the attack by hiding in a secure panic room until police were able to detain the would-be assassin.

What has resulted from these attacks is terror, not tolerance. The use of violence has defined threats by members of the Muslim community as definite statements of intent rather than specious rhetoric uttered in a moment of passion. Rather than change a television channel, close a book, fold a newspaper or leave a theatre, some members of the Muslim community are deliberately choosing to expose themselves to material that contravenes their religious doctrine, then violently attacking whoever they deem culpable for offending their sensibilities.

On May 11 of this year, just last week, Lars Vilks was offering a lecture on free speech at Uppsala University in Sweden. Immediately after the start of his presentation Mr. Vilks was physically assaulted by a contingent of Muslim attendees. Rather than leave the voluntary lecture these individuals assaulted Mr. Vilks, hitting him on the head and punching him in the face, breaking his glasses. As police officers attempted to end the attack and rescue Mr. Vilks, they too were hit and kicked. Two individuals were arrested. The Muslims present hurled threats and profanity at Mr. Vilks until the lecture had to be cancelled because of security concerns. I young Swedish woman who tried to plead for the lectures continuation, and the freedom of speech of all the others present, was shouted down by the aggressive Muslim mob.

This is not an issue of religious tolerance. Religion should be tolerated and allowed to be exercised and expressed by its adherents as long as it does not violate other’s rights by forcing them to adhere to its doctrine. What religion cannot do in a democratic society, where all individuals enjoy equal protection under the law, is act as a political or legislative entity that dictates laws for all.

Sharia law is completely anathema to the American Constitution and the principles of democracy. Law based upon democratic principles are offensive to Islam because such law is based upon people. Sharia law is based upon the Qur’an and the writings of Mohammed, which Muslims believe to be the only perfect guidance. Therefore, Muslims consider it an offence to Islam for Muslims to live under democratic constitutional law. Sharia law openly despises democracy because it comes from man whereas American Law and the Constitution are based on the principle of governance of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Islam is primarily a political system. The Islamic legal code is called Sharia, meaning the way. The source of the Sharia is the Qur’an and the Sunna (found in the Sira and the Hadith). Sharia law covers all aspects of life including how a man and woman should have sex.

Sharia Law is based upon dividing all actions into forbidden (haram, haraam) and permitted (halal). Islam demands that Muslims form their own political units without influence from non-believers. Under Sharia Law non-believers are second class citizens, dhimmis, not given all the same rights as Muslims yet required to live by Sharia Law.

Pakistan, an Islamic country that operates under a somewhat informal application of Sharia Law, responded to the “Draw Muhammad day’ campaign on Facebook by blocking access to Facebook for the entire country beginning May 19 and lasting through the end of the month. The proclamation issued by the Lahore Court includes not only Facebook but any other sites or links that may feature such images and allows that the ban be extended past the end of May at the discretion of the court.

There are 1.8 million Facebook users in Pakistan, not all of them Muslim, but all of them subject to the censorship imposed by the court.

The official PR notification as reproduced by Aamir Attaa at ProPakistani is as follows:

BLOCKAGE OF FACE BOOK WEBSITE DUE TO PUBLICATION OF PROFANE ANTI ISLAMIC CONTENT ON ITS WEBSITE.
ISLAMABAD: MAY 19, 2010
In compliance with the orders of Honourable Lahore High Court, Lahore, on the Writ Petition No.10392/10, dated the 19th May, 2010, the Ministry of Information Technology has issued a directive to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to block the ‘Face Book’ and all other internet links displaying sacrilegious caricatures of the Holy Prophet.
Ministry of IT has also directed the PTA to remain alert and watchful and block all such links displaying the profane caricatures immediately.
Ministry of IT has requested public at large to contact a dedicated Telephone No.0800-5505 and e-mail address: complaint@pta.gov.pk , to transmit necessary information, should anything to the effect of objectionable caricature get displayed/propagated at any website.

Although the Facebook ‘Draw Muhammad Day’ page is up and running, as of the writing of this article the DrawMuhammadDay.com website is down. It has been intermittent throughout the day but seems to have finally succumbed. It has been rendered inaccessible by an apparent campaign to crash the site. ‘Youfan’s blog‘ and the ‘It’s All What You Want‘ website have been offering instruction on how to help take down the site and are publicly celebrating their cowardly violation of freedom of speech and expression. Although not causing personal injury or death on this occasion, the impact on the rights and freedoms of others is no less violent.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, once wrote; “Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. True irreverence is disrespect for another man’s god.” These statements, irreverent though they are, represent key principles of a free society. The acts of criticizing, satirizing, and mocking are part of process that removes pomp and circumstance from an issue, allowing us to see more clearly and comprehend. The ability to challenge and test the veracity of our most sacred thoughts and beliefs is not merely a privilege but a shared duty.

The constitutionally protected right of free speech provides the cornerstone to a democratic society where derision and disagreement fuel the process of negotiation, discovery and cooperation. Our individual as well as societal growth and development are aided by access to the opinions and criticisms of others. Every idea, belief or endeavor benefits from the collective input of our society whether it is solicited, welcomed, encouraged or feared.

Free speech promotes development where a strong foundation is present, and exposes weaknesses where they either hide or lay undiscovered. Free speech is loved by the strong and feared by the weak. Truth welcomes free speech and accepts the strengthening process of criticism, where lies and falsehoods are unable to withstand its trials. It is for this reason that corrupt systems of thought, and the organizations, institutions and regimes built on them, will do anything possible to prevent this powerful force from exposing their masquerade.

Often time, the more ridiculous an assertion is, the more violently it is defended. When something is unable to withstand any questioning or criticism, it’s proponents seek to quell any dissent by any means necessary. In cases such as those mentioned, when both the assertion and the proponents are lacking in strength, the ridiculous is defended with the extreme. This unintended admission of weakness seeks to replace the strength of an enduring truth with lies wrapped in the protective cocoon of terror.

The rights of a free society cannot be allowed to wither and die in the shadow of threats. Terror cannot be allowed to subvert liberty. It is a constant battle that must be attended, and where an inch is given it must be reclaimed. Freedom cannot be allowed to erode by the giving of ground in the face of an irrational and tyrannical onslaught. In the name of freedom of expression; pick up a pen, pencil or crayon and draw your best Muhammad whether it be a portrait or a stick figure. Photograph it or scan it and upload it to the Facebook page and then pin it, tack it or tape it up for all the world to see.

Happy Draw Muhammad Day.

Editor’s Note: Liam Fox will be discussing his article this afternoon on NPR’s “All Things Considered”. The News Junkie Post will post the audio clip of the interview when it becomes available.

Found on Tricycle's Online

2010-05-17T05:53:00.004-05:00

My experience with the Bon Po Tibetans has been so positive and healing that my heart is filled with love for them. I post this teaching in their honor. Although the Bon are similar to Tibetan Buddhism they are also uniquely themselves. They were the original religion before Buddhism came to Tibet and are much more shamanistic.They claim a lineage going back 18,000 years. I just know that every Bon Lama I have met has been loving, powerful and kind. That is why I am a Bon Po Sufi. (smile)

Awakening to Anger
By Ken McLeod

A teacher, translator, and disciple of Kalu Rinpoche speaks with Tricycle about how the Tibetan lojong or “mind training” teachings can shift the soil in which anger grows

Lojong is usually translated as “mind training,” but “mind refining” is also an accurate description. In the Mahayana tradition, mind training doesn’t try to “deal” with the problem of anger. The whole Mahayana bent is on dealing with the present. Anger is the fastest and probably the most powerful reaction to the fear of not existing, of having your sense of self bashed by the opposition you’re facing.

Mind training is about learning and knowing that you don’t exist the way you think you do. Anger ceases to arise because there’s nothing to defend. In anger, you destroy your relationship with whatever is threatening. But if you can stay present with the whole experience, you can circumvent anger.

Suppose you’re at a meeting and you put forth your opinion on a subject and someone contradicts you. If you’re identified with that opinion, you suddenly feel you don’t exist—your identity, your sense of self, has been negated. If you’re not able to stay in the present moment, anger takes over—that fast. What you do is destroy your relationship with being contradicted. It may mean leaving the meeting, or blasting the person who contradicted you, or shutting down your feelings. Those angry reactions destroy your relationship with what you experience, and move you right out of the present.

How does mind training help? It works in two ways, which are the two components to Mahayana practice. One, they help cultivate compassion,and two, they help cultivate an understanding of emptiness

The essential teaching in terms of compassion is that whatever you experience, if it provokes a reaction in you, you can open to that experience. One way to do that is to practice [tonglen,] the mind training technique of taking and sending. If you are getting angry, you imagine that you’re inviting the feeling from all sentient beings into you. If you feel anger coming up, you might practice saying, “May all the anger of all beings come into me.” It’s a way of staying with your own experience of what’s happening in the process of getting angry. You thereby transfer the reactive process into a positive attitude. Just that moment of presence can change everything. It’s a tool.

Of course, this doesn’t happen spontaneously. It takes a lot of practice and training. And this process is not exclusive to mind training - it happens as a natural result of other types of Buddhist meditative training, too. As you become intimately aware of your own reactive processes, then when somebody is angry with you, from your own experience you understand what’s going on with them. When someone gets angry with you, you don’t rush to defend yourself.

The second way mind training helps with anger is by cultivating an understanding of emptiness. This occurs at a little higher level of practice. Because of meditation practice, you can experience a situation in which you might get angry as simply movement—the movement of feelings and phenomena. It’s not something solid that has to be acted on.

Once I did a one-month retreat using just the introductory meditations on love and compassion from The Great Path of Awakening, [the series of fifty-nine lojong teachings by the nineteenth-century teacher Jomgon Kongtrul the Great]. I did those solidly for a month, and then I did taking and sending. Everyone said my personality changed. I didn’t feel there was a big difference, but I certainly got a tremendous amount out of it in terms of cultivating really deep feeling. I was known to be short-tempered, very arrogant, and so forth. I’m not sure any of that’s really changed. But I do credit the practice of taking and sending with making a difference. Before that retreat I didn’t have the time to listen to anybody. But now I’m regarded as a good listener.

What makes me angry is stupidity. It’s something I’m still working with. But now when I encounter a person who isn’t understanding what I say, or who is doing something that doesn’t make any sense, even though I’m feeling angry, I let myself experience that anger. I know it for what it is - a movement in me, a reactive process. I use taking and sending, and try to see the stuff that arises spontaneously. When I encounter stupidity, I go to the breath and do taking and sending. I look and see what’s preventing this person from seeing what I’m saying and then I see that there’s nothing I can do. The next part of compassion is letting go. This is where the process clicks to nonexistence. When people are really getting angry and feel meaningless or ineffective, that links to notions of identity and self-image. If we let go of the idea that we are “solid,” then it becomes easy to let go of the anger.

If it gets to the point where I’m “dealing” with anger, it’s too late. It’s like the guy who’s entered a golf tournament and he’s practicing and the old pro comes along and says, “If you haven’t got it by now, you’re not going to get it before the tournament’s over.” It’s the same with getting angry. By the time the reactive process is underway, it’s too late. By practicing meditation and doing mind training, we can avoid being caught up in the reactivity of anger and can stay present.

Ken McLeod is the founder of Unfettered Mind, and the translator of many Tibetan texts including The Great Path of Awakening (Shambhala Publications). He lives and teaches in Los Angeles.

Image: © 1989 Peter and David Turnley

2010-05-16T09:54:00.001-05:00

I still very tired and weak but I am glad that the operation is on May 28th and than I can begin the recovery. This cancer thing really takes it out of me. I feel good for a few days and than BAM the little MF kicks my ass. O well such is life. (smile) At least no chemo or radiation this time thanks Goddess, inshAllah.

The Chinese say, " the fires that burn the brightest burn out the soonest." I have been reflecting on this. It has a lot of resonance for so many different areas of life. I was recently looking into the nature of love and came upon this quote as a message from Goddess.

I started thinking about amour fu (crazy passionate intense sudden love) compared to steady state love that evolves and build over a long stretch of time. Both have their beauty. I am glad to have experienced both. I make no judgement on either, I am just musing about love and appreciating it. I have been abundantly bl...essed by the quality of those I have loved and who have loved me. Thank You Goddess! (bow)

Let's have a few drinks of poetry wine my friend

2010-05-15T10:22:00.003-05:00

Muslim / Sufi

Contemporary

I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

Dance when you're broken open.
Dance when you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you're perfectly free.
Struck, the dancer hears a tambourine inside her,
like a wave that crests into foam at the very top,
Begins.
Maybe you don't hear that tambourine,
or the tree leaves clapping time.
Close the ears on your head,
that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes.
There are other things to see, and hear.
Music. Dance.
A brilliant city inside your soul!
--Rumi

I saw you dancing last night
on the roof of your house
all alone.
I felt your heart longing for the Friend.
I saw you whirling
beneath the soft bright rose
that hung from an invisible stem in the sky.
So I began to change into my best clothes
in hopes of joining you,
even though I live a thousand miles away.
And if you had spun like an immaculate sphere
just two more times,
then bowed again so sweetly to the east,
you would have found God and me
standing so near
and lifting you into our arms.
I saw you dancing last night
near the roof of this world
---Hafiz

Good News

2010-05-13T16:13:00.002-05:00

Well the test came back. The results were good. I have no Cancer anywhere but the one place in my throat. I am meeting with my doctor on Friday to set an appointment for an operation. Thank you Goddess. I love you and would love you no matter what the results. That said. thank you for the good results. (smile and a happy hug and kiss)

The Dance Continues

2010-05-08T04:09:00.002-05:00

I am waiting for my test results. I should know Monday. Meanwhile life goes on. What a wonderful mediation. Watching my thoughts and emotions come and go around what the test will show me about my future. (smile) I have not obsessed about it one way or the other. I have noticed my monkey mind playing with the ideas of the future. But he does that with everything anyway. It is his nature. I asked Goddess for a clean bill of health below my neck but said I was OK with whatever She had in store for me. I trust Her more than I fear anything. She knows that. We laugh together and continue our love dance.

I WILL NEVER FORGET OR FORGIVE WHAT HAPPENED AT KENT STATE

2010-05-02T09:16:00.001-05:00

If you do not know about what happened at Kent State 40 years ago click the link above (the title)and find out. If you do know, NEVER FORGET! My tears, anger, determination and actions join the flood of many others to make sure that the the fight for a better world never ends. They can win battle after battle but we will ultimately win... the war. This I believe and know in my HEART. Come join us! Back in the days of our youth we use to chant and mean,"Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!" I say Dare to Struggle Dare to Win NOW. Or as Native people said before a battle, "It is a good day to die." I say, "It is a good day to live and fight." Goddess bless you ALL!

2010-05-02T02:23:00.002-05:00

I love and NEED to balance being pissed at and fighting the jerks who got their feet on our necks with the realization that there are no necks or feet. What incredible wonderful/horrible Illusions our thoughts and actions create in the face of the wonder and mystery of Being Here. I have no idea what Being is or what and where Here is. I just appreciate IT and feel sorry for and want to be supportive of those of us who get a very bad impression of BEING HERE. (sigh) I send loving supportive healing energy to all sentient beings myself included

I offer this prayer to you all from the Buddhist tradition. From my heart to yours.

Metta Karuna Prayer

O Amida,
Oneness of Life and Light,
Entrusting in your Great Compassion,
May you shed the foolishness in myself,
Transforming me into a conduit of Love.
May I be a medicine for the sick and weary,
Nursing their afflictions until they are cured;
May I become food and drink,

During time of famine,
May I protect the helpless and the poor,
May I be a lamp,

For those who need your Light,
May I be a bed for those who need rest,
and guide all seekers to the Other Shore.
May all find happiness through my actions,
and let no one suffer because of me.
Whether they love or hate me,
Whether they hurt or wrong me,
May they all obtain true entrusting,
Through Other Power,
and realize Supreme Nirvana.
Namo Amida Buddha

Declineoftheempire.com

2010-04-28T09:58:00.002-05:00

The following is from the blog of David Cohen. It is worth reading to understand better what is happening behind the Oz curtain in the economic world. I have a link to his website Declineoftheempire.com in my link section.

04/28/2010
Beyond Self-Love
The blogosphere is abuzz with the spectacle of Congress grilling Goldman Sachs executives. On Wall Street, it's just another day at the office. There are so many delicious ironies here, but one in particular stands out.

When Michael Swenson, a managing director for the structured products group at Goldman says "I don't think we did anything wrong," he is referring to current law—the Giant Vampire Squid did not break the law. The exquisite irony here is that the very Congress asking him these "tough" questions is the same Congress that changed the law when they passed the The Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

First, the Act clarifies that certain over–the–counter (‘‘OTC’’) derivatives transactions are outside of the jurisdiction of the CFTC.

Having decreed OTC derivative transactions free of any meaningful regulatory oversight in 2000, the same Congress is shocked, shocked that gambling was (and still is) going on in 2010.

Michael Swenson may be right—this giant bloodsucking invertebrate may not have violated the letter of the law. Perhaps Swenson would also deny that he and the others testifying are degenerate pond scum, garbage-eating slime, sleaze bags, etc.

Here Swenson would be wrong. By even the weakest definition ethical (moral) behavior, shorting your own clients or setting up buyers of your "structured products" to fail is, in Christian terms, a sin against the rest of us. They are leeches on society's body, sucking off blood which would otherwise support the body's metabolism. If the Wall Street-Washington Axis of Evil weren't rigged to protect such parasites, they would fail of their own accord.

Which brings us to Adam Smith, who wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759. Smith was a professor of Moral Philosophy. His oft-cited Wealth of Nations was a follow-up to his Moral Sentiments. As Harvard economist Amartya Sen points out, Adam Smith did not think that the "self-love" which motivates economic exchange—"Greed Is Good"—was the only requirement for a Good Society.

Beyond self-love

Smith discussed that to explain the motivation for economic exchange in the market, we do not have to invoke any objective other than the pursuit of self-interest. In the most widely quoted passage from The Wealth of Nations, he wrote: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love." In the tradition of interpreting Smith as the guru of selfishness or self-love (as he often called it, not with great admiration), the reading of his writings does not seem to go much beyond those few lines, even though that discussion is addressed only to one very specific issue, namely exchange (rather than distribution or production) and, in particular, the motivation underlying exchange. In the rest of Smith's writings, there are extensive discussions of the role of other motivations that influence human action and behavour.

Beyond self-love, Smith discussed how the functioning of the economic system in general, and of the market in particular, can be helped enormously by other motives. There are two distinct propositions here. The first is one of epistemology, concerning the fact that human beings are not guided only by self-gain or even prudence. The second is one of practical reason, involving the claim that there are good ethical and practical grounds for encouraging motives other than self-interest, whether in the crude form of self-love or in the refined form of prudence. Indeed, Smith argues that while "prudence" was "of all virtues that which is most helpful to the individual", "humanity, justice, generosity, and public spirit, are the qualities most useful to others". These are two distinct points, and, unfortunately, a big part of modern economics gets both of them wrong in interpreting Smith.

The nature of the present economic crisis illustrates very clearly the need for departures from unmitigated and unrestrained self-seeking in order to have a decent society....

Smith used derisive terms to describe those who engage in unrestrained greed—

... he called such promoters of excessive risk in search of profits "prodigals and projectors" - which, by the way, is quite a good description of many of the entrepreneurs of credit swap insurances and sub-prime mortgages in the recent past.

The term "projector" is used by Smith not in the neutral sense of "one who forms a project", but in the pejorative sense, apparently common from 1616 (or so I gather from The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary), meaning, among other things, "a promoter of bubble companies; a speculator; a cheat". Indeed, Jonathan Swift's unflattering portrait of "projectors" in Gulliver's Travels, published in 1726 (50 years before The Wealth of Nations), corresponds closely to what Smith seems to have had in mind. Relying entirely on an unregulated market economy can result in a dire predicament in which, as Smith writes, "a great part of the capital of the country" is "kept out of the hands which were most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, and thrown into those which were most likely to waste and destroy it."

The theoretical basis for unrestrained avarice as allegedly set forth by Adam Smith does not exist. The wasters and destroyers have been, and are, running the show in 21st century America. Ever since The Wealth of Nations, these "projectors" have used a flawed interpretation of Smith to justify theft.

There will always be scumbags among us. The trick is to keep them bottled up. To paraphrase Adam Smith, we should never have allowed a situation to arise in which a great part of the capital of the country is not available to those most likely to make a profitable and advantageous use of it, but is instead put into the hands of those which are most likely to waste and destroy it.

I believe it is too late to overturn the current order, which favors the profligate over the prudent. After almost 30 years of fraud and waste, watching our corrupt Congress grill greedy gamblers investment bankers does not fill me with Hope that Change We Can Believe In is just around the corner.

A love moment between me and HER

2010-04-27T07:39:00.001-05:00

I would like to stop. Take a moment and a breath. I turn to Goddess and lean inside, outside, up, down, and sideways and kiss HER beautiful Heart lips and say THANK YOU! THANK YOU for letting me experience this incredible adventure. Thank You for my lover and my friends and my family and all the wonders I have experienced here. Thank You and here, lean over Goddess and let me whisper something in Your ear.( the rest is private between me and Her) We just laugh together and share that LOVE moment.

Mahakala At Work | Tricycle Magazine

2010-04-24T07:23:00.001-05:00

Mahakala At Work | Tricycle Magazine
To Read the full article click the link above.

The workplace presents us with some tough challenges that require both professional skill and spriritual wisdom. Giving difficult feedback to a colleague, confronting an offensive boss, motivating a disillusioned coworker, losing a job, exposing a fraud or a petty office theft—such challenges are real and unavoidable aspects of our jobs. Managing such difficulties can make us feel anxious or disillusioned and, at times even arrogant, inadequate, or fearful.

But navigating such workplace difficulties need not be distressing. In fact, managing conflicts skillfully can be a powerful opportunity for personal and professional growth. What I’ve found particularly useful is a traditional Buddhist way of working with conflict: the Mahakala method.

Carrying a weapon in each of his four arms, the Tibetan deity Mahakala strikes a threatening pose. But Mahakala is actually a protector deity, and meditators have long relied on his powers to help them through difficulties of all kinds in their daily lives. He represents our natural ability to promote what is sane and decent and to eliminate what is unreasonable and harmful. His weapons—a medicine-filled skull cup, a hooked knife, a sword, and a trident—represent four inner resources, traditionally called the “four actions,” for skillfully working with conflict by pacifying, enriching, magnetizing, and destroying.

Being impulsive or arrogant about what is right and wrong, especially during a conflict, can be disastrous. We may think we’re doing what is best for everyone, but often we are only demonstrating our own inflexibility and aggression. Mahakala’s fierce pose reminds us to be alert and mindful—to manage conflicts precisely, and to act with sanity and decency. Here are the four principles that underlie the Mahakala method:

1. Pacifying

Pacifying, represented by the skull cup filled with a calming medicine with magical properties, is our ability to work with conflict peacefully. Often we view business conflicts as confrontations. We tense up, wanting to prove our point or possibly show our coworkers how clever or tough we are. Sometimes we may try to escape the discomfort (and avoid blame) by resorting to excuses or white lies.

Mahakala’s pacifying weapon is our ability to drop this struggle altogether. Pacifying starts with acknowledging that our defensiveness is an unnecessary psychological weight that is getting in the way of working with the problem. Rather than focus on winning or losing, we can permit our defensive energy to transform into curiosity about the conflict itself. What is actually at stake here? What does the other person really want to say, to see happen? Why is the other person so upset, and what would eliminate this distress? Listening, asking questions, appreciating the other’s point of view, expressing gratitude, and seeking clarification are all pacifying activities.

WAR

2010-04-23T19:04:00.002-05:00

What was the Goddess and my inner self trying to tell me about how to relate to the cancer cells in my neck? It came to me this morning. "Fight like Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita or Spartacus in the Starz Movie Channel". What the wife of Spartacus said to him when faced with their enemies, is what I say to my T cells, looking at the cancer cells, "Kill them, Kill them all!!!"

It is time for yet another adventure

2010-04-22T13:03:00.002-05:00

Sufis say, "Greet every stranger that comes to your door with the awareness of who sent them and act accordingly. All people and situations are ultimately gifts from the Goddess." Or some such thing. So I got a gift today. My biopsy exploration shows a small centimeter module of cancer in my throat.

OK Goddess I know this gift is from you and you want me to remember that and act on it. Being your lover I will do so to the best of my ability, so thank you dear Beloved and let's DANCE! (laugh) If you who read this do not get maudlin on me. inshAllah!

Maudlin- adjective 1. tearfully or weakly emotional; foolishly sentimental: a maudlin story of a little orphan and her lost dog. 2. foolishly or mawkishly sentimental because of drunkenness.

I say, Bring out the flutes and drums and sing and dance! Who knows where this adventure gift will lead. I trust it to be good whatever and when ever it is because She sent it to me as a gift, inshAllah!

2010-04-18T18:07:00.002-05:00

We spent a weekend with the Bon Tibetans April 18, 2010

My and I had the pleasure and good fortune to spend a weekend with Temp lama leader of the Olmo Ling Tibetan Bon Center in Pittsburgh and Menri Ponlob Rinpoche head teacher of Bon monastery, the main monastery of the Tibetan Bon tradition. It was a beautiful and life changing experience. When Menri Ponlob Rinpoche did what they call a Transmission I had an experience I was not expecting. I felt my whole body and especially my heart area vibrate and become very warm. The last time I felt anything like that was when I was accepted into a Sufi order and the teacher startled me with the intensity of the loving energy I felt flow from him to me during the initiation ceremony.

Come visit the Olmo Ling Center sometime and get a feel for what I mean. If you are good at feeling energy just be open to feeling it as you look at the photographs below. What a wonderful gift for the people of Pittsburgh to have such a place as Olmo Ling and a man like Tempa Lama.

2010-04-17T18:43:00.001-05:00

My Friend Erica Ross from Toronto posted the following on her Facebook. It is worth reading and contemplating.

"Become the Wanderer, the Visionary.
Go dancing into the wilderness of your own SOUL.
Gather pieces of the unknown and bring them back
from the edge, from the periphery.
Inspire others to have faith in the unknown,
to seek vision in hidden and unexpected places.
Do this for the health of our entire human community."

The Wanderer has a calling to seek adventure, to seek truth, to seek soul, to seek authenticity in her self and everywhere, and then to share her insight and gifts with her community.

“The gift that the Wanderer contributes to her world- simply and amply through her presence- is the aura of mystery, darkness, the unknown, the emerging future. The Wanderer embodies and imparts the ambiance of the wild, the imaginable, the dream… the possible human and the future of human society.

The Wanderer is the Visionary who is mythical and often literally sent by the village out into the wilderness with the charge of gathering a piece of the unknown and bringing it back- the unknown that is at once a threat to the customs and routines of the village and the village’s only hope of cultural sustainability. She brings back tidings and talismans from the edge, from the periphery, the psycho spiritual realms beyond the borders.

Whether she dwells within the village, or wanders alone in some wild hinterland she generates a psychic turbulence in her community. Her people know that she’s out there, and they know what she is doing. Her very existence inspires others to have faith in the unknown, to seek innovation and vision in hidden and unexpected places."

Adapted from the book "Nature and the Human Soul" by Bill Plotkin

If this resonates, please post, and if you are in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area), please let your friends know that we will be exploring this theme at tomorrow's DOWH session (Sat., April 16). More info is on the 'Unfolding' Event Page. http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=378629393734&ref=ts

Blessings to you all!!!!!
The peaceful wanderer,

Erica

I hear the drums calling us

2010-04-16T13:45:00.003-05:00

I live to see the day when enough people in this the world finally say, "Enough! I am done with being your wage slave or being reduced to abject poverty so you and yours can live the life of Gods. I refuse to see my children and their children live off the crumbs thrown from your table while being forced to serve you and yours . It is time to quit playing your riggged games by your rules. ENOUGH!"

These Elites all over the world are not inherently superior to anyone. They rule by force and deceit not by Divine right. The world is not best ran by them or people like them. Because we do not yet have a working paradigm for how to share the world does not mean we are condemned to live forever in their world.

These Oligarchies are just another form of the so called Nobility who enslaved and exploited our ancestors for thousands of years while claiming Divine right to do so. We know now there was noting Noble about them and they did not have a mandate from God to lord it over anyone. What happened to the Nobels needs to happen to the Oligarchies.

I have sung the song that is in my heart. Now if after the biopsy I live longer or I journey towards death I am at peace.

These pictures show it as it is

2010-04-15T07:14:00.000-05:00

It Is Time To Face The Truth

2010-04-15T06:03:00.001-05:00

If, as ancient Chinese healers wrote, it is impossible to have healthy individuals in an unhealthy society than we have to change our current toxic societies into healthy and humane societies. I do not consider China or the old USSR as being socialist. The USSR than, and China now are examples of an elite masquerading as the people.

Developing a new paradigm is not easy but it needs to be done. Capitalism with the big C meaning the rich and powerful being in charge of our world and using profit as the guide for development in their favor is leading to the ruin of the planet and the people. We need to break out of this prison by tearing down the walls and opening ourselves and the world to new possibilities.

I believe that the natural resources of the world should be protected and developed when appropriate for the benefit of the people of the world. If this were done every child, woman and man would be able to have access to the social and physical resources it takes to have a good life.

Capitalism only works for a very few and needs to be replaced. That replacement needs to be developed free of present labels and let capitalism join feudalism and communism in the graveyard of history. There should be a place for private business but it should not be a major place in society. The people and other sentient beings should always be primary.

What kind of country is America? Where are we going?

2010-04-11T09:23:00.004-05:00

Click on the
Here's 15 Mind-Blowing Charts About Wealth And Inequality In America > For the full story.

I smile with pleasure and love

2010-04-10T19:00:00.002-05:00

I have been looking at how many of the chi kung healing techiniques I use and how often I use them and I find that the top three are Jin Shin Jyustu, The Golden Ball or Sphere and Whole Body Breathing. A runner up would be One Hand Near One Hand Far. I do not know how the biopsy will turn out but I do know chi kung has helped me innumerable times in innumerable ways. I hope that some of the seeds found on this blog have found fertile ground and benefited some people, inshAllah. My prayers and my heart's smiles are for you and your loved ones. I am honored to have this time on earth and have enjoyed my life much more than I have suffered. I thank you Goddess and kiss Your Lips with LOVE for inviting me to this party called human life. Thank you.

Another Gift

2010-04-09T17:14:00.003-05:00

Well it seems I have some sort of painful growth on the right side of my neck and have to get a biopsy. I am off on yet another adventure. Last time this happened it turned out to be tonsil cancer. I have no idea what this will lead too. Everything comes as a gift from the Goddess. Some gifts we appreciate more than others. Whatever She has planned for me I will try to greet it with appreciation and love. It is all Goddess. I await her pleasure.

Let's Take a walk

2010-04-06T16:40:00.003-05:00

It is so beautiful outside. Winter is over and Spring beckons us to leave our houses and offices and schools and join Her on a promenade.
If you live near a park or woods I suggest you go there and just walk slowly and consciously with a smile in your heart and let it occasionally flow to your lips. Notice the beauty that surrounds you. Be conscious of fragrances and colors and movements. Just amble along. Nothing to do or think. Just be your nose and eyes and ears. Let your heart be opened by the beauty that you meet. Let that beauty flow into your heart and through your whole being as you walk. Let thoughts and emotions come and go and just BE. See, Smell, Hear, Touch and do not try to understand ANYTHING.

"I walk in Beauty. Beauty in front of me. Beauty above me. Beauty below me. Beauty behind me. Beauty within me. I walk in beauty."

Walk in Beauty my friend. Walk always and everywhere in Beauty.

Simple yet Powerful Self Healing Meditation taught by Master Yu Tianjian, only living Master of Hanmi Buddhism

2010-04-06T16:38:00.000-05:00

Walking Meditation from Tricycle click here for website

2010-04-05T07:41:00.002-05:00

Seven Meditations for Connecting with Nature
By Mark Coleman
IN THE WILDERNESS of the Rainbow Trail at twilight, silence reigns. On this silent backpacking and meditation retreat I am leading deep in the red rocks of Arizona, a small group of men and women have been walking and camping under the steady presence of Navaho Mountain for seven days and seven nights. Immersed in winding sandstone canyons 650 million years old, we have been alone except for occasional visits by curious ravens.
Now the retreat participants are returning from spending twenty-four hours alone. As we sit around the campfire, the moon rises slowly above the sheer canyon walls, casting shadows and animating wizened faces in the rock.
Since I began leading meditation retreats in nature, I've observed again and again what a profound sense of peace people feel when they spend some meditative time outside in the forest or in open meadows. The power of the natural world encourages us to let go of our habitual mode of being, which is usually self-centered, acquisitive, and endlessly seeking something outside of ourselves. The everyday thinking mind, with its restless concerns and perennial planning, begins ro calm down. The body feels more at ease, and the heart slowly opens and resonates with the peace of the natural world. On wilderness meditation retreats, people taste the depth of intimacy it is possible to experience with nature, themselves, and their community.
Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy. Since we are part of the animal kingdom, our senses are naturally more alive in the outdoors. The rustle of leaves or the rapid flight of birds could indicate the presence of a mountain lion or bear. Hiking in places where we are not the only predator helps us understand that all oflife is intimately interwoven and that we are a part of that web. Meditation training, on the other hand, provides the tools to steady the mind so we can be open to receive the jewels of nature. Through meditation we learn how to work skillfully with thoughts and emotional patterns that interfere with simply being able to rest wherever we are, with full presence.
The following are some exercises to help you connect with the natural world in a meditative way.
Beginner's Mind
Take a walk and let yourself be called to a particular tree. Stay with the tree awhile to study, look, feel, smell, and sense it. Listen to it as wind rustles its branches. Bask in its shade in the midday sun. Get to know it at different times of the day and in different seasons. How is it connected with life around it? How do you get to know it, and which senses do you use?
Feel the difference between your idea of the tree and the rich textural experience of it. Notice the impulse to move on because of impatience, resistance, or boredom. When you feel you "know it," what does that do to the sense of curiosity and mystery? Can you maintain interest even when you think you have reached the end of your exploration? Is it possible to fully know what a tree really is? Start to bring this curious attention to all that you meet.

Silence
Spend a period of time in a quiet place in nature to experience silence. Can you connect with the silence that is there even when there are sounds? What interrupts the experience of silence? Does being in silence create any sense of discomfort? Do you want to distract yourself from it? Does the silence allow your mind and body to rest more in stillness and quiet?
Working with Thoughts
Take some time to sit or walk in nature. Simply be as present as you can, Notice when your attention is lost in thought, and how thinking makes you less present to your environment. For a period of time, practice letting go of your thoughts as soon as they arise and returning your attention to what is happening in the physical environment. How does that affect your experience?
Letting Go of Our Stories
When you are lost or caught up in an emotional storm or contracted in self-centeredness or plagued by obsessive thoughts, notice what happens when you step outside or go for a walk and pay attention to the sky, the air, the light, the movement of wind, the feel of grass under your feet. Be aware of how the spaciousness that can arise allows a natural dis-identification with inner turmoil and a regaining of perspective.
Knowing Your Backyard
Take some time to investigate the source of your water, food, lumber, firewood. Where do your waste products go? Is the food that you eat grown locally? What are the indigenous animals, birds, plants and trees in your local area? What are their habitats, where do they nest, eat? What species, what land is currently under threat in your region? Since you are part of this chain of interrelated life, what are you doing that supports or threatens the health of that which may be in danger?
Love
Take time to be with something you love in nature that brings out your natural curiosity and delight, It may be a wild iris, the shimmering luminescence of water in a stream, the patrerns and colors ofa butterfly's wing. Let yourself be drawn to it. Engage your senses. Are you touched by the sense of wonder? Practice daily or weekly, spending time in nature with what most allows your heart to open. How does such love feel in the mind, body, and heart? What effect does it have on your sense of connection with the web of life?
A Day in Nature
Take a day to be alone in nature. Select a location where you are not likely to be interrupted by many people, You can divide the time between periods of contemplative sitting and gentle walks. In sitting meditation, cultivate an open attentiveness toward the present moment. You can focus on the inner experience of breathing and the sensations of the body. Or you can pay attention to the experience that arises from sitting outside—the touch of the breeze on your skin, the physical connection with the earth, the sounds of birds, animals, and the wind, and the fragrances in the air. Try meditating with the eyes open, allowing the eyes to be soft and receptive with a wide field of vision while maintaining awareness of the other senses, especially hearing.
While walking, let go of any goal-orientation. Simply let yourself walk slowly, carefully, with full awareness of the space you are walking in. Let go of any intention to get anywhere. Listen to whatever draws you in the landscape—a particular tree, rock, stream, or a vast open vista. Or perhaps a lizard or beetle draws you into a conversation. Let your senses be wide open and receptive. Give little attention to your thoughts and instead keep turning to your inner and outer environment. If you begin to feel spacey or unfocused, resume sitting meditation, centering attention upon the breath. The less you do outwardly, the more will open to you.
Mark Coleman teaches Vipassana meditation at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. He is currently writing a book on meditation and nature for Inner Ocean Publishing. His website is awakeinthewild.com.
Image 1: Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, the Avery Brundage Collection, B65D4, used with permission.

What do you do when healing does not occure?

2010-04-03T12:21:00.003-05:00

There is a truth in healing that says, "Nothing works for everyone all the time." and as Frank Zappa use to say in one of his songs, "There is no way to delay that trouble coming everyday." All we can do is try to see if a technique or an idea has value in a certain situation by trying it. Let what happens as a result of our experiment be our guide for the next step. Either we are successful and we can give thanks or it does not work and we try something else and see what will happen. So it goes. Sometimes no matter how many techniques we try or how much we pray nothing works and we or our loved ones continue to suffer or die.
The reality is that none of us gets out of here alive. Death and suffering are inevitable no matter how developed we are or how much we believe or practice something. We can ease some pain sometimes. We can prolong life sometimes. But we cannot stop death and we cannot insure that suffering will never come to us or our loved ones. In the end we all suffer and we all die. So it has always been and so it will always be. It is just a matter of time before it is our turn or the turn of our friends or families to fall into the void.
When we have tried repeatedly to ease our own pain and prevent our own death but have failed there comes a time when we need to accept what is and what is going to happen to us. This is also true when the suffering and death are not ours but our friends and families. We need to finally let go of our efforts and just be with what is and will be in the most loving, open, and humble way we can.

I just thought you should know.

2010-03-30T10:17:00.000-05:00

Caroline Myss
Author of "Sacred Contracts"
Posted: March 28, 2010 07:34 PM on the Huffington Post

Are Republican Right Wingers Homeland Security Threats?

Well, well, I've seen poor losers before, as have we all. But these Republicans have been poor losers since President Obama took office and now that their strategy of being the "party of NO" has failed to serve them so far as sinking the Health Care Bill, just look at their behavior. However, they've now gone beyond their trademark of "poor losers" to the status of national security threats and homeland terrorists. For all of their screaming and bullying and noise making in the Senate and House during this past year in their efforts to sabotage the Health Care Bill along with anything from the Obama administration, we would now be more than foolish to misinterpret what's really taking place in front of our eyes: These clever but cowardly Republicans have given the green light to their minions to attack their fellow countrymen who voted in favor of heath care reform in retaliation for their inability to defeat this bill.
These Republicans have, in essence, raised a call to arms against their own countrymen and women during a time when this country continues to fight a war started by Republicans for bogus reasons, a fact which we must never forget. Representative Michele Bachman from Minnesota screamed to her constituents recently, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous ... Having a revolution every now and then is a good thing."
Representative Steve King yelled, "Let's beat that other side to a pulp! Let's take them out. Let's chase them down."
And then there's one of my favorite carnival barkers, Congressman John Boehner, "Take Steve Dryads, for example. He may be a dead man." Ah, yes. Now, how does one go from being a live man to a dead man, Congressman Boehner? Are you hinting that you or one of your cohorts are arranging for a hit man to show up at his door? Is that what you're saying here? Are you telling those of us who don't knuckle under that death threats are what we can expect from Republicans? Apparently.
Let's just consider what the Bush/Cheney administration would do to Democrats or "liberals" who tossed a few bricks into the office windows of Republican congressmen, for example. They would be arrested and labeled as "terrorists", no doubt about it. Anyone uttering threats to a congressman or woman would be immediately and without mercy tracked down like a fox on a hunt. And who knows where the poor fox would end up, if you know what I'm referring to by that comment. (Remember those concentration camps the Bush/Cheney administration set up overseas for torture in Poland and a few other countries?) And can you even imagine what would happen to a liberal (or any astute American) who tossed out a comment to, oh, say, Rove, such as, "Hey, appreciate your shredding the Constitution. Good job, there. Only thing you did well." Hum ... My guess is that person would end up with a hood over his or her head and never be seen or heard from again. I could be wrong but my memories of the Bush/Cheney love of torture, threats, bullying, lies, and negotiating the law are still all too clear. I live in fear and dread that these monsters will regain control of the White House - a nightmare that just does not stop replaying itself in my dreams. I call it "post traumatic Bush/Cheney Syndrome" and I see symptoms of this syndrome active in many people throughout the country. People are still afraid to speak out, lest they find themselves arrested for being anti-patriotic.
Continuing, I wonder what would happen to someone like that coward who accidentally cut the wrong gas line? He was aiming for Virginia Congressman Tom Perriello's house but ended up at the congressman's brother's house instead. That guy must feel like such a silly goose, going to the wrong house and all. I mean cutting a gas line is like "Vandalism 101" and he blew it. It's obvious what happened, though. This guy has the same sharp memory as Palin, only unlike Palin, he forgot to scribble the correct information on his hand. Next time you want to vandalize someone's home, buddy, use lipstick to write down what you need to remember. Pigs love lipstick. I think that's how the saying goes, isn't it? Well, whatever.
As for Sarah Palin, our Republican Court Fool, here's a sweet quote from her: "In Alaska, you know what we do with people like that? We hunt 'em down and shoot 'em between the eyes." Note that she is busy trying to backtrack on that remark and a few others like, "Don't retreat, reload", saying that she was actually referring to "voting 'em out at the polls". What? Since when is "shoot 'em between the eyes" a slogan for inspiring voting? Is this woman insane or what? Or does she think we are? Or is she coming very close to committing sedition? I remind you that this nation is still at war and inciting acts of violence against the government while the nation is at war borders on sedition. This may not be an anti-war protest in its purest sense but at its core, the ambition to weaken this government is crystal clear.
Further, do I sense a threat in these words or am I just reading between the lines? Nope, I think the word "shoot," means exactly what it says. Is she rallying the troops and suggesting that people plan the murders of their opponents? Is she supporting the assassination of Senators or Congressmen and women who are on the opposing team or, even the President? Exactly what, in her hysterical, arrogant lunacy, is she saying? Her website instructs her fan base: Don't retreat, reload.
The recent visitation of a busload of Tea Party Brown Shirts to Senator Harry Reid's home state of Nevada, threatening to oust him in the next election, revealed a crowd of angry, raging people on the verge of a fight. All they needed was a lighted match - the right or wrong word said by an opponent and all hell would have broken out. Apparently these Tea Party Brown Shirts are traveling across the country, taking their rage state-to-state, led by Court Fool Palin - or is she now a Reality Talk Show Host? (I can't keep up with all her avenues to fame and fortune, but it's obvious she'll use anything and everything to keep her face in the camera.)
Here's the bottom line, folks: The Republican right-wingers are dangerous. They should be considered homeland and homegrown security threats and we - those of us who live and vote on the other side of the aisle - are their targets. How do I know if one of these gun-toting hysterics won't let loose and "shoot to kill", following the orders of their leader, Sarah Palin? And, if Palin's too busy because of her upcoming Reality television series, I can easily imagine Michele Bachmann or John Boehner giving a "shoot to kill" command to their Tea Party followers.
Think about it - do you really feel safe in Michele Bachman's state of Minnesota any more? I'm not sure we should assume we're safe anymore at all in our own country. You better check your car bumper stickers to make certain you don't have one that reveals that you voted for Obama. After all, Bachman's encouraging her constituency to become "armed and dangerous" Americans. Last time I checked, Minnesota was not a state full of Al Qaeda terrorists, which means if armed and dangerous Minnesota folks are in the mood to go target hunting, people like you and me are in big trouble.
I have to laugh when Democrats tell their Republican counterparts to tell these right wing upstarts that they need "adult supervision" in order to quell this behavior. Adult supervision? These people need a lot more than adult supervision. These people need to be arrested - Bush style. You Republicans right-wingers love the Republicans? Try being on the receiving end of Republican justice and see how much you love your Republican Party then. Oh, and here's a solution to your angst with the Health Care Reform Bill: You tell your insurance company about all your pre-existing conditions that would have previously disqualified you from health care insurance and STAY disqualified. And keep your kids off your health care plan once they turn age-21. Adult supervision - honestly. You're assuming these Brown Shirt Tea Party hysterics are lucid, educated adults! You forget - lucid, educated adults are exactly what the Republican Party finds most threatening, which is why Republicans love the "No Child Left Behind" program. Their intention is to dumb down Americans for the sake of control - and that is no joke, people.
As if all of this brutality we are witnessing across our nation and within the Houses of government is not a horror show in and of itself, the greater truth is that what we are viewing is the authentic underbelly of the Republican Party. Lies, deceitful propaganda (remember death panels?), endless spin devised to contaminate the public mind and continually chip away at public and higher education, and use of brutality and homeland terrorism - this is the true Republican Party. This is a party who loathes the middle class much less the lower middle class and seeks to wage war legally on all Americans that they consider to be free thinkers or free loaders - "free" being the operative word. What we are looking at as we view their constant verbal and now rising physical attacks on anyone they view as an opponent/enemy is just a preview of what these people intend to do to all good Americans - Americans who believe in the rights of this nation and how this government should and must work. Should the Republicans get back into the White House (God forbid) or get control of the House and Senate again, they will initiate legislation to limit the rights of the individuals. Any and all individual rights stand in opposition to the Republican corporate creed. Just review the legislative history of the Bush/Cheney administration and then reflect upon the short and long-range consequences of the recent Supreme Court ruling that gives corporations the right to back candidates with endless financial resources. If that is not a Republican coup, what is?
If ever there was a reason to rally support around this administration to ensure it stays in office for two terms, it's not only because President Obama is a visionary saddled with cleaning up the mess of a post-Fascist administration, but you are now witnessing the true Republican creed in action: When they don't get their way, they get violent. They believe in the use of threats and they order their constituents to "shoot 'em between the eyes".
Here's a warning to all freethinking Americans: You Could Be The Next Republican Target. After all, this is the party that introduced homeland spying, the Patriot Act, and the end to all personal privacy. Given those achievements, it's not all that far-fetched that they would incite another Civil War, is it?

2010-03-13T17:13:00.000-05:00

Seven Reasons Why It's Better Not To Hate Them
Even if they are really horrible, greedy, corrupt, and completely deserve it. . .

By Diana Winston

I KNOW HOW EASY IT IS to sit around during this election year and smolder in rage. I have years of personal experience reading newspapers or listening to news while the urge to violence hijacks my mind. Getting wind of the latest degradation to decades-old environmental legislation or another slash to health care and education is sure to get me steaming. I have entertained countless fantasies of moving to another country (and that's the tame end of things). But in spite of my anger, rage, and disbelief, I have a commitment to try not to hate, or at least to try to temper my hate with a little bit of compassion and understanding. Why? Well, I think it's the sane way to be—and my dharma practice demands it.
To this end, I've concocted a set of reasons that I use to remind myself not to hate our government. These reasons are by no means meant to disempower me or prevent me from acting. What they do instead is provide an antidote to my bitterness. They serve as practice instruction to see how wide I can open my heart. They provide a Buddhist twist to counteract my habitual tendencies so that I can ultimately respond to perceived injustice from a healthier place.
1. HATRED HURTS.
The Buddha taught that hatred is a form of suffering. He said that holding hatred in the mind and heart is like tightly clutching a hot coal in your hand-guess who suffers? You can experience the burning quality of hatred by examining your own mind. What does your mind feel like when it is filled with love? Most likely you feel connection, spaciousness, openness. What does it feel like when your mind is full of hate? Probably you feel disconnection, pain, and separation, all accompanied by some good old self-righteousness. Dharma practice is about the development and cultivation of skillful mind states-no matter what the situation. This is not to say difficult mind states don't arise unbidden, but which ones do you want to hang on to? What kind of mind do you want?
2. NO ONE IS ETERNALLY OR INHERENTLY ANYTHING.
Buddhist teachings remind us there is no essential "self' that lasts or is inherent. This person we are hating is not always this way, has not always been this way, and may act very differently at other times. And within each of us lie the seeds of change. When I can remember this, my clinging to blame can soften. I am reminded of the Buddhist tale of Angulimala, the murderer who wore a garland of 999 fingers around his neck to commemorate the brutal death of each of his victims. When the Buddha saw that the murderer's mother was to be his thousandth victim, he intervened and, with a single teaching, converted this evil criminal into a fully enlightened being, albeit one who still had to accept the karmic consequences of his earlier actions. It's an interesting teaching tale of the potential for change within each of us.
3. WE'RE THAT WAY. TOO.
No one corners the market on greed, hatred, or delusion. These mental states are inside all of us. When I'm in the middle of a heated argument, I sometimes point out to myself that I'm filled with anger, just like the person I'm mad at. We may not have the degree of anger we see reflected in the violence in the world. We may not have the power to do damage on the level of a world leader. But for anyone who has ever sat down to observe the mind, it's clear how plentiful the three poisons are in there. We all might have the capacity to do anything, given the right circumstances. When dire circumstances in Rwanda in the 1990s turned neighbors and dear friends into murderous enemies and rapists, one expert from Human Rights Watch stated: "This behavior lies just under the surface of any of us." Remember the famous Milgram experiments at Yale in the 1960s, where subjects administered harmful electric shocks to actors posing as cosubjects, simply because aurhority figures instructed them to do so? It could be us. In fact, it is us.
4. WE DON'T KNOW FOR SURE WHO IS RIGHT.
This is a hard one to stomach, but it's true. How can we possibly know? We can hold long-cherished ideals, bur the truth is, since we are not omniscient, some of what we believe may be wrong. Review your own political history and ask yourself whether your beliefs have changed over the years. Many of my currently pacifist Buddhist friends were once part of militant revolutionary organizations using violent means for social change. According to basic Buddhism, one of the greatest forms of suffering is attachment to views. No matter what the view, if we are attached, we will suffer. The dharma invites us to rest in not-knowing, to tolerate the discomfort of a mind with no firm ground. It asks us for a more flexible mind that might be open to other views. From this place, can we soften our critique of the thing we hate? Sometimes when I'm really mad I say to myself, "Diana, maybe in some way they're right. You just don't know for sure." And it's true, I don't. This does not mean I can't develop discriminating wisdom that allows me to keep seeing clearly, and acting on my insights. I just try not to hold on to my views so tightly, especially the views that make me see others as enemies.
5. YOU CAN'T FIGHT KARMA.
Buddhism teaches that acts that cause suffering to oneself or others are rooted in an ignorance of karma. According to teachings of karma, unwholesome actions lead to suffering in this life or the next. Even if you don't believe in rebirth, it's a safe bet that ignoring karmic laws will take its toll and lead to suffering in this life, not to mention the next. From a Buddhist perspective, the act of hating can only bring the hater unhappy results in the long run. So hating is just not a good idea, karmically speaking.
Also remember that if your enemies are acting in unskillful ways, they will probably suffer quite a bit down the road. The tremendous compassion His Holiness the Dalai Lama feels toward the Chinese is striking. His compassion comes from understanding karma, knowing that the suffering the Chinese military has caused the Tibetan people in these fifty years of cultural genocide has already had and will continue to have pretty scary results for the Chinese. Rather than filling with rage and revenge, his heart goes out to them.
6. THROUGH UNDERSTANDING WILL COME COMPASSION.
One reason we hate is that we don't see the full force of the other's situation. When I can't feel compassion whether I'm fighting with my partner or listening to a news item on the radio—I can ask myself, "What is it I don't understand I" The more thoroughly we can understand the source of pain—causing actions, the more we personalize the supposed evildoer rather than being caught in projection and assumption, which generally breed more misunderstanding and hatred.
When you see someone acting in a way that's upsetting you, stop for a moment and imagine being that person. Imagine the streams of causes and conditions that led to this very moment and that particular behavior. Bring to mind the person's early history and training, the levels of fear and ignorance inside them. Remind yourself of the strucrural violence under which this person grew upracism, classism, unexamined privilege. Bring to mind an entire culture that has likely validated the action.
Start small—say, with your anger at a coworker—and expand the inquiry to political figures and ultimately social systems. Keep in mind that the point is not to minimize their actions nor to excuse them, bur to foster an investigation—based compassion that softens hatred.
7. HATRED WILL NEVER CEASE WITH HATRED.
As the Buddha taught in the Dhammapada, hatred will never cease with hatred, but only through nonhatred will hatred cease. We will reap what we sow. The Buddha uncompromisingly advocated the development of skillful mind states such as love, compassion, and generosity as true antidotes to their unskillful opposites. My own experience in years of meditation has shown me that whatever qualities I practice, those qualities increase. If I want to be more generous, I need to practice generosity. If I spend a lot of time on obsessive worrying, more worries are sure to come. The Buddha likened this phenomenon to filling a bucket a few drops at a time—one day we look down and the bucket is full. What do we want in our bucket?
Thich Nhat Hanh's term "being peace" speaks to this principle. It invites us to link ends and means in our activism (and in whatever we do in our lives). What would a protest look like that didn't replicate the structures it was fighting against? A. J. Muste, the longtime radical activist, said, "There is no way to peace, peace is the way." If we want to have a vision of a better world—free from hate, violence, and destruction—where else do we start except with ourselves?
SOUND DAUNTING? Perhaps, bur take this list as a mental experiment to practice and reflect on. Study the results in your life and activism and you'll see that these explorations won't result in inaction. We may fear that if we're too good-hearted, we will be ignored or taken advantage of, and the political crisis will continue unchallenged. But there is a big difference between loving our enemies and letting them get away with their wrongdoing. We can hold these principles and practices in mind and still act on behalf of justice, peace, equity, environmental sanity. What would the world be like if we acted from a place of compassion, open-heartedness, and a willingness to maybe kind of sort oflove the enemy? It's an amazing thought.....
Diana Winston is the founder of the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement (BASE), theformer associate director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, a writer, activist, dharma teacher through Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and the author of Wide Awake: A Buddhist Guide for Teens.

This man does good work. Click here to visit his site.

2010-03-12T10:46:00.005-05:00

Gregory J. Nicosia, Ph.D., B.C.F.E. is a licensed psychologist and the founder of Advanced Diagnostics, P.C., Pittsburgh's premiere center for the thought energy based psychotherapeutic treatment of trauma and remediation of cognitive dysfunction.

Dr. Nicosia has helped to explore and elaborate the newest psychotherapies in the last 25 years including biofeedback and behavioral medicine, EMDR, and most recently thought field therapy. . Dr. Nicosia is the originator of TEST® Dx and ThoughtWorks® and has trained thousands of healthcare professionals throughout the U.S. in the use of TFT, and in his more recently developed Thought Energy Synchronization Therapy diagnostic and treatment procedures that have significantly expanded the range of effective application of energy psychology. He has authored a score of professional papers and articles, including publications on TFT and EMDR and was nominated as Pittsburgh Man of the Year in Science and Medicine for 1997.

Dr. Nicosia is a Member of the American Psychological Association, a Fellow of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association and the American College of Forensic Examiners, and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology.

Geshe Chongtu Rinpoche.

2010-03-08T10:51:00.002-05:00

I very much liked Geshe Chongtu Rinpoche. I pasted some information and a link about him from his website can be found by clicking the title of this entry above.
Geshe Chongtul Rinpoche has been teaching Bön religion in North America over the last decade. Each year the number of students increases because of a growing interest in meditation and in Bön religion.

Rinpoche believes that the interest in Bön – particularly the Bön Dzogchen meditation system – reflects a growing desire for peace. The Bön ancient teachings offers a path to positive change in the life of an individual who is seeking peace, tranquility, and compassion in today’s world.

Many westerners may feel a natural connection with Tibetans, Tibetan culture, and the ancient practice of Bön meditation because it applies equally well to people who have been born in many various times and places.

Through the serious study and practice of this system, one can achieve peace within oneself which will naturally extend to ones’ relationship with other humans, as well as the animal and entire natural world.

Chongtul Rinpoche established Bön Shen Ling in 2006 to preserve and share ancient Tibetan teachings from an unbroken lineage of great teachers. Also known as Tog Den Won Po, Rinpoche believes that these unique teachings will have great relevance for everyone.

Geshe Chongtul Rinpoche, Spiritual Director
Jeffrey Granett, MD, FACC, President and Treasurer

2010-03-08T10:49:00.000-05:00

From March 4th thru March 7, 2010 My and I attended a workshop on Death and Dying at Carnegie Mellon University Campus sponsored by the Olmo Ling Bon Buddhist Center and the Institute to Enhance Palliative Care, University of Pittsburgh the School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh and the C.G. Jung Institute of Pittsburgh

About the Workshop
For thousands of years, the Tibetan spiritual traditions have cultivated practices to offer spiritual support to the dying and to prepare for a peaceful and conscious death. This workshop and training program brings together Tibetan lamas Geshe Chongtul Rinpoche and Tempa Dukte Lama, Zen priest and medical anthropologist Roshi Joan Halifax, PhD., and guest speaker Susan Hunt, MD.

The workshop faculty presented compassionate care from a spiritual perspective and taught practices to support the dying and to prepare for a peaceful and conscious death. The Bon Buddhist teachings on death and dying invited us to explore the meaning of death in our lives and to develop the strength to keep our heart and mind free from fear and judgment.

It was one of the most beautiful and powerful experiences of my life. My and I are deeply thankful and appreciative of the time we spent at the workshop. It was full of love and knowledge that left us feeling more comfortable when it comes to facing our own deaths.

2010-03-08T08:39:00.001-05:00

Facing Fear

How can we meditate when we're too scared to get on the cushion? Lama Tsony gives us advice on practicing with fear.

By Lama Tsony
Lately I’ve been dealing with a lot of fear during my meditation practice. It seems to come from nowhere, and it either focuses on a specific attachment or it manifests as a more existential, nameless sort of thing. How can I deal with this?

Fear is what happens when reality collides with our personal fiction. Our practice is based on expectations—expectations about who we are, why we are practicing, and what our practice should be. As our hope disintegrates, it may be replaced by fear. Our characteristics, personality, all of our beautiful plans and ideas are like snowflakes about to fall on the hot stone of our meditation practice.

Maybe you’ve poked through boredom and have had a first taste of spaciousness. Until your experience has become stable, the fear remains that your dreams, your life, and your base could fall apart. The more you contemplate space, the more you are aware of the dissolution of everything you have assumed to be real, lasting, and reliable—including your motivation and your practice. Now it all feels transitory and unreliable. This crisis, rooted in dissolution, translates as fear.

This is a seminal moment in our practice. Each time it manifests, each time we are aware of fear, we have a choice: we can acknowledge our problem and work with it, or we can run away from it and seek refuge elsewhere: distractions, pharmaceuticals, weekend feel-good-about-yourself workshops, whatever. We are free to refuse the disappointment and the dissolution. We don’t have to put ourselves back into the situation where the foundation of our being is shaken by the experience of impermanence and emptiness.

But if we decide to continue, if we’re convinced of the sanity of the Four Noble Truths and decide to take refuge in the dharma that the Buddha taught, we need to be courageous. We can choose to take refuge in the brilliant sanity of enlightenment, the Buddha; trust the process of the path, the Dharma; and rely on the experience of those who guide us along the path, the Sangha. We can choose to explore our mind, learn about its problem areas and hidden treasures, but it won’t be comfortable. The guidance of a spiritual friend or teacher is crucial at this stage of our practice.

At the same time, we can be nice to ourselves, accept ourselves as we are and let go of what we are pretending to be. Our crisis is a normal phase. We all enter the spiritual path as ego-based beings, and as such we have ego-based hopes and fears. Practice is virtually never what we expect. We feel like we’ve got it all wrong, thinking, “The more I meditate, the worse I become.” My teacher, Gendun Rinpoche, always responded to this by saying, “When you see your own shortcomings, it’s the dawn of qualities. If you only see your qualities, there’s a problem.”

It’s true that if we continue to try to create our personal nirvana through our practice, we’re going to suffer even more. If we use the practice tools that develop intelligence and clarity with a confused, selfish motivation, reality is bound to collide with our fiction. This is where practice is supposed to bring us. This is the proof that the dharma works. It’s the end of our confused, fictive world, and the dawning of truth.

When fear arises within our meditation, we apply an antidote. Recognizing what is happening at each instant as mind, we remain in the present. It is important to remember that patterns don’t have to repeat themselves. Through remaining in the present, we can let go of the past and the future—the headquarters of our fears. We recognize and then we let go, whether coming back to the focal point of our meditation—posture, breath, visualization—or nonconceptual space. Through motivation, honesty, and confidence you can practice with your fears and go beyond in them in a way you never thought possible.

Lama Tsony is head of the monastic community at the Dhagpo Kundreul Ling hermitage in Auvergne, France. He travels throughout the U.S. and Europe, teaching and leading meditation retreats.

One Hand Near One Hand Far Healing Technique.

2010-03-07T08:10:00.003-05:00

One Hand Near One Hand Far is a very powerful healing technique developed by a chi kung master named Dr Zia Gang Sha. You can find more about him by clicking the tiltle of this entry and it will take you there. I posted this information a couple of years ago but I think it is time to do it again.

Start by being aware of the lower dan tien. Move your awareness from lower dan tien to the laboring Palaces. If you have a place in your body that hurts or needs help place one of your hands, we will call this hand the near hand, about 4 to 7 inches away from the painful area. Point your first two fingers of that hand at the painful area. Imagine that energy is flowing from your lower dan tien to the Laboring Palace of the near hand. Then guide the chi from laboring palace out through the two pointing fingers into the area in your body being treated. This is One hand Near. Now take the other hand which we will call the far hand, and place it about 12 to 20 inches from your lower dan tien. Aim your palm or Laboring Palace of the far hand at the lower dan tien. You can aim the far hand at any part of the body and get good results. The lower dan tien is however, one of the best places. Notice what happens. Sooner or later, usually within a few minutes, you will notice a reduction or elimination of pain or discomfort.

To treat other people just aim your near hand's fingers at the area that hurts and aim your far hand's palm or Laboring Palace at another area of their body that does not hurt but could use some strength. Remember the near hand should be about 4 to 7 inches away from the person's pain and the far hand should be about 12 to 20 inches away from another part of their body that is not in pain.It could take a few minutes so be patient. Sometimes it is very quick other times it is slower but it usually will produce results.

If you treat another person ask them to let you know what they are experiencing as you do the treatment. I tell people I treat, that we are a team and to keep me informed as to what they are experiencing so I can adjust the treatment. It is not uncommon for pain to disappear in one place and appear in another. If this happens just adjust the near hand accordingly.

Three Healing Forms of Chi Kung

2010-03-05T18:16:00.017-05:00

Healing Chi Kung

The first thing to do before starting any chi kung practice is to move into a comfortable position. This can be sitting, standing, or reclining. Start to relax all your muscles from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. Regulate your breathing so your belly goes out on the inhale and in on the exhale. Above all else smile. During a chi kung practice try to keep a smile in your heart and let it often flow to your lips. Place smiles in your brain, in your heart, and in your lower abdomen just below your bellybutton. Remember to be very kind and patient with yourself. But also remember to stay focused. Of course you will lose focus during the exercises because your mind and emotions will tend to take you away from your intention to practice. When this happens as soon as you notice that you are thinking instead of doing the exercise, just let go of the thoughts and emotions and gently return to the practice. This forgetting and then returning to the exercise is normal so do not worry when it happens. But do keep returning to the practice. The first chi kung exercise I am going to show you is called Sky Nourishes Earth. I urge you to practice this exercise until you can do it with very little effort. I do Sky Nourishes Earth before I do any other chi kung exercise. It prepares your mind/body/energy field for all other exercises.

Sky Nourishes The Earth.

This exercise is good for relieving or preventing the harmful effects of stress. It is also good for eliminating or preventing headaches and many kinds of pain. It is also a good way to monitor and release unnecessary muscle tension and bad breathing patterns.

First feel the area around the top of your head. Feel or imagine you feel your brain. Imagine your brain is smiling. Feel your heart and imagine it smiling. Fell your lower abdomen and imagine it smiling. Feel the bottoms of your feet. Notice that they are smiling and happy.

Now we start. The intent of this practice is to bring Heaven energy down through the top of your head and out through our hands and feet. It is important to understand the intention of any chi kung practice before you do it. The Universe responds to our intentions. The clearer and stronger our intent the stronger will be the Universe's response. There is a saying in chi kung that “Chi follows yi." That would mean in English that energy follows disciplined intentional actions. In practice that means if you want chi to move in your body you must bring your awareness to that part of the body and move your awareness in patterns that you want the chi to move in. Thus "chi follows yi." There will come a time when you will pace your internal movements through your body with your breath. When you first start to practice chi kung do not worry too much about pacing with your breath. Just breathe naturally making sure you are belly breathing. Now let us start. Bring your awareness to your hair and top of your head. Fell the top of your head. Let your imagination and awareness guide Heaven chi through your head and body and out through your hands and feet. If you can, imagine that Heaven chi is flowing like warm water, down through the top of your head into and through your body.

From the top of your head move down through your smiling brain. Release any unnecessary muscle tension you encounter as you journey through your body.

From your neck move through your shoulders and down your arms and out your hands. At the same time moves down through the trunk of your body (notice your smiling heart and smiling lower abdomen as you pass through them) to your pelvic floor. From there flow down your legs to the bottom of your smiling feet and out into the earth.

As your intentional awareness guides Heaven chi through your energy/material body intend and know that it is cleaning out any toxic energy that has accumulated within you. Imagine that the chi of the Heaven is strengthening and healing and loving you. Know that as the chi from your body enters the earth any toxic energy is transformed into healing energy for the mother earth. As you move through your body you will find areas that are tight and pulled in and up with muscle tension. Just gently relax and soften these muscles and feel them sinking down towards your center of gravity in the lower dan tien.

You might notice a subtle current like sensation as you move through your body from top to bottom, skin to the core. The more you can feel and pay attention to that current the stronger your ability to cultivate chi. Do not worry if you can not feel the current at first. Sooner or later, as you practice more, you will feel it.

Feel yourself as you go down through your body from your skin to your connective tissue to your muscles to your tendons to your bones. Try to feel your organs as you pass through your body from head to foot. Notice the smiles in your brain, heat and lower abdomen. When you can, smile at the smiles you meet as you flow through your body. Be aware of your breath as it enters and leaves your body.

As you breathe in remember to feel the lower abdomen expand and as you breathe out feel it contract. If this is not happening, please pay more attention to how you breathe until it becomes natural for you. This will take time for most people. You must learn to breathe this way to rid yourself of headaches and reduce high blood pressure. Notice what areas of your body you can feel easily. These areas are called "awake." Notice areas of your body you cannot feel. These areas are called "asleep." Every time you pass through your body try to wake up more of the parts of your body that are "asleep." Do many passes of Sky Nourishes Earth.

Another thing you can do is to place smiles in any area in your body that is hurting or feels uncomfortable. When you pass through these areas during Sky Nourishes Earth smile at the smile you see in the areas of pain and discomfort. Often times the pain and discomfort will ease or disappear as you continue rounds of this exercise.

Golden Sphere of Energy. It is good for pain relief and energy.

Imagine a beautiful golden sphere of radiating energy moving and spinning and glowing in your abdomen just below your bellybutton. This area is called the lower dan tien. If you can, imagine the warmth and the feel of the golden radiating spinning sphere.

If you are feeling tired and need more energy just imagine the golden sphere radiating and spinning faster and faster in your lower belly i.e. lower dan tien. If you feel like you need more mental clarity imagine the golden sphere in your brain i.e. upper dan tien. The key is to really FEEL it radiating and spinning and in your mind eye SEE the golden sphere radiating and spinning. Keep it going as long as it takes. Sometimes it will be quick other times slow. But persevere.

The golden sphere can be used in all three dan tiens, either one at a time or in all three simultaneously (lower dan tien in the lower belly, middle dan tien in the heart area, upper dan tien in the brain area) and can be used anywhere there is pain or discomfort in the body. The KEY is to do it often enough to know it works and then make it a part of your everyday life.

If you have pain anywhere in your body, just imagine that the pain is a dark cloud of energy. Imagine the golden sphere is in the dark cloud and let the radiating sphere spin and as it spins it gets brighter and brighter and disperses the dark cloud.If you have many areas of pain you can place a golden sphere in each area or you can do one area at a time. Continue working with the golden sphere or spheres until the pain is gone or much reduced. If the pain returns call the golden sphere back and use it to disperse the dark cloud of pain.

Whole Body Breathing.
Good for most sickness or weakness.

Start with about five Sky Nourishes earth movements. Now feel as much of your skin surface as you are able. Feel especially the bottoms of your feet, your palms and finger tips, and the top of your head. Now imagine that the pours of your skin are little noses and your lower abdomen is your lungs. As you inhale imagine that you are breathing though your pours and through your body to the lungs in your lower abdomen also called the lower dan tien. As you exhale imagine you are breathing out from your lower dan tien through your body to the pours and into the sky. As you breathe in and out from your skin to the lower dan tien and back again to your skin, try to be aware of your connective tissue, muscles, tendons, organs and dan tiens as you go through them. We know that when you pay attention to a part of your body with intent you can increase circulation and energy flow to that part. So try to feel as much of your body as you can as you breathe in and out. Intend and imagine beautiful healing, loving, energy entering you with every inhalation. Intend and imagine any sickness or weakness leaving your energy/material body with every exhalation. Know that any weak or unhealthy energy will be transmuted by the Universe and used for good, so do not worry about breathing this energy out. This exercise is very good for sick people. It is also good to use when you feel weak. You can do this exercise as long or as short as you like. For better results I suggest about ten or twenty minutes.

Massage your ears by pulling pressing and pinching them all over do the fronts and backs of the ears. This is good for con

A beautiful talk on transcending fear

2010-03-03T16:39:00.001-05:00

Jin Shin Jyutsu in oncology counseling

2010-03-03T09:21:00.005-05:00

I am posting this video because I feel it gives a very real view of a person suffering and how she can help herself. I had tonsil cancer and chemo and radiation so I know how she is feeling in this video. I am sure many people who come upon this video can relate to it. My prayers are with her and you and your friends and family. Learn and practice this technique and you will benefit. You can also hold the fingers of someone who cannot treat themselves.

I have a post from a couple of years ago that can show you more about how you can do Jin Shin Jyustu. I am re posting it here.

Jin Shin Jyutsu Is is an ancient, effective, and simple self-healing method. I have used it for years and always love the results. Make it a habit and you will come to love it as well, inshAllah. It is as simple as it looks. Just hold one finger at a time for a few minutes or longer if needed or desired. I usually do it for five minutes a finger and go through both hands. Sometimes, I like to do Jin Shin Jyutsu while I walk or watch TV or am riding in a car as a passenger.
There are other aspects to this technique but this is a good place to start. Jin means Knowing and Compassion. Shin means Creator. Jyutsu means art. It can be translated as, " Creator's art personally for Myself." You can hold the fingers anyway you like. I have two ways I illustrate here. Below are some explanations for what each finger can do. I start with how they effect emotions and the meridians and organs in the Chinese Medicine paradigm. More will follow later.
You can find more information about this technique at the following link,
http://www.jinshinjyutsu.com/
Another very good site with a good explanation of what the finger can do follows. Read it and practice what you read. If you do, you will find treasures for you and your family and friends. You can hold other people's fingers for wonderful results. Play with this and find happiness.
http://www.medindia.net/alternativemedicine/index.asp?Choice=Jin%20Shin%20Jayatish

Little finger above, Pretense, crying on the inside while laughing outwardly. This finger effects the heart and small intestines. I am referring to the Chinese medicine paradigm when I speak of the organs here and below.

Second finger, Grief . Grief effects the lungs and this finger helps many lung problems.
Third finger, Anger. Anger effects the liver. This finger may help the liver.

Forth finger, Fear. Fear effects the kidneys. This finger may help the kidneys.
"Fear, according to Jiromurai, is the cause of all disease. Apart from this worry, sadness, anger and pretense are also responsible for causing disease and are called attitudes. If these attitudes are corrected, healing takes place and our whole body gets harmonized physically, mentally and spiritually." (from the medindia.net)

Thumb,Worry. Worry effects the stomach and spleen. This finger may help the stomach and spleen. Remember I am speaking of the Chinese paradigm when I refer to the stomach and spleen.

Peter Russell Is a man worth visiting.

2010-03-03T08:25:00.003-05:00

You can find the other six lessons on my youtube.com site listed in the links section to the right of this entry. You can also find Peter Russell's web page. It is full of very good information.

Part IV: The Financial Coup d’Etat — The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America

2010-02-23T09:44:00.004-05:00

Click the above title to find Part 4 of the Economic Elite. A good education about what we are living through is important before our understanding can mature enough to lead to a healthy response. A big part of the environment we live in is social-economic and it's impact on us is vast. Not to understand the nature of the social-economic world we live in is like walking onto a busy highway blindfolded and deaf and expecting to get to the other side safely. It does not happen.

2010-02-21T17:26:00.002-05:00

This video was part of a forum dealing with Shamanism and it's role in the birth of religion via mushrooms and other mind altering teacher plants.

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Change Spreads Like Ocean Waves Within Ourselves And Our Societies

2010-02-21T07:10:00.001-05:00

Change Spreads Like Ocean Waves Within Ourselves And Our Societies
You cannot be healthy in an an healthy world. To commit to being truly healthy is to commit to helping to transform the world. Read what the Buddhist say about that process in an article on Tricycle.com linked below. “The Path of Complete Engagement” an interview with Richard Reoch, human rights advocate and president of Shambhala International.

Richard Reoch, human rights advocate and president of Shambhala International, speaks with Tricycle

The new president of Shambhala International speaks with Tricycle.

In some sense, we should regard ourselves as being burdened: We have the burden of helping this world. We cannot forget this responsibility to others. But if we take our burden as a delight, we can actually liberate this world. The way to begin is with ourselves. From being open and honest with ourselves, we can also learn to be open and honest with others. So we can work with the rest of the world on the basis of the goodness we discover in ourselves. Therefore, meditation is regarded as a good, in fact excellent, way to overcome warfare in the world: our own warfare as well as greater warfare.

—Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

Richard Reoch is the President of Shambhala, the international spiritual organization founded by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1940-1987). Reoch is a former senior official of Amnesty International, a trustee of the Rainforest Foundation, and currently chair of the International Working Group on Sri Lanka, an organization whose aim is to end the Buddhist world’s longest-running war. In association with the Garrison Institute, an interfaith retreat center and spiritual think tank in upstate New York, Reoch is a founding member of the International Buddhist Peace Service, an initiative that focuses on worldwide conflict resolution using Buddhist principles. His service at Amnesty is particularly notable for his focus on both the victims and perpetrators of torture. Reoch was interviewed earlier this year by Tricycle’s James Shaheen and Elizabeth Lees at Karmê Chöling, a Shambhala retreat center in northern Vermont.

How did you first come to Buddhism? When I was six, my parents joined the Toronto Buddhist Church. I went there every Sunday until I was twenty-three. While most of the service was in Japanese, there were a few chants that were in English. And there was one, which you always recited at the end of the service: “We pledge to follow in the footsteps of the Buddha, and to work earnestly for the welfare of all humanity. Particularly to those who are standing forth to the great change we call death, we send forth oceans of wisdom, mercy, and love.” I attribute entirely everything I have subsequently done to that.

So Amnesty International was a perfect fit. Yes, and early on, it brought me right back to an unexpected encounter with Buddhism! In my earliest days at Amnesty, I interviewed a man who had been the abbot of a monastery that had resisted the Chinese during the invasion. He went through all kinds of rigors and eventually escaped. I never mentioned anything to him about my connection with Buddhism. At the end of the interview, he said to me, “I can see that you have a great interest in our religion, but what you are doing [at Amnesty] is more important.” That answered a question that I’d had in my mind; I’d been given this amazing affirmation. He continued, “You’re magnetized to religious practice, but the work you’re doing, for human rights, is more important. Do that.” I worked for Amnesty International for twenty-three years.

Do you see your political and social engagement linked to your Buddhist background? Totally. It was much later in my life that I came across the term “engaged Buddhism.” And I remember being genuinely perplexed, and actually irritated. We pledged every day at the Buddhist temple to devote our lives to working for humanity. Why would you need to add the word engaged to Buddhism?

The Buddha was a social radical, a social transformer. After attaining enlightenment, he crisscrossed northern India, teaching. He established communities that were alternative social models to the caste society he grew up in and was destined to rule in. But in these new societies, you took a vow, part of which was that you wouldn’t refer to what your previous caste had been. Men and women wore robes and shaved their heads so that they wouldn’t be distinguished by the traditional marks of gender or wealth. They went out and begged for food from all classes—scandalizing the brahmins by mixing food from brahmin households in the same bowl with food from “untouchable” households. And when the monks walked along the dusty roads in their bright saffron gowns, they were a walking advertisement for a completely new way of living. Now meditation is a part of that change, but it goes hand in hand with it, not before or after. Ultimately, from the point of view of the dharma—at least, my understanding of it—cultivating your mind through meditation is also social radicalism. Because if the goal is to produce more people who are manifesting the attributes of enlightenment—namely, wisdom and compassion—then that, by necessity, is a transformation of the social situation as well.On the night of the Buddha’s enlightenment, he is said to have understood that everything is completely interconnected and interdependent. Therefore it is impossible for anybody to go on retreat from the world. Everybody knows that when you go on retreat, the whole world, no matter how tiny your retreat cabin, is there, in terms of your experience. And the purpose of retreat is precisely to transform the world.

Still, a lot of people’s association with Buddhism is that it’s a retreat from the world. How do you respond to that?

But you don’t see a progression—first you transform your mind, then you go out into the world? That’s a false dualism. There’s nothing about our situation that can be cut off from the rest of what is going on. The only way you can be cut off is through ignorance - the root problem, as identified by the Buddha —which leads to sorrow and suffering.

One of your initiatives, the International Buddhist Peace Service, is overtly “engaged” with the world in its aims. Can you say something about that? This idea stems from an incident that occurred when I was in a Red Cross jeep in northern Sri Lanka. In 1995, I was part of a delegation that was visiting the war zones there. We ended up in the midst of a tremendous confrontation, and a soldier came up to me and put his gun in my face. He wore a black mask and a full camouflage outfit. I thought he was going to say something threatening. He instead said, “I totally appreciate the work of your organization,” referring to the Red Cross. And I instantly realized that for him, the Red Cross was a symbol of the opposite of warfare and threat and degradation. This led me to think, “Isn’t it odd: When there are disasters, emergencies, wars, where are the Buddhists?” All kinds of organizations rush to Iran or Turkey or the Philippines whenever they see immense human suffering, but you don’t see the Buddhists.

My question led to a series of discussions that included me, as the president of Shambhala, people at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, people at Dharma Drum, people in the Buddhist Churches of America, the Japanese community, and the Garrison Institute. We explored the possibility of an international Buddhist peace service that would bring the profound insights of the Buddha-dharma together with state-of-the-art assistance, for example, in peacekeeping or mediation. We’re trying to identify where it is that Buddhists might be engaged that would really make a difference.

What else might it provide? In looking at the collapse of various peace processes, one analysis is that a peace settlement has three components: structure, behavior, and attitude. Traditionally, a great deal of attention is paid to structure: drawing lines on a map and deciding how a territory is going to be governed, for instance. Behavior might involve monitoring of ceasefires, monitoring of weapons dismantling, and the introduction of a civilian government. But very rarely have contemporary peace agreements dealt with attitudes, the underlying forces that have led to the conflict.

How might the International Buddhist Peace Service approach changing attitudes? What you find in societies that are at war with each other is that one side doesn’t listen to the other. But it’s so powerful when people take the brave initiative to listen to each other. In Sri Lanka I was involved in taking several delegations to listen to pro-war Buddhist monks. All kinds of people go and talk to these monks and tell them what the Buddha-dharma is and how they should behave. But I realized that nobody ever just listens to them. We made repeated visits, living with them and just listening until they felt sufficiently at ease. Eventually they were able to talk about what is most disturbing to them: a complete degradation of their society through globalization, corruption, drugs, Western culture, the destruction of villages. And then you realize, “There is a tremendous fragility and a genuine anxiety here,” which, as with any human being, ends up expressing itself as aggression. But until you reach that point, you’re not going to enter into a dialogue that helps anybody move on.

It seems daunting to think about how to actually get out and further the cause of peace. How does one get the word out? By building an organization with a media presence in order to be recognized and actually be part of the conversation. Why shouldn’t we imagine that there could be a major Buddhist network with its own news service? I mean, in the United States, you can’t avoid hearing evangelical programs on the TV. Well, what’s inconceivable about the idea that one day there’ll be twenty-four-hour Buddhist coverage?

Let’s make it personal again for a moment: What are your suggestions for what people can do on a daily basis to help bring about these kinds of changes? For me the starting point is overcoming ignorance. That’s where the Buddha said we should start. We have to make it part of our daily discipline to become better informed about the world we live in. We need to be able to distinguish between truth and falsity such as misinformation from our governments and from mainstream news media. We also have to learn to deal steadfastly and intelligently with suffering. When there is something awful on TV, like a bombing or some carnage, the first thing is not to switch off, because that would be the equivalent of not addressing human suffering. Second, we need to strengthen our critical faculties: we need to examine what is being said on the news and also see clearly our own reactions to what we are being shown - it’s so easy to become seduced by the pornography of bad news. To cultivate the ability to watch one’s own kleshic activity [negative thought patterns] is a very powerful practice. Third, we need to avoid arrogance. If we think we can solve the entire world’s problems, we will get crushed. We see this when people feel cynical, defeated, or insulted after their efforts:

“If I can’t take the whole thing on, then I won’t do anything.” But in my experience, there is tremendous value in taking just one issue and working on that. Since all life is interconnected, each single step we take is a journey on the path of complete engagement.

Have a seat and relax.

2010-02-19T19:30:00.012-05:00

I have attempted to write this post repeatedly for over a year.Each time I stopped because I did not have the concentration or ability to put into words what I wanted to convey to you about this blog and healing.The tonsil cancer and the medical treatment took a lot out of me and I am trying to strengthen but it is slow work. So forgive me for not being up to my intent. That said I still have to say to you what I believe about what it takes to be a good healer for self or others.
The most important aspect of a good healer is the ability to unite in all accepting love with the person who needs your help especially if that person is YOU. If you want to help yourself when you are in need the first and most important step is to love your self as if you were a mother loving your child.
We have been told a lot that only God heals. I say that is universally true, not individually so. Yes, God is the only Healer and at the same time all beings and non beings have within themselves the innate ability to deliver the healing. Even if that was also a big misunderstanding of how healing occurs I still feel in my heart that we are ALL called upon to act in the face of pain and suffering. My blog is my response to that call.
If you spend time on this blog you can find out how to be a healer in action not just in words and hopes. I say that with asured confidence. Let your heart and your intention be to help your self and those in need. Be open and committed to learning what you find here and through the links.
Take a little time and learn some very good and effective healing techniques. There are a number of wonderful mysteries and philosophies found within this blog I urge you to find and explore them. Have an adventure. Why not become a healer or a better healer or a mystic or something else all together. There are many different paths and indications found within this tavern. Let yourself be surprised and have one or several magical journeys. This is a fork in the road. Do with it what you will.
So relax and look within this site and follow the links. If you are smart and sincere this site will change your life if that is your intent or pleasure.
It might even change your life if you just stumbled upon it, inshAllah.

You might be off put by my political views. It cannot be helped. I believe in my deepest loving heart that one of the most significant causes of pain and suffering we all experience is from living in toxic, unjust, cruel and dehumanizing, corporate societies. If I did not urge you to look at the many and varied effects of a corporate controlled society on the spiritual, mental and emotional health of yourself and the people of the world I would be remiss in my duty to you. Only a healthy and loving society can foster healthy and loving people. The greatest challenge we face as brothers and sisters of humanity is to help construct a truly healthy society for ourselves and our loved ones. Before we can do that we have to study and understand our present social reality and it's spiritual, mental and emotional effects on us and our loved ones.

When I get MAD at what is going on in this country and the World I listen to this song!

2010-02-18T09:40:00.001-05:00

I posted this video earlier but I feel compelled to post it again. When I am confronted by more proof of the obscenities committed on the people of this country and around the world by the small groups of people who control us to enhance their wealth and power I feel righteous indignation and anger. Listening to this song helps me focus on my determination to unite with people hear and around the world and do something positive to change things for the better and confront the SOB's who have their boots so firmly on ALL OF OUR NECKS!

2010-02-18T09:35:00.000-05:00

"Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable. And education, too, is where we decide whether we love our children enough not to expel them from our world and leave them to their own devices, nor to strike from their hands their chance of undertaking something new, something unforseen by us, but to prepare them in advance for the task of renewing a common world."
- Hannah Arendt

2010-02-18T08:46:00.003-05:00

This is the first of a six part article on what is happening to us and why.
The Economic Elite Vs. The People of the United States of America

The article can be found at,
http://ampedstatus.com/

Part I By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report This is the first part of a six-part report. Part two will be posted on Wednesday. To be notified via email, subscribe to our newsletter here. ——-I: Casualties of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage ——-II: The Rise of the Economic Elite ——-III: Exposing Our Enemy: Meet the Economic Elite ——-IV: The Financial Coup d’Etat ——-V: Overcoming the Divide and Conquer Strategy ——-VI: How to Fight Back and Win: Common Ground Issues That Must Be Won “The American oligarchy spares no pains in promoting the belief that it does not exist, but the success of its disappearing act depends on equally strenuous efforts on the part of an American public anxious to believe in egalitarian fictions and unwilling to see what is hidden in plain sight.” — Michael Lind, To Have and to Have Not

It’s time for 99% of Americans to mobilize and aggressively move on common sense political reforms. Yes, of course, we all have very strong differences of opinion on many issues. However, like our Founding Fathers before us, we must put aside our differences and unite to fight a common enemy. It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99% of the US population no longer has political representation. The US economy, government and tax system is now blatantly rigged against us. Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for 99% of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep… and make no mistake, they have launched a war to eliminate the US middle class. To those who feel I am using extreme rhetoric, I ask you to please take a few minutes of your time to hear me out and research the evidence put forth. The facts are there for the unprejudiced, rational and reasoned mind to absorb. It is the unfortunate reality of our current crisis. Unless we all unite and organize on common ground, our very way of life and the ideals that our country was founded upon will continue to unravel. Before exposing exactly who the Economic Elite are, and discussing common sense ways in which we can defeat them, let’s take a look at how much damage they have already caused. I: Casualties of Economic Terrorism, Surveying the Damage The devastating numbers across-the-board on the economic front are staggering. I’ll go through some of them here, many we have already become all too familiar with. We hear some of these numbers all the time, so much so that it appears as if we have already begun “to normalize the unthinkable.” You may be sick of hearing them, but behind each number is an enormous amount of individual suffering, American lives and families who are struggling worse than they ever have. America is the richest nation in history, yet we now have the highest poverty rate in the industrialized world with an unprecedented number of Americans living in dire straits and over 50 million citizens already living in poverty. The government has come up with clever ways to downplay all of these numbers, but we have over 50 million people who need to use food stamps to eat, and a stunning 50% of US children will use a food stamp to eat at some point in their childhood. Approximately 20,000 people are added to this total every day. In 2009, one out of five US households didn’t have enough money to buy food. In households with children, this number rose to 24%, as the hunger rate among US citizens has now reached an all time high. We also currently have over 50 million US citizens without healthcare. 1.4 million Americans filed for bankruptcy in 2009, a 32% increase from 2008. As bankruptcies continue to skyrocket, medical bankruptcies are responsible for over 60% of them, and over 75% of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have healthcare insurance. We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world, we are forced to pay twice as much as other countries and the overall care we get in return ranks 37th in the world. In total, Americans have lost $5 trillion from their pensions and savings since the economic crisis began and $13 trillion in the value of their homes. During the first full year of the crisis, workers between the age of 55 - 60, who have worked for 20 - 29 years, have lost an average of 25% off their 401k. “Personal debt has risen from 65% of income in 1980 to 125% today.” Over five million US families have already lost their homes, in total 13 million US families are expected to lose their home by 2014, with 25% of current mortgages underwater. Deutsche Bank has an even grimmer prediction: “The percentage of ‘underwater’ loans may rise to 48 percent, or 25 million homes.” Every day 10,000 US homes enter foreclosure. Statistics show that an increasing number of these people are not finding shelter elsewhere, there are now over 3 million homeless Americans, the fastest growing segment of the homeless population is single parents with children. One place more and more Americans are finding a home is in prison. With a prison population of 2.3 million people, we now have more people incarcerated than any other nation in the world - the per capita statistics are 700 per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, China has 110 per 100,000, France has 80 per 100,000, Saudi Arabia has 45 per 100,000. The prison industry is thriving and expecting major growth over the next few years. A recent report from the Hartford Advocate titled “Incarceration Nation” revealed that “a new prison opens every week somewhere in America.” Mass Unemployment The government unemployment rate is deceptive on several levels. It doesn’t count people who are “involuntary part-time workers,” meaning workers who are working part-time but want to find full-time work. It also doesn’t count “discouraged workers,” meaning long-term unemployed people who lost hope and don’t consistently look for work. As time goes by, more and more people stop consistently looking for work and are discounted from the unemployment figure. For instance, in January, 1.1 million workers were eliminated from the unemployment total because they were “officially” labeled “discouraged workers.” So instead of the number rising, we will hear deceptive reports about unemployment leveling off. On top of this, the Bureau of Labor Statistics recently discovered that 824,000 job losses were never accounted for due to a “modeling error” in their data. Even in their initial January data there appears to be a huge understating, with the newest report saying the economy lost 20,000 jobs. TrimTabs employment analysis, which has consistently provided more accurate data, “estimated that the U.S. economy shed 104,000 jobs in January.” When you factor in all these uncounted workers — “involuntary part-time” and “discouraged workers” — the unemployment rate rises from 9.7% to over 20%. In total, we now have over 30 million US citizens who are unemployed or underemployed. The rarely cited “employment-participation” rate, which reveals the percentage of the population that is currently in the workforce, has now fallen to 64%. Even based on the “official” unemployment rate, just to get back to the unemployment level of 4.6% that we had in 2007, we need to create over 10 million new jobs, and most every serious economist will tell you that these jobs are not coming back. In fact, we are still consistently shedding jobs, on just one day, January 27th, several companies announced new cuts of more than 60,000 jobs. Due to the length of this crisis already, millions of Americans are reaching a point where the unemployment benefits that they have been surviving off of are coming to an end. More workers have already been out of work longer than at any point since statistics have been recorded, with over six million now unemployed for over six months. A record 20 million Americans qualified for unemployment insurance benefits last year, causing 27 states to run out of funds, with seven more also expected to go into the red within the next few months. In total, 40 state programs are expected to go broke. Most economists believe that the unemployment rate will remain high for the foreseeable future. What will happen when we have millions of laid-off workers without any unemployment benefits to save them? Working More for Less The millions struggling to find work are just part of the story. Due to the fact that we now have a record high six people for every one job opening, companies have been able to further increase the workload on their remaining employees. They have been able to increase the amount of hours Americans are working, reduce wages and drastically cut back on benefits. Even though Americans were already the most productive workers in the world before the economic crisis, in the third quarter of 2009, average worker productivity increased by an annualized rate of 9.5%, at the same time unit labor cost decreased by 5.2%. This has led to record profits for many companies. Of the 220 companies in the S&P 500 who have reported fourth-quarter results thus far, 78% of them had “better-than-expected profits” with earnings 17% above expectations, “the highest for any quarter since Thomson Reuters began tracking data.” According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national median wage was only $32,390 per year in 2008, and median household income fell by 3.6% while the unemployment rate was 5.8%. With the unemployment rate now at 10%, median income has been falling at a 5% rate and is expected to continue its decline. Not surprisingly, Americans’ job satisfaction level is now at an all time low. There are also a growing number of employed people who, despite having a job, are still living in poverty. There are at least 15 million workers who now fall into this rapidly growing category. $32,390 a year is not going to get you far in today’s economy, and half of the country is making less than that. This is why many Americans are now forced to work two jobs to provide for their family to hopefully make ends meet. A Crime Against Humanity The mainstream news media will numb us to this horrifying reality by endlessly talking about the latest numbers, but they never piece them together to show you the whole devastating picture, and they rarely show you all the immense individual suffering behind them. This is how they “normalize the unthinkable” and make us become passive in the face of such a high casualty count. Behind each of these numbers, is a tremendous amount of misery, the physical toll is only outdone by the severe psychological toll. Anyone who has had to put off medical care, or who couldn’t get medical care for one of their family members due to financial circumstances, can tell you about the psychological toll that is on top of the physical suffering. Anyone who has felt the stress of wondering how they were going to get their child’s next meal or their own, or the stress of not knowing how you are going to pay the mortgage, rent, electricity or heat bill, let alone the car payment, gas, phone, cable or internet bill. There are now well over 150 million Americans who feel stress over these things on a consistent basis. Over 60% of Americans now live paycheck to paycheck. These are all basic things that every person should be able to easily afford in a technologically advanced society such as ours. The reason why we struggle with these things is because the Economic Elite have robbed us all. This amount of suffering in the United States of America is literally a crime against humanity.