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Peter

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Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 971 total)
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  • in reply to: Blank Canvas #439796
    Peter
    Participant

    Anita

    You made me smile. The ‘poem’ was something that arose at a time of insomnia 🙂 But yes I do now use it to quite my thoughts and ‘let go’.

    “and (I am developing the idea), they imagine that the Eternal will happen later in time.” I think that is common projection, that was what I was thought. It never occurred to me that the Eternal wasn’t a measure of time.  Its funny now, all those teachings about being in the present, and I was anything but as my mind was stuck in measurement, was the present a breath, two breaths, the moment between breaths… The realization that the Eternal Now wasn’t a measurement has been freeing. Funny that we work for that which no work is required. It is and you already and have always been it.

    Anyway hope everyone is having a good thanksgiving weekend and not to warped up in the Black Friday noise.

     

     

    in reply to: Am I judgmental? #439792
    Peter
    Participant

    Hi EvFran

    Your asking a question I think many struggle with. When to speak up and when not to and maybe even block them. The latter being difficult as that could mean we stop listening ourselves and or putting our heads in the sand.

    I think we ought to be careful of all or nothing solutions though if I’m being honest with myself tend towards the latter.

    The best advice on such question I’ve come across was from a book ‘Crucial Conversations Tools for talking when stakes are high.
    The questions I ask myself before engaging is, Is it safe, do I understand my own story, am I in a space were can hear/listen… am I acting out of a sense of righteous nutritiousness which is common today and quite addictive.

    Am I hoping to be seen and understood by a person who can’t see me…

    in reply to: Blank Canvas #439790
    Peter
    Participant

    Hi Anita
    I’m… doing ok, thanks for asking. Not always feeling like myself of late as I find recent events troubling and having me questioning my reality.

    You mention something I’ve been pondering as it concerns the eternal. When we think of the notion of “being in the present” most of us imagine a measurement of time which may be why we struggle with the concept.  Especially if it becomes a something we seek.

    Like the fish that doesn’t know its in water, we don’t realized the present we desire to ‘be’ in is the Eternal Now from which we swim. The Eternal which isn’t a measurement of time or a measurement at all. The kingdom is here now and within you.

    Been working on my meditation “poem”, centering prayer…

    ‘The Temporal and Eternal’

    The sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening measuring out our day.
    At this moment somewhere the sun is both rising and setting
    Yet the sun neither rises nor sets
    It is, we are, I am… that.
    All things arise from and return…

    All movement arises from and returns to stillness
    It is, we are, I am… Stillness
    All sound, language… all measurement arises from and returns to silence
    It is, we are, I am… Silence.
    All Life arises from and returns to Love.
    It is, we are, I am… Love.
    All time arises from and returns to Eternity.
    It is, we are, I am… Eternal.

    All things arise from and returns to… the Eternal Now, Stillness, Silence, Love
    It is, we are, I am… that.

    in reply to: Inspirational words #439589
    Peter
    Participant

    We swim in a river consciousness, experiencing just a molecule of the whole, mistaking it as separated from the whole the I calls I…  We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.” – Alan Watts

    “In this stillness, I am the trees alive with singing. I am the sky everywhere at once. I am the snow and the wind bearing stories across geographies and generations. I am the light everywhere descending. I am my heart evoking drum song. I am my spirit rising. In the smell of theses sacred medicines burning. I am my prayers and my meditation, and I am time captured fully in this now (eternal now not a measurement of time) . I am a traveler on a sacred journey through this one shinning day. – Richard Wagamese

    —————————————————————————————————

    “Heaven above, Heaven below, Stars above, stars below
    All that is over, under shall show, Happy thou who the riddle readest” – Tabula Smaragdina

    “The Sphinx spoke only once, and the Sphinx said, “A grain of sand is a desert, and a desert is a grain of sand; and now let us all be silent again.” Sand and Foam by Kahlil Gibran
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    in reply to: Inspirational words #439555
    Peter
    Participant

    Cleaning it up

    “We shine most brightly in community, the whole bedraggled, worn, frayed and tattered lot of us, bound together forever by a shared courage, a family forged in the heat of earnest struggle.” – Richard Wagames

    in reply to: Inspirational words #439553
    Peter
    Participant

    <p lang=”en-US” style=”margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;”>”we shine most brightly in community, the whole bedraggled, worn, frayed and tattered lot of us, bound together forever by a shared courage, a family forged in the heat of earnest struggle.” – Richard Wagamese</p>

    in reply to: Inspirational words #439527
    Peter
    Participant

    Not a saying but read this meditation today and liked it. Fitting as the first snows of winter arrived

    “In the deep snow moons of winter, their are stories hovering around us. They are whispered by the voices of our ancestors, told in ancient tongues, told in the hope that we will hear them.
    Listen…
    In the drape of moonbeams across a canvas of snow, the lilt of birdsong, the crackle of a fire, the smell of smudge and the echo of the heartbeats of those around us, our ancestors speak to us, call to us, summon us to the great abiding truth of stories: that simple stories, well told, are the heartbeat of the people. – Richard Wagamese – Embers

    “So tell me… which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?’  – Life of Pi

     

    in reply to: How can I feel happy and emotionally strong #439526
    Peter
    Participant

    I am new to this forum and want to understand how to become happy and emotionally strong as I am going through severe depression.

    In racing, they say that your car goes where your eyes go. The driver who cannot tear his eyes away from the wall as he spins out of control will meet that wall; the driver who looks down the track as he feels his tires break free will regain control of his vehicle.” ― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

    Hi Mahvash

    Sorry that your in a time of depression. Though my own search I have found that Happiness like, Joy Love aren’t ‘things’…things to be sought out or become. I found the search itself prevented its finding or becoming and that the surest thing to kill a experience of happiness are the words ‘I am happy’. In that moment we can’t stop ourselves from trying to hold on, grasping and fearing we will lose it, we find ourselves unhappy.

    The car goes where the eyes go. Staring at a road sign, as the back tires start to spin-out from under, signs that read ‘here is happiness’  and another that reads ‘here is sadness’ the result is the same, the car ends up off the track or even crashing. ‘We have a bad habit of mistaking words/signs for the territory‘.

    In the spheres of experience, the temporal and the eternal, the temporal is time, measurement, language, duality, the playground of ego consciousness… in the eternal, which is not a measurement of time, the realm of silence, stillness, (non-duality), Love...

    I wonder if ‘happiness’ it a realization of the relationship of the temporal to the Eternal Now, the stillness within movement, silence within the noise, the Love within Life… all life arising from and returning to the Eternal Now (stillness, silence, Love)

    The car races around the track, the rain falls, the eyes soft, still, silent, focused.. looks forward at the curve ahead, even as back wheals slip, the car adjusts, continues…. That is the eternal now, no measurements, no words, stillness in motion… glorious, happiness??? not in the destination, not in the wining or losing a race in time, but in the moment of driving…

    The mind, this thing we call self seeks out the playground of time as it ought. the trick perhaps is not mistaking the playground for home. We are meant to play, have fun and even know happiness in those moments of relationship to home, the Eternal now, which is always, as it is.

     

    in reply to: Hara – Beyond the Concept #438368
    Peter
    Participant

    I prefer the metaphorical ‘slap’ of a kaon and paradox too the physical one 🙂
    I read to many personal accounts where the physical  ‘slaps’ intention was lost, a case where a method was confused with the destination.

    The ‘slap’ is meant, I think, to jolt the mind out of its own created traps. Mind creating the problem of duality then trying to use Mind to ‘fix’ it.  as Watts put it “You can’t lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. It won’t work! It won’t happen! “

    in reply to: Hara – Beyond the Concept #438349
    Peter
    Participant

    The book is hard to find so the link is apricated.

     

    I find when it comes to books on Zen a good practice is to not to hold the words to tightly. Zen tends to use language to ‘slap’ the student so that they might avoid falling into that temptation of mistaking the map for the territory. Though it may not always appear so, Zen never asks that the student to understand or believe.

    Man is originally endowed and invested with Hara. But when, as a rational being, he loses what is embodied in Hara it become his task to regain it.

    To rediscover the unity concealed in the contradictions through which he perceives life intellectually is the nerve of his existence. As a rational being he feels himself suspended between the opposite poles of heaven and earth, spirit and nature. This means first the dichotomy of unconscious nature and of the mind which urges him to ever increasing consciousness; and second the dichotomy of his time-space reality on this earth and the Divine beyond time and space. Man’s whole existence is influenced by the tormenting tension of these opposites and so he is forever in search of a life-form in which this tension will be resolved. – Karlfried Graf Durckheim

     

    in reply to: Hara – Beyond the Concept #438297
    Peter
    Participant

    I found Karlfried Graf Durckheim book – ‘Hara: The Vital Center of Man’  helpful

    If you google ‘Path of Initiation – the wisdom of Karlfried’  there is a Youtube video worth listening to.

     

     

    in reply to: Blank Canvas #434670
    Peter
    Participant

    I’m not a fan of Koan’s myself and not sure how effective they are anymore what with all the books and such explaining them. Which totally misses the intention. Having answers to the unanswerable is a very western objective measuring mind kind of thinking thing to do.

    Having no desire to be liked or understood, still a times thin skinned…. feels like a kind of Koan  🙂

     

    in reply to: Blank Canvas #434650
    Peter
    Participant

    Thanks Helcat

    I’ve never been comfortable with the words enlightenment or for that matter the word meditation. Like most westerners the tendency to apply measurements and judgments to the words get in the way.

    I’ve been looking into Krishnamurti life who uses a kind of Socratic method to look past our constructs. He’s not a easy read but I think he would agree with your thoughts on the ‘stages in meditation’

    I’ve been playing around with a slow realization that ‘Stillness’, Calm, ‘Silence’, Eternity… are not measurement’s, are not things to be measured. I find it freeing. Neurologically I suspect these are right brain experiences.

    My mediation a kind of Ying Yang flow between the left and right spheres of the brain.  Carry water chop wood (left side) AND Carry water chop wood (right side)  The Doings are the same but the experience different.

    in reply to: Blank Canvas #434649
    Peter
    Participant

    Thanks Anita you have a wonderful way with words and its helpful to see what I attempt to work through reflected back so succinctly.

    Though I was taken aback by Tommy’s tone for a moment (a old wound of not being seen or understood showed up) I wasn’t offended.

    As we were referencing a Zen Koan, after taking the moment, I had to laugh as ‘BS’ is actually a appropriate reply. A Zen master would have no doubt ‘slapped‘ both of us. If I understand correctly the Koan’s are paradoxical and intentionally frustrating the idea being to break (slap) the hold  of the grasping measuring mind or something…  the imagined Zen Master just slapped me again.  🙂

    Tommy’s mention of monkey mind caused me to pause. My process of ‘sitting in a Koan’ (Paradox, dualism) with free flow of thoughts (slowed down by typing them out) actually calms the monkey as it tends to end in silence. But that’s my process and I see why it might find it ‘to much’.

    in reply to: Blank Canvas #434622
    Peter
    Participant

    LOL Tommy.

    Perhaps why language fads to silence as it should.

    Seeking stillness while on a planet spinning through space a fools game.  yet when Stillness isn’t a measurement

    The mountain still a mountain “seen” for the first time, not a only or just

Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 971 total)