So Many Years

Coming of old age is easy - it just happens. Difficult are the goodbyes coming one upon another with accelerating velocity - demanding new levels of self mastery. 

Content

Content.
Looking at the pigeons kiss
  fly above rooftops
Cats resting on each other
  fur glistening in the hot sun
Sandalwood smoke rises.
I sit here
Myself teaching me to be.

Cook Book

Melting down is an experience which happens to everyone from time to time. It's a breaking point. Whether it builds over a long period of time or just happens all at once, it breaks us down and melts us to the most basic of ingredients. At the time, they seem to be negative ingredients such as fear and despair yet, even these break down into the building blocks from which we are solidified. The fear melts down and becomes surrender. Surrender melts down and becomes peace. Peace then melts down to become harmony. Once we are in harmony, we are one with everything; we are whole. We are solidified again yet, this time with different ingredients because we remember the bitter taste of fear. It's like adding too much spice to a dish. Next time, you know to add less and counter balance it with another spice. Take what life dishes out; fulfill your hunger and be full again.

Tablets

Isn't it funny, how the things that I think,

  feel like they're written in permanent ink.

But a lie is a lie, is a lie, is a lie,

  and the truth is unbounded like the wide open sky.

The past, it is gone and the future's unknown.

  I'll switch to a pencil and stop chiseling stone.

-Brian Sweeny

This and That

Years ago there was a bohemian group that held parties at the ramshackle home of an old painter in Canyon, far back in the Oakland Hills.  His son and I used to hold long discussions on all sorts of subjects, including physics, math, philosophy, music, literature…  One night, both of us having consumed a fair amount of wine, the subject of Zen came up.  We wondered if we could make our own contribution to Zen enlightenment.  The result was the following.

 “In a Zen monastery, a monk was given the opportunity to ask the Master one and only question, with the promise that the Master would answer it.  When the appointed day arrived, the monk was presented to the Master.  ‘You may state your question,’ said the Master.  The monk replied,  ‘My question is this: What is the most important question I can ask you, and what is the answer?’  To which the Master replied, ‘That is the most important question you can ask, and this is the answer.’”

Contributed by John Franklin 

Ordinary and Extraordinary Life

Ordinary life flows on until there's an opening into the extraordinary; a vision of the absolute, transcendental, vertical dimensions of reality. Ordinary life dominates our awareness. The chores, the tracks laid down by education, family, childhood, youth, middle and old age. Sometimes, it feels good; sometimes disarming. We may entertain or distract ourselves for we can't always bear the ordinary condition.

Into every ordinary life come truly difficult events that break the habitual patterns; creating openings into the extraordinary. Amazingly, the extraordinary just shows up by way of grace alone - arriving into a humble simple ordinary moment - while washing dishes by hand! Or, walking with a young child.

One Step in Mindfulness

"Taking even one step in mindfulness
can benefit all beings on Earth."
                        -- Thich Nhat Hanh

Dream

Contradiction and Reconciliation

Every contradiction is a reconciliation.
We live in time while abiding in eternity.
Happy are they who surrender to Being.