lotusinthemud

Don't be afraid of who you are

The key to warriorship and the ultimate definition of bravery is not being
afraid of who you are. Examine your experience to see what it contains that
is of value in helping yourself and others. Warriorship is the opposite of
selfishness. We become selfish when we are afraid of ourselves and afraid
of the seeming threats the world presents. We want to build a little nest,
a cocoon, to protect ourselves. But we can be much more brave than that.
Even in the face of great problems, we can be heroic and kind at the same time.

Chogyam Trungpa

Tarantula Mind

How little my conscious mind knows
even when I try to think & understand.

It's as if I'm a tarantula trying
to swallow an elephant.

In the corners

Ever want to just bust out
of all constraints?

Like there's a seed inside
struggling against its casing?

Boomeritis and St. Ken Wilber

Hopi dreams
Coffee cream
Visions in the night
Causal realm
Captain's helm
Peeper's taking flight

You send me a photo

You send me a photo
when you were young and
very beautiful and smiling

with eyes that spill mystery
with waterfalls of hair &
a glow shining through

against an orange background
in one of those photo booths that
promise dreams at the county fair.

Now for all of us our past selves
have become their own dreams
shadows of the present who flutter

in the wings, in some dark recess
at the back of mind, sometimes
whispering a fierce no or a wild yes.

I see the you I know now in
this youthful face only your beauty
has grown as your soul has

burst out and consumed you.
You're the moth at love's flame
on fire with an inner light.

Zen Oleary

No

What do you do when you're
like a stone rolled off a cliff?

You've come to a stop wedged
between larger rocks on the beach.

Conquering Foreign Territory

Traditionally, it is said that the Kagyus [the Tibetan lineage to which
Chogyam Trungpa belonged] and the goats like to preside over rocky
mountains...

Oops - ain't got the technology

Spent all yesterday afternoon and evening recording most of my Cds onto my computer with SonicStage. This morning I spent 3 hours trying everything I could think of, going through all the troubleshooting techniques I know, to record the music onto a CD for my new Sony Atrac3 CD player to take on my hols tomorrow. And, guess what? Mark reminded me that I don't have a CD rewrite drive! It hadn't occured to me, if the two bits of the computer would talk to each other in one direction, that they wouldn't in the other! Now I'll just be able to take a few CDs (instead of my entire collection) and wait until I get home again to buy and install the necessary hardware.

Night Sky

I just wandered into an unlit room and looked out at the clouds in the night sky. They were orange with the light pollution of the city. I remember when we drove down from Edinburgh. We could see the light from Newcastle for over 30 miles.

I miss the dark of our nights at Oxenthwaite, in the east of Cumbria, near Kirkby Stephen. When there was no moon you couldn't see anything at all. When the comet was going over it looked like something from a film.

It's dark like that at Amida France. And as quiet. I'm not really a natural city dweller, though I was brought up about a mile away from where I now live. There's plenty to keep me here - chaplaincy at the uni and running the Amida centre - and we need to be in a city to run Peter's translation business. But the country suits me better. The places above, and the years I spent on a houseboat at West Mersea.

Synchronise mind and body

When you are completely mindful in the present moment, mind and body are
synchronized. Here, synchronizing mind and body is connected with
developing fearlessness, in the sense of being accurate and direct in
relating to the phenomenal world.