"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Isaac Asimov One of the first things I remember from initial black and white television programming was cowboys shooting guns. The Lone Ranger and the Cisco Kid. And I remember clowns, although that has nothing to do with this blog. For some reason we were battered... Continue Reading →

"Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving." - Albert Einstein Moods. Moody. I'm in a, "Fill in the blank," mood. "She's in a bad mood today." "How are you?" (mood) My mood is like an emotional thread that weaves through my life for a while. Mood is the great... Continue Reading →

"How can you reject Samsara? Where will you go? This is Nirvana itself." - H. W. L. Papaji Life and meaning. It goes two ways, either I find something in life that generates meaning, some person, place, or thing I decide is some sort of answer to questions that only humans need answered. Who am... Continue Reading →

"Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: that you are dreadfully like other people." - Amy Lowell I'm not sure I would use the word "dreadful," but it sure comes close. "We're going to break up into pairs and discuss.................... Whatever." that always seems to send this little electric current through any... Continue Reading →

"I would rather have a cup of tea than sex." - Boy George What ever happened to Boy George? I don't know if he is absent or is still here somehow. We had a small group gathering and the discussion flowed around the whole idea of letting go, dissolving the self, and if a complete... Continue Reading →

"I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird." - Frank Zappa Strange or Weird are words that I am familiar with. I remember riding home from a parent/teacher conference with my mother who was very, very angry. Angry because a teacher had decided that my habit of... Continue Reading →

"If you win the rat race, you're still a rat." Lilly Tomlin Us rats must stick together. I look back and see that I have been meditating since I was a child, with a large foray into drug addiction. And depression. They go together so well! Despite my initial attempts to become a perfect Buddha,... Continue Reading →

"There are more people who wish to be loved than there are willing to love." - Unknown, but accurate. Wanting to be loved is interesting. Not feeling loved is interesting. Projecting love is also interesting. But only because no one on the face of the earth can actually describe what the word love means. Lot's... Continue Reading →

"You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress, simultaneously." - Sophia Bush Someone had asked about the "Form into emptiness, emptiness into form" thing. It's a mysterious Zen Buddhist phrase that philosophers love to tackle. But all it means is things rise and fade, and while they rise they carry... Continue Reading →

"It's absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious." - Oscar Wilde Oscar seems to have a handle on our social field much better than most. At least he's willing to admit living from ego, opinion, and judgement, which he did very well. Which most of us do really... Continue Reading →

"Thank you for misunderstanding me, rejecting me and not seeing me and teaching me to always see myself." - Maryam Hasnaa One of the things about being aged experienced is I'm learning about attention. Both attentions. In meditation we are obsessed with PAYING ATTENTION!!!!!!! Which always seems a little strange, because I haven't figured out... Continue Reading →

"When you see the genuine, you don't deal with the fakes anymore." - Nima Davani Genuine, what does it mean to be "genuinely yourself?" When you look it up it says genuine means to be authentic, and when you look up authentic it says it means to be genuine. I never know what to do... Continue Reading →

"Stop. Stop everything. Then you will realize you are the freedom you've been searching for." H.W.L. Poonja Stopping is weird. I have been fascinated by the idea of being in a state of free fall. Where there is no attachment, not done purposefully by ego, not under the statement "I am unattached." But under the... Continue Reading →

"If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon, in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live." - Lin Yutang I finally figured something out. In order to remain in the experience of freefall one must give up being in freefall. Buddhists love freefall. They call it stream entry. And although they are... Continue Reading →

"You can't do big things while being distracted by the small things." - Unknown It's one of those "motivational" memes. I can't do small things when distracted by big things either. I get confused by some of the "wise guy" sayings posted on Reddit and elsewhere. I guess common sense is wisdom when seen clearly.... Continue Reading →

"In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank I hope Anne is right. The very idea that she could hold this belief is amazing in itself. It's more of a hope than anything else. And, honestly? It's pretty difficult to see Himmler or Dr. Mengele as someone... Continue Reading →

"Realize that everything connects to everything else." - Leonardo Da Vinci I walk. It's good for me, or at least that's the story. What's most annoying about walking is it comes in two forms. One I want to walk, the other I convince myself to walk because it's good for me. I'm not sure what... Continue Reading →

"The times is always right to do what's right." - Martin Luther King For years I was caught up in the lawn game. Anyone know the lawn game? In the era I grew up, playing the lawn game was a necessity. Only weirdo's and old witches had lawns that were anything less than pristine. We... Continue Reading →

"Having a soft heart in a cruel world is courage, not weakness."- Katherine Henson I grew up in simple times. Boys did boy stuff and liked Blue. Girls did girl stuff and like pink. If, for some reason, you didn't fit that simple model your were tortured endlessly on the playground and were the source... Continue Reading →

"The power to change the world begins with a single person who believes in something greater than themselves." - Bryce Courtenay Daryl Davis was a musician who also happened to be black. He performed with Chuck Berry among others. Roger Kelly was the Grand Wizard of The KKK. Daryl, although just one man, made friends... Continue Reading →

"If you're a really mean person you're going to come back as a fly and eat shit." - Kurt Cobain Classical Buddhism likes to argue about angels dancing on pinheads. It's the eastern version of a bunch of Pseudo Intellectuals mentally master-baiting each other over silly stuff. Well, I believe this, one announces. I believe... Continue Reading →

"Just do the next thing, one thing at a time." - Glennon Doyle Melton A dharma friend Zoomed and asked what special event I had planned for the thousandth blog. I appreciated the enthusiasm, but I had to tell her I had forgotten about it. A few weeks ago I had noticed it was coming... Continue Reading →

"Give, only if you have a little." - Buddha, aka, Gautama It's always felt like a silly little word, give. A lot of power though, not in the giving, but in the letting go. In Zen Buddhist terms giving is called "Dana." And in the west we invariably equate Dana with money. And all the... Continue Reading →

"It's strange how simple things become, once you see them clearly." - Ayn Rand I am always fascinated by the idea that in some way I can see things clearly. It's a big encouragement in some meditation circles, to see clearly. See it for what it is! Don't buy into your stories, just see life... Continue Reading →

"A disciplined mind brings happiness." - Buddha No it doesn't. I mean it could if it existed, but for me in my experience, it doesn't. Wow, how arrogant I must be to go against the words of the wonderful always right Buddha. But listen, this is another comment attributed to the same guy. Buddha's having... Continue Reading →

"A person playing a role will eventually forget their lines....... Pay attention, the act can't go on forever." - Kendrick Perkins I'm always wobbling around when I end up with a role. I was involved in a project and part of a group discussion. My "role" was to formulate an agenda with another person and... Continue Reading →

"If you try to fix people, sooner or later you're going to be the one who needs fixing." - Dr. Nitin Perhaps this is why I avoid the label "Teacher." It narrows to this fine line, am I "teaching" or am I "fixing?" Do I want to "teach" from a position of sharing information and... Continue Reading →

"When the heart truly understands, it lets go of everything." - Ajahn Chan If you're a meditator you've probably heard the "Let go" phrase a lot. Spiritual authority is build on the silliest things. Like the awesome skill of "JUST LETTING GO." We have these images of people floating through personal disasters and the evils... Continue Reading →

"An ending is not the end." - k. Tolnoe It's all relative. I mean everything. Contingent. Mysterious. Unknown. It seems every time I think I know something, I don't. Ah-ha turns to Oh-no. No wonder I occasionally suffer from anxiety, worry, fear, and the dreaded feeling that I'm never going to figure out what my... Continue Reading →

"You are the answer to all your questions." - Ama Ma When I initially discovered Zen and Buddhism I was thrilled that soon, I would end world suffering and probably my own. Like a small child I raced around for a while attempting to find some Guru who lead me directly to myself. Finally a... Continue Reading →

"I'm not jealous (greedy, self-obsessed, narrow-minded,) but what's mine is mine." - unknown Mine. It's mine, they are mine, and that's mine. Inside, in my strange little interior world that only I know, I live out of two perspectives. And lately I've been noticing I'm not the only one. It feels as though we all... Continue Reading →

"To receive everything, one must open one's hands and give." - Taisen Deshimaru Giving is a wonderful thing. I have, then you have. A simple direct transaction. A movement from A to B. As a species you would think we would have this down, this giving thing. But what I find over and over, is... Continue Reading →

"Every life is complicated, every mind a kingdom of unmapped mysteries." - Dean Koontz Sometimes I don't have to pay attention to life's unfolding miracles, it raps me on the forehead yelling "Hey, look!." Life has these mysterious threads of people, places, and things that seem to gravitate and gain my attention at different times,... Continue Reading →

"We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings." - Albert Einstein Occasionally, due to an inability to grasp reality, I find myself at odds with humanity. In my experience, when I have no contact with humans, life is pretty balanced and understandable. Things work, or they don't. Things are or they aren't.... Continue Reading →

"I would like to live as a river flows, carried by the surprise of it's own unfolding." - John O'Donohue I am angry at my left foot. Well, left leg really. In some beliefs the body is seen as a vehicle, in others its seen as a part of whole. And lots of different chatter,... Continue Reading →

"Death is not the greatest loss of life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us as we live." - unknown. That's it isn't it? A few people seek to expand an inclusive view of accepting life by meditating. Sitting quietly and experiencing the flow of useless thoughts that they once found so fascinating. And... Continue Reading →

"The only thing I keep learning over and over is, I don't know nothing." - Dwayne Johnson Exactly so, Dwayne. Some Dharma friends and I are examining what constitutes Deeper Teachings. You know, really deep, deep, teachings. What seems really important is finding someone who is the possessor of said deep teachings so they can... Continue Reading →

Sometimes people come into your life for a moment, a day, or a lifetime. It matters not the time they spent with you but how they impacted your life in that time. - unknown Which I guess means I need to try to pay attention to them. And it's not just people, butterflies too. Carol... Continue Reading →

The difference between responding or reacting is choice. - Henry Cloud Except a reaction is based on reflex and reflex is an automatic conditioned movement. It's not a choice. For me, it becomes a choice only after the reaction has risen and I have experienced it in attention. It's like flipping the light switch when... Continue Reading →

"The only spiritual life you need is not to react. - Robert Adams Reflexive reaction? Or measured response? Robert's statement means more to me than I ever could have believed. Although he's wrong about not reacting, for me spiritual means to acknowledge the trigger and the feeling of reaction, and wait through the feeling until... Continue Reading →

"Sometimes the most profound feelings are the ones words fail to express." AbcRadio.fm How are Ya?............................. I'm Ok.....................How are you? I wonder how many thousands of times I've been through the above in one form or another? It's always been the opening salvo in the Midwest. Testing the waters. It works well, this "Hello, lets... Continue Reading →

"The biggest risk a person can take is to do nothing." - Robert T. Kiyosaki Of course, Bob isn't talking about meditation. Because in meditation there's nothing to do. I'm just sitting and being. That is the point. Being is the point, not doing. Despite all the activities the "spiritual authorities" like to spin around... Continue Reading →

"I look to the future because that's where I'm going to spend the rest of my life." - George Burns What an exciting time of year, of life, really. Yesterday I noticed a lot of buds on everything. The Japanese Maple is fun to watch as it dresses itself quickly once the buds appear. Seemingly... Continue Reading →

"It was sad music. But it waved it's sadness like a battle flag. It said the universe had done it all it could, but you were still alive." - Terry Pratchett I am so tired of people attacking sadness. As though it's some Covid like emotional ailment that couldn't possibly be a "normal" part of... Continue Reading →

"Success is the sum of small efforts - repeated day in and day out." - Robert Collier Well, I'm not really sure about that. I have this image of someone working on a factory line doing a numbingly small task day after day for 50 years. But maybe that is success. I know people who... Continue Reading →

"Never apologize for what you feel, it's like being sorry for being real." - Lil Wayne He nailed this. Not from Gautama the Buddha, but from the American music scene. Yesterday was the rarest of days, in terms of being human in a state of being. I was fortunate to have two different conversations that... Continue Reading →

"The challenging is not to be perfect, it's to be whole." - Jane Fonda A wonderful quote from someone who was famous for reasons I never understood. Like a lot of "famous" people in this world, she grew up famous already. If mom or dad is famous, so are you, it's a default issue. Yesterday... Continue Reading →

"I love mankind! It's people I can't stand." - Linus van Pelt Linus has a point. As unpleasant a point as it is, it's still a major philosophy among the human species. How do I know this? Every time I find myself in a group of people, whether I know them or not, and someone... Continue Reading →

"Do something today that the future you will thank you for." - Unknown I always think of the future me way up the timeline somewhere. Like the future me exists only after so many days have passed to be official. The official "me" of the future is almost always an improved me, at least in... Continue Reading →

"The Sound of the Rain needs no Translation" - Alan Watts and Impermanence 1956, The family had this molded vinyl, beige record player and it weighed a ton, the harbinger of the newest pollutant, plastic. It had 33 1/3, 45, and 78 as the preselected speeds one could use to play records. One of the... Continue Reading →