The way we react is our karma!

Saturday, September 08, 2012

Is this sound SparkAdvice -- or what! Rinpoche says, "When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself. Perception is not reality. What appear to be faults in others may actually be reflections of our own emotional afflictions. I don't have an attitude problem; you have a perception problem. Remember the way people treat us is their karma. The way we react is our own."

Judging ourselves and others in this SparkJourney to better health and wellness is one of the primary ways we sabotage our efforts! Along with losing body weight, I'm striving to lose mental baggage as well on this journey.

HH Trulshik was the "Teacher to the Stars" -- the most exalted teachers in this Tibetan Buddhist tradition -- e.g., HH the 14th Dalai Lama, Dudjom Rinpoche, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Sogyal Rinpoche!!! Now I want to see the documentary about him narrated by Richard Gere now, titled Destroyer of Illusion!


Trulshik Rinpoche Ngawang Chokyi Lodro was born January 1, 1923 in Yardrok Taklung, Central Tibet and died September 2, 2011. He founded the monastery of Thubten Choling in Nepal. In 2010 he became the official head of the Nyingma school. Rinpoche lived in Solukhumbu, Nepal.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trulshik_Rinpo
che


Trulshik Rinpoche, France, 2000

SPARK ON!

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Why I Wake Early

Friday, August 17, 2012

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety --

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light --
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

~ Mary Oliver ~
(Why I Wake Early, 2004)
www.panhala.net/Archive/Why_I_Wake_E
arly.html

The first chirps of the waking birds mark the "point vierge"
of the dawn.
Under a sky as yet without real light,
a moment of awe and inexpressible innocence,
when the Father in perfect silence opens their eyes.
They speak to Him, not with fluent song,
but with an awakening question
that is their dawn state,
their state at the point vierge.

Their condition asks if it is time for them to "be"?
He answers "Yes."

Then they one by one wake up, and become birds.
They manifest themselves as birds, beginning to sing.
Presently they will be fully themselves, and will even fly.

Meanwhile, the most wonderful moment of the day is that
when creation in its innocence asks permission
to "be" once again,
as it did on the first morning that ever was.

All wisdom seeks to collect and manifest itself
at that blind sweet point.
Man's wisdom does not succeed,
for we have fallen into self mastery and cannot ask
permission of anyone.
We face our mornings as men of undaunted purpose.
We know the time and we dictate the terms.
We know what time it is.

For the birds there is not a time that they tell,
but the virgin point between darkness and light,
Between nonbeing and being.

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us
and we do not understand.
It is wide open. The sword is taken away,
but we do not know it:
we are off "one to his farm and another
to his merchandise."
Lights on. Clocks ticking. Thermostats working. Stoves
cooking. Electric shavers filling radios with static.

"Wisdom," cries the dawn deacon, but we do not attend.

~ Thomas Merton ~
(Confessions of a Guilty Bystander)
http://www.patternsinnature.org/Book/Tho
masMerton.html

Leaving soon to rendezvous with Melissa for the 8-hr road trip:
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=4946128

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In memory of Sally Ride

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

**********In memory of Sally Ride*********
****Who got to see that the world is one****


ALL THE HEMISPHERES

Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.
Make a new water-mark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.

Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting

While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.

~ Hafiz ~


Before Sally Ride, NASA wasn’t sure women had the right stuff blog.chron.com/sciguy/2012/07/before
-sally-ride-nasa-wasnt-sure-women-had-
the-right-stuff/

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Praying and praying and praying....

Friday, July 20, 2012

EAGLE POEM

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circles in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon, within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

~ Joy Harjo ~
(How We Become Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2001)
www.panhala.net/Archive/Eagle_Poem.h
tml

Oh that it will be done in beauty. Oh that it will be done in beauty. Oh that it will be done in beauty. Praying the in-breath, praying the out-breath. May my prayers be thus...Joy's poetry IS a prayer, as is her life.

I have been fed now. I can go on with the day.


www.npr.org/books/titles/156497222/c
razy-brave#excerpt

I heard Native American poet Joy Harjo interviewed on NPR last week about her just-published memoir. I was mesmerized by her words, as I always am by her poetry. Here's a link to listen to the interview:

www.npr.org/2012/07/09/156501436/joy
-harjos-crazy-brave-path-to-finding-he
r-voice

For another glimpse at Harjo's depth and beauty:
www.sparkpeople.com/mypage_public_jo
urnal_individual.asp?blog_id=2573861

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What Is There Beyond Knowing?

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Thomas Merton at Gethsemani Abbey
with Buddhist monk
tinyurl.com/d9ov5sg
Merton write-up from Gethsemani Abbey:
www.monks.org/thomasmerton.ht
ml

I say in my SparkPage profile statement, "I adore adventure and authentic friendships and seek both out," and I've choreographed another dance which includes both!

A friend and I are driving to Kentucky mid-August where we will rendezvous with 2BMYOWN, cyber SparkFriend-soon-to-become-3D, who is driving from Ohio. The three of us are attending a program at The Merton Institute Retreat Center.

Thomas Merton has been a spiritual guide and one of my teachers for many years....and some of you remember that I attended a reading by Mary Oliver during a prior adventure in my Toyota Dolphin, sitting at the feet of the master. Here's the scoop on the retreat....

Thomas Merton & Mary Oliver: Poets of the Sacred, August 17-19

Thomas Merton and Mary Oliver are unique writers who resonate when they converge on aligning their lives with Wisdom in their poetry's approach to nature and the feminine.

In addition to praying with the monks of Gethsemani, this retreat will celebrate with reflections on Hagia Sophia [Holy Wisdom] as the feminine energies of God (Merton) and Wisdom as living a life of praise within Nature's embrace (Oliver). Participants will discern their need to recover the "unheard feminine voice" within themselves, whether they be man or woman (Karl Stern's The Flight from Woman).

Living in consonance with Wisdom's ways is foundational to experiencing the depths of our core relationships with ourselves, our neighbors, nature and the Source of all relationships, God. Each participant will receive Mary Oliver's latest volume of poetry.
www.bethanyspring.org/


This morning my gift of poetry from Joe at Panhala was a new-to-me Mary Oliver. And of course it is the inspiration of this sharing.


The Abbey of Gethsemani, Thomas Merton's last home

WHAT IS THERE BEYOND KNOWING?

What is there beyond knowing that keeps
calling to me? I can't

turn in any direction
but it's there. I don't mean

the leaves' grip and shine or even the thrush's
silk song, but the far-off

fires, for example,
of the stars, heaven's slowly turning

theater of light, or the wind
playful with its breath;

or time that's always rushing forward,
or standing still

in the same -- what shall I say --
moment.

What I know
I could put into a pack

as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it
on one shoulder,

important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained

and unexplainable. How wonderful it is
to follow a thought quietly

to its logical end.
I have done this a few times.

But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing

in and out. Life so far doesn't have any other name
but breath and light, wind and rain.

If there's a temple, I haven't found it yet.
I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass
and the weeds.


~ Mary Oliver ~
(New and Selected Poems Volume Two)
www.panhala.net/Archive/What_Is_Ther
e_Beyond_Knowing.html

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