Try to become one with it...

as in all my photos

There is a gap between you, as observer, and the image. The same is true of the feelings, resistances, and barriers that you experience. There is a gap between you as the observer and the experience that you are witnessing. We try to close that gap. You can do that most readily when the feelings are the most intense — you become the fear, the anger, the anguish, the joy. A very different thing happens once you become part of it, once you stop separating yourself from the thing you are experiencing.

A surfer

Oh great and powerful ocean,I fear and respect your beauty.I wish not to take away nor leave anything behind. I only wish to dance with you for a short while.

A surfer's prayer

The Dalai Lama's Recommendations for You

I N S T R U C T I O N S F O R L I F E

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three Rs:

Respect for self
Respect for others and
Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. When you realise you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Oblivion

A bird in a secluded grove sings like a flute.

Willows sway gracefully with their golden threads.

The mountain valley grows the quieter as the clouds return.

A breeze brings along the fragrance of the apricot flowers.

For a whole day I have sat here encompassed by peace,

Till my mind is cleansed in and out of all cares and idle thoughts.

I wish to tell you how I feel, but words fail me.

If you come to this grove, we can compare notes.

Ch'an master Fa-yen ( Hõgen) (The Golden Age of Zen 238, 321 n.31)

The Bell...

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

john donne

Storms Never Last

Seasons

Ten thousand flowers in spring,
the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer,
snow in winter.

If your mind isn't clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

Wu-men

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Gibran

Nature

To touch the earth is to have harmony with nature.

Oglala Sioux

Every eye forms its own fancy.

All...........

All God's creatures got a place in the choir
Some sing low, some sing higher
Some sing out loud on the telephone wire
And some just clap their hands or paws or anything they got now

It's a simple song, a living song everywhere
With the fox and the ox and the grizzly bear
The grumpy alligator and the hawk above
The sly raccoon and the turtle dove

Contemplation

An unexamined life....

Touching

WHEN YOU TOUCH ONE THING
with deep awareness,
you touch everything.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh,
from "Touching Peace"

---

In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty... in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.

Deepak Chopra

The union of male and female are symbolic for the union of method or compassion and wisdom, or more specific in tantra, the union of bliss and emptiness.

"The more we train to see ourselves as such a meditational deity,
the less bound we will feel by life's ordinary disappointments and frustrations.
This divine self-visualisation empowers us to take control of our life
and create for ourselves a pure environment
in which our deepest nature can be expressed."
Lama Yeshe

A Drop of Water

However deep your
Knowledge of the scriptures,
It is no more than a strand of hair
In the vastness of space;
However important appears
Your worldly experience,
It is but a drop of water in a deep ravine.

Tokusan

Baseball player says
hey Yogi I keep swinging over the ball
what should I do?
Yogi says
swing lower
Yogi Berra proverb

ZEN AGAIN

Zen-A state of being where one is flowing in harmony with the forces of nature. When we experience this place we feel a sense of Oneness. Unity with the divine. We can all recall times, perhaps moments when our life flowed perfectly. Call it perfection, bliss, joy, love, or a connection with God, this state of ” being” is very healing and perhaps the common state that all humans strive for.

Zen is to achieve total enlightenment through the discovery of one's basic nature. Oneness with nature is often referred to as “unity with the divine” and is a place of healing.

Consider

Consider the trees which allow the birds to perch and fly away
without either inviting them to stay or desiring them never to depart.

If your heart can be like this, you will be near to the way.

Mother Ocean

Mother, mother ocean, I have heard your call........