I love it when I come across something that reveals a deeper truth about something that I've been familiar with for years. It happened to me this morning, inspired by this picture.

Another reprint from myspace.  I shared this one with the ever-wise Rev. Meiko from the Portland Buddhist Priory, who slyly sorta-kinda validated my overnight county jail kensho.

Four Alarm Turban

"Brief time have sons of men on earth to live.
Let the good man herein much trouble take.
Acting as were his turban all a-blaze.
There is no man to whom death cometh not."

This sutra is the one that is inspiring me most these days.  I received it in my daily email, and it has been haunting me koan-like for some time now.  You may notice that I have not included the citation.  Don't worry, I'll give it to you.  I would not want others to feel the frustration I've had trying to find the damned thing.  As part of my renaissance, so to speak, I've been trying to get back to my roots.  I've focused so much on the hardcore mystical philosophy of Zen, that I felt balance was missing.  One thing that cropped up for me was a... burning sensation.  All of these crazy insights had been coming to me, and I felt sure that the Buddha and his teaching were much more powerful and relevant than I had allowed them him to be.  This burning desire is called samvega and I'll come back to that.  What frustrated me was finding good... scripture, I suppose.  That good ol' rugged Dharma.  Typically, quotes are attributed to 'Buddha' or 'Buddhist', as opposed to the Bible where you almost always get chapter and verse, and most probably edition as well.  This particular quote was even worse, as its translation has not seen general release.  In searching I found a sutra with a similar turban fire, and that is what I will discuss today.

Samyutta Nikaya 56.34- quoted above, finds parallel in the Sancitta sutra, from the Anguttura Nikaya 10.51.  The latter, which references the extinguishment of the burning turban in context of the effort required, seems like a good message whose simile doesn't quite pack the punch of the former.  SN 56.34 seems to come at this from a different angle.  The fire in your turban (or on your head, or in your beard) is not a problem that must be dealt with, but a fact of life.  The only extinguishment of the flames is in death (I hear Sting singing "Though an ocean soothe my head, I burn for you..."). SO, since everyone is going to die and we don't know when, what are you going to do about it?  Are you going to lie down on the floor and let it burn?  Or are you going to say "Fuck this burning turban! I'm gonna live my life anyway, maybe get a job as a candle lighter.  And there may not be much time left..."

The desire here, the sense that something important is happening and that it must be grappled with immediately, is what I earlier identified as samvega.  It is the spiritual super-power that you didn't know you have, and check this out- it's the same thing that made Mr. Siddharta motherfuckin' Gautama kick this whole thing off after his famous chariot ride.  Didn't know that those -ahem- burning questions that keep you up at night actually made you an heir to the most incredible legacy in the world, did ya?

Now, what do you do with this?  Well, anything actually.  The Buddha would (and certainly does) encourage the whole-hearted study of the Dharma, but the Zen tradition would say that it isn't just scriptures and meditation, but whole-hearted practice of living. Whatever you do, just do it.  So for starters, don't lay in bed burning the shit out of your pillow.  Don't sit and watch TV, burning the shit out of your couch.  Most importantly- don't kneel down in church and burn the shit out of the pew in front of you. 

Get moving- you never know when your turban will go out.

PS- for anyone wanting to read what the big B actually had to say, Access To Insight has been invaluable.  Go there and just start reading, you won't regret it.

This is a blog from my myspact that I thought I would reprint to kick things off.  Enjoy!

Are you ready to rock? I am! "The Five Postmodern Precepts"
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Well, as promised, here's some more dharma for ya.  I'm no zenji, okay, but I've done a lot of thinking and meditating on this stuff.  For a long time I've wanted to do a full ceremony of 'Taking the Precepts,' which if you don't know are:

1. Thou shalt not kill.

2. Thou shalt not steal.

3. Thou shalt not lie.

4. Thou shalt not fuck around.

5. Thou shalt not drink liquor.

Good stuff, right?  Come on!  That's basic, and it doesn't really cover much more subtlety than, oh, I don't know... THE BIBLE?  We Buddhists, at least the iconoclastic Zen Buddhists I tend to align with, are nothing if we are not up for trying to get down to the meat of the issue.  Besides, for those of us who aren't monks, who want to sing songs by Loverboy at the local tavern's karaoke night and eat a hamburger, the precepts present a problem. 

We're (not just Buddhists, everybody) good people for the most part.  Bland platitudes or Draconian covenants just don't prepare you for real life.  What most people deserve is a chance to shine on their own, and failing that, a chance to fuck up royally and learn from it without some numbnuts in a robe telling you you're going to burn in penal fire and adamantine chains FOR FUCKING EVER. 

Whoops.

So what do I have to offer?  The five precepts for postmodern Buddhists.  They are a result of the challenges I have faced in my life both before and after my decision to walk the Middle Way.  Which is not easy street, by the way. 

These precepts are not intended as absolute rules.  They are guides to practice and understanding, and I have combined some of the later monastic precepts in to make a more thorough spread.  I must give credit where credit is due- Thich Nat Hanh reformulated the precepts brilliantly, and they are well worth a read.  A trifle New Agey for me, more suited to someone at a yoga class than the dude going out to see a High On Fire show or something.  So, I took the episkopos route and made my own.  I'd also like to the patriarch Bodhidarma (whoever you were!), who said that "Life and death are important.  Don't suffer them in vain."

So, without further ado, here they are.  I hope you take something from them for your practice and your life.

1.  Though I certainly may kick ass in a figurative sense, I will strive not to do so literally.  I will be mindful of the physical suffering of others, and strive to alleviate it when I can or gain insight from it when I can not.

2.  I will strive not to take anything that is not given to me freely, recognizing that the world is a complex place and the issue of property hard to fully fathom.  I will do my best to share with others when it will help them.

3.  I pledge to refrain from using lies and hurtful speech.  My relations with others will be respectful unless otherwise required.  I will strive my utmost to promote a foundation of 'kusala' in modern communication and understanding.

4.  I take the precept of not commiting sexual misconduct, and in so doing I will strive to understand the nature of interdependence.  I will strive to never harm someone sexually.  In relationships I will hold on when necessary and let go when it is time.

5.  The world of samsara is illusion, part and parcel- a beautiful trap.  Every glimmer in the bejewlled net can ensnare, just as anything in life can intoxicate- alcohol, drugs, food, sex, TV, music, sports, even activity or torpor itself.  As one who aspires to the Middle Way of the Buddhas, I swear to seek enlightenment, not through abstinence or indulgence, but through wisdom, equanimity, and compassion.  If some weekend I still choose to get buck wild, then I will strive to follow my choices, behavior, and their consequences with appropriate mindfulness.

So that's it, buoys and gulls.  They're not there to limit us, but to spur us on to further understanding.  Who knows, once we're not quite such basket cases, we can go out and help others?  What do you think?

Thanks for letting me yak at you.  Comments and suggestions are appreciated, as I hope these precepts will be dynamic rather than static.  Peace out!

When Noah was in town I spoke to someone who said DIY was interested in teaching meditation in prisons.  I work with prisoners and the prisons and I know people who could facilitate gaining access to the prisoners.

How many people are able and interested in doing this?

GIEC

I guess the point of this blog is to keep a notebook of my studies in engaged buddhism. My name is Tim Roust, I am writing from New Orleans. I've been living here for over a year now....I was drawn here out of some strange faith that this is where I would find the peace movement that I've been searching for my whole life. Thich Naht Hahn often writes about flowers growing out of compost. That is what drew me to New Orleans. Somehow it felt like New Orleans was a place where the deepest scars of this country were suddenly ripped wide open, leaving the deepest wounds of this country exposed for all to see. These wounds have been with our country from the very beginning. The healing of New Orleans is connected inextricably with the healing of the United States. And somehow it feels like my own personal healing is now wrapped up with the healing of this city as well.

I first learned about the engaged buddhist movement while living in Berkeley California in 2001. I learned about Thich Nat Hahn in September of that year, shortly after the events of 9/11. On September 25th, Thich Nhat Hahn gave a speech at the Riverside Church in New York called "Embracing Anger", which was broadcast the next day on Democracy Now, which I heard broacast on KPFA radio in Berkeley.

Transcript - www.dharmagates.com/embracing_anger.htm
Audio, part 1 - www.democracynow.org/2001/9/26/thousands_gather_to_hear_vietnamese_monk
Audio, part 2 - www.democracynow.org/2001/9/27/thich_nat_hanh_part_2

Shortly after, there was a panel discussion held on the campus of UC Berkeley about a spiritual response to the events of 911. Michael Lerner spoke of engaged judaism, and Joanna Macy spoke of engaged Buddhism. I was struck by her serenity, and her gentleness and her sad and loving smile, and her overwhelming sense of hope and faith. She talked repeatedly about the need to build "rough weather networks", and I intuitvley understood what she was talking about. And that is what I've been searching for and trying to build in my life ever since. She talked about the idea of "interdependent coarising". "This is like this, because that is like that" she said repeatedly.

I was immediatley drawn to both Joanna Macy and Thich Naht Hahn for their clarity, their sanity, and their overwhelming compassion, but it would take many years before their teachings really took hold in me. And now, years later, I find that a hunger has awoken in me. I am being drawn more and more towards engaged buddhism, and am activly seeking out other radical peace activists who are also being drawn to those teachings.
That is why I was so excited to stumble across this site.

Today I took the ferry across the Mississippi and biked along the levee to the Barnes and Noble bookstore, and spent a while browsing through the Buddhist section, hoping to find a Thich Naht Hahn book that I haven't read yet. But instead, I picked up a book called "One Dharma - The Emerging Western Buddhism" by Joseph Goldstein, and "The Buddhist path to Simplicity" by Christina Feldman. I do not have a community of practice in New Orleans, and so I carry these books with me so that I don't feel so alone. And tonite I decided to start this blog, as another place where I could turn where I felt lost and alone....as a sort of virtual "rough wheather network". And so I am happy to be here, and I am inspired by the community that you have formed in Vancouver, and I feel that it won't be long before something similar begins to take hold in New Orleans. "This is this because that is that". So thank you all. This site strengthens my hope and my faith and my will to persevere.

- Tim Roust
peaceportal.ning.com/profile/TimRoust
songbook.ning.com/profile/TimRoust

I just read this book and I feel like my perceptual experience is changed on some fundamental level. It deepened my awe of the Buddha's enlightenment. Anicca, arising and passing away, formlessness are all explained from a cosmological viewpoint that is easily absorbable and directly relatable to our meditation process. Very cool, ja.

The Moon's a waning and 'tis in Scorpio, perhaps a good time to transplant some Dharma.
These words of the Buddha are found in the Anguttra Nikaya by Nyanaponika Thera.

23 The Roots to All Things

"...In what way are all things rooted? Whereby do they come to actually exist? Where do they arise? Where do they converge? What is the foremost in all thing? What is there master? What is the highest of all things? What is the essence of all things? Where do all things merge? Where do they end?..."

"...All things are rooted in the will.
All things come to actually existence through attention.
All things arise through contact.
All things converge on feelings.
Of all things the foremost is concentration.
All things are mastered by mindfulness.
Of all things the highest is wisdom...(Note here that there is no identity higher than wisdom)
...In all things  the essence is liberation.
All things merge in the Deathless.
Nibbana (nirvana) is the end of all things...(no contacts whatsoever)

Today in the Jerusalem post office I bought:

2 stamps for Europe
1 stamp for North America
1 stamp for Israel
1 stamp for Ramallah
…

“Ramallah…where is this?” Asked the teller.

“Ramallah. You know, Palestine? Occupied Territories? West Bank…?”

She looked at me.
She looked at the computer.

“No – it’s not in the computer” she said.

She called one of her co-workers. He also shrugged, and when she went to ask the manager what to do, he looked me in the eyes and said sincerely “We just want peace for all. Really…even if we can’t send this. Really – peace for all is all we want. Really…” he repeated himself so very earnestly.

When she came back she said, “Can I ask you a question?” I said “Of course”. She asked, “Do you think Palestine is part of Israel?” I said, “No, do you?” She said “No – of course not”. She asked what it is I want to do – I explained that I want to send a thank you note to someone who helped me find a story through his book ‘Speak Bird Speak Again’. She said, “It is not possible”.

She looked me in the eyes and said angrily “They are our enemy”.

I want to send a post card to Dr. Sharif Kanaana in Ramallah. This postcard has an image of a green mosaic bird on the front. I want to say thank you for the story ‘The Chief of the Birds’ which I told last Wednesday as part of the ‘Two Sisters’ storytelling evening in Jerusalem. I want to tell him that the evening went well. That it was a full house. That people had shining, smiling eyes and were full of questions. That I told six stories and that his story was a bit of a bumpy ride but I did my best and hope that the bird was able to speak through me.

I want to tell Sharif and Pat Kanaana that after 1.5 hours of storytelling, I finally arrived in a place where, at long last, I felt my heart open and I could speak out the enormous gratitude I had for every individual’s presence.

I want to tell them that I am sorry I cannot visit, and I am sorry that I cannot share stories in Pat’s classes at Birzeit University. “People are simply too angry right now” Pat told me. I want to tell them that more than being sorry, I am frustrated (does ‘frustrated’ capture the enormous stifling quality of helpless sorrow I feel?) by humanity’s heaviness and propensity to violence and ignorance. I admit I am grateful for the incredible privilege into which I have been born; the privilege that allows me such freedom of movement – both in my body and spirit. I get to choose to say goodbye to this place. I get to choose my battles. I get to dictate the conditions of my labor.

I know this privilege is not something I can take for granted. I know that all systems are fragile (on the verge of collapse), and that we humans are so delicately balanced between our innate capacity for destructive greed and apathy and our capacity for creative beauty and delight…

While I am glad to be leaving this place, my heart is also broken because I have fallen in love. I have fallen even more deeply in love with Amal and Mariam Abu Regayak and their family- this tribe of strong women who gather every evening around the fire, and who go everyday to their permaculture farm to work (despite the scorn of their father, and the disbelief of the community at large).

Last year I struck a deal with Mariam Abu Regayak. She told me many beautiful Bedouin stories, which I knew would be woven into the core of the storytelling event I would develop, so I said, “listen…I want to give you 18% of all the money I make during these upcoming storytelling events -18 is the Jewish number symbolizing life”. We shook hands on the deal, and I took the business seriously; my word is my honor, our stories are all we have – our words which weave reality are our greatest tool as we tell ourselves back to sanity and regain perspective on our life. (‘If people break their word, why should the stars above keep their promises not to fall?’- Ramayana). So this year, back on the farm, I presented Mariam with an envelope containing some Canadian, Swiss and American bills. She looked at me and said, “You’re joking”. I said “No”. She said, “No really, you’re joking”. I said, “No, I follow through on what I say I will do”. She said, “This is the first time anything like this has ever happened to me”.

The following week I was back at the farm – weeding, moving garbage, clearing space, reading Bedouin warrior poetry, telling stories, laughing with Mariam about how really, secretly we would much rather be treated like queens… brought food, be massaged, be softly loved, be held in the arms of delight…

Mariam and her sister Amal are so beautiful and strong and inspiring to me. Together we help ourselves remember. Together we know that the dream is alive - She, the Spirit, is doing well in our Presence, and we will keep telling her to life.

When I left the farm, my heart hurt. Will I see these people again? Last night we were joking that the only reason the Israeli government could possibly be inspecting each of its citizen’s gas masks is cuz there is some big war move about to occur…we laughed. It’s no joke.

…

I write peace
I be peace
Breathing peace

Postage stamp or no, Peace is sent around the world with every breath.
…

Wake up, wake up, little sparrow
Don't make your home out in the snow

Little bird, oh don't you know?
Your friends flew south many months ago

You're just a baby, you cannot fly
Your wings won't spread up against the sky

Wake up, wake up, little sparrow
Don't make your home out in the snow

(wake up, little sparrow ~ Devendra Banhart)

The Thorn in the World’s side

Where I have been there is no light
From any Sun; we have no Moon nor Stars,
No lightnings like these, much less any of this Fire.

There I must light up all around me.
By my sight all is illumined

(Ramayana, William Buck’s version)

…

At night, walking to the bus stand in Ramallah,
The ground beneath my feet shifted and undulated
Like a giant fish was swimming below the crust of the earth

(Below the cracked concrete
A giant fish rubs and scratches her scales
Helping to shift all perspectives)

The eyes that sit on the top-side of the same concrete
Appear full of boredom and anger
Seem to be waiting for any excuse to close
To close shut – allowing the bodies they inhabit to lash out with pent up frustration and Rage

I know you know we know
The blindness of the body
Is nothing,
Nothing
When compared to the blindness of the heart.

Earlier that evening, at the Friends International Center in Ramallah,
I learned that by the age of three, every Palestinian child is given a sense of pride and place – can name where their village was, and what the main crops used to be…
This is most wonderful I said. How important to have roots from which to draw nourishment…and I also had to ask:

What is there in the school curriculum to balance the drive of Nationalism?
(we could consider that the seeds of two states were planted in 1948)
What is there to remind of the constant flow of change?
(ie life)
What is there which does not foster Attachment to a past that is irrevocably gone?
(neither a statement of good or bad - as my father said : why try to count how many angels used to dance on the head of a pin? … how much more useful to learn how to stitch our pieces together … )

I know you know we know
The blindness of the body
Is nothing,
Nothing
When compared to the blindness of the heart.

…
I am, just for Now, willing to suspend my disbelief,
My fatigue and annoyance,
My doubt and my politics.

It is not negotiable:
Watching my cousin prepare for his bar mitzvah
Is watching the weaving of a thread of hope

I cried when my cousin Assaf stepped to the Torah
The beauty of the longing
The prayer…
It is real (even as the tourists photograph the men (my uncles) in their tiffilin and tallis)

The Word made to live again, lest we forget that the Spirit is real.
She is real
Ruah is there

This call for peace and awakening is in all the prayers.

May my cousin hold the responsibility dearly
…

Admist this, myst, this dark room, inside my skull, I sit and it reminds me of this that runs freely through me even whilst all else is present, joy like a blood runs through our bodies, often bogged down by the little man with a hammer beating on my head(dead milkmen).  A joyfull presence is resistance to the everyday norm. BE joyfull. Be dark, Be exsploding.........

Thats my first short dharma blog.

I decide to indulge in the beauty of stillness. I feel myself a hedonist, indulging in the luxury of no sound, no bright lights, no commotion. A treat in a life full of desks and glowing screens and background music and important discussions and points and clickclickclicks. I sit in my living room in silence. Lights are off, aside from a dim lamp beside me.  Just enough light for me to read, no more.

My roommate enters. A hurricane of jagged movements and sighs.  From my comfortable space I smile. Offer no words. I don’t think to speak.  She looks around and says, in a tone laced with disgust, “It’s so MOROSE in here.” I’m unsure what to say. I tell her I thought it felt peaceful.  Later, after the hurricane travels upstairs and downstairs and back out the door, I look around, and wonder if she was right. Maybe the silence I find beautiful, peaceful, even necessary, is gloomy to her. I wonder to myself, have I got it all wrong?  Am I wrong about what my peace looks like?

What is it that whereby the world is led?
What is it that whereby 'tis being dragged?
And what is it that in whose sole sway
One and all have come to stay?

from Samyutta Nikaya by John D. Ireland

Recently I've come to the conclusion that my disappointment with my loved ones could be used as a useful tool in interacting with the Dharma, but I was really stuck on feeling my disappointment.  A mentor suggested I write a life mission statement in order to re-focus my energy.  Well actually, she had been urging me to write one for about 3 months.  And so one day, I found myself writing about the Dharma and how I wanted my life to enact the Dharma.  I will not be sure if this a low or high understanding of the Dharma, but it is a map.  In accordance with my mentor's suggestion, I am putting this mission statement out to the universe -- the my friends, family, and communit(ies).  I also decided to put it here, because as you might have noticed, another member recently threw down the gauntlet (although very constructively!) regarding a past blog post.  "Start where you are," --that's what kept going through my head.  And so this is my roadmap-for-living-the-moment.  Any comments, suggestions, concerns, or gripes are welcome.


Life Mission Statement

    I walk through life enacting the Dharma in the best way I know how, modeling my life, thought, action, and speech off of the Noble Eight-Fold Path.  These are the centers of compassionate action in my life:

Positive and Productive Self-Care
I model my self-care off of the Noble Dharma, the ever-present wheel journeying alongside me on the Path of Life.  I realize that care-of-self leads to a productively interdependent life.  I care for myself in all of the following ways:
•    Eating consciously for nourishment and with respect for my and my health and body’s needs
•    Generating spiritual awareness through meditation and interaction with the Dharma, Sangha, and Buddhas.
•    Generating physical health through fun and rigorous exercise of my own choosing
•    Cultivating a healthy living environment by respecting my living space through compassionate daily cleaning
•    Engaging in a productive form of employment/scholarship in order to garner an efficient income.
•    Approaching my hobbies by respectfully asking them to help me relax
Should I find that I have strayed away from this self-care, I return through positive encouragement, repetition, and re-visiting these goals.  I listen to the Dharma when I am unsure or afraid of my choices, subduing the demons of doubt, jealousy, low self-esteem, self-hate, self-destructiveness, and apathy by listening to them and compassionately quieting them.
Mantra: Self-care is a practice void of perfection, full of simplicity, compassion, and respect.

The Adventure of Creativity
I rejoice in the adventure of creativity that I have been blessed with in my life!  I recognize that creativity and the creative process engages the Dharma directly, and I walk along a path that integrates Creation-as-Dharma-practice.  I engage in the adventure of creativity in the following ways:
•    Creative Writing – Poetry, chapbooks, short stories, novels
•    Scholastic Writing – creatively framed articles for publication and the editing process
•    Listening to and playing music
•    Painting, drawing, and henna mehndi
•    Cooking
•    Cleaning and decorating my living space
Should I find that I have strayed from creativity-as-adventure, I return through positive encouragement, repetition, and re-visiting these goals.  I listen to the Dharma when I feel blocked in my creative process, subduing the demons of perfection, doubt, jealousy, apathy, anxiousness, and critical mind by listening to them and compassionately quieting them.
Mantra: Through art I illuminate the Dharma, finding adventure in meditative simplicity and the beauties of imperfection!

The Wheels of Relationships as the Seed of Compassion
In walking alongside the Dharma, I learn from every interaction, seeing its positive potential.  I note that often, the movement of relationships is like a wheel – sometimes moving upwards, sometimes moving downwards, always seeming to reach a high or a low, always on a path.  I interact with myself and those in my life consciously and with awareness, enacting compassion without expecting it in return.  I seek out healthy and productive partnerships with mentally, spiritually, and physically healthy partners, noting the expectation of perfection as a destructive force.  I speak, act, and think in a productive way regarding my relationships with myself and others, avoiding the negativities of unconscious speech, action, and thought.  I hold the following realizations and actions as the seed of relationships-as-compassion:
•    I seek to have a positive, productive, and healthy relationship with myself, noting that my mind is not myself.  I also note that what the world tells me I am is also not myself.  Through enacting compassion for myself, I will understand who or what I truly am in this lifetime.
•    I seek and enact positive, productive, and healthy interactions with others, expecting only to model positive interaction. 
•    I do not bear malice towards negative interactions nor those who create them, nor do I dismiss such interactions.  Instead, I compassionately and realistically evaluate them in order to better understand my relationships.
•    I accept disappointment as a vast gift, always measuring my capacity for compassion against the potential of sorrow, guilt, anger, or negative emotions that I may feel within the moment of interaction.
•    I agree to the universe that in addition to right speech, I will also cultivate the skill of active and compassionate listening, enacting it as care for myself and others.
•    I note that judging my self-worth based whether I have a partner or not is a self-destructive act erasing the reality of interdependence-without-partnership.
Should I find I have strayed from relationships as the seed of compassion, I return through positive encouragement, repetition, and revisiting these goals.  I listen to the Dharma when I harbor negative emotions towards myself, those I love, and others, subduing the demons of perfection, doubt, anger, jealousy, and apathy by listening to them and compassionately quieting them.
Mantra: I live within the moment of relating, enacting its positive potential through conscious and aware (inter)action.

This made me laugh as I slog through the density of info researching and prepping to tell stories, first in Ramallah then in Jerusalem, then for my cousin's bar mitzvah, then in the Negev :

"Jesus was a social justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up and challenged the job security of the Temple authorities by teaching the people they did NOT need to pay the priests for ritual baths or sacrificing livestock to be OK with God; for God already LOVED them just as they were:

Sinners, poor, diseased, outcasts, widows, orphans, refugees and prisoners all living under Roman Military Occupation."

This made me laugh less :

"I was astounded to learn that in Anata, Jerusalem's refugee camp The Wall is butted up to the boy’s high school. The ‘playground’ where 780 adolescents gather is in reality a slab of cement ground about the square footage of a basket ball court. There is no view as it is walled in on all four sides by the high school, The Concrete Wall and two smaller cement walls.
..
A few miles from the refugee camp, one enters into an Orwellian Disney Land of lush green grounds in the illegal colony of the Pizgatzeev settlement. I was sick at heart and in my gut when we drove less than a mile into the illegal colony for I counted three playgrounds and a swimming pool. I still wonder how many USA tax dollars helped to build them, and why the same was not done for the refugees."

from WAWA Blog March 2, 2008 (http://www.wearewideawake.org)

....

my determination waxes every moment
i will not make change
i am change

when neither despair nor hope are possible
we remain with simply this -
direct awake activated embodiement

the spirit she is strong
and the temple we have built for her
is a refuge
a sanctuary
beyond beyond
into and through and through
light just to be

From Pema Chodron's Comfortable With Uncertainty:

There are three habitual methods that human beings use for relating to troubling habits such as laziness, anger, or self-pity. I call them the three futile strategies- the strategies of attacking, indulging, and ignoring.

The futile strategy of attacking is particularly popular. When we see our habit we condemn ourselves. We criticize and shame ourselves for indulging in comfort, or pitying ourselves, or getting out of bed. We wallow in the feeling of baddness and guilt.

The futile strategy of indulging is equally common. We justify and even applaud our habit: "This is just the way I am. I don't deserve discomfort or inconvenience. I have plenty of reasons to be angry or to sleep twenty-four hours a day." We may be haunted by self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy but we talk ourselves into condoning our behavior.

The strategy of ignoring is quite effective, at least for a while. We dissociate, space out, go numb. We do anyhing possible to distance ourselves from the naked truth of our habits. We go on automatic pilot and just avoid looking too closely at what we're doing.

The mind training practices or the warrior present a fourth alternative, the alternative of an enlightened strategy. Try fully experiencing whatever you've been resisting- without exiting in your habital ways . Become inquisitive about your habits. Practice touching in with the fundamental tenderness and groundlessness of your being before it hardens into habit. Do this with the clear intention that your ego-clinging diminish and that your wisdom and compassion increase.

feeling and perception
allowed for disembodied
presence -

despite invisibility
arahant remains

present inspiration
refuge of the age

body gone
heart dissolved
what is, is
.
.
.
revealed
...just for Now

I logged on here last Saturday and immediately knew something was up because I could see that there were over a hundred people using the site (as opposed to the more typical < 10). Something was going on, so I started sleuthing...

I soon discovered that someone had posted an entry about their favourite podcasts to BoingBoing on Wednesday and someone had linked to our Alan Watts collection in their comment.

This simple mention caused our traffic for that day to triple and to remain high for the next day before dropping back to baseline:

Some fun, huh ;-)

We're now pushing about 4.5 gigs of audio files out a day, helping to spread the dharma far and wide. Let's get some more mentions out their to spread things even further!

Hello... yes dig and you will eventually hit water... Well i have dug so many holes only to give up after like 10feet or so... Now with Vipassana I plan on going till i hit water and forver be quenched. I was looking for so long and along my path so many people told me about Vipassana however i was too much into my drugs and parting to really be serious about it.. Well 2008 was a year of Well being for me.. I did a Master Water Cleanse for 7days which i was able to kick my smoking habit. Yes even MaryJane which I was a cronik. I have Meditated lots in the past but it was always with the help of M.J.and that was creating lots of miserable effects for me cause i was craving that next high and when i didn't get the result's well crash down it came.. Then finally i did the 10day retreat in Merritt. Now with the technique of Vipassana I feel on course.. No visualization no EGO just letting go and letting nature do its thing"AS IT IS". So now comes the spirtual community and im so happy to have found this sight, so I look forward to sitting in Meditation,  enjoying reading up-coming events and being in Solidarity... Be Happy.. JH