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The Garden of Your Daily Living

August 22, 2008 /

I got this lovely text in a Yahoo Group I belong to. Original author is unknown.

PLANT THREE ROWS OF PEAS:
1. Peace of mind
2. Peace of heart
3. Peace of soul

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF SQUASH:
1. Squash gossip
2. Squash indifference
3. Squash grumbling
4. Squash selfishness

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF LETTUCE:
1. Lettuce be faithful
2. Lettuce be kind
3. Lettuce be patient
4. Lettuce really love one another

NO GARDEN IS WITHOUT TURNIPS:
1. Turnip for meetings
2. Turnip for service
3. Turnip to help one another

TO CONCLUDE OUR GARDEN WE MUST HAVE THYME:
1. Thyme for each other
2. Thyme for family
3. Thyme for friends

Water freely with patience and cultivate with love. There is much fruit in your garden because you reap what you sow.

Past lives, Consciousness and Oneness

August 17, 2008 /

Tom Stine has an interesting blog called “Living from Consciousness” which “has as its primary focus the never ending journey of awakening to our true nature as pure consciousness”. There are interesting posts and great discussions in the comment sections.

Tom wrote Past Lives Ain’t What They Used To Be, about past lives or reincarnation. I joined the discussion and wrote:

The concept of One does not exclude the concept of unique souls with their own memories of past lives. It is similar to fingers on a hand, each have their own story yet they are part of the whole.

Tom answered and wrote:

You are quite correct: the concept of One does not exclude a concept called unique souls. However, in my experience, that is just a concept that doesn’t match experience. When you know yourself as the One, then you realize that there are no unique souls.

Which made me write that:

Using the word concept made my comment too soft..

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few.”

I am not an expert. My own experiences of oneness, to know yourself as (part of) the One, are different from yours. It allows for souls and past lives.

To which Davidya added his thoughts:

The key thing to realize about Oneness – it is inclusive. It includes everything – all perspectives, all time, all space, all expressions, all beings. Indeed, the entire universe is but a pearl on the necklace of Brahm.

I would suggest that both Tom and Bengt are correct. If we can experience it, it is an aspect of the One. We can look upon ourselves and see one consciousness flowing through all beings. We can look again and see all beings, each with a past, present and future and unique experience, all within the one. We could say they are just different resolutions or levels of detail.

In the One, you are an individual expression, you are an expression of the whole, and you are the whole expressing through all individuals. You are the doer, the vessel, and the creator. You are the seer and the seen. The free will and the determinism.

You are the silence and light, you are the evil and darkness. You are life itself, moving in all things.

There is no paradox. It is inclusiveness alone.

Davidya commented in Tom’s blog but also wrote at his own blog “In 2 Deep”. I like his comment about the blog name: To, Too, and Two are 3 words that sound the same but have different meanings (homophones). The name of this blog is a play on this with 2 implying “into the deep” and “in too deep”.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

Zen and me

August 17, 2008 /

This is a short introduction to Zen and me. I have no formal Zen training, I have arrived at Zen along a different path. Much in Zen matches my own experiences which is why I use Zen as a reference.

There are Hardcore Zen and Zen Lite. Over at Taoism.net I found What is Zen? which has a definition I like and share. There it says that:

The closest we can come to describing Zen in words may be as follows:
• Zen is more of an attitude than a belief.
• Zen is the peace that comes from being one with an entity other than yourself.
• Zen means being aware of your oneness with the world and everything in it.
• Zen means living in the present and experience this reality fully.
• Zen means being free of the distractions and illusory conflicts of the material world.
• Zen means being in the flow of the universe.
• Zen means experiencing fully the present, and delighting in the basic miracle of life itself.

I exclude Buddhism from my definition of Zen, I am currently not interested in that part.

This was originally posted at Zen And More, another blog of mine.

What is Zen?

August 6, 2008 /

I have read the book What is Zen? by Alan Watts. The book contains a selection of Alan’s talks and the four parts are about:
• A simple way, A difficult way
• Zen reconsidered
• Space
• Zen mind

I like the book, it is easy to read yet it makes you think and feel. My purpose with buying the book was to learn more about Zen, to be able to put the pieces together in my own view of Zen and mindfulness.

In the first part Alan writes that “Zen is a method of rediscovering the experience of being alive”. He brings up the concept of “ten thousand formations, one suchness”, there is simply one energy.

From the second part I select some quotes about the present:

If you understand fully that it is from the present that everything happens, then the only place for you to be, the only place for you to live, is here, right now.

If your plans are flexible and adaptable, and if you are here when things happen, you will always stay balanced.

Alan also writes “Anything that you can do without a great deal of thought becomes a perfect form of meditation”. That is the same as is said in The 5-minute Meditator.

The third part about the book is about space, how empty space is considered more important in the East than in the West. Alan mentions that Zen represents a simplified way of life and that the personality of Zen people is the uncluttered mind. He also says that “The beginning of Zen is overcoming the fear of death”. That is what made the samurai interested in Zen, as a way to become fearless.

The fourth and last part is about Zen Mind. Alan says that “The understanding of Zen is intuitive”. A final quote from the book:

The whole point of Zen is to suspend the rules we have superimposed on things and to see the world as it is – as all of a piece.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn

July 27, 2008 /

Google has a collection of company videos at YouTube. There are a lot of sessions worth watching.

I came across Mindfulness with Jon Kabat-Zinn which is terrific. The workshop is an hour long but is well worth that time, it also includes a meditation session. Jon Kabat-Zinn talks about mindfulness and meditation, awareness, non-doing, beginner’s mind, to bring doing and being together, to be fully present.

Jon reminded me of the value of just tuning in to our own breathing as a simple way of bringing as back to here and now. Not with the intention to control our breathing, just to follow it and become more present.

I liked this presentation so much that I have ordered some of his books. Now I am looking forward to “Arriving at Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness”, “Mindfulness for Beginners” (CD) and “Wherever You Go, There You Are”.

See also: The 5-minute Meditator.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

Institutions vs. collaboration

July 17, 2008 /

Over at TED is a talk from 2005 by Clay Shirky about Institutions vs. collaboration. It is a very interesting talk about how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks. Clay talks about institutions compared to collaboration, like Microsoft versus Linux. He shows the graphs behind the 80-20 rule, few contribute a lot and many contribute very little. Still, the small contributions can be very valuable.

Clay mentions Flickr and their tagging feature that makes it easy to find photos on a topic regardless of who uploaded that photo.

Clay also talks about Meetup, with the tag line Meetup Groups meet face-to-face to pursue hobbies, network, get support, make friends, find playgroups, and how that system is used as a tool for stay at home moms to create a real life social network.

This was originally posted at Forty Plus Two, another blog of mine.

Mindful eating

July 6, 2008 /

I came across the post Mindful Eating which has a great quote:

And when you chew, chew only the carrot, not your projects or your ideas. You are capable of living in the present moment, in the here and the now. It is simple, but you need some training to just enjoy the piece of carrot. This is a miracle.
Thich Nhat Hanh

This is the same way of thinking as in The 5-minute Meditator, a book about ‘spot meditations’. Living in the present makes life calmer.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

To learn and grow

July 6, 2008 /

Browsing around among blogs I came across “Transforming Stress Into Personal Power” and read about Jean and her basic philosophy.

Stay curious and open to life. No matter what happens keep learning and growing. Find what you love to do and find a way to share it with others.

This is a lot like my own philosophy, be open to life and follow your inquisitive mind. I enjoying learning and sharing, that is the main reason why I blog.

This was originally posted at another (now extinct) blog of mine.

The Power of Your Other Hand

July 1, 2008 /

I am reading a book whose full title is The Power of Your Other Hand: A Course in Channeling the Inner Wisdom of the Right Brain. On the back of the book it says:

Through the exercises in this book you can discover the power that lies hidden in your other hand. The exercises will help you explore and understand your thoughts and feelings on a completely different level, finding out things about yourself that have been buried or concealed for quite some time.

The definition of “the other hand” is that it is the hand you do not normally use when writing. I normally write using my right hand, that makes my left hand “the other hand”.

Reading and working with this book requires an open mind. You need to let unexpected things happen without judging what makes it happen. It felt very strange the first time my other hand started writing on its own. When writing with your regular hand your mind knows in advance what shall be written. But when the other hand writes you have no idea what will turn up, you read while it is written just as if someone else was writing.

Through the “other hand” exercises and experiments in this course, Lucia Capacchione will show you how to:
– Talk to your inner child.
– Find aid in recovery from addictions.
– Channel the deep inner wisdom of your True Self.
– Help your body to heal.
– Heal your relationships.
– Uncover hidden artistic abilities.
– Change negative attitudes about yourself.

I have focused on the exercises that use writing with the other hand. There are also exercises where you draw with your other hand, they are interesting. The book has a great mix of exercises that help you explore the power of the other hand.

Using the techniques from the book has helped me in my personal development. Being in touch with your inner child, your true self, adds another dimension to life. And the better you know yourself, the better you understand other people.

This was originally posted at Zen And More, another blog of mine.

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