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Highlights #1317 - Sunday, January 12, 2003 - Editor: Gloria Lee
pointing
to the sky
rooted in
volcanic soil
aloe vera grows
healing power all around
even for invalid 'i's
By Jan Barendrecht NDS
***************************************************************************
Focus,
not on the rudenesses of others,
not on what they've done
or left undone,
but on what you
have & haven't done
yourself.
-Dhammapada, 4,
translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Akido Founder Morihei Uesiba on the Art of Peace
114 statements of Morihei Uesiba at this fine website
Morihei Ueshiba (1883-1969) was history's greatest martial artist. He was the founder of Aikido, which can be translated as "The Art of Peace." Morihei Ueshiba is referred to by the practitioners of Aikido as O-Sensei, "The Great Teacher". The following quotations have been compiled from O-Sensei's collected talks, poems, and calligraphy, and from oral tradition.
One
The Art of Peace begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all that you encounter
Two
One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
Three
All things, material and spiritual, originate from one source and are related as if they were one family. The past, present, and future are all contained in the life force. The universe emerged and developed from one source, and we evolved through the optimal process of unification and harmonization.
Four
The Art of Peace is medicine for a sick world. There is evil and disorder in the world because people have forgotten that all things emanate from one source. Return to that source and leave behind all self-centered thoughts, petty desires, and anger. Those who are possessed by nothing possess everything.
Five
If
you have not
Linked yourself
To true emptiness,
You will never understand
The Art of Peace.
Six
The Art of Peace functions everywhere on earth, in realms ranging from the vastness of space down to the tiniest plants and animals. The life force is all-pervasive and its strength boundless. The Art of Peace allows us to percieve and tap into that tremendous reserve of universal energy.
Seven
Eight
forces sustain creation:
Movement and stillness,
Solidification and fluidity,
Extension and contraction,
Unification and division.
http://www.cs.ucsd.edu/users/paloma/Aikido/artpeace.html
by
Purushaz Million Paths
What qualities are rarest in this world ?
To have the gift of speaking sweet words with compassion , to be learned without pride , to be heroic and also forgiving , to be rich without attachment to riches - these four are rare.
Shankara - "A Garland of Questions and Answers".
By Viorica Weissman Million Paths
"The search may begin
with a restless feeling, as if one were being watched.
One turns in all directions and sees nothing. Yet one sees that
there is a
source for this deep restlessness; and the path that leads there
is not a
path to a strange place, but the path home ... The journey is
hard, for the
secret place where we have always been is so overgrown with
thorns and
thickets of "ideas", of fears and defenses, prejudices
and repressions. The
holy grail is what Zen Buddhists call our own "true
nature"; each man is his
own savior after all.
The fact that
many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing ...
He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to
him of new
and wonderful paths ... There are not a few who are called awake
by the
summons of a voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the
others,
feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the
others know
nothing. In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others
what has
happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable
prejudices.
"You are no different from anybody else," they will
chorus, or, "there's no
such thing", and even if there is such a thing, it is
immediately branded as
"morbid." ... He is at once set apart and isolated, as
he has resolved to
obey the law that commands him from within. "His own
law!" everybody will
cry. But he knows better: it is the law ... The only meaningful
life is a
life that strives for the individual realization - absolute and
unconditional - of its own particular law ... To the extent that
a man is
untrue to the law of his being ... he has failed to realize his
life's
meaning."
~Peter Matthiessen
~~~~~~~~
"Nothing
exists but atoms and the void" - so wrote Democritus. And it
is
"void" that underlies the Eastern teachings - not
emptiness or absence, but
the Uncreated that preceded all creation, the beginningless
potential of all
things. "
~Peter Matthiessen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the book, "The Snow Leopard,"
by Peter Matthiessen, published by Penquin Books.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Robert
Cooper Daily Dharma
"A man of
knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it;
and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and
knows. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon;
he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going
anywhere;
he knows, because he sees, that nothing is more important than
anything else."
A Separate Reality
Carlos Castaneda
from The Other Syntax list
Arunachala,
Thou form of grace itself!
once having claimed me,
loveless though I be,
how canst Thou let me now be lost,
and fail to fill me so with love
that I must pine for Thee unceasingly
and melt within like wax over the fire?
Oh nectar springing up in the heart of devotees!
Haven of my refuge!
Let Thy pleasure be mine,
for that way lies my joy,
Lord of my life!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eleven Verses to Sri Arunachala, V. 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by Gabriele Ebert Sri Ramana
A Net of Jewels
Ramesh S. Balsekar
Intellectual understanding is based on temporal cause and
effect. Intuitive
understanding is non-temporal, wherein cause and effect are one.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~ ~ ~ ~
Without self-realization no virtue is genuine. It is only
when you arrive
at the deepest conviction that the same life flows through
everything, and
that you ARE that life, that you can begin to love naturally and
spontaneously.
By Manuel Hernandez A Net of Jewels
Jailed U.S. Indians lack rituals access, ally says
By Jennifer W. Sanchez
Tribune
Reporter
American Indians serving time in many U.S. prisons are not given the freedom to practice native spiritual ceremonies, says a Navajo Nation activist.
American Indian prisoners are denied access to religious leaders; pipes, sage, sweet grass and medicine bags for rituals; aren't allowed to wear long hair, said Navajo Nation Corrections Project Director Lenny Foster.
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news03/011103_news_rights.shtml
by Jerry Katz NDSNews
Computer
Explorations of Fractals, Chaos,
Complex Systems, and Adaptation
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/FLAOH/cbnhtml/quotes.html
some samples...
``Trying to define
yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.''
---Alan Watts
``As a net is made
up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected
by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is
an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a
net because it is made up of a series of interconnected meshes,
and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to
other meshes.''
---Buddha
``... and the
thousands of fishes moved as a huge beast, piercing the water.
They appear united, inexorably bound by common fate. How comes
this unity?''
---Anonymous
``Chaos often
breeds life when order breeds habit.''
---Henry Brooks Adams
By Mary Bianco NDS
Song of Meditation
Sentient beings are primarily all Buddhas:
it is like ice and water,
apart from water no ice can exist;
outside sentient beings,
where do we find the Buddhas?
Not knowing how near the Truth is,
people seek it far away, what a pity!
- Hakuin (1685–1768)
This then is life.
Here is what has come to the surface after so
many throes and convulsions.
How Curious! How real!
Underfoot the divine soil, overhead the sun.
- Walt Whitman
The birds have
vanished into the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains.
- Li Po (701-762)
What is life? It
is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a
buffalo in the
wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the
sunset.
-Crowfoot , Blackfoot warrior and orator, 1890
He was offered the
whole world,
He declined and turned away.
He did not write poetry,
He lived it before it existed.
He did not speak of philosophy,
He cleaned up the dung philosophy left behind.
He had no address:
He lived on a ball of dust playing with the universe.
- Jung Kwung
Lo, I am with you always, means
when you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes,
in the thought of looking, nearer to you than yourself,
or things that have happened to you.
There's no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
A white flower
grows in quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower.
- Jelaluddin Rumi