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#2325 - Sunday, November 27, 2005 - Editor: Gloria Lee

"When we practice generosity, we become intimate with our grasping."
- Pema Chodron

At the end of the talk someone from the audience asked the  Dalai Lama: "Why
didn't you fight back against the Chinese?" The Dalai Lama  looked down, swung
his feet just a bit, then looked back up at us and said with a gentle smile,
"Well, war is obsolete, you know."  Then, after a few  moments, his face
grave, he said, "Of course the mind can rationalize fighting  back ... but the
heart, the heart would never understand. Then you  would be divided in yourself,
the heart and the mind, and the war would be  inside you."

"The true answer to the question, the real solution
 to the problem, is sacred and cannot be touched by
 thought. It is not recognizable by thought, nor can
 it be utilized by thought, which will be dissatisfied
 with it, feel it is not "specific" enough, not giving
 a clear and decisive action to be taken for or against,
 to accept or to change something.
 
 To go beyond the machinery of thought and its demands
 and anxieties is thus the only answer possible."
 
 Krishnamurti .
posted to ordinarymind  

Truth is nothing special!

Meet yourself! Relax into What Is. Surrender to Reality. Let go of the mind. Be the Truth! Truth is nothing special. That is why, the mind does not want it. In Zen they say that 'nothing is better than nothing.' Surrender to What Is and not to what could be.

~Anadi

Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of
silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness
and regardful of the rule that "thought comes before speech."

And in the midst of sorrow, sickness, death, or misfortune of any
kind, and in the presence of the notable and great, silence was the
mark of respect. More powerful than words was silence with the
Lakota.

His strict observance of this tenet of good behavior was the reason,
no doubt, for his being given the false characterization by the
white man of being stoic. He has been judged to be dumb, stupid,
indifferent, and unfeeling.

As a matter of truth, he was the most sympathetic of men, but his
emotions of depth and sincerity were tempered with control.  Silence
meant to the Lakota what it meant to Disraeli when he said, "Silence
is the mother of truth," for the silent man was ever to be trusted,
while the man ever ready with speech was never taken seriously.

  - Chief Luther Standing Bear
Teton Sioux
The Ways of Words and Silence

posted to The Power Of Silence    

One of the most difficult things to learn is that mindfulness is not
dependent on any emotional or mental state. We have certain images of
meditation. Meditation is something done in quiet caves by tranquil
people who move slowly. Those are training conditions. They are set up
to foster concentration and to learn the skill of mindfulness. Once
you have learned that skill, however, you can dispense with the
training restrictions, and you should. You don't need to move at a
snail's pace to be mindful. You don't even need to be calm. You can be
mindful while solving problems in intensive calculus. You can be
mindful in the middle of a football scrimmage. You can be mindful in
the midst of a raging fury. Mental and physical activities are no bar
to mindfulness. If you find your mind extremely active, then simply
observe the nature and degree of that activity. It is just a part of
the passing show within.    

--Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

posted to ordinarymind
 

speaking about the dalai lama - here is
a true story i wrote several years ago,
which illustrates why i consider him a
real teacher...

Last year one of friends of mine spent some months traveling in
india. At a certain point he traveled with some other fellow
travelers on motorbikes in the north. They drove up to dharmasala, to
pay respects to the dalai lama.
There are two roads up to the tibetan settlement; both are very steep
and difficult.

My friend, ilan, chooses one of the roads and, with difficulty,
reached the top. He waited for the other four guys, but they did not
show up; so he walked down hill and found out that the four bikes had
burnt their clutches on the attempts to climb the steep road.
Since the garages are located on top of the hill, in the tibetan
village, they had no choice but to push them all the way up the road.
The five of them started the task. They were assisted occasionally by
kind passersby. At a certain point, two elderly tibetan monks walking
the same direction engaged them in conversation, and after sharing
some laughs helped to push the bikes quite a distance, despite their
age.

The next day there were invited to a lecture delivered by the dalai
lama to young tibetans. There was a podium on a side of the hall,
sort of balcony, reserved for the western guests.
The lecture was in tibetan; it started with a sentence that the dalai
lama said which throw the audience into fits of laughter that lasted
fifteen minutes. Than hh continued to deliver his speech, interrupted
frequently by outbursts of laughter from the audience.
After the lecture ended, the 'foreigners' noticed to their joy, that
the dalai lama, instead of leaving the premises, turned to their
direction and climbed up to their balcony. He spoke with some of
them, about their countries and travels in india, and his immediate
presence was a powerful experience. as he was about to leave, he
turned towards ilan and asked "well, how did you manage with the
bikes, did you get the spare parts?" it was only then that ilan
recognized him. he was one of the two elderly monks that pushed with
them the bikes uphill the day before…

@}->,->'--
yosy

 posted on NDS

/*\

When you are not aware of Awareness itself, you experience Awareness as thinking. A very fast process of recognition of different objects: mental, physical and emotional.~Anadi

posted by Sampava

Knights of the South Bronx will be shown on A&E Dec 6 at 8:00 Eastern time.
It's a movie about the ghetto kids my brother taught to play chess and took to
several National Championships. It's an extraordinary story which I was able
to witness several times by going to some tournaments with him and his kids.
It was beautiful to see what he had done with them and I can't wait to see the
film.

I hope you will tune in to this and tell your friends too. It stars Ted Danson as
my brother.

http://www.aetv.com/knightsofthesouthbronx/cast2.html

Love,

John   posted to Eman8tions

Welcome to this new site! 

My name is Ben Hassine, born 13-8-1972 in Maastricht, the Netherlands. Currently I live with my girlfriend and daughter in Zutendaal, Belgium.

Here you will find all kinds of information on buddhism, ch'an, zen, Krishnamurti, spirituality, literature, music, stories, teachers, teachings, poetry, interviews, articles and so forth.
I am still working on the site and will update it regularly.

Each song, picture, article etc. you find here is my teacher.
  http://www.awakenedawareness.be/  

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