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#3671 - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - Editor: Gloria Lee
The Nonduality Highlights - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NDhighlights
The Lion's Roar
We each need to make our lion’s roar—to persevere with
unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and
sorrows and fears—to declare our right to awaken. We need to
take the one seat, as the Buddha did, and completely face what is
true about this life. Make no mistake about this, it is not easy.
It can take the courage of a lion or a lioness, especially when
we are asked to sit with the depth of our pain or fear.
–Jack Kornfield, from “Take the One Seat,”
Tricycle, Summer 1993
Read the complete article on tricycle.com
John Wheeler
Clearly, awareness cannot know itself as a "thing apart". It is not an object to itself, any more than being is an object to itself. You ARE yourself. That fact cannot be doubted at any time. That doubtless fact is the basis of all subsequent experiencing. Awareness is self-shining, self-radiant, self-existent. Even before "knowing I am", I must be there as that to which that recognition happens. It is like the eye. It can never see itself. Yet one does not doubt having eyes. Non-conceptual being-awareness is similar. It can never be known as an object. On the other hand, it cannot be unknown either, also because it is not object. Yet no one ever doubts himself or herself in the equation. All the states and appearances, even sleep, the moments between thoughts, etc., happen in what you are. Even consciousness and unconsciousness are states rotating through the constancy of your undeniable existence. It is the ever-present space or backdrop for everything. The "everything" has no substance or independent existence outside of this, so in essence the "everything" is this also. It is so obvious, simple and self-evident that we keep overlooking it. It is the radiant space in which all of life appears.
Visit www.thenaturalstate.org for more.
posted to Wisdom-l by Mark Scorelle
"Where beauty is, then there is
ugliness;
where right is, also there is wrong.
Knowledge and ignorance are interdependent;
delusion and enlightenment condition each other.
Since olden times it has been so.
How could it be otherwise now?
Wanting to get rid of one and grab the other
is merely realizing a scene of stupidity.
Even if you speak of the wonder of it all,
how do you deal with each thing changing?"
--Ryokan
From personal archive of Zen Poems
posted to Daily Dharma by Bill Kelley
My friend Dave Mason has written a provacative take on the Matrix Trilogy.
http://www.praxispath.co.uk/5-theory/MatrixPage.html
http://gimundo.com/news/article/the-man-who-saved-the-world-by-doing-nothing/
[Ed. Note: Perhaps we could add a Nonduality Heroes award? After all, how many of us could "do nothing" in his place? ]
When an alarm announced that the United States had launched missiles at the Soviet Union, Stanislav Petrov could have pushed the red button to start a full-scale nuclear war. Luckily for all of us, he didn't.
By Kathryn Hawkins. Posted on August 02
2009 Filed under Features | General Interest | Heroes | History |
Ever heard of Stanislav Petrov?
Probably not – but you may very well owe him your life.
Petrov, a former member of the Soviet military, didn’t actually do anything – but that’s precisely the point.
In 1983, Petrov held a very important station: As lieutenant colonel, he was in charge of monitoring the Soviet Union’s satellites over the United States, and watching for any sign of unauthorized military action.
This was the Cold War era, and suspicions were high – on September 1st, the Soviet Union had mistakenly shot down a Korean aircraft it had believed to be a military plane, killing 269 civilians, including an American Congressman. The Soviet Union believed that the United States might launch a missile attack at any moment, and that they would be forced to respond with their own arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Several weeks after the airplane disaster, on September 23rd, another officer called in sick, so Petrov was stuck working a double shift at a secret bunker, monitoring satellite activity, when “suddenly the screen in front of me turned bright red,” Petrov told BBC News. “An alarm went off. It was piercing, loud enough to raise a dead man from his grave.”
According to the system, the United States had launched five missiles, which were rapidly heading into Soviet territory. The U.S.S.R. was under attack.
All Petrov had to do was push the flashing red button on the desk in front of him, and the Soviets would retaliate with their own battery of missiles, launching a full-scale nuclear war.
All Petrov had to do was push the flashing red button on the desk in front of him, and the Soviets would retaliate with their own battery of missiles, launching a full-scale nuclear war.
“For 15 seconds, we were in a state of shock,” he told The Washington Post. “We needed to understand, what’s next?”
Though the bunker atmosphere was chaotic, Petrov, who had trained as a scientist, took the time to analyze the data carefully before making his decision. He realized that, if the U.S. did attack, they would be unlikely to launch a mere five missiles at once. And when he studied the system’s ground-based radar, he could see no evidence of oncoming missiles.
He still couldn’t say for sure what was going on, but “I had a funny feeling in my gut,” he told The Post. “I didn’t want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it.”
Luckily for all of us, he decided not to push that button. Later, his instincts were proven right – the malfunctioning system had given him a false alarm, and the U.S. had not deployed any missiles. Thanks to Petrov’s cool head, nuclear war had been narrowly averted, and millions of lives were saved.
Unfortunately, Petrov didn’t exactly receive a heroic reward from the Soviet military: Embarrassed by their own mistakes, and angry at Petrov for breaking military protocol, they forced him into early retirement with a pension of $200 a month. Petrov’s brave act was kept secret from the outside world until the 1998 publication of a book by one of Petrov’s fellow officers, who witnessed his courage on that terrifying night.
Since the book’s publication, Petrov has been honored by the United Nations and presented with a World Citizen Award, and there has been talk of giving him the Nobel Prize. Still, the humble Russian scientist plays down his role in averting a nuclear crisis: “I was simply the right person in the right time, that was all,” he said in the upcoming documentary, The Red Button and the Man Who Saved the World.
We’ve got to disagree with him. Sure, he may have done nothing – but in this case, it might just be the hardest thing to do.
http://gimundo.com/news/article/the-man-who-saved-the-world-by-doing-nothing/