reality zig zag

http://twitter.com/dodclark/status/11263013898

what to think

• What do you think about xxx?
• Hang on, I will look it up on Wikipedia
• But I want to know what ‘you’ think
• What for? My thoughts are just a subjective, media-soaked mush wrapped in a Scottish Presbyterian flag.

simple and difficult

Practice implores us to do the simplest yet most difficult thing: to sit still and simply be present. In meditation, we let whatever comes up, come up. We invite it in. We welcome all of it, including the resistance, the boredom, the judgments, and the endless spinning. We let it all come up and just watch it.

- Ezra Bayda “Reflect, Without Thinking” (Winter 2009)

know-where-you-going

Know Where You're Going

The quality of your action depends on the quality of your being. Suppose you’re eager to offer happiness, to make someone happy. That’s a good thing to do. But if you’re not happy, then you can’t do that. In order to make another person happy, you have to be happy yourself. So there’s a link between doing and being. If you don’t succeed in being, you can’t succeed in doing. If you don’t feel that you’re on the right path, happiness isn’t possible. This is true for everyone; if you don’t know where you’re going, you suffer. It’s very important to realize your path and see your true way.

- Thich Nhat Hanh from "The Heart of The Matter" (Winter 2009)

higher than thought

"Is there anything higher than thought?
Yes, meditation is higher than thought."
(Chandogya Upanishad)

Oprah and Thich

Thich Nhat Hanh: I know that we do not know enough. We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality. When you climb a ladder and arrive on the sixth step and you think that is the highest, then you cannot come to the seventh. So the technique is to abandon the sixth in order for the seventh step to be possible. And this is our practice, to release our views. The practice of nonattachment to views is at the heart of the Buddhist practice of meditation. People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore.

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Oprah-Talks-to-Thich-Nhat-Hanh/1

only one way

Wash out your brain waves, empty your mind
Flush out the bullshit, see what you find.

Go to the lyrics and sound track

thought tigers

Once upon a time there was an artist who lived in a cave.
One day he painted a ferocious tiger on the wall.
Now every time he sees it he feels afraid.
Our thoughts are like painted tigers in our mind.

the noble quest

The noble quest is about being rather than doing.
Being a cool dude and comfortable in your skin.
Being at peace in the present moment.

turn away

Turn Away
George G Clark - 1969 Lyrics

I was only 20 when I wrote this song. Five years later I began my first overseas job. I left ‘my safe and cosy niche among the petty nouveau riche’. I stopped turning my face to the wall. I began trying to do something. Then time passed. What I have now seen is huge, wrinkled, under-resourced, and not at all easy.

What the hell should I care if the whole wide world is wrong
I look out for myself
I leave upon the shelf
All the trouble, war and pain of starving children in the rain.
Shut my ears to the big bad bomb
I don’t care if the wogs go home
What I don’t know can’t cause me pain
I turn my face to the wall again
I know it like I’ve seen it
But what I’ve seen is small, is smooth, is well-fed and is easy.

So half the world is starving what difference does it make
I can’t do anything
Just shut my mind and sing
About my safe and cosy niche among the petty nouveau riche.
Pick up crumbs in the tyrant’s wake
Follow those who are on the make
All that I want will come in reach
I wear a smile let the boss man preach
Life smiles upon the two-faced
And hypocrit I am, I’m smooth, I’m well-fed and life’s easy