love your enemy

From this week's Free Will Astrology by Rob Brezsny (click the title link to read the whole thing). This is an excerpt from his book PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings:

"The 17th-century surgeon Wilhelm Hilden had an interesting theory about healing. He developed a medicinal salve that he applied not to the wound itself but rather to the weapon that inflicted it. Though today we may sneer at such foolishness, the fact is that Hilden's approach has great potential if used for psychic wounds. Jesus understood this when he articulated the revolutionary formula, "Love your enemy." More than any other action, this strategy has the power to cure you of the distortions your enemy has unleashed in you. Try it out."

I had not heard this idea phrased in such a way before, such that not forgiving unleashes distortions in us, whereas love can cure distortions. Wow. That's what makes it incredibly powerful.

no enemy exists, therefore there is victory

NO ENEMY

For the Shambhala warrior, the actual, basic notion of victory is not so much that you have one-upped your enemy and therefore you are victorious. Rather, no enemy exists at all; therefore, there is victory. This is the idea of unconditional warriorship and unconditional victory. In connection with this, the concept of sacredness is that fearlessness is carried into everyday life situations, even brushing your teeth. So fearlessness occurs all over the place, all the time. Fearlessness here is also unconditional. In this way, fearlessness becomes cheerful and very light. There's no need for cowardice or fear at all, or any moments of doubt. Actually what we're talking about is doubtlessness, we could say, rather than fearlessness. There's no doubt. There are no second thoughts. Everything is a complete warrior's world. So here victory is not having to deal with an enemy at all. It is the notion of no enemy. The whole world is a friend.

From OCEAN OF DHARMA: The Everyday Wisdom of Chogyam Trungpa. 365 Teachings on Living Life with Courage and Compassion. Number 119. [Unpublished excerpt from Talk Five of Warriorship in the Three Yanas. August 1978, Rocky Mountain Dharma Center.]

see the world as sacred

Usually in life, when we act, when we exist, we tend to have a very wretched and small notion of what we are doing. Sometimes, we try to be good boys and girls. We struggle, taking our journey stitch by stitch. We go to sleep at night, we get up the next day, and we struggle to lead our life. The ordinary approach to that is undignified and very small, like flat Coca-Cola. Sometimes we feel better, we try to cheer up, and it feels pretty good. But then, behind that, there is the same familiar "me" haunting us all the time. We don't have to be that way, at all. We actually could see our world as a big world and see ourselves as open and vast. We can see our world as sacred. That is the key to bringing together the sun of wisdom with the moon of wakefulness.

From OCEAN OF DHARMA: The Everyday Wisdom of Chogyam Trungpa. 365 Teachings on Living Life with Courage and Compassion. Number 284. [Unpublished excerpt from Talk Five of Warriorship in the Three Yanas. August 1978, Rocky Mountain Dharma Center.]

energy dynamics

It's impossible for me to ...not touch on the subjects of energy dynamics and intuition. For those of you who have very sensitive right hemispheres, I know you understand what I am talking about. At the same time, I appreciate that for many of us, if our left mind cannot smell it, taste it, hear it, see it or touch it, then we are skeptical as to whether or not it exists. Our right brain is capable of detecting energy beyond the limitations of our left mind because of the way it is designed. I hope your level of discomfort about such things as energy dynamics and intuition has decreased as you have increased your understanding about the fundamental differences in the way our two hemispheres collaborate to create our single perception of reality.

Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., in My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey

(click title to go to purchase page)

the birth of enlightenment

from oceanofdharma list, a quote from chogyam trungpa rinpoche:

We have the idea that an enlightened person is supposed to be more or less an old-wise-man type: not quite like an old professor, but perhaps an old father who can supply sound advice on how to handle all of life's problems or an old grandmother who knows all the recipes and all the cures. That seems to be the current fantasy that exists in our culture concerning enlightened beings. They are old and wise, grown-up and solid. Tantra has a different notion of enlightenment, which is connected with youth and innocence. We can see this pattern in Padmasambhava's life, the life of the great teacher who brought the tantric teachings of Buddhism to Tibet. Here the awakened state of mind is portrayed not as old and adult but as young and free. Youth and freedom in this case are connected with the birth of the awakened state of mind. The awakened state of mind has the quality of morning, of dawn -- fresh and sparkling, completely awake.

From "Primordial Innocence," in CRAZY WISDOM, pages 26 to 27.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

a poem by David Whyte

This is the Panhala poem for the day. (See Links to subscribe for yourself.) I think of it as how to understand that you are one with the universe. Find connection all around you, living in the moment.

EVERYTHING IS WAITING FOR YOU
(After Derek Mahon)

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

~ David Whyte ~

God in drag

My friend Zoe Hill included this in an email, and I thought it so wonderful, I want to share.

You are the Sun in drag.
You are God hiding from yourself.
Remove all the 'mine' – that is the veil.
Why ever worry about anything?
Listen to what your friend Hafiz
Knows for certain:
The appearance of this world
Is a Magi's brilliant trick, though its affairs are
Nothing into nothing.
You are a divine elephant with amnesia
Trying to live in an ant hole.
Sweetheart, O sweetheart,
You are God in Drag!
-- Hafiz

there, i said it

okay, valentine's day has come and gone. this year i spent it alone. i am okay with that. i hope it won't always be the case. i am grateful i'm not in a miserable relationship. today i feel extreme gratitude that i am not in a relationship with a man who has promised to be sexually exclusive and yet has broken that promise.

i greatly dislike womanizing men, unfaithful men, dishonest men. i would rather just end the relationship and walk away. and i have done that. twice. it's not fun, but it's the cleanest, clearest thing i know how to do in response to a boyfriend of mine behaving like that. that kind of behavior is so...inconsiderate.

i want to put this out there: men, if you behave like that, if that's how you deal with your relationship problems, do not even waste one second of my time! there's simply no excuse.

i don't understand why men behave that way. all i can figure is that it's a passive aggressive way of breaking up, getting the other person to do the dirty work while you protest that you couldn't help it, something just came over you.

or maybe it's me, or maybe it's just the human condition.

i love the quote below. that is how i felt at the end of each relationship, that these people just didn't see ME. and i, of course, did the same. love can be so blind.

We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we
long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit,
and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them.

~~ Anais Nin

osho quote for love

veruschka normandeau read this beautiful quote at the marriage blessings for both adele and chris, clarita riccobono's daughter and her fiance, and for lara and mat, fantasia london's daughter and HER fiance.

i loved it so much, i requested it by email, and veruschka graciously provided it.

Nothing ever repeats; everything is new every day. Go on searching and seeking each other, finding new ways of loving each other, finding new ways of being with each other. And each person is such an infinite mystery, inexhaustible, unfathomable, that it is not possible that you can ever say, "I have known her" or "I have known him". In fact the more you know, the more mysterious the other becomes. Then love is a constant adventure.
~Osho~

waiting for redbuds...

yesterday and today my energy has been low. low for me, that is. i still walked to and from work, but monday, i caught a dillo once i got to congress in the morning.

it seems like this happens every year in february. we have some spectacularly springlike days, with sunshine and temps in the high 70s/low 80s. people are outside soaking up the sun. the trails are crowded. lots of people are outdoors, riding bikes, walking, skateboarding, wearing shorts, flip flops, etc. you can feel spring in the air.

then winter comes back to bite us on the ass, and this time it really hurts, not like in december or january. ow! i just want to withdraw. stay home with a good book, make stew, take long hot baths, go to bed early, sleep in. the cold, the gusty north wind--enough already! let it be spring!

my paperwhites are finally blooming. they are later than usual. they've bloomed in mid-january before. the yellow jasmine blossoms near the street are popping out.

my redbud remains bloomless and leafless, though. it's on the north side, and i usually see them in bloom elsewhere before at my house.

february is always the month when i spot the first redbud in full bloom, and that is a major milestone that spring is coming, in my map of the seasons.

the north side of 2nd street, in the block just east of congress (where tesoro's and las manitas are/were) has some redbuds with unusual dark reddish/purple blossoms, i've noticed in years past. notice them, if you can (and say a little prayer that marriott leaves them there when it builds what it has to build).

here's a quote from the color purple:

i think it pisses god off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.

maybe i'll take a detour on my way to/from work tomorrow and check those redbuds out.

the mouse and the turquoise

from oceanofdharma.com, quotes from the late chogyam trungpa. today, besides being my birthday, is shambhala day, new year on the tibetan lunar calendar.


There is the Tibetan story of a certain monk who renounced his samsaric, confused life and decided to go live in a cave in order to meditate all the time. Prior to this he had been thinking continually of pain and suffering. His name was Ngonagpa of Langru, the Black-faced one of Langru, because he never smiled at all but saw everything in life in terms of pain. He remained in retreat for many years, very solemn and deadly honest, until one day he looked at the shrine and saw that someone had presented a big lump of turquoise as a gift to him. As he viewed the gift, he saw a mouse creep in and try to drag away the piece of turquoise. The mouse could not do it, so it went back to its hole and called another mouse. They both tried to drag away this big lump of turquoise but could not do it. So they squeaked together and called eight more mice that came and finally managed to drag the whole lump back into their hole. Then for the first time Ngonagpa of Langru began to laugh and smile. And that was his first introduction to openness, a sudden flash of enlightenment.
So a sense of humor is not merely a matter of trying to tell jokes or make puns, trying to be funny in a deliberate fashion. It involves seeing the basic irony of the juxtaposition of extremes, so that one is not caught taking them seriously, so that one does not seriously play their game of hope and fear.

From "A Sense of Humor" in CUTTING THROUGH SPIRITUAL MATERIALISM pp. 114-115.

All material by Chogyam Trungpa is copyright Diana J. Mukpo and used by permission.

keep love in your heart

keep love in your heart. a life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. the consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.

~ oscar wilde

we are interdimensional travelers

Actually, your real identity is that you are an interdimensional traveler who arrived from some other dimension at birth and who, almost every day, travels to another dimension called the dream time, has a guaranteed portal out of this matrix called death, and who interpenetrates with the varied dimensions generated by other human psyches. The life that weighs so heavily on your mind is merely one time line.--Jonathan Zapp, zaporacle.com

we are the sun's way of thinking about itself

I guess it shouldn't surprise us to find ourselves linked with the stars. Every atom of gold or silver jewelry was created in supernovas. The water we drink, the air we breathe, the ground we walk, the complicated pouch of fluids and salts and minerals and bones we are--all forged in some early chaos of our sun. I think it was the astrophysicist John Wheeler who remarked that we are the sun's way of thinking about itself.--Diane Ackerman, A Slender Thread: Rediscovering Hope at the Heart of Crisis