Rainy day Rumi-nation

This poem of his is badass, and as mystery school would have it, my Rumi book is being borrowed at the moment but Lucialis was smart enough to know that (even oceans apart) and fed me my daily dose of Rumi. This is one of my favorites, by far...it should be recited by children in gradeschool everyday, instead of the dreaded drone-sounding "Pledge of Agrievance"

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings.
Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty & frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
-- Rumi

email to my mom

This started out as a simple reply to my mother but turned into a deep thoughtflow, sparked by this new fire that has started burning inside of me recently:

Hello muddah,

I am currently rained/snowed out in Tahoe, probably through thursday and will get paid that whole time. I will let you know of an address to send the raquet to as soon as I know my next destination. I guess I could use a pair of socks, but I do not need any food items as it is already hard enough to spend the 40 I get for food everyday. The only two things you need to know about losing weight is diet and exercise...calories out equals calories in, the more you exercise, the more you eat...and veggies veggies veggies and more veggies...radishes and beets and carrots and cabbage as much as possible, and stay away from the bloody sugar!! Sugar is no good, just use a bit of agave if you need a sweet fix, also raw sunflower pumpkin seeds (unsalted) are very healthy and a good filling snack...and do not eat too much bread, and do not get bread that is made with enriched or bleached flour...it pays off in health to spend a few extra bucks buying organic and local produce...especially supporting local farms is important...the union square farmers market on wednesdays and saturdays (?) is a good spot to pick things up...i have been finding out incredible things about supermarket produce that travels thousands of miles in a truck after being genetically modified, sprayed with pesticides, and being radiated...all these factors deplete actual nutrition, so what you are paying for in local organic produce is nutritional value...it will make you feel better and live longer...also kale, start buying organic kale and eating salads with radishes and sunflower/pumpkin seeds, kale is a master green. I will be a nutritionist (mostly self taught) someday, but this is what I know now, it is so so so so so so important to not support mass produced commercial farming, especially the meat, do not get me started on factory farmed meat, it is pure shit. Does NHP even have a community garden? is it even a community? That is why I want yanni and you to move to New Zealand or Australia, where community still exists and neighbors know and help eachother, I cannot stress that fact enough. Once this job is over I will invest most of my money and with the remainder I am becoming a Greek citizen and getting the hell away from the United States, land of the free my ass...no healthcare and taxes are only going up up up up and I think my $75 jay walking ticket was the straw that broke the camel's back...laws should protect us against immorality and violence, they should not be a way to make money, and most of this money only goes towards the war effort, building weapons military bases and training poor young Americans how to become killing machines, this is the sad truth. Allen Ginsberg wrote "smart went crazy" in one of his poems. Well, I am not going crazy but I am educating myself with priceless knowledge that I was never given in a structured school setting, and this knowledge is my empowerment and it feels like my eyes are opening to a whole new world which is more beautiful than I imagined but, at the same time, money and consumerism and a society based on endless consumption on a planet with finite resources is the thick thick wool being pulled over the eyes of a beautiful human race with endless potential. I now know it is my duty as a conscious human being to use my knowledge to show people the real meaning of life, which is in simple happiness, which is so easily attainable once you shove aside all the bullshit that we are supposed to accept as being reality. I have finally figured out why I do what I do and live unconventionally, and simply, and most importantly, happily! My happiness is worth way more than any paycheck could give me. You have obviously played a huge role in me turning out like this, so thank you for making me me, and letting me be me and do my thing, I am so excited to reap the benefits of this beautiful life now that I have a clear vision of what I must do and how to live simply and be happy. Hopefully they fly me home in a few weeks so we can all celebrate! I am done with my rant now, so have a wonderful day and thanks for getting the tennis raquet strung up, I think it is so funny that my friends are all playing tennis now, we must be maturing hey?

Love you as much as you love me,

C

found old poem

Go lower to see higher.

Reach deeper to inspire.

The top is only near

when the bottom is seen clear.

"Living in the Heart" excerpts

First, I'd like to thank Elijah for sending me this book.

Living in the Heart by Drunvalo Melchizedek is a powerful account of the lost language of the human heart and how we, as human beings, are capable of much more than we think. Many of the instances seem quite fantastic, having a lot to do with telepathy, higher consciousness, and real superpowers. The author also teaches step by step how, through meditation, you can speak using the language of the heart.

I highly recommend reading this book, especially if you have found life's little coincidences and funny feelings to be too strange for words. I have a free copy for you if you email seegriggs@gmail.com.

I emphasized that our thoughts and emotions can create the world around us and that by staying connected to Mother Earth within the heart, all things were possible—even cleaning the environment with only the human lightbody.

Aboriginals : They told me how Mother Earth provided everything to them without their having to struggle, that the world was just light and that human consciousness was more than whites usually understand. (They consider us a mutation of their consciousness, just babies who are still learning about the outer world.)

Maori: we, members of modern civilization, needed to remember the old wisdom to survive. He said clearly that there were forms of communication that, if remembered, would change everything in the world. And so the conversation drifted to his ordinary experiences in the States since his arrival. He thought this was an unusual place to live. He felt we were too far removed from nature and reality, and TV heconsidered to be "mind masturbation."

Life and human potential are so much greater than most people accept. Only when the heart of humankind opens again will we remember the language and be reconnected—not only among ourselves and with the animals, but to all life everywhere.

Nam-myoho-renge-kyo..........

What is Nam-myoho-renge-kyo?

It is not easy to give a short answer to this question that includes all the aspects of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Here are two answers. It is the title and the heart of the Lotus Sutra, and it is the Law that explains the workings of life.

The Lotus Sutra

The Buddhist teaching which explains that everyone has the same potential as the Buddha is the Lotus Sutra ('sutra' means 'teaching'). The Lotus Sutra was originally recorded in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, entitled Saddharma-Pundarika-Sutra. As the teachings of Buddhism spread they were translated into the languages of the cultures they travelled to. The Lotus Sutra was translated into Chinese, and when it reached Japan it was known as Myoho-Renge-Kyo. The title of a sutra was considered to encapsulate the teaching it contained. It was also the practice to place the Sanskrit word Nam (or, 'devotion') before the names of Buddhist teachings or characters in order to praise them.

Nichiren Daishonin taught that the act of praising the Lotus Sutra would enable the qualities of the Buddha, the reservoir, inherent in our lives to emerge. Therefore he placed the word 'Nam' in front of the title of the Lotus Sutra, Myoho-renge-kyo. This appears very simple; but the practice itself is very profound.

The Law of life

As we consider each of the constituent parts of Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, we start to sense its profundity. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is referred to as the 'Law of life'. Although it is just six syllables, each signifies profound truths that go to the heart of the universe, the issue of life and death, and the law of cause and effect.

Nam

'Nam' is an action word. The act of praising our potential will make it emerge. 'Nam' is the word that turns this principle from a theory into a reality. The Lotus Sutra, although profound, is merely a teaching. But Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is a practice that will have actual results. The literal meaning of the word 'Nam' is 'respect' or 'dedication' - so the whole phrase has the simple meaning of 'devotion to the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra'.

Myoho

'Myoho' explains at least two major principles of life: the relationship between life and death, and the relationship between our most enlightened, or Buddha, state and all our other nine conditions or states of life. The 'ten states of life' or 'ten worlds' will be covered in a future part of this series.

How do the teachings of Buddhism view the relationship between life and death? We all have a birthday. That is, quite simply, the day when we emerged into the world as a baby. We also have some idea of what was happening to us in the nine or so months before we emerged from the womb. Before that, however, other than the knowledge that a sperm and an egg came together at a particular moment, things are not so clear. Biologists cannot give definitive answers as to where or what our consciousness was before conception and philosophers have also struggled to explain this. Buddhism teaches that all our constituent parts, not just physical ones, but mental and spiritual as well, existed in a state of latency, waiting for the right conditions to emerge before we could start the process of being born after conception. Before conception, we are latent, or 'myo'. This means that our life energy is waiting for the necessary circumstances before it can take on a physical form. 'Ho', which means law, or phenomena, describes the manifest state and particularly the emergence of the new-born baby into the world. We remain alive - manifest - until the point when, for whatever reason, our bodies can no longer support our lives. The body dies, and the constituent parts separate. At this point we cease to be 'ho' and return once more to the latent state of 'myo'.

Buddhism teaches that life is a cycle. We emerge from 'myo', become 'ho' and return to 'myo' again. This rhythm continues forever. The cycle of the seasons echoes this process. We see new growth in spring, maturity in summer, harvest and decline in autumn before a period of apparently bleak withdrawal in winter. But winter never fails to turn into spring once more, and the cycle starts again. We feel our Buddhahood at work because our chanting has caused it to appear according to another fundamental life principle: 'renge', which is about how the effect exists simultaneously with the cause.

Renge

This literally means lotus flower. The lotus flower rests on the surface of the pond, its roots going deep into the water and drawing on the nutrients it finds in the mud at the bottom. This image of the lotus flower also means that the Buddha is not a perfect being, detached from the realities of life, either in a monastery or in some other, unearthly realm. Rather, the Buddha is an aspect of our own lives which we can draw upon. It is because of the trials and tribulations of real, everyday life in this world that the Buddha's qualities can be revealed. 'Renge' signifies the process of cause and effect at work deep within the life of each person. (The topic of cause and effect will be covered in a future part of this series.)

Kyo

The word 'kyo' literally means 'sutra', or teaching. It is the vibration of our voice which is so important in our Buddhist practice. It is said the voice does the Buddha's work (2). This is why we chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo aloud, rather than performing a silent meditation. 'Kyo' is the interconnectedness of all phenomena; and how our prayer or the sound of our chanting can affect people and situations out of our immediate sphere.

Close my eyes, float upstream

I just awoke from a deep restful sleep and an interesting dream:

I was having my van repaired in a shop, the mechanic was a woman, the bill was $216 and I don't know how many cents, they sold beer at the mechanic so you could kill birds with stones while you waited -- i had to fill out a whacky form for the repair answering strange questions such as whether I was from the east west or just a "good'ol farmer". An old acquaintance of mine, Bubba (one of the most interesting energies I have ever known, albeit completely misdirected burned at full flame constantly) had begun signing all these signatures of variations of names of people I knew in my life, people he didn't know. His face appeared very close and stubbly, huge jawbone like you never ever saw on a human. The head mechanic, a gruffy bearded and bellied trucker hat wearing cigarette smoking man got angry with him but I was able to just scribble scrawl my signatures over the other ones. The van was not ready the first time but was supposed to be, when I turned the keys the electrical problem had not been fixed so I got under the steering wheel and plugged in a bunch of fuses that were unplugged. I was not in the least agitated that the work I just paid for had not been done and it was I in fact who just repaired it. What I do remember is standing there with the bill I was about to pay and having these strange ancestral thoughts/emotions come to me from some time in the very distant past, before money ruled everything. They made me feel strange about the spending of money and could not grasp the concept, actually hard to explain here in words. Usually dreams involve action but this one involved these intense thoughts coming from one of my European ancestors - this I know. Anyhow, I skated home to wait for them to charge the van battery back up and I rode by my old elementary school, St. Anne's, just as church (shivers of boring memories) was letting out and it was extremely crowded on the sidewalk and street and difficult to maneuver through churchgoers who were comprised of old classmates and faculty and just old Catholics. I was weaving through them, 26, tattooed and still riding a skateboard, my balance was quite off and I kept having to retrieve my skateboard hopping on and off it constantly but always moving through the crowd, then when I was finally onto the road (still same area, same old dangerous curve that cars came around too fast on by the pizzeria) one of my old teachers had some words to say, judgmental and hurtful, but the volume was too low to hear her and I was moving faster and further away on now a nice smooth empty road so I could not hear her, or maybe I just didn't want to -- continued on now through the dreamspace unfamiliar to where my friends were giving away a brand new beautiful piano via craigslist. My friend Dustin had used his phone number and people were calling constantly but he was letting it go to voicemail so he could screen the calls and choose the right person for the piano. Dustin and someone else (unidentified, but friend) were sitting and had taken my cucumber and a tomato and made simple salads of the two ingredients chopped up. The huge mutilated tomato was sitting on the table and I remember thinking that it was not cut the nice geometric way I would have cut it, rather thrashed at with my little knife, a small sharp paring knife, the same knife I am currently traveling with to cut all my veggies. I shrugged my shoulders and thought, "s'cool" and thrashed at a chunk to eat myself.

Now I am awake and my conscious mind has taken over and it is another beautiful day, started by sitting naked at the computer in my warm dark hotel room.

Shocking excerpt!

This was taken from http://ampedstatus.com/full-report-the-economic-elite-vs-the-people-of-the-united-states-of-america It is absurd and shocking and leaves my whole state of being in paralyzed disbelief that the corrupt money hungry whores of America do not give a FUCK about human happiness"

"The American worker is screwed over every step of the way, and it all starts with the explosion in the cost of a college education. This is one of the Economic Elite’s most devastating weapons. To have any chance of succeeding in this economy, it is commonly believed that you must attend the best college possible. With the rising costs involved, today’s students are graduating with record levels of debt from student loans. At the same time, the unemployment rate among recent college graduates has risen higher than the national average, and those who do find work are making significantly less than they expected to make. This combination of extreme debt and reduced pay has crippled an entire generation right from the start and has put them in a vicious cycle of spiraling debt that they will struggle with for the rest of their lives. The most recent college graduates are now known as a “lost generation.”

The American dream has turned into a nightmare. The economic system is a sophisticated prison cell; the indentured servant is now an indebted wage slave; whips and chains have evolved into debts.

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by sword. The other is by debt.”
– John Adams"