Particular relevant to many many many common everyday situations…
The video and audio seem to have gone out of sync. (But I remember having watched it properly the first time I saw ti around a year ago, seems its got corrupted later)
The ‘pain body’ he refers I relate it exactly to the ‘false center’ that this talk is about. I really appreciate the facial expressions of Eckhart in this talk that accompanies his brilliant elucidation…
Dear all, I’d marked full moon nights in my Google calendar, and this time just thought it would be not a bad idea to try out a group sitting in silence…
Its traditional to observe silence for someone who is departed, but why not do the same those who are alive! (Including oneself 🙂 ) So let us observe silence for one hour this full moon night!
How you observe silence, sitting in some corner or staring at the moon, is up to you, but the idea is to just be with yourself – awake and at peace.
So much of energy we conserve during silence (which we’d have otherwise spent on watching TV, chatting, tossing around in bed trying to sleep, etc!) Lets use this energy to pray with all our heart for well being of every single child in the world, as if the child was one’s own!
Lets honor all the children of the world, and pray that they get food, shelter, medical care and good education, loving care and attention, and in the midst of this complex world, they somehow find their way to peace and love!
There is a quote…
“As a mother would risk her own life
to protect her only baby child, exactly so
should one cultivate Universal Friendliness,
towards all sentient beings without exception!”
Core time would be 11 PM to 12 AM. But those who are up to it, can try a longer stretch of 10 PM to 1 AM. Well… atleast lets try to make it together during the core time!
Ideally we could all sit together in one physical location – but then there is this line from Jonathan Livingstone Seagull:
“If our friendship depends on things like space and time, then when we finally overcome space and time, we’ve destroyed our own brotherhood! But overcome space, and all we have left is Here. Overcome time, and all we have left is Now. And in the middle of Here and Now, don’t you think that we might see each other once or twice?”
So let us have try this out in spirit – in our own place in whatever time zone we are living in, we will be with others in the same time zone.
see also: why it might be helpful or atleast interesting, to keep in touch with the moon phases?
Friday evening I started off on a bus journey for the long weekend as I’d applied for leave on Monday.
The bus was crowded and as I’d gotten on early, I was sitting down. A couple with a baby boy got on. Its somewhat tough carrying a kid in a crowded rattling swering bus. Being a bit tired/lazy and somewhat disinclined to offer my seat esp with a long journey ahead, I offered to hold the kid instead. The man offered me the kid who unhesitantly came to my arms. They family seemed to be manual laborers, with the baby having pretty dirty clothes and hair. I had nice clean clothes, but nevertheless I took him with an invisible reluctance. On the way I couldn’t help reflecting on the irony – the baby was so dirty outside, and so pure inside. And I was so clean outside, and so dirty and hypocritical inside! 🙄 😆 My work was clearly cut out for three days of silence before me.
Once I was in a car with a friend on an autobahn (highway) in Germany. You may know, there are no speed limits on the German autobahns, and we were driving at high speed through a green countryside – most of it looking like a huge golf course as it was mostly plain and not too many trees. On the way, we passed a bridge across a valley and suddenly I gasped in amazement (more…)
We don’t need – any more trouble!
Fantastic song video by global artists…
War/No More Trouble – Song Around The World from Playing For Change on Vimeo.
For those who are short on time and inclination, here is the conclusion in advance: kindly carry your own trash bags wherever in the remote wilderness you go and carry back your non-biodegradable trash with you, even small chocolate wrappers, and dispose it in a city.
I am presenting a true incident here only as a ‘technology demonstrator’ that change is possible…!!
Some time back I went to a place Thattekere, very nice spot with a small lake and some hills…
Having spent the whole morning in the midst of nature, my mind had become very peaceful, and in such a state, one is very unlikely to get into trouble! 🙂 I picked up a large cover, walked up to the group, took a fleeting wild guess at who appeared to be the most rational of them, and walked up to him and asked casually “do you need this cover or do you already have one?” He was surprised that a total stranger was talking to him like an old friend, and asked “why?”. I replied “so that you can put all this trash into it” as if he was going to do it anyway. He was a bit off balance but only for a moment, and replied “no thanks, we already have some”. I replied, oh ok fine, and walked away.
I returned to my group, chatted for a while with the others and did some general time pass… and later the other group came in sight… they were leaving the place. I walked back to their spot and was amazed… it was restored to its former perfection!
I looked around and saw two large plastic covers next to a tree… full of used plates, plastic cups, etc.
In Germany, I have seen even the richest people partition their garbage and personally carry and drop it into the respective recycling bins in the street. Here somehow many people seem to have the impression that disposing of garbage personally is below their dignity and should be done only by ‘low class’ people.
To continue… I picked their two bags and started walking back, and happened to overtake the group which wasnt very hard since they were chatting and walking very slowly. The same gentleman whom I had spoken to earlier asked what I was planning to do with those bags. A lot of funny responses came to my mind but I restrained myself; I expressed my admiration on how neatly they had cleaned up the place without leaving any trace behind, and explained that since nobody would come and pick up the covers, soon monkeys or some other animals would come and distribute them all over the place again when they smelt some left over food inside. And these animals would possibly choke on the plastic stuff and go through a lot of misery. I added that I myself hadnt known all these things, until I happened to read them in the paper. Hence the best thing to be done with the garbage would be to take it back and throw it in the city where it would be picked up.
He replied “no problem, please dont take the trouble, let me do it myself” and took the covers from me. He wondered if I some officer or custodian or something and I said no, Im an engineer at HP. We started chatting and he said he he and his group were from BHEL and just stopped by since they were passing through the place. Eventually we parted as friends. I am not really a nature activist or something. Im only a software engineer who also cares about the environment and does a little bit for it now and then. I considered it one more victory for nature, just for one more day.
Maybe tourists cant really be blamed because they have no idea what to do with their trash, because dustbins cant possibly be present everywhere. One solution could be that they be given bags to put their trash in at the entry point to any place (which somebody told me is actually done in many places in the US). I suggest this to government agencies wherever I go, but these things take time. For the time being, lets all carry our own trash bags.
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I would also like to talk briefly about my progress in meditation, and also share some notes and ideas. I am still a learner, but I feel that maybe others can learn from my mistakes. Any other ideas are most welcome. You can skip over anything that dosent hold your interest. |