Thursday, November 10, 2011


I am not an object in Consciousness but its source,
its Witness, pure shapeless Awareness.

Love is seeing the unity under the imaginary diversity.

When all the false self-identifications are thrown away, what remains is all-embracing love. (195) 

To see myself in everybody, and everybody in myself, most certainly is love. (91) 

The consciousness in you and the consciousness in me, apparently two, really one, seek unity and that is love. (70)

Excerpts from Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj's I AM THAT






Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The dragon carries an image of the dynamic qualities of the natural world, the sequence of weather and seasons. It identifies with mind beyond ego, and not the petty grasping and clinging that mark our ordinary life in the world.

The Dragon thunders in the sky with the sound of compassion that awakens us from delusion and increases what we can know through hearing. Dragons have the power of complete communication. Just as we do not see sound, we do not see dragons -- at least not usually. Her main quality is power, dominance over the sea, and the water element.

FOUR DIGNITIES OF THE WARRIOR'S PATH: 
There is a developmental process for deepening and furthering authentic presence called the warrior's path of the four dignities. The "developmental path of deepening and furthering authentic presence"... "This path is connected with how to incorporate more and more space into your world, so that ultimately you can achieve the realization of the universal monarch. As your world becomes more and more vast, obviously any notion of self-centered, egotistical existence becomes increasingly remote. So the path of Four Dignities is also connected with realizing ego-less-ness. The four dignities are meek, perky, outrageous and inscrutable."


The Warrior of Inscrutable: ("Druk")
"Dragon is the experience of fulfillment and un-contrived, spontaneous achievement... is energetic, powerful and unwavering." Two Categories of Inscrutable:
The State of Inscrutability: "because fearlessness has been achieved, you develop gentleness and sympathy, non-committal, but with a sense of humor. Like the state of being a dragon who enjoys resting in the sky among the clouds and the wind. However, that state is not static. Dragon abides in the sky in the summer, and hibernates in the ground during the winter."
There is "some feeling of predictability within the context of predictability; a settling down in your confidence; solid but relaxed, open and fearless, wakefulness and intelligence, self contained and confident; a sense of genuineness without deceiving yourself or others. Settled. State of wholesomeness. Question and answer occur simultaneously and therefore inscrutability is continuous. inscrutability responds with deadly accuracy beyond aggression but with basic confidence. The expression of inscrutability is how it manifests itself in action. The main point is being somewhat non-committal, but seeing the project through to its end. At the same time, you are very loyal to others, so that you always accomplish your project with sympathy for them."
The Manifestation of Inscrutability: "is methodical and elegant. You don't spell out the truth. You imply the truth. Spelling out the truth: it loses its essence and becomes either "my" or "your" truth; it becomes and end in itself. Like spending your capital when no one gets any profit. Implying the truth: it doesn't become anyone's property. When the dragon wants a rainstorm he causes thunder and lightning; the imprint of the truth is more important than the truth itself. The truth doesn't need a handle."

The Vision of Inscrutability: "is to create an orderly and powerful world full of gentle energy; begin at the beginning .. look for the ignition. Find a sympathetic environment .. not jumping to conclusions, discover positive and negative conditions, find further starting points. Generating more sympathetic environments you are not suffocated by the course of action you are taking. The warrior never becomes a slave of his own deed. So The Action of Inscrutability: is to create an environment which contains fearlessness, warmth and genuineness" The Experience of Inscrutability:"is ... you find a state of true healthy mind. The Cultivation of Inscrutability is to learn to be. Everyone possesses the potentiality to be confident; enlightened confidence-not confidence in something, but just being confident. This confidence is unconditional. inscrutability comes form giving rather than taking. As you give, you find services available automatically-thus the warrior conquers the world."
*words of Chogyam Trungpa in the Sacred Path of the Warrior.







Sunday, August 21, 2011

Use the time of your life.




Patrul Rinpoche, Patrul Rinpoche poetry, Buddhist, Buddhist poetry, Tibetan poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry,  poetry


Use the time of your life.                                                     Develop your inner happiness.

Recognize the impermanence

of all outer pleasure.

Live as a Yogi
Do your spiritual practices.
Work as a Bodhisattva
for a happy world.

Become an Amitabha
a Buddha of love and light.
Turn your world into the paradise Sukhavati,
by unfolding the enlightenment energy within you.

Search you a spiritual master,
who knows the goal of enlightenment.
Change your world into a place of grace,
by understanding all the phenomena as spiritual exercises.

Dedicate your actions to the benefit of all beings.
Send all beings light.
Live for the happiness of all beings.
So you get the energy of light.



~Patrul Rinpoche

Thursday, August 18, 2011

to cover her eyes and sing



Cindy Jeanne Cohen (1949 - 2011)

I will not be able to put into words the depth of sorrow I feel for the passing of Cindy Cohen. So, perhaps it would be best to crystalize the memories and meanings of my childhood as seen from the innocent view of the “children's table”. It was here that it truly began-- my Jewish childhood; not in the hallways of Hebrew school or dressed up in that flattering teal bat mitzvah dress, but perched into the fold-out card table at the end of another Passover dinner; an unfathomable seder plate spread out with untouchable and curious tasting nuggets of history.

And then, there was Cindy: the good-smelling unspoken conductor of it all who would be gracefully pulling things out of the oven while simutaneously stirring things in the pot, brewing the decaf, and controlling the little dogs. Cindy was a Master of Ceremony. But in my eyes and in my heart, Cindy held just one beautiful purpose- to cover her eyes and sing. When she this, all time stopped, and even my young heart understood that what was happening was timeless and sacred. She was my corner stone, her face now eternally etched into my memory with peace and sacrality; bathing in the candle light soft with her own love and affection.

Every year, for just about all of them, the Carmona family would walk down Conifer Street to the Cohen's house dressed in our holiday best. We would walk together past the crickets and the creek, already hungry for Charoset, this exodus as a family becoming more important then I will ever realize. Even as I grew into a teenager showing up drunk on wine coolers or home from college and feeling like the self-righteous Buddhist, I showed up. We always made it to the Passover table. Even now, with our own kids and new families, the new dogs and new vegetarian recipes, tradition remains the simple act of coming together. These precious evenings came together not without the strong and supportive husbands, the tolerable if not excited children, timeless friendships, gifts of good food and abundance, of loving servitude, perseverance, and now a deeply felt humility.

It is undeniable that Cindy will be missed and always loved. I am so grateful for her life and her friendship and her gifts. May we all learn from her to be reverent of tradition and generous with body and spirit.

Rest in Infinite Peace dear Cindy Cohen.

Friday, August 12, 2011

The Mind of Absolute Trust


The great way isn't difficult
     for those who are unattached to their preferences.
Let go of longing and aversion,
     and everything will be perfectly clear.
When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction,
     heaven and earth are set apart.
If you want to realize the truth,
     don't be for or against.
The struggle between good and evil
     is the primal disease of the mind.
Not grasping the deeper meaning,
     you just trouble your mind's serenity.
As vast as infinite space,
     it is perfect and lacks nothing.
But because you select and reject,
     you can't perceive its true nature.
Don't get entangled in the world;
     don't lose yourself in emptiness.
Be at peace in the oneness of things,
     and all errors will disappear by themselves.

If you don't live the Tao,
     you fall into assertion or denial.
Asserting that the world is real,
     you are blind to its deeper reality;
denying that the world is real,
     you are blind to the selflessness of all things.
The more you think about these matters,
     the farther you are from the truth.
Step aside from all thinking,
     and there is nowhere you can't go.
Returning to the root, you find the meaning;
     chasing appearances, you lose their source.
At the moment of profound insight,
     you transcend both appearance and emptiness.
Don't keep searching for the truth;
     just let go of your opinions.

For the mind in harmony with the Tao,
     all selfishness disappears.
With not even a trace of self-doubt,
     you can trust the universe completely.
All at once you are free,
     with nothing left to hold on to.
All is empty, brilliant,
     perfect in its own being.
In the world of things as they are,
     there is no self, no non self.
If you want to describe its essence,
     the best you can say is "Not-two."
In this "Not-two" nothing is separate,
     and nothing in the world is excluded.
The enlightened of all times and places
     have entered into this truth.
In it there is no gain or loss;
     one instant is ten thousand years.
There is no here, no there;
     infinity is right before your eyes.

The tiny is as large as the vast
     when objective boundaries have vanished;
the vast is as small as the tiny
     when you don't have external limits.
Being is an aspect of non-being;
     non-being is no different from being.
Until you understand this truth,
     you won't see anything clearly.
One is all; all
     are one. When you realize this,
     what reason for holiness or wisdom?
The mind of absolute trust
     is beyond all thought, all striving,
is perfectly at peace, for in it
     there is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.

Seng-Ts'an


Saturday, July 02, 2011

Saturday Night Tribute to Pablo Neruda


Keeping Quiet


Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.


Past



We have to discard the past
and, as one builds
floor by floor, window by window,
and the building rises,
so do we go on throwing down
first, broken tiles,
then pompous doors,
until out of the past
dust rises
as if to crash
against the floor,
smoke rises
as if to catch fire,
and each new day
it gleams
like an empty
plate.
There is nothing, there is always nothing.
It has to be filled
with a new, fruitful
space,
then downward
tumbles yesterday
as in a well
falls yesterday's water,
into the cistern
of all still without voice or fire.
It is difficult to teach bones
to disappear,
to teach eyes
to close
but
we do it
unrealizing.
It was all alive,
alive, alive, alive
like a scarlet fish
but time
passed over its dark cloth
and the flash of the fish
drowned and disappeared.
Water water water
the past goes on falling
still a tangle
of bones
and of roots;
it has been, it has been, and now
memories mean nothing.
Now the heavy eyelid
covers the light of the eye
and what was once living
now no longer lives;
what we were, we are not.
And with words, although the letters
still have transparency and sound,
they change, and the mouth changes;
the same mouth is now another mouth;
they change, lips, skin, circulation;
another being has occupied our skeleton;
what once was in us now is not.
It has gone, but if the call, we reply;
"I am here," knowing we are not,
that what once was, was and is lost,
is lost in the past, and now will not return.





I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Saturday, May 07, 2011


No end, no end to the journey
no end, no end never
how can the heart in love
ever stop opening
if you love me,
you won't just die once
in every moment
you will die into me
to be reborn

Into this new love, die
your way begins
on the other side
become the sky
take an axe to the prison wall,
escape
walk out like someone
suddenly born into color
do it now

~Rumi

Tuesday, May 03, 2011


"Sooner or later all the people of the world will have to discover a way to live together in peace, and thereby transform this pending cosmic elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. If this is to be achieved, man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."

 ~ Martin Luther King, Jr

Tuesday, January 18, 2011




Lists of things to do

to make the future better:
all of them are gone.




Soaking in Shoji,


no too hot or too cold;


ice melts, unaware.










The day you were born
the Buddha told his father
that life was unfair.