Journey On

"What a Joy, to travel the way of the HEART."

- Rumi

Let's get inside it...

Life is a rollercoaster,
Just gotta ride it...

In Good Faith

Believe in the Magic

Remarkable!

The spirit just uncontrollably wells up with reverence for the power in human virtue. This movie is a brilliant portrayal.

Thoughts that transcend time...

Somebody said that it couldn't be done,
But, he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;
At least no one has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle it in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "couldn't be done," and you'll do it.

-Edgar Albert Guest

 Abriged version of the poem read by Harvey Keitel in video below.

 

Follow the thought

...movement through his thought towards a conclusion...

Got a problem? Here's a solution.

It's exam week at the University and so the Student Union's offering free coffee and fruits. I went yesterday in the evening to get myself some coffee. While I was there, another guy (a really big guy) came along to get a fruit - he picked up an apple. Also at the coffee and fruit counter was a student volunteer who was making sure that everything was okay. So this big guy asked the volunteer for a knife to cut the apple. The volunteer didn't have a knife, so he suggested going to the cafe upstairs and asking them. The guy thought for a little while and then really surprised us with what he did next. He placed the apple on the table and said, "I hope you don't mind if I try to crack it open with my fist." ahahahahahaha.... The volunteer was like, "Ummm....Sure, why not! Is it even possible?" Then the big guy did the unimaginable. He started pounding on the apple with his fist. It felt as if the whole earth was shaking. Well, after several big bangs, he didn't crack it open but he did smash the surface of the apple in a way that a little part of the skin just fell off. Then he bit into it. "I have braces," he said, "and am afraid of the apple's skin getting stuck in them." He sure figured out a unique way to solve his problem. Believe me, had he placed the apple on the floor -- the way he was pounding -- he sure would've cracked it into four beautiful pieces.

Moral of the story: Impossible is Nothing!

Reason

Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other.

 

Make sentence with...

"Try to be like a duck, with its joyful body paddling along in the loving water of the river. Just enjoy that" -that delight in buoyancy. There's a kind of happy ease.

~Rumi 

Who is he?

"Are you beloved by millions and millions of children across the world?"

To have lived the life that responds with a yes to that question. How amazing!

~~~~~

 Stay light-footed
and keep moving.....

~Rumi

Be strong

Lonely
The path you have chosen
A restless road
No turning back
One day you
Will find your light again
Don't you know
Don't let go
Be strong

Chorus

Follow your heart
Let your love lead through the darkness
Back to a place you once knew
I believe, I believe, I believe
In you

Follow your dreams
Be yourself, an angel of kindness
There's nothing that you can not do
I believe, I believe, I believe
In you.

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ ♭ ♮ ♯

It is cruel, you know,

                                   that music should be so beautiful

I found the image on a friend's Facebook page. It really hit home for me, so much so that it's inspiring ideas for my next tattoo. Will see how this shapes up. :-)

At Skyfall

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Mother Teresa of Calcutta made it part of the morning prayers of the Roman Catholic religious institute she established, the Missionaries of Charity. She attributed importance to it when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1979 and asked that it be recited.

- Wikipedia

What is an Animator?

Brilliant!

Colors of the Wind

...
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned?
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountains?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?
Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
Come taste the sunsweet berries of the Earth
Come roll in all the riches all around you
And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high will the sycamore grow?
If you cut it down, then you'll never know
...

You can own the Earth and still
All you'll own is Earth until
You can paint with all the colors of the wind

Imagination

Never stop looking for what's not there.

Source: Quote from The Magic of Belle Isle

I believe it

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

~ Rumi♥

As is...

Zen in Relationships

"With you, Mary," he said today, "I want to be just like a blade of grass, that moves as the air moves it - to talk just according to the impulse of the moment. And I do." 

- Kahlil Gibran

Spontaneity at its Best

Smooth

My Thoughts Exactly

Acceptance Speech

My favorite part: 

I have never been more hopeful about America. And I ask you to sustain that hope. I’m not talking about blind optimism, the kind of hope that just ignores the enormity of the tasks ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. I’m not talking about the wishful idealism that allows us to just sit on the sidelines or shirk from a fight.

I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting.

So what happens next?

I said to love I'm dying in anticipation, love said to me that is where i want you. Always on the verge! 

~Rumi♥

Catchy song

Release

Below is the movie trailer based on King George VI's association with his speech therapist who helped him overcome his speech impediment.

Ease in

Give me a moment please to tame your wild wild heart

- Crash and Burn by Savage Garden

Happy to be Found

...

You know they can have their universe
We'll be in the dirt designing stars

...

I have lost my illusions
I have drowned in your words
I have left my confusion to a cynical world
I am throwing myself at things I don't understand
Discover enlightenment holding your hand

...

It's a beautiful thing!

When you wish upon a star...

Whatever You Have wanted
You Have Been Given.
Now Go And Live In That Kindness. 

~Rumi♥

Inspiration

You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.
— Jerry Gillies

Leaving no stone unturned!

A wise person, though in decline,

affords pleasure to others through kind speech.

A fool, grown violent,

destroys himself and others through quarreling.

—Sakya Pandita, A Precious Treasury Of Elegant Sayings

It's enjoyable to read these Buddhist teachings, especially experiencing how the meaning pierces through the realms of reality. The satisfaction feels like having read everything there is in the aspect of life being discussed.

Cooking Instructions

1. Place a well-seasoned raw thought in your mind oven

2. The oven temperature gets set automatically based on the complexity of the raw thought. Measure this as the tension in the brain.

3. The cooking time varies, again depending on thought complexity. The thought is well done when its insights are fully revealed.

Understanding

Would You Become A Pilgrim On The Road Of Love ?
The First Condition Is That You make Yourself Humble As Dust And Ashes. 

~Rumi♥

It seems unfathomable as an absolute. Or maybe it's just my limited experience of life speaking.

To those who have passed from this life...

Yes, I feel you'll as angels surrounding us here on this earth. The presence, perhaps, could be in the warmth of a sunny day, or the sudden winter chill that runs down the spine. It's indescribable, you know. Maybe it's to be felt in the sounds of birds chirping, or in the giggles of little boys and girls. It could even be in the peace that enters the heart on reading a letter from a loved one. It's hard to pick one single thing and say, "Oh! here is where or this is how we connect in spirit." It doesn't feel wholesome that way. Guess it's best left as an open mystery, with a request for signs of the presence of those gone before us in the purest of human experiences.

How can you say you're not with me when in truth you're always in my heart?

Do you see what I see? Do you hear what I hear?

...

Now you cannot imagine what it means to go out to freedom after Auschwitz. How do you go to freedom? How should I enter freedom? I did not even have a dress. I was sent to Sweden and someone invited me to Passover. Someone gave me a blue dress. I went to the door and I could not enter. I walked around in the flowers. Finally I went and opened the door, and it was beautiful halls and beautiful tables and people, you know, and the lady who invited me, she says, there is a little room there, why don't you just go and change? Ha, I didn't have anything to change into! But I went to the little room and saw a calendar and I said to myself, I will learn the days in English, and so I learned all the days until all the guests arrived. Finally everybody sat down, and they started to talk, and guess what they talked about? The price of gold on the international market. And I thought, my god, this is how you celebrate the Passover? You know how many people were put in the crematorium a day? So very quietly I took my coat and walked down into Stockholm until I had no tears. I thought what will I do with my freedom?

...

Source: Excerpt from the article Words Are Not Enough by Alice Lok Cahana who is a Hungarian Holocaust survivor and is well known for her writings and abstract paintings about the Holocaust. The article was featured in the Fall 2012 issue of Mountain Record: The Zen Practitioner's Journal.

Timeless lessons...

I like how the authors word their thoughts. Here's the link to the post.

...

Announcement of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature - Media Player at Nobelprize.org

Inspiring Words

Here is the link: Keep in mind

Sing with me

...

And tell him all about the man that I became
And hope that it pleased him

Theres so much I want to say
Theres so much I want you to know

...

So amazed at what Ive seen
So much more than this old mind can hold

...

Song of Solomon

 

My beloved has gone down to his garden,
to the beds of spices,
to browse in the gardens
and to gather lilies.
I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine;
he browses among the lilies.

Noah's Arc

Even though you're not equipped,
keep searching:
equipment isn't necessary on the way to the Lord.

~Rumi

The Gift of Tongues

Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.

Buddha... ♥ 

Say not the Struggle

 by Arthur Hugh Clough

Say not the struggle naught availeth,
     The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
     And as things have been, things remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
     It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
     And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
     Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back through creeks and inlets making
     Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
     When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
     But westward, look, the land is bright.

Hunger

We are all hungry one way or another.

...

Nobel Lecture by V. S. Naipaul - Media Player at Nobelprize.org

...

Interview with Doris Lessing - Media Player at Nobelprize.org

Happy Birthday

"What is time? It is a secret - lacking in substance and yet almighty." 

Quote from the novel The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

You're my favorite deputy!

Some days I really miss the feeling I had as a child of really believing that my toys were alive. This brings me to contemplate the purity in imagination a child has.

Enjoy the Show...:)

I'm just a little bit caught in the middle
Life is a maze and love is a riddle 
...

Happy to be Human

Every prophet to the world came alone, within him carrying a hundred unseen worlds. The cosmos was charmed by his depth and folded itself into his modest frame. The foolish thought he was lonely and weak. With the King as his companion, how is he weak?

~Rumi

We human beings are capable of saying such great things, aren't we?

 

Endearing

“Since Love has made ruins of my heart the sun must come and illumine them. Such generosity has broken me with shame.”

~Rumi

It's so fascinating how the Sufi writers manage to create a magical play of words in expressing our human vulnerabilities. On allowing the words to take deeper roots, they then get transformed into a place of deep spiritual connection whereto we reach and become one.

Cute!

Here is Heart!

...

T'was Grace that taught...
my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear...
the hour I first believed.

...

Free Anyway

One fine morning
Leading a sunny day
As I was walking
A leaf fell in my way

“Oh leaf, in whose love,”

I asked
“Do you leave the tree?”

“Well, it’s in love of the wind.”
It said
“I fall and become free.”

“But what use in being free?”
I asked
“You get stomped on, you dry, and die!”

“But thus slowly I wither,”
It said
“I become dust, and with the wind, I fly."

~ Gunjan Chowdhary ~ 

 

Source: Facebook Page "Tao & Zen"

About the Nobel Prize Medal for Literature

The medal of the Swedish Academy represents a young man sitting under a laurel tree who, enchanted, listens to and writes down the song of the Muse.

 The inscription reads:

Inventas vitam juvat excoluisse per artes

loosely translated "And they who bettered life on earth by their newly found mastery."
(Word for word: Inventions enhance life which is beautified through art.)

The words are taken from Vergilius Aeneid, the 6th song, verse 663;

Lo, God-loved poets, men who spake things worthy Phoebus' heart;
and they who bettered life on earth by new-found mastery

The name of the Leaureate is engraved on the plate below the figures, and the text "ACAD. SUEC." stands for the the Swedish Academy.

The Nobel Prize Medal for Literature was designed by Erik Lindberg.

Source: "The Nobel Prize Medal for Literature". Nobelprize.org. 17 Sep 2012 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/medal.html

Old School

Saw this image on Scott Schuman's "The Sartorialist" blog. This image is of a glove store in Antwerp that still sells handmade gloves in six sizes. Pretty cool, huh? I love the thought of being able to purchase from such stores, inasmuch as I love writing with fountain pens. :-)

See original image here.

Fields of Gold

...

We'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in the fields of gold

...

See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley

...

See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold

...

Ease -- when the Zombies (in the head) aren't allowed to interfere

I’ve had thousands of problems in my life, most of which never actually happened.

-Mark Twain

Desiderata

by Max Ehrmann

{Abridged version narrated in video below by Ying Ruocheng}

{Unabridged version}

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. 

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. 

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. 

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love, for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass. 

Take kindly to the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. 

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. 

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. 

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Lights!

“Love is the soul’s light.”

~ Rumi

Tao

by Anonymous

A balance
        exists between you, me, and
                  the others.
Can you see it?
                        Wait!
                        First, prepare yourself.

             What is this preparation
                     you talk of?

I will not answer your question,
for I recognize my inability to provide
an answer which your own will beat.

Contentment Marries Aspiration

 Be the Best of Whatever You Are

by Douglas Malloch

If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley — but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.

If you can't be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a bass —
But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for all of us here,
There's big work to do, and there's lesser to do,
And the task you must do is the near.

If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun be a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail —
Be the best of whatever you are!

Strange

 

The problem is that our mind comes as standard equipment at birth. It's free. And things that are given to us for nothing, we place little value on. Things that we pay money for, we value.

The paradox is that exactly the reverse is true. Everything that's really worthwhile in life came to us free — our minds, our souls, our bodies, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our intelligence, our love of family and children and friends and country. All these priceless possessions are free.

But the things that cost us money are actually very cheap and can be replaced at any time. A good man can be completely wiped out and make another fortune. He can do that several times. Even if our home burns down, we can rebuild it. But the things we got for nothing, we can never replace.

- Earl Nightingale

What a great human faculty!

To think.

To See Afresh

...

The more we see, the more we are naturally in awe and wonder. Then it’s easy to be a beginner. Dogen said, “When the dharma does not fill your body and mind, it’s easy to think it’s already sufficient. When the dharma fills your body and mind, you understand something is missing.” When we forget this truth, waves begin to gather on the calm sea.

 

Pure jeweled eyes, virtuous arms—
formless and selfless they enter the fray.
This great function works in all ways—
These hands and eyes are the whole thing. 

...

Source: Excerpted from a Dharma Discourse by Geoffrey Shugen Arnold

J.K. Rowling likes the Classics

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

Source: J.K. Rowling's punchline quote by Seneca in her 2008 Harvard Commencement Speech

A picture speaks a thousand words

and a beautiful song fills a million empty spaces...

Cancel the Noise

Three Indian Princes Yudhisthira, Bheema, and Arjun with theirs bows and arrows in position ready to shoot at the target are being first tested by their teacher Drona.

DRONA

Yudhisthira, what do you see?

YUDHISTHIRA

I see 10 mango trees, 3 banyan trees and a 

fig tree. On the third branch from the top of the 

fig tree is perched a Kokila (in Sanskrit) bird.

DRONA

(angrily)

Get away!

Drona then walks over to Bheema.

DRONA

Bheem...

BHEEMA

I see only the bird, that's all.

DRONA

Really?

BHEEMA

Yes. Just look at him sit there 

enjoying the smell of the fruits ... 

while I'm dying of hunger here.

DRONA

(very brusquely)

You too, get away from here!

The teacher then walks over to Arjun.

DRONA

Arjun?

ARJUN 

Eye...only an eye.

DRONA

And?

ARJUN

Nothing else.

DRONA

Aren't you able to see what your brothers see? 

The birds, trees, branches, fruits ... Are you blind?

ARJUN

(firmly)

My eye only sees the eye of the bird, teacher.

Drona looks at Arjun contentedly.

 

 DRONA

(orders)

Release the arrow!

Source: Dialogues in the movie Arjun: The Warrior Prince

Distance

The sun is filling up the room, and I can hear you dreaming.
Do you feel the way I do? Right now. 

...

Consciously engaging in life makes simple experiences like brewing a cup of tea, or warming a glass of milk, or ordering a latte feel profoundly extraordinary. It is a matter of life or death after all. When I stand in line at the coffee shop on a busy day, am I able to tune into the preciousness of the moment and fully be there? When it is my turn to order the cup of coffee, am I able to look into the eyes of the barista and feel the tenderness of our human experience? Can I hear her dreams, can I see his aspirations, can I let myself be vulnerable enough to dissolve in them? Am I able to wipe away the boundaries I limit myself within and allow our worlds to merge?

Loving Nature

...

Thoreau referred to the “wild and dusky knowledge” that is ours when we communicate with the whole earth intimately: “this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society… The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knowledge, gramatica parda, ‘tawny grammar,’ a kind of mother-wit…” The knowing of wild dusk, the hearing of the intimate language accessible in the recesses of our hearts — this is the mother-wit of the fool, our wit, and perhaps the only path of honest practice.

...

Source: Excerpted from the article Song of Fools featured in the Mountain Record Journal, Spring 2001

The family of the future

Check

Listen to the music of the moment...♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ ♭ ♮

...

Before the cool done run out I'll be giving it my bestest
And nothing's gonna stop me but divine intervention
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some

...

I've been spending way too long checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and I laughed

I guess what I be saying is there ain't no better reason
To rid yourself of vanities and just go with the seasons
It's what we aim to do, our name is our virtue

...

Me likes this

Raw & Fresh

TodayLand

 

...

Let your clarity define you
In the end
We will only just remember how it feels

Our lives are made
In these small hours
These little wonders,
These twists & turns of fate
Time falls away,
But these small hours,
These small hours still remain

Stay open, who knows? Lightning could strike.

  

This feeling of impermanence is really something. My teacher had said in the past, "Change happens in two ways: 1) Maybe you like ice cream and one day you happen to gorge on too much of it. Then you realize that it has lost its magic on you. That's the slight, subtle changes we commonly go through in our lives. 2) Then there are the big ones which cause us to have a fresh perspective on life. It's like looking in the mirror and not being able to recognize oneself or identify with the big ideas one has about their identity. We can think ourselves really lucky when presented a chance of experiencing the second kind of change." Hmm...

The Fire

Listen, I've light
in my eyes
and on my skin
the warmth of a star, so strange
is this
that I
can barely comprehend it:
I think
I'll lift my face to it, and then
I lift my face,
and don't even know how
this is done.  And
everything alive
(and everything's
alive) is turning
into something else
as at the heart
of some annihilating
or is it creating
fire
that's burning, unseeably, always
burning at such speeds
as eyes cannot
detect, just try
to observe your own face
growing old
in the mirror, or
is it beginning
to be born?

~ Franz Wright ~

START THE WAY ... Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river

 

• Tao
  "the way", "the path". it is often represented by water because water always seeks the path of least resistance, yet is strong enough to demolish even stone when no other recourse is available. everything below flows from this.

Here are 10 guides to the Way.

1. Make your goal effortless action
   avoid unnecessary action or action that is not spontaneous.
   
2. Treasure simplicity
   eliminate whatever is unnecessary and artificial and appreciate the simple and the apparently ordinary.
   
3. Cultivate stillness
   only stillness will clear muddy waters and enable you to see the truth.
   
4. Be patient
   can you remain unmoving until the right action arises?
   
5. Be gentle
   love peace and restraint and avoid all unnecessary violence. "do not regard weapons as lovely things. for to think them lovely means to delight in them, and to delight in them means to delight in the slaughter of men."
   
6. See beauty
   in the mundane and the normal. Apreciate the beauty around you and in yourself.
   
7. Be true
   dedicate your life only to that which you find beautiful or fascinating, and thus be true to yourself.
   
8. Live in the moment
   feel the hand of time sweeping past second by second.
   
9. Be happy
   to conduct one's life according to the Tao, is to conduct one's life without regrets.
   
10. Be compassionate and honor life
    only those who are compassionate and treasure life in all its forms can show true bravery and acquire true wisdom. 

 Source: from the blog Positive Thoughts