Saturday, July 2, 2016

Celebrating Impermanence Day


  “Everything changes. No thing is ever the same.”
                         - Unknown

“No Mud, Not Lotus”
              - Thich Nhat Hanh

“The harder the journey the deeper the purification”
          - Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrier





Picking up the early morning newspaper the pilgrim read  of the  furious unpredicted and unexpected storm that wasn’t as unusual as he thought. The storm came and went just like unpredicted and unexpected storms in the past. Some streets were flooded. The dreams of a few families disappeared with the retreating street flowing like rivers . Other families had tree split roofs of their lonely homes .

Page two of the paper had a hidden story of he 17th Dalai Lama at a local college. The Dalai Lama spoke of how once he entered a grocery store and noticed his favorite fruit for sale. That sumptuous gift of paradise looked fresh and ready to tempt any sentient being and be enjoyed. The Dalai Lama checked his secret pocket and realized he had more than enough to purchase and then savor his favorite fruit. Without a breath  the money slipped back underneath his crimson robe  as he strolled slowly smiling out of the store . He is one who has the awareness that he did not need that piece of fruit to experience joy and peace. The pilgrim grabbed for his journal ,lifted his broken foot wrapped in a protective boot and began to reflect and write:

“ There is nothing like the sounds and salt aired smells of a sanctifying summer rain, chimes softly ring blessing the moment as the birds' sweet refrain welcomes the nourishment and the new day.
As the rain finishes her work the serene soaked earth solemnly celebrates the sacred re-christening as all that is alive at that moment flourishes. Sometimes distractions bring one to a path where one needs to be...sometimes distractions get one off the true path... being present helps us know the difference. No thing can bring one happiness or peace. They say ‘The moment now is called present as it is a sacred  gift of the divine.’

Moving to the beach was supposed to bring me closer to heaven and yes , sometimes it feels like paradise and sometimes it doesn’t .  I can stand on the shore being filled by the wonder when  a  rogue wave raises itself at my body and knocks me down and just as I get myself up standing upright again there is another wave knocking me down again . The gulls seem to laugh as they glide by while sandpipers seem to chase the comings and goings of the waves ignoring my situation. 

The tide comes in and the tide goes out. The sunrises and the sun sets. All things must pass right?”

Pausing and breathing …he whispers

Ah, Impermanence..,”

***********************************************************

"If a problem can be solved there is no use worrying about it. If it can't be solved, worrying will do no good."
                   -  17th Dalai Lama

“You admire the man who pushes his way to the too the top in any walk of life, while we admire the one who abandons his ego.”
              - Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrier


25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

                             - Matthew 6:25-34

All Things Must Pass – George Harrison




Turn! Turn! Turn ! – The Byrds



Across the Universe – The Beatles



Main Theme the Movie The Mission- (Ennio Morricone)









To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
What profit hath he that work in that wherein he labors?

                         -  Ecclesiastes 3


      


The Buddha's Last Instruction
by Mary Oliver

"Make of yourself a light"
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal—a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire—
clearly I'm not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.











Amdg




























Copyright 2016 All Rights Reserved JF Sobecki LLC