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Here are a few phrases & concepts collected from my wise friends Gabriel & Sapphire…

heart to heart and hand to hand

the impersonal view regarding passing events

My Vipasanna article appears in the new issue of the Urban Hippie, a Vancouver based magazine that reflects some of the forward thinking culture that is happening in this part of the world. If you like the things I write about here, you will enjoy this site!

The Urban Hippie
http://www.urbanhippie.ca
The Urban Hippie is a seasonal earth based publication linking local grassroots communities from across British Columbia. The Urban Hippie endeavors to facilitate the growth and prosperity of our collective visions and local economies.

So, the whole “I am in perfect health” affirmation really wasn’t working. I do understand the importance of focusing on the positive in these things but the pain & mental chaos was just too distracting.

Somehow, this feels right.

Thanks to George R. Walther, who sent me a copy of his book What You Say is What You Get after I posted something here expressing an interest in learning more about how what we say and how we say it affects our reality.

Here’s a selection:

Whenever you seek others’ input and sugggestions, stimulate a free flow of ideas, no matter how crazy some might seem.

“That’s an unusual approach, let’s go with it and see where we end up.”

I had a great time at Fairies and Fools last weekend.

I love this part of the world.

A friend recently suggested I read the book Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting. I found it difficult to get into at first but am glad I gave it a 2nd chance because there are some real gems of insight within!

Here’s a quote I like:

But the greatest obstacle to living our potential comes from toddler days when we were trained to look for what’s wrong — with everything! With our jobs, our cars, our relationships, our clothes, our shapes, our health, our freeways, our planet, our faith, our entertainment, our children, our government , even our friends. Yet most of the world can’t even agree about what right or wrong is, so we war, and strike, and make laws, and go to psychiatrists.

How do we do it? Don’t laugh; it all comes from… how we’re vibrating!

The Tao Oracle is a beautifully written interpretation of the I-Ching (which I am only starting to explore) that comes with a set of artfully illustrated cards.

Here’s a passage:

from Hexagram 11 (Peace)
We tend to fall asleep or lose awareness when peace descends, because the child in us wants to believe that everything is finally as it’s supposed to be and should stay that way forever, as in a fairy tale. But nothing stays the same forever; life is an ongoing journey, a dance of light and shadow, and our lives are a fleeting reflection of that vast movement, not the source of it. You must remember that you are part of a flow and learn to move in sync with it, rather than against it. In the natural cycle of things, there is a time for fruition and a time for dissolution. These aspects are not in opposition to each other; one is not good and the other bad; rather, they flow into one another and are interdependent. Stop worrying about things you can’t control and getting lost in details, and expand your inner vision to encompass this understanding. Embrace the holistic view of things.

Here’s one that resonates for me.

Being smart is useful.

Why Nerds are Unpopular
http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
So if intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity, why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? The answer, I think, is that they don’t really want to be popular.

But in fact I didn’t, not enough. There was something else I wanted more: to be smart. Not simply to do well in school, though that counted for something, but to design beautiful rockets, or to write well, or to understand how to program computers. In general, to make great things.

Here’s a poem I loved so much I printed it out and put in on my bedside table.

Free and Easy
A Vajra Song

by Ven. Lama Gendun Rinpoche

Happiness cannot be found
through great effort and willpower,
but is already present, in relaxation
and letting go.

Don’t strain yourself;
there is nothing to do.
Whatever arises in the mind
has no importance at all,
because it has no reality whatsoever.
Don’t become attached to it;
don’t identify with it
and pass judgement upon it.

Let the entire game happen on its own,
springing up and falling back like waves –
without changing or manipulating anything –
and everything vanishes and reappears, magically,
without end.

Only our searching for happiness
prevents us from seeing it.
It’s like a rainbow which you pursue
without ever catching.
Although it does not exist,
it has always been there
and accompanies you every instant.

Don’t believe in the reality
of good and bad experiences;
they are like rainbows in the sky.

Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,
you exhaust yourself in vain.
As soon as you open and relax this grasping,
space is there – open, inviting and comfortable.

So make use of this spaciousness, this freedom
and natural ease.
Don’t search any further.
Don’t go into the tangled jungle
looking for the great elephant
who is already quietly at home.

Nothing to do,
Nothing to force,
nothing to want –
and everything happens by itself.

The concepts in this article are not new or “original” on the part of this author, but the simple way in which they are expressed here makes this a powerful piece.

The One and Only Cause of Failure in Any Area of Your Life… and the One and Only Solution
http://www.mindpowernews.com/OneAndOnly.htm
Every day, and for no reason at all, unconsciously, we destroy our own efforts and then fail or suffer unnecessarily. When it comes to success, we are our own worst enemy and we don’t even know it. We take one step forward and two steps back, or more. Today we can all stop this unnecessary step backwards.

Do you know how much more your life, business, relationships and health would improve if you changed one little thing? Let us see how.

Here’s the first web site I helped build as a professional, back in 1995!

Thinking about that time in my career has invoked a surge of energetic passion for work today!

The New Deal Stage
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/fthome.html
This online presentation includes over 13,000 images of items selected from the Federal Theatre Project Collection at the Library of Congress. Featured here are stage and costume designs, still photographs, posters, and scripts for productions of Macbeth and The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus as staged by Orson Welles, and for Power, a topical drama of the period (over 3,000 images). Also included are 68 other playscripts (6,500 images) and 168 documents selected from the Federal Theatre Project Administrative Records (3,700 images). The Federal Theatre Project was one of five arts-related projects established during the first term of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt under the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Television stations are airing “news” segments that have been produced by corporate entities more than ever. It’s tempting for stations to use these as they’re already pre-produced, which is good for tight timelines and budgets.

However, this is essentially about an attempt to disguise advertising as journalism. Unfortunately, many people believe that what they see on the news is what’s really happening.

Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed
http://www.prwatch.org/fakenews/execsummary
Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) documented television newsrooms’ use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)—a small sample of the thousands produced each year. CMD identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98 separate instances, without disclosure to viewers. Collectively, these 77 stations reach more than half of the U.S. population. The VNRs and SMTs whose broadcast CMD documented were produced by three broadcast PR firms for 49 different clients, including General Motors, Intel, Pfizer and Capital One. In each case, these 77 television stations actively disguised the sponsored content to make it appear to be their own reporting. In almost all cases, stations failed to balance the clients’ messages with independently-gathered footage or basic journalistic research. More than one-third of the time, stations aired the pre-packaged VNR in its entirety.

Medialink
http://content2.medialink.com/vnr.htm
Pioneered professionally by Medialink, the Video News Release (VNR), the television version of the printed press release, translates the printed word into the sound and pictures television newsrooms need. Produced in broadcast news style, VNRs relay the news of a product launch, medical discovery, corporate merger event, timely feature or breaking news to television news decision-makers. Every major television station in the world now uses VNRs regularly, and most are from Medialink. It’s a fact.

The most efficient notification and direct pathways ensure that your VNR advisory and full script reach news directors around the globe in the manner they prefer.

No Fake News
http://action.freepress.net/campaign/fakenews
Corporate propaganda has infiltrated local TV newscasts, with disguised product advertisements posing as genuine news reports. This represents a breach of the trust between broadcasters and their viewers.

Take action to stop fake news today. Demand that the Federal Communications Commission investigate, strengthen disclosure requirements and punish stations that air fake news.

Today I found a job ad looking for writers with an academic background to write term papers for students who pay for them. The pay that goes to the writers is ridiculously low, especially since they’re asking for people who got through a higher education to help others cheat.

The ad also states:

PLEASE DO NOT WASTE OUR TIME BY FALSIFYING INFORMATION. WE HAVE HAD NUMEROUS APPLICANTS COST US THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS BY LYING ABOUT THEIR CAPABILITIES. Applicants will have to sign an agreement before employment stating that they will reimburse the company for false or misleading information submitted.

Doesn’t this seem like justice somehow?

Here’s a sample from one of my favourite mailing lists, the Conscious Burrito. It’s a fun adaptation of the Dreamspell Calendar, a weird but compelling modern construct which some people call “Mayan Astrology.”

In Lak’ech!
/white planetary dog

—– Original message —–
To: Consciousburrito@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:15:24 -0000
Subject: {Conscious Burrito} Blue Self-existing Eagle

As our own internal wisdom deepens, we discover that our creativity is enhanced. Today is a great day to take inventory of our sketchpad/diary/notebook cover, and see what kinds of ideas are in the alchemical crucible of our minds. Eagle is the expansive creative mind, and the fourth day of the wavespell actually lays it all out there; defines and gives form to the energy of the day.

Creativity and the mind are often difficult to describe. There can be a language or a nomenclature developed for communicating with your own mind, and today is a great day to work on that communication and common language of mind. Ever try and describe a dream, with all of its myriad textures and nuances?

Yeah, I thought so, just not quite there. As a result we fall short of re-enacting the experience. There is a way to measure the potentiality of the mind, it just requires pushing the envelope a bit and flying a bit higher than we are used to. Take inventory of those sketch pads, and then we get to go deeper, and father and higher than before. Yes, my dear, there are still more stories to be told, songs to be sung, and dreams to invoke. You just might be the bard…

in general
instead of visualizing what I want
aiming at manifestations of the specific
I trust divine will
to set life’s table with Perfect
embracing the unknown
cultivating what brings me joy like a garden
because what we focus on grows

however I do see
in my mind’s eye
a tall tree swing
overlooking mountains, forest, and water
for riding
life’s ups and downs
like flying