Showing posts with label World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World. Show all posts

23.2.09

Hurt Feelings Report

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.





OK, I know this isn't "nice."
Sometimes the truth is just like that.
When your feelings are hurt, look inside before projecting your own pain on everyone else, please.

1.12.08

World Aids Day

Bloggers Unite

This is a late post, I completely spaced this off. Sorry sometimes the law of competing demands just gets the better of me.

Anyway; today is World Aids Day. I don't have a lot to say about it, but you can learn more about it here: http://blog.aids.gov/

Go take a look, I'll wait...


OK, here is some more: http://joinred.blogspot.com/

So when your out being a good consumer, look for that stuff with the (RED) tag on it and use your consumerism for compassion or something.

Take care,
Jordan

10.11.08

Refugees United



Today is a Blog Action Day for Refugees United a nice group of folks who try and get families back together. That is a really cool cause. Now I am not the kind of guy who has the time to run down every good cause and post it up on my blog, I know there are a lot of them. But this one hits home with me because being away from home and family sucks, even when it is by our own choice. Being forced out of your home because someone dropped a bomb on it or is trying to ethnically cleanse you because you go to a different church than they do, well that sucks even worse than Windows Vista. Ok, Ok I am speculating on both accounts, I have not ever been ethnically cleansed and I only have worked on a Vista operating system long enough to see that it dose not have HyperTerminal, and is therefore worthless for what I need it to do.

OK, that was an example of treating heavy things as if they were light, but the refugee situation is really serious and thank goodness there are some really serious people trying to help them out. Check out http://www.refunite.org and http://www.refugees.org/

Seriously, a lot of these refugees are little kids, what would Jizo do?


28.10.08

Twitter




Hey everybody, I got an invite to twitter and so I accepted. I now have a handle on there which is SlowZen.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, it is OK, I would not have either. Just go to twitter.com for another useless social networking device.

Oh the picture is of a tree in my backyard, taken with my phone.


Be well and happy!
Jordan

19.9.08

I figured some thing

Like this was bound to happen...


Monks with guns.

"The regime is like a rabid dog," Mr. Zawta says. "It bit us and infected us with militancy. The old ways aren't working – the only solution is to arm the people.


10 easy ways you can help Burma

How You Can Support the People of Burma



The Buddha's Words on Kindness (Metta Sutta)

This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
Let them be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech.
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied.
Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways.
Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful,
Not proud and demanding in nature.
Let them not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!

Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.


Peace,
Jordan

8.8.08

8.8.2008

Some images collected from the web.


If the entire world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?






31.7.08

Buddha's Warriors

This is a cut and paste from a email I got. Normally I loathe the Communist News Network as much as I do Faux News, but this looks interesting. No time to write more about it now, but some folks may be interested in this.


CNN is broadcasting a special documentary on the situation in Burma and Tibet, called "Buddha's Warriors".

It will air this Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 pm and 11:00 pm eastern time, and you can find more information at http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/siu/

The piece was put together by their respected international correspondent Christiane Amanpour. In the Burma section, it profiles the courageous Buddhist monks who help to lead the country's struggle for freedom and democracy.

If you want to see incredible videos and learn more about the peaceful "Saffron Revolution" for human rights and democracy in Burma, click on this section of our webpage.

If the documentary inspires you to do more, please write to our campaigns coordinator Thelma Young at thelma@uscampaignforburma.org and she will help you get involved.

8.7.08

Just do good

Sometimes something is so simple, we find it impossible to comprehend or understand.
We want to relate it to everything in our lives and we do, but in the process we overcomplicate things. Yes! Everything can be explained with complex algorithms or a whole lot of special jargon. And yes sometimes it takes all of that to get us to wrap our heads around the facts. But here it is, pure, simple, unrefined and unadulterated.

Just do good.

Volumes of confusing doctrine have been written about this subject. Everything outlining what is doing good to the ways to accomplish good, what is not good. The duality and non-duality of good. Blah blah blah. It goes on and on and on. It spans every religion and philosophy. This simple message. This simple instruction. This simple imperative. This simple key.

Just do good.


I thought about writing a whole lot more about this but it has already been done. I will undoubtedly write about it some more sometime. But that will likely be in the name of “just do good.”


Just do good
Jordan

31.12.07

A new revolution around the Sun




Pigface; I can do no wrong lyrics:

Take a look outside because I'm walking on glass
Thin ice in the future or a voice from the past
Forsaken dreams decaying in the four-way zone
Better look outside because I'm coming alone
Better look outside because I'm coming alone
How many nights before I sang an innocent song
Rejoicing in my ignorance, I could do no wrong
Take a look outside for the first time afraid
A tiny glass was shattered where one time we laid
A tiny glass was shattered where one time we laid
I can do no wrong!
So I trapped my emptiness between lie after lie
Poured myself another and started to cry
Shame on you for weakness go back where you belong
Poured my self another - I could do no wrong
I can do no wrong
I can do no wrong
I can do no wrong
I can do no wrong
I can do no wrong
Ect..

Two revolutions around the sun ago I decided that I would not “pour myself another.” I still manifest the “I can do no wrong” attitude from time to time. But the more I practice the more open I am to knowing nothing.
{Knowing nothing is an interesting endeavor in itself, it is like the bottom falling out of a bucket, WOOUSH!} Even the Idea of I can do no wrong seems arbitrary now. Right and wrong are just dualistic. But there is still wrong and there is still right. Mostly things just are how they are. The interesting thing is that we don’t have to have preconceived ideas of right and wrong, if we just listen we can hear the correct course of action calling to us. There is no reason to pursue anything. It is so interesting when things become clear. I still find myself grasping to hold on to that clarity. Even though I know as soon as I cling to it, it’s gone.

For this revolution around the sun I intend to be credit debt free.
Return to regular shakuhachi practice.
Get in a few more Shakuhachi lessons.
Cling less and let go more.

May the new revolution find you all well and happy
Jordan

Happy measurement



Good by my old friend I will never know you again. Hello my new friend, it is nice to see you again.

The old year is almost over. A sizable chuck of the world is making a big deal about the new year. When I examine this concept I find it a bit hard to swallow. A year is just a measurement of time. The only time that really exists is now. So why do people make a big deal over a measurement of something that is not even real. Meanwhile we squander away the present moment contemplating our regrets of the past measurement and our desires for the new measurement. We resolve to do something different in the new measurement! Why should it take the new measurement to do something better or different? This seems shallow and insincere to me. Be the change now whenever that moment happens to fall.

Tonight I will were a silly hat, make noise and witness the beginning of a new measurement with my family. In just a moment I am going to sit in the lotus posture and stare at the wall for a while.

Happy new measurement to all!
Jordan

14.12.07

Re-birth?



I don’t get on e-sangha much but according to multiple threads on the Treeleaf Zendo forum there was much ado about rebirth…

First thing I thought up was: If there is no such thing as birth or death, how can there be re-birth?

For my two bits, I believe that we are born and die each moment. so yes we have a constant cycle of rebirth. But your ego might not recognize it. Even before the “you” that your ego recognizes was ever around the stuff that makes you up was here. And long after anything that could be recognized as you is around (you decompose) the stuff that made you up will still be here and get incorporated into something else.

So yes we are constantly reborn, the you that existed before you read this little tidbit is already dead. Now in this moment you are reborn, woops, your dead again…oh look at that your reborn, ad nausea. But at the same time you were always here, and always will be. Take that Dogma!

What really matters though is Karma, that is your lasting impression on the world. But I have not gotten enough sleep to go into that right now.

May you be well and happy,
Jordan

16.11.07

Some other songs

Fugazi,
Long Distance Runner:

The farther I go the less I know
One foot goes in front of the other
It all boils around to not hanging around
To keep moving in front of the gravity
The answer is there the answer is there
but there is not a fixed position
It keeps moving along so I keep coming along
and that's why I'm a long distance runner
and if I stop to catch my breath
I might catch a piece of death
I can't keep your pace if I want to finish this race
My fight's not with it
It's with the gravity
Long distance runner


Down By Law
1944:

somewhere a pen is busy with hate tonight
jaded eyes and cynics bring me down
somewhere a kid is playing his heart out tonight
but he'll get nowhere with the Berkeley in-crowd
well put-downs are so easy
like a novel without a soul
and every executioner wears a hood
when it's time for heads to roll
well they're just like new dictators
trying to tell us what to love
well their opinion they can take and shove
somewhere young rebels will meet up tonight
somewhere skateboarders and straightedgers will unite
they don't need no magazine that's filled with hate and lies
get enough from the world around them
they're young but they are wise
but negativity's easy
you just fire and walk away
and it's the armchair general
who lives to fight another day
well their opinion they can take and shove
if this was 1944, they'd be pointing their guns at you
cause every fascist, left or right, has a fucked-up set of rules
but do they really think the kids are such fools?
Or do they even care?


These were a coupple of songs that resonatd with me when I was listining to the ipod While running on the treadmill this morning. No breakdown required.

May all be well and happy!
Jordan

30.9.07

Myanmar & China (book plug for China Wars)



More Tics
Jordan

Late add, a Photo vid of Myanmar.



Please check Greg's Blog for updates on action ou can take here: Link

May all be well and happy,
Jordan

Thanks for looking!