Upaya...

Joan Halifax Roshi is in India. Found this photo on her Flickr:

Upaya Newsletter for 2/23/2009
Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wild Finance: Where Money and Politics Dance
Postscript on the Shift from a Capitalist to a Noetic Economy

When a system malfunctions, or becomes dysfunctional under new evolutionary circumstances and environments, it goes bump in the night and makes a lot of noise. The accumulation of noise helps to draw the system from one basin of attraction to another. We are now in this period of shift. An “out of the blue” attractor is emerging and drawing the noise of the old system toward a new basin—sort of like a black hole beginning to form a new galaxy. This will take time, so continue to breathe.
(Via Upaya Blog)

Continue reading.

Every academic discipline has its technical nomenclature. You who are in the field of psychology have given us a great word. It is the word maladjusted…But…there are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we should never be adjusted. There are some things concerning which we must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of good will. We must never adjust ourselves to racial discrimination and racial segregation. We must never adjust ourselves to religious bigotry. We must never adjust ourselves to economic conditions that take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. We must never adjust ourselves to the madness of militarism, and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.
- Martin Luther King

(Via Upaya Newsletter)

Brian Eno believes in singing:

The Key to a Long Life
I believe that singing is the key to long life, a good figure, a stable temperament, increased intelligence, new friends, super self-confidence, heightened sexual attractiveness, and a better sense of humor. A recent long-term study conducted in Scandinavia sought to discover which activities related to a healthy and happy later life. Three stood out: camping, dancing and singing.
(Via enoweb)

Nice Xmas tree – for Buddhists…

Hello Earthrise: Christmas Eve 1968

So sing and be merry, and may peace prevail.

A year ago.
Two Years ago.

Contrary to the way that the bodhisattva path is often understood, Buddhist social engagement is not about deferring our own happness to help others who are less fortunate because they happen to be suffering. That just reinforces a self-defeating (and self-exahusting) dualism between us and them. Rather, we join together to improve the situation for all of us. As a Native American put it: “if you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is tied up with mine, then let us work together.”
- David Loy

From the Upaya newsletter.

Mind like an autumn moon…
Pure, transcendent, elegant.
Beyond comparison with anything else.
How could I possibly explain this to you?
- Han Shan

From the Upaya newsletter.

Four Commonplace Truths: Principles of Engagement

1. No situation is impossible to change.
2. A communal vision, outstanding strategy, and sustained effort can bring forth positive changes.
3. Everyone can help make a difference.
4. No one is free of responsibility.
- Kazuaki Tanahashi (and Wikipedia)

From the Upaya newsletter.

I felt like I was mainlining knowledge today. Knowledge is not just information, it is information tempered with experience. A most exciting day and as a result my head is teeming with thoughts and tingling with ideas.

The main table was full, so I sat down at a small empty table nearby. Soon I was eating dinner and speaking with Wendell Berry. The annual meeting of Lindisfarne is happening at Upaya this week. What an amazing group of people.

related link

Tomorrow I’ll take some photos.

Upaya Institute
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
- Robert A. Heinlein

Yes!

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
~ Theodore Isaac Rubin
Weekly Words of Wisdom

At any point in history, we are all like the crew of a spaceship at countdown. In times like our own, the countdown seems even more clearly audible. We are taking off for an unimaginable future. Everything is changing. Common sense had been steering the universe from change to change for vast stretches of time, before we humans ever arrived. We cannot stop change. But we can cultivate common sense so that the changes for which we and our society are responsible will be in tune with the creative force of the universe – call it the Tao, the Logos, or Dants’s “Love that moves the sun and all the stars.
- Brother David Steindl-Rast

From the Upaya newsletter

Related: Light A Candle

This morning it was very cold. Went to Upaya to return something I had borrowed.

At noon I went back to Upaya because Roshi invited me to lunch and it was nice to catch up with friends. After lunch I noticed the sun lighting up the Buddha in the window:

Left to pick up my Negra1 (DeVoe 2002) from Keith Vizcarra, who installed his V-Pegs for me. Now I will sit down to play that guitar and this evening I am expecting Rahim, who is coming by.

Upayans viewing Roshi moderating panel with Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu in Seattle.
Link 1
Link 2

The Pope Visits America
Compare that with the Dalai Lama’s message during his recent visit to Seattle.

“You can’t be compassionate only toward people you like or toward people who are the same as you. You must also be compassionate toward people whose ideas you don’t agree with…. If you limit your kindness and compassion to people with whom you already have something in common, then you’re weakening yourself.”
(Via ~C4Chaos)

It is easy to love the people we like. The real test is to love the people we don’t like. That is a daily struggle, isn’t it.

Roshi Joan Halifax at the New Orleans Superdome for V-Dav:

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.
- Krishnamurti

From the Upaya newsletter.

Gaia Community | jhalifax’s Blog
Once we have reached the desired end, we think, we will turn back to purify and consecrate the means. Once the war that we are fighting for peace is won, then the generals will become saints, the burned children will proclaim in the heaven that their suffering is well repaid, the poisoned forests will turn green again. Once we have peace, we say, or abundance or justice or truth, or comfort, everything will be right. Its an old dream.

It’s a vicious illusion. For the discipline of ends is no discipline at all. The end is preserved in the means; a desirable end may forever perish in the wrong means. Hope lives in the means, not in the end. Art does not survive in its revelations, or agriculture in its products, or craftsmanship in its artifacts, or civilization in its monuments, or faith in its relics.
- Wendell Berry

Deep insight.

Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called “the love of your fate” (Amor fati). Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, “This is what I need.” It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment—not discouragement—you will find the strength is there. Any disaster that you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.
- Joseph Campbell
(Via the Upaya newsletter)