2012.07.16 _ 97

Good to see you again Steve...also admire your tenacity for wading through posts and envy being able to go to that concert :) I started on the Ashtavakra Gita yesterday. It keeps being mentioned around non duality teaching, so I bought a commentary. This quote makes me think again about the way we tend to split life into dualities and prefer one to the other, not realizing we can't have one without the other..

“Right and wrong, happiness and sorrow are all attributes of the mind, not of You, O all- pervading One. You are neither the doer nor the enjoyer, You who have ever and always been free of all such attachments.”

Balsekar, Ramesh S. (2011-11-02). Duet of One: The Ashtavakra Gita Dialogue (p. 20). . Kindle Edition. edited 15:32, 16 Jul 2012

Forgetting how to add a page, I'll wait for Zen to do that this morning (for me)

Thanks Zen (and Eliza and Storm and others)

I have begin to scratch the surface of my look into non-duality, a term unknown to me before PaB (3+ yrs ago). Every now and then I stumble across some reading and it sinks in a bit further and is beginning to make more and more sense.

On to my daily practice.....
I have been working on lengthening my standing meditation, which is embarrassingly short, even after these few years, maybe 25 to 30 log deep breaths. If I focus and loose count at about 5 breathes… snuggling into a nice deep place of quiet, I am happy.

I have also been working on lengthening my Tai Chi Practice, and slowing my world while practicing my form (I'm up to 12 minutes, should be closer to 20 minutes for the 3 short forms, which I have not yet learned to the end….nearing the end of the third part…. perhaps in another 90 days…sigh.

I still feel I owe much to Wol for this and the continuity the participants have given to this daily routine.

For a while there I was making use of Storm's pavilion for Karuna-metta, having great ease in visualizing compassion to the "bad" people and those I do not know and great difficulty offering it to those close to me. Something else to strive to in the next 90 days... and the rest of my life :) edited 16:11, 16 Jul 2012

Today I was going about my work when a thought popped up, sounding almost like the voice of one of my children: "buddhas don't have stingers."

This did not *mean* anything to me, except that it touched on sensibilities of Ahimsa or "Do no harm." The thing is, it stirred a deep deep light light funny funny giggle. That's the kind of day I'm having. :P

"Awareness is not something that needs to be manufactured: when there is a gap, awareness enters into us. So awareness does not require a certain particular effort. Such an effort is unnecessary. Awareness is like a wind. If you open your doors and windows, it is bound to come in." CTR

ps- guess they don't need stingers either ;-) edited 22:42, 16 Jul 2012