A Funny Conversation between Bush and Rice

The Hardest Part is People

(Picture from LauraJackson.com)



The hardest part is people.
So Lord, help me face them without rancor or disappointment,
help me see the pain behind their actions rather than the malice;
the suffering rather than the rage.

And in myself, as I struggle with the vice of my own desire—
give me strength to quiet my heart, to quicken
my empathy, to act in gratitude rather than need.

Remind me that the peace I find in the slow track of seasons
or an uncurling fern frond, is married to the despair I feel
in the face of nuclear war, remind me that each small bird
shares atoms with anthrax, with tetanus, with acid rain,
that each time I close my heart to another I add to the darkness;
help me always follow kindness.

Let this be my prayer.
-----Karen Holden

Lacrimosa...Do you like it?

I went to visit one of my teacher friends today and was introduced to Lacrimosa. Lacrimosa is a dual band that plays German Gothic Metal music. I really enjoyed some of their music like "Darkness" and "Not every pain hurts". I hope I can share with someone who really likes this band and understands their type of music For me. their music is "every rose has its thorn" type of thing.

I am still interested in discovering music of different genres. I have to say music is truly my kind of moving experience with the world !

Here are the lyrics of the song "Not every pain hurts":

When you have the will
You learn to forgive and to forget
You have to -
Collect the broken pieces and
Humble hearted
Stand up from the place where you hide
If I wouldn't know to miss anything
It couldn't hurt me no more
Mistakes taught to build life
From the ashes that fell down to ground

Without any pain it wouldn't be the same
Experiences made me strong -
Not every pain hurts
Deep inside
When you learn to divide
Don't fear the danger
Follow your heart to the light
Live your dream and breath

When you listen to yourself
Don't always expect
To find understanding
It takes time
You may loose your faith
But don't be afraid
To find the solution

That heavy wasn't my load
That I wouldn't also try
To carry yours
My burning heart - unbearable!
My optimistic mind - collapsed!

Without any pain it wouldn't be the same
Experiences made me strong -
Not every pain hurts
Deep inside
When you learn to divide
Don't fear the danger
Follow your heart to the light
Live your dream and breath

Not every pain hurts
Deep inside
When you learn to divide
Don't fear the danger
Follow your heart to the light
Live your dream and learn to carry on
(Picture from http://cn.last.fm)

"The Power of Now"

Extracts from The Power of Now . . I have little use for the past and rarely think about it; however, I would briefly like to tell you how I came to be a spiritual teacher and how ‘The Power of Now’ came into existence. Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else's life. Awakening One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live. ‘I cannot live with myself any longer.’ This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. ‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’ I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words ‘resist nothing,’ as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that. I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marvelling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world. Bliss For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity, or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state. I could still function in the world, although I realized that nothing I ever did could possibly add anything to what I already had. Understanding I knew, of course, that something profoundly significant had happened to me, but I didn't understand it at all. It wasn't until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me. I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. Later I also learned to go into that inner timeless and deathless realm that I had originally perceived as a void and remain fully conscious. I dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience I just described pales in comparison. A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy. But even the most beautiful experiences come and go. More fundamental, perhaps, than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then. Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too. At other times, it is somewhere in the background, like a distant melody. Sharing Later, people would occasionally come up to me and say: ‘I want what you have. Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it?’ And I would say: ‘You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.’ That answer later grew into my book, ‘The Power of Now’. From "The Power of Now", copyright 1999 by Eckhart Tolle.

Love and Hatred

If you love her, take her to New York, because it is heaven.
If you hate her, take her to New York, because it is hell.
(This is from the famous Chinese TV series " The Pekingese in New York")

If you love your kid, send him to a teacher's university so that he can be a teacher;
If you hate your kid, send him to a teacher's university so that he can be a teacher!
( This is from my own experience.)

" Wolf in my eyes"

This is a poem written by a little known Tibetan poet.It always makes me think that loneliness can be a good thing. In today's society , it seems to me that more and more people are seeking the meaning of life from material things, and people seldom look inside their hearts and know happiness and contentment come from within.

Wolf in My Eyes

The power of being alone can be measured
By how well I sit by myself.
Can I sit in a circle and watch my mind
Surrounded by a ring of mirrors that reflect
Me upon me,
Self upon self,
Thought upon thought,
Hope upon hope,
Self-reflection upon self-reflection?

When I sit in this space,
Am I sitting alone with myself?
How alone is this sense of desolation?
Why is it that I feel surrounded,
When I am alone?
I do not see these mirrors that reflect
The perplexed face of a lonesome self.

When I look at myself,
I see a mountain rich in snow and timber.
Gleaming in sunlight,
Wearing clouds like a cape,
Gazing in a clear blue mountain lake.
This mountain—pristine, desolate—
Is happy to watch its own reflection.
Mesmerized by solitude day and night,
Among stars' galaxy of light,
It knows its place as a single mountain.
It knows itself by what it sees.

Crystal is what I see when I sit on my own.
I am by myself,
Surrounded by a world of mirrors.
Among reflections,
Who is alone?
Within perpetual insistence
On independence
Which reflection is independent?
Which lake can separate itself
From the mountain it reflects?

In this play of perception
Lies reality.
What is the lake?
Who is the mountain?
Who am I to sit here by myself,
Thinking I am alone?
Without the lake's pristine reflection,
I would not know I am alone,
Nor what loneliness is.
As summer winds blow, grass bends.
The golden wheat field shimmers.
The sun reflects and sees its brightness.

The world, life,
Is born from its own reflection.
Move,
Eat,
Laugh,
Hug—
Express a simple being
Dancing with its own reflections.
Being alone
Is the beginning
Of loving another.

Fortune Cookies

What I cannot understand about fortune cookies is the fact that they are so popular in those Chinese restaurants in America and you hardly hear their name in China. This really makes me wonder ......Do we even have different Chinese cultures here and there??