Andrew Furst's Blog, page 140
March 17, 2015
Say What? – A Few Words On The Unanswerables
Say What? is an ongoing series of laconic exchanges on Buddhism in the format of a comic strip.
This shirt is dry clean only. Which means... it's dirty. - Mitch Hedberg
A few words on the Unanswerables
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One Minute Meditations
Tiny Drops (Photography series)
Compass Songs (My Favorite Poems)
Dialectic Two-Step
Modern Koans (interesting questions)
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Music Videos)
Relics (Timeless Republished Articles)
Say What?
Quotes
Verse Us (Poems I Write)
The post Say What? – A Few Words On The Unanswerables appeared on Andrew Furst.
Compass Songs – Spring is Now Coming
Compass Songs is an ongoing series of works by poets that I enjoy. Poetry, as the Zen Masters have said, is like a finger pointing to the moon. It speaks the unspeakable.
by Antaine Ó Raifteirí
translated by Frank O’Connor
Now with the springtime
The days will grow longer
And after St. Bride’s day’
My sail I’ll let go
I put my mind to it,
And I never will linger
Till I find myself back
In the County Mayo.
In Clare of Morris family
I will be the first night
and in the Wall on the side below it
I will begin to drink
to Maghs Woods I shall go
until I shall make a months visit there
two miles close
to the Mouth of the Big Ford.
I swear
that my heart rises up
as the wind rises up
or as the fog lifts
when I think about Ceara
or about Gaileang on the lower side of it
about Sceathach an Mhíle
or about the plains of Mayo.
Cill Liadain is the town
where everything grows
there are blackberries and raspberries there
and every sort of fruit
and were I to be standing
in the center of my people
age would depart from me
and I would be again young.
There is always wheat and oats
growing barley and flax there
rye in branch there
flower-bread and meat
the folks who make moonshine
without a licence selling it there
the pride of the country
playing and drinking.
There is sowing and plowing
and fertilizing without manure
and it’s many the thing there
of which I have not yet spoken
kilns and mills
working without rest there
with hardly any talk about a pennys rent
or about nothing of that sort.
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In addition to a monthly email you can also subscribe to the following weekly series:
One Minute Meditations
Tiny Drops (Photography series)
Compass Songs (My Favorite Poems)
Dialectic Two-Step
Modern Koans (interesting questions)
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Music Videos)
Relics (Timeless Republished Articles)
Say What?
Quotes
Verse Us (Poems I Write)
The post Compass Songs – Spring is Now Coming appeared on Andrew Furst.
March 16, 2015
Dialectic Two-Step – Have Smartphones Made Us Happier?
Dialectic Two-Step is an ongoing series of my thoughts on questions that come my way.
Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. - Octavio Paz
Have Smartphones and Social Media Made People Happier?I would argue that if we look for happiness in smartphones, we’re doing it wrong. Happiness – a temporary thing – can come in two ways:
The world lines up with our preferences (we get what we want or we avoid what we don’t want). How often does this happen?We line up with the way the world is (we acknowledge that things don’t always work out the way we want and recognize that we can have a meaningful life if we avoid wallowing in disappointment)Get Each Week's Dialectic Two Step in your email boxFirst Name:
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One Minute Meditations
Tiny Drops (Photography series)
Compass Songs (My Favorite Poems)
Dialectic Two-Step
Modern Koans (interesting questions)
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Music Videos)
Relics (Timeless Republished Articles)
Say What?
Quotes
Verse Us (Poems I Write)
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March 15, 2015
One Minute Meditation – Point Loma from Coronado
One Minute Meditations is an ongoing series of short videos, poems, and commentary intended as a meditation. Offered as an opportunity to step back from your cyber routine and settle into a more natural rhythm, if only for a minute.
Why is it when NASA looks for life out there in the universe, it looks for water? Here’s an interesting article in the LA Times that explains why.
The question comes to mind as I look through many of my one minute video meditations and see a very clear theme of water. Water has been the subject of many religious metaphors. The most familiar to me are from Taoism:
The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to
– Tao Te Ching: Verse 8
Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
– Tao Te Ching: Verse 15
The article cites James Garvin, lead scientist for the Mars exploration program as saying “Water is the most eccentric of liquids. “It’s this elusive, magical, mystery molecule”. It describes life as we know it as a scaffolding of carbon floating around in bags of water. No wonder my fascination with H2O, it’s a form of narcissism.
Buddha Amitabha is the Buddha of Endless Life. Life as we know it in our neck of the universe is connected very deeply to water. Seeing beauty and finding peace in water is a beautiful form of worship. When we take refuge in Buddha Amitabha, we are not heaping adoration upon some distant deity, we are acknowledging the sacredness in life. We are finding refuge in the natural rhythm of things, returning to our true nature.
FluidityHappy 2 Open
Seeing the jewels of life
in the ocean’s net
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In addition to a monthly email you can also subscribe to the following weekly series:
One Minute Meditations
Tiny Drops (Photography series)
Compass Songs (My Favorite Poems)
Dialectic Two-Step
Modern Koans (interesting questions)
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Music Videos)
Relics (Timeless Republished Articles)
Say What?
Quotes
Verse Us (Poems I Write)
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Sunday Morning Coming Down – Wise Up
Sunday Morning Coming Down is an ongoing music video series. The songs fit my definition of music for a lazy couch bound Sunday morning.
The movie Magnolia really struck a chord in 1999. Roger Ebert described it as one of the best movies of the year and the most audacious. One quote that I particularly love was “This movie is alive and free to surprise us.” Such is life.
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In addition to a monthly email you can also subscribe to the following weekly series:
One Minute Meditations
Tiny Drops (Photography series)
Compass Songs (My Favorite Poems)
Dialectic Two-Step
Modern Koans (interesting questions)
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Music Videos)
Relics (Timeless Republished Articles)
Say What?
Quotes
Verse Us (Poems I Write)
Wise Up
by Aimee Mann
It’s not what you thought
When you first began it
You got what you want
Now you can hardly stand it, though
By now you know
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
Till you wise up
You’re sure there’s a cure
And you have finally found it
You think one drink
Will shrink you till you’re underground
And living down
But it’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
Till you wise up
Prepare a list for what you need
Before you sign away the deed
‘Cause it’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
It’s not going to stop
Till you wise up
No, it’s not going to stop
Till you wise up
No, it’s not going to stop
So just give up
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March 14, 2015
Four Winds Exercises – Meditation Techniques
The Four Winds exercises are something I learned thirty years ago from my first Tai Chi Instructor. With this aging body, I’ve returned to them with very wonderful results.
The movements are simple and gentle spinal bends in each direction done from a standing position. Forward, backward, and to each side.
I enjoy doing these early in the morning. They can bring energy and openness to the spine. They can help start your day just right.
PreparationAs with all meditations, this activity is designed to bring your awareness into the present moment. Before performing the motions, settle yourself into your posture (See starting posture step in each exercise). Take inventory of each part of your body from the ground up. Feel the connection with the ground. Find a bend in the knees and a tilt to the sacrum that supports the spinal column balance.
From the balance of the vertebrae, find ease in the small muscles of the lower back, kidneys, heart, and shoulders. Where you find tension in the body, bring the breath to it. As the Chinese say, where the mind goes the Qi follows. Qi, or your awareness, has a reparative effect on the body and is one of the wonderful benefits of these meditation techniques. With each breath, bring awareness and openness to the stressed and stiff parts of the body.
Bring your awareness to the neck and skull. Find a tilt of the chin that brings ease to the upper spine. Release tension in the forehead, eyes, cheeks, jaw and tongue with each breath.
Finally, allow your awareness to gently permeate your entire body, allowing any particular focus to diffuse to a openness to whatever is going on with your body.
Four Winds Exercises
All the diagrams of the Four Winds Exercises were created with the free program Stykz for Mac and Skitch
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Say What? – Today is Pi Day!
Say What? is an ongoing series of laconic exchanges on Buddhism in the format of a comic strip.
This shirt is dry clean only. Which means... it's dirty. - Mitch Hedberg
Today is Pi Day!
Get Each Week's Say What? in your email box
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In addition to a monthly email you can also subscribe to the following weekly series:
One Minute Meditations
Tiny Drops (Photography series)
Compass Songs (My Favorite Poems)
Dialectic Two-Step
Modern Koans (interesting questions)
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Music Videos)
Relics (Timeless Republished Articles)
Say What?
Quotes
Verse Us (Poems I Write)
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March 13, 2015
Modern Koans – Giving Thanks
Modern Koans is an ongoing series that recognizes that good questions are often more important then their answers.
The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. ― G.K. Chesterton
Giving Thanks
Who are we thankful towards? I’ve been asking this question for a couple of weeks now. Generally I’ve gotten great answers, but I’ve also seen some that are disheartening. Of course my survey is entirely unscientific, and I had no control over who responded. So there is no way to tell what demographics are represented and how prevalent any of these responses are in general. But overall people seemed to acknowledge their indebtedness to others with gratitude and humility.
Here is the question I asked
If you were going to thank someone, who would it be and how would you thank them?
TGIF – Everyone thanks God for Friday. But really, Friday is Friday because of the calendar. We don’t give credit where credit is due. A lot of people are left unthanked. Teachers, garbage collectors, tax agents, soldiers, social workers, and janitors are some of the most thankless jobs.
20% people acknowledge their parents, which seems most natural, so I was surprised by the low number. 73% percent acknowledged the people who help them everyday in both small and significant ways. 13% acknowledge the people who have lead positive change in society and one third give thanks to God (showing how the responses may not represent the general population in which 84% have faith in a God).
In this final group of respondents, I found an interesting, and to my ears disappointing sentiment. Of the 33% who offered thanks to God, 60% shared that only God deserves thanks. One even expressed disdain for considering that our fellow humans might be worthy of thanks. They stated, “I thought teachers got paid for their jobs.”
So the questions:
Is gratitude towards God all that is needed in this world?
Are we unworthy of thanks from our fellow humans?
Perhaps I’m misreading the sentiment. One respondent from India stated “It is assumed thanking God reaches all the missed ones.”
Get Each Week's Dialectic Two Step in your email boxFirst Name:
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In addition to a monthly email you can also subscribe to the following weekly series:
One Minute Meditations
Tiny Drops (Photography series)
Compass Songs (My Favorite Poems)
Dialectic Two-Step
Modern Koans (interesting questions)
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Music Videos)
Relics (Timeless Republished Articles)
Say What?
Quotes
Verse Us (Poems I Write)
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March 12, 2015
Einstein on The Inherent Humility of Science
Oh how vain to think we might ever be right! The humility of science is comforting.
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One Minute Meditation – Slowly Melting
One Minute Meditations is an ongoing series of short videos, poems, and commentary intended as a meditation. Offered as an opportunity to step back from your cyber routine and settle into a more natural rhythm, if only for a minute.
There are many ways to be in touch with the present moment. In time lapse photography we modify our experience by changing our time interval. We can also adjust the magnification, focus and other variables that a camera gives us control over. Whether and where we direct our gaze will also have an impact on our experience.
Why am I talking about controlling perspective? That isn’t correct form for the practice of meditation? Meditation is about letting reality unfold before us with minimal distortion from our natural tendency to impose order on our perceptions.
But is this ever truly possible? Can we view the world nakedly? I think the answer is no. Developmental psychology has shown that by a very early age our brains have established neuropathways representative of stimuli. Once created, we drift further and further from raw perception. Our brains replace input with symbols.
So why am I encouraging you to direct your attention in certain ways? This is a question I leave mostly to you. But I would suggest novelty has a great deal of value to mediators. We can easily fall into ruts with our practice. The quality and scope of our introspection can become stale. When approached from a fresh perspective our practice will nourish us and bring new insights daily.
NoticingJust sitting around
watching ice melt in the light.
Noticing is all
Virtues Inherited, Vices Passed On by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Attribution License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://chriszabriskie.com/
First Name:
Last Name:
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In addition to a monthly email you can also subscribe to the following weekly series:
One Minute Meditations
Tiny Drops (Photography series)
Compass Songs (My Favorite Poems)
Dialectic Two-Step
Modern Koans (interesting questions)
Sunday Morning Coming Down (Music Videos)
Relics (Timeless Republished Articles)
Say What?
Quotes
Verse Us (Poems I Write)
The post One Minute Meditation – Slowly Melting appeared on Andrew Furst.
